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Half full or half empty? What’s it gonna be?

My wife and I feel we’ve begun to relate well to new found online friends in Australia. From our readings of their blogs we are two very similar families. I received an email from them tonight with an excerpt from Chicken Soup for the Soul – a good reminder to appreciate people for what they do and not focus on what they do not do (or do “wrong”). Ironically I’m between books so the connection between Autstralia and the need to refocus my outlook on life has inspired me to re-read what I feel is a great book, Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan. I understand that this book caused quite a stir amongst some Aboriginal people; for that, I do not understand the politics. I can however vouch for the spiritually uplifting feeling I get from reading the story. This book, as with most of my reading, was suggested to me. This time, instead of a friend, a total stranger in an airport singled this book out for me. On more than one occasion, airports have provided great reading references to me from other travellers.

  

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6-10pm

* I’m exhausted from the stress of the afternoon. Top that with failing to achieve any 1 of the 4 goals I set out to do today.

* I cooked grilled cheese and soup for the family tonight and kept out of everyone’s path as to not cause any more trouble.

* Wife and I watched an exceptional Smallville and we are guessing Adam Knight to be either Batman (the Knight being a reference to The Dark Knight) or a vampire (as Jordon said that he thought he had died once..making Knight a reference to a creature of the Night). Ice is thawing for us.

* Spent the past hour dorking around on the computer.

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How to Make Permalinks Work

Earlier I wrote Trying to figure out how to make perma links work as a stream of conscious/troubleshooting note taking gibberish. Clear instructions follow:

The Blogger Knowledge Base notes “<a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”>&nbsp;</a> should go somewhere in your post body. If you include it in the itemtitles section, your post will only get numbered if you specify a title.)”

The blogger template has this code:

<BlogItemTitle><h2><$BlogItemTitle$><a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”>&nbsp;</a></h2></BlogItemTitle>

however, if your blogger post does not include a title, the anchor for the permalink will not get created. To fix this, change:

<BlogItemTitle><h2><$BlogItemTitle$><a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”>&nbsp;</a></h2></BlogItemTitle>

to

<a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”>&nbsp;</a><BlogItemTitle><h2><$BlogItemTitle$></h2></BlogItemTitle>

With that in place using the “#postnumber” in the url will take you to a specific post. You can confirm this by “view source” and searching for “<a name” You should have several that appear as <a name=”postnumber”> without the “#” mark.

To get the permalink url, right click on the date in the “posted by” and “copy shortcut”.

What’s a “perma link”? These are urls that can be used to direct someone to a specific posting in a blog rather than just sending them to a top of a page. Each post has a “posted by” byline and in that there is a link which shows something like “http://cursed-juggler.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_cursed-juggler_archive.html#107594955252071847” which would be the link to this post. As an example, here’s a link to my post about Eatting Spongebob Squarepants http://cursed-juggler.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_cursed-juggler_archive.html#107589435617551149

Hope this helps someone.

More info:

Plasticbag.org Perma link origins

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4-6:30

* wife scolded me in front of the kids. I in turn scolded her in front of the kids. Decided that I needed some time alone to cool down and that got me in further hot water. Turned a great day into a bad one.

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Lunch

Whew! Had lunch then fell asleep hard. So hard I didn’t hear the phone ring but apparently it did.

Baby has awakened from her nap and is playing under her hand quilted blank (my grandmother did that for her) like it is a tent. Cute!

Going to see if I can brew another pot of coffee before she wants out.

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Trying to figure out why anchors are not working

Added Title and URL options in Settings->formating of blogger. What do these do?

Ah! Got it! For some reason the blogger template has this code:

<BlogItemTitle><h2><$BlogItemTitle$><a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”>&nbsp;</a></h2></BlogItemTitle>

which makes sense but in your Settings->Formatting if Titles is set to “No” in theory this means that your anchors won’t show up which means your “perma links” won’t work.

What’s a “perma link”? Each post has a “posted by” byline and in that there is a link which shows something like “http://cursed-juggler.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_cursed-juggler_archive.html#107591112713875565” which would be the link to this post. As an example, here’s a link to my post about Eatting Spongebob Squarepants http://cursed-juggler.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_cursed-juggler_archive.html#107589435617551149

I tried turning on Titles but it didn’t seem to change anything. Perhaps I had a browser cache problem or I had not republished the template or something. However, the following change DEFINITELY works:

<a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”>&nbsp;</a><BlogItemTitle><h2><$BlogItemTitle$></h2></BlogItemTitle>

With that in place using the “#postnumber” in the url will take you to a specific post. You can confirm this by “view source” and searching for “<a name” You should have several that appear as <a name=”postnumber”> without the “#” mark.

Hope this helps someone.

More info:

Plasticbag.org Perma link origins

Blogger Knowledge Base And there it is “(This should go somewhere in your post body. If you include it in the itemtitles section, your post will only get numbered if you specify a title.)” straight from the knowledge base.

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Work mode: Listening to Sting’s Mercury Falling (e…

Work mode: Listening to Sting’s Mercury Falling (exceptional for working to) Learning about sessions in PHP. Let’s create a login script. PHPBuilder is a nice reference.

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Wow! There’s a sharp bite in the air today. Con…

Wow! There’s a sharp bite in the air today.

Conversations with the 7 year old boy frequently have me concerned about his intelligence…then I remind myself “he’s 7!” Our face I think is fairly intelligent. The 13 yr old reads at a college level, has an extensive vocabulary, and could con most adults; the 10 yr old has an IQ off the charts but won’t apply herself; the 7 yr old is the top reader and challenges one other person in his class for the top speller; the 20 mth old was doing 3 year old developmental milestones at 1.5yrs; the wife has 2 degrees and is very intelligent; and I was always in gifted and talented programs until college where I successfully drank away my intelligence and left myself with a swiss cheese brain.

Today’s 7 year old conversation:

Dad- Have you had breakfast?

7 yr old- Yes.

Dad- What did you eat?

7 yr old- Oh. That’s right. I haven’t had breakfast.

It’s tough to be seven!