tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33628182011-04-21T14:08:59.334-07:00Richtong.blogspot.comFun facts and things as he wanders the Internet looking for interesting, computer, consumer electronics and bicycling sitesRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comBlogger5631100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-1084262562971021472004-05-11T01:00:00.000-07:002004-05-11T01:02:42.970-07:00I haven't posted here in a long time, but now I'm back given that blogger is updated. My main posts though are at:
Tong Family. A site all about our lives and recommendations.
Marketing Playbook. A site all about marketing.
Free Return. Politics, politics, politics.
Geekfishing. All about observations that help me in my job.
RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-858228492002-12-10T21:11:00.000-08:002002-12-10T23:54:03.446-08:00Mailing List managers
As we go off and do the UCDS chess tournament and also the tournament coordinator job, I need a good mailing list manager. Here are the top ones:
Mailman. This is written in Python and is the top hit from Google, but I have to learn Python. Sigh and it requires a C compiler and root privileges so won't work in a hosted environment
Ez Mailing List Manager. Nice packageRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-856319982002-12-07T00:15:00.000-08:002002-12-07T00:15:12.253-08:00Cometa launches
This is the project to build a huge nationwide 802.11 network. Very exciting and well covered. Interesting to see notes about it from Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log :RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-856318552002-12-07T00:08:00.000-08:002002-12-07T00:08:48.233-08:00Hot Blog Trends
Spotted on the loose seem to be three big things:
RDFWeb: FOAF: the 'friend of a friend' vocabulary. Most of the cutting edge folks are implementing this. I read the spec and literally can't tell what it is for.
Changeable blog skins. These mainly take advantage of CSS to flip different photos and themes onto a web site dynamically. Pretty cool.
RSS/RDF/etc. Lots of content RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-856307242002-12-06T23:22:00.000-08:002002-12-06T23:32:26.330-08:00Hosting Unstood (volume ii)
BLOGGED ---at the-protagonist.net. Another amazing site. This is supposed to be hosted by a 16 year old in the Phillipines. Amazing, not sure I believe it, but pretty amazing. She is another person who does hosting of others via this incredibly complex ISP network:
The Protagnist is an 800MB virtual server offering plans at $4/month for 100MB.
Host Radius. They RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-856050672002-12-06T11:30:00.000-08:002002-12-06T11:30:21.800-08:00Internet Holiday Shopping
Well it is that time of year again for shopping. I just hate the mall. I've tried the last three years to get everything done by the first week of December. So, I thought I'd list where and what I think about doing:
Shutterfly Photo Albums, etc.. Hoops swears by this site. They did a nice calendar for him. Super high quality. Something great for the grandparents.
RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-855803792002-12-05T22:44:00.000-08:002002-12-05T23:02:22.766-08:00Flag screen savers
Waving Flag. Nicest I've found, the flag just waves.
American Flag Screensavers. Was rooting around for a flag screensaver. Can you believe someone has an entire page just collecting them.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-855625002002-12-05T15:35:00.000-08:002002-12-05T15:37:18.000-08:00Wherify Wireless - GPS Locator
FOR CHILDREN
Jon Roberts wanted something for his parents that would help him track his dad, if he had an accident. Here is one for kids that could work. Kind of cool actually. Maybe I should get one for myself
Wherify created the world's first Personal Locator to help you determine your loved one's location in minutes. Wherify's GPS Locator helps keep loved RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-855271882002-12-04T23:42:00.000-08:002002-12-04T23:42:25.000-08:00o r g a n i c a. Another interesting expression of the web is this crawler. It crawls Weblogs looking for references, so you can see the most linked sites. Another set of things to go through sometime. Sort of like seeing the insides of a good google for weblogs.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-854685062002-12-03T22:08:00.000-08:002002-12-04T23:01:21.000-08:00Updates to b2mail-rt.php
OK, I did some quick hacks to get b2mail to accept any email and this is now running on Geek Fishing. In looking at the code, it is pretty clear that it doesn't follow the RFC822 standard super well, for instance, if you have multiple mail imbedded, it doesn't quite work, so I need to get a structured header, body and attachment reader into the code. Here are the changesRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-854164452002-12-02T20:57:00.000-08:002002-12-02T20:57:37.290-08:00Dynamic DNS service by Dynu. Dynacenter talks about the need for a Dynamic DNS service. here is one referred to on c|net. Pretty easy to install and use.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-853970132002-12-02T14:02:00.000-08:002002-12-02T14:02:06.700-08:00Daypop Top 40 Linksl. for the most read blog links. Interesting.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-853919362002-12-02T12:15:00.000-08:002002-12-02T12:15:25.820-08:00Washington DMV. What a great site for the DMV. Here are notes on how to change the registration address of vehicles:
You can change your address by visiting any County Auditor or sub-agent licensing office., or at any Driver Licensing Office. You may also contact the department directly. You will need to provide your name, information for each vehicle you own to include the year, make, RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-853355522002-12-01T09:14:00.000-08:002002-12-01T09:14:12.853-08:00Dave Raggett's Introduction to CSS. Great short guide to CSSRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-853242022002-12-01T00:05:00.000-08:002002-12-02T13:44:48.373-08:00lgf: real code for unreal humans. lgf-referrers. Here is a PHP script that does the last 50 referrers.
Solution Scripts - Top Referrers. Here is the top hit for referrers.
Stephen's Web ~ Referrer System. A first in implementing referrer lists so you can see where folks came from. Will add to tongfamily.com.
I also hacked blogroll.php so that it works better for me. Coding if fun! I needRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-853217602002-11-30T22:33:00.000-08:002002-11-30T22:33:14.033-08:00XML-RPC Home Page. The source of wonderfulness. This is a set of standards that blogging uses that lets you construc remote procedure calls with XML encoding. Need to learn this.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-853059962002-11-30T13:54:00.000-08:002002-11-30T13:54:05.083-08:00Blog HOT or NOT. Another cool artifact of blogging. Rating others. There is an entire site devoted to it. I signed up all our sites. FWIW.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852965942002-11-30T08:30:00.000-08:002002-11-30T08:30:29.803-08:00The W3C MarkUp Validation Service. How valuable. A free utility from the w3c to see if your html is OK. Interesting to see how well most sites do. Learned a bunchRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852882842002-11-30T01:04:00.000-08:002002-11-30T01:04:22.423-08:00Andromeda Streaming Jukebox: MP3 server for PHP & ASPRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852875972002-11-30T00:29:00.000-08:002002-11-30T00:29:01.333-08:00Clean up your Web pages with HTML TIDY. I keep making html ugly. Here is a beautifier.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852869202002-11-29T23:55:00.000-08:002002-11-29T23:55:18.196-08:00Brad Silverberg. Another incredible site. PIR apparently mines information and trys to cross reference people. Does an amazing job with Brad Silverberg of course, but I'm not listed. Interesting idea.
Basically it looks at citations in books and other periodicals to build a database of related folks. Cool.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852868412002-11-29T23:51:00.000-08:002002-11-29T23:51:39.790-08:00AvaQuest People Mine. Wow interesting to see how Google information can be datamined. First example I've seen of a third party build on top of Google. Fun to run a query on your own name. It found Rich Tong and John Ludwig correctly!RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852868082002-11-29T23:50:00.000-08:002002-11-29T23:50:06.286-08:00Google Weblog. If you can believe it , an entire blog on what's going on a Google. Again, thanks to blo.gs for helping. Blo.gs is really the google of blogs.
Makes me wonder what google is in the world of blogs. There is lots more semantic information than links.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852866012002-11-29T23:40:00.000-08:002002-12-02T13:48:32.376-08:00dive into mark. The most watched site on blo.gs. Very beautiful too. I like how he does his site map and also his graphics are very clean. Good thoughts on RSS, etc. as well. His titles for his navigation pane are great too.
I must be getting to be more of blogger, I recognize more and more names in the community.
dive into mark/November 26, 2002. This must be the techie post at his RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852865602002-11-29T23:38:00.000-08:002002-11-29T23:38:07.060-08:00blo.gs: most watched blogs. Pretty useful, here's a list of the top twenty most "added to your favorites" blogs. You need that pesky fix blo.gs thing to get the nice + sign after them to add them.
Next step is to use blogrolling to add them dynamically to the site.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852863032002-11-29T23:27:00.000-08:002002-11-29T23:27:27.223-08:00phil ringnalda dot com: blo.gs microtools. This is one of those favorites in the sky. Some cool tools here, although the blo.gs site doesn't actually have an add link to favorite interface for some reason.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852820542002-11-29T20:59:00.000-08:002002-11-29T20:59:21.463-08:00tb-standalone - Standalone TrackBack Just what I need to get blogger version of tongfamily.com to understand trackbacks
purposes: 1) it allows non-Movable Type users to use TrackBack with the tool of their choice, provided they meet the installation requirements; 2) it serves as a reference point to aid developers in implementing TrackBack in their own systems. This tool is a single CGI RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852793442002-11-29T19:33:00.000-08:002002-11-29T19:33:18.100-08:00The Game of Risk
Been playing this with the kids since Alex got it for his birthday. Naturally Connie, being a living buddha and a hard core game player since 5 years of age, always wins. So, here are some places to get some strategy help. Like chess, I only win because of the Internet:
La Strategia del RisiKo!. Actually, it is in English, but some good hints here.
A bunch of computer RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852443582002-11-28T23:28:00.000-08:002002-11-29T00:00:13.656-08:00Christmas is coming, time to look at bikes
MTBReviews 2003 Kid Bikes. Has the best listing of kids bikes. Shopping for bike is starting. They need a good 20 inch wheel mountain bike with gears. Here's a quick review of some of the major ones. I'm looking for aluminum frame, 7-speed, 20 inch wheels in a hardtail:
Marin Hidden Canyon. This got the nod in Bicycling Magazine. $219 7-speed, RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852435892002-11-28T22:58:00.000-08:002002-11-28T22:58:11.326-08:00quartzified.NET :: halo [Disappear the light is fading]. Weblo.gs produces a great what logs have been updated in the last day list. Great for just getting a sense. Here's good insight into a 17-year-old's life and how these online diaries work. I love the look and also the fact it is hard coded as a 6 point font web site. Means only kids can see it. would be cool tied to a Wildseed SkinRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852404172002-11-28T21:11:00.000-08:002002-11-28T21:11:20.926-08:00Web Hosting, Web Host Buyer's Guide and Directory of top hosts and reviews. More on Ensim and also about Rackshack, the underlying hoster for Tranquil. Interesting how hosting is now tiered in terms of distribution.
Rackshack. It is like the .com revolution never started when I look at a page like this. It is also cleare to me the revenue model when you see how the pricing works. For instance,RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852397172002-11-28T20:51:00.000-08:002002-11-28T20:51:20.393-08:00Mark's Fine hosting service and the next Bill Gates. If anyone needs something hosted, check out Tranquil Hosting. Mark does an incredible job and is awake all hours. Was a wondering way to get MovableType and B2 Cafelog up and running as well as PHP Gallery. I'd highly recommend his service. What's amazing is that it is possible for someone in college to run a hosting business.
Reminds me ofRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-852394682002-11-28T20:43:00.000-08:002002-11-28T20:43:37.796-08:00Had a great turkey dinner today. The brined turkey really works well, although it makes the dark meat taste almost cured. The white meat really comes out super well. Did it on the Rotisserie that we got. Took 2 1/2 hours for a 12 lb bird.
Best tip of all. Connie cuts a little hole in the skin to put the wingtip in, then you can tie a string around the wings. With a rotisserie, the wings kindRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851994122002-11-27T22:52:00.000-08:002002-11-27T22:52:38.923-08:00CSS Introduction. Ok, I'm finally going to make my sites look good and to do that I need to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). AGain, thanks to google, here is the top CSS tutorial. Wish me luck!RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851992512002-11-27T22:46:00.000-08:002002-11-27T22:46:54.653-08:00blo.gs. This is the second biggest blog trakcing site. It is amazing, There are currently 54,661 weblogs being tracked for 886 users. Wow!
I like this site because it shows what is being updated in real time. And you can see the whole community there. Plus there is a neat ie5 pane that you can use to brows the entire world as it changes. Very cool.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851990612002-11-27T22:40:00.000-08:002002-11-27T22:40:59.460-08:00Sage, Orange, and Clove Rotisserie Turkey BBQ Recipe
It's Thanksgiving Time, so it is time to try some new recipes, I've got a new gas grill. Never thought I'd cave on that, but now I can rotisserie, here's a recipe I'll adapt to the event. I'm doing a brined turkey with this, but the rub here looks great
One whiff of the orange, clove, and sage in this recipe is guaranteed to drive the RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851956302002-11-27T20:49:00.000-08:002002-11-27T20:49:36.283-08:00Using Blogrolling's PHP option on your PHP enabled weblog.
I'm converting to using PHP so that the blogrolling stuff can be read by google. This works on all the geekfishing.net related sites, but not for my current tongfamily.com since it doesn't have PHP :-(
If your blog supports PHP and allow_url_fopen you can call the data from Blogrolling directly bypassing JavaScript. This has the RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851525792002-11-27T00:44:00.000-08:002002-11-27T00:44:22.040-08:00Rss Readers. Another thing to study are RSS readers. Since all these blogs we now have generate RSS, it would be kind of nice to consume them as well.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851524622002-11-27T00:38:00.000-08:002002-11-27T00:38:10.643-08:00lgf: the lowest of the low. A great site and also has a nice PHP script to show you dynamically where people are coming from to get to your site. I'll slam into tongfamily, geekfishing, etc. soon.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851515402002-11-26T23:59:00.000-08:002002-11-27T00:00:36.210-08:00hitormiss.org : Daily Crawl. Another incredibly cool cgi script thing that I found on Anita's blog. This lets you know where you've been by the time that you visited. Blogrolling is great, but this is even cooler.
This is basically blogrolling, but happens on your server, not in some meta-server. The most incredibly thing about this program is that it is actually 14KB. I didn't know anything RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851514852002-11-26T23:56:00.000-08:002002-11-26T23:56:28.643-08:00Converting to Movable Type
Just a note to folks, I'm converting this blog over to MovableType. I'm not going to be updating this as much over the next week before I do the full flip. If you want to see the upcoming blog, checkout New Tong Family.
For a while I'll run the posts in parallel, but not sure I'm going to be that disciplined about it. MovableType is just so much nicer.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851309082002-11-26T14:50:00.000-08:002002-11-26T21:13:44.000-08:00Random Thanksgiving Thoughts
We all have much to be thankful for. My biggest this year is that I can sit and think with guys like Ludwig about what the next big thing is. Here are a couple of observations, just an outline, I'll fill in later, but wanted to get thoughts down.
The miracle of Sourceforge. Open Source drives modular code. You have to think about it from day one. The code is very RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851287062002-11-26T14:01:00.000-08:002002-11-26T14:01:47.713-08:00Gallery :: your photos on your website. On geekfishing, we are using Gallery now for photos. Seems like a nice applications. Here's a note on how to password protect individual albums, so some can be public and others require registration and only certain people are allowed to see it. See the very last post as a nice way to do thisRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-851265862002-11-26T13:13:00.000-08:002002-11-26T13:13:44.240-08:00Geek Fishing. Finally got this master site up and running. For those of you who are wondering about the name. It refers to our boating trips on Lake Washington. Instead of fishing for, well fish, we go looking for errant 802.11 wireless signals. It is amazing what you can see on a cruise on the water. Hence the term Geek Fishing.
As, our little Calvin says, the geeks are winning!RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-850389492002-11-24T20:59:00.000-08:002002-11-25T00:35:02.150-08:00More on getting photo gallery to work right: Gallery
Right now I'll stay focused on getting a decent photo gallery thing running. Went through the basic MovableType File Upload stuff. it is OK for a few photos, but it wouldn't really scale to larger sets. I need something that will take my c:\pictures directory and be smart about doing essentially a projection on this up to the web with RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-850374602002-11-24T20:22:00.000-08:002002-11-24T20:22:48.356-08:00Tong Family gets a slight update
Did you notice that lots of the starter junk is gone from the front, And also search moved to the menu pane. Most current blogs have a tighter format than mine, so I'm gradually switching over. Next step is to start using (and learning CSS), so that I can move the menu pane to the right and also reducing font sizes. Most current webs look like 10 point at most. RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-850022242002-11-24T01:39:00.000-08:002002-11-24T10:34:35.000-08:00Installing MovableType on Windows
MovableType Installation. This is a good list of things to do, although at 2 AM, things get a bit blurry. Main things are to get Apache loaded, then ActivePerl, then to hook Perl up with Apache by editing httpd.confg.
Instructions for Apache and Perl on Windows: Installing Apache. OK, on the way to inOn the way to installing MovableType on this machine, so I RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849992852002-11-23T23:18:00.000-08:002002-11-23T23:18:59.733-08:00boardom :: View topic - b2wap.php hack. Ok, a cool way to get the last set of posts from a b2 blog via a wap interface.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849989162002-11-23T23:06:00.000-08:002002-11-23T23:06:26.880-08:00boardom :: View topic - [Request] People Who Are Not Logged In See Nothing. A good description from the author himself on how to get B2 to be private. Good for personal and family photos and news. Lots of different ways to do it. You could:
Use .htaccess with apache
Use the new filters command. The code is noted in the above post so that a there is a private tag to mark a particular post as RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849886592002-11-23T17:35:00.000-08:002002-11-24T09:46:09.520-08:00Getting a local Apache server to work on XP
I'm going to create a development server that mimics what is GeekFishing so here are some notes on how to make it all work similarly. This will also let me install things like the PHP DBG module that require major hacking that an ISP normally doesn't allow.
.htaccess on Windows. This is how to add .htaccess to Windows Apache.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849881082002-11-23T17:16:00.000-08:002002-11-23T17:17:46.903-08:00Password protection
This has come up several times. So, here's quick tutorial.
HTpassword generator. This is an all in one generator of htpassword which is a file you put in a web server to protect a particular directory.
Creating .htpassword. This is how you create a file.
Htpassword Line Generator. This is how you create a hash for the file itself, so there are no clear text passwords RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849876882002-11-23T16:59:00.000-08:002002-11-24T20:16:17.900-08:00PHP Editing and Debugging Freeware
I'm tired of using wordpad and sticking in echo and print_r statements in PHP to figure out what is going on, so here is a search for a good debugging environment for PHP. I spent hours tonight trying to get the debugger to work. Let's just say the freeware stuff is much less advanced than even sdb was during the early Unix days. Oh well:
Keith's PHP EditorsRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849856662002-11-23T15:52:00.000-08:002002-11-23T15:52:38.010-08:00MovableType Tips, Tricks and Traps
Continuing the search for incredible tips on MovableType. There are an amazing number of things to wade through. In order of discovery, these are:
MOvable Type External Resources. Where my search first started. There are some very nice hacks here mainly by Kevin Shay and Brad Choate and Adam Kalsey. Plus some good site refereances and also things on desktop RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849716682002-11-23T08:13:00.000-08:002002-11-23T08:13:56.570-08:00 PDA Your Movable Type Blog
If you run a weblog using Movable Type, then you can easily make it available for PDA readers. It takes under 30 minutes to set it up.
Wow, Movable Type sure is beautiful. The only thing really missing is mail2blog, but here is blog2avantgo2pdaRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849613392002-11-22T23:20:00.000-08:002002-11-22T23:20:04.923-08:00Wiki, Wiki
Wiki. Yet another strange technology for collaboration. Will it never end. This is some kind of content collaboration system.
Earthweb on Blogs. A good article about how IT should handle blogs and what they might be good for. RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849128612002-11-21T23:25:00.000-08:002002-11-22T13:27:23.000-08:00Scoop || What is Scoop?
Now that the search has begun, it is incredible how many blog and near-blog tools there are. There are photoblogs (see previous entry), there are bulletin board like things like PHP NUke and then there are things like scoop, which I'm just understanding...
Scoop is a "collaborative media application". It falls somewhere between a content management system, a web RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849126502002-11-21T23:15:00.000-08:002002-11-24T20:19:37.950-08:00Photolog in MovableType
FIVE STEP PHOTOLOG. Ah ha, this is how you do a photolog using MovableType. It is amazing how clever people can be. You basically overload the fields in MovableType so that the main image is in the main entry, description is in additional entry and the Thumbnail goes into the Excerpt. This technique should work anywhere where you have three fields like this. Too bad, b2/RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849101822002-11-21T21:54:00.000-08:002002-11-22T13:27:45.000-08:00Web Services are real
OK, I admit it, I don't understand the gigantic .net initiative at all, but I do get it when certain sites really do begin to act like services I can call. Here are a few:
Google Web APIs - Home. This is very cool, you can programmatically call Google via an XML RPC. Just need to register here and then see how it is used. MovableType uses this and I'll want it on RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849096612002-11-21T21:40:00.000-08:002002-11-21T21:40:04.446-08:00Movable Type Installation Help. These are great instructions for how to turn blog templates (called blogplates) into MovableType compatible layouts. You can find these kind of layouts at Blogplates or from Miz GraphicsRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849092822002-11-21T21:30:00.000-08:002002-11-21T21:30:22.596-08:00Blog Templates
Ludwig has given me the mission to become an expert of MovableType. There is alot to learn. I've through a.lifeuncommon.org which is probalby the most well designed site I've seen in a long time and stumbled onto these blog template sites:
Miz Graphics!. A general purpose site for templates.
. This is a webring of weblog/journal designs plus some information on how to RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849084282002-11-21T21:08:00.000-08:002002-11-21T21:08:06.203-08:00MSN Hotmail - Message
AT&T Broadband is an amazing company. They cut off my service two weeks ago when they silently updated their system. Had to spend a couple of hours figuring it out, then a journey to their service center in north Seattle. Told me I should have gotten something in the mail. Now it looks like I'm going to end up with two cable modems, given the email I just got. See below...RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-849076422002-11-21T20:47:00.000-08:002002-11-21T20:47:24.063-08:00Rain Tire Recommendations
From the Roadbikerider.com web site, some more winter tires to look at
HEY UNCLE AL: I've decided to start criterium racing a little early in the season. I live in California, so the weather is usually just wet, not icy or snowy. I'd like a recommendation for a tire that would have good traction on wet pavement. Just for reference, during the regular season I use RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-848051162002-11-19T23:32:00.000-08:002002-11-19T23:37:45.186-08:00Bicycle Tires Updated
Here's an update from the bike tire explorations:
TUFO | Product Line. Saw this first on Sdeals. This is a tubular tire that fits on a clincher rim. Interesting idea. Weighs 335 grams but this includes the tube, so it compares with say 180 grams for a Veloflex Pave plus 70 grams for Michelin A1 tubes that I run and rim tape (my Ksyriums don't have these, but normally RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847990492002-11-19T20:41:00.000-08:002002-11-19T20:50:45.596-08:00PHP password protection
Here is something that Michelle has asked for. When I convert Tongfamily.com over, I'm going to add this as well. By adding one line to each page, you get password protection.
Cookie Password Protection in PHP. This is freeware for the simple case, but costs $20 otherwise.
List of password protection scripts. HEre are six other similar things. Need to look at all of RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847989552002-11-19T20:39:00.000-08:002002-11-24T20:17:52.010-08:00Mailing List Servers
Another thing I've been looking for are mailing list servers. Right now I'm using Arrow from Jadebox which is Windows based, but does require you have your client up and running all the time. This is limited to 50 users
I'm going to try EZMLM - Easy Mailing List Manager which is yet another open source program for doing this. This uses SQL and can scale to 500K RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847532092002-11-19T00:33:00.000-08:002002-11-19T00:33:25.743-08:00Photo Gallery and Digital Photo Management
Here is the final project, finding a good photo gallery and digital photo management system. There are web based ones like PhotoWorks, but I've found them to be super slow or cumbersome. So, I'll start collecting a list of hacker ones. Here's a start:
alexking.orgRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847530422002-11-19T00:26:00.000-08:002002-11-19T00:28:05.083-08:00PHP Bulletin Boards
Now that the blog project is well on its way with the next steps being to get four other sites up and running and to try movabletype on tongfamily.com.
The next step is to understand bulletin board software that's out there and then album and photo archiving. Here are a quick list of PHP-based bboard systems I found from a quick search. Need to check them all out:
RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847527442002-11-19T00:13:00.000-08:002002-11-19T00:13:23.776-08:00InternetSeer Web Site Monitoring Service. This is the number one hit on Google for doing site monitoring. Right now it is hitting the b2 blog mail monitoring url every hour to get email into the blog at Geek FishingRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847521022002-11-18T23:47:00.000-08:002002-11-18T23:47:05.223-08:00boardom :: View Forum - Site showcase. OK, now I'm in the middle of posting my brand new b2 hack on the bulletin board. A proud day. I have to figure out how to package it so that you can all download it though.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847455622002-11-18T20:37:00.000-08:002002-11-18T20:37:42.173-08:00PuTTY: a free Win32 telnet/ssh client. Oops that last listing was for a Unix-only client, here is the top Windows version from Google.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847455142002-11-18T20:36:00.000-08:002002-11-18T20:36:39.033-08:00OpenSSH. This is the replacement for telnet. It is amazing how many old Unix utilities like ftp and telnet are still being used. Heck, I learned how to use it in 1975 when I was a teenager. I guess that dates me. At least, some things aren't obsolete. I'm switching to ssh since it is more secure than telnet and here is the top utility there.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847449732002-11-18T20:24:00.000-08:002002-11-18T20:24:22.603-08:00APD |. It is pretty frustrating to be writing PHP without a debugger. Here's one that some folks pointed out. I tried another debugger a while back and it was terrible.
APD is the Advanced PHP Debugger. It was written to provide strace/truss capability for profiling and debugging php code, as well as providing the ability to print out a full stack backtrace. APD does not support interactive RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847423512002-11-18T19:30:00.000-08:002002-11-18T19:30:59.170-08:00PHP_CodeDoc - Class: Mail. Wowk, this is a super useful site, they go into every routine that is built with PEAR and document what they are doing since the code itself isn't documented. Very useful.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847140692002-11-18T09:20:00.000-08:002002-11-18T09:20:56.640-08:00ALT-PHP-FAQ - How can I set the include path and other settings that are fixed in php.ini without having access to php.ini?. The include paths on tqhosting are busted, so here is a way to change it if I can access .htaccess or maybe I'll ask mark@tqhosting.comRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847138192002-11-18T09:15:00.000-08:002002-11-18T09:15:59.823-08:00PEAR :: Manual: Mail_RFC822. Eureka, I discovered that I had just forgotten the declaration that asks for the right file that is require_once 'Mail.php' That's is. Then you can use the method Mail::parserecipients("strong") to get the list. Wow, amazing how i figured this out just when I went to bed. The problem is that code fragment documented here, doesn't have the require_once piece since it RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847124902002-11-18T08:45:00.000-08:002002-11-18T08:45:44.253-08:00SecuriTeam.com ™ (Weak MySQL Default Configuration). Ah one last thing is the security on mysql. By default it has a root login with no password. The e-php changes this, so you have to switch it back by editing the config.inc.php file. See the link above.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-847121852002-11-18T08:39:00.000-08:002002-11-18T08:39:31.500-08:00TAASC: MySQL Basics -- A Tutorial. The MySQL installation now can't connect to apache, so the search goes on. Here is an installation manual.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846980802002-11-17T23:58:00.000-08:002002-11-17T23:58:35.913-08:00Web installer. OK, this is very strange, why it didn't work, but I installed mysql, iis, perl, php and then used the e-php installer and now pear seems to be there. This installation helps me to install a "package" for us.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846959712002-11-17T22:44:00.000-08:002002-11-17T22:44:18.793-08:00>e-novative> PHP (ePHP) - the PHP for Windows solution. Wow, a single installer that lays down PHP 4.2.3, Apache 1.3.27, MySQL, etc. Pretty neat.
I need to get my Pear installation right. There is a bug right now that I can't figure out and the docuemntaiton is terrible. It has the parse RFC 822 function I need, but I can't figure out how to get it to run. Documentation is terrible.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846532922002-11-17T00:05:00.000-08:002002-11-17T00:05:12.190-08:00Parsing email
Well, it occurs to me that there must be quite of few people who have written code like this, so a search reveals:
PHP: mailparse functions - Manual. These are some routines from the main PHP server itself that let's you parse the entire stream. Pretty useful like mailparse_rfc822_parse_addresses. Not super well documented, but about what I need.
Pear Mail_RFC822 Parsing. This isRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846525452002-11-16T23:34:00.000-08:002002-11-16T23:39:15.530-08:00PHP: Documentation. I'm learning how to parse an email, grab the email address in the From line and then look it up in a MySQL database. To do that, I've printed the source and now I need to learn PHP finally. Usually, Iearn just by reading code, but this is a little harder, so it's off to teh PHP tutorial section.
PHP: Regular Expression Syntax. The tricky part is going to be to do the RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846148402002-11-16T00:28:00.000-08:002002-11-16T00:28:46.883-08:00wapblogger - a WAP interface to Blogger, LiveJournal and other smart weblog-style tools. Wow, how cool, you can post to a blog via your cell phone. Sign me up. You just have to navigate to http://wap.ubique.ch/wapblogger/ from your phone and I'm off and to the races!RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846146742002-11-16T00:21:00.000-08:002002-11-16T00:21:22.296-08:00Geeklog - Documentation 1.3x. Hmm. Yet another blog tool. Nice thing about this one is the automatic theming. Wow, there are an amazing number of tools like this developed in the last year. This like cafelog and movabletype is about a year old.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846141642002-11-16T00:01:00.000-08:002002-11-16T00:01:09.350-08:00SiteWorks Professional - The Complete PHP/MySQL Driven Site Administration Suite. Here's a tool that just uses PHP and MySQL. Wow, just what the doctor ordered. I love the Internet!RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846141312002-11-15T23:59:00.000-08:002002-11-15T23:59:58.473-08:00PHP Builder. I'm probably going to settle on PHP or Perl as my scripting language. PHP is tempting because it is pretty easy to integrate into Windows servers which I need in this transition period. Here is a great site of tips on it.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846141042002-11-15T23:58:00.000-08:002002-11-15T23:58:39.426-08:00PHP Builder. I'm going to convert tongfamily.com from a FrontPage plus IIS specific site with blogger on top to a pure blog over the next could of months. This is going to be a big project given how many dependencies there are on Microsoft technology right now. Here's a short list of things to do:
Remove the current dependencies. Right now I use ASPs for includes on the main page and FrontPageRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846134952002-11-15T23:32:00.000-08:002002-11-15T23:35:03.963-08:00Telling the world about a new web site
Well, now that we have Geek Fishing up and running, it's time to do another review of web tools to get things published and into search enginers. I did this a few years ago, but the world is always changing. Here's
Jim Tools. Last time around, I just punched into submit-it. This has since been sucked into BCentral and isn't free anymore, so a Google RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-846097682002-11-15T21:23:00.000-08:002002-11-15T21:23:36.140-08:00Home Networking and Broadband Argggghhhh!
I'm going to be so glad when Dynacenter has a product! I've been down for two days at home and Connie has been telling me about it.
First of all, the only error diagnostic is that you can't browse or connect. The modem is completely unhelpful. Just a bunch of blinking lights and who knows where the manual is. Reminds me that to be successful, there RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-845149942002-11-13T23:32:00.000-08:002002-11-13T23:32:01.780-08:00Wireless Media Server. A great point by John Ludwig about a wireless media server that uses FM to broadcast rather than something fancy. Of course, who wants 16KHz limited FM. He makes a point of the FM range compression. I didn't think that was true normally. Also, most 128Kbps Mpeg3's are limited to 16Khz anyway.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-845144102002-11-13T23:12:00.000-08:002002-11-13T23:12:01.260-08:00Post to many blogs. I just love this tool from Brazil. Now, I can post to multiple blogs at the same time. In this case, you'll find this message on Tong Family and Geek Fishing at the same time. Useful for sending to multiple places at once I think.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-845138682002-11-13T22:54:00.000-08:002002-11-13T22:54:12.300-08:00Geek Fishing. This is our new shared web page for Ignition affiliated folks who are interested in learning how to use Blogs. It is amazing how much interesting information is over there. It uses b2 cafelog as the tool.
Longer term, I'm going to put Movable Type onto that server and then move www.tongfamily.com over. RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-843208532002-11-10T09:33:00.000-08:002002-11-10T09:33:40.723-08:00Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Reader How Tos: Build a PC for TV - How To Build a PC for TV, Continued. Martin is thinking about building one of the home theater PCs. Here's a good guide using a piece of hardware I have. The main problem is that the SS-51G is a great box, but won't look good in a cabinet.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842690172002-11-08T23:29:00.000-08:002002-11-08T23:29:11.056-08:00cornerhost: low priced, reliable hosting with a human touch. Another boutique to consider. $10/month is the basic plan plus $3 for mysql.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842689452002-11-08T23:25:00.000-08:002002-11-08T23:25:55.676-08:00Teen Open Diary. A teen oriented blog system. Claims there are 20,000 blogs on it. Wow.RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842688752002-11-08T23:22:00.000-08:002002-11-08T23:22:56.906-08:00Antville. Another example of the blog economy. This is a special tool for highly scalable blog hosting. They currently have 2700 plus blogs on a server of which 1300 are accessible. That is amazing!RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842688462002-11-08T23:21:00.000-08:002002-11-08T23:21:38.233-08:00Weblogs Compendium - Hosting. this seems like the definitive list of blog oriented hosters. No ratings though. Will troll through and see what is there. Interesting to see Tranquil is tops in a google search for blog hostingRThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842685422002-11-08T23:08:00.000-08:002002-11-08T23:08:44.813-08:00BlogOmania :: There's always room for one more!. It had to happen, here is a hoster that specializes in blogs. More food for John Ludwig and I to think about. Anyway, I'm going to sign up for either their $30/quarter plan which is 200MB, 4 MySQL databases, 2 mailing list.
Of if Tranquil Hosting supports things, I might just do the $25/month, get 2GB of data so I can put all my pictures, etc. RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842683072002-11-08T22:59:00.000-08:002002-11-08T22:59:02.660-08:00Radio Free Blogistan Blog Tool Comparisons. These I find more useful than just the checklist that Blogcomp has. Here is one about Radio vs. MovableType vs. Blogger. Basically concludes that Radio is the best of the bunch. Amazing what a year of development can yield though. These products aren't that old at all.
Bottom line quote:
Radio is much easier to get started with unless you are RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842127722002-11-07T22:38:00.000-08:002002-11-08T21:31:06.106-08:00DVD Playback on your PC
Now that I've got DVD backup working, the next question is playback. There are two issues, how to get great DVD playback and how to get great DiVX playback. Here's what I've learned
DVDs on Your PC. OK now that the DiVX works, the questions are how to get a nice DiVX player that understands AC3 and also a DVD player that knows it. Looks like WinDVD 4.0 and PowerDVD 4.0RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362818.post-842124082002-11-07T22:25:00.000-08:002002-11-08T21:31:47.903-08:00DVD to DiVX backup guides
In the quest to backup my DVDs to a highly compressed DiVX file, I found lots of really great sites that explain what to do. I ended up picking the method that is more complicated but hopefully gets really great high quality DiVX with Dolby Digital (also called AC3), so it is just like a movie. There a ton of approaches. Here is the one that I use.
Definitive DVD RThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12094655474064688474noreply@blogger.com