2007 February

Blogging With Microsoft Word

SixApart is showcasing how their MoveableType Enterprise blogging platform and Microsoft Word link together to create the ultimate hook into existing productivity apps. It’s nice to see how the daddy (no way – WordPress rules) of blogging tools is connecting with existing programs to help bring users toward a unified environment for al their dialy tasks.

What I’m trying to say here is that I think a Word addon for WordPress blogging would be a great idea. You don’t really need much to do it – you already have xmlrpc.php on the server side, so all you need to do is build a client. I looked around for some info on this, and found a locked thread on the WordPress support forums, which was mostly suggesting other desktop blogging apps.

So, are there any WP + Word combos out there, or in development?

Update: I have gotten word that Word has blogging capabilities in the box, in the form of the Publishing tools. I have yet to experiment with it (I haven’t even tried a beta of Office 2007), but PC World says they are there.

Windows Vista: Love It, Hate It, Or Just Forget About It

It’s hard to believe that the news hasn’t made it over to this corner of the blogosphere, but let it be known: Windows Vista has been officially released as of Tuesday, January 30. From what I here and see, Vista is the biggest and baddest Microsoft ever put churned out, with millions of lines of code. There are a number of new features and improvements in Windows Vista, some purely fluff in many people’s opinions, and some deep under the hood.

Slightly unrelated, but worth mentioning:

How much more astonishing, then, is what Microsoft has accomplished. Apple had it easy: it kept its PC box closed, maintaining control over the hardware so it would perfectly suit its software. But Microsoft faced hundreds of thousands of boards, drives and chips like those I had spread out before me a few weeks ago, all of differing technological vintages, made by hundreds of companies with wildly different goals. Microsoft has taken these objects, along with the many thousands of PC programs now sold, and tried to create a system that would overlook their dizzying differences, bind them to a coherent vision and force them, in all their variety, to leave techne behind for the uncharted possibilities of magic.

Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/arts/design/07conn.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=4ad77c80c0fb9cb9&ex=1171515600&emc=eta1

Vista unlocks a new user interface, officially dubbed Aero Glass, which showcases of the power of your graphics hardware with transparent window frames and title bars and other special effects. In PC World’s feature article from the January 2007 issue, the author says a lot about how eye candy makes his day. Readers wrote back arguing against that, saying that a nice look isn’t the only thing that he should be proud of.

A number of new applications are included in Vista. They somewhat mimic Mac OS X with the new photo organization tool, a DVD-authoring program, and a calendaring app. Unfortunately for some, the Vista version of WordPad has dropped support for the Microsoft Word format, most probably in a push for users to but the new Office 2007. Most of the new apps are crude but effective for novice to intermediate PC users.

Aside from Aero, the desktop in general has gotten a few enhancements. The new Sidebar functionality is similar to OS X Widgets. The Sidebar gadgets can place hooks into the OS, providing system-level information to the user. Also, upon mousing over a taskbar button, the user is shown a small preview of the window’s contents, and can even display live content. Last in my (non-fully inclusive) list of features is Flip 3D, a replacement for the Windows + Tab keystroke that allows the user to switch windows in style. It shows the windows in a slanted stack.

Once you get past the surface, there are some under the hood (in one case, more over the hood than under) improvements in the areas of security and performance. The new user Account Control nags at the user for even seemingly non-administrative tasks, but helps protect the user from attacks and their own mistakes. Vista includes Internet Explorer 7, which is also available for Windows XP, and includes some of the much wanted features from today’s other browsers (like tabs and feed-reading capabilities). Also up are new graphics and programming frameworks for building richer applications and games.

Most of the notable enhancements that Windows Vista shows at this point are more eye candy than useful additions. However, as time goes on (and hardware compatibility rises), more of the monstrosity’s features will be put to use, giving users more reasons to enjoy the new OS. However, if you feel that windows XP is sufficient, stick with it, and wait for your next computer to get Vista.

Beta Syndrome Hits Gravatar 2.0

A few days ago, I gained interest in Gravatar, which I had come across before in my early blogging career. At first I didn’t really understand what it was all about, and to this day, some of its features are still unclear to me. I understood the basic concept – showing a single avatar next to your comments on any site set up to display Gravatar avatars (the name explains it: Globally Recognized Avatars.

So anyway, back to my original topic. For some time, Gravatar was closed. They recently re-opened up their service on a public basis. Of course, I registered. But after trying to upload my favorite avatar (featuring a picture of the front of an Orion VII Hybrid bus), I got a very generic looking error from the site saying that something went wrond, and that it has been logged for further investigation.

Sounds like beta to me!

While on the topic, I have recently put Educated into beta. I think it’s the way to go, because I don’t need to worry if my site suddenly fails, do I? (I am pretty confident it won’t go downhill anytime soon – ComputingHost is doing a very nice job so far).

New Attacks: Regstration Spam

Recently, I’ve been observing a new form of spam on my blog. It is coming in the form of vague registrations, with email addresses including Russian domains and strange user IDs. For now, it’s not too bad, so I won’t take serious action. If things do heat up, I’ll look into ways to effectively block spammers from clogging up my users table.

Changes Are Good, But Somethings Don’t Change

My experimenting with my site(s) has brought thousands of changes to it (them). I’ve played with templates and themes, modules, and hundreds of other features and tweaks. But there is one thing I’ve learned (not the hard way, yet): Leave URLs alone. Search engines need URLs to work with your site. If they all suddenly change, they may be looking at nothing, or your site will get lost forever.

It’s very tempting to all of a sudden change your permalink structure, or suddenly switch to them. Unless you have absolutely no choice in the matter, either take ‘em or leave ‘em at the beginning. One change in the middle will disturb the SEO status’s equilibrium (that a new one), with potentially lethal effects on the site’s ranking. Jonathan agrees with me.

I haven’t documented this, but it may be something that you would want to keep in mind. Some things are better off “like old times,” and left undisturbed. Perhaps I will report on this again in the future and see if my theory has proven itself.

The LIRR Experience

As a native New York City resident, I haven’t had that many opportunities to ride the Long Island Rail Road throughout my life. The last time I took the LIRR, I noticed the difference between the city and the (so-called) Island, but more specifically, the subway and railroad. After riding the train today, I wondered why the MTA doesn’t focus its attention on the city as much. Maybe someone will get up one day and say “Why can’t we join in the crowd?”

Before even getting to Jamaica, I realized that the railroads are more expensive than the ticket price. You have to pay to get to your station, whether it be gas for your car or a MetroCard for the bus or subway. Also, those who drive in suffer the agonizing task of finding parking, which, unless they get out at the crack of dawn (or earlier), will spend a long time doing.

One of the first things that I noticed after arriving at Jamaica Station was the Ticket Lobby down at street level. I went in there to buy my ticket, and ended up heading back in while waiting for my train. It was relatively warm in there, and felt like a comfortable place to be in. Also, on the tracks above, there is a waiting room on each platform. By comparison, NYC subways don’t have waiting times like the railroad’s, so there is no need for any type of waiting room.

On the train, there was very little noise. Although the train did go pretty fast in a few areas, there was no sounds indicating so. There were relatively comfortable seats within the car. However, the combination of being able to see where the train is going (unlike the dark subway tunnels), combined with sitting a rear-facing seat, made me slightly nauseous throughout the ride.

One annoying thing about the railroad is the constant automated announcements. They consist of a ding-type noise (ding, second or two, dong), and then the message, which was usually something that was said many times before. I think that contributed to the nausea.

Overall, I like the railroad. Quiet trains and a comfortable ride made my Wednesday. But for city-boys like me, it’s a bit expensive to ride the LIRR.

Need For Feeds – Web Style

A while ago I got into the habit of reading posts from several blogs (like Lorelle on WordPress and Dave Seah blog) in an attempt to do these things:

1. Learn new things.
2. Waste time.

Now the only way reading people’s feeds can help me accomplish those goals is if they actually make posts on their blogs for me to read. Today, I looked at the ever-so-convenient Feeds menu in Opera, and saw not a single feed with new posts. I immediately thought to myself, “I am so bored, I need something to do.”

A minute later Opera refreshed the feeds, bringing in my daily dose of reading. What a relief that was!

A Rescued Procrastinator

Anybody who knows me pretty well knows that I don’t exactly run on a schedule. I often don’t finish doing homework until minutes before it’s due, and get into conflicts with my dad (or used to at least) about getting into the shower on time. It seems that I keep on waking up later and later every week. How am I going to survive if I keep putting everything off?

I’ve tried several methods for keeping myself organized and on track. I began with Devin’s weekly scheduler, in hopes of being able to remember to do everything that I plot out on it. After that failed, I set up my own spreadsheet, with three periods for each day (morning, school, and evening; on Saturday, school is replaced with daytime). This was extremely poor, receiving just one or two entries. I knew that I was seriously failing to keep myself heading straight.

Then came David Seah. His Printable CEO™ series looked like a viable solution. I browsed around his site for a while, looking at his forms and other articles (I have to say, he’s a beautiful writer). Last week, I took a deep look at his Task Progress Tracker Form. It’s mainly built for designers and other freelancers who work on individual projects, but I found that by filling in the project name box with “my Life / School”, I can use it for my own purposes.

A day later, I put it to the test. After getting hold of my most recent report card, my dad told me that I am going to be putting in at least an hour of effort toward my studies every night (yeah right). I happened to have some social studies homework due the next day, so I sat down with the textbook, papers and the form Approximately every fifteen minutes (as prescribed by the form), I filled in another bubble indicating that amount of time was spent on the particular task.

I’m still slacking off a bit now, but I feel like things are rolling now. I think this plan will need a week or two to settle in, at which point I will report back. Maybe i should try some of the other PCEO forms.