Hello WordPress developers! (me included). When you make a theme, I implore you, please use a simple html comment at the top of each page to identify the template. For example: <!- – TEMPLATE: single.php – -> would allow someone unfamiliar with your theme to look in the generated source and see which template(s) are influencing the output. Yes, experienced WordPress developers should already know which files are being used but we don’t write themes only for experienced developers. And even experienced developers get stuck, tired, or would like things to be sped along and a simple comment, <!- – TEMPLATE: page.php – ->, would help tremendously. Thank you!
Category: Technology
All things geeky.
I just wet myself!
I must have an interactive mirror in my house!
Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo.
A special thanks to Makezine for making me aware of LitStudios and their fantastic work with "dielectric glass mirrors with LCD panels built into them."
The sun rose 48 hours early in Greenland and, yes Virginia, there is global warming
For a month and a half, there’s absolutely no Sun in Greenland because of Earth’s angle in relation to our home star. People there eagerly await for January 13, when the Sun rises again, every year. Except this one. This year, the Sun rose 48 hours ahead of its projected date. … [Source, Gizmodo]
Well stated! ‘The loss of civil rights happen slowly’
Take heed!
The loss of civil rights happen slowly, so we are not supposed to take notice. Once our freedoms are gone, they will not be given back to us. [Source, NetworkWorld, The Stripping of Freedom: EPIC vs. DHS on TSA Body Scanners]
Our Brains Are Shrinking
I do dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight
I know some of you get twitches in your toes with the weather is changing, or migraines when the storm is approaching. The full moon sets me off. Perhaps there’s a little werewolf in me. As Luna grows large, I am struck with insomnia, passionate energy, and animalism. Tonight promises to be quite sleepless.
This lunar eclipse falls on the date of the northern winter solstice. How rare is that? Total lunar eclipses in northern winter are fairly common. There have been three of them in the past ten years alone. A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual. Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years. "Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," says Chester. "Fortunately we won’t have to wait 372 years for the next one…that will be on 2094 DEC 21." [Source, NASA Science, Solstice Lunar Eclipse]
Blessed be!
Rayovac discontinued their Hybrid NiMH
Years ago I decided to quit using Alkaline batteries and instead move to rechargeable. Of course, old nickle cadium (NiCd) batteries were horrible. They were prone to "memory" problems where a the recharging/discharging cycle could result in a loss of capacity. NiCDs also discharged quickly and just could not power some higher demand devices like today’s digital cameras.
I initially bought name brand but the Energizer NiMH were weak. Their D cell rechargeable batteries turned out to be spacers to fill the size of a D but with only a AA inside which I supposed doesn’t really matter except that "D cells are typically used in high current drain applications" [Source, Wikipedia, D battery] Duracell rechargeable batteries were equally disappointing. Now for years I chose Rayovac alkaline AA batteries for most applications and Energizer Max AAs for digital cameras. One day in Target, hidden toward the bottom of the batteries and off to the side, I found a package of generic looking rechargeable batteries labeled "Hybrid." I pleasantly discovered this was a Rayovac product and it rocked! In addition to being a great battery, Rayovac didn’t require a Rayovac charger.
Eventually Rayovac switched to a green label and then a blue label. It felt like the redheaded stepchild of rechargeable batteries but I loved the performance. Over time a cell or two died but I didn’t have the knowledge for using my multimeter to determine a good cell from bad. We just bought more batteries and soon our house had enough rechargeable batteries that we rarely use alkaline batteries anymore. Eventually I discovered the Ansmann 5207123 Energy 16 Charger
So today I was reading a review of the new hotness, nickle zinc (NiZn) batteries. Despite the good words about PowerGenix’s Nickel Zinc AA
In the review, I discovered that Rayovac has discontinued their Hybrid AA/AAAs! Turns out, Hybrid is from 2007; it was rebranded to a blue wrapper in 2009 and is now (2010) called Rayovac Platinum Pre-Charged
We now use the Rayovac batteries in all the kids toys and our various electronic devices. For Cathy’s digital camera, we use Sanyo Eneloop
The Internet’s Lowest Common Denominator
I have reduced the Internet!
To consume all knowledge on the Internet, you only need four sites:
That’s all you need! Granted, there are some sites that make the Internet a little more fun. Hundreds. For instance, Facebook has some value in that, "don’t make me think" kind of prime time comedy hour thing. Seesmic is a great aggregator for viewing your social networks in a single place. For getting links and news, the only aggregator ever needed (and this is huge geek crack so if you have no self-control stay away from it!) is Popurls. That’s about it. Sure, you should look in on Flickr once in a while but nothing else is really needed. Of course, there’s some utilitarian stuff like banking and travel sites but really…the Internet has come down to 4 sites. You’re welcome.
Don’t use underscores in css ids
Today’s reminder from your friendly neighborhood codeslinger is "don’t use underscores in css ids!" You know, those lines _ that programmers like to use instead of spaces in variable names (because you can’t really have spaces in a variable name in most languages). This was an illegal character in the original CSS1 and CSS2 specifications (updated in 2001 to be valid) so setting an id to foo_bar (e.g. <div id="foo_bar">) would be translated by the browser as foo\_bar (e.g. <div id="foo\_bar">), well, some browsers, not all browsers because you know browsers are so consistent in their interpretation and implementation of these so called web standards.
The solution? Instead of underscores, opt for dashes (e.g. <div id="foo-bar">) or camel case (e.g. <div id="FooBar">) but remember that id’s and class names are case-sensitive.
See also.
DC Universe Merges with Reality
This sounds like the stuff of comic books but it’s real. Designer Bacteria Can Heal Cracks in Concrete Buildings
The genetically modified microbe has been programmed to swim down fine cracks in concrete and once at the bottom it produces a mixture of calcium carbonate and a bacterial glue. This glue combines with the filamentous bacterial cells, ultimately hardening to the same strength as the surrounding concrete and essentially “knitting” the building back together. [Source, LiveScience, Designer Bacteria Can Heal Cracks in Concrete Buildings]
CRS disease related to 20-30 years of stress
Stress hurts memory. And my memory is undeniably in a less than adequate state. The memories are there. The recollection is poor. After feeding me a few clues, the memories surface. Clues can be reminding me of your name or where we last bumped into each other etc.
An experimental drug developed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh reverses age-related memory decline in mice, returning their brains to a more youthful state of cognitive function. The compound is designed to dampen the production of glucocorticoids, stress hormones that are thought to damage the brain’s learning and memory centers over time. [Source, Technology Review, Experimental Drug Preserves Memory in Rodents]
"What’s most surprising is that even short-term inhibition was able to reverse memory loss in old mice. I don’t think people had realized this was so reversible. It takes [the animals] back to being relatively young." Sign me up! I hereby declare my readiness to be a human subject in this testing of this drug!
h/t Kurzweilai.net
Soldering iron or hot air rework station?
I need advice from my friends into building electronics. I have grown frustrated with years of using $8 soldering irons from Radio Shack and want to get into a Weller or Aoyue soldering station. My quandary is deciding between just a soldering station or a hotair rework station. My next two projects will be 1) replacing some bad caps on a circuit board and 2) resoldering some bad joints on another board.
I’m currently looking at the Aoyue 937+ Digital Soldering Station
Time to reboot the feed reader
I used to love SharpReader. I was using it before RSS was vogue. The difference between consuming information by going to individual webpages vs using a feed reader is like riding a bike on the Interstate versus driving a Ferrari. I had to give up SharpReader because it was tied to a single box and I’m not. I work anywhere and everywhere and I need to be able to access my data from any device. I switched to Google Reader and have never looked back. Unfortunately, I lost all the articles in SharpReader that I’d marked as a favorite during the transition.
As I scan and read in Google Reader I use the star to mark my favorites so that I can return to the article and read it again (not that I ever do). I rarely but once in a blue moon add an item to my shared items.
I’ve come to a point where my feedreader more resembles bookmarks rather than a useful way to consume content. Many of the feeds are dead or stagnant. I have some like Fark that I don’t read anymore. Some have changed hands and are actually spam now. I’m going to drop my entire feed list. I’ll export the entire list first and probably publish it somewhere for reference. My one concern is losing my favorites. I can find nothing that talks about whether or not there is a way to save my favorites and whether or not removing a feed that had something marked as a favorite will also delete that favorite. I’ll experiment with it this weekend and figure it out.
jquery challenge of the day
And now for something completely different…
Let’s say you have a table that could have infinite rows. The table has an id but none of the other elements (ie. we won’t be traversing by id). The column to the furthest right of the row has an anchor tag in the for of an <a href> There are no other anchors on that row. What I want to do is when the anchor tag is clicked, have the <a href> text in the row above the clicked on turn bold and only that <a href>. Sample table:
<table id="tbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>col 1 label</th>
<th>col 2 label</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>one</td>
<td>sometext <a class="tt" href="#">link</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>two</td>
<td>moretext <a class="tt" href="#">link</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>three</td>
<td>differenttext <a class="tt" href="#">link</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>four</td>
<td>othertext <a class="tt" href="#">link</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
So, if I click the link in row three, I want the text "link" in row two to become bold. This is using jquery and traversing this is kicking me hard.
Let’s talk SEO and domain names
Say for more than half a decade (really its been a decade) Cathy has blogged as DomesticPsychology.com and she has. Let’s say on a whim she decides she would rather be blogging as CathyMcCaughan.com (in reality she hasn’t..this is simply a working example). Currently http://CathyMcCaughan.com forwards to http://domesticpsychology.com/. To complicate things, let’s say they are registered at 2 different registrars so DNS is handled by two different organizations.
Many options exist for moving a domain name. What is the best way to make http://cathymccaughan.com/ the primary url for Cathy’s website instead of http://domesticpsychology.com/ without losing the search engine rankings or readership and without creating broken links?
