Today, I installed MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL and PHP).

It was up and running in 10 minutes, so I had time to write this blog post.

With posts like the Swine Flu and NTSF backups for Time Machine getting popular, I want to focus content more on one-off sort of mashups. I like the idea of throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks.

The phrase “Internet is a good word” applies to my general feelings on the Internet and could eventually be used as a name to do website design under.

In the next couple of days I’ll be working on using a different color scheme and different graphics. I’m going to try and soften up the edges of the content areas as well.

I got a lot done at WUOG today. I’m pretty happy with how Podcast Generator integrated into the existing design.

I’ll be going to a friend’s wedding tomorrow. They’re a great pair and I wish them luck.

-Jason

Also, the New Facebook design is viewable if you click that link. Doing so will change your profile to the New view. It’s a HUGE change in terms of information organization. It takes quite a bit of getting used to, but it has come definite advantages.

End Transmission.
Jason

So, if you’re ever looking for an easy excessively easy way to turn RSS feeds into HTML, I highly recommend SimplePie RSS. Easy to use and amazing support.

Speaking of SimplePie, I recently used it on the new Iridium Apparel front page. I set up a blog for them and changed the front page to display the recent posts.

You can see that more and more pages are making the transition to the new design. Once they’re all moved over I actually think I will be doing a little redesigning. This will serve two purposes.

One, I’m not entirely happy with the look of the site. There’s definitely room for improvement. For one thing, it’s too blocky.
Two, I want to get back into my habit of blogging with posts starting to gear more towards mainstream. I’m going to work on broadening the news that I read and in turn broadening the things I post about. Also, I think the musings on life and love have been lacking as well.

I appreciate everyone who’s continued to follow the blog through this dry spell, all one of you =).

Jason

As for the website, I think I have the code the way I want it. I hope, at least. This means that I’ll be updating the site to the new layout. Very exciting. Depending on how many snags I hit, though, it could mean that the site will be acting a little wonky for the next couple of days.

We’ll see how it goes.
Jason

What’s sad is only around 20% of web users use Firefox which scores a 71/100 on the Acid 3 test for Web Standards compliance. Internet Explorer gets a 12; it doesn’t even render the text correctly.

Firefox 3 will be released on the 16th and hopes to set the world record for most software downloads in one day. They’re calling the release Download Day (D-Day).

I’ve been using Firefox 3 for the past 4 months or so and absolutely love it. With each new Beta version that comes out I’ve seen better and more useful features being added. I’ll be downloading it on D-day along with over a million other people. It really is the best browser out there, even the Wall Street Journal thinks so.

Anyway, that’s enough software soap-boxing for today. I’m off to use hacks to make my website complaint with Internet Explorer.

-Jason

So enjoy those for now; I’ll keep this updated with progress.

Monday 10:40pm – All I seem to do is run into snags. It would seem Picasa only offers RSS feeds of albums and of pictures inside albums. There isn’t an option for most recently uploaded. I could put all of the Italy pictures into one big album, which wouldn’t be fun. Or I could create new pages for each album on my site, which wouldn’t be fun either.

It’s getting late, so I’m going to work on this more tomorrow. I’ll keep updating this post as things progress.

Tuesday 6:40pm – Working on my pictures got a little delayed. The Podcasting program has a deadline of Friday for a grant it’s trying to get, so I’ve been working on that site. It’s still in alpha, but I think it’s fine if I give out the link. www.tuscanproductions.com.

I’ve decided I’m going to make an album for each city I visit. It shouldn’t be much of a problem. The pictures now display decently. I’m now working on getting two columns of pictures running down the page. After that, I need to figure out how to serve ads on the page as well.

Tuesday 7:00pm – It looks like it’s time for dinner. It also looks like I need to learn more about Smarty php templates.

Thursday 3:45am – Wow! It’s been since Tuesday? I’ve been working on the class website. It’s pretty functional; especially for three days of work. Well, I just spent 4 hours working on the photos page. I hit dead end after dead end trying to get the photos to display correctly. They work now, though!

So, next on the chopping block is getting ads to display correctly. Then adding titles and descriptions to the pictures. Then adding an index page for albums. Then adding more albums! Still more work, but I feel like I accomplished something tonight.

Getting up at 8 tomorrow. Awesome.

Monday 2:10pm – HUZZAH! The hardest part is over! The pictures display and the ads show up where they need to be! I had a very nice weekend; I slept in late on Sunday. Voltera was on Saturday. I’m also working on my first real writing piece. Now that this is just about done, the blog will go back to business as usual very soon… maybe even tonight?

Tuesday 4:10pm – Last night, when I started putting in titles and captions, I realized that the photos didn’t display them correctly. After some work today, however, I got it working and displaying correctly. I’m not 100% happy with how it looks, but I think it’s good enough to call it done. It took a week and hours of work, but I can finally start uploading new pictures.

I have another blog entry that I’ve been working on. The plan is to finish it and post it tonight. A new photo album will be posted tomorrow.

Wednesday 4:50pm – UGH. I’m done with this post. Things still don’t look right, but I’m posting the other post now. Post. Post post.

Perpetually Yours,
-Jason