Domestic Geek

Just as I said before, the HTML comment formatting buttons would be fixed when Marcus came home. Although he didn't actually spot the problem, having him looking over my shoulder as I talked him through my code allowed me to see the error. Yes, a simple missing right curly brace broke my CSS. Isn't that always the way? I wasted so much time today staring at that durned page. Grrrrr.

If you edit css alot and use Firefox, may I suggest the Web Developer Extension? Using the "edit css" funtion is great for isolating errors, playing with margin/padding or checking colors without having to edit and save your actual CSS each time. You can also have it outline block level elements to see if something funky is happening or show you the class names being used. It's pretty cool. The thing is a real time saver for me.

Now that that is fixed, I'm going to go try and get some sleep.

Man, I just noticed that I somehow broke the CSS formating on the HTML Buttons in my comment form. WTH did I do to cause that? Grrr. Well, I guess I'll have to look into that later. *sigh* I'll put it on my list of stuff to do.

If anybody from Blogger reads this (yeah, right) or you use Blogger: LISTEN UP!

I absolutely HATE commenting on Blogger blogs. Some of them have separate "view comment" links from "make comment" links. Dang it! When I have something to add, I don't want to figure out which I have to hit to actually start my comment. What's wrong with putting the comment entry fields right after the previous comments like normal people do? Also, have the comments open in a new window or have the entry, comments and comment field all in one like I do. I sometimes want to refer back to the original post (especially on Thursday Thirteen) and if I forget to open it in a new tab myself, I'm screwed.

If you do follow the maze and get your point out, then I always have to put in my blog info. Unless I want to use my blogger ID (which I don't), there is no mechanism to save the "other" info. I found this especially annoying during the Blogathon. There was so much I wanted to comment on, but refused to go through the whole proceedure each time.

If I have persevere long enough to get to this point and actually post the comment, I can't get back to original post easily. You have to hit the back button a couple of times and each time you get that annoying "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?" message. Yes, I am sure, dammit! Just let me go away if I want. I've already posted my comment. Geez.

Of course, some of these gripes apply to other blog platforms, as well. Livejournal comes immediately to mind. Fortunately, I don't run across many LJ sites in my daily surfing. It seems like 2/3 of all the sites I go to are Blogger.

People complain that nobody ever comments on their blogs. Maybe it's time you take a look at the process your readers have to go through to leave one.

*sigh*

Once again Saturday is over. I didn't do squat, it seems. I looked for PPP puzzle pieces (I found a #192—damn, that's a lot of pieces to be found yet since I've only got 20).

I did manage to design and implement my default avatar, so yay for that. That's him/her over to the right there. Isn't she cute? It's an androgynous kind of little icon...kind of like Pat from SNL. Now my comments will work the way I had envisioned. I'll try and upload some more default avatars this week, but feel free to become a member so you can upload your very own for commenting. Just keep the files to 100px square or less, please.

Dad came by today. He was very sad. He went to visit an old friend/former coworker and the poor man is very ill and possibly suffering from Alzheimer's. The man is only in his mid-60s. The thought of getting old and feeble disturbs me. I'd almost rather go quickly in some kind of an accident that lose control of my senses.

Well, I'd better try to go back to bed. I was having a coughing fit earlier. I hope I'm not getting sick. I'm not sleeping again and when I do, it's filled with disturbing, physically draining dreams. Grrr.

After entirely too much time wasted today, I finally got my comments to work the way I had envisioned! I just need to make a "no avatar" avatar and insert that code, code the preview template and comments are set. So, if you're a member of my site, please upload an avatar. If you're not a member, please join. Not only can you upload an avatar, you don't have to fill out the captcha or your info every time you comment.

Next I'll tackle my archive page. I used to have a really cool one when I used MT. I wonder if I still have that template archived somewhere. One day I'll actually have to do that "About Me" page that I have been planning since I started using EE. I ought to have this finished just as it's time to change templates again. LOL

BTW, am I the only one who has noticed that Flickr's little thumbnails suck? I tried both the flash and html ones and they both took forever to load and caused a bazillion errors in my log. Not cool. Oh, well. I don't have much uploaded to my account anyway.