Domestic Geek

While I was over at Apple's site this morning, I saw the front page had a big announcement that in June you will be able to view YouTube content through your AppleTV. That's pretty cool.

I love this commercial.

Wait—here’s more »

« All Done!

Renting movies through the mail has worked so well that I think I'm ready to try renting books that way, as well. Booksfree is an online rental service that allows you to rent paperback and audio books. For plans starting at as little as $8.49 a month, you can have unlimited book rentals with no due dates or late fees. I noticed that you can also purchase gift memberships for others.

I have really missed reading, as I used to devour at least one new book a week. I have been hesitant lately, however, to waste $8 to $10 on a paperback book that I'll probably read once or twice. I have been trying to avoid adding further clutter to my house. I've already gotten rid of a ton of books and still have a bookcase full. I've thought about borrowing from the library, but ours is so crowded and the books I want always seem to be checked out.

This program makes so much sense. The books are mailed to me and I can send them back postage paid as soon as I'm done. With over 88,000 titles (fiction and non-fiction both), I'm sure they have plenty of material to keep my entertained. I think I'll start with the Stephen King books I have fallen behind on reading. They also have Orson Scott Card books. I fell in love with his writing in college, but haven't read anything in years. I love the Alvin Maker series and didn't know there were at least two that I haven't read. Looks like I've got a lot of reading in my future!

This is a Sponsored Review.

I remember being able to save my MovableType files as external docs on my server so I wouldn't have to edit them in the the program's editor. It's one of the things I've always been meaning to see if it could be done in Expression Engine because I hate working on my templates in the editor with a passion. I think it's one of the reasons I haven't really been working on my sites. I'd much rather work in BBEdit (my mac text editor of choice) and have the proper outline format and be able to see the color coding. Makes it a heck of a lot easier to spot problems, let me tell you! Instead of just figuring it out a long time ago, I've been copying from the editor, pasting into BBEdit, making changes, copying it back into the editor — not the most efficient workflow. Anyway, I was working on couple of friends' Wordpress templates the last few days and I was tinkering with their files on my own test server via my FTP program (Transmit) and BBEdit. So much easier! I decided today I was going to figure out how to make that happen in EE or I was going to dump the platform.

Fortunately, there is indeed a way to Save Templates as Text Files. The hardest part was figuring out what my server path was. I uploaded a page called pathinfo.php into the root of the site with this code: <?php phpinfo(); ?> and loaded the page. Down at the bottom was my server path. Yay! So, now I can code directly from BBEdit via Transmit. It is done and one more thing I've been putting off for so long is crossed off my list. Now it's late, but I'll get to working on my new design first thing in the morning.

I make no apologies that I love Google. Even if they are plotting to take over the world, at least they're making my life easier in the process. Seriously, when you need a no-nonsense search engine, Google is it. When you want a little more out of your home page, their personalize version is pretty cool, too. I love all the little tools and search boxes and info that you can have. I heard on the radio on the way to work the other day that there were now themes available to make your Google page pretty. That conveniently slipped my mind until I saw a post about it over at ljcfyi yesterday. I immediately went and added one to my google page. There are currently six available, but I heard that there will be more in the future. I chose the Tea House theme. I love how the scene changes depending on the time of day.

Here's a screen shot I captured last night: