09/03/2008
ShifD - Emacs (and vi) Key Commands
I was able to distract the guys working on shifd long enough to slide a couple of commits past them.
So for today, I'll just talk about one of the features I added when the rest of the staff wasn't looking. You can now edit and save shifd content using familiar key commands. 1
First, because it was easy, I added vi shortcuts. So i will put you in insert mode. It opens up the text box, focuses it and waits patiently. When you've added your text, you can hit [escape] :wq and it'll save and close it.
Adding vi shortcuts made me feel dirty, so I quickly added emacs commands too. The emacs version is pretty much only useful on a Mac, because control-s means something very different on windows/linux. To start a new shifd note, you can press [control]-x [control]-f2. To save the note, press [control]-x [control]-s. Not bad, eh?
There are a couple other shortcuts as well. For example, t will show/hide the input box, but those aren't quite on the same level of nerdiness, so I won't mention them all here. Go try it out for yourself.
1. This stuff, like most of the internet, is disabled in Internet Explorer.
2. I know that this would generally prompt you in emacs, but you get the gist of it.
07/09/2008
Google Region
Somehow, this didn't occur to me until today: it would be really great to select some text and enter a key command to search for that text on google. It may have taken me a long time to realize I wanted something like that, but I've used it today more times than I'd like to admit.
Anyways, here's how to make that happen in emacs, complete with a "control-c g" shortcut.
;; google-region (defun google-region (&optional flags) "Google the selected region" (interactive) (let ((query (buffer-substring (region-beginning) (region-end)))) (browse-url (concat "/search?ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=" query)))) ;; press control-c g to google the selected region (global-set-key (kbd "C-c g") 'google-region)
06/28/2008
Shifd from emacs
I made a little extension for emacs so that I could shifd things directly from inside the editor. Here's a video of it in action. If you're interested in the extension, let me know. I can make it available.
from on .
06/18/2008
One more time...
It's been a wild couple of months. I got married and went on a honeymoon and left two jobs!
So today, I've done it again. I gave my notice1... Again.
1. Notice was given to my landlord, not my job.
06/05/2008
About Me
My name is Ted Roden. This is my 'about me' page. 1 2
I live in New York City, but I grew up in before spending several years in Portland Oregon. I am married to a . I work at The New York Times as a Creative Technologist. Before that, I was a Senior Developer at .
I like music, computers and various sports teams. If you want to contact me, you should be able to find my email address on every page of this website.
This is what I looked like in September of 2007.
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| Ted Roden, Sept 2007 |
This photo was taken Justin and is being usde without his permission, but he's a great guy.
1. This is not a repeat post. I repost this page everytime I update it... so I guess it is a repeat post.
2. I hope to expand on this post soon, but I wanted to make sure this post had the most up to date information.
04/17/2008
Farewell, not a goodbye.
Tomorrow, April 18th, is my last day at .
I was hired by Jakob after being interviewed by him and Pile. I promptly gave 3 weeks notice at my previous employer and recommended that Vimeo also hire my longtime friend and coworker. They did. We started on the same day.
When I started we all worked from the founders' apartment, in Zach's old room. It was a lot of fun. 1
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| Going to space |
Soon after that, we moved into our new (and current) office, which previously housed parts of ask.com. We were total pros.
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| Formal Friday |
Over the next few months, Vimeo gained some new friends. We lost some others, who went on to bigger and brighter things.
For one more day, I get to come into work and work on some of the coolest stuff on the web. With some of smartest and funniest and nicest people you could ever wish to meet.
It's been wonderful. I'm proud of what we've done here and excited for what they'll continue to do without me. We introduced the web to HD, we built fancy APIs, we grew and grew and grew. It's only getting better.
Yes, I'll continue to post and hang out in the API forum answering questions. And, no, I won't let any of down.
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| Two Dudes |
It's going to be pretty strange. Monday will be the first day in over 8 years that I haven't worked with Peter. I'm sure I'll still ask his opinion on obscure database configurations and on where I should go to lunch, but we'll have to start hanging out after work. (Chicago Cubs, if you're listening, you could make that a lot easier by winning).
I'm sad to be leaving and excited for what is to come. It's funny how that works, you can never just feel one way. You're always happy for someone else and sad for yourself or super hungry, but nothing sounds good. Just once, it'd be nice to have it all worked out.
I'm sure it goes without saying, which means I'm going to say it now: I'm honored and humbled to have worked with the amazing people at Vimeo, College Humor and Busted Tees. Just like every other day since I started here, I can't wait to come to work tomorrow.
1. All of these photos were taken from Justin's and used without his permission. He has my apologies.
04/11/2008
Liner notes to my newest muxtape
Muxtape is a great service by a neat guy. When it launched, I created a muxtape called iliketheslowjams. It's a good mix, but as you may have guessed, it's a bit slow.
So recently, I created a regular muxtape at tedroden.muxtape.com. I really like this one. It's got a everything, a live track from a show that I attended, a guest vocal performance by Mandy Moore, it's not too indie or anything, it's pretty good. But after a couple of listens, I realized that it too was very slow. So I decided to create a muxtape for the rest of me. The liner notes follow.
cockrock.muxtape.com: The liner notesThis is music so brutal, so carnal, so primal that when you see these bands live you don't even watch them. You stand in front of the monstrous convulsing speakers and let your body soak it in. This is as close to nature as you're going to get today. This mix tells you that you're going to be a better parent than your parents were. This is important, you're going to teach this stuff to your kids. Onto the songs.
This song starts everything on the right note. The short track starts with a little laugh, perhaps a giggle, that tells you that you've come to the right place. The laugh says, "this will be nice, you're in for a treat, now check out these monster guitars."
This song follows suit with a very similar tempo. It sounds like your first leather jacket. While that jacket was ill-fitting and somehow constantly smelled of dust, whiskey and early twenties body odor, both the jacket and this song remind you that guitars sound better on vinyl.
This isn't the first time you've heard a lot of these songs, and this one is no exception. Hearing it now feels like you're sitting through a history lesson you've heard a number of times. As if your stoner history teacher is totally phoning it in and the lecture is a rerun. But, you always liked this lesson and it helps you remember your roots. Also, you're not going to have to sit through the acoustic bits later in original album.
This song starts out with a woodblock. It doesn't let up. Most songs don't know how to rock with an entire drum set. The Queens could have done it here with only a hollowed out block of wood. But they don't stop there. The drums keep up, chanting starts and the simple guitar solo tempts you to break out your air guitar.
Brooklyn can rock. Federale will explain that to you. They immediately demand your attention, which you give, and you hang on every word they have to say. This song reminds you that guitars aren't best heard on vinyl, they're best heard through an open garage door behind a six pack of beer.
I'm not going to lie to you, this is a song for the ladies. Sure, you totally love it, because this song totally kicks ass, but at the end of the day it's a love song and that's not really your thing. Let your chick know that this song says everything that you can't, and ask if she wouldn't mind getting a couple of beers. It's a bit "hair metal," but sweet Jesus these guys rock! Listen to his voice, that shredding... magnificent.
For years and years the song name "Evil Ways" was taken by Santana, repurposed into something to buy groceries to. Not any longer. Black Mountain took that name and gave it an appropriate song. While you're certainly not going to, the drums make you want to play air drums, but you could.
Listen to this glorious mess. The whole sound moves as one. When the guitars, bass and drums all gang up on you about two minutes in, you're not ashamed to admit you're a bit scared. But you're pretty sure you hear Josh Homme in there, letting you know everything is going to be OK.
People suggest that this is a joke band and they laugh at them. I dare you to ask those people to name some bands that aren't a joke... you'll see, they're just confused. Also, this is the only acoustic addition. It rocks so hard, it's only acoustic because our pea brains couldn't handle an electric version of this song. Also, at one minute long, this is a perfect chance to smoke a cigarette. Amidst all this balls out rocking, it shouldn't take you much longer than a minute to smoke a cigarette.
Not only this mix, but the entire history of music has been leading up to this song. It starts strong, and he flat out declares that he owns "the right to be the king of kings." This song is an achievement on par with anything humanity has ever done. When it sounds like it's relenting about a minute and a half in, it sounds like a challenge from them: doubt this, let your guard down. I'd advise against it, close your eyes and get ready. |
See what you want
Last week I relaunched my main site. It's got a few bugs, a couple of quirks and the design needs a bit of work. Even with those bugs, I still think it's a lot better than the previous versions and I wanted to point out a couple of things that the new site can do.
Filters
Are you only interested in seeing my breathtaking photos? Just my awesome links or hilarious quotes? That's easy! Just go to tedroden.com/filter/photos or (quotes, links or regular). That way you can see all my photos from all over the web, without going to my separate accounts on flickr, tumblr and anywhere else. Links is a collection links from delicious, magnolia, etc. You get the idea.
Stalkers
Do you want to track my every move? Go to my stalker page: grablr.com/i/am/stalking/tedroden. There you can see what I'm listening to, what I've read, things I've determined are "good," things I've posted online and what I'm planning on reading.
You can even suggest things for me to read by and tagging items as "for:fatius" Those things are automatically added to my "Planning on reading" list. When I'm bored, I go through that list.
The old site
If you don't like this change and just want the old site back, you can still get to that too! It helps make the new site.
Yesterday when I opened my mailbox, I pulled out two catalogs for the same book of the month club. One addressed to me and the other to my lady. Sure, it's strange that we got on a book of the month club mailing list, but that isn't the strangest part. These catalogues are actually directed to "men" and "women" separately.
While men get invited to "where a smart reader belongs," women get options for "Love & Looks," "Style & Sex," and "Fabulous Fun!"
Stay classy Double Day.
| The boys club | Chick lit/tr> |
04/07/2008
A new tedroden.com
I'm not ready to launch it, but I'm also not ready to keep it a secret any longer. So I'm just going to do it: I'm relaunching my website without finishing it.
tedroden.com is the new site, it's powered by a little thing called grablr.com. If you want my old site, it's now located at blog.tedroden.com.
That is all.
03/28/2008
Starwars
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
That is all.
03/24/2008
Hope that is okay
Today, while I was out having an interesting discussion, the lady texted me. The content follows:
Bought tickets for blitzen trapper + fleet foxes on Saturday. Hope that is okay.
If she thought my response to "Hope that is okay" would be "No." That is the opposite of what I'd say.
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| Blitzen Trapper |
I'd love to provide a link so that you could download the new Fleet Foxes album legally. I'd double love to give you a link to buy their CD or record. But I can't, it's not out yet. So go download it. It's the best album of the year.
03/18/2008
Yahoo Copying Vimeo
The headline may seem like a bit of a stretch, but it's pretty undeniable. This isn't just inspired by, this is clearly a case of them saying "let's copy that." You can see the images in action at their site for Fireagle.
The Famous Vimeo People
| Cute little guys |
| Just want to eat them up! |
The Great Yahoo Fakeout
| Looks familiar |
03/10/2008
Eleventh Hour
The new Del The Funky Homosapien comes out tomorrow. However, since I pre-ordered from the label, they sent it early and it just arrived... autographed.
I'm pretty psyched and after listening to the first few songs, it sounds pretty good. Here's hoping a new Deltron 3030 is on the way.
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| Eleventh Hour |
We're not alone!
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| It's harder than it seems |
03/06/2008
goto-minibuffer
I almost posted this yesterday, but I got stuck trying to explain when it's useful. Every example that I came up with seemed to have a perfectly acceptable workaround.
However, after another day of emacs usage, I decided that there are indeed times when you need to move the focus to the minibuffer window. Sometimes that is easier said than done. It's especially hard if you have a lot of windows open in one frame and move around a lot, particularly when you do that in the middle of entering a command in the minibuffer.
I couldn't find anything built in that would do that. So I wrote a tiny function to handle it. Without further ado, here is some elisp to move the focus directly to the minibuffer.
(defun teds-goto-minibuffer () "Move cursor to minibuffer window" (interactive) (select-window (minibuffer-window))) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c m") 'teds-goto-minibuffer)
If you know of a simpler1 way of doing this, please let me know.
1. Hitting control-o a bunch of times doesn't count as simple. We're talking about when you have a bunch of windows open.
03/03/2008
Soxiam's Testimonial
Sox has long been my personal motivational speaker. His geek cred has recently gone through the roof; he's quoted directly on the aquamacs-devel mailing list.
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| Grow Your Manhood |
03/01/2008
Complaints
A have a few complaints and suggestions regarding the web, I'd like to list them for you now.
- Please don't make any more products that are "The YouTube of X," YouTube already is the YouTube of X.
- You don't need to put the stock symbol next to company names on your blog. Trust me, if I have trouble finding out what symbol to use when I want to buy Microsoft, Google or Amazon, I'll ask.
- On your podcast, if someone says "nice transition," it is no longer a good transition.
- You shall not resize my browser window.
02/29/2008
Whiskerino Timelapse
Today is the last day of whiskerino. I'm not in any rush to shave though. Here's a video of my progress.
Can't wait until 2009!
from on .
02/25/2008
Aquamacs 1.3
After several long nights and weekends, I'm happy to say the new Aquamacs.org site has launched. This also happens to coincide (more or less) with the release of Aquamacs 1.3, so you should probably upgrade.
Around Christmas, I decided that I should try to time pushing the new site with the next release of the actual software. So I spent some time redesigning the site during my holiday break. After my initial mockups, I spent a lot of time on the development list and .
I didn't save a lot of the iterations, but here's how it looked along the way. (Click for bigger images).
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| This is how the site looked initially. |
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| My first mockup. |
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| The final version. |
02/23/2008
Less is More
In this particular instance, the lower the graph goes, the better.
| It was a good day at work. |
02/21/2008
ReadWriteWhat?
This is a lesson that I have learned more than once. A lesson that I never seem to remember. I'm going to document it here with some hope of trying to remember it. Here it goes: People that I respect read various publications, I am not required to respect those publications.
For example, I subscribed to ReadWriteWeb's RSS feed after seeing it referenced by a few people I respect. Let's check out selections from the latest 400 word, five paragraph masterpiece.
- "hosting hasn't changed much, but it has become a commodity service"
- "web hosts haven’t really done much in ten years"
- "web hosts ... squandered the decade offering the same old thing with little to no innovation."
- "hosts haven't changed much"
- "hosts have squandered an opportunity to innovate"
Just in case you don't want to do the math. In five paragraphs, they actually said the exact same thing five times. I am not saying they spent five paragraphs supporting their argument. The argument wasn't even theirs. They spent five paragraphs actually saying the same thing over and over and it was somehow less interesting than this post.
Needless to say, I'm unsubscribing.
02/19/2008
Meaningful Reviews
I went to download an album on eMusic. The album had pretty good pitchfork review and I had credits to burn, so I figured I had nothing to lose.
However, I was saved from spending my cash money by an eMusic user who seems to disagree with the pitchfork review. I was so moved by the well rounded and insightful critique of the album that I've posted it below. 1
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| Thanks for contributing. |
1. "Sorry" for the sarcasm.
02/18/2008
Uptimes
When I restart emacs (aquamacs) for whatever reason, I'm always curious to see how long it's been running. I've included the list of uptimes1 below. My record for this computer seems to be 15 and a half days. I'm sure I can do better on other computers, but that's pretty good for a laptop that I abuse pretty regularly.
| Uptimes |
1. If you have uptimes.el, and (require uptimes.el) in your .emacs file, meta-x uptimes will show you the uptimes screen.
02/16/2008
The Bluegrass Seekers
My brother lives in Germany. A while ago, he joined a bluegrass band with a bunch of germans. He plays the fiddle.
Check it out.
02/15/2008
Wedding DJ
Our wedding DJ showed up today. He will also play music for us in the kitchen before and after the big day. Not bad for $100 (after iPhone rebate).
Seriously though, this little box is the Altec Lansing T612, a speaker system specifically for the iPhone. It works any reasonably new iPod, but it also has shielded cables or something. Which means that the iPhone signal doesn't interfere with the speakers and cause that awful buzzing noise. It sounds good and works flawlessly (so far). I wish it looked a bit nicer, but it does the job.
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| A new addition to our kitchen |
02/14/2008
Little Snitch! Quit it!
I installed Little Snitch today to see if it would let me limit the network speed of a certain application (VM Ware). At the end of the installation process it is trying to force me to reboot. No option to quit or cancel. But I'm not going to reboot now. I'm in the middle of a lot of other stuff. So now I have to sit with that window open all day.
I understand if some software won't work until a reboot, but it should accept that I don't need to use it right away. So, if you're ever writing software that requires a reboot at the end of installation, you'd better have a really good reason not to let me do it "later." Because I'm going to do it later either way.
Sorry for the rant.
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| Thanks! |
02/12/2008
Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal linked to me! Ok, so it's only a related blogs listing on some article, but it links directly to my post about windows blue screen icons on a Mac. The WSJ article is here, I'm all the way at the bottom.
I may be gone by the time you check, so I got some screen grabs just in case.
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| Walt Mossberg links to me (he just doesn't know it) |
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| I just had to weigh in on this important topic |
I Sold Out
A couple of weeks ago someone contacted me about advertising on my blog. My old blog. On one post. One post, on my old blog.
I jumped at the chance, finding out that I'm only in this blogging thing for the money. Which, I assure you, is a fortune.
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| The money shot |
The post was announcing a beta version of a Usenet Binary Search, which I've since taken down. Perhaps I'll set it up and run it for a few days so that everyone can bask in it's glory.
02/11/2008
Blue Screen
I'm sure many of you know this, but it still makes me smile every time.
When browsing the network on any mac (with leopard), all of the icons for windows computers have some fancy blue screen.
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| Fancy |
02/07/2008
Vimeo API Sandbox
I finally got around to putting together a for the . It's a pretty bare boned affair, but it works like a charm. It's especially useful if you want to view the results of certain API calls without writing any code.
Also, if you are having trouble generating signatures, this will show you what it uses as the base of the signature, the signature itself and give you access to the full url. It does all this without ever pushing your API secret over the web. Not bad, eh?
Anyways, if you have an API key, you should go .
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| An API result in the sandbox |
02/03/2008
New soul
I'm sure you know that song from the Macbook Air commercial. Like all the songs from Apple commericials, it's catchy, kinda great and you generally have no idea who it is. Well, since it's an oldish commericial now, you've probably already tracked down the artist. If you haven't, it's Yael Naïm.
After hearing that song on the commericial, I immediately looked around the internet for the artist's name. However, after I found it, I never bothered to listen to the full version. I just did. It's really great.
It falls apart at the end with horns, backup singers, keyboard flourishes and general delightfulness. I recommend that you listen to it.
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| You've decided not to buy the product, now listen to the song. |
02/01/2008
Famous!
My good friend Jeremy Goldbogen is ! I just found out or I'd have posted this way sooner! He even gets the "Mr." treatment.
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| Mr. Goldbogen |
01/30/2008
Airplane Treadmill
There has never been so much debate in the Vimeo office as there has been today. And it's all about one very important issue. The question is this: "Imagine a plane is sitting on a massive conveyor belt, as wide and as long as a runway. The conveyer belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels, moving in the opposite direction. Can the plane take off?"
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| The big question |
Tonight, Mythbusters will tell us for sure, but I wanted to make sure we had evidence of what each person decided. No takebacks!
| Yes | No |
|---|---|
| Not Voting | |
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FAIL
I was pretty happy to find an image titled "failcheesecat.jpg" The image itself lives up to the hype of it's name.
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| Looks good to me! |
01/22/2008
Twitter Error
I've taken to running Twitterrific all day, I'm not sure why. I only know a few people on it, and they rarely post.
Which means there are two things on my desktop all day long: an error message from and an advertisement. Why do they bother showing the error message? It's literally there all day. And this isn't one of those times where someone says "literally" but means "figuratively." Such as "I literally froze to death." In that case, we all understand that no one actually died. In this case, it's literally on my screen all day. Figuratively, it's driving me literally insane.
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| An error, all day. |
01/21/2008
My New Hat
The lady made me an awesome hat today. On her birthday. It's really awesome, and it's only the second hat she's ever made (outside of knitting, I suppose).
| The image is called hat-01.jpg because I expect many more |
01/20/2008
Horses
I have the coziest apartment in the world. Somehow, it became even more so. I got a blanket with horses and tassels on it.
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| The lady made it! |
01/19/2008
I'll Never Be King
A while ago, in what seems to be another life, I made and recorded a lot of music. Done entirely in my apartment, I'd write songs and record them, but I was never terribly interested in playing them for other people. Now that I have some distance between myself and the songs, I don't really mind.
Whenever I would play the songs, or give someone a recording of them, I'd always do that under a pseudonym: Lewis Powell.
Anyways, here is a song called "I'll Never Be King." Hope you enjoy my off-key "singing" and bad production values. If not, just press stop.
01/17/2008
Manually Manage Music
Awesome! The new version of iTunes allows you to manually manage the music (and videos) on your iPhone. You no longer have to create a playlist and sync that. You don't have to sync "the most recent 3" TV shows. Now, you can just drag, sync and go.
That fixes the second biggest problem I have (had) with the iPhone. The number one problem is the amount of interference it causes with my speakers.
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| Huzzah! |
01/13/2008
Rockband Stage Kit
I don't know if this is a joke or not, but even if it is, I want one! They are releasing the "Rockband Stage Kit," which is a set of extras for the game Rockband. It includes at least a "Light And Smoke Stage Show."
I can't think of a better way to wake up the lady in the middle of the night than with the sound my sweet drumming accompanied by fake smoke and stage lights.
01/12/2008
Butternuts
While shopping today, I ran across an amazing display of beer.
| Butternuts Beer! |
I investigated further (that is, I looked at the packaging) and found out that they were from a brewer in upstate New York called Butternuts Beer & Ale. Even better, they had a sampler pack.
| The sampler pack |
So I bought it. I've just tried the Porkslap pale ale. It's pretty good indeed. In the name of research, I'm going to have to try the other beer included in the package, and occasionally try them twice.
| More cans |
01/11/2008
Mac Heist
Update: If you want to in on this action, use this link. That's my referral link which means that I'll get LaunchBar and perhaps something else.
The MacHeist bundle is back again this year. It's a pretty amazing deal. You buy the bundle of software for $49 and get all kinds of programs, plus 25% goes to the charity of your choice. Instead of paying over $350 for everything, you pay less than $50. Also, at certain milestones, they unlock more programs, which you can download even if you buy the bundle before they become unlocked.
| Just a few more! |
After they sell a few more copies, they'll unlock CSSEdit, which looks great. But I'm really excited for Snapz Pro X, which a program I've long wanted, but never been moved to buy. After Snapz, they'll unlock Pixelmator, a great looking image editor.
So you should go buy the bundle, because the more bundles sold, the more programs we all get. There are only 12 days left.
01/10/2008
High School Friend
So amazing.
01/09/2008
I love my old RSS reader. During the first day of my free trial, I ponied up the cash and paid for the full version. is a great RSS reader. It's really good looking, smart and just plain does what I need. Or needed.
You see, when I started using Newsfire, my work computer was the same as my home computer. But after almost a year on the , a job complete with a new work-only computer, I'm now forced to read my feeds on two different machines. For the past year I'd been manually syncing any new subscriptions and ignoring the fact that when I got home, many articles that I'd read were marked unread. For some reason, today was the day I decided I was tired of doing that.
So I did a simple search for "Mac RSS readers," looked to see which ones were able to sync between multiple computers and picked the first one I saw. I should have known it would be the one that most people use when reading this very site. So I downloaded NetNewsWire 3.0. I set it up so that it would sync with the (free) NewsGator service. That way I could install the desktop program at home and at work and have them sync to the same account. Voilà! Perfectly synced RSS feeds. As a bonus, when I'm away from both my home and work computers, I can just read them online at newsgator.com.
This morning I quickly decided I'd install it when I got home, buy the $30 program and write this very blog post. Then about noon, reading my RSS feeds, I saw they released a new version. And made the whole thing free. They made it free before I could even try and pay them. Awesome! I was sold twice in one day!
So far, so good. I highly recommend it if you're even slightly unhappy with your current RSS reader setup.
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| Changing my default |
01/03/2008
Happiness
The BBC has a list of things 100 things we didn't know last year. It's a pretty good list. But, I must say, some of the things we've known for a long time. 1 Take this one for example.
35) Denmark is the happiest country in Europe; Italy the unhappiest.
The article referenced in the list calls Italy number one country in the Unhappiness Top Five." I'm not sure why they're so unhappy, but we've known it for years. For example in the middle of a perfectly average soccer game, they're known to simply lay down on the ground for no reason at all. The referees sometimes sympathize with them and award them a penalty kick, that (and some magic spray) seems to help out.
| So Sad |
1. Relax, it's a soccer joke.
01/02/2008
Apes & Androids Destroys Ticketmaster
I've only heard a few things from Apes & Androids, but I liked it all. And several of my friends are closely associated with them, so I figured it would be a good show. And it's on my birthday! Around the corner from my apartment!
However, ordering the tickets appears to have broke ticketmaster.com. Oh well, I'm sure it will work out. If you can't count on ticketmaster to deliever a reasonable service for a reasonable price, what can you count on?
| Rails? |
Debugging JavaScript in IE
Debugging JavaScript in Internet Explorer is a pain in the ass. A big one. Luckily, I don't have to do it very often. But when I do, I can never remember the best way to do it. After re-figuring it out again today for the 100th time, I thought I should document it. It's actually not so bad if you do it right, and it won't cost you anything (aside from your hair). Please note, this is just a boring step-by-step, you don't need to read this if you don't want to.
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| I'll bet the error is on line 31, or 0, or (insert random number) |
The first thing you want to do is install the free "Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition." I'm sure it will work if you have a non-free version, but the free version works great.
Then start it up! Click "File → New Website," select "Empty Web Project" from the window that opens up and click OK. Now, on the right side of the page, there will be a pane call "Solution Explorer." Right click in the white area in that section. A pop-up menu comes up, select "Browse with ..." Make sure "Internet Explorer" is selected, save it as default and close out of that window. If you skip that step, there is a good chance it will open Firefox and you'll want to put a pencil through your eye, because you already know how to debug javascript in Firefox.
Now, you're ready to go. Click the little "Play" button, which means start debugging. Internet Explorer will open up with some local URL, just erase that, type in the site you want to debug and go there.
You'll need to have Javascript debugging enabled in IE. So make sure you do that via "Tools &rarr Internet Options."
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| Enable Debugging in IE |
I Don't know if anyone will find this useful, but at least next time I need to do it, I'll know where to look.
01/01/2008
Shine a Light
Martin Scorsese made another concert film. I bought and saw his little film "The Last Waltz" last year and was blown away. The Band at that point was an amazing thing. Probably the only possible way to top it would be with The Rolling Stones, in NYC.
I can't wait!