Category: Computers

Be it a discussion of software or hardware; it will be under here.

I’m sitting here waiting for the program I’m testing to finish processing some data that I threw at it. I take a moment to stop over at the Terrapin‘s website to try finding out more info on some of their comopolitan drinks. You see they’ve changed their menu in the store several times and while they still make all the old drinks; you have to know what they are as they aren’t listed anywhere in the store1. So I’m browsing the site and I find myself thinking; gee, I read blogs regularly that are better looking than this site. I wonder how the site is built. You can image my horror when I looked at the source and discovered that it was made in Micro$haft Frontpuke. *shudder*

Okay, I’ll admit that more current versions of Frontpuke write code that isn’t as bad as what older copies of it spit out, but the Terrapin’s site appears to have been written in an older version. So not only are tables being used when they’re not really needed; the code is full of crap that doesn’t need to be in there. And if that’s not bad enough; the website hasn’t been updated in some time as it’s my understanding from the mother of the owners that their 2nd location has closed but the website still shows it as being open for business. Now given how easy WP is to work with; I’m thinking that I might try building a custom site for the Terrapin using it2. Come to think of it; I might want to try redoing that template for AWelkin using WP as well. Hmm… It’s a thought anyway.

1 Yes, I agree that’s a bad idea but what can one do about it?
2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I still need to build a custom theme for my own site; but like the title of this post says, I’m bored at work and that’s where I get some of my better/dumber ideas for things like this.

I’ve been working on a project designing a personal website for AWelkin. Last Friday, I gave her the templates I’d constructed for her. She seemed pretty excited & happy with them, but then I tried to start showing her how to edit them; only to find that she doesn’t have any good tools for doing such a thing. The only real editor she had was TextEdit (I think it just comes with OS X) and it doesn’t do syntax highlighting; which would make life hard for her. Since I don’t have a Mac1; I couldn’t really offer recommendations to her.

The only editor for Macs that I’d heard of is BBEdit but I had heard that was a rather complex program and I really thought it was more than she’d need. Then I talked to my local Mac geek and found out that BBEdit is really expensive! So I asked if he could recommend any other cheaper/simpler editors. He did a bit of searching and said PageSpinner would be a good option. I looked at the PageSpinner website and it uses valid HTML; which is a good sign. The screenshots also looked promising, but were kind of small and there doesn’t appear to be any larger versions available2. On the plus side, the feature list for PageSpinner does appear to cover everything that I think AWelkin would need (e.g. syntax highlighting and a preview function).

Anyhoo, I’m posting this note in hopes that AWelkin might read it and let me know if this PageSpinner program will work for her.

1 I’m not a PC evangelist or a Mac-Hater. I just don’t have the money to buy a Mac right now and I’m not likely to any time soon. Oh and for the record, those 15 inch G4 Powerbooks look like the sweetest laptops on this planet!
2 Guys, you really need to get some larger screenshots up. Some of us are nearly blind as it is and trying to look at your product from tiny shots like these really doesn’t help our eyesight. So please, please, please post some larger images for us to look at. Remember, not everybody visiting your site will be willing to download your app just to see if it will work for them; they may be stuck using WinBlows and trying to find something suitable for their Mac using friends.

This post is just for me to use a reference to any plugins that I am or will consider using with WP v1.2.

Lorem Ipsum isn’t actually a WP 1.2 plugin, but it’s still bloody useful.

Word/Image Count

OpenPGP signed comment plugin

Topic Icon

PictPress

Comment Preview for WordPress 1.2, thread on WP Support Forums

Convert Hacks to Plugins, thread on WP Support Forums

WP Backup/Restore new version, thread on WP Support Forums

WP & Gallery integration, thread on WP Support Forums

Making AMM work with WP 1.2, thread on WP Support Forums

WP Wiki page of WP v1.2 plugins

WP Comment and Post plugins

<sarcasm>
Work is such fun today!
</sarcasm>

Our corporate network got hit with the WORM_SASSER.B virus and since I work out of a remote office that relies on servers in the main office; I’m effectively dead in the water today. I wish we had some more Linux boxes on the network, so that maybe we wouldn’t get hit so hard by viri like this. Unfortunately, all our company’s software is Windows based which doesn’t give us much room to do that.

Ah well, at least I’m having plenty of time to read Assimov’s I, Robot (I borrowed a copy from “my friend Fritz”) and so far, so good. It’s nice to go back and reread the works of some of the masters of Sci-Fi once in a while. Oh, I should mention that I finished Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast over the weekend and enjoyed it but while he explored an interesting concept, it wasn’t one of his better books. Overall, I’d give it 2.5 out of 5 points.