ThinkBlog

So here’s what’s been going on at the site lately.

[EDIT 2006/03/15: The following paragraph is deprecated; links have been altered to point to ThinkBlog.org, but are nevertheless invalid as of this writing.]

For one, I enabled the bookmarking system (which may yet be revamped because it’s so drastically different than the rest of the site, not being framed in my own CSS &c.) for myself, Jeff, Eric, and Brandon. Also, I enabled a “shared bookmarks” subset where you (yes, YOU!) can upload your own bookmarks and comment them however you wish.  The URI for that is ../bm/share/ off the main site, and the username/password combo for the login is all/all.  Feel free to log in and enjoy!  [A word of caution is needed here.  I will ban all IPs that upload any illegal or perverse material.  I don’t mind satire and sophomoric humor, but pr0n will get you banned.  Period.  Otherwise, partake!]

Also, you’ll notice* that Slashdot syndication is taking place on the right hand column.  The premiere news source of any true geek, /. is where you want to be.  The coding is absolutely sloppy, though; if anyone knows how to use a for() loop in PHP well enough to be able to create ten unique variables and mirror their respective internal values as assigned by Onyx RSS to a dynamically generated page—or even if this is the most efficient way of doing things—please don’t hesitate to let me know.  Thanks, and enjoy the Slashdot.
*  The unfortunate thing here is that I discovered that on screens of resolution smaller than 1152×864, IE renders the right panel incorrectly and just trashes the whole site right up—not to mention that no Slashdot content or QOTD would be available at any point because it’s hidden by a CSS mis-rendering under the main pane.  Since this is not a crucial data field, I’m not of a mind to fix it, especially since (1) IE is a ridiculous browser anyway and you ought to be using Mozilla or Firebird and (2) my own res is set higher than 1024×768.

I also didn’t like the fact that the categories weren’t being arranged properly: if displayed with the proper code, the unsorted list code that b2evolution uses makes the whole category thing out pushed out to the right hand side so it slides neatly and undesirably underneath the main panel, regardless of browser or res.  Furthermore, using the older b2 syntax, it just shot out a bunch of disordered, bulleted categories arranged alphabetically.  That won’t cut it, not for a perfectionistic individual with an OCD bent like me.  So, I set it up manually across the board; you can see the results to your left.  Good, old-fashioned non-breaking spaces and colons: nothing like them by which to make shift, as it were.  A few other completely non-crucial and totally, superfluously cosmetic additions and subtractions were also made to the general layout of the site, and I made the templates for all the pages more uniform.  The only thing that differs from page to page, at least as far as indices go, is the presence of a search function (searching is a function of the blog, not the other pages).

There’s also the fact that I’ve been found by the GoogleBot and am now catalogued.  As such, I’ve accumulated hits from as far away as the UK, Italy, Norway, and France, and I’d like to say I appreciate you guys visiting!  Mostly it was for the ridiculous “DLL Hell” problem experienced by many a WinGaim user, specifically the iconv.dll conflict.  Not ubiquitous, it seems, but still annoying to the few and proud who refuse to bow to the will of AOL’s SICK commercialized, unsophisticated, fruity, adware, blinky, proprietary, ineffectual piece of so-called “software”.  ::ahem::

Additionally, something I haven’t yet added to the site proper is a GlossWord dictionary system, so that when I need to explain what certain terms mean, I can link internally instead of either going off-site or explaining it parenthetically in a sentence longer than the original paragraph).  I’ll link to that once it’s up and running.  Till then, enjoy!

So here’s what’s been going on at the site lately.

[EDIT 2006/03/15: The following paragraph is deprecated; links have been altered to point to ThinkBlog.org, but are nevertheless invalid as of this writing.]

For one, I enabled the bookmarking system (which may yet be revamped because it’s so drastically different than the rest of the site, not being framed in my own CSS &c.) for myself, Jeff, Eric, and Brandon. Also, I enabled a “shared bookmarks” subset where you (yes, YOU!) can upload your own bookmarks and comment them however you wish.  The URI for that is ../bm/share/ off the main site, and the username/password combo for the login is all/all.  Feel free to log in and enjoy!  [A word of caution is needed here.  I will ban all IPs that upload any illegal or perverse material.  I don’t mind satire and sophomoric humor, but pr0n will get you banned.  Period.  Otherwise, partake!]

Also, you’ll notice* that Slashdot syndication is taking place on the right hand column.  The premiere news source of any true geek, /. is where you want to be.  The coding is absolutely sloppy, though; if anyone knows how to use a for() loop in PHP well enough to be able to create ten unique variables and mirror their respective internal values as assigned by Onyx RSS to a dynamically generated page—or even if this is the most efficient way of doing things—please don’t hesitate to let me know.  Thanks, and enjoy the Slashdot.
*  The unfortunate thing here is that I discovered that on screens of resolution smaller than 1152×864, IE renders the right panel incorrectly and just trashes the whole site right up—not to mention that no Slashdot content or QOTD would be available at any point because it’s hidden by a CSS mis-rendering under the main pane.  Since this is not a crucial data field, I’m not of a mind to fix it, especially since (1) IE is a ridiculous browser anyway and you ought to be using Mozilla or Firebird and (2) my own res is set higher than 1024×768.

I also didn’t like the fact that the categories weren’t being arranged properly: if displayed with the proper code, the unsorted list code that b2evolution uses makes the whole category thing out pushed out to the right hand side so it slides neatly and undesirably underneath the main panel, regardless of browser or res.  Furthermore, using the older b2 syntax, it just shot out a bunch of disordered, bulleted categories arranged alphabetically.  That won’t cut it, not for a perfectionistic individual with an OCD bent like me.  So, I set it up manually across the board; you can see the results to your left.  Good, old-fashioned non-breaking spaces and colons: nothing like them by which to make shift, as it were.  A few other completely non-crucial and totally, superfluously cosmetic additions and subtractions were also made to the general layout of the site, and I made the templates for all the pages more uniform.  The only thing that differs from page to page, at least as far as indices go, is the presence of a search function (searching is a function of the blog, not the other pages).

There’s also the fact that I’ve been found by the GoogleBot and am now catalogued.  As such, I’ve accumulated hits from as far away as the UK, Italy, Norway, and France, and I’d like to say I appreciate you guys visiting!  Mostly it was for the ridiculous “DLL Hell” problem experienced by many a WinGaim user, specifically the iconv.dll conflict.  Not ubiquitous, it seems, but still annoying to the few and proud who refuse to bow to the will of AOL’s SICK commercialized, unsophisticated, fruity, adware, blinky, proprietary, ineffectual piece of so-called “software”.  ::ahem::

Additionally, something I haven’t yet added to the site proper is a GlossWord dictionary system, so that when I need to explain what certain terms mean, I can link internally instead of either going off-site or explaining it parenthetically in a sentence longer than the original paragraph).  I’ll link to that once it’s up and running.  Till then, enjoy!