Why Blogger Adds http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif To Your Post

I think I know why blogger adds "http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif" into posts seemingly at random. Well, first, it's a mac thing.

On a mac, in any browser, you can drag images from the browser onto your desktop and it works the same as right-clicking and "save image as". You can't do that on a Windows machine.

Well, when you click the Insert Link icon, the little gif sticks to your mouse, then after you type in your link, click OK, and move your cursor back down into the compose window, it adds the url for the link icon. Silly, huh.

What's my solution? Slow down! Don't swing your mouse back into the compose window immediately after you click OK.


I tested clicking the icon and moving the mouse back into the compose window, and almost every time, it added the silliness. Unless I did it slowly. Not like Steve Austin jumping over a building, or David Banner throwing a car, or even Rodan walking through a scale model city. Just a little slower.

Sometimes, you can even see an outline of the icon image box flying back into place after clicking OK. Strange.

It's some javascript that calls a variable: "var insert_link = 'insert link';"

I have no idea what that means or why that would make this happen.

So here's why it's happening, and a solution of sorts, but not a real fix unless blogger fixes it.

I actually was able to add some of the other icons from up there too, just by dragging them and placing them in my compose window.

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.italic.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.quote.gif
(couldn't get the spell check icon to work)
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.video.gif

Hope this helps

What do you think?
1. Did you know Google results finds 28,300 instances of gl.link.gif as of 8/31/07?
2. Do you know anyone at Blogger who can help fix this?
3. Do you have further explanation as to why this would happen?

Pay for an External Hard Drive or Pay Through the Teeth

Last year, I had an iBook that crashed.

Man, I don't know what happened to it. The mac repair guys said the screen fried, the arms that read the data on the hard drive fried, parts of the motherboard fried and a few other things went wrong that sounded like my computer was completely dead and unrepairable. Well, it could have been repairable, but I could just buy a new laptop.

Well, it would have all been fine (except for not having a laptop anymore) because I was only using that machine to work on jobs when I was away from home. Once I get home, I tranfer the data to my desktop machine.

But there was one thing I had not archived anywhere. In fact, this information was nowhere else...just on my laptop. It was my accounting.

All my invoices, tax info, outstanding accounts, job time worksheets, everything. I use excel files to track and work out all that stuff. Excel is pretty cool that way.

Well, I would have just written it off, but I had no idea who owed me money, who I had invoiced, how many hours I had been tallying for clients. Ugh.

So I called a recovery place (DriveSavers). Wow, it's expensive. My little 40Gb hard drive was going to cost me about $3000 to recover, but all I needed was a few excel files. Little tiny 100kb files. Man, I tried everything.

I told them all I needed was a few small files, but they couldn't just look for those. Apparently those files don't look like Excel files to a hard drive recovery team in a clean room.

My biggest problem was that I couldn't afford to pay for it because I needed to invoice some clients first, but since I had no idea how much they owed me, I couldn't invoice them.

I got a couple of discounts and ended up paying just $1600.

Well, I had some money come in and I payed for it. They had actually called me and told me everything was recovered, but I asked them to hold on to them for a few weeks until I could afford it. They did. They were very nice.

What a pain, though. I guess this is probably a good advertisement for using an online accounting and invoicing system.

Or, buying an external hard drive. That's what I did.

Here's the thing, you still have to copy over your information every once in a while. Don't put this off either.

I got a 230Gb Western Digital MyBook for pretty cheap. Those things are getting so inexpensive these days.

So, if you haven't done it yet, be afraid. It could happen right after you read this post.

Go and archive your stuff right now.

By the way, if it does happen, DriveSavers is really a good company to go with. They were super friendly on the phone, and ended up giving me quite a bit of discount. I'm not saying they will give you a discount, but if you're gonna send your crashed drive off somewhere, give them a shot. It'll probably cost just as much somewhere else. Their customer service was great. I got 4 DVDs with all my stuff on it all organized and packaged up nicely.

Also, part of what convinced me about them was their Hall of Fame, or celebrities they have helped. Check it out. Simpsons, Sting, Willie Nelson, Pixar, ILM among others. It can happen to anyone...and does happen.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Have you ever had to get a drive recovered?
2. Do you use an external had drive?
3. Are you archiving right now?

Seven Really Well Designed Things You're Gonna Want

We've all been to a store and seen some cool new gadget or tool or toy or something that we wanted, and then immediately started trying to figure out how to justify buying it, right?

You take a good look at it, you check the price a couple of times, you walk away and take your time shopping while you think about it. You go back and take a look at it again. You might even go ahead and put it in your cart, thinking that if you decide to not get it, you'll just stash it on top of some cans in the Asian section.

Some of us even go home and check ePinions or some review site to see what other people think about it.

Of course, some of us just buy it cuz it's cool looking or looks like it might work better than something we've already got. Some of us are so addicted to interesting and cool stuff that we know not to visit certain stores, or certain sections of the store.

Well, if you have struggles with this sort of thing, then you should probably not visit the International Design Excellence Awards site.

The IDEA Awards are given to products that are considered the best in the business as far as design goes, which means form and function. I've got some favorites from the 2007 gallery (see below).


Here's a quote from their site about what they are about:

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is the voice of the industrial design profession, advancing the quality and positive impact of design.

IDSA's mission is threefold:
• Lead the profession by expanding our horizons, connectivity and influence, and our service to members
• Inspire design quality and responsibility through professional development and education
• Elevate the business of design and improve our industry's value

This is great! Good design is always nice.

OXO Good Grips Hardware Hand Tools Line
You know these guys. They brought us the best kitchen utensils ever. I've got a can opener that I think is the best in the world. Well, they've come out with tools. In fact, I've got the OXO hammer and I liked it so much, I gave my old hammer to a friend when he moved out of his parent's house.

I love this company. Their products are not only well designed, but comfortable, and very functional, in fact, like I said before, their can opener is incredible, so it their potato peeler.

Nike + iPod Sports Kit
This is great, not that I'm a runner or anything. Looks like you can use a specified website to track and manage your workouts, as well as your playlist. Great partnership idea. The shoes talk to your iPod, and your iPod tells you stuff like how far you've run, how many calories you've used up...all voiced over the music you are listening to.

I haven't seen this out in stores, but I also don't hang out at stores that might have something like this. Maybe I should.



PicoCricket
Remember those electronic kits where you could wire the thing to make a buzzing sound or a doorbell or make an LED light turn on? Well, this is a next generation of that. Looks like you can wire these things together to make them do different things, and the components are clear to let you view the insides. Very cool. The PicoCricket site explains it like this:

For example, you can make a cat and program it to purr when someone pets it. Or you can make a birthday cake and program it to play a song when someone blows out the candles.

H-racer and Hydrogen Station Set
Talk about an environmentally political toy! This can is powered by hydrogen. You put water in the tank, and take it outside so the sun can convert it using the solar panel, and you've got a car that goes! What a leap from the water pressure powered rockets we used to play with. Their explanation says it best:

...a small-scale manifestation for environmentally sustainable, energy independent transportation based on hydrogen fuel cell technology...

One Touch™ Can Opener
A Cordless, Hands-free can opener. Looks like it "Walks around" the can until it's done. It's got a magnet to hold the top, and a retractable blade. Very cool.

The description says this was originally created for the elderly, which is great, and then I guess it caught on in the general market. My In-Laws could use one of these. They still have their original electric can opener with the little springy magnet thing, and wow, is it loud and squeels like a slipping compressor belt.

Kohler® Steward™ Waterless Urinal
I would totally put one of these in my house.. Apparently, it uses a liquid that is less dense than "liquid waste" that traps the odors, and it was designed to easily use and fit over existing water and waste pipes. Hope to pee in one of these some day.

I'm thinking toilet design will be a post some time in the future. I've been seeing some interesting ones lately.

I must admit, a urinal in my house is very interesting to me. I have a family member that installed a urinal in his master bathroom. Neat.



Roll N Roll
This is in the "Student Design" category, which I suppose that means it's not produced yet, but it's a great idea. Maybe not in the US, but in Asia, where I'm certain the manufacturing and disposal of wooden chopsticks is a huge issue, this would be great. Do you remember those slap-on bracelets in the 80s? Well, this idea is a bracelet that unrolls into chopsticks. How many people are we going to see with noodles clinging to their wrists? Maybe that will become a fashion statement.






Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. What store do you have to avoid?
2. What's the coolest thing you've got?
3. Have you ever invented something?

How to add a Digg This button in Blogger and Wordpress

I know this information is out there, but I wanted to put it in one place. For my convenience, because I have both a blogger blog and a Wordpress blog.

I like them both for different reasons. I'm using a regular blogger account and a Wordpress.com (free) account. I am not hosting my Wordpress blog.

There are limitations to both, but both work just fine.

IMPORTANT: You will need to register at digg.com so you can start digging stuff.

For Blogger:
I have found a couple of ways to do this. The way I am using is to add the Digg This button to every post by modifying the template.

Blogger does not allow javascript in posts, and that's the only way Digg.com offers the button, so you'll have to add it to the template, which adds it to every post. If you don't want this, then this article will not help you. If you figure out a way to add the button to individual posts, let me know.

I guess I'm supposed to say here that you should save your template to your hard drive before modifying it. I haven't done that yet, but it's up to you.

So, Go to your dashboard, click the Template tab, then Edit HTML.

Click "Expand Widget Template"

You will need to find this piece of code:

<p><data:post.body/></p>

It is about half way down. (tip: you can search the page in firefox and explorer on the mac by typing "apple" "f" and on Windows by typing "ctrl" "f", then typing "data:post.body" and it should find it.

Then copy the code below this sentence and replace the above piece of code completely (take a good look at this code, you can see it adds the replaced code back in)

<p>
<!-- DIGG -->
<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
digg_url = '<data:post.url/>';
</script>
<script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/>
</div>
<data:post.body/>
</p>

Now, understand this...this code will add a button to all your posts with a "zero" diggs displaying until someone diggs it, and so, you can go and digg your stories first, or wait until one of your readers do it.

The Digg This button will be placed "align=right", top right corner of your post, so if you tend to put large pictures opening your post, you might want to make them smaller (less width).

For Wordpress.com
Unlike Blogger, you can add a Digg This button to individual posts.

You will need to write your post first. Publish your post, and copy the url of the post.

Go to Digg.com and submit a new post.

Paste the url you just copied into the field asking for where the story is from.

Fill in the rest of the fields, and look through the articles they might claim might be the same.

Once you get the "success" message, copy the url.

Now go back to your post and add this to it: [digg=http://YourPostURL]. So basically you are adding [digg=] and then pasting your dig submission url into the space after the equals sign.

The Digg This button will be placed "align=right", parallel to where you placed the code.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Do you know of a way to add the button to indivicual posts in Blogger?
2. How often do you Digg stories?
3. Are you using Blogger or Wordpress?

Submitting Your Site

Here's a list of links that go directly to the submit URL pages on the respective search engines. dmoz.org is a little different, but it just takes a little category searching and then submitting to the drilled down category.

Understand that submitting your site to these FREE services should not be the only thing you do, but it's a start. Make sure your keywords are good to go, you have looked at getting some links to your site from other websites and you are promoting your site offline.

These are the search engines I submit my sites to. Most of these will find your site after a while, and it's not quite known if submitting your site will help get it crawled any faster, but it's worth a shot.

One thing is for sure, getting other sites to link to yours is the best way to get search engines to find you.

Google.com: Submit

MSN LiveSearch: Submit

Yahoo Site Explorer (requires registration): Submit

Yahoo Search RSS Feed: Submit

dmoz.org (find category, then click "suggest URL": Submit

AOL uses dmoz.org and Google. Actually, all of these guys use dmoz.org.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. What's your opinion of DMOZ.org?
2. Have you ever paid for a submission service?
3. What's your search engine of choice?

Designing for the Tongue

Do you remember first tasting Cocoa Puffs? I remember them being the best thing I had ever tasted in my life. Part of that was that my parents never bought that sweet cereal for us, so I had to go to my friend's house to taste it.

And Atomic Fireballs, man, I didn't think anything could be better. I once bought a "Bulk" size canister of them and ate them all day long. I took a pocket full of them to take my SAT (that may be part of why I didn't cross the thousand mark!)

There's this soda called "Cola Champagne" that I grew up with that if a restaurant had it, I was getting it. The thing is, you have to be in a Puertorican or Cuban restaurant or some Latin American Country (or some parts of Florida) to get it. Actually, you can get it at some grocery stores depending on where you live. It's not alcoholic, and tastes like cream soda.

This is starting to sound like I'm a total junk food freak. Well, maybe I am. Maybe it's just that I over analyze things...even foods.

Honestly, I still have not found anything that beats a Starbuck's Iced Mocha.

Anyway, here are some really fun foods that I feel I need to share with you. I like them all for different reasons. Some for the texture, some for the design, some for the look, but all of them for the flavor.

The first is Flat Earth's Baked Fruit Crisps (Wild Berry Patch Flavor)
This is actually a Lay's affiliate or sister company or whatever you call those things. They are fairly healthy, and they taste really, really good. Very easy to eat the whole bag. We like the Wild Berry flavor, but the peach mango one is pretty good too.

They are a little expensive, so go to their site and print out a coupon. They are kind of a cross between muncho's and well, a fruit. Sorry, I can't think of anything that tastes quite like it. They are crispy and yummy.

Their logo is cool. It's a flying pig. Apparently the idea is that no one thought a healthy snack could be tasty as well. Their site is well designed, although the flash site is a little obtrusive, it looks nice. Very clean and crisp.

Next is Glico's Pocky (Chocolate and Crushed Almond Flavor)
It's a crispy biscuit stick that is dipped in chocolate or some other flavor. You can find them online in various places, and you might even find it at your grocery store. I know our Wal-Mart has the chocolate and the strawberry ones. The best place is probably an Asian Grocery store. They will probably have all the flavors, and probably a bit cheaper. These guys are so easy to eat, and they leave a little bit of the biscuit at the bottom without being dipped so that you can hold it and not get all dirty. The first time I got some of these, the packaging was all in Japanese, but they've since made the package in English.

Flavors I've seen (but not necessarily tasted) are coconut, dark chocolate, sesame seed, white chocolate, Green Tea, Tomato, and one called "Mens", which is apparently a bitter chocolate. Here's a site that sells Pocky.

Then there's Stretch Island's Fruitabu (any flavor)
I first found Stretch Island when they were calling their product "Fruit Leather". Basically dehydrated strips of fruit. They were about 33 cents each. Now, I guess they needed a new name and package to break into Wal-Mart and other grocery stores, so they repackaged them as Fruitabu. (They still have a product called "Fruit Leather", they are just packaged different.

They sell fruit Twirls (like fruit by the foot) and fruit leather, which they call "Smoooshed Fruit". Their ingredients are surprisingly healthy. No sugars added, just fruit. That's great. They are really tasty too. And Organic.

You can buy their products directly from their site. Otherwise, take a look in the breakfast isle at your grocery store. They're probably next to the pop-tarts and that kind of stuff.

Next is Yoplait's Fizzix Fizzy Yogurt (Berry and Fruit Punch Flavor)
This is going to trip you out. It's like a yogurt and a soda. Very different, and not everyone in my family likes it. It is a surprise. I can imagine it tasting like the product is fermenting in the package...to adults. I wonder what the focus groups were like with these guys. "Oh, uh, I think this one is rotten!" "No, no, that's what it's supposed to feel like!"

My wife won't taste it a second time. My kids eyes pop open when they have a taste. They are in a pouch...sort of like "ice-pops". Very strange, and really cool. A lot like pop rocks, except not as much sugar, and some of the good stuff from yogurt (acidophilus). I got some in the ever growing yogurt section at the grocery store. Isn't it interesting how big that section is getting? I remember it never being this huge. Here's the Yoplait website.

Lastly for this post is Bubble Smoothies with Black Pearl Tapioca Balls (Mocha, Pineapple and Honeydew Flavor)
So, this is gonna freak you out too. They give you this huge straw, and at furst, I was like, what's up with the straw? My first suck explained everything, as my mouth filled with smoothie, yes, but also a bunch of little gummy balls. Man, that was crazy. What an experience.

You just chew the balls. They don't taste like much. Slightly sweet. More of a texture than anything. Man, after that first time, it's like I was addicted to the feeling of the balls pulling through the straw and filling up my mouth. You'll see.

At another place, they didn't have the Tapioca Balls ready, so they offered me Mango or Coffee Jellies. Those were great too. Little flavored gelatinized cubes. Big straw, everything. I really liked the coffee Jellies.

Well, you can probably get one of these at your local Asian restaurant. Most likely Vietnamese or Thai restaurants.

I suggest the mocha, the honeydew, and the pineapple smoothies...with the tapioca balls, of course.

Oh, and don't think these are healthy at all. Watch them make it and you'll see. The flavoring is a powder, they sweeten it with corn syrup, and use whole milk. Oh, look, there's even a wiki entry!

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Have you discovered a strange and wonderful food item?
2. Can you get the tapioca ball smoothies in your city?
3. Are you an adventurous taster?

Hurricane Season Prediction

With the first Hurricane of 2007 just forming in the Gulf, I've started watching. I love strong storms and heavy weather. I don't enjoy that people's lives are lost, but I don't mind so much when stuff is messed up. You know, it's just stuff.

My parents lost most of their stuff during Andrew while living in Homestead, Florida. That was a bummer, but other than photo albums, I think they basically replaced everything.

My dad said it was eerie to drive back to their house, and in fact, almost couldn't find it because all the landmarks were gone. He said it was very strange to be in a place where no birds were singing. They found some of their stuff across the street and an other people's yards.

Anyway, I found this cool graphic that tracks the hurricanes from the 1850s to 2004, a total of 1325 storms (above).

This chart is really interesting in that there seems to be no pattern. The National Hurricane Center has a really hard time predicting these things. If you notice when there's a prediction cone graphic, it doesn't go any further than 5 days.

I guess there's just no telling where the winds will steer them.

The graphic makes me think of a fractal, you know, one of those computer generated infinite patterns that repeat as you zoom in or out.

I'm always looking for patterns in nature, and although some things like flowers and earth rotations have a perceivable pattern, things like tree branches and ocean waves don't. It looks like hurricane paths are another one that doesn't look like a pattern...yet. Maybe the pattern is a complicated one that hasn't looped yet. I don't know, maybe it won't loop.

Entropy says that order degenerates into chaos, and does not go the other way around. I think that's really cool. It's like the design of the Earth is infinite in it's variables.

Here's the article explaining the unpredictability of hurricanes. It's where I got the cool graphic.

...when all is said and done tropical cyclones that develop in the Atlantic tend to follow the periphery of the "subtropical ridge" (sometimes referred to as the Bermuda High) as if it's a big steering wheel. You can see the black lines of all the historical tropical storm and hurricane paths curving around that subtropical ridge.

I'll be watching. We're getting rain this week from Erin. That's fun.


What do you think?
1. Are you a storm chaser?
2. Ever been in a hurricane?
3. What are your predictions for 2007? More or less?

Guest Blog at UPCsite.net

Kevin over at UPC Tech Blog asked me to guest blog on his site. I wrote an article about iPhone application demos and one on What is Web 2.0.

Thanks for the invitation, Kevin, and for posting my articles. The fact that he posted my articles makes me feel really good.

Take a look at his blog, there are interesting articles over there, and the fact that he's built the site without the use of mainstream blogging software is really impressive, and something to watch.

What do you think?
1. Would you like to guest blog here?
2. What do you love about your iPhone?
3. Would you like me to guest blog on your site?

What The Font?

OK, so you've got this client who has this huge book of, like, every single logo ever made in the history of the world. Every page has like 20 or 30 logos on it.

"I want THIS font!" he says.

"It's sexy!", he says.

"It says I Mean Business! and Call Me Right Now!"

So you look at the font and it looks kinda like Helvetica, but has serifs like Bodoni, but descenders like Zapfino.

Well, here's what you do: You scan in the letters of the logo and go to WhatTheFont.com, submit your image, and then the fun starts.

In fact, you can even submit a url. That's cool. I did it with their own logo and it looks like they are using "Softie".

They have some crazy programming take your image, probably trace it and then give you examples of what they think the letters are.

They've taken your scan and isolated each letter, and ask you if they've guessed the letter correctly.

You agree or type in the correct letter and they give you a list of possibilities.

They even have this cool thing where you can click to keep the image in the window as you scroll, for like when they give you a bunch of examples, your original image follows down the examples as you scroll through them so you don't have to go back up to the top to check if it's a match. Very cool.

Then you can purchase the font right on their website. Very nice.

This has saved me a few times, and made me look like I knew what I was talking about.

"Oh, yeah, that's Psycho Bold!" I say with complete confidence. I can do what you want. Then I'm the hero. That's fun.

Here's instructions from their site:

WhatTheFont supports most common image formats, for example GIF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP. The maximum image size is around 360 x 275 pixels. The ideal letter height for the best search result is about 100 pixels. Try to get the text horizontal and make sure letters are not touching. WhatTheFont will only recognize uppercase and lowercase letters.

WhatTheFont is a feature on MyFont.com, which is a subsidiary of BitStream.com. Not sure if that means anything to you, but I thought I'd give them some credit.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. What's your favorite font?
2. Have you made your handwriting into a font?
3. How crazy was your craziest client?

Like My Stuff? Load my Starbucks Card!

OK, so I had this idea of a way to get free coffee (well, for me). I bought a Starbuck's card and set it up to get reloaded on Starbucks.com.

WARNING: this process can be complicated, but I've given the idea of a "Link to place on a website so people can easily reload your card" to Starbuck's. They liked the idea, so I'm hoping to have this process simplified in the future, and we might even start seeing it in the general public. I'll keep you informed.

Here was Starbuck's response (on 8/14/07):

"...please know that I've passed on your inquiry as a suggestion to our web team for further review."

If you'd like to buy me a coffee, $4.17 pays for my favorite (although it looks like the minimum you can reload is $20). My favorite changes, but Iced Mocha is pretty good and Vanilla latte is pretty good too.

Here's what you have to do. First, highlight this number: 6029059089984955 and copy it (or write it down somewhere).

Then "this link will take you to the Starbuck's Login" page.

Here's where you will either "create a starbuck's account" or "Sign in" with your existing username and password.

Once you are in, click this link which will take you to the "Reload Someone Else's Card" page. (or click "Starbuck's Card" at the top of the page, then "Reload Someone Else's Card" in the "Have a Card" section in the middle of the page.

Click on the "Gift on an existing card" button (or click this link).

Then they ask for a nickname and a card number. The nickname is so that you can organize up to 15 different cards to reload. So, nickname mine "Papi" or "Jorge" or something like that...in case you want to buy me another coffee in the future.

It will take you to a page with a couple of options. Fill in the "One-Time Reload" section, then it will take you to a confirmation page and a payment page.

If you do end up going through this whole process to buy me a coffee, I will feel so extra special, not just because the coffee is so tasty, but because you felt like it was worth the trouble.

Thank you so much. Really.

I hope Starbuck's implements this widget/feature. If you are reading this and have seen that they have implemented it, please let me know.

Not sure if this will help or not, but if you are interested in contacting Starbuck's and telling them that you would love to be able to use this "widget" if they built it, click here.

What do you think?
1. What is your favorite coffee drink?
2. Would you use the "Buy Me A Coffee" link system on your site?
3. Have you bought me a coffee?

Browser Based FTP

Ever been away from home and needed to FTP something to a server? Well, it's happened to me a few times and I needed to find a solution.

Net2FTP.com is that solution. Well, one solution anyway, the one I like using.

There was a time when my wireless antenna wasn't uploading and the company I was using couldn't figure it out. I had to upload web pages, images, download files from my server, you know, stuff I do every day, well, I couldn't from home. So I went to the library once and used Net2FTP, and a couple of times to my service provider's office. I've even uploaded using dial-up at my wife's parents property out in the middle of East Texas.

It's really saved me loads of trouble.

It looks just like an FTP client and works just like an FTP client. It's great.

There's a bit of a learning curve to figure out their controls, but once you've done it a few times, it's great. Actually, it really just took me figuring out that there are a couple different ways to upload a file. You can click next to the folder icon and then use the dropdown menu to upload, or you can double click the folder icon which will take you to that folder where you can upload from there.

The real caution is that it's real, and when you move stuff on your server or rename a file or delete a folder, you've done that for real.

Their interface is really nice. You can view folders, view and change permissions, move, delete, rename, change Chmod, upload zipped files, all sorts of stuff.

You can change the language and even the website skin.

Definitely easy to use once you get the hang of it. If you are familiar with using a desktop FTP client, it's cake.

Oh, and it's free. Nice.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Are you on a Mac or Windows?
2. What application do you use for FTP?
3. Do you have everything backed up somewhere in case you make a mistake or your server crashes?

Dadvisor - Be a Better Dad

Dadvisor is a really sweet site chock full of advice on being a dad.



The site is just wonderful. I'm totally hooked. I only had to read a few articles to know i needed to subscribe to the feed so I could get stuff sent to my iGoogle homepage.

One article in particular: 12 Traits of a Great Father, is particularly good.

As I look through this list, I see some stuff I want to work on, and some stuff I am happy that I already do.

I think #7 is the one that strikes the strongest chord for me:

7. Leads by example- I've said it before and I'll say it again - ________ parents = _________ children. There are outside factors, but none as telling as the example we lead for our own children.

I look at this list and see what a truly wonderful father I have. Man, he is such a great teacher, and so patient (considering all I put him through), and you know, I knew he loved me. No question about it. He is to this day supportive, loyal, protective, appreciative and loving.

I am loving this blog. There's lots of stuff for me to chew on. It's all good stuff to be wrapping my brain around. I love my kids so much, I do want to be the best dad I can be.

The blog is written in such a non-guilt way that I believe no dads out there will feel condemned by what's on the pages. No matter if you are a stay at home dad, or a dad who can't say "I love you", this blog is encouraging.

It's nice to find a blog like this amidst so many that put everything else as more important than one of the most important things in life. Thanks Aaron (the author of Dadvisor).

-----

I found this site through a list on The Gospel According to Rhys, who started a great program called Fair Review Project. This is a list of blogs that have reviewed other blogs in a list on the Fair Review Project page.

The idea is that by reviewing a blog on the list, you get the opportunity to be reviewed by someone else. It's a great idea, and a great way to build community and build up blogs together.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Are you a dad? How do you feel about your parenting?
2. Do your kids know that you love them?
3. Do you have a blog? Have you checked out the Fair Review Project?

Mac ZipIt

MacZipIt is a shareware application for compressing files. I use this all the time when I'm sending files to clients that aren't on a Mac. You can download it from their, and try it out before you buy it.

Actually, I use it for the ones using Macs too.

I added the app icon to my dock and drag my files or folder onto it and off it goes.

It compresses great, just like you'd want it to, or expect it to, and it's only $20.

Here's what the explanation is on their website:

ZipIt is a Macintosh program that zips and unzips archives in a format fully compatible with PKZip for the IBM and zip implementations on other systems.

It keeps folder structures, which means I can send full websites with html files, and the images folder and files intact. Very nice.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Are you on a Mac or Windows?
2. What do you use to compress your files?
3. Do you pay for shareware or just use it?

Backlinks For Content

To get a better Google PageRank, you need quality backlinks (among other things).

Quality backlinks are not links from an endless list of other unrelated links. A good backlink is surrounded by relevant content.

I found a website that provides just that. BacklinksForContent.com is a website that offers quality backlinks. Here's how they do it:

You sign up, login, then write a post...sort of like it's your own blog. That's it.

Well, sort of. Their idea is that you write 200 words and you get 2 backlinks for free. You write them in to your post, and point them to wherever you want. The links to your site will be relevant, and go exactly where you want them to. In fact, they added that if you write 400 words, you can have 5 free backlinks.

Here's what they claim as advantages:

• Backlinks-for-content.com is highly seo-friendly and search engine optimized!
• Faster listing of your article and links in the google index!
• Better pagerank!
• You keep the copyrights!
• Your content! Your backlinks! Your anchor texts!
• Very easy registration!
• Fast publication!
• 2 Backlinks for free!

It doesn't look like the site is accepting illegal or "yucky" articles. That's nice.

The site is fairly new, and the page rank is still low, but I think it'll get up there. Anyway, I think it's a great idea.

I've written two articles. One is called "Once Upon A Computer Monkey", which is abouta monkey who finds a computer in the woods, and the other "Nano Technology In The Future - The Good", which is my idea of what the possibilities of Nano Technology are.

I'll probably write some more. It's a place where I can write something a little off topic that still gets indexed by Google. I'm sort of treating it like a guest post on someone else's blog.

I hope Google doesn't end up penalizing and banning this site. I think it's a better idea than paying for links, and definitely more on the up-and-up than JohnChow.com.

There's another idea I've been looking into, it's called the Fair Review Project.

The Fair Review Project is about creating relationships, rather than link exchanges, between bloggers.

Rather than one blogger getting all the links from your hard work, whilst only giving a link back to the post that mentions them, we give you a link to your blog, plus the opportunity of being reviewed yourself.

To get listed, review a blog within this directory, and then submit a listing request.

Fair Review Project was created by Rhys Wynne.

Looks interesting...and good.

Hope this helps

What do you think?
1. Do you know of any other places to get quality backlinks?
2. Have you noticed your PageRank jump or dive because of a good or bad backlink?
3. How important is PageRank to you?

Flash Game Design Competition #4

Jay Is Games is offering another competition.

The deadline for this one is October 1st, 2007, 11:59PM. The theme this time around is "Ball Physics".

Here are the prizes:

• 1st place:
-$2,500
-(1) Adobe Flash CS3 Professional license
• 2nd place:
-$1000
-(1) Adobe Flash CS3 Professional license
• 3rd place:
-$500
• Best use of competition theme:
-$500
-(1) Nintendo Wii
• Audience award:
-worth at least $200.

I will be entering this one. I entered the 2nd competition, but my game submission didn't use the theme "Grow" as obvious as needed to be accepted by the competition. I agree it wasn't as obvious, but it was fun creating it. Part of the theme was to not have any instructions. The first competition's theme was "Click Drag Type".

I didn't have time to make a game for the 3rd competition. The theme was "Replay".

Here are the judging criteria:

* How well does the game address the overall theme of the competition?
* How well does the game design show evidence that the designer explored methods or ideas that broke free from traditional ideas and concepts, thus showing imagination and creative expression?
* Was the game engaging? How well did it "suck you in?"
* Was the game compelling? To what extent did you find yourself going back to it until you completed it?
* Was the game fun? To what extent did you enjoy playing the game?
* How well does the game design promote or contribute to "replay value"?
* How well does the author make use of the visual medium?
* How well does the author make use of the aural medium?
* How well does the design address usability concerns?
* How well does the design address accessibility (deaf, hard-of-hearing, colorblind) concerns?

If you are a game designer, or just an online game player, JayIsGames.com is a great place for casual flash games designed by veterans, up and coming designers, and even first timers.

My submission will have something to do with this!
Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. Where do you go to find online games?
2. Have you ever tried to make up a puzzle game, with rules and everything?
3. Did you ever play 3 hours on 1 quarter? Was it Ms. Pacman? Galaga? Crystal Castle?

From Early Adopters to Mainstream

I've been reading about the concept called Crossing the Chasm. It's basically the theory that there's a "chasm", so to speak, between the early adoption of a technology and the mainstream acceptance of it.

The concept started with a book of the same name by Geoffrey A. Moore written in 1991. Seems funny that this many years later is when I'm finally reading about it. Not that I'm the end-all in technology information...far from it. It just seems more people are talking about it lately. Maybe I just haven't been reading in the places where I would have seen it.

Anyway, the concept is that some piece of technology, let's say like the DVD, is invented. It gets tossed out there to the public, and a few techy people grab onto it and think it's the best thing in the world. They talk about it to everyone, write articles on their techy websites, get into discussions on techy forums, etc.

Well, this group of early adopters is like a foundation. The truth is, the product could die right there. But these techy guys become DVD Evangelists. They start advertising, start companies and then one of them gets their foot in the film industry and the video rental industry, then the mainstream gets involved and it's up from there.

Then of course there's the ones who hold out till the end...the skeptics. "These things won't last." and "It's just a passing fad!" they say.

Well, at some point, they adopt the technology too.

Another good example of this is the iPod. The evangelists, mixed with cool ads and celebrity endorsements, really got to the mainstream fairly quickly. Even still, it took time, marketing and variations on the original theme to really get it going. I remember hearing about the iPod a while before I actually knew anyone who had them. Seems like now almost every family I know has at least one.

Cool Tech Adoption Graphic from Read Write Web.

It's crazy to think about all the technology that is developed and thrown out to the public, almost with no time to really adopt anything before the next thing comes along.

This works with music too. I remember listening to bands that would clear a room even at low volumes, before anyone heard about them. Some of them died out, but some of them exploded into the scene.

These days, with so much diversity and access to anything and everything, the challenge might be how to NOT get something to go viral, for risk of being accused of selling out.

Like with the iPhone. I'm seeing as much "I hate its" as "I love its". I figure it's more about the fact that it's an Apple product than it is that it doesn't work or whatever.

Other things like blogs and YouTube work the same way. These things are up for a while before the mainstream get in on it.

I remember hearing from a techy friend about a blog I think about 7 years ago. Look where it's at now.

And YouTube has been up since February of 2005, but look at it now. Things like LonelyGirl15 getting sponsored by Hershey's, then Neutrogena, then the season finale gets a headline spot on FoxNews.com. Crazy. Have you seen it? Watching some of the first few episodes, I don't know why anyone would stick with it long enough to get some sort of plotline. But, nevertheless, some of the early episodes are getting millions of hits.

Strange and interesting days we're living in aren't they.

What do you think?
1. Have you ever thought of some cool gadget or something and then a few months later you saw it at a store?
2. Have you ever evangelized a product?
3. What gadget do you wish had made it to the mainstream?

New iMac

Apple just announced the new iMac. It's neat. My computer works fine, so I'm not like "OOO, I want one!" I mean, sure, I want one, but I can't afford that right now.

Cost for these new iMacs are:
Low end: $1199 (2.0GHz, 1Mb RAM, 250Gb Hard drive)
High end: $2299 (2.8GHz, 2Gb RAM, 500Gb Hard drive)

You can go to apple to check out everything about it, but I wanted to mention some things I really like about it.

Apple keeps working to make their machines better and better, and this time they've come up with some nice things.

The design looks similar to their last iMac. I've got a friend who has one and he loves that his desk is not cluttered. Having one of these new computers would not keep my desk from being cluttered.

Remote Control
First thing that caught my eye was the remote control they added. You can control iTunes, DVDs whatever. That's great. My wife and I watch movies on my machine because it's the biggest screen in the house (Apple Studio 21").

There is also something called Bonjour instant networking technology which is great too. The claim is that the iMac will find any computers networked and connect them automatically. I'm assuming that means I wouldn't have to have duplicate MP3 libraries on each machine. That's nice.

Built in Camera
Next thing that caught my eye was the built in iSight camera and microphone. Not much to say here except that it's built in. This is smart, considering there's so many people doing podcasts and video blogging. Just a nice option.

Big Hard Drives
You can upgrade the hard drive space to up to 1 Terabyte. That is huge. Looks like the minimum is 250Gb, which considering my first computer (LCIII) had 16 Megabytes. A terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes (1,000,000,000,000 bytes for you windows users).

The processors are faster too. Looks like up to 2.8Mhz. That pretty fast. It seems like Apple is gearing more towards the music and film industry with these fast processors. Ever noticed how many Macs you see in movies and TV? A director friend told me it was a sort of nod to Mac because Macs are used so much in movie making. I'm sure it has something to do with product placement too.

Monitors
Those monitors are sure pretty. Their tech specs say something about 160 degree viewing angle and I'm assuming that means you don't have to be right in front of the machine to view what's displayed. That's nice.

Mighty Mouse
Last thing that caught my eye was the included mouse. There's a multi-directional scroll ball that claims 360 degree scrolling, and touch sensitive technology fro the right- and left-click buttons. These are cool little innovations. I know Apple has been working on touch screen technology, and I'm hoping to see a mouse that is based on touch screen technology sometime soon.

Well, if this post has made you want an Apple, here's a little help with the transition.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. What Mac are you using right now?
2. Do you wait to upgrade your OS or do it as soon as it's released?
3. Do you remember how much you paid for your first Mac?

From Photoshop to Dreamweaver

Isn't it funny how when a new learning opportunity presents itself, we are apprehensive about it, but once we get into it, then for the most part, we enjoy learning something new?

For a while, all I did was clipping paths and drop shadows, not wanting to learn how to use QuarkXPress. Similarly, I loved Illustrator 5.5, and was apprehensive to move when 10 came out. As well with InDesign and even HTML. Flash ActionScripting was the same thing. So was learning to setup and serve websites. The truth is, if I hadn't challenged myself to learn those things, I would not be where I am now. (next for me is probably CSS, PHP and ASP...yuck!)

This tutorial is going to be very basic, but I think it will get you started if you have very little or no knowledge of Dreamweaver. This tutorial assumes you have a working knowledge of designing in Photoshop.

I'm going to go through using guides to slice up your Photoshop image, save the pieces into a folder, open a new html page in Dreamweaver, define the site, create a table, populate the table with images and nesting tables inside of table cells.

Here's the zipped files I used to make this tutorial.

Dropping guides
So, first thing you need to do is drop guides into your Photoshop file. I suggest doing this before you flatten the file and save it when you are happy with where your guides are placed. Another good idea is to zoom in and make sure when you "marquee" up to the guide, that it actually lands right on the guide. Do this on both sides of the guide...I've had it not be correct and it'll add one pixel to one image and one pixel to the other and your design won't look correct.

Remember that you are going to be placing all these pieces in a grid. The grid pieces do not necessarily have to be the same size, in fact, cropping your pieces so that you don't cut words or logos in half might be a good idea if possible. Take a look at the guides on my design. See how I am cropping the solid area under the navigation out. I will be making this into a colored background. Also notice the curve and where I put the guides. Yes, there is some "wasted" white space, but I tried to make it as minimal as possible. Larger pieces take longer to load, but too many small pieces is not advised either.

Flatten
Once you are happy with the placement of your guides and saved the file, flatten the file.

Select and save
Now you are going to select each piece, copy and "save for web", naming them appropriately. I name them sometimes with numbers and sometimes with letters. This is up to you.

Create an "images" folder
When you save the pieces, browse into the main job folder, then create a new folder inside of that main folder and call it "images". Save the pieces in the "images" folder.

Take note how many rows and columns you have. This will be important later.

Create a new document
Next, you need to create a new Dreamweaver file. Open, New, select "HTML" and click OK.

Define the site