December 31st, 2005
So I upgraded to the new version of WordPress this weekend, and it is mostly good news on the upgrade…
Bad News
- My theme didnt quite work.
Good News
- I didnt like the theme much anyway, I only kept it on because of CSS Reboot which is over now.
- My plug-in’s all seem to work fine, even the ones I wrote.
- Shiny new stuff to play with!
I guess that means it is time for a new theme sometime soon…
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
December 14th, 2005
I just received an e-mail from Richard Cleaver following up on the VistaDB offer and my comments about it.
Richard writes a password management utility called Access Manager and is doing an offer that if you blog about any aspect of security best practice and include a link to him then you get a free copy of the pro version of his software.
Richard “gets it” - He isn’t forcing people to blog specific words about his product without trying it, he isnt even asking you to specifically blog about his product at all. He is offering a way for people to try the software first (the non-pro version) and best of all he is asking people to blog about security best practice and if that isn’t a good idea then I don’t know what is 
A cracking example of blogger marketing done right.
Posted in Blogging | 3 Comments »
November 27th, 2005
I have finally got around to upgrading the WP-Mint plug-in for integrating a WordPress theme with Mint too!
Sorry for the delay in getting a compatible release of this up.
Posted in WordPress | 23 Comments »
November 26th, 2005
This has to be the extension that some people might have been waiting for to make that 100% switch to FireFox.
I absolutely could not switch back from FireFox to IE at the moment but there are still sites that do not work in FF and so you have to switch occasionally. Up until now, I used the IEView extension which would launch IE for the current page in a new window, this worked but it was not ideal.
IETab is just great, click an icon in the status bar and switch instantly from viewing the page in FF to IE, within the same tab.
Posted in Technology | 9 Comments »
November 1st, 2005
I know I am late with this one but Scott Adams is blogging!! and to me that is worth a meme just because its Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy, for those wondering).
Maybe it’s the way I was raised, but I find that I get mad about all the wrong things. For example, when I hear a news report about some serial killer who buried 43 victims in an underground bunker that he constructed beneath his shed, my first reaction is Wow. He built an underground bunker under a shed! I find myself admiring his industriousness and passion in the pursuit of his dreams. That’s clearly wrong.
Then today I read in the November 2005 Reader’s Digest about Marine engineer Richard James who invented the Slinky in 1943 after a tension spring from a meter used to test battleship horsepower fell off his desk and “walked” end-over-end. I hate that guy. I don’t know the full story (that’s why they call it the Reader’s Digest) but it sure seems like he was rewarded for being clumsy. I can’t respect that.
Goodness baked right in, i’ll be amazed if he can keep this level of quality and quantity up but lets hope!
Technorati Tags: Dilbert, Scott Adams, Slinky, Underground Bunker, Serial Killer
Posted in Blogging | 77 Comments »
November 1st, 2005
Yes you read it right, If you put certain Sony copy protected audio CD’s into your PC’s CD/DVD drive they will automatically patch your operating system.
This article on how Sony are putting RootKits on systems to force on DRM software that prevents the CD being copied is shocking, I would expect this of the worst Spyware or Malware but not when I put a plain old Audio CD in my PC. It’s not even really about what this is today (although I dont agree with it) but think about where this could lead, thats the scary one.
There is a simple way to avoid this, just turn AutoPlay off for your CD/DVD drive. You can also read more about what a RootKit is and find a tool to help detect and remove them from the ever wonderful SysInternals.
Technorati Tags: RootKit, Sony, DRM, SysInternals, AutoPlay
Posted in Technology | 3 Comments »
October 31st, 2005
I am very glad I finished this at the weekend so that all I had to do tonight was set the theme live and upload my after screenshot to the CSS Reboot site because I am currently feeling like death warmed up due to a bug I have at the moment. Anyway, the CSS Reboot design is live now (I know its supposed to be from midnight, but think of it like you got an early Christmas present if you see it before then!).
The timing of CSS reboot this time was pretty fortunate because I have been using a very quickly hacked together version of an existing theme since moving across to WordPress a couple of months ago. I have always tried to keep away from using others designs so CSS Reboot was a convenient excuse to re-do my design.
I wanted to stick with the same basic image of the bench since I based the blog name on a pun around the image (I am a total sucker for a pun!). The image was taken by me at on Lytham Green (right next to the windmill) with a Canon 20D and a Canon EF-S 17-85 IS USM. All of the images that make up the background are made up from that basic image, cloning and healing were used to expand the sky to cope with large resolutions and a levels adjustment applied to an area of cloud to form the darker area at the top. The logo image was written on a Tablet PC using Windows Journal and simply screen captured.
The CSS/XHTML design is integrated into a WordPress theme (obviously) and uses a modification of the catfish technique from SitePoint to get the top and bottom of the image fixed in Internet Explorer as well as FireFox.
It has been tested in IE6 and FireFox 1.0.7, please leave comments if you either have any problems with it or if you like/dislike it.
Technorati Tags: CSS Reboot, CSS, WebDesign, XHTML, Web Standards, Lytham
Posted in Personal, Blogging | 3 Comments »
October 29th, 2005
Well, I am just finishing up my CSS Reboot design tonight, hopefully I will get it finished in time. It is based around the same photo as above but I do have at least a couple of cool new things in this one and it is mine from scratch rather than a hacked version of Rin like I have at the moment..
This is the time consuming bit though, getting it working with IE and integrated as a WordPress theme.
*edit* What a time for COLOURlovers to go offline!!! I need my colour fix!!!
Technorati Tags: CSS Reboot, CSS, WebDesign
Posted in Personal, Blogging | 2 Comments »
October 29th, 2005
So after my previous post about VistaDB and their dubious blogging PR offer, I thought I would submit my blog URL to their system in the hope that they would read the post and find out what I thought about what they were doing.
A strange thing happened, I got a license code for their software… I didnt expect that!
I guess one of two things could have happened here:
- If I was cynical
I would assume that this means that noone is checking the content of the blogs that are posted for this offer and it is just some automated service handing out license keys to anyone who submits a URL.
- If I was not so cynical
I would think that they read my blog and figured that if I tried the software that I would change my view of their company and maybe blog positively about them when I have used it.
Now, I read a post from esdaniel that made me think that the CEO of Vista software, Anthony Carrabino might actually care about what people think because he is definately answering e-mail from people about his software, so I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and go with a non-cynical view for now, however a comment by Anthony or someone VistaDB here would prove this.
Technorati Tags: VistaDB, Meme, Blog Marketing
Posted in Technology, Blogging | 12 Comments »
