I decided to do a readability test on my blog. I found out that my blog is incredibly easy to read. So easy that a fourth or fifth grader could read it. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad… er, I mean, commendable or inauspicious.
Archive for the ‘Site’ Category
Blowback is a concept that most people today cannot understand. I linked to the Wikipedia article on the topic, but the first line sums it up.
Blowback is a term used in espionage to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations. Blowback typically appears random and without cause, because the public is unaware of the secret operations that provoked it.
Examples of blowback are the 9/11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings, the Iran hostage crisis, and the Soviet-Cuba alliance.
At this point I’m sure the Republicans in the crowd are doing their best Rudy Giuliani impersonation and demanding that I take it back, but I won’t be doing that. Blowback is real and when we start messing with other people’s countries, they are going to start messing with ours. Now I’m not saying that terrorists are justified in what they do, but I understand the reasons they do it and understand that part of the blame sits squarely on our shoulders. That’s right boys and girls, the United States isn’t the glorious force of good you’ve been led to believe it to be. We’ve got blood on our greedy little hands, just like everyone else.
There’s an old axiom that says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” While we can’t always live by this rule, it’s a good rule to follow whenever we can. If we followed this rule, blowback wouldn’t exist in our foreign relations or our personals lives. So do what you can to prevent blowback.
Avatars are the little pictures next to your posts on forums and blogs. Most forums or blogs require you to upload your own avatar each time you sign up. But there is a free service out there that allows you to upload an avatar that can be used on any site. It’s call Gravatar, or Globally Recognized Avatar.
The service works like this. You sign up with Gravatar using your email address, then whenever you post a message on a forum or blog that is Gravatar enabled, your picture will automatically appear. My blog is Gravatar enabled. So if you post a comment and you are using Gravatar, your picture will automatically appear next to your comment. The key is to use the same email address to sign up for Gravatar as you do to make posts and comments.
Here’s a link to a comment to give you an idea:
http://josephbales.com/2008/04/10/ie7-hacks/#comment-83
You may or may not have heard me moaning and complaining about Internet Explorer (IE) when it comes to web development. IE is the default web browser that comes with Microsoft Windows. About half of you are using IE to view this post. If you don’t know what you are using to view this post, then it is probably IE. There are several versions of IE that are still in use, from version 5 to version 8 which is still in beta. Most people use 6 or 7 with the majority using 7. Version 7 is the default version in Windows Vista, version 6 is the default in Windows XP, and version 5 is the default in Windows 2000.
The reason I moan and complain about IE is that it’s a hot mess of rendering bugs, specifically IE6 which is still used by a large number of people. It was written about 8 years ago when the web was very different. Now there are all sorts of new technologies and standards, but IE6 doesn’t support many of them, and never will. You see, when IE6 was released Microsoft essentially had a monopoly on the browser industry. About 95% of internet users used IE, so they decided they didn’t need to devote any time or money to making it better. They let it languish for about 6 years, an eternity in the software business. While it was languishing, new technologies and standards were developed and new browsers started popping up that were more compliant with the new standards.
Finally, after losing about 15% of their market share, Microsoft decided to release a new IE, IE7. IE7 is much better than IE6 as far as standards compliance, but it still has some of the same bugs. Previous to IE7, developers had used special hacks to make their web pages work in IE6, but now those hacks no longer worked. This was fine except that some of the bugs that the hacks fixed were still in IE7. Now new hacks had to be developed just for IE7. What a pain in my ass!
So now whenever I am developing a new theme for my site, I have to look at IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Opera, and Safari to make sure everything is rendering correctly. Thankfully Firefox, Safari, Opera, and IE8 render everything about the same and I only have to really worry about IE6 and to a much lesser extent IE7 and to an even lesser extent Firefox Mac (which doesn’t render the same as Firefox for Windows or Linux for some strange reason) when it comes to rendering bugs.
That’s the problem, now you can be part of the solution! The best thing to do is to download the latest version of Firefox or Opera immediately. Both of these browsers work great, are quick, and work on the three major platforms (Windows, Linux, and Mac). Mac users can also use any browser based on Webkit (like Safari or Omniweb) or Camino which is based on the same rendering engine as Firefox. If you are on a Mac and still using IE/Mac, remember that it’s down the street, not across the road. If you are a Linux user, you should already know what you are doing and should be using a modern browser.
And now for you Windows users. If you are using a version of Windows prior to 98, you need to take that computer to a recycling center and buy a new one. Pay someone to haul it away if you have to. If you are using Netscape, stop… just stop. If you are using Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000, you should be able to "upgrade" to IE6 at the very least. To be honest, if you are using one of these operating systems, you should just go ahead and send your computer to the recycling center as well if you can’t get a copy of XP or Vista (or some version of Linux). If you are using XP or Vista you should be using Firefox or IE7 or 8. If you are viewing this on IE6 on XP and cannot upgrade, that means you are viewing this from work and your boss just called and told me to tell you to STOP SURFING THE WEB AND GET BACK TO WORK!
So the new theme is finally here. I can tell you right now it needs a lot of tweaking, but it is complete enough to start using it. I’m dissatisfied with the sidebar and the pages, archives, and other stuff were just thrown together this morning. I’ll keep working on it though. I’ve kept it sufficiently generic that I should be able to release it as a theme that anyone can install on their Wordpress blog. You know… when it’s finished.
I’ve got most of the styling done for my new theme. The new theme has a tabbed nav bar and a sidebar that is widget capable. I’m also taking the time to style the default Wordpress widgets that come with WP 2.5 of which I have a beta copy installed on my Macbook. I still have to create templates for pages, singles, comments, etc., so there is still quite a bit of work to be done. I’m also looking at creating some WP plugins as well, but more on that later.
Here’s another screenshot for you to check out.
Just a small update. I managed to get a lot done on my theme today. Here is what it looks like. It’s not really where I thought I’d be going with the theme, but I like this current theme so much that I thought I’d do something similar, but not broken in IE 6. So it’s been quite a challenge to say the least.
I decided to switch to the default Wordpress theme as Wordpress 2.5 has been delayed. So I’ll move development to my home computer or something and you can enjoy this slick and professional theme in the meantime.
Please note that I am once again changing the theme of my site. However, instead of doing it offline and then upping all the changes at once, I decided to do it piece-meal. So if you see some weird stuff, consider yourself lucky!
UPDATE: It turns out that Wordpress 2.5 is due out tomorrow (March 10), so this redesign couldn’t come at a better time.
I updated my theme. It took me about 3 working days to put it all together if you total up all the time I spent on it. I was never satisfied with the previous theme. It was fugly. So check this one out and let me know what you think of it and report any bugs you find.
