Domestic Geek

OK, heads up! It's going to be funky around here a lot today. I've vowed to fix the slow loading today so I can move onto working on a new theme. Since I totally removed my sidebar and it's still slow, yet none of my other sub sites on this Expression Engine install are slow, it's something going on in this particular blog. I may break something, but it's backed up in it's original state, so I can reinstall that at any time. Just thought it fair to give you guys a warning and yes I know about it. Hopefully I'll find and fix the problem and coming to visit me won't be such a chore.

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.

*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.

Hey everybody.

I'm still here, just haven't felt like posting. The change in weather coupled with not hearing from the guy I interviewed with on Friday and realizing my unemployment runs out on the 21st triggered major blahs yesterday. It's starting to feel like I'm never going to find another job. The feelings of worthlessness set in. I started feeling the weight of another crappy Christmas coming. It's only 2½ months away. I had a little pity party for myself. I'm feeling a little better today, though, but not much.

I wanted to post about the little project I had Marcus working on for me. During the Blogathon, I noticed several sites that had audio links in their posts. A lot of people were using a service called hipcast, but that costs $$. People using Wordpress have a customizable flash audio plugin that is really cool and requires just a tiny bit of code in your post. I used Radio Blog Club to put the audio link for my Thursday Thirteen Favorite Songs post, but that only works if they have the song you're looking for in their database and the site is down alot. I know I could just use Object to embed audio, but I like the look of the Wordpress player and the tiny bit of code in the post.

There was a thread on the EE forums where somebody was asking if anybody could make a plugin for EE based on the Wordpress plugin. Stale Betty came up with a solution, but it requires a lot of code in the post and a custom field, so only one audio thing per post. I wanted the ability to have many. Anyway, I put the challenge to Marcus and he wrote me one, using both the wordpress plugin and stale betty's code. The only problem is I also have to use the Allow EE Code plugin in order to use it, but that's OK. Anyway, here's the little bit of code (I assigned it to a custom html button, so I only need to click one button to put it in my post):
{ exp:my_stream name="songtitle.mp3" id="1" }
Neat, huh?

All it cost me was making Marcus a Halloween graphic for his site! Isn't it cool?

I need to do a little more testing by going back and replacing all the songs in my Thursday 13 post. That'll test the "id" function of it. If every song has a different id, then they can't play at the same time. I realy need to get my head straight and figure out how to do these things. I've always wanted to learn php and I like tinkering with code, but this underemployment and depression is kicking my ass.

I've got a final rant I need to make. We get East and West coast stations on our Dish. I've been using the East coast to get the shows I like on CBS. Last Friday, I missed the last 10 minutes of Ghost Whisperer and two weeks in a row I haven't gotten the whole Without A Trace. Pisses me off. I'm trying to bit torrent them as we speak. I've switched to taping the West coast ones. We'll see if that solves this stupid problem. I'm also mad at CBS, the network. Your The Class show is stupid and nobody is watching it. Thanks for switching your line up to put it in between How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men in a lame attempt to gain viewership. You're lucky I was looking for something else in the program guide and noticed your switch. If I had sat down to watch How I Met Your Mother on my PVR and found out then that I had The Class instead, I would've been pissed instead of mildly irritated. Jerks.

OK, enough posting for now. I've got housework and template fixing to do (I have got to get the comments template DONE!). Have a good Tuesday everybody.

I'm going to try and update this site's template today. Things may go wonky here and there or it may be down for extended periods of time. Bear with me. I'll let you know when I'm finished and then please let me know if you come across anything that doesn't work then. Have a great day, everybody!

As much as I like the little favicons showing in my linklist (EE module written by Yoshi), I had to dump them. I'm tired of my page taking forever to finish loading if anyone's server in my list happens to be down. As I have no desire to save them locally on my own server, I'll have to do without. There is also some other errant code in my template from things I've put in there and then taken out and left straggling code behind. If (when!) I get my new design finished, I'll fix my code. I've never really coded my archives template, I realized. How long have I had this design? Geez. I've never done my about page. I've been such a slacker.