Feedburner Woes
If you were subscribing to my site via RSS, you might want to unsubscribe from that one and switch to the new feed at http://feeds.wesbaker.com/wesbaker/.
The Workflow
I intend this site to be a bit of a pet project, growing over time and being added to constantly. I hope the design changes more than four times a year, mainly because I need somewhere to play with that sort of thing. It’ll be a test of certain addons and methods. And the first method started before this site even came about—actually it was how it came about.
I used a combination of technologies that I am still just getting acquainted with: Git, Capistrano and (lesser so) ExpressionEngine. The idea is I keep a version of the site on my machine for testing and such. I can commit to my repository and push it up to Github as often as I please. When it’s ready for the public, I deploy it using Capistrano. There were a few initial bumps getting it to work right and a few times where I was wondering if I was doing things right, but in the end it all worked out.
If you are looking into this workflow, I recommend looking at Dan Benjamin’s article on it.
Meager Beginnings
So, undoubtedly you’ve noticed I’m doing some redecorating around here. There’s also a bit of work occurring in the back end as well, a switch from Wordpress to ExpressionEngine. I figured it was about time to restructure how my sites currently function and make them a bit easier to manage. I also plan to write more and keep it focused.
For now, you get black text on a white background, but soon enough that’ll change.
Synchronizing Bookmarks
Synchronizing bookmarks has always been a problematic thing for me. When I was using Windows, Xmarks worked out great for me, allowing me to have the same bookmarks at work and at home. But when I switched to Mac — about a year ago — Xmarks wasn't enough. So I combined Xmarks and an application called Bookit.
Bookit
Bookit worked great for a while, allowing me to easily sync my bookmarks, under the condition that no browser was running. And for this convenience they charged $12. Then Firefox 3 came out and Bookit no longer worked. Within a few days the developer announced that the then current version of Bookit (3.7.5) didn't support Firefox 3 and that they would be coming out with a new version that did. Great! So I waited patiently because I assumed that they would get around to it. It's been a little less then 7 months since that day and the developer has done nothing but say they'll work on it, with no proof of any development.
Xmarks
Re-enter Xmarks, all new and shiny from a huge change in the way it works. Now, Xmarks will sync bookmarks for Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. So not only do I have access to my bookmarks on any machine I'm on, my bookmarks on either browser are always current. And all of this for the low low cost of nothin’. Now, add in the fact that it supports profiles which allows me to select which folders get updated in which browser and I'm a happy camper. Safari keeps up to date with all of my bookmarks, while Firefox — where I do my development — just gets my 'tool' bookmarks.
Recap
Bookit
- Will work with Safari, Camino and a bunch of other browsers
- Doesn't work with Firefox 3
- Doesn't sync to anywhere offsite
- Costs $12
Xmarks
- Only works with Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer
- Keeps a copy of your bookmarks offsite
- Allows you to access your bookmarks without installing anything
- Absolutely Free
So while I think it's obvious that I regret paying $12 for an application that doesn't fit my needs, I'm very happy to have found Xmarks.
Creating a Private Wordpress Site
I was recently asked to setup a website for a family member who wanted the site to be secure and only accessible to people who they knew and had approved. I knew Drupal could do it, but to be honest I can’t stand Drupal and for a non-technical person it’s not a very good idea. So I opted for Wordpress — which is even better considering the family member had used it before.
So I setup a basic Wordpress installation on the domain and started looking at what defaults were there. A pretty good user system that can handle basic permissions, a registration system that for the most part worked and password protected posts.
There were a couple issues with this:
- Password protecting each post — even with the same password every time — seemed really obnoxious
- The registration system was either open or closed
So I started doing what any Wordpress user might do: I started looking for plugins. I ended up finding two plugins that did exactly what I needed. The first one is the Members Only plugin that blocks the site to anyone who isn’t logged in. The second plug in is Register Plus, which allows you to add several other options to the Registration process, but the most important for my situation was moderation — only allowing those who the admin checked off as being legit.
So, with roughly four hours of work — mostly due to e-mail issues with the registration — I had a working site that fit the bill.
Image Replacement on Submit Input Items
This is a quick tip for someone who wants to replace everything in a input item with a type of submit. If you try the traditional text-indent: -9999px method, it will work just fine in Firefox and Safari, but within IE7 and IE6 the whole button will be gone. Instead apply padding to the element equal to it’s height and then add overflow: auto;.
Here’s my implementation:
.search input.input-submit {
background: transparent url('/img/search-button.png') no-repeat scroll 0 0;
border: 0 none;
width: 20px;
height: 0px;
padding-top: 21px;
overflow: auto;
}
/* For IE7/6, place this in a separate style sheet and use conditional comments */
.search input.input-submit {
height: 21px;
}