2008 November – Jeffc.me

People Call Me WordPress Guru

November 18, 2008 By Jeffro 4 Comments

Or, WordPress community superstar. At any rate, these are all names given to me, not names I have chosen. But, as long as its not derogatory, I’ll take them. Mayank of BlogDesignStudio.com has published an interview he conducted with yours truly. In it, I confess about my fear of roller coasters, provide insight into my blogging opportunities with BloggerTalks and Performancing, and at the end of the article, provide a number of tips in one paragraph related to blogging/freelance writing.

Go on over and check it out and let me know what you think.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: blogdesignstudio, Blogging, interview, jeffchandler

What To Call This Twitter Fail Picture

November 18, 2008 By Jeffro 3 Comments

At about 11:20 A.M. EST, Twitter failed. The database is down and the service is not expected to come back online for another hour. However, instead of being greeted by the infamous fail whale, I was introduced to a few newcomers.

What Do We Name This Picture?

Ok, what do we call this image?

Fail Caterpillar?
Fail Cone?
Fail InchWormCream?
Fail Catercone?

I’ll take thoughts and suggestions in the comments.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: error, failwhale, mascots, twitter

Awesome Photography Technique

November 17, 2008 By Jeffro 4 Comments

Usually I wouldn’t link to articles that I know are link bait but this one is so cool, I feel as though I have to share it. I’ve never heard of ‘Tilt Shift Photography‘ before but according to Smashing Magazine, it’s a technique where life sized objects appear as though they are at a miniature scaled size. To start taking photographs using this method, all you need to do is to shoot subjects from a high angle, especially if you can do this from in the air. Or, you can use a tilt-shift lens which provides a shallow depth of field.

Tilt Shift Technique In Action

Image created by Automatt.

Please check out their list of 50 examples that have utilized the technique. It is hard for me to pick a favorite but the one with the firetrucks is awesome.

Filed Under: Cool Stuff Tagged With: miniature, photography, photos, tiltshift

New Design Is Finally Complete

November 16, 2008 By Jeffro 14 Comments

If you haven’t noticed by now, particularly those who are reading this from your FeedReader, come check out the site in your favorite browser as I have finally put the finishing touches on the Jeffro2pt0 redesign. The problem with blogging for other people is that it leaves little time to do things to my own personal site. So, I spent two very long nights/days going through my theme and doing a complete redesign so that I could get the weight off my chest. The weight stems from looking around at other blogs and noticing they have a pretty good looking theme and when I look at mine, it just sucks. Also, I was sick and tired of worrying about doing the redesign when all I really want to do is publish content. Thats why I really put some elbow grease into the design and got it done as soon as possible so I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

I have to thank David Peralty for launching his new blog design (BrandingDavid.com) which started my thinking process of redoing mine. His site has a minimal look to it, doesn’t fill the page with widgets or chichlets so that all he has to worry about is writing and publishing content. I wanted to travel the same road by eliminating things from my theme that I didn’t need and get back to basics. I’ve eliminated the featured post block as well as the container that held all of the categories I write about. This used to be displayed underneath the header.

With regards to the header image and the trees. The fact of the matter is, I love forests. I love forest photography and I love hiking through them so I figured I’d take something I love and put it on the blog so I can see it everyday. The great thing about this header image is that I have about 6 different scenic images that I can substitute the trees with. Once the first day of Winter arrives, I’ll be changing the header image to a picture of snowy mountains.

As for the color scheme, I’ve always enjoyed darker themes but I can never seem to get the link colors and content presentation down pat. This time however, I browsed through template monster and through the galleries presented at VandelayDesign.com as sources for inspiration in terms of text colors to use on a dark theme. The current design is definetly colorful but it falls right in line with my header logo. Also, the colors don’t make the site boring and in fact, the color scheme changes slightly from the home page to a single post page view.

I was going to use the comment threading feature found within WordPress 2.7 but I’ve found out that it’s current implementation sucks. I can’t style it and modify it’s look as easily as I could do with the old comments system. So, I’ve decided not to use the built in threaded comment feature or threaded comments in general. However, thanks to some code that was given to me via Kaspars (Konstruktors.com) commenter’s can now click on a reply link which works exactly like the link in the WP Comment Remix plugin except now I don’t have all of the extra baggage that the plugin provided. The code is not publicly available but with some coaxing, we might be able to convince him to release it.

Speaking of Kaspars, I really want to say thanks to him for all the help he provided to me. Thanks to him, I was able to finally get a styled, working version of his Tabbed Widgets plugin. Also thanks to his help, I’m able to configure specifically where widgets are displayed within the theme using his unreleased Context Widgets plugin. I’ll write about this in a future post but in a nutshell, it is an easier to configure version of Slayers Custom Widgets.

As for comments, I completely redesigned that area as well, thanks again to Kaspars. Ajax edit comment works and so does the comment luv plugin although you can not save the options for comment luv. There is some sort of incompatibility that the plugin author is aware of. I also installed the Quick Tags plugin to make it easier for you to style your comments if you choose to do so. Much better plugin than the Tiny MCE for comments.

There is plenty of other stuff to talk about including a post describing why threaded comments in WordPress 2.7 sucks. Stay tuned for that and more, including an updated list of plugins I’m using.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: blog, colors, design, theme

Wee For A Wii

November 16, 2008 By Jeffro 4 Comments

Well, I finally managed to be at the right store at the right time and picked up the hard to catch Nintendo Wii. This thing has been eluding me since it’s launch over two years ago. When I went out with the girl last week, we happened to stop by Target which I was told by a friend at work had plenty of the consoles in stock. I think he is blind because Target was out of stock. So, the girl and I went over to the local mall and while walking around, I made a pitstop to GameStop. Thankfully, they had plenty in stock but when I looked at the price tag, I “REALLY” had to convince myself to make the purchase.

A recent episode of the Buzz Out Loud podcast produced by CNET recently described a news story that highlighted the fact that the Nintendo Wii continues to out pace consoles by 3 or 4 to 1. In fact, the Nintendo DS is in second place while Xbox takes third and Playstation takes fourth. I picked up a Wii because they were in stock and I’ve been wanting one for quite awhile. I believe there are many people in my situation where they couldn’t get a Wii due to its scarcity. That’s why I hopped on the opportunity and snatched one up.

Wii Bowling

Overall, I’m very pleased with my purchase. Unlike consoles of the past where you had to use a gamepad type controller, this new way of interacting with games is a blast. It’s been really fun to have the entire family involved with the console where reflexes don’t mean as much as they used to. We’ve been enjoying Wii Bowling while I’ve personally enjoyed Wii Tennis. I have to tell you though, after playing Wii sports for six hours straight, every muscle on the right side of my body was aching. The Wii makes for a great way to get in shape and to perform physical activities inside the house while inches of snow fall outside.

I’d like to know what sort of experience have you had with the Wii, if you own one. Also, I’m taking suggestions on games I should purchase that the entire family can play. I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving where the Wii will be the centerpiece of enjoyment. As a side note, my dad does a great job creating Miis. He made one that looks just like him which is hilarious to see in game.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: console, experience, nintendo, wii

Disk Streaming

November 15, 2008 By Jeffro Leave a Comment

This is the kind of advertising I enjoy. Something cool that shows off what your product can do. This is a video showing off Ardence ~~now known as IntervalZero~~ which is a piece of software used to stream operating systems onto desktop PCs.

I’ve been told via email that this piece of software is not owned by IntervalZero but is instead, Ardence’s software-streaming products have been rebranded and are now part of the Citrix portfolio. IntervalZero, a new company, acquired the former Ardence Embedded business from Citrix in July 2008. IntervalZero does not develop nor do they have rights to Citrix’s software-streaming product.

The music fits in nicely with the video.

Filed Under: Videos Tagged With: ardence, desktop, diskstream, OS

Famous For All The Wrong Reasons

November 12, 2008 By Jeffro 6 Comments

The following is an example of how the Internet can latch on to something totally unexpected and the end result is someone who is put into a royally disastrous situation. Meet Ellie who is 22 years old. According to Ellie, she gave permission for her friend to publish the photos of her modeling next to her friends car as seen within the first page of this Neowin forum thread. The pictures showcase a young woman, dressed in model type clothes but ends up not having the prettiest face in the world. For whatever reason, the net has caught on to these particular photos and now many are publishing photoshopped images to spread the joke around. Simply put, this young girl has become Internet famous but for all the wrong reasons.

Judging by the Neowin forum thread and various conversations spread amongst the net, many people don’t seem to have anything nice to say about this girl. Ellie actually published a response to the craze on her MySpace page that explains how she doesn’t care about the situation. I think it is rather hard not to care when the web is going crazy over photos of yourself spread across the web, many of which are parodies.

This is a stark reminder that no one knows what will take off on the net and become the next sensation. While many advertisers probably wish it was their product or service, it happened to be pictures of a not so pretty face. Too bad for Ellie, she has become an Internet meme that will live in infamy.

*Note* I’ve decided not to publish any photos as there are plenty of them out on the web for you to see. Type “Girlfriend model for my car” into Google to see what I mean.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ellie, face, famous, internet, meme

Freelancing Week 2: A Good Start

November 10, 2008 By Jeffro 6 Comments

Well, today is Monday which marks week number 2 of my freelancing journey. So far, I’m off to a great start with two articles already published, an interview lined up, show notes for both podcasts adjusted, a few administrative tasks done and I’ve made a few comments on some blog posts. Seems like a productive start to the week. It will get even better once my second guest post is published on Problogger which is nothing more than a review of Sphere. Hoping this post does as well as the first. I’ll try to get things straightened out around here during the weekend.

Now I am off to bed at 9:36 AM hoping that I wake up at about 3PM to grab a shower and spend the evening with my girl.

Before I let you go, I wanted to share something with you and would like your input. I wrote about this on Performancing but I’ll share it here as well. I came across a post in Twitter which made me pause and think for a moment.

definetheline: The weekend used to mean ‘no work’. Now it means ‘stop working on the things you don’t want to do, and work on the things you want to do’.

Let me know if this sounds like the weekend to you.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: freelancing, posts, problogger, update, work

What Happened This Weekend

November 9, 2008 By Jeffro 10 Comments

I decided that I would do a reformat of my WordPress installation and as part of that reformat, I would install WordPress 2.7 beta 2. I also plan on doing a redesign of the site to make everything much more simpler than before. However, things didn’t go as planned thanks to my webhosting provider, AnHosting a.k.a. MidPhase. Starting on 11/07/2008 4:37 PM I sent in a trouble ticket to MidPhase letting them know that I was experiencing timeout error messages when browsing to my domain. Cpanel, email, anything dealing with my account was loading slower than molasses. I became increasingly upset as I updated the ticket on 11/08/2008 2:20 AM. Ten hours went by without anyone responding to my trouble ticket. This is the first time I’ve had an experience like this with MidPhase and it was pretty frustrating.

Once two more hours went by with no update to my ticket or the situation, I called the support line for MidPhase and because it was so early in the morning, I didn’t have to deal with a queue. After talking with the gentleman and having him confirm the issues I was experiencing, he told me that a support rep has been assigned to my ticket and he would look into it. The rep responded to my ticket on 11/08/2008 4:36: AM.

By the way, I should point out that the entire problem was based around the CPU load on the shared server being to high, not allowing other things to process. It was increasingly frustrating to me because I wouldn’t think zapping whatever processes were hogging up the CPU would be that hard to shut down. What made things worst is that I had deleted my WordPress files along with the database and because I couldn’t access PHPMyAdmin or various other parts of Cpanel let alone getting my site to load, my domain was stuck on a WordPress installation error.

stupidcpu

The last time I updated the ticket was on 11/08/2008 5:26 AM. I basically had enough at this point and just hoped that things would be better after I woke up. Thankfully, things did get back to normal. Then, because my shared server was one of the ones that was recently migrated into a new data center, the file upload limit in the php.ini file was set to 2mb which means I couldn’t upload and import my WordPress WXR file. After going back and forth a few times with support, they managed to get that changed enabling me to have a successful import. The support for this particular issue was much better than the previous one.

So, that is where I stand now. I am currently configuring the plugins I know I am going to use. After that, I plan on working on the theme to get things simplified and straightened out. Special thanks to everyone who contacted me asking me what happened. Obviously, visiting a site that all of a sudden has a hello world post on it with the default Kubrick theme is a cause for concern. I appreciate those who sent me a message expressing their willingness to help if need be. Thank you.

Nothing malicious happened to the site, I just happened to go through with my WordPress reformat which I sometimes do but it turned out to be a series of badly timed events. Hopefully, things are all better now.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: anhosting, midphase, reformat, weekend, Wordpress

Difference Between Blogger And Publisher

November 8, 2008 By Jeffro 5 Comments

What is the difference between a blogger and a publisher? Have the lines between the two blurred so much that there is no difference? Some say that the difference between labeling someone a publisher or a blogger is size. The size of what though? The site? The amount of content they produce? The type of content? Lets talk about it.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: blogger, Blogging, publisher, question