the singularity of being and nothingness
Archive for May, 2008
Woot! My First WordPress Plugin!
May 29th
Over the last week and a half, I have been working with an old co-worker of mine on a project that he started about a month (or so) ago: searchwebjobs.com. This site is a pretty cool job listings site that is really easy to browse for jobs.
In brainstorming how to make the site better, I suggested that we create a WordPress plugin that would allow others (presumably, CSS galleries…) to grab a feed of our jobs and display them on their site.
So, grabbing my PHP 5 manual (and dusting it off…), I set to work. Fortunately, I have had some recent exposure to WordPress, so I felt reasonably sure that something could be done.
In all honesty, I couldn't be more impressed with WordPress' support for plugins. Consider this: it took me–a complete idiot at PHP–only 3 hours to program then entire plugin from nearly scratch. Not bad.
The beauty of WordPress' plugin support–IMO–is the default database that is so easily exposed. Instead of having to create stupid PHP connections, that stuff already exists, so all you have to do is basically write SQL. Plus, there are a few native functions to WordPress that allow you to use a row More >
ColdFusion and Twitter
May 28th
Over the last several months, I've gotten into Twitter ALOT. I find it to not only be fun, but it is also an interesting social experiment. I've been surprised by how many great resources I've come across because of my followers quickly twittering something they think is cool/helpful.
Naturally, the next stage in my relationship with Twitter is to crack into its API to manipulate from my own applications. Turns out this is surprisingly easy to do. All of Twitter's functions are relatively simple and require very little to accomplish what you want to do.
So my case study was the most obvious: post an update to my "status." In ColdFusion, the entire process takes 6 lines. 6 LINES! Here they are, in all their simplistic glory:
<cfset update = "Hey, this is an update to my twitter status"><cfhttp url="http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml" method="POST" charset="utf-8" username="existdissolve" password="mypassword"> <cfhttpparam name="user" value="existdissolve" type="formfield"> <cfhttpparam name="password" value="mypassword" type="formfield"> <cfhttpparam name="status" value="#update#" type="formfield"></cfhttp>
For this function, you do have to create a basic authentication, which merely requires passing your username and password along with the status message. Very simple, but very cool!
So yeah, that's about it. There's a whole slew of functions in Twitter's API, but hopefully this shows More >
I'm Building a CSS-Gallery
May 23rd
Yeah, yeah, I know. There are already a billion and 3 CSS showcase galleries out there. Why re-invent the wheel, you surely say?
Well, I'm actually not…well, not really. I have a few projects that are hovering on the horizon for which I am going to be using a few features I've never built before, such as a rating system, and a tagging system. While I feel confident that they will be no big deal, I figure something like this could provide a good playground for working those things out now, rather than later.
One thing I am going to do with my CSS gallery, however, is auto-generated thumbnails. I really want to do nothing but approve or deny submissions, so the thought of taking time to open the RAM-whore Photoshop CS3 to crop up a bunch of images is not appealing!
In thinking about this, I snooped around the Intrablog for some free services that would provide this. One of them, Websnapr, has an extremely easy to use API…the only problem is that they slap a stupid watermark on the thumbnails that are generated. So obviously, I moved on. The next one I found (and stuck with, incidentally), was ShrinkTheWeb.com. Their web More >
Google Analytics Comes to the Desktop
May 20th
If you don't use Google Analytics for your site analytics solution, then either you have something that you're paying for (which is okay if it's not actually YOU paying for it), or you're using something else that's not very good.
I like Analytics because it is super easy to install, very fast, and provides some seriously robust statistics for free–tough to beat that.
Well, today I ran across a really cool application that is being developed to bring Analytics to the desktop.
Currently, this application is only in beta, but it has a lot of promise. Even with the limited suite of services being offered in the current version, Google Analytics for AIR delivers strongly.
One of the really nice features of this application is that it is super-fast, which is more than can be said for the web interface. Additionally, everything is laid out very intuitively, so there is not really any adjustment needed to transition from the web interface.
The only criticism I would have at this stage is that the interface itself is really BLUE. This is a minor criticism, of course, but I would like to see more white rather than blue. Picky, huh?
Anyway, if you use Analytics, check this out–I More >
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Deconstructed Star
May 19th
So over the last year, I've become quite good at playing nursery rhymes on my guitar–it's one of the easist ways to be able to actually play guitar while concomitantly appeasing the attentions of my two-year old daughter. On my favorites (because it's easy) is the old-standby, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Well, this last Saturday night, I did not sleep a wink. Therefore, all Sunday was somewhat of a daze. However, somewhere in the midst of it, I was playing this song and was struck by the question posed throughout: "How I wonder what you are." Indeed, I thought, how we do wonder what stars are.
Of course, science tells us that they are giant balls of coalesced stellar gases. Pa-shaw. Here's my philosophical analysis.
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are
Are you really just a ball of gas, as the hegenomy of science says?
Why should I believe that, when no one's ever seen it, and no one's ever touched it
I know I've never tasted it; I've never had a side of star with turkey on rye
Maybe it's an More >
My Life in Six Words…
May 15th
Despite rumors to the contrary , my "theological blog" is not dead, at least not quite. In fact, I've got a post regarding the doctrine of atonement in I Peter that will be coming quite soon (I hope!), so watch for that.
The reason for my recent absence is that I've been ridiculously busy the last several weeks (likely excuse, right?), so this kind of thinking has had to take a back-seat to more pragmatic concerns…like watching Battlestar Galactica [reimagined]…
So Mofast Manna tagged me to participate in a meme wherein I am supposed to tell my life story in six words of undefined length.
Okay…Here goes!
The singularity of being and nothingness
Share this: Google Reader Shiny-ness, Part II
May 13th
About a week ago, I mentioned my love of Google Reader, and how it contributes significantly to my web design process.
Well, it got just a bit better for me today. While using Google Reader to follow one of my favorite blogs, I ran across a brand-spanking new AIR-based application that brings the functionality of Google Reader to the desktop.
This new application is ReadAir. It is really nothing more than HTML and JavaScript, but it is shiny. And the functionality–on the whole–is pretty good. At this stage, it is still a bit buggy. Unread feed counts do not update when an article is viewed, and it is also a bit slow. However, the project is open-source, so hopefully others will come along and expand upon it to make it better.
So if you like Google Reader, take a look at ReadAir. Oh, and be sure to let me know what you think about it!!
Share this: On Becoming a Better Web Designer, Part Third
May 12th
As I dive deeper into web design, the more I realize how critically important it is to learn from others. By this, I'm not simply talking about using others' advice for coding best practices, nor even about–gasp!–stealing code.
What I mean by "learning from others" is to begin to develop a perspective of others' work that truly values and prizes their talents.
After all, let's be serious: web designers are a conceited bunch. We like to roll out designs and have others laud us with praises about how cool the site looks, how well it functions, whatever. But what do we do when we look at others' work?
I know my first reaction is to critique. "Well," I think to myself, "if I had designed this site (imagine me puffing a giant pipe while wearing a hideously ostentatious robe), I would have done this…" Or, "This site could be SO much better if only they had done that ['that' being understood as what I would have done, obviously]." Am I right? I know I am, because I am one of the most self-deprecating web designers out there, and I do it constantly.
However, this is a tremendously difficult way to function. Not only it More >
Quick Link: Flex Skin Design Extensions for CS3
May 12th
Honestly, I haven't done anything in Flex for a while (and I loathe that fact daily). Nonetheless, I ran across a pretty cool thing today. Flex 3 now has skin design extensions for CS3. This allows designers to create skins in Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks (yawn) and Flash, and then import them straight into Flex 3 using the skin import tool.
I think this is a very important development–Flex is awesome, but difficult to skin out of the box. These extensions should help make an already killer development framework infinitely more sexy, which is really all that matters (of course!).
So enough of this. Grab the extensions, and also check out Flex 3 if you haven't already.
Share this: Google Reader: An Essential Tool for the Web Designer
May 6th
I wish I could express how critical Google Reader is to my web design process. How does an RSS feed reader aid my web design, you ask?
I'll tell you!
There are approximately 13.25 billion CSS design galleries currently on the world-wide interblog. In my experience, each gallery updates their gallery with approximately 5-8 new designs every 3 days. So, in the course of 3 days there are 60+ billion websites featured on design galleries, give or take a handful.
Obviously, I kid, but the truth is not far off. There are a lot of CSS design galleries out there, and they are constantly adding new sites every day. Morever, there are hundreds of really talented designers out there that have incredibly creative ideas about good web design.
Now let's be honest: creative web design is never done is isolation. I personally find a lot of great inspiration from others, and attempt to distill the best of what I see into my own designs.
So where does Google Reader fit into this? Well, imagine trying to follow each of these sites (I currently follow over 108 galleries, and design-related blogs). Live bookmarks is unthinkable. Visiting each site would be an absolute nightmare. So I need More >
