It’s another “wow, I haven’t updated this blog in a long time!” posts. I won’t dwell on it.
I am transferring my domain to A2 Hosting so there may be a few bumps in the next few days. Not that you’d notice though as there’s no reason to be visiting!
Get Guy Kawasaki to link to you. Holy smokes – almost 1000 unique visitors in 11 hours. On a Sunday. Thanks, Guy.
Welcome everyone.
For those of you venturing outside of the linked-to post, this is mostly a personal blog but there are some posts on technology, usability, and my photography.
I wanted a better (read: easier) way to add my flickr photos to my posts. I was all set to write my own WordPress plugin when I finally stumbled on one that was almost exactly what I wanted. Joe Tan‘s Flickr Post Bar is earily close to what I envisioned.
The only problem I have is that it sizes larger photos incorrectly. I’m still looking into it. Update: It’s my fault — I need to adjust the page template to accomodate wider images.
If you have a WordPress blog and post flickr photos, you should check it out.
I’ve finally found a Spam plugin that seems to work. Download Spam Karma now.
I’ve disabled the annoying random number check thing from the comments.
I can’t tell you how many hits I get on this blog from people searching for “picture of world” (I see I come up #5 on Yahoo! Search but Google’s a little smarter and doesn’t list me in at least the first 6 pages).
What are all you seekers looking for? Will you pay money for it?
I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.0, so the custom picture and some other tidbits have gone back to the default settings until I have time to finish the upgrade.
Wow, [news.com linked to my previous blog](http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5929432.html?part=rss&tag=5929432&subj=news) on hacker’s and GUIs. Welcome, visitors.
If I’ve been slow to write new posts (not that you’d notice), it’s because I’m fighting an increasing deluge of comment spam. ‘bots all over the world are trying to post spammy comments on my blog but they are foiled by my moderation system. Unfortunately, I need to check each comment that appears and delete them. I’m getting over 50 spam comments a day and it’s driving me crazy. I barely have time to find a solution, let alone write about things or post more photos.
So, the bad news is that people still suck.
The good news is that everyone should have my problems!
Update: I’ve installed a plug-in that supposedly identifies spammers without having to force people to decipher and enter cryptic codes when commenting. I hope it works!
If you have trouble commenting, please email me.
Update 2: Sigh. Apparently the spambot is immune to that plugin until the next release, so you’ll now have to enter a code when posting comments.
Sorry for the lack of posts and the missing Day 3 story of our Mt. Rainier climb. I’m working on a redesign of this site that will integrate [jay-photo.com](http://jay-photo.com)’s galleries with this blog.
As part of this big change, I will be moving any professional and usability related posts back to a separate blog.
All this work takes time and effort and I have very little time for [obvious reasons](http://jay-photo.com/shulablog).
There it is. I’m using the LiveCommentPreview plugin. It does not recognize Markdown syntax, though, so just use HTML tags.
Just a couple of miscellaneous things:
+ Comments are held for approval by me if the poster does not provide an email address or they include certain naughty words. If you want to see your comment immediately, please make sure you provide an email (which is never displayed publicly) and don’t advertise pr0n.
+ This blog supports [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/basics) which is an alternative to writing html. You can use this syntax in comments. For example, you can easily emphasize text by typing ‘\*italics\*’ which will appear as ‘*italics*’. URL links can be created by using this syntax \[Markdown\](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/basics).
The worst thing about having a blog is that someone might read it.
The best thing about having a blog is that someone might read it.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
The site looks different because I’ve upgraded to WordPress 1.5. What a painless process. I blew away the old template — the default 1.5 one is sorta nice, though.
**Update:** Whoops. I just noticed none of my photos in the archive pages are getting displayed properly. You need to view the post in its own page to see them. Not good… looking for a solution.
**Update:** All fixed. Supposedly “not a bug” (developer-speak for intended behaviour that users don’t like) but easily fixed by getting WordPress to use the content of the post, not the excerpt, for the archive pages.
Scott spent a sleepless night upgrading his blog to a new version of Moveable Type along with some other goodies. It’s ironic (or maybe tragic?) that his blog still looks the same after all that effort. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not suggesting it wasn’t worth it. There are some real changes in switching photo galleries so he can display his Flickr photos. Also, the experience was probably fun even as it was frustrating, Scott no doubt knows more about MT than ever before, he has a sense of accomplishment, and he was productive during a bout of insomnia.
Is the point of a blog the content or the blog itself? Everyone draws a different line. Now that I have my own customizable solution, we shall see where my line gets drawn.
So far, so good. A couple of annoyances so far:
I found the template you’re looking at by Gary Rogers on Alex King’s WordPress Styles page. Thanks very much, guys.
As you can see, the blog has changed. I’m now using WordPress instead of Blogger and am happy with it so far. I would have used Moveable Type but technically I’d need an expensive commercial license because of this site’s affiliation with my small business.
Anyway, lots of changes are coming as I update the template, fix some formatting errors, import the comments from Blogger, and generally get things sorted out.
Note that I’ve collapsed both my blogs (Picture My World and Use Case) into this single site.
Blogger cannot publish my blog properly anymore. It times out after getting “so” far. Is it because I’m publishing to an FTP site? Is my web host to blame? Should I bother contacting technical support, or will I have better luck asking the Magic 8 Ball?
One of the problems with technology is that you eventually hit a boundary between systems. The systems have to interact and that’s when everything falls apart. Fingers point, accusations fly, people become luddites overnight. Upon reflection, that’s the problem with human beings, too. Everyone is fine as long as they don’t have to interact with others. How can we expect to build solid technical solutions when we cannot even master our own communication protocols? Spike’s Magic 8 Ball says, “Concentrate and ask again.”
Is blogger slowing down? Sometimes it takes forever (literally) to publish a post. Is it time to move to Moveable Type (or similar)? Would I post more often if I did? Doubtful.
I’m contemplating splitting this blog into two (until Blogger adds categories to its feature list or I break down and switch to Moveable Type or something). I will create a new blog to hold my professional thoughts around usability and HCI. All I’m waiting for is inspiration — I need a good name for the new blog.
Update: It’s split. Visit Use Case if you care about that kind of stuff.