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…

Fun with Comics

digitaleagle Uncategorized Leave a comment

In catching up with my RSS feeds, I saw Jake’s link to this comic. It struck me as very funny.

Check it out — Sticky Comics: An Update is Available for Your Computer

I find my self very much like the Linux and Windows user. Probably, one of the biggest reasons I hate Windows updates is because they always come when I am either trying to reboot or shutdown and go home. My Linux updates I can choose to do when I want. Plus, they do update more than just the OS, which gives me new features. So, go Linux! Everybody should be running Linux!

HTML 5 Disappointing or Par for the Course?

digitaleagle General Web, News Commentary, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Today, I was catching up on my blog reading, and I came across Tim’s post about “HTML5 heading for an early grave?”. You can read the original news article here.

This is very disappointing because the HTML 4 standard is so old. The Internet has changed so much that we need something now.

On the other hand, it isn’t anything new. The browsers keep talking about adding HTML 5 features, so it’s not like we don’t already have HTML 5 in some form or another. Then, if you look at HTML tutorials you will see all kinds of idiosyncracies in the way each of the browsers works. Now, you have to test your website in each browser just to make sure it works for everyone.

I choose to be optimistic — if we take our time, we will get this right. With a compliance testing tool, we will have a clear standard to measure each browser against and put pressure on the browsers to follow the standard.  I hope that is the way it will work!

Upgrading Eclipse to 3.6

digitaleagle Eclipse, Java, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I just realized while trying to install Visual Editor, that Eclipse has a new version.  I am using 3.5, but 3.6 is available.

I could just download eclipse from their website, but that would be too easy!  I guess I was hoping that if I use the repository, the packaging team would keep it up to date.

I found this thread discussing upgrading.  They say it doesn’t work, but I thought I would give it a try myself.  Worst cast, I could download it manually like #11 describes.

So, I went to Synaptic and opened the Settings > Repositories.  Then, I added the repository:

deb https://launchpad.net/~eclipse-team/+archive/debian-package lucid main

When I clicked Reload on Synaptic, I got this error message:

Failed to fetch https://launchpad.net/~eclipse-team/+archive/debian-package/dists/lucid/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz  The requested URL returned error: 404


Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Failed to fetch https://launchpad.net/~eclipse-team/+archive/debian-package/dists/lucid/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz  The requested URL returned error: 404Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I wonder if it is because I am running the 64bit version of Ubuntu.

Anyway, since it didn’t work, I downloaded eclipse from the Eclipse website.  Then, I extracted the tar ball into my Downloads directory.  From the command line, I changed directory into the newly created eclipse directory.  Then, I ran this command to copy it to /usr/lib —

sudo cp -r * /usr/lib/eclipse/

One thing to keep in mind is that you probably want to write down what extensions you have installed and the sites so that you can reinstall them.

Resources

Ubuntu Forums: Update Eclipse 3.5 to 3.6