Redwall_hp

Google Adds Autocomplete

2007-03-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

I was running a quick Google search a couple minutes ago and noticed something different about the main Google page. Guess what it is. They took the AJAX auto-complete system they had in Google Labs for ages and added it to the main Google page. Now, whether you like it or not (I'm still deciding) you get suggestions as you type your search query. Cool or not? I don't know yet. It may help you come up with a better search term or it may annoy you. Who knows, we'll figure out soon enough.

Blogs Head to Head: Blogger vs. Wordpress

2007-03-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

Thinking of starting a blog? If so, you're probably trying to decide what system to use to run it. I'd say the top two are Blogger (blogger.com) and Wordpress (wordpress.org. Blogger is mainly a pre-hosted service that stores all your stuff on Google's servers. Not a bad arrangement, unless you want more control over everything (you know who you are). Wordpress is a set of PHP scripts you upload to your web host and follow some instructions to install it (it's pretty easy and only takes 10 minutes or so). "Wordpress.com" is a service that gives you a limited Wordpress blog that's hosted by someone else (sort of like the Wordpress version of Blogger). I don't recommend this, unless you are unable to install Wordpress (if your host has Fantastico it can do it for you in 30 seconds by the way). If that's the case, you may prefer Blogger anyway. I like the look and feel of Wordpress and it's added power. I may move this blog over to a Wordpress setup eventually (keeping the same address, or course -- you'll barely notice a difference). One cool feature of Wordpress is a "Blog Importer". If your blog used to be on Blogger or another service, Wordpress can import all your old posts and stuff. Cool or what? Well, enough ranting, it's time for the Head to Head.

Blogger
Okay, first up is Blogger, Google's offering.

Blogger has a nice feature set, but doesn't clutter things or make itself hard to use. It's a great introductory blogging system, letting you host your blog on Google's servers or partially on your own. You can use either a subdomain resembling you.blogspot.com or point your own domain at the blog. The template system used since it's launch in 1999 is amazing. You can install a new design just by pasting some text into a box, or by using one of the included ones in the template gallery. Making your own doesn't take much beyond basic HTML and CSS knowledge either. You can still use that great template system or the new "layouts feature" that allows you to modify one of the several included designs just by dragging and dropping. Unfortunately this makes it harder to code your own new design. You can use either of the methods, since Blogger understands both. Comments, feeds, posting by email, multiple authors, and lots of other useful features are supported as well. Blogger's pretty good, especially for the novice user (even if you have plenty of web experience, you may like Blogger).

Wordpress
Now it's time for Wordpress, the option for those who want absolute control of everything.

If Blogger has a "nice" feature set, Wordpress's is spectacular. You can separate your posts into categories, write static pages (an about page is a good example), you can easily manage a blogroll, etc. You can configure virtually anything if you want to. The templates used for Wordpress are available all over the web (just Google "wordpress theme"). They're not quite as easy to make as Blogger ones, though you have a lot more you can do. It's best to create a web layout first, then start template-itizing it with Wordpress's "template tags". Wordpress requires having a place to host it (with PHP and MySQL support). You can get such hosting for as little as $2.99/month. That price includes your own domain too. I like Wordpress a lot, it's not quite as easy to use as Blogger, but it's easy nonetheless. I highly recommend Wordpress, but NOT the service known as wordpress.com (it's practically useless unless you want to pay them for "premium services").

Conclusion
I highly recommend either Blogger or Wordpress for anyone wanting to start a blog. Blogger is great for people who are just getting started with Blogging and don't know much about the inner workings of the web, while Wordpress is great for more experienced people. If you can set up a Wordpress blog (or if you know someone who can set it up for you), you'll definitely not outgrow it when your blog becomes popular.

Apple Multi-Touch

2007-03-07T06:39:00.000-05:00

Multi-Touch is Apple's touchscreen technology used in the iPhone. Currently the most advanced touchscreen system, it ignores accidental presses, lets you drag and zoom with logical finger motions, guesses what you're typing on the onscreen keyboard, and more.

A lot of people seem to think that Apple is planning to introduce a Multi-Touch Mac. Plenty of people think it will replace the iMac. I don't think so. I think that they will introduce a new Mac model that will use MultiTouch -- if they do a MultiTouch mac. I suppose it's logical for them to do it.

What type of mac would their new model be though? What do you think? What type of computer would benefit the most from a touchscreen? Not an iMac (your shoulder would get sore from stabbing at the screen anyway). Not a MacBook (pro or not), but close. How about a tablet? The tablet computing model is perfect for the Multi-Touch system. With current tablets you have to attempt to do basic computing with a stylus pen. You click icons and scribble text on the display. With Multi-Touch you'd be able to scroll easier, and it's got to be a lot easier to type by pushing an onscreen keyboard with your fingers than dealing with handwriting recognition that mangles your writngs (I have horrible handwriting, as do a lot of others). I think if Apple were to produce a Multi-Touch Mac it would be a tablet; a companion to the Macbook line.

Login Convergence

2007-03-06T10:51:00.000-05:00

There are forums, blogs, webmail scripts, an more. What's wrong with that? They ALL use their own database table to store login information. So if a webmaster runs a website that has a forum and other 3rd party scripts that require users to login, you'll have to make your users sign-up and login for who knows how many scripts. It's getting to be ridiculous. As a user, do you want to have to register to post comments, register to use a forum, etc all for ONE website? I didn't think so, especially in an age where most sign-ups require email activation - which means heading over to your email client again. No, it's not good. What can be done about it though? I believe that a standard login protocol needs to be developed. A database structure that stores login information that any script on the same server can access. That way your forum, blog, and CMS all work with the same login data. It would be extremely hard to set something like that up on your own. You'd be better off writing your own forum and CMS code rather than using 3rd party scripts. It doesn't even require much development. All that needs to be done is the following:

Someone needs to find a MySQL database structure that will fit most applications.
This standard needs to gain a following of developers so as to make the standard, well, standard.
Major scripts would need to be rewritten to use the standard.

Simple in theory, but not in practice.

I think a good system would be to have a database with the table userAuth in it. This table would have the columns userID, userName, userPass, userEmail, userActivated, userBanned, and userJoinedDate. If a script needed more information stored it would have another table created and match up the data with the userID (which is not null and auto_increment'ed). This system should work for most applications.

FastStone Capture

2007-03-05T13:18:00.000-05:00

Windows' screen-capture features not good enough? Try FastStone Capture. It's free, and works pretty good. It sits by the taskbar clock unnoticed until you need it (assuming you disable the annoying "capture toolbox that hovers around your screen). FastStone capture takes screenshots of the entire screen, the active window, a rectangular region, a freehand region, or my favorite: a scrolling window. All these can be invoked through the taskbar icon or with keyboard shortcuts. Depending on how you configure it, FastStone Capture will either auto-save the file, prompt you for a location, send it to the clipboard, or take it to a built-in editor for some basic editing (crop,resize,etc). Not bad for a free screencap program, right?

Stop Imprisoning Site Users!

2007-03-03T14:12:00.000-05:00

People need to stop trying to keep users on their sites. Take a look at about.com, Netscape's new "Digg Clone". Those two sites are especially bad. If you click an outbound link, it opens up with a frame floating up at the top. They're obviously trying to get people to stay on the site (and make more $$$ of their ads). Okay, if I want to stay on the site, I'll open the new page in a different tab with a click of that handy middle-mouse-button. And don't forget all those sites (literally millions of 'em) that open outbound links in a new windows (aaarg!). I don't mind it as much now that I set Firefox to open new windows in new tabs instead, but I still prefer to be the one making the decision, not some webmaster who thinks their site is the best one on the web. [admit it, this one is. :-)] It's a useless effort to try to keep your users from leaving. If they want to leave, they will. Your annoying schemes will only irritate them and help them decide not to come back. With the invention of tabbed-browsing, it's insanely easy to manage multiple pages and keep the previous site open if you wish. It's time to abandon old practices and let the users decide.

Adobe Online: What's the deal?

2007-03-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

What's with Adobe lately? First they introduce Adobe Remix, an online video editing app, and now they're doing the same thing with Photoshop. Both programs will be free and ad-supported. I suppose they ay be useful for some things like if you're blogging from a public computer and need to edit an image quickly, but they won't be useful for much else. They're obviously aimed at the totall novice, probably at people who are even too inexperianced to bother with Photoshop Elements. I'm guessing they're mainly launching these new services to put down some of these new startups that are offering online photo/video editing apps. To top that all off, Photoshop takes long enough to load, and runs slow emough, already. Imagine going over the web. So, you definitely don't want to ditch your copy of Photoshop!

DX Ball

2007-03-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

You may have played Breakout, an old Atari game, but have you tried DXBall? DXBall plays in a similar manner to breakout, but they've went well beyond it. You move the paddle at the bottom of the screen to bounce the falling ball back to the top of the screen, trying to hit the bricks. Some bricks explode, destroying the bricks surrounding them, others take more than one hit to be destroyed, etc. Sometimes when you destroy a brick a powerup falls from the top of the screen. The powerups give you fire-able lasers, bigger paddles, and tons of other useful things to use in game. Be warned, this game is very addicting. You will likely play for hours on end. Try it out. It's free with a few boards, but you can pay a small amount of money to get more.

Lego Star Wars

2007-03-02T14:30:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't think that a game called Lego Star Wars would sell 3.8 million units, right? Well it did, and Lego made a more recent sequel for episodes 4, 5, and 6 too. I'm not joking, the game is actually fun. In Lego Star wars you control Lego people (especially Jedi) and go around playing through the Star Wars episodes. You can pull off several attack combos and deflect blaster bolts with your lightsaber. To unlock things in game you have to collect Lego pieces that you trade for more characters, cheats, and other stuff in between levels. If all four of your lives are lost you're character falls apart in a pile of lego parts, dropping 2000 legos. Your character appears right where it was. It's virtually impossible to NOT beat a level, but it's not easy to totally beat the game. The game is totally funny, especially the cutscenes between levels. The game has a bit of a Lego feel, but it's got enough realism to make it playable. If you like Star Wars (without being a totally obsessed maniac) you'd probably like the game.

Script.aculo.us

2007-03-01T11:44:00.000-05:00

Script.aculo.us has got to be my favorite JavaScript library! Just FTP a few files to your web server and included them with a couple <script> tags. You won't notice anything different at first, but your site has just become dynamic. With an insanely small amount of code you can create cool JavaScript effects, sortable elements, easy AJAX queries, AJAX autocomplete forms, and more. It's based off the Prototype Framework, and anyone can use it for free. And I really do mean anyone! Just take a look at their quick Getting Started Guide and you'll see. You can for a really basic example have a DIV disappear with a cool animated effect when it's clicked just with this code:

<div onclick="new Effect.SwitchOff(this)">
Click here to close this DIV!
</div>

It's amazing what you can do. AJAX queries become so easy you don't have to think about it, complex drag-and-drop scripts become a few lines. If you've used JavaScript before, you can do it. Try it out.

LSMaker: Lightsabers For Free

2007-02-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wanted to make a short film or Star Wars fanfilm that involved lightsabers? Of course you could use Adobe After Effects or FXHome EffectsLab, but why should you pay $199-$799 for software like that? Try LSMaker, a freely available program that may not be ridiculously easy to use, but works well. You can see a sample of the end product by playing the YouTube video I made where I added a lightsaber blade over my RuneScape player's sword. I added a few sound effects and there it is. As you can see I'm not overly skilled at lightsaber-drawing yet, but I'm getting there. LSMaker can draw 2-point lightsabers where you just click at the start and end of the blade to place the effect, and the more advanced 4-point version which is used for blurring effects while the blade is moving fast. You can pick virtually any color for the center and outer glow of the blade, place flashes of light on the impact of the blades, and even make blasters by making "mini lightsabers" and animating them across the screen quickly. You definitely need to read the manual before starting, but all in all it's a nice program (and you sure can't beat the price). When you're filming lightsaber sequences, you should use wooden dowels (or equivalent) with stripes made of duct tape so as to make it easier to draw the blades correctly. You can animate the blade extending by getting something to use as a lightsaber hilt (how about a flashlight?) and drawing a blade, slowly making it longer each frame. Then just switch over to the wooden dowels for the actual fighting. George Lucas did something similar. Give it a try, if your not in the mood to film anything, try doing what I did. Add a lightsaber over a sword from an MMORPG.

Ghost In The Machine

2007-02-27T22:46:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that as you use your computer it seems to slowly build-up unique characteristics, and almost a personality? This happens with computers and other devices too. After a couple months of using a new computer, it will have characteristics that you put into it. For example you will have all your Windows or OS X settings, installed programs, files, and lots of other things. That alone is pretty unique, but there are odd unexplained things that happen too. You can write them off as bugs and glitches if you want, but they are unique to each computer. My PC, for example, randomly freezes and reboots with nothing to provoke it to do so. For awhile if I opened the "My Videos" folder, Windows Explorer would crash and reload itself. I couldn't access any of the files in there for months, until the problem corrected itself one day. The computers at the local library are really bad about this. There's this big table with 6 workstations on it. Those computers particularly would act totally differently even though they were the same make and model, running Microsoft Active Desktop. Some would run at different speeds, some wouldn't run shockwave applets, one would have odd problems with Java applets, and another would mysteriously close your active window at random moments. They all had a totally different collection of spyware and toolbars too. This has been corrected by the network admin recently, but it's starting to happen again. It's not just PCs either. The pinsetters and scoring systems at the local bowling alley are ancient and do odd things too. On one lane the system would always start in French mode and would always not score any shots until one of the bowling center's staff went back and messed with a circuit board in it. Just today the pinsetter would reset the pins and ready for my second ball, even though I hadn't bowled by first yet. It only did it when the bowler before me fouled on his second ball, though.

I'm not attributing these odd happenings to anything other than bugs and general use, but isn't it interesting that these weird things happen after the machine has been in use for a while?

Wow!

2007-02-27T22:39:00.000-05:00

Those two lists I posted recently 10 Things You Don't Want to Hear Bill Gates Say and 21 Things NOT to Say to Bill Gates are being blogged all over the place. Ten Things was blogged at this site and 21 Things Not to Say was posted on ZuneComplaints.net. Thanks for the links guys!

Launchy -- Who Needs a Start Menu?

2007-02-27T10:50:00.000-05:00

Tired of searching through your Start menu for the app you need? Give Launchy a try! Launchy crawls your start menu, desktop, and any other folders you specify every 20 minutes or so (you can adjust the time period). When you press a customizable keystroke (I chose Win-Space, but the default is Alt-Space) a little skinable box appears. You just start typing the name of the app you want and launchy does the rest. Once you've got the icon for the program you want in the main part of the box (not the dropdown) you hit enter and the app launches. It's really cool and useful. Try it out, you won't go back. Who needs a Start menu?

Audacity

2007-02-27T10:40:00.000-05:00

Audacity is the ultimate free audio editor. It costs you nothing, just head over to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and download it. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc as well. The program is perfect for podcasting. It records, edits, applies effects and more. Recording and editing a podcast in audacity is amazingly simple. Plug in your mic, and click record. When your down hit stop and begin editing. You can learn how to work the easy to use editing tools just by reading a couple pages out of the manual. Then export to MP3 (requires installing LAME) and your done. Amazing for a free audio editor, isn't it?

Make Feed Icons More Interesting

2007-02-26T11:47:00.000-05:00

Everyone seems to agree that the "standardized" icon for RSS feeds is the type available at www.feed-icons.com. But what if you want something slightly different? Here are some ideas to get you started (you can use them on your site or blog if you wish). The standard icon is getting boring, make your own, use these, etc. What are you waiting for? Make feed icons more interesting! Fire up Photoshop and make your own!

Microsoft Windows Vs. The Apple Macintosh

2007-02-26T11:04:00.000-05:00

NOTE: This is intended to be a humorous post targeted at people who are tired of Windows (and Mac owners). Do not take it seriously.

-Names
Windows: Boring. Microsoft sounds like a mattress company.

Mac: Cool, but 'Apple Macintosh' doesn't really describe what the product is.

Winner: Mac.

-Coin Flip
Windows: Tails.
Mac: Heads.
Results: Tails, Heads. Heads.
Winner: Mac.

-Logo
Windows: A cool flag made of multicolored squares. Unfortunately they recently added a dorky blue circle behind it.

Mac: A really cool metallic blue picture of an Apple.

Winner: Mac.

-Google Fights
My PC crashed:11,600,000 results
My Mac crashed: 6,280,000 results
Winner: Mac.

-Reputation
Windows: Windows is known for crashing a lot, having a monopoly on the computer world, and being best used in the corporate environment.

Mac: The Mac OS is older than Windows, is used by most graphic artists and other "creative professionals", and is generally considered to be more stable.

Winner: Mac.

-Commercials
Windows: That really stupid "Wow" commercial.
Mac: Those funny I'm a Mac commercials.
Winner: Mac.

-Company's other products
Windows: The XBox
Mac: The iPod.
Winner: Mac, but Windows is close (XBox sales are pretty high)

-Overall Winner
The Winner is the Apple Macintosh by a landslide.

10 Things You Don't Want to Hear Bill Gates Say

2007-02-26T09:59:00.001-05:00

In no particular order, here are 10 things you don't want to hear Bill Gates say:

"The next Windows release will require a credit card number at activation, and will automatically bill you at the start of every month."
"A name has been decided on for 'Codename Vienna'. It will be Windows Mirage."
"You don't have to worry about adware being installed without permission anymore. Now the advertisers go through us. Your hourly pop-up ad will be delivered through Windows itself instead of a hazardous adware program."
"Since no one liked our talking paperclip in Microsoft Office, we're giving Internet Explorer a talking donut."
"What, Firefox 3 is out? Send out the Orcs!"
"Google had good luck with the 'invitation only' approach, so we're doing the same thing with Hotmail. To get an account you have to either get an invitation from an existing user or bring us a shrubbery."
"We got so many comments about Windows XP crashing a lot, we decided to build that feature into Vista, too!"
"Oh, enough of all this Windows stuff already. Just proclaim me your king and send me $500 every year."
"Internet Explorer 8 will be based of the Geico Rendering Engine. I believe that's the same one Firefox is based off?" [NOTE: Firefox is based off the Gecko engine. :-) ]
"Due to complaints about Vista's sluggishness, we're releasing a fifteen gigabyte service pack that should correct the problem."

21 Things NOT to say to Bill Gates

2007-02-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

In no particular order, here's 21 things you should definitely NOT say to Bill Gates:

"How many songs do you have on your iPod, Bill?"
"Gee, Vista sure looks familiar... Now where have I seen something like that?..."
"Can I borrow $399?"
"What Linux distro would you recommend?"
"I'm gonna go buy a Mac. See ya!"
"I won't be buying a Zune anytime Zune!"
"So you're saying I should pay actual money to upgrade to Vista so my computer will run slower?"
"How about bundling a good browser, like Firefox, with windows?"
"The Rebels have released Version 10.5, Lord Vader."
"Would you like to buy a Firefox T-Shirt?"
"Why should I need to buy antivirus protection from Microsoft? Shouldn't it be built in?"
"Why is my Hotmail account filled with spam from MSN?"
"Hey, Billbossa! Why isn't the spyware gone?"
"Why is there a talking paperclip invading my word processor?"
"One browser to rule them all."
"Think Different."
"Can you make Windows more Mac-like?"
"That's all you can make after six years?"
"Sorry, can't talk now. I've got to go sell the rest of my Microsoft stock."
"Want a GMail invite?"
"Another Windows release? Time to get out the old typewriter..."

Google Apps Goes Pro

2007-02-24T06:56:00.000-05:00

Google Apps For Your Domain, that cool service that lets you have 100 free email accounts @yourdomain.com, has just updated some things and created a new premium version. The most noticeable of their changes is the new administration panel. It's got a very different look. They made it look more professional and less like it was thrown together quickly.

The less noticeable changes reside on the Google Apps website. They've changed the site a bit and the service is no longer in beta apparently. That's only the beginning. Head over to the Google Apps comparison chart. Google Apps users have all the same features they've had from the beginning, but take a look at the premium plan...

The shocking bit is the premium plan costs $50/user/year. Ouch. Then you'll notice that the premium users get 10GB of storage instead of 2GB. That's more than standard GMail! Using a tool such as GMailDrive you could store a nice amount of stuff there. The worst part is the APIs section. They've provided users with the ability to put login and sign-up forms on their website! This feature has been sought after by nearly every GAFYD user on the planet. WHY did they have to make it a premium feature? I doubt most GAFYD users will be able to afford $50 per user per year. Let's see, suppose you have 80 users. That's $50 x 80. So you'd have to pay $4000 for the premium service. Then don't forget that you'll likely get more users than that eventually, especially if you put their sign-up form on your website. Oh well, if you need more features at a lower price than Google will provide, give RoundCube a try.

Smashing Magazine

2007-02-23T20:28:00.000-05:00

Ever heard of Smashing Magazine? Their tagline is "We smash you with the information, which will make your life easier. Really." And they carry out their promise. Every couple days they post a new entry that literally does smash you with information. The posts vary in web-related topics (css, photoshop, html, php, useful sites, etc.). A lot of their posts consist of a list of links that they think you may find useful. The number of links varies -- anywhere from a rare 5 to the largest I've seen so far: 83. You'd think that it would be unpleasant reading through 83 links, but it's quite enjoyable. Smashing Magazine knows what their doing. Try their site out. If your a webmaster, you'll enjoy it. You may even want to subscribe to their RSS feed. Here's my current top favorite posts of theirs:

WHAT?! Mcrosoft Virtual PC 2007

2007-02-21T07:29:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has just released, for FREE, Virtual PC 2007. It's a fully-functional program that has been updated to work with Vista. Now why would Microsoft give something away for free? How about this reason: You must buy Vista Ultimate Edition ($499 about) to legally use Vista virtually. So, that may be another option for Mac users wanting to virtualize Windows. Although.... Looking at the download page it seems as if it only runs on Windows! It looks like Microshaft may be using this just for more compatibility for people switching from XP to Vista.

PCWORLD: The Most Annoying Things About Vista

2007-02-20T15:05:00.000-05:00

PC World's got a new page up on their website. It's called "The Most Annoying Things About Vista". Hehe. I agree with it totally. I especially like the part about Vista Home Edition. They, correctly, say that it has no reason to exist other than to let Microsoft say "Vista costs as low as $100". They unfortunately didn't mention the Vista EULA (End User License Agreement) which states that you must use the really exensive (think $499) version of Vista (Ultimate Edition) if you want to use it on a Mac in combination with Parallels Desktop or VMWare's emulator. Basically they're making you pay more because you're not using it as often as they want. Going back to the subject of Vista Home Edition, it's a much better deal to just use Windows XP if your computer can't run one of the "greater" versions of Vista. I'm not going to get Vista. Period. I'd rather get a Mac next time.

iPhone minus the Phone!

2007-02-20T10:32:00.000-05:00

I agree with this Digg page here. I wish there was an iPhone without the phone part. I totally don't like phones. Not even traditional land-line ones. I prefer digital communication, be it email, IM, or videoconferencing. It would be really cool to have a pocket-sized device that has a persistent connection to the web. A full-scale web browser (a mini-Firefox would be better than Safari though), email, IM, etc all in your pocket. Not to mention the fact that the iPhone also has music and video playing capabilities... The iPhone is one amazing gadget, but why the 'phone' part? The iPhone's other features can stand on their own. I'd prefer to have just EDGE, EVDO, or something similar than to have to pay for cellular service. Though what I'd really prefer is beyond the phone-less iPhone. I'd like a pocket sized device that runs a full-scale copy of the Mac OS. The iPhone is a collection of technologies that could one day make the use of a hand-held computer enjoyable rather than irritating. Someone at Apple needs to realize that this is a great opportunity. Remember the OQO? It's never really caught on, but that's the first step toward what I believe everyone will one day carry in their pockets.

Vista Speech Recognition

2007-02-19T12:23:00.000-05:00

I first saw this video clip on YouTube in early fall (around September 2006). It's a demo held in Redmond, Washington of the speech recognition features of Windows Vista. It's hilarious. The "Microsoft Guy" is dictating to the computer and it makes a mistake. He says "delete that" and it writes totally unrelated text after the first part. So the guy says "select all" and it writes a bunch of nonsense after it. It's funny.

CSS Tab Designer

2007-02-19T09:32:00.000-05:00

You've probably wanted to make cool-looking menus for you're website before, right? But a lot of times it's time-consuming to make them, having to prepare several images, write stylesheets, etc. Well, now there's an option for building quick CSS menus. It's called CSS Tab Designer. With CSS Tab Designer you just make a list of entries for the menu, pick a style, and hit generate code. The program will save the HTML, CSS, and images required to the path you specify. You may be wondering what the various styles of menu look like by now, right? Well, you can view a LARGE screenshot of the styles pane by clicking here. Give it a try; at worst you won't like it. At best, it will be a useful tool to aid the development of you're website.

10 Ways to Annoy the Heck out of Your Visitors

2007-02-18T12:15:00.000-05:00

If you're a webmaster designing a website, there are 10 things you should NOT do unless seriously annoy you're users. These things include (in no particular order):

Pop-up ads. Don't even think about it! They may pay well, but most people totally hate having a small window with something as stupid as an advertisement launched right into their face. Admit it, you have a pop-up blocker installed on your computer.
Dark text on a dark background. Does it make any sense to have dark gray text on a black background? NO! You need to make sure that the text is legible. After all, what do you normally do on a website? You read it! You should also note that some people's monitors display things differently. If I design something that looks great on my CRT, it will likely looked washed out on a Dell Dimension D510's LCD screen.
Full-Flash websites. Do NOT even consider making your entire website in Adobe Flash. It will take too long to load, search engines will be totally blind to your content, and your users will not like your weird navigation scheme. It's okay to put Flash on your site, but don't make the entire site out of it (if you insist on making the site entirely with Flash, at least make an alternate non-flash version). *cough* Warner Brothers *cough*.
Demanding IE. Do not ever demand that your users use Internet Explorer. A large percentage of web users use browsers other than Internet Explorer. Demanding IE will infuriate them. Take Wal-Mart's video downloads site for example. It launched in Early February and they demanded that users use IE. Guess what? Their site is anything but a success. I use Firefox, and I can't stand IE. Make sure your site works in Firefox!
Backgrond music. Don't. Background music takes a long time to load, then proceeds to drive you're users slowly insane. Put it this way: Do you want Beethoven's 5th Symphony blasting through your speakers suddenly, just because some webmaster thought it would be cool?
Amateurish practises. Do not make your site look like it was thrown together by Yahoo Geocities's stupid WYSMBWYGSO (What You See May Be What You Get. Sort Of) editor. Learn HTML and CSS, then make a layout (if you can't do that, get one from a template site). You're site should look professional (example: this site) not like a seven-year-old threw it together (example: the 1996 Lego Website). On a similar note, if you must use a free webhost, use one like Awardspace.com. There should be NO ads that are, uh, added by the host (forced ads), and you should have PHP and MySQL access too.
Stupid JavaScript tricks. Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!! People will run away screaming if they see more blinking text, "cursor trails", or other weird tricks. Don't disable people's right-mouse-buttons either. I'm not complaining about JavaScript, just stupid pointless things done with it. I'm a big AJAX fan.
Navigation. Any site should have navigational links on either a sidebar or a "topbar". The links should not be "broken" and they should be structured in a logical manner that will help your users find what they want. Search tools are useful too. Your visitors shouldn't feel like they're stumbling through the middle of nowhere without a map.
Excessive.use.of.dots.in.your.url. If i have to type Del.icio.us or Script.aculo.us one more time I'm going to throw up. Where does the first dot go again? How many dots are there? Aaaagh! "Subdomain Tricks" like this are okay if done correctly, but they annoy a lot of people if they aren't. Some examples of good ones are: mail.yahoo.com, redwallhp.ntugo.com, ma.gnolia.com, etc. Subdomains are a useful and tool (redwallhp.ntugo.com or you.blogspot.com), but only if used correctly. The URL must be formed in a way that's easy to remember and type. Oh well, at least it's better than some of those library and governmental websites like www.bpl.lib.me.us.
Registration for pointless reasons. Don't make people sign-up just so they can see what's on your site. Suppose someone sends me a link to a news article that's allegedly interesting. I shouldn't have to register just to read it. The websites for "traditional" print publications are the biggest offenders here. The same goes for things like polls. To vote on a poll, you should just be able to click your choice without logging in to anything.

Well there have it, 10 bits of advice you should follow to avoid annoying your potential users.

The New Layout Is Here!

2007-02-18T12:07:00.000-05:00

I just put the new layout up. What do you think? The wider content column is great for posting large images and YouTube videos, and the sidebar looks more "sidebar-y" (the old one was too...open. I don't know how to describe it. It just looked wrong.) How do you like our new tagline on the green strip at the top? "Everything you need to know, and lots of stuff you don't". It was suggested to me in the afternoon yesterday. Well, that's taken care of. Expect to see more blogging soon!

Designing New Layout + Tagline

2007-02-17T14:02:00.000-05:00

I'm currently working on a new layout for the blog. The design's coming a long nicely and those of you with screen resolutions of 1024x768 or greater will (most likely) be pleased to know that the new layout will be wider to take advantage of the ever expanding "real estate" available on monitors. That said, I've got a question for all of you. If you look at the top of the blog you'll see a tagline. "Computers, Internet, Harry Potter, Etc." is what it currently says. Kind of boring, right? Does anyone have an idea for a new one? Here are some examples of taglines:

"Makers of fine wands since 382 B.C." - Ollivander's wand shop in Harry Potter.
"We smash you with information. This will make you're life easier. Really." (or something like that) - Smashing Magazine.
"Harry Potter On The Air" - PotterCast.

You get the idea, right? If you have any ideas for a new tagline, post 'em in the comments.

Is it time for a new layout?

2007-02-16T12:48:00.000-05:00

I like my blog's current layout, but it just seems a little cluttered lately. What do you think? Should I change the blog's design?

M.C. Escher in Lego

2007-02-16T11:58:00.000-05:00

"M.C. Escher was a Dutch graphic artist."

I found a cool image on Flickr. It's M.C. Escher in Lego. In case you were wondering, M.C. Escher was a "Dutch graphic artist known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints which feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations." (quote from Wikipedia). You can see the image at http://www.flickr.com/photos/design_inspiration/238542495/. The picture is the one where there are tons of staircases connected in ways impossible in the real world. It must have been hard to do that with Lego bricks!

AddThis.com

2007-02-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Ever wanted to make it easy for people to bookmark your site? Or how about making it easy to add your blog posts to Digg, Del.Icio.Us or another one of those "social bookmarking" services? Now you can. AddThis.com allows you to add a button (similar to the one on the left-hand sidebar) that, when clicked, opens a new window with options to do the following:

Bookmark in your browser
Digg it
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Google Bookmarks
Add to Magnoloa
Or any of the dozens of options

There's a huge amount of options. Try clicking my button (on the left sidebar). See all those choices? All you have to do is copy and paste the line of code AddThis.com gives you.

Gmail Signups Now Open

2007-02-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

Google has some odd news they just posted today. Gmail signups are now open to the public, invitations and mobile phones are no longer required. Anyone can sign up just by heading over to www.gmail.com and clicking the signup link. Spread the word! If you know people who use Yahoo or Hotmail (those horrible services!) tell them how easy it is to switch. If you want to see the original Google Blog post, click here.

Wikipedia not in danger (good)

2007-02-11T20:29:00.001-05:00

Wikipedia will not be closing any time soon. The quote pointing that out was taken out of context. Originally what it was supposed to mean is that Wikipedia does need funding to keep going, but they're not in immediate danger.

read more | digg story

Wikipeda in Danger

2007-02-10T21:46:00.001-05:00

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that offers way more than any other reference source in existence, is in danger. It costs a huge amount of money to run the site with tons of visitors every day, after all. They claim that they have enough funds to run the site for another 3-4 months currently. They're asking for donations, and selling T-Shirts and stuff to try to raise funds to keep it going. Unless Google or someone buys them, they may be facing serious financial trouble. If you're a Wikipedia user with a few spare dollars, you can donate to the Wikimedia Project (the parent organization) or purchase T-Shirts by going to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising/.

read more | digg story

Netflix

2007-02-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

Do you rent movies frequently? Then stop going to Blockbuster! For about $6/month, Netflix (netflix.com), will send you movies through standard US mail one at a time. When you finish one, you send it back in a postage-paid envelope and you'll receive a new one immediately after. After using it for a few months, I'd say it's a great service. Currently my family gets about 1-2 movies per week using the $6/mo plan. The only problems we've had so far are national holidays (no mail. aaargh!) and cases were the movie had to be shipped from a distribution facility in another state. The selection of movies is quite large (waaaay more than any Blockbuster store). To choose what movies you want you browse through their database, choosing movies, then you set them in the order you'd prefer. If all copies of a movie (within reasonable distance) are out (there can be waiting lists too), Netflix will skip the movie and give you the next one, coming back to the other film when it's available. I could go on about Netflix for a while longer, but I have to go. I highly recommend Netflix (the discs are scrathed less than Blockbusters too!), and I believe (not sure) they have trial periods if your not sure you want the service.

New Mac/PC commercial from Apple

2007-02-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

Apple has a new, currently unreleased, Mac vs. PC commercial. It's about Windows Vista's "Microsoft Defender" software. It's pretty funny. You can play it here.

Leaky Cauldron's Polls

2007-02-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

My second favorite Harry Potter site (www.pottersurf.com rules!) is The Leaky Cauldron (www.leakynews.com). They seem a lot more professional than Mugglenet, which seems to have snagged it's large audience by having a shorter URL longer than Leaky (it used to be the-leaky-cauldron.org). Well, I've talked about this all before. What this post is really about is Leaky's polls. They're definitely the funniest ones on the web. Take a look at the one to the right. They're usual format is several semi-funny answers that you'd actually consider choosing, and one that's totally ridiculous (people click that one a lot just because It's funny sometimes). There should be more online polls like their's.

Project Phoenix: Still Going

2007-02-04T09:46:00.000-05:00

In case you were wondering what's up with Project Phoenix, here's a little status update. Currently the next installment (it's huge) is still being worked on. It's going to take a bit longer to finish it, but it'll be well worth the wait.

HP Book7's Release Date Released

2007-02-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

YEAH!! The release date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been, uh, released. The book will come out on July 21, 2007. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WIRED Blogs: Monkey Bites

2007-01-31T20:04:00.000-05:00

Monkey Bites Blog: Vista Predictions Recap
Okay, this is funny (to me anyway) and well... it's true. Here's what others have to say about Vista. I agree with a lot of it. MY favorite highlights:

"Vista will become in 3-5 years the majority OS...not due to sales or upgrades but due to the fact that no new PC will ship with anything else nor will you be given the option to purchase XP or Linux. Ignore the eye candy and what do you really have? XP SP3 and a graphical upgrade." --Anonymous

By the end of 2007 they'll start talking about the next version of Windows that will have the features that they dropped from Vista, the same features that were droped from XP and NT before that. -- Dave King

I found it! Apple - 30 years

2007-01-29T09:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, I was looking around YouTube and I finally found the other "30 Years of Apple" video. This one is a little different than the one I posted earlier in the month. Someone posted a comment on the YouTube page for this. They said it was more like "6 years of Apple". Either way, it's pretty cool.

BDES: The Results

2007-01-27T06:25:00.000-05:00

It's time for the results of the Battle of the Domain Email Services. It seems that Gmail For Your Domain has a slight edge on RoundCube, if you take a few things into account. Here are the results.

1. Gmail For Your Domain (www.google.com/a/)
2. RoundCube Webmail (www.roundcube.net)
3. Plain Old IMAP or POP3.
4. Squirrelmail (included on most server accounts, www.squirrelmail.org)

If you want easy setup and very little management, or if you lack IMAP accounts and storage, go with Gmail For Your Domain. If you have enough IMAP accounts, storage, and expertise to configure it, you can go with RoundCube. RoundCube is for those of you who want more control over the look and feel than GMail offers. Both came very close in score.

Avoid Squirrelmail at all costs. Isn't it funny that something intended to be an improvement on IMAP's (or POP3's) usability... well... isn't really. It may have been in 1996, but it badly needs to be updated.

This concludes the Battle of the Domain Email Services... for now.

BDES: RoundCube

2007-01-26T09:08:00.000-05:00

Today on the Battle of the Domain Email Services we have RoundCube Webmail (www.roundcube.net). This cool software package costs nothing at all, and it behaves a lot like a desktop email program like Thunderbird.

Basically you create an IMAP inbox on your server for each user. Then you install RoundCube by FTPing the whole thing, editing a couple of files, and adding some tables to a database. You can edit all the images and template files to your hearts content, making this email system look exactly how you want it. If you're a PHP freak, you can even open up end edit parts of the script's inner workings to customize things even further.

You log in by going to www.yourdomain.com/the_folder_you_installed_roundcube_in/. You enter your username and password and you're in. The inbox sort of reminds me of GMail, but with more AJAX-based functions. You can drag and drop messages, select multiple items, and more.

This is one slick script. It seems that it would be capable of running a small email service (not Yahoo-sized). All you'd need would be a script to create IMAP accounts on your server.

Advantages:

Mega AJAX! This is nearly as cool as GMail for your domain.
The ultimate in customization.
Nice and user-friendly.
It's all on your server so you have infinite control over everything.

Disadvantages:

You have to set everything up yourself.
This is beta software, so there are occasional bugs and quirks.
It's all on your server, so make sure you have storage space.

Basically, this is a great email program for those of you with the experience to set it up. It's the alternative you should go with if you find Gmail For Your Domain too limiting in terms of customization. If you know some PHP, this is the script for you. You can add a quick-login form to your site's mainpage if you can script one (or if you ask on the RoundCube forum). RoundCube is a great option for domain email -- as long as you have the experience to set it up.

I Knew It! (Google Video + YouTube)

2007-01-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

Google has announced that Google Video will from now onward become more of a search engine than a video host. Starting today, YouTube results will now appear on Google Video. Basically YouTube will operate as it always has, and Google Video will become more like Google Images, a search engine for video. I've been theorizing that this would happen ever since Google bought YouTube.

BDES: Gmail For your Domaim

2007-01-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

Now on the Battle of the Domain Email Services is one of my preferred ones, gMail For Your Domain. With GFYD you get the famous AJAX-based (with non-AJAX compatibility mode) interface of Google's GMail, 2GB space per account, up to 100 accounts, and tons of customizations features. All you need is a domain, google hosts everything for you.

Advantages:

It's GMail, only with your domain name instead!
Google hosts everything for you. All you need is your domain.
Google can register a domain for you for $10/year if you don't already have one.
You get 100 accounts, plus unlimited "aliases".
You can customize it to have your own logo, and make the login page look different, etc.
2GB of space -- and it's on someone else's servers!
An amazing easy to use interface -- exactly like GMails.
Built in Instant Messaging/Chat network.

Disadvantages:

Could use more customization features.
You can't put a login box on your site without messing around with some obscure API.

In short, GMFYD (google.com/a/) is an amazing way to get domain email (and it's free). Unless you want to run your own email service with over 100 users, and let them register themselves (you have to approve everyone in the admin panel), this is the best service for you to go with. If it doesn't meet your needs, you may want RoundCube (blog post coming soon).

BDES: Squirrelmail

2007-01-24T11:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, next on the list for the Battle of the Domain Email Services is Sqirrelmail. This email system is sort of the industry standard for domain email. My advice: avoid it like the plague. See the screenshot to the right? You can see more at squirrelmail.org. Horrible isn't it? It's a usability nightmare. It may support tons of ancient browsers due t it's lack of AJAX, but honestly, who would want to use this? It BADLY needs to be updated to work in the modern mail world.

Advantages:

It supports nearly every ancient outdated browser on the planet.
Nearly every webhost comes preinstalled with it.
cPanel has integrated it into it's setup so there's zero configuration for you to do.

Disadvantages:

No AJAX support.
It's definitely not very user-friendly.
Could use more customization options.
It seems to be stuck in the '90s. There haven't many interface updates.
As soon as a user logs in they're like "Aaagh! No! It's Squirrelmail!".
Did I mention it's not user friendly, it looks horrible, and you can't navigate very well?

Clearly it can't hope to compete with it's competitors much longer unless it gets a major interface overhaul.

BDES: Plain Old IMAP or POP3

2007-01-23T10:03:00.000-05:00

First up on the Battle of the Domain Email Services is Plain Old IMAP or POP3. The advantages of this are:

You don't have to rely on another company. Your mail is still kept on your server.
You can use Thunderbird or Outlook to read your email.
You get to pick how big your mailbox is and things like that.

The disadvatages are:

You have to use Thunderbird or Outlook.
If you use POP3 you'll have a hard time checking your mail on more than one computer.
You have to set up everything yourself.

Battle of the Domain Email Services

2007-01-23T09:52:00.000-05:00

Anyone who runs a website most likely wants to have an email account featuring their domain name. You know, sort of like redwall_hp@whatevermydomainis.com. The question is: how should it be set up? I'm going to answer this question with the Battle of the Domain Email Services. What's that? I'm going do a post for each of the contending ways to get email at your domain. As I post, points will be tallied. At the end, the results will be posted.

The contenders are:

Gmail For Your Domain (www.google.com/a/)
Plain old POP3 or IMAP
Squirrelmail
RoundCube Webmail (www.roundcube.net)

Windows Live Domain Mail has been disqualified for several reasons. 1. It's Windows Live Mail Beta. Bleh! That's worse than Horrible Hotmail. 2. It doesn't work right in Firefox. 3. It's really slow. 4. It doesn't work very well unless you have a new computer.

30 Years of Apple Video

2007-01-21T10:23:00.001-05:00

All right, this video is amazing. I found it on YouTube a few days ago. There was a different version that had different music, but it seems to have disappeared (that's the problem with YouTube: finding stuff again). This video seems to be a newer version. The special effects are amazing and it has the authentic "Apple Feel" to it. Press play and you'll see what I mean. The cool part of the video starts after the "Get Mac" commercial at the beginning (why'd they add that to their video?).

Apple Sued Over iPhone

2007-01-12T13:26:00.000-05:00

It didn't take long for Apple to be sued over the iPhone. They announced it Tuesday and already, Cisco is suing them. It turns out Cisco has owned the trademark since 1998, and Apple has been negotiating with them for 2 years. Apple is confident that they will win if it actually goes to court. Allegedly Apple is the first to actually use the name iPhone for a cellphone. Cisco has been using it for a VOIP-related router. Some other companies have used the name for other products as well. You can read more at http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/01/11/appleresponse/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

Bad Move, WB

2007-01-11T11:41:00.000-05:00

Warner Brothers is discontinuing the first four Harry Potter DVDs. You will no longer be able to buy them in stores buy the end of the month. They're replacing them with BluRay/HDDVD hybrid discs. These require special players costing over $900 in addition to a Hi-Def TV. What about those of us who don't want to spend money on more equipment for watching stupid televised &%^@? This was a stupid move on their part. You can buy them here while they last. I, and most likely others, can't afford and/or don't want Hi-Def equipment. Bad move, WB.

Apple --- Welcome to 2007

2007-01-09T23:49:00.000-05:00

Apple has started 2007 off with a bang - raising their stock in the process. Today they revealed the Apple TV (formerly codenamed as iTV), as well as the iPhone. The iTV is a sort of router thing to make your computer totally take over your living room when it comes to multimedia (www.apple.com/appletv/ if you want more on that).

The real big announcement was the iPhone, though. This revolutionary gadget is more than just a phone. It's not a smart-phone, it's a genius-phone. There are no buttons, just a touch-sensitive color display. You can make calls, browse the web, listen to music, play videos, check email, etc. This amazing gadget can do way more than that. It's almost (not quite) like having a Mac in the palm of your hand. Take a look at www.apple.com/iphone/ you won't be disappointed. You'll be seeing a lot of these once they come out.

Attention Fanfic Writers

2007-01-07T23:43:00.000-05:00

Who here writes Harry Potter fanfiction? Have you seen the user-submitted theories on The Site of Requirement? Well, you'll be able to do the same sort of thing with fanfic shortly. We're working on ironing out a few bugs still. We hope to have the new features added by the 20th. So start writing some fanfiction!

Line Rider

2007-01-03T10:29:00.000-05:00

I found Line Rider a few months ago on the Webmonkey MonkeyBites Blog. Line Rider is a flash game (or "toy" as the creator calls it) where you draw lines that form hills, ramps, jumps, loops, etc. Then you click play and watch the stick figure on the sled go through you track. Basically you try to keep him from crashing (or falling). It's a LOT harder than it sounds... and it's surprisingly addicting. You can play it for free at www.official-linerider.com. Guess what. This Spring a small gaming company will release Line Rider for -- guess which console. The Nintendo Wii! Line Rider is fun for 7 year olds (like my younger brother) and adults too.

Apple's Secret Plans For 2007

2007-01-02T23:54:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! Apple's doing it again! Take a look at www.apple.com now. "The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007."? You know what that means. OS X 10.5 Tiger comes out very soon. Along with that Apple's DEFINITELY got a bunch more tricks up their sleeve for this year. An iPhone (not that I care)? Better Windows App support (that I care about)? The future of mobile computing? The future of computing in general? Who knows what Apple has in store this year. It's gonna be major, though. Next time your PC quits, buy a Mac (must have mac...).

2007

2007-01-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

Last night, the new year kind of sneaked up on me. I was working online and didn't notice that it was past midnight. No fair, I'd finally gotten used to it being 2006. Happy New Year. I've finally got the latest part of Project Phoenix online. Go ahead and look for it if you want. And just so you know, the new Site of Requirement T-Shirts are coming soon.

Nintendo Wii

2006-12-28T12:29:00.000-05:00

And the Coolest Game Console Ever Award goes to... The Nintendo Wii!

I've never actually used one (arg!!!), but from all the reviews, demos, etc. about it....

This thing is amazing. The controller (dubbed the Wiimote by fans) is motion-sensitive. For example, in the Wii Bowling game, you bowl by holding down the "B" button and you well...bowl. Just like real bowling (which I do by the way). In some games, you just point the Wiimote at the TV. LIke in 3d-shooter games, you'd just point the Wiimote where you want to aim and push one of the buttons.

The Wii is totally spectacular. It's going to revolutionize the game console industry (it plays your old GameCube games too). Nintendo's suggested retail price is $250. That's almost cheep enough for me to want to get one. But, unfortunately, there's a catch. As I write this, most stores (online and off) are either out of stock or charging $550 or more for the Wii.

Oh, and the 5th Harry Potter game (which will be out next summer) will use the Wiimote as a wand. You'll cast spells by waving the controller in the air.

Hopefully it'll come down to around $180 in a year or so. $250 isn't too bad (still rather high though), but $550-$600 is outrageous.

Project Phoenix: Something New Coming Soon

2006-12-26T12:56:00.000-05:00

The next installment in the Project Phoenix is coming soon. There are a few bugs to stomp out, some features that need finishing, and a small holdup. Currently we're having problems with our user authentication system. We're working on finding a way to work around this annoying "feature" (A.K.A. bug, for non-programmers). We hope to have our latest update available to you all by the start of the new year, but it may be longer than that.

Eldest

2006-12-25T10:33:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post here. I finished Eldest (the sequel to Eragon) last night. Pretty good. A little better than the first one. Still doesn't have anything on Harry Potter, though. I wonder how the movie is. I most definitely won't see it until it's available on DVD (all hail Netflix!).

Harry Potter Book 7's Title Revealed!

2006-12-21T23:33:00.000-05:00

JK Rowling has updated her website to give (with some difficulty) the title to book 7. Mugglenet has instructions to get it here. Or if you don't want to go through all that, the title is between the following two brackets: [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows]. Highlight the space between the previous two brackets to view the title. Interesting.... I wonder what that could refer to. That gives me some theories...

AT&T Text-to-Speech Demo

2006-12-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

Want to have some fun when your bored? Try out AT&T's experimental Text-To-Speech page. It's kind of cool and it's easy to spend half and hour playing with it. There are actually some practical uses for it too (that fall with in their terms). You can use it in your podcast for example.

Eragon

2006-12-14T11:45:00.000-05:00

All right, I admit it, I'm finally reading Eragon. I'd thought it sounded like a simultaneous rip-off of Lord of the Rings (which I'm not a big fan of) and Dragonriders of Pern along with a few others. It's actually pretty good, and not really a knock-off. I've read most of it, but I didn't have much time to read yesterday. Normally I read books pretty quick, but I've been short on time. It's pretty good, and the movie's coming up soon. too. People (online and off) have bothered me about reading it for about 8 months now (including my younger brother). At some points the story isn't right. It's kind of... I don't know. Just weird. It kind of goes back and forth about something, contradicting what happened previously. Like the character known as Brom kind of causes that. It's hard to explain.

What's up with the forum?

2006-12-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

You may wonder what's going on with the Forum of Requirement. Okay you know that the forum is a very important part of Project Phoenix (the authentication system). The Sorting Hat and House Points are not a relevant part of the project, just a cool addition to the forum. Well, time to get back on topic here. There have been some problems with the forum. The big one being that the board's being spammed by some dorks. In an effort to combat the spamming, we're upgrading some of the forum's code to the latest version. This is causing some problems with the board (some of the files aren't correct). We're working on fixing the board and updating to the new system. Hopefully the board will be working by the end of the day.

PotterCast #66 + What Happenned to the blog challenge?

2006-12-07T10:05:00.000-05:00

Who besides me was laughing during the ending of PotterCast #66? John is hilarious. And what happened to the Blog Challenge? They read the shout out for stupid myspace but they haven't done a blog challenge in a long time.

BookAdvice.net

2006-12-03T13:31:00.000-05:00

www.bookadvice.net is an interesting website with a ton of book reviews (I've read a lot of the books featured). If you take a look at the site, you'll notice two things about the site's management.

It's run entirely by minerva66 from the Forum of Requirement.
I've been involved a little with it.

I've developed some of the underlying PHP for BookAdvice. I did the database engine that powers the site and the accompanying search engine that was just added.

The site's pretty good. The reviews are well written and everything's organized pretty well (the organization of the links has improved since the navigation was redone recently). The ads aren't too intrusive either.

I designed the new, smaller, banner at the top (isn't glass text cool?).

One of my favorite parts of the site is the new random quote at the top of the main page. I believe it has close to 50 quotes stored in it. Admit it, random quotes are cool -- especially if the quotes are funny. Several of the stored quotes are humorous. I especially like the one by Groucho Marx: "From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."

If you're looking for some stuff to read until Harry Potter 7 is out, try this site. The forums are a little short on users, too. Registering is quick and easy. Got a book you like? You could recommend it there. Or you could take part in the general discussion of the reviews on the site.

VeriSign and U.S. Government Retain Control the Dot-com Registry

2006-12-03T13:24:00.000-05:00

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/12/verisign_and_us.html
What the heck? BAD idea. A corporation should NOT be in control of the world's domain names.

Cheap (and good) MP3 Player

2006-11-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

I just got a new MP3 player. A SanDisk Sansa m240. Go ahead and check the SanDisk website. $69.99? What's cheap about that? It's not, I ordered from Circuit City. Here's what hap penned:

My previous MP3 player, the Philips Rush, wasn't too bad. The player was rather annoying though. It would lock up now and then at the worst possible time. Sometimes it would not load new music or podcasts onto it. I'd drag them on, disconnect, turn it on, and...nothing. Sometimes it would just act weird and erratic.

Anyway, last Saturday I was looking around online at MP3 players and came accross the Sansa at CircuitCity.com. Guess the price tag. Come on, guess. It was $39.99. You read that right, it was only one cent off from $40.

That was after a rebate and stuff, but still. The Circuit City location nearest was out of stock, so I had to order from one that was an hour away. It turns out they had just run out and were ordering more, so I couldn't pick it up until yesterday.

The Sansa is pretty good. It's menu system vaguely resembles the iPod, since you can drill down through menus to sort the music how you want. My old Rush could only play everything random or strait through. The Rush was $90 two years ago. The Sansa has 1GB of flash memory, while the Rush has 128MB internal ans a SD card slot. Sure you can put more memory cards in the Rush, but the Sansa seems to work a lot better.

SMF - Simple Machines Forum

2006-11-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

SMF, also known as Simple Machines Forum, is, in my opinion, the best free forum software available. It's based somewhat off the old YABB SE code, which was purchased three years ago and turned into SMF. I can't afford to buy licenses for Invision, VBulletin, or other paid forum systems. I've tried PHPBB, but I found it's feature set lacking (and I think it's less user-friendly). SMF is great though. To the right is a screenshot of The Forum of Requirement. Cool looking or what? The default SMF theme (skin) doesn't look that good in my opinion, but there are plenty of others available off the SMF website (along with instructions for integrating SMF into you're website's layout). SMF has a nice feature set, the forums are easy to navigate and use. It's pretty good. Installation was easy you can't get much better than that. FTP, go to yourdomain.com/forum/install.php, tell the script what database you want to use (create it before installing), fill in a few other fields, hit go. I like SMF, and although it may not have as many features as Invision Power Board, you can't beat the price.

PotterCAT?

2006-11-27T12:45:00.000-05:00

I went to Leaky Cauldron to grab the latest PotterCast, and guess what? I found a typo! Take a look at the screenshot to the right. They said "PotterCat 65". Shouldn't that be "PotterCast 65"? Or did Melissa's cat (Moochka the PotterCat) type up the news post? I, along with others, posted comments about that. Funny.

ScreenGrab Returns with FF2 Suuport!

2006-11-25T07:51:00.000-05:00

I've talked about the ultra-cool Firefox add-on known as ScreenGrab in the past. Guess what. It now has Firefox 2.0 support! Head over to the ScreenGrab Homepage and grab a copy. In case you forgot, it allows you to (if you use Firefox) screen-capture whole pages instead of just the visible area.

Google Desktop

2006-11-25T07:42:00.000-05:00

What could be better than using Google to search your computer? Windows's search feature is pathetic in case you haven't noticed. Google Desktop is the answer. After it spends a couple of days looking over all your files and storing info about them in a database on your PC, it allows you to search through everything on your hard drive. Text, HTML, Video, Music, whatever! Just open up the Google Desktop page in your browser and search. You'll get results instantly. No more waiting for 10 minutes like the Windows built-in search tool. Head over to desktop.google.com and download a copy. Try it out. If you don't like it, uninstall it. Broadband is not required and you don't need to be online to search. It's free, try it.

What's the Forum got to do with Project Phoenix?

2006-11-25T07:11:00.000-05:00

You may be wondering what the Forum of Requirement has to do with Project Phoenix. Remember I talked of an "Authentication System"? We'll be using the form for that. When you sign up for the forum, your username and password will be used to login to the forum AND other parts of The Site of Requirement. Is it starting to make more sense now?

PotterCast Had An Interesting Point...

2006-11-23T11:10:00.000-05:00

I was listening to PotterCast #64 last night and they had an interesting point about Voldemort. In the HP5 trailer, which was just made available online, the clip of Voldemort looked old. It looks as if they used, for the trailer, a clip from Goblet of Fire. Why would they do that? Does Voldemort look a lot different? He could be unrecognizable, or WB may simply not want everyone to see what he looks like now. Another possibility is they don't have any scenes with Voldy that are finished to the point where they could use in the trailer. Weird?

Project Phoenix Holdup

2006-11-23T11:04:00.000-05:00

Well, The Site of Requirement was moved to our new host not too long ago. That was step one for implementing Project Phoenix. Step two has had a bit of a holdup. We ran into some problems with the user authentication system we're implementing (User Authentication = LogIn) for some things. Basically some new features will require logging in with a "Site of Requirement Account". That's all I can say for now.

HP5 Game Screenshots

2006-11-22T11:16:00.000-05:00

YEAH! EA Games has released the first four screenshots ever for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix game. Look at them at this Mugglenet page in higher resolution if you want. Cool. The detail is amazing! According to EA, they did 3D head-scans of the actors, motion capture of the actors, and even got contracts for voice work! (!!!!!) Sorry if I'm acting a little hyper, but this is amazing! Finally, proof of all this great work that the fansites have been talking about! I could blog about all the official stuff I've heard over the past couple months, but I have to go.

SR has been moved!

2006-11-20T19:19:00.000-05:00

The Site of Requirement now resides on our new paid host, and is functional. We've cleared up all the problems we know about. If you see any problems or bugs on SR, send me an email! I'll have it fixed as soon as I can. I think everything is fine, now, though.

Moving SR to new Host

2006-11-20T09:23:00.000-05:00

I ordered the hosting yesterday. It seems pretty good. I'm trying to move Site of Requirement over to the new host, but the domain name refuses to update. I'm trying to fix things, but for now, SR is down for maintenance.

Plans to Change Hosts

2006-11-19T10:44:00.000-05:00

I'm definitely planning to move The Site of Requirement from our current free host to a paid one. On the day where I finally get around to doing the actual moving, we'll have to shut down the site for most of the day. I'm not entirely sure when the hosting will be ordered and when we'll move. Once we've moved the site and have everything back the way it should be (won't take long), we'll begin further work on the secret Project Phoenix. Those of you who use HarryMail should know that you may have a little trouble sending emails (you'll still receive it though). I hope to move SR fairly soon, though. By the way... We appreciate the purchasing of Site of Requirement T-Shirts and other products. Any profit we can make off them goes toward paying for hosting.

10 Seconds of HP!

2006-11-18T07:51:00.000-05:00

10 seconds of the hp5 trailer
Warner Brothers has released 10-seconds of the HP5 trailer online. You can view it with the above link (QuickTime Required). The full trailer will be up by Monday afternoon.

Microsoft iPod Parody

2006-11-16T19:20:00.001-05:00


This is just hilarious. Have you ever wondered what the iPod's box would look like if Microsoft designed it? Press play on the box to the left, and prepare to laugh. NOTE: Someone made the video <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span> the Zune was announced. Hmmm... I wonder what the Zune's box looks like...

Yahoo Widgets

2006-11-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

Yahoo Widgets (formerly known as Konfabulator) is one pf the most useful programs I've ever found...and it's FREE! Widgets can hover over your desktop or live in a cool "heads-up display" that you call up by tapping F8 on your keyboard. Widgets are little XML and JavaScript mini-programs that do all sorts of useful things. The Yahoo Widgets website has a big gallery of downloadable widgets. I have a ton of widgets installed. Some examples are:

A widget that checks my earnings in AdSense

Widgets that read RSS News for several sites

A widget that checks my gMail account

A google search widget

And a lot more

Widgets are really useful and kind of cool. The Mac OS has a Widget system built in, but seeing as I don't have a Mac, I use Yahoo Widgets. I use the widgets a lot. It's a lot easier to push F8 and look at a widget to see if I have new email than to go all the way to www.gmail.com, sign in, see if I have mail, then log out. Widgets are useful, try them out. They're cool, and free.

Mugglecom.net

2006-11-16T09:05:00.000-05:00

Mugglecom.net
Okay, if your a MegaHPFan, you've probably heard of Mugglenet.com, right? Well, someone's got an authorized spoof known as Mugglecom.net. It's pretty funny. I especially like the notice at the bottom:
"Mugglecom costs over $3.75 a year to run. (not including the cost of doughnuts for Jay) If you would like to help with our costs, please send used notes in small denominations to: Sol Proflia. Care of the LA home for frazzled coders. Thankyou!"

2006 Vaporware Awards

2006-11-16T08:57:00.000-05:00

2006 Vaporware Awards
Now this is just too funny. So, what software do you know of that could be considered Vaporware? Windows Vista comes to mind... There's a definition of Vaporware at the link above, in addition to a chance to nominate a Vaporware title.

Zune Jokes

2006-11-15T12:13:00.000-05:00

During and before the Zune I (and other people I know) came up with some joke-things about the Zune. Here are a few below.

It's called the Zune because you won't be seeing it any time zune.
Concept Name #1: The BillPod
Concept Name #2: The MePod
Concpet Name #3: The uPod.

Hehe. There are more, but I don't remember all of them right now.

PotterCast: HP3 DVD

2006-11-15T11:58:00.000-05:00

Okay, those of you who listened to PotterCast 63, who was laughing when John said he fell asleep during the third movie and woke up when it went to the DVD menu. I suppose it can't be fun to wake up with a shrunken head saying stupid comments with the volume high.

Zune? Who cares!

2006-11-15T10:21:00.000-05:00

It seems as if the Zune is out. I saw a sign up at the local Target last night saying that it would be available there at 8 o'clock. I saw a couple demo devices there that were, unfortunately, not running. I do know however, that it's kinda bulky compared to an iPod. Looking online, I've found that the software is rather buggy (It's Microsodt, what do you expect?) and that it doesn't support podcasts at all (!!!). I'm a huge listener of Leaky Cauldron's PotterCast, so that's a big loss of points on my custom product-scoring scale (the Redwall_hp Scale). I wouldn't touch it with a 39 1/2 foot pole as the line from the song in The Grinch goes.

Core 2 Extreme

2006-11-15T10:08:00.000-05:00

Cooooooool. Intel has their new Core 2 Extreme chips are finished. Originally codenamed "Kentsfield", they are Intel's first chips to have 4 cores. Windows and other programs may not be able to do much with them at the moment, Apple's Mac OS X has been able to work with multicore processors for awhile. The chips will probably be shipping in time for the holiday season. You can read more at The Webmonkey Monkey Bites Blog. I can't wait till Macs have these.

Haven't Listened to PotterCast #63 Yet + EA Games Interview

2006-11-14T07:53:00.000-05:00

I haven't had a chance to listen to the 63rd episode of PotterCast yet. I've had a cold-type thing lately, so I haven't been able to listen to it. Speaking of PotterCast, when is the EA Games interview supposed to be? I haven't seen anything about it recently. I thought it was supposed to be in late October. I suppose I'll have to search through the LeakyLounge threads to see.

Apple's Plans This Year

2006-11-14T07:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, the Zune will be coming out soon. As you may have noticed, Apple tends to release their top-secret ultra-cool products for the year right before Christmas. So what will Apple's new ipod product be? I'm guessing they have something that will make the Zune look even more like a waste of money. iPods can already play video and display photos along with music. I'm guessing wireless capabilities is a number one feature. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to purchase tracks of iTunes wherever you are, as long as there's WI-FI access. Whatever they're up to, it's definitely going to be better than the Zune.

I'm now using Explorer Destroyer

2006-11-13T12:20:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd give Explorer Destroyer a try. I'm now using the "Level 2" code. IE users will see a little "Splash Screen" between pages until they get Firefox. I'll see how it turns out.

Terragen

2006-11-13T11:35:00.000-05:00

So, have you ever wanted to create cool 3D computer-generated landscapes easily? For free? Planetside created a free program known as Terragen. I recommend reading the helpdocs before doing much with it though. Terragen is available for both Windows and Macintosh. I created those images to the right using Terragen. I've been playing with Terragen for about a year now, but not very frequently. Terragen can be a little confusing at times, but the end result is spectacular. Try it out, it's free. It can do a wide array of effects. You have absolute control over a lot of things like water, the sun, the land formations, clouds, etc. I haven't figured out how to do grass yet, though. Be sure to save often as one setting change could screw up all your previous work... especially if you didn't pay attention to the previous setting. It crashes sometimes too, so save often. Try it out. As I said before, the price is $0.00. Can't beat that!

The Site of Requirement Secret Plans

2006-11-12T11:53:00.000-05:00

If your a user of The Site of Requirement, you may have noticed my occasional talk of "Secret Plans". All I'm telling you is they're known to me as "Project Phoenix" and that they can't be fully implemented until SR is moved to a paid host (which I am planning to do now withing the next couple months.). Don't bother asking for more information. There are hidden clues that probably won't give away what's going on behind the scenes. :) *Evil Laughter*

Run a website? Want your visitors to use Firefox?

2006-11-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

http://www.explorerdestroyer.com
Explorer Destroyer is great. They have several javascripts that you add to your website to convince IE users to download Firefox... AND you make money off the AdSense Firefox referrals too. There are three levels of irritation. The first just displaying a floating bar every few days, and the last totally blocking IE users. Just imaging having 50% of the web having this. IE would either become a thing of the past, or Microsoft would develop a way to block the code. I like the idea a lot. It's very tempting to add it, but I can't just irritate the heck out of everyone with an anti-IE thing at the top of the page. Maybe I should make my own version that's less intrusive...

IE7's CSS Problems

2006-11-12T10:15:00.000-05:00

Didn't Microsoft say they were going to make IE7 more standards-compliant? They did the opposite! I've fixed another part of the podcast site. The problem was.... IE7 handles padding wrong with CSS. It handles it erratically and definitely not the way it should! Sometimes it seems to add the padding amounts onto the width of the DIV even! What is Microsoft's problem? They should do as the W3C says, like the good browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera, Netscape, any other modern browser not known as IE...).

Explorer Annoyances

2006-11-11T06:30:00.000-05:00

If you have Internet Explorer and have seen the Podcast 9 3/4 site, you've noticed a prime example why I hate Internet Eplorer. It looks perfect in Firefox, whch follows the W3C standard, but all wonky in IE. I'm, of coaurse, forced to work on a fix for the site with so many people still using IE, but come on. Microsoft needs to realize that they neeed to stop trying to impose their own standard!

Harry Potter 5 Trailer Description

2006-11-09T11:23:00.000-05:00

WArner Brothers has done some small advance screenings of the OOTP trailer, which will premier before the movie Happy Feet. There are descriptions online. One is available here.

Microsoft Zune Review

2006-11-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

Microsoft Zune Review
MonkeyBites has a review of Microsoft's upcoming Zune media player. They claim it may put a dent in Apple's sales. Yeah right. Apple is Apple. People buy iPods because they trust Apple. Plus, I bet Apple's got a few more tricks up their sleeves...

Podcast 9 3/4

2006-11-07T10:39:00.000-05:00

The new name for the podcast is Podcast 9 3/4. The new site is up at www.siteofrequirement.com/podcast/ . Check it out if you want. There's an important news article on there for listeners. The new episode will hopefully be out within the next few days.

Podcast's New Home

2006-11-06T11:51:00.000-05:00

I'm currently working on the podcast-formerly-known-as-Phoenixcast's new site. The general design is finished. I'm working on setting a ton of things up. It's taking a while. FTP is probably the worst part. Well.... If you leave out editing templates for blog systems. That's really annoying. Someone should work on making that simpler.