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| Sunday, July 30, 2006 |
| Reading books |
I'm currently reading 2 or 3 books, among other things. Two of them happen to be the same publisher O'Reilly... while the last one is SitePoint. Head Rush Ajax and Head First Design Patters and Build your own site the right way using XHTML and CSS So far I'd recommend all of these books. All three of them teach through example and none of the pages are complete boxes of text, you see how the code effects the page.
The book on XHTML and CSS is definitely for beginners, I skipped the first chapter and a half. It goes so far as assuming nothing, even that you know what a browser does. I almost put it down at that point but I kept with it. I taught myself CSS online just looking at what others had done and feel that to make sure I was staying within standards and all a basic book might be a good idea. And this book does what I want. The writing is entertaining and I can almost here a British dude narrating it! Though that's more to do with the fact that I heard about the book from a British podcaster but, that's later.
On to the Head Rush/First books. I like the way they are very graphical and example driven. You lean what you need as it is needed and each example involves more plus what you have used in the last chapter. I also think it's great for anyone who has problems with short attention span. There are little quizzes along the way and it's a very practical way of learning instead of the theoretical approach you might get in other books.
As you can see I'm on a webdev kick. I think it's really interesting and plan on applying what I"m learning to some forms and a site that I help that is currently all in asp. I think Ajax would be great for it and even help keep down user error.
I'm always open to other book recommendations, in pretty much anything.Labels: ajax, books, css, review, tech, web design |
posted by mpcc @ 7/30/2006 04:47:00 PM   |
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| Monday, July 24, 2006 |
| A quarter century of MTV |
I'm 22 and I grew up with MTV. It started when my parent's were 18 and they watched it well into my early pre-teens. I remember watching Real World with my dad (mom didn't know), Singled Out, cleaning to the music on weekends (yep, they played music videos regularly). At some point, right before puberty hit my mom decided, hmm maybe not a good idea letting me watch mtv so it was refused to me cold turkey, in the middle of a season. I did as all good children do, I snuck in my parents room and watched it on their tv while they were watching tv downstairs. I think they thought I was watching Disney, and my finger was on the last channel button so when they came up stairs, guess what I was watching. Parental controls were on of course. They didn't find out till I was about 17 that I've always know the code. It's the same as our house security code and that was the first one I tried.
I can't say I watch MTV much these days, but when I pull all nighters that's the channel I have on 'cause they play videos in the middle of the night. Real world is no longer believable and I don't care if your parents don't like your significant other or those bratty kids in Laguna Beach. MTV has moved on to the next generation... my sister loves watching it still, I guess I just grew up and the same will happen with the next group of teenyboppers.
Whether you think MTV is the devil or the best thing next to sliced bread you have to give them kudos for hanging on 25 yrs and probably will be around another 25yrs.
Happy birthday MTV.Labels: birthday, mtv, rant |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/24/2006 08:35:00 PM |
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| Yahoo Groups and 10 week free AJAX course |
I'm not a big fan of yahoo groups. Don't get me wrong, they had their time. But today with wikis and forums why deal with all that in an email? There is a 10 week free AJAX course going on and originally the main form of communication was a yahoo group. With over 4000 people that's a hell of a lot of hello emails. So someone (many but this one was just faster in execution) in class got a great idea to start a wiki for the class and a forum (which I get to be a moderator in :)).
It may just be me but having to search through emails to find answers seams to be harder than just going to wiki to get info or asking a question on the forum. Even if you have gmail and searching your email is no big deal still. Why when we have wikis and forums at our disposal?
If you want to check out the class check out the teachers site above and the AJAXWorkshop wiki.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm blogging so much this weekend. Perhaps it's taking my mind off the demo I have to do of my summer project to 10 people to see if it would be useful for another project? Hmm maybe.Labels: ajax, class, freebe, tech |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/23/2006 09:30:00 PM |
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| My Favorite Firefox extensions |
These are the extensions that I install after a new install, although I think after Firefox 2 comes out I may not need all of these:
Google Browser Sync -- great for keeping my desktop and laptop browsers synced
Nightly Tester Tools -- makes older extensions compatible, perfect when new versions of FireFox come out
SessionSaver - sort of redundant with Google Browser Sync but useful none the less
Restart FireFox -- quick way to restart FireFox after loading a new extension
Adblock Filterset.G Updater -- good filterset and auto updater for adblock plus
Tab Mix Plus - good menu and options for tabs
CSSViewer - shows the css used on a page
Greasemonkey - some of the user scripts are useful
Adblock Plus - great ad blocker
Performancing - blogging software, including stats, and a WYSIWYG editor to publish to many types of blogs
ColorZilla - pin pointer allows you to find out the hex and RGB of a color on a site
SingleWindow - forces all external links to open as new tabs in one window
FasterFox -- various settings geared towards making FireFox run faster
Screen Grab! - great program that grabs the whole site, not just what is visible in the screen but also what is below the scroll
Also if you want to see if there is an extension for something you want to do check out I want a FireFox Extension to.... A cool site that has over 200+ extensions and explains the circumstances of why you'd use it.Labels: firefox extensions, personal favs |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/23/2006 08:32:00 PM |
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| toread |
How do you mark those sites that you don't really have a category for or you want to go back to it reletively soon?
Right now I bookmark it with del.icio.us and tag it as toread along with any general tags I can gleam from the parts I have read. This works just fine with me and I think I'll stick to it even after checking out toread.cc.
The idea behind this site is to, using a bookmarklet, email a cached version of this page to your email, "bookmarking by email" as they put it, to read at your leisure. It's a good idea I suppose but personnaly I'd rather it didn't take up inbox space.
The company that does this looks like a japanesse company and possibly also have RSS Readers, but no english version I could see. I'd like this toread site better if you could send it to an RSS feed instead. But then it'd be another del.icio.us.Labels: bookmarklet, review, tech |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/23/2006 04:42:00 PM |
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| Spam.... |
For the last month I've been categorizing my spam by day of the week. The day I get it it goes into that label. I was curious on how much spam I really was getting and how the gmail filters worked. So without further ado .... my stats (word used loosly):
Date: June 18 - July 22
Total: 335 spam mails
Avg. per week (5 weeks): ~67 emails per week
Avg. per day: 9.5 per day
Daily Totals for 5 weeks:
Sunday: 53
Monday: 55
Tuesday: 40
Wednesday: 45
Thursday: 58
Friday: 44
Saturday: 40
On average Gmail caught most of it. I might have gotten 1 or 2 in my inbox a week but that's it.
I remember why I did this. In a podcast from diggnation.com Alex talked about how gmails filters were horrible. My guess is his email address is to out there in the public. If he compared how many gmail is catching to what is getting through.
That's that take it for what it is. Now I'm going to go and delete my spam mail I've been hording for the last month.Labels: random, spam, tech |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/23/2006 12:26:00 PM |
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| Friday, July 21, 2006 |
| Beer Recommendation.... Way off topic |
This is very off topic for me, I usually don't talk about beer here but. It's such a good one! Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat is Leinenkugel's beer of the summer. It's very good. A little citricy and great with an orange. My family is from WI but if you live in the Midwest or atleast near WI you'd probably know the beer. Not sure how far reaching it is. I know you can get cans in WI, only bottles everywhere else. And this very odd beer recommendation is over!Labels: beer, recommendation |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/21/2006 10:08:00 PM |
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| Thursday, July 20, 2006 |
| Gizmodo by invite? |
If you haven't checked out Gizmodo's new site redsign you really should. I love the background color. I suppose it's an off-white but I like to think of it as a pale periwinkle. All in all I like the color. As great as the site is, I knew it had happened but I use RSS to view it so.. just now noticed that comments are by invite!! Taking a hand from google perhaps? I found a want ad for an invite on craigs list of all places. It can't hurt but I'll ask the void... can I get an invite?
Anyway. The point is that I wanted to leave a comment on this page The Internet Is Not A Big Truck: Featuring John Hodgman in reply to another comment. First check out the page, watch the video. I'll wait. ..... Ok, wasn't that funny? Now if you read the comments you'll notice their talk about the Senator using the tube analagy and the fact that yeah it is an older analogy used at one time, but it's the fact that he's using this analogy that is scary.
From the sound of his little speach I'd have assumed some tech support person gave him a dumbed down explaination of the internet thinking (perhaps knowing) he wouldn't understand and/or care for a better explanation. I wouldn't even call it laymens terms, dumbed down is the best description. Do we really want someone who doesn't even really have the basics down in charge of regulating any aspect of the internet? I don't think so. |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/20/2006 07:30:00 PM |
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| Tuesday, July 18, 2006 |
| Iriver Clix Review |
 I've now had my iRiver for about a month. I cannot live without it!! First I want to explain why I choose this one and not an iPod or any Apple product. Next I'll do the good old full feature tell all. Then I'll explain how I use it and the features I use. Did I mention I loooooove it? 'Cause I do.
Ok, first off I'm not a fan of Apple stuff so chances are I'd probably look everywhere else before I even consider an iPod but I do recognize that they're well built and if I wanted something with more storage it would be hard to choose between them and the large capacity irivers. I've never wanted an mp3 player with a hard drive. I'm rough on my mp3 players. Really rough. I drop this one at least once a day. Today was bad. I dropped it like 4 times. So flash memory all the way for me. The clix has more functionality that I use than the iPod Nano the FM radio player is the biggest point.
Instead of a feature tell all here's the Iriver site iRiver America Clix. They do a great job explaining them and I haven't had any problems with it doing what they say it should so far.
The key parts I use are the FM Player, which is about 100 times than the one in my car (granted my car radio is horrible). There is a program called Iriverter that converts and compresses video into a format (I believe .avi) for viewing on the player. I watched Ctrl-Alt-Chicken on it. It look great. Not painful to watch at all. The sound is great and the headphones it came with where really all I need (till my cat ate through it at least). It plays flash games and video. I haven't used much with the games, but I have a feeling once I get back to school, that will be used more.
I sound like a commercial I know. The only problem I've had with it so far is some of the logic behind the menu system. The menu is fast and for the most part makes sense except for if you go to Now Playing. Going back to the menu takes you directly to the main menu. You don't get to see how that track is in the play list. For that you have to go to Music->Song (or however you want to view it) and then it starts over at the first song in that list. Not the one currently playing. For me I'd expect it to find the song I'm playing when I went to music. But that's just me. I'd also like it if it continued playing the music or the radio when playing the flash games. Right now that stuff stops as soon as you start a game. The only game that seems to rely on sounds is the Simon Says type game.
Another minor issue I have with it is that the only way to charge it is through the usb on the computer. I have no problem not being able to play it while it's hooked up to the computer but I'd like an AC way to charge it too.
I did get one accessory with it when I bought it. The FM transmitter works great. Lets you choose any station, not limited to just 3, and charges as you play it which is nice for long drives.
If anyone wants more details let me know, I can always gush some more if needed. As I find things I like/dislike I'll let you know. |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/18/2006 09:47:00 PM |
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| Monday, July 17, 2006 |
| Eating My Words |
My previous post I bitch about the lack of blogging tools available for your average person. Well, I think I've found one. Vox.com . It has a great WYSIWYG editor and is very much community oriented. Not in the myspace type but in more of a local, family, intimate community. Once I have an invite I plan on sending it to my mom. We'll see what she thinks. Check out twit.tv the most current Inside the Net with Amber MacArthur has one of the founders of Six Apart (makers of Vox) Mena Trott. This service will remain free. They are shooting for a fall public release but are accepting emails to recieve an invite right now. Mine took about 2 weeks to get.Labels: blog, Inside the Net, leo laport, TWiT, Vox |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/17/2006 10:43:00 PM |
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| Friday, July 14, 2006 |
| Is blogging for everone? |
I think it should be. And I don't just mean those with or without opinions. I mean those tech savvy and those who aren't. Right now I'm setting up a wordpress blog for me and 5 of my friends. After most graduated and have spread out across the US I thought a group blog would be the best way to keep in touch with everyone and only have to tell "the story" once. This was a great idea in theory. I bought a cheap domain from GoDaddy and set up a GeekLog site. It was ok, turns out geeklog is a little too buggy for me and it intimidated my friends who have no technical background what so ever. They can do the basics but beyond surfing, checking email and downloading music for their mp3 player everything else is a bit over their head. So Geeklog was too geeky for them.
I've now got WordPress set up the theme is better I found a plugin with a better WYSIWYG editor and then using Wink2.0 (great freeware) I made a little how to intro to the site so they could see all the basics and things I thought they should know.
This is working for my friends right now, but if it wasn't for me doing the real techie stuff for them a blog idea wouldn't work. Even blogger generally involves not being afraid of code or messing with things if you want to personalize it. There may be a lot of bloggers out there but the majority of them are tech savvy to a point. Even if it's just the basics. Your everyday person is not on blogs and it's too bad. I'm sure they'd add a great voice that is needed and should be present. Are those who have the tech skills just not paying attention or is it just not noticed? I'm tempted to create my own blogging software. Where to start? |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/14/2006 06:40:00 PM |
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| Wednesday, July 05, 2006 |
| Free Willy Two |
| Lol, I watched Free Willy 2 today. Forgot the Miohel Jackson song that plays in the middle "..have you seen my childhood..." Made me laughe out loud! |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/05/2006 09:18:00 PM |
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| Sunday, July 02, 2006 |
| Are you getting paid for that post? |
 One of the more heated debates in the blogoshere (particularly the tech sites I frequent) is http://www.payperpost.com. If you don't already know about this site it literally does what the title says. Advertisers put up "opportunities" for bloggers to take. I've seen things from opinions about your favorite (they don't give you one) search engine to opinion about a show, and a review of a photo editing software. They all say neutral.
I currently use 3 different editing software's for photos and I planned on talking about them here. Why not add one more? Check it out and compare it with the ones I already use, while getting $5 for it. Who knows maybe I'll find one product to do what the 3 did for me. Am I a sell out? Perhaps, but if it's known ahead of time that parts of the post are getting paid for, and you don't even necessarily have to be positive is there really a moral issue in it?
Check out the comments at TechCrunch.com. Lots of good discussion. Personally I don't think it's wrong if it blends with your blog. Would I accept an opportunity about "Parenting and Pregnancy Opportunity". Hmm for some reason that just doesn't seem to mesh with what I'm doing. Don't worry, unless I become pregnant, which will not be happening anytime soon, that will not be one I will even consider Can this service be used to the detriment of bloggers? Of course. Bloggers are a detriment to themselves. That many uncontrolled opinions is bound to get someone, if not a group ie. the blogosphere, in trouble. Personally I think blogging is a good thing, whether people read your blog or not. As long as there is full disclosure as to what content is getting paid for and whether that has swayed your opinion I have no problem with it. Will everyone do it? Nope, I highly doubt it. Call me a cynic, but I prefer realist. If everyone is not moral/ethical about it should it be allowed? It's the age old question, what kills... guns, alcohol, cars (insert favorite or not so favorite object) or people?
By the way, did I mention I'm getting paid for this post ? I decided to show my opinion on both sides. |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/02/2006 04:28:00 PM |
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| French stuff |
Update: Added 2 more.
LoicLeMeur Wiki: Interesting information about what eh's up to, available in French and English versions.
Le Nouveau Pourvoir des Internautes: Interesting french product. This book was released and now for the second version they are doing it online, wiki style, to allow readers to change it and are doing the revisions in 80 days.
Guitef: Blog covering different things going on, in French.
French Learning Center: A free typ eof online learning classroom, done by the guy behind the podcast The French Podcast. Should also check out the podcast. It's well done. I enjoy this site because there are bilingual books and grammar for all ages.
France with Sebastien is done with the above two. One I just found and has a lot of good information.
DotClear: A blog software develpoed by a french person. This is a link to their forums |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/01/2006 04:03:00 PM |
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| Fantastic Planet scored by everyone.doesntexist |
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Ren? Laloux's french trippy animated, cartoon, film from the 70's.
soundtrack rescored to idm, experimental, type music of: aphex twin, venetian snares, prefuse 73, matmos, clue to kalo, pole, luke vibert, japanese telecom and a few others...
rescoring was done in 2003 by http://everyone.doesntexist.com
why?: for fun; the orginal soundtrack is great as well.
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| posted by mpcc @ 7/01/2006 03:54:00 PM |
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| Tutorials and How tos |
If you enjoy teaching yourself and scouring the web for all those little tidbits of knowledge about whatever title here are some good picks, mostly programming languages and softwares:
TechCheatSheets: from the site: "a collection of the best cheat sheets and quick reference guides on the web. Arranged by tags, you can subscribe to a feed for only the tags you want to monitor. Visitors can also give the listings 1-5 star ratings promising more features to come."
Learn How: A blog site that has a collection of interesting how tos for a variety of things tech related.
Cheat-Sheets: Index with a collection of cheat sheets from asp, php, world of warcraft, css, mysql
Getting Your Own Server: Interesting 2 part guide to getting your own server and what to look for.
Rons Guide: A good, if not kinda old, collection of tutorials for most things to do with web development.
Tutorialism: A digg like system for tutorial entries. |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/01/2006 03:11:00 PM |
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| Time to play catchup |
| I've got tons of tabs up in firefox right now. All waiting to be blogged about, so I've clumped them into groups and will be doing them that way. A few include, tutorials/how to sites, french everything, blogging/websites... etc. |
| posted by mpcc @ 7/01/2006 03:05:00 PM |
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| About Me |
Name: mpcc
Home: Mid-West, United States
About Me:
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