floodgate.blog

without going into detail — blog was away for about 4 days or so.. still trying to get everything back to “normal”.. but that’ll take some time.

I’m not very good about putting pictures online — so in the spirit of change, here are a couple from this week

Yea, what do YOU want??

I’m in control now!!!

I think I hinted at a “what the heck am I doing” kind of post in the last week, and if I did, here you go

Despite being home and taking care of my 14-month-old son all summer, I have found time to plot my next adventures in coding. I spent a good part of the summer thinking about what I would like to try — thinking of how I would want my blog to look (themes), what kind of “other” stuff would I want outside of the blogging software (additional sites), and would I have enough focus to even get anything off the ground (usual problem). That thinking moved into looking around for ideas and inspiration.

I’ve always wanted to use the Smarty tool for template design as I am terrible at the art of separating code from UI. I also wanted to not have to start from scratch, and started looking into projects like CakePHP. So far, I’m still inspired, and I have ideas (which I won’t share yet). Of course now that I have a vision, my days of summer are numbered (i think i’m down to 5 days left, 2 of which are reserved completely for my other project, see below)..

The “other” project that is not just a “let’s see what I can do for me” project, but a “this will help pay the bills” project. In my former life, I was an AMX Netlinx programmer for residential and commercial systems. I ended up leaving the company I worked for as I got married and moved to a different state to live with her. Since then I’ve had opportunities on a per-contract basis to pick up extra work programming these systems. One of those opportunities is happening right now, and consumes the remainder of my time that is not spent pontificating or wrangling a very inquisitive and elusive little boy.

And as if that wasn’t enough, I pick back up in real-world mode as I will begin my career as a high school teacher in less than a month. Include a week where I am out of town, another week where I’m told I will be out of town, and my statement on 5 (minus 2) days of summer still holds true.

I guess I’m not much of a “review” guy, but here I go anyway. I remember a while back the “Flock” web browser appeared, based off of the Mozilla Firefox code. I remember back then that it was new, and with all new things, had considerable room to grow for lack of a better expression. I used it for a minute, and promptly jumped back to my ol’ faithful firefox.

Since then, I hadn’t thought much of it, but in my readings for the morning I came across Flock again and decided to give it another shot. The first thing I did was check the About dialog to see how old the build of firefox they’re using was… and it is the most current. Good start so far. I started looking around the browser, and everything is where I expect it to be (it’s just like firefox at this point). I’m not a huge fan of the default theme, but I can let it go for now.

Above and beyond it’s browser capabilities, it has a very good set of blogging and media tools that come standard. I was able to very quickly set up my blog in Flock and am posting this review from within the browser. It seems to have integration with Flickr, Youtube, Del.Icio.Us, ma.gnolia, and many other social-esque sites that people who would download Flock would use. It feels very complete, and is a great solution for those who want a kick-ass browser but still need a little hand-holding.

So far so good — I will probably run this browser side-by-side with firefox and move all of my time-sucking activities into Flock (myspace, youtube, flickr, facebook, etc).

I’d say 4/5 right now, and only because I haven’t checked everything out yet.. and I would like the option to create/download a theme (says feature coming soon.. or it may already be there but no one has written a theme yet).

Links: Flock Home Page, Firefox Home Page

NES Gamepad Optical Mouse: http://www.zieak.com/2005/08/08/nintendo-mouse/

The one thing I learned while working in Virginia Beach was that it was very easy to “mostly complete” a project… and that finishing the last one percent is the most difficult. I always hated the last percent.. it represented all that is evil in the world.. that nagging itch that you can’t scratch.

For the last two weeks, I have been living the one-percent nightmare with a subcontract job for my old company.. that last nagging detail that is what stands between completion and agony. Fortunately, I squashed the last percent and can smile about it Someday I’ll explain what it is that I do as sub work… but not today — very tired (as if you couldn’t tell by the very juvenile writing style I’ve employed today)..

my last post talking about how I was fed up with certain instabilities with Wordpress is still justified IMO, but after spending some time looking at the alternatives, I think I’m still better to tough it out with Wordpress. I had a friend of mine try to convince me on textpattern as an alternative, and while I see the strengths and merits of that platform, it just wasn’t for me. I also checked out Movable Type out of pure curiosity, and discovered that they were making the next version (currently MT4-Beta) open source (I think GPL, but I’d have to go back and look). That’s a definitely plus for their strong userbase as the restrictions in place in the post-MT-2.666 era were.. well.. restrictive. ANYWAY, MT4 is powerful, but for some reason I could never get it to do what I wanted.. a wide range of configuration, installation and other problems pretty much earned it the “toss”. It is a beta, so I am forgiving, and will check it out at s stable release point (they say this summer some time).

So, I had to “hack” Wordpress a bit so that my theme stayed. Since this is the only problem I’m having with WP, I’d say it’s a victory for me — I guess I’ll take all the good with this very minor bad thing.. I am still planning on filing or adding to a bug as well as looking through the blogosphere for another solution.

Found this link on Daniel Glazman’s blog.. just.. well.. only in France? — Take a look: Florentijn Hofmans Rubber Duckie

so, i’ve been struggling lately with wordpress’ inability to hold a theme/template. I had issues with my upgrade a while back, and after a fresh install, it appeared to be fixed… and I was wrong… i’ve gone to the “hack” as described by many unhappy users my making the theme I use as “default”, ousting kubrick..

so I am evaluating new blog packages. every piece of information i’ve found on this problem is answered with “we don’t care”.. and while I won’t fault the wordpress community (i don’t know the priorities of this project), it is no longer a fit for me anymore.

i’m hoping things change soon as I like wordpress as a platform.. but i’m not holding my breath..

SO, looks like Internet Explorer is out to screw me again — youtube works, my own flv does not.  figures   for now, I’m saying upgrade to firefox!

[local /wp-content/uploads/ftp/mov02960.flv]

[youtube iGz10ZJEoBc nolink]