Month: March 2011

Fun Fact: When Will IE6 Be Gone?

digitaleagle Fun Fact, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I ran across this article on Engadget:

Microsoft kicks off effort to rid the world of Internet Explorer 6

I have a great suggestion — change their slogan from “Friends don’t let friends use Internet Explorer 6” to like my shirt: “Friends don’t let friends use Windows!”  That will get rid of IE6!  Just kidding…

In all seriousness, I can’t help but wonder if delivering the browser with the OS has caused most of this issue.  On top of that, new releases of Windows haven’t been as frequent as they could have been, and users didn’t have compelling reasons to upgrade.

Maybe one thing that might help is to finish the HTML 5 specification and give the users a compelling reason to upgrade their browser!

Linux Client for WordPress

digitaleagle Blogging, Uncategorized, Wordpress Leave a comment

Now that I have WordPress setup on a separate website, I am ready to attempt to use another program for writing the posts.  Here is my first attempt at finding such a program.

Options from Ubuntu Software Center:

In order to use these, I did have to go to the settings on my blogs and enable the XML-RPC feature.  In the admin tool, I went to Settings > Writing.  Under Remote Publishing, there is a setting for it.

Blog Entry Poster worked pretty easily once I got the RPC enabled.  Drivel was a little more difficult, but I found a post that helped.  I just had to use MoveableType.

I think I like QTM the best out of the three.  One feature I like is that it supports multiple accounts/blogs:

The accounts window in QTM

Another feature I like is that you can save/upload it as a draft.  So, what I will probably do is write and complete most of the post from QTM.  Then, I will go back and proof it online in WordPress.

QTM does seem to support adding images although, I don’t think I have tried it yet.  It doesn’t seem to support WYSIWYG editing though.  That isn’t that big of a deal for me with simple posts.  It does have a preview button.

Help! Maintenance Mode in WordPress

digitaleagle Blogging, How To, Troubleshooting, Uncategorized, Wordpress Leave a comment

I got a little scare last night when I was updating one of my plugins in WordPress.  I got a little click-happy, and I think I didn’t let the page finish loading when I told it to install the update.

Anyway, I went to the front page, and I got a message like this: “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”  Thankfully, I found the solution here:

WordPress Forums: [resolved] Blog now stuck in maintenance mode

The solution is to delete a .maintenance file in the root directory of my WordPress installation.  I use nautilus for my FTP connection to the website.  Because the file begins with “.”, it is hidden by default.  You can hit Ctrl + H to show the hidden files, and then I could delete the file.

Fedora and Pixar

digitaleagle Fedora, Great Links, Interesting Articles, Uncategorized Leave a comment

While catching up on blogs, I noticed that Paul mentioned he saw Pixar was using Fedora with Toy Story. You can read is posts here and here.

I think it is cool to see Linux used in real world applications. Sometimes it seems like Linux just gets pushed off as a hobbyist tool. In the PeopleSoft world, Linux isn’t an option for the developer’s desktop. Here recently, I have been working with SQL Server installations on Windows servers even for the server side. I feel like a loner as a PeopleSoft developer who uses Linux.  But, Linux has been good to me, as I am sure it has been to Pixar.

On a side note, I went poking around the Internet to see if I could find any more information. I did see that Meta Headers seems to show that Pixar uses Fedora for their web server: “The Pixar.com Server powered by Apache 2.0.49 (Fedora) webserver.” Other than that, I didn’t see anything else related.

So, let me add my two cents to the blogosphere: Good Job Fedora.  Good Job Pixar.

Android Everywhere!

digitaleagle Andriod, Google Phone, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Three articles in one day!

First, I read that Amazon is talking about selling Android Apps. Gizmodo is talking about it, too. Like Gizmodo, I wonder why we need another app store and how they plan to compete? Would a user have to enable the non-market apps option to use the store? What is going to be the advantage for either the user or the developer to use Amazon?

Then, I read about Google’s new features on their app store. To me, this should be very attractive to developers because it should give them more options for monetizing their development.

On a different note, I read about Saab putting Android in their cars. This has always been cool to me. When the prices of the tablets drop, I would like to try to make my own little car info center with one.

Attack on Experts Exchange

digitaleagle Great Links, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I can’t tell you how many times I have been searching for something and I find an excellent search result in Google only to find that on the site I have to pay to see the answer. Frustrating! And, Experts Exchange is one of the main culprits.

Just recently, I have seen a number of blog posts pointing to the Personal Block List extension. Here is a list of articles written:

Only one of those articles mentions Experts Exchange, but I thought was funny that one of the reviews said, “Awesome. I have been wanting to block experts-exchange.com for soooo long.
Thank you devs.” I am sure there are a number of other sites that are similar.

I did notice, too, that Google will know about what you choose to block: “The personal blocklist extension will transmit to Google the patterns that you choose to block.” I wonder if there is or will be a way to see that from Google Analytics?

Anyway, Happy Blocking…