Look like I wasn’t the only one to notice a sharp decline in my RSS subscriber count. Earlier this morning, my subscriber count fell from 115 to 69. According to Darren Rowse, the problem seems to center around the Google Feedfetcher stats not displaying today. These types of errors with Feedburner happen on occasion and to those of you who are freaking out, calm down. The numbers usually return to normal after 24hrs.
Author: Jeffro
5400 FPS Camera Video
I thought this was pretty cool. Watch a kernel of popcorn explode into a puffy piece of popcorn via a high speed color camera (5,400 fps)
This color high speed video(zoomed in from original 1K x 1K resolution sequence) shows a close up of popcorn popping on a hot plate. Recorded by the Schmitz family using the Photron SA1 slow motion video camera.
So that’s what happens to a kernel of popcorn! What did you think of the video?
JayK Releases 20 Beautiful Badge Graphics
Jay K of Flying-people.com has released a free 20 icon set which contains an array of beautiful gradients. The badges look great for use of promotional material or to slap onto a site lacking in color. I’ve seen quite a few icon packs but I have yet to see a pack which contains gradients like these. Give these badges a try if your looking for something colorful to add to your site.
FireFox 2.0.0.9 Released
I feel like I’m the last to know about these software releases. Maybe I should look into my feed reader a little more often. At any rate, FireFox has released version 2.0.0.9 of it’s popular browser software. This version is in response to the unusual amount of large regressions that occurred in the previous version.
This latest release fixes these particular issues:
- Bug 400406 – Firefox will ignore the “clear” CSS property when used beneath a box that is using the “float” property. There is a temporary workaround JS/CSS code available for web developers with affected layouts.
- Bug 400467 – Windows Vista users will get “Java not found” or “Java not working” errors when trying to load Java applets after updating. To fix this, users can right-click the Firefox icon and “Run as administrator”, then browse to a page with a Java applet — doing this once will fix the problem and permanently restore Java functionality.
- Bug 396695 – Add-ons are disabled after updating. Users can fix this problem by opening their profile folder and removing three files (extensions.rdf, extensions.ini and extensions.cache)
- Bug 400421 – Removing a single area element from an image map will cause the entire map to disappear. There is no workaround available at this time.
- Bug 400735 – Some Windows users may experience crashes at startup. There is no workaround available at this time.
I’m still running on FireFox 2.0.0.7 and have yet to receive an automatic update notification. I’ll continue to wait and see if 2.0.0.9 actually fixes more than it breaks. Let me know how your upgrade experience goes please!
WordPress Themeing Cheat Sheet
WpCandy has released an awesome PDF which contains helpful information related to developing themes for WordPress. The cheat sheet includes the following:
- Basic Template Files
- PHP Snippets for the Header
- PHP Snippets for the Templates
- And Extra Stuff for WordPress
The resource has been translated into Spanish and Romanian in case English is not your native language. At any rate, click here to view the PDF within your browser. Alternatively, you can right-click and save the file to your desktop.
Considering Matt Mullenweg and company are considering a WP-Theme Marketplace where unique theme designers can be paid for their designs, it might be a good time to pump up that WP theme knowledge.
Googlespacefacebebobook
Found this via my feed reader for a few RSS keyword subscriptions I have on YouTube. This is the first episode of TechSoup I’ve seen and I have to admit, it gave me a chuckle or two. The bit about search engine fatigue was pretty funny. Check out episode 5 of TechSoup.
Smashing Magazine On RSS
Smashing Magazine has put together an interesting article that describes what RSS is and why it’s a good idea to have an RSS icon on your site. It’s interesting to note that not long ago, RSS icons were merely graphics with XML on them, which was wrong. XML is the markup language, not the syndication itself. SM also goes into detail regarding the different RSS icons that exist and the different ways to tell your visitors that you have an RSS subscription feed without always having to use the STANDARD icon. You can check out the article here.
By the way, I thought it was hilarious to see a page that contains the world’s LARGEST RSS icon on the planet. I am REALLY tempted to place it on this page to see what sort of reactions I get!
This article makes me think that perhaps my RSS button is not clearly defined enough. What do you think?
Time For A New Poll
Wow. According to YOU, blogging is not dying.
Is Blogging Really Dying?
* No (77%, 27 Votes)
* Yes (23%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 35
I chose this particular question because at the beginning of October, Techmeme was launched which caused a bunch of bloggers to confirm that blogging will be killed off thanks to Techmeme. Not sure what sort of dope was going around the blogosphere at the time, but blogging seems to be doing just fine and will continue to do so, with or without Techmeme. Thanks goes out to everyone who participated in the poll. Now it’s time for another question.
This time, I want to know what operating system your using. The choices are Apple, Microsoft, or Linux and of course, Other which should take care of operating systems such as Lindows, Unix or a home grown OS.
Got Any?
Tumblr Makes Some Changes
Looks like someone at Tumblr was home after all. Today is November 1st which is the date Tumblr promised would show off some new goodies while also making a few announcements. They have delivered on this promise in more than one way.
Tumblr now sports a brand new Dashboard design. Looky there! Tumblr now supports audio. Audio files can only be posted to your Tumblr account through the dashboard. The Tumblr bookmarklet currently doesn’t support the Audio feature. Tumblrs can only post one audio file per day and the file has to be under 5 MB in size.
The addition of channels. Taking a page out of Jaiku’s book, Tumblrs can now create private channels. The channels allow you to create mini cliqs within the Tumblr network. Once you invite someone into your channel, they can then invite someone else into your channel. Not exactly what I call great control, but a nifty feature none the less.
Tumblr has also teamed up with Vimeo. Vimeo users can now connect Tumblr to their account which allows them to upload videos via their phone. The theme designer has become more user friendly, there is now an archive link at the bottom of Tumblelogs that makes browsing previous posts much easer than clicking the PREVIOUS link 500 times and last but not least, Tumblr has yet to add support for Podcasting feeds.
All in all, it looks like things are starting to look up for the service. I don’t use Tumblr as much as I used to but I’m sure this update and redesign puts them back on the radar. I hope that at some point, they add a stats feature which shows me who is reblogging my Tumblr content. When the reblogging feature was implemented, it was suppose to allow Tumblrs to see how their content would spread across the network. So far, this hasn’t been the case and in this latest incarnation of Tumblr, those features are still missing.
Do you use Tumblr? If so, how do you use it? Lifestreaming? Linkblog? Your one and only blog? Let us know in the comment section.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 