Stupid Me!!!
Note to self: Always check the front page of your blog to make sure it is working after making major changes to the code.
It seems that Tim's Journal was not accessible for about three or four hours tonight because of a bug I created in the code that caused the main page to attempt to load an article created at “0” (the UNIX epoch, that is, January 1, 1970 00:00:00 GMT). Unfortunately, it seems people did visit the site during that time, and sadly one person from blogs4God stopped by and seeing that nothing worked, gave the site a “6” rating (all things considered, “6” is more than fair for a site that doesn't work.
). Oh well, hopefully whomever stopped by will come again now that things are working again.
A Year and Counting...
Well, depending on if you count my blog starting when I posted the first substantial item or if you count the first 'testing' message, my blog either turned a year old on February 21 or will turn a year old March 4. I'll just go with March 4 so that I don't have to admit that I forgot to post something on the 21st… Did I just say that?
By the way, congratulations to Christopher, of What in Tarnation?!?, who achieved a blog entry-a-day for an entire month in February! That's not necessarily an easy task, but he seemed up to the challenge. Considering that he just won an award from me yesterday, he's on quite a roll.
Need Some Punditing?
I'm pleased to introduce a new entry to my blog roll. Le Renard Subtil's Citizen of the State is an interesting “pundit blog” that's part of the Gone Ape Web Network (as is What in Tarnation!?!). This blog has been up for about a month, and I decided it was high time for me to add it to my blog roll rather than using my blog roll to get to Christopher's blog roll to get to COTS (if you aren't confused by now, you should get some kind of award!).
Improved Journal
Yes, I've done some more minor adjustments. Nothing terribly noticable mostly - a few design tweaks that probably no one will notice. However, while I was at it, I added XML/RSS headline support to the code too.
Now, if you aren't familar with RSS, its a format pioneered by Netscape and Userland (yes, the same Userland of Radio Userland fame). Awhile back, Netscape wanted a convenient way to include syndicated headlines in their My Netscape site. Well, the predecessor to RSS (RDF) was the creation, and soon lots of sites adopted it. In fact, for a time, any site could be included in My Netscape because of this. My Userland sprung up later on, and they ended up pioneering much of what would become the RSS standard.
Alas, My Netscape moved back to a proprietary system - so now only a select few sites are included in its catalog - and My Userland bit the dust in an effort to move everyone over to Radio Userland. All is not lost though, some sites, such as my company's FaithTree.com still offer portals that use RSS, and places such as Slashdot use RSS headlines too. Finally, many desktop news aggregators such as KNewsTicker (included with KDE) and Radio Userland offer RSS support.
The great thing about RSS is, even though some of the major support is gone, literally thousands of sites still offer channels. In fact, every PHP-Nuke, PostNuke, or Slashcode powered site automatically comes with RSS output support. That includes sites such as Open for Business and LinuxDailyNews.net (bias alert: the first site is owned by my company, the latter is sponsored by it).
Anyway, now Tim's Journal can enter the arena as a proud supporter of this wonderful open format. You can find my RSS file at http://uninetsolutions.com/tbutler/journal/journal.rss.
It works: Come and Comment
- Full-fledged commenting system with “Remember Me” support (uses cookies to remember your name, location, etc.).
- MT-style navigation bar inside individual entries, allowing you to easily move chronologically through the journal.
- Cleaned up front page, which mimics the style used by MT as well as Slashcode, PHP-Nuke, or SAFARI. Basically, it displays the first paragraph or two of the text, and then lets you go to a seperate page to read the rest. Additionally, the “table of contents” has been removed.
I may add a bit more over the next few days. If time permits, I should add XML RSS syndication very soon. Well, enough from me for now… but now that you can, why not comment?
From the stuff-I-shouldn't-be-wasting-time-on-dept
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
-Author Unknown, Be Thou My Vision
I forgot to mention in my last few posts that I've slowly been moving my site over to a new design since last weekend. If you can not remember what the old design looked like, you can see it here (courtesy of Archive.org). I think this is a definate improvement over the old look. My site began with an even more simplistic look, and being a web designer, I slowly realized I was never going to be happy with this site until I switched to something less bland.
OpenMoz, OpenMoz, what to do with OpenMoz...
I've wrapped myself up in a universe again
and let the darkness quell my matchflame confidence
and unwillingly I hide the lever I must find
to release the deep the tears withheld inside
but i can't explain I can't explain
I can't make sense of the things I'm saying
—Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer), I Can't Explain
…ah, yes, I'm working on that part of web site development I always do worst at. I'm trying to figure out what to add to the front page of the OpenMoz web site (such as a graphic) that would make it more interesting once text is also added. Hrm… I'm sure I'll think of something, but what?
Feeling Uplifted
I'm diving in I'm going deep in over my head I want to be caught in the rush lost in the flow in over my head I want to goWhat a refreshing day it has been. Dive seems like an appropriate song for a day like today. As I noted before I am tired, but at the same time I feel more energetic then usual. The Prayer Breakfast was a refreshing change of pace, and the whole day was finished off with a great Lenten sermon by Pastor Walter. Being the witty guy he is, Pastor Walter found a very good way to interweave his looking into time shares with the way the merchants where taking advantage of the gentiles in the gentile's court of the Temple in Jerusalem (Mark 11:15). I guess all the merchants got jobs as time share sales people after being thrown out of the temple. Wanna buy some swamp land?
the river's deep the river's wide the river's water is alive
so sink or swim I'm diving in
— Steven Curtis Chapman, Dive
Ah, what a day. I think this was exactly the kind of dive I needed.
Hiya!
My friend Ciaran Hamilton gave me this nice script, waddya think?
