kdmurray.blog

The crossroads of life and tech

Tag Archives: Web 2.0

Get more written: Write or Die

I came across this web application a few weeks back while listening to AmberMac‘s dulcet tones on CommandN #156.  The application is called Write or Die written by Dr. Wicked, and its aim is to make you a more productive writer.

Write or Die provides you motivation to write not based on the positive reinforcement of a job well done but on the fear of a web-based application inflicting consequences upon you.  Write or Die offers varying levels of “difficulty” from forgiving through to evil, and three types of consequences.

  • Gentle mode provides a polite pop-up reminder to keep writing
  • Normal mode plays REALLY awful music/sounds in the background
  • Kamikaze mode will begin deleting one word per second while you’re delinquent

The fear of having one’s work deleted is a serious motivator to keep writing.

If you’ve got a writing project to do whether it’s a paper for school like me, or you’re participating in a novel-writing event (WoD was originally built for authors participating in NanNoWriMo) give Write or Die a try.

WordPress 2.7 Beta 1 Released

Old News? Yea, kinda.  I forgot to actually hit the publish button on this post a few days back…

For those of you who’ve been following the development of the next iteration of WordPress you already know that 2.7 Beta 1 was released last Friday night.

WP 2.7 features some really great refinements to the admin panel which not only make it more useful, they also serve as the building blocks for the next few generations of WordPress.

I’ve been messing around with 2.7 for the last month or so on my WP sandbox and it’s been very interesting to watch the evolution of the menuing system.

I’ll be drawing up a full review for the AGP blog which I’ll post once the full release happens.

BarCamp Vancouver 2008 Party

I just got back from the BarCamp Vancouver 2008 networking party.  This is the meet & greet prior to the actual unconference which takes place tomorrow down at Granville Island.

It was great to see a few familiar faces like Rebecca and Raul.

I also got to meet some of the folks who I’d only known online.  Duane, John, John & Andy.  Looking forward to meeting lots of other great people tomorrow.

I did forget one thing tonight: Business Cards.  However, I did manage to find a few spare sheets of my Avery business card blanks tonight.  I also discovered (somewhat to my surprise) that Google Docs supports Avery business card templates.

sample business card from google docs

sample business card from google docs

The implementation isn’t quite as slick as MS-Word, but it will more than do in a pinch.  I managed to whip up this snazzy little number in a matter of minutes.  Now I feel more prepared for tomorrow.  Hopefully Dave doesn’t mind that I borrowed the show logo, I promise I’ll promote the show!  :)

Podcast Post-Production :: Aussie Geek Podcast #003

I’ve taken a crack at producing some small bits of audio content in the past, my segments for the GGP, and more recently some promo material for the Aussie Geek Podcast.  But never have I undertaken producing an entire episode without the proverbial net.

This week due to some issues beyond his control, Dave is without is usual podcasting rig, including the computer and all of his audio editing tools.  So in an effort to make sure that the AGP #003 gets out as close to on-time as possible, I’ll be doing the editing and post-production for this week’s episode.

I’ve been learning some new skills, mostly thanks to Dave and with some input from the Interwebs.  So if you haven’t subscribed to the Aussie Geek Podcast yet, I suggest you do so right now and listen to last week’s show and this, and see if I did an OK job.  :)

Do You Protect Your Twitter?

A few months back I was beeing bombarded by what seemed an ever-increasing number of twitter spammers.  This means they’re following me.  To end the insanity I finally decided to make my profile private which eliminated almost all of the spam but seriously crippled the number of friend requests I was getting.

I carried this on for about two months, twitter became less active for me, not much in the way of new friend requests and ultimately a complete drop-off of activity.

Yesterday I decided to unlock my profile again, and resort to the manual removal/blocking of Twitter spam.  Within a few hours I had a bunch of new requests and Twitter activity seems to be increasing more ever since.

So the question boils down to this: To protect, or not?  Do you protect your Twitter?

Delicious Relaunch

Just a short post here because I’ve already covered the news in more detail on the AGP blog.  Social bookmarking site Delicious has relaunched with a new UI and a bunch of cool new features.

It’s definitely worth a look, and the new UI is much more like other Yahoo! properties like Flickr suggesting that Yahoo! corporate has had some influence in the redesign.

Some of the changes to both the UI and the feature set make Delicious much more usable.  This will definitely bring me back from FoxMarks.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved FoxMarks of late, but the web interface is iffy at best, and does cause some problems mainly because of the nature of the Java Applet.  (All I ask is to be able to copy & paste!!!)

So go check out Delicious, check me out on Delicious, and tag your best finds with “for:kdmurray” to send them my way (or “aussiegeeks” for the show).

How to Blog Better with Flickr

Flickr.comPictures are worth a thousand words, or so the story goes.  When writing blog posts or any other kind of content on the Internet images are a big key to making the content more understandable and more interesting.  A great way to help manage the images that you use for your site is to make use of a photo-sharing website like Google’s Picasa or Yahoo’s Flickr.

I’m partial to Flickr myself.  One of its advantages is the large community around it that helps to support each others photographic endeavours.  Another is the more recently added Piknic photo-editing service which allows you to make changes and adjustments to your photos directly on the website.

I recently put together this quick “how-to” for a friend of mine and decided that I might as well share it with the world.  Without further ado, here is a step-by-step how-to on adding Flickr images to your WordPress blog.

  1. Open the page of the image you want in Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kmsquared/2195515600/
  2. Click on “All Sizes”
  3. For most blogs, the “Medium” sized image is usually sufficient.  Its largest side will be 500px with the other scaled to match
  4. Right-click the link marked “Download this image” link and “Copy Link Location” (Firefox) or “Copy Shortcut” (Internet Explorer)
  5. On your blog, click the “Add Image” button in the editor 
  6. Paste in the Image URL from #4 (WP will pick up dimensions automatically)
  7. Done!

To add links back to the image in Flickr…

  1. Go back to the Flickr page, right-click the “Back to the Flickr photo page” link in the top-left and select “Copy Link Location”
  2. In WordPress click on the image that’s been added to your post, and then click the “Add Link” button in the editor.
  3. Paste the URL for the Flickr photo page
  4. Done!

WordPress 2.5: The rubber hits the road

WordPress LogoWordPress 2.5 is out, warts and all, for public consumption today.  Many users are opting to wait for a burn-in period to take place before taking the plunge.  Several major updates from WordPress have had a point-release take place within days, usually to fix a security flaw.

I have installed it on the sandbox where I’m playing around with the Options theme and won’t be applying the upgrade here until I’m ready to move everything over, including the theme.

The biggest complaint from most is the redesign of the admin pages.  People don’t like change.  There is added functionality and a brand new layout to the admin screens.  After having played with it for only a couple of days, I find myself fumbling around a bit still… but overall the new look isn’t too bad.

Many of the links I used most often are now displayed in the main admin toolbar (blue links) while the less often used links are in the grey bar at the top of the page.  These are the high-level nav buttons like the dashboard.  I think this design will indeed prove effective for people who spend quite a bit of time in the admin console, but will be more difficult for casual users to adopt.

I’ll be posting updates to both the Random Image Selector plugin and the Admin Links Widget in the near future to ensure compliance with the WP 2.5 code.

Endless Options: The Redesign Begins

I’ve been contemplating an update to the look of the blog for several months now.  I know it’s only had the current incarnation since the summer, but I’ve always liked things to feel new and fresh.

The trouble had been finding the right WP theme.  Many of the ones I like visually didn’t have enough support for gadgetry & widgetry.  Being the geek that I am, this is something I prize.  Secondly, and more importantly to some, I wanted a theme that would actually pass XHTML validation and be a bit less of an SEO roadblock (that, and I’m a bit of a perfectionist geek).

I found, though a fortuitous series of bounces the Options theme by JustinTadlock. XHTML compliant, full of widgetable sections and completely customizable through CSS.  Perfect.  Now I just have to get some help with the design work… ’cause I suck.