Right before New Year’s, I noticed a lump inside of my lower lip. Now, being the hypochondriac that I am, I was naturally petrified that I had Oral Cancer. Why? I’m certainly not at risk. I don’t have a family history of Cancer. I’m 25, not a smoker or chewer, and am otherwise healthy. Because any Google search for “lump in mouth” or lump in lip will likely have even a reasonable person convinced that this is a sure sign of Oral Cancer. keep on reading »
I recently got a new laptop, and I have to admit, I have been spending a disturbing portion of my time on the couch. I’m not a big TV watcher, so prior to acquiring my laptop, I spent the majority of my time at my desk, which I guess should be even more disturbing.
Having a laptop is great, though. I got Airport Express, so now I am wireless, and can even play music through my speakers via AirTunes. I can even take it to bed with me, do some blog reading before bed, put it on my nightstand, and then check my e-mail before I even get out of bed (“oh, a computer in bed…the porn jokes I could comment with”…don’t bother). Maybe I’ll slowly devolve from never leaving my desk, to never leaving my couch, to never leaving my bed.
I’m sure I will spend some time on my deck once, if, the weather is ever nice again. It just snowed 14 inches here in Omaha, and every time this happens it makes me wonder why people aren’t nomadic anymore. Oh, that’s right, because we have so much stuff.
AJ Kandy of “West of the Expressway” has made some perceptive observations on The Economics of Urban Sprawl. Not only do the suburbs exterminate culture, they may be an economic drain all-around. It’s great to make the decision to not buy a gas guzzler, but how about designing our lives so we drive less to begin with?
The eventual realization of these economic consequences may result in the End of Suburbia, looks like an interesting documentary, analyzing “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.” It probably won’t be coming to a theater near you, but they do encourage public screenings. Anyone up for one in Omaha?
Now that kadavy.net is included in the sites drawer for NetNewsWire 2.0b10 (a great RSS Reader for the Mac), I figured it was time to gain a little edge with my own favorites icon (that little icon that is showing up next to the web address on your address bar on most browsers).
To make one for your site, design a 16×16 pixel gif and upload it to your root directory with the name “favicon.ico”. It’s best if you can stay within the standard 256-color216-color web palette.
Tip: When working at the pixel-level in Photoshop, it’s a good idea to have one window zoomed way in (like 1600%) so you can see each pixel clearly, but also have a second window open for the same document (Window < Arrange < New Window for document name) at 100%, so you can simultaneously see what it will look like at actual size.
Compare, which enables you to use conditionals in your templates, is absolutely essential.
I’ll also have to eventually get Acronym, which automatically attaches an acronym tag to known acronyms…and you can even add your own.
Get XML looks very promising: you can suck data from an XML document to syndicate on your site. This would be good for syndicating my recent posts on Be A Design Group, but I couldn’t get it to work, and I think FatCow may not have the required Perl Modules installed, so I’m waiting to hear back on that.
Notifier also looks nice. It enables users to subscribe to comments on specific entries.
As a typography enthusiast, I have to get Smartypants to automatically generate “smart quotes”.
I also thought I saw one that would automatically generate hyperlinks for certain keywords that you could specify. That would also be a must-have. In exploring these plugins and Movable Type Template Tags, I am really beginning to appreciate how incredibly flexible Movable Type is.
Some good reasons to consider using OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office. One of the more compelling ones, rather than it being a free package that still works in the Microsoft formats is that it can produce XML format documents, which means that the data in your documents will probably always be accessible. I still haven’t used OpenOffice.org, but I will be sure to. I have heard, though, that if you exchange a great deal of files with people who use Microsoft Office, that you will run into problems eventually.
I recently got a new laptop. It’s a 15-inch Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz, and its quite nice. I got it in my endless pursuit of comfort, and I haven’t used my new desk since I got my new laptop. Instead, I use it on the couch, in coffee shops, Panera Bread, and on the road. You’d think with all of that laptop using, I would be blogging more, but sorry. Maybe it’s because my new Powerbook came loaded with GarageBand, and now I can finally record music with my guitar. My tower didn’t even have an audio input! Maybe I’ll let you guys know if I post any music on iCompositions. Probably not.
I have been spending time on my blog, though. I’m working on a big re-design, and posting my portfolio, using Movable Type as a content management system a la Stopdesign’s Portfolio. Douglas Bowman of Stopdesign was kind enough to post how he used Movable Type to manage his portfolio, and I’ve been able to figure out alot of it, but he seems to have left some crucial information out. I can’t figure out how he managed to get going to a category to go directly to the first post of that category, rather than to an “index” page. Oh well, it will take some tinkering, but not that I haven’t already done enough with no results.
This entry already has a long trackback list, but that’s because it is well said. Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make. It seems almost all of them make these mistakes. I couldn’t have said it better myself.