Questions I’m Currently Pondering
1. Why does Dreamhost decide have an issue with our hosting the second before I click “Save” in Movable Type?
2. Does anyone else think that cartoon girl in the esurance commericals is kinda cute?
3. I know Kelly Kapowski was always thought to be the hottest Saved By The Bell girl, but I’m really thinking Lisa might be a little cuter.
4. Now that there is a 1 GB iPod Nano out, does this mean the end for the Shuffle? I kinda wanted a Shuffle for a 2nd iPod.
5. Judging by their latest cover story, I think I should start reading Vanity Fair more.
6. Maybe I should start watching Lost.
7. I think I’m going to go to Quicktrip and get one of their (horrible for you) egg and sausage biscuit sandwiches.
8. Maybe I should write something on this site that isn’t as inane and boring as this list.
9. Now that the “Blog World” is doubling every 5.5 months, does having your site for 3 years make you an old fart at this stuff?
10. Seriously, I’ll write something interesting…after I go get that Quicktrip breakfast sandwich.
Textpattern, WordPress or stay with MovableType?
Where are the posts?!
First off, get off my back! Secondly, I spent my day touching up the new design that I guess everyone likes because no one has said anything and playing (read: banging head against wall) with WordPress and Textpattern. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about switching away from movable type (the backend blogging software we use here at the site) again. Mainly because this site is just getting big enough, 700+ articles and 500+ comments, that the rebuilds are killing me and wordpress and textpattern don’t need to rebuild. I tried playing with the dynamic aspects of MovableType today too, but I wasn’t impressed.
So after wasting my day and getting frustrated with test installs, is HYB moving blogging software? Nope. Not now at least. Textpattern just wasn’t 100% what I’m looking for. I’m not sure why, but it just didn’t feel like it was what I needed. However, textpattern was closer to getting me to move than WordPress, everyone’s favorite. The major problem? WordPress’ MovableType importer in their 2.0 version sucks completely. It doesn’t import the comments correctly or update the number of comments for each article correctly (the “comments_count” field) and it doesn’t import any of my keywords at all. The last one isn’t a “bug” though…I looked in the code, they just ignore the keywords.
If wordpress would fix their importer, I might switch to them. I’m currently entertaining thoughts about just fixing the importer and moving, but I’m not sure if thats worth the trouble. MovableType is really fine, its just those damn rebuilds… Maybe I’ll take a peak and see what it would take to fix the importer.
Anyone know of someone who has already done this work? No? I didn’t think so. Anyone out there feel like convincing me to move to Textpattern or WordPress? Anyone have any thoughts on anything at all? Are you hungry?
Editor’s Note: Wow, I just read this post and it might be the most “bloggy” post I have ever put up there. Talk about a random thought stream. I promise some real content tomorrow.
Mike and His Brother Take a Road Trip
In the words of the immortal Tenacious D, “The road is f*ckn’ hard. Its also really f*ckn’ tough!” My brother Lil’ J and I, in our quest for complete cheapness, will be taking a road trip from St. Louis, MO to Isle of Palms, SC to meet our parents, our extended family, my girlfriend, and some other people for my family’s annual Thanksgiving get-together. To be honest, I’m not 100% sure how this will all turn out. There’s a distinct possibility that we could end up somewhere near Maine after taking a wrong turn…which would suck because neither of us is really into lobster, and from what I hear thats all they eat up there. Hopefully though, everything will turn out fine, and at least I will make it to South Carolina on time to enjoy a turkey sandwhich and then turn around and come right back.
I will be documenting our progress and there is at least a confirmed internet connection at the final destination, so at the very least updating this site will happen once or twice from there. I’m hoping though that we run accross some WiFi along the way, or at least at the hotel in Knoxville.
Wish me luck.
For those that are pissed they just read that and want some real news: Did you hear that Ricky Martin likes to pee on people? Yeah, I wasn’t that surprised either.
Mike Doesn’t Own Any USB Sticks
According to BoingBoing the Barenaked Ladies are planning to release their next album on a USB 128 MB flash drive. An idea that might seem original, but really isn’t…Robbie Williams did it a while back. Not only that, but most Barenaked Ladies fans are geeks, which means that they probably already have a Flash Drive or two, so another one isn’t really that appealing. Even after the post on BoingBoing, Cory remarked “I agree that this is cool, but how many 128MB sticks can you usefully own? I’ve got about ten kicking around now…”
Cory’s right, if I got one of these Flash Albums I would have…oh wait, it would be my first.
Believe it. I do not own any USB flash drives. Not one. Thats me, I’m the only geek on the planet that doesn’t own any Flash Drives…well except for maybe poor geeks…but since when do thaty count? I know what your thinking: My god! How do you get by? How do you live? How is it that you are in this most horrible of positions? Well, I get by the best way I can…I just try to live my life one day at a time. I try to work around my problem by using other means for data transportation, much as I assume the Indians would have if they were still around. Email, uploads to my website, CDs, I get by the best I can. How did I contract this terrible situation? I never needed one enough to pay for one, and I haven’t gone to any events or conventions that notoriously give them out.
Sad but true, my terrible secret is out there now. I understand if you don’t want to go near me now if you fear losing your flash drives and catching my disease that will never allow you to get one again.
Please do keep in mind though, that although I might have been the first to come out, there could be others, though its doubtful, out there. Be kind to us. Don’t tell us “Oh, you can just put it on your flash drive!” then with that horrible next statement being “…you don’t have a flash drive do you?” Wow, it hurt to even write it. Keep in mind this is not an article to make you feel sorry for us, its just an article to let you know that we do exist and when you look at that pile of flash drives in your desk drawer, know how luck you are to have them. Some people don’t have that luxury…some of those people aren’t poor, which means you should care a little more.
This message has been brought to you by Hell Yeah Bitch! .com in cooperation with “The More You Know” (That stupid thing they do on NBC where Debra Messing tells you to play with your kid more.)
Who Uses 800×600? Anyone?
Recently, at Gagetopia, Deane did some research to see what resolution most of his readership is using for the window opening on their browser. (He didn’t use total screen resolution because not everyone keeps their browser window maximized…especially true for us OS X users.) Deane found that 90% of the Gadgetopia readers were at 1024 x 768 or more. Thats a large number of people that aren’t using 800×600, which the width of this site was designed to accommodate. So my question is: Should I bother accommodating them any longer?
When I do my professional designs at work I always design for 800×600 without question. The reason for that is on the sites that my company runs, their clientele is not exactly technically savvy which means that probably have older computers running at 800 x 600. Of course, that rule of thumb doesn’t really follow for the viewers of Hell Yeah Bitch! .com. I assume most of you are members of the more computer-oriented crowd.
So what do you think? Should I play with the design a bit and give it some more room? If so, do you have any suggestions on what to do with the new space? Now, I’m not planning on doing anything soon, I’ve got a big night tomorrow of watching Monday Night Football and switching during the commercials to the Halloween episode of Moesha, but I was just playing with some ideas in my head and I figured I’d let you all in on my thoughts.
Hell Yeah Bitch! .com Self Critique
There have been a lot of people posting about Jakob Nielsen’s “Top Ten Design Mistakes”…it must have been a slow news day. Gadgetopia however did a nice little introspective using these guffaws, and I thought that was a pretty good idea. So hold on to your butts because reading this post just might be too exciting for you to handle.
- No Author Biographies We have half of an “about page”…does that get us anything. I have been meaning to, and will, get something more concrete up there for myself. As for Dan and the “Ghost of Joe”, they can do it or not.
- No Author Photo Actually, I’m not sure how many of you noticed, but I just recently fixed this. Not only do we have some stylish black and white photos of us (with the Ghost of Joe being represented by Lindsay Lohan) but that same picture now appears on every post written by us on the archive page. I did that to make the destinction that its not just me writting on this blog stronger. I think it has mostly worked, but I want to do more to that effect.
- Nondescript Posting Titles I think in the recent months we have gotten better about this. My headline tend to have a very strong lean to the comedic side, but for the most part they seem ok.
- Links Don’t Say Where They Go This is a constant sturggle. On the whole I think we do the best we can. I mainly just make sure that we don’t have any “Click Here” links, and if we don’t then I’m happy.
- Classic Hits are Buried I’ve tried to fix this with the “Best of” section on the front page, but that section itself if a bit buried, so we might want to look at that again.
- The Calendar is the Only Navigation I’m pround to say we have NEVER had calander navigation! It sucks. It only works if you are writing a true online diary…anything else and date navigation is useless.
- Irregular Publishing Frequency Other than the weekends, I think we do pretty well on keeping something fresh up here. That being said, I would love to have much more going on here, but for basically two people I think we do ok.
- Mixing Topics We do this. We will always do this. This is basically a website with little to no point, so mixing topics is what we do.
- Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss I think as long as I never go to work for Lance Armstrong, I’ll be cool.
- Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service Not a problem. (Who would want this domain anyway?)
Anything to add?
Mike Wants a New iMac
Yes, we all know Apple introduced a new video playing iPod and a new iMac. I’m sure that annoucement is getting beaten to death on 90% of all websites out over yesterday and today, so I’m not going to discuss any ramifications of the latest annoucement from “his Stevenes”.
I will however discuss that I am in love with the new iMac. Really, I’m in love. I have wanted to get an iMac for some time now, but after the announcement yesterday, my craving for a shiny new iMac has intensified 10 fold. The remote, the included iSight (Even though I already have one.) and the big power additions (Dual layer DVD burner, bigger HD and better video card.)
Now the question is whats the best way to scratch together $1,253.00? Anyone want to chip in for a nice new apartment-warming gift for me? Anyone need a website built for them?
The Problem With Donating To Big Causes
How long has it been The Hurricanes? Is it in that range yet where I can bitch about something about it and not get blasted worse than if someone talks shit on Lance Armstrong? I realize at best its at the beginning of that range…well I’m sure its close enough.
Let me start off my saying that I have NO PROBLEM with people asking for and giving donations. That being said, here’s what I hate about when some disaster happens and everyone is obliged to throw money in the pot: Say you are going to buy some shoes, not because you are some shoe-crazy broad, but because you need the shoes…lets say for a wedding. So you are paying for the shoes and the girl at the register says “Would you like to add on 10 dollars to your purchase to go to the Hurricane Relief Fund?” Well that sounds like a perfectly benign question, but lets say you happen to be someone that has already donated to the Hurricane Relief Fund and you aren’t quite pulling down six figures and you could use that 10 bucks to eat later this week. So you say “No thanks.” The girl, all of 17 (max) looks at you like you just pulled the head off of a baby rabbit, spit into its neck-hole and and then suck the head on the end of your pen so that you can think it looks cute when you sign the receipt. “I already donated…” you try to explain. She doesn’t believe you of course and she hands you your shoes looking disgusted.
That is the problem. You’re a good guy, you give some money but then everyone you see everywhere asks you again and again and again and every time you say “No” you look like a dick. Not cool. When will someone come up with some way of have some sort of halo appear over your head once you donate? Thats all I ask. Is that so hard? I can’t do it, I’m busy…but someone else should really get on that.
Ok, the first complaint of the Hurricanes. Was that so bad? Good. Ok, if that was good, then what’s one more? I’m sick of all the news coverage on the Hurricanes. I feel bad about being annoyed, but I am and I don’t really want to see updates all the time. I’ll be cool with a once a week update, but every day sucks.
See two complaints weren’t that bad were they? Soon we can start making jokes. Calm down! Not yet…but soon. Next week maybe…maybe Wednesday.
Ok, let the hate mail begin!
Wireless Mics With No Audio Input
I have a Sony Digital Camcorder. It has no microphone port. I want to use a handheld mic at times and other times have myself wirelessly mic-ed. Anyone have an idea on how to do this? Here’s my idea:
Get a digital voice recorder. Get a (cheaper) wireless mic and a (cheaper) handheld mic. Record audio to the digital recorder and then pair it with the video in post and hope that I can get it to line up right.
Does that sound like the best way to get the desired effect? Getting a new camera is just not an option right now, especially with my recent purchase of a few Cardinal playoff tickets.
I Didn’t Get A Nano
Yes, I just recently got a new iPod. The battery was beginning to show its age on “Perry White,” my old 3rd Generation, 10 gig, no click-wheel iPod. It was time for a new iPod; but unlike every other person replacing or getting new iPods this week, I did not get a Nano. Let me repeat that: I did not get a Nano. Looks like weird thing to read this week huh?
“Perry White 2.0″ is a 20 gig iPod Photo. I love it. The color screen and click wheel are fantastic, not to mention the extra ten gigs of breathing room for my growing music collection. The thing I like the most going from the third generation to the fourth generation iPods is the demise of the touch-sensitive buttons. Granted they were a fantastic idea, but in practice, they were just too touchy…which come to think of it, is the general pretense of “touch-sensitive buttons.”
Why didn’t I get a Nano? Well to be honest with you, when I held that little device in my hand, I really had to think about it for a second or two. However, it came to capacity. I wanted more space. Although the Nano has the stank of brain-numbing coolness all over it (How does apple design these things!?), it came down to size. To me bigger is better.
I guess that makes me a Size Queen King…and now I suddenly feel very insecure sexually.