Life is grand

Asian pear…
Originally uploaded by aikitherese.

I love that in Visual Studio 2005 the CSS editor auto-completion is smarter than it was before. e.g. background-im will auto-complete to background-image and not get all confused.

I hate that windows is a new CSS attribute as I keep auto-completing to that instead of width which used to be first in VS2003.

Hidden Trail
Originally uploaded by S*W*Q.

I have joined the I like Cameras writing team in Paul Scriv’s new blog network, Fine Fools.

Woah, don’t I dislike blog networks and think we need one more like a fish needs a tube ticket? Yes and no. No we may not need loose networks of independent sites but yes we need more quality blogs in editorially influenced networks. The difference between Fine Fools and 9rules is that 9rules is a loose affiliation of independent authors on independent sites. Fine Fools is a team of authors on a fixed set of channels (blogs) dedicated to specific topics. I like Cameras’ is photography, from the gear to the art.

Don’t I have enough to do already? Yes but the web needs a quality blog about photography. I have yet to find a good photo blog out there. Existing blogs are either the press-release junket variety or have fine content but are updated every other month.

So far the team consists of Steve Staskiewicz, Bill Turner and Jeremy Johnson. I broke the ice with them an hour ago and the ideas and collaborations are already flowing. I will be on the slower track with I like Cameras in that there will be 2 or so main posts from me a week. The others are on different tracks, some posting every few hours to others, like me, only every few days.

It will be all quality though. That is the terms of agreement we have with Fine Fools; quality over quantity.

So check up on I like Cameras as you please and I hope we can bring you the best photographic content this side of a loupe.

nipped in the bud
Originally uploaded by alfarman.

Say you create a few designs for an AIDS charity website. The client picks one and discards the other two. Naturally they picked the design you least liked, but that is OK, it is their website.

This means you have two perfectly decent designs unused.

Would it be wrong to use one of those designs for a party website? A website featuring scantily clad females, cheap vodka drinks and pimped bouncers.

I am so going to hell.

A handy feature of Subversion (which I am told other SCMs share) is that of keyword substitution. You can put a keyword in your code, e.g. $Date, which on commit is replaced with the relevant value.

The use of this is mainly to update code comments. Many coders put a block comment at the top of their class files which show the author, last updated dates and other info. Not every coder remembers to update this comment block when they make quick changes. Having it as a keyword leaves it up to Subversion to change.

The Version Control with Subversion online book lists the other available keywords.

Got my WordPress Golden Ticket last night which invited me to setup a blog on the invite-only WordPress.com site.

For those who don’t know WordPress it is a popular PHP/MySQL based blogging system. It is quite powerful with support for plugins and custom themes. The posting interface is advanced with everything from categories to pretty-permalinks to custom fields. Multiple authors are supported as well as multiple-blogs with a bit of MySQL tweaking. All in all it is one of the best blogging systems you can download and host.

Up till now though you had to host it yourself. During the past few months there has been a steady buzz about the coming hosted WordPress site called WordPress.com.

Let me first say that I have used TypePad and I am using Blogger.com. I have also installed and hosted almost every blogging engine under the sun. So I am used to both ways of getting a blog up and running.

WordPress.com is decidedly underwhelming.

You can’t use plugins, a 3rd party support issue. You can select from a handful of themes but you cannot modify them or create your own, a security risk. Not even the most basic HTML or CSS editing is allowed. You can’t insert JavaScript into your own posts. The usable but rather plain WordPress admin interface has been recoloured blue, AirBag is not impressed. You cannot have multiple authors/users.

Doncha has a FAQ which should be entitled; Things you can’t do with WordPress.com that you should be able to do.

The response of “We don’’t support plugins currently. We don’t have time to support 3rd party code.” is particularly poor I thought. There are many good plugins out there which add great functionality to WordPress. All WordPress.com has to do is select a few decent ones and spend a few hours on them, make them part of the WordPress.com feature-set.

On the plus side you get 26mb of space to use the upload function. You also get a decent URL e.g. PaulMWatson.WordPress.com and you do get a decent blogging system.

Granted all of this is in an invite-only, beta phase. Much will change and improve before they go live to the public.

The biggest problem I see is that WordPress.com satisfies no one. It is too limited for advanced users and too confusing for the usual Blogger/LiveJournal/TypePad users. It sits somewhere in the middle and I am not sure there is a market to be had there.

I was simply expecting more. WordPress is a great blogging system. The hosted version though is a let-down. Advanced users wanting a blogging system would be much better off using one of the 1-click-install WordPress hosts and other blog users would be better off with Blogger or TypePad.

After all that; If you want an invite to WordPress.com then send me an email.

UPDATE: My one invite has been given out. Not sure if WP will be sending out more.

Gearing
Originally uploaded by wild.

Every 5 seconds a person dies of AIDS.

A sobering statistic given to me as I create a design for an AIDS awareness website.

The client wanted an AIDS-deaths counter on the site. I suggested starting with the current death-toll and then incrementing it every 5 seconds. There is a lot of disagreement though in just how many people have died of AIDS worldwide. Some say 35 million, others 40 million and others far less. The only figure they can agree on is the above.

Whatever it is, 1 every 5 seconds means 15 people have died since I started typing this post. At least 1 has died since you started reading it.