Schinckel.net

I’ve been playing around with my template files under Blogsome, and have come across some limitations - I’m not sure if they are limitations of WordPress Mu, or Blogsome’s installation.

1. No Page Template. Without page templates it’s impossible to make Pages display a particular way, without writing the bare HTML code yourself. It’s also not possible to implement Smarty Tags in pages without a template file.

(I’m sure I had some others to add to this list.)

Found what could be a useful tool today. Predixis MusicMagic Mixer According to the website,

The MusicMagic Mixer is the ultimate music library power tool to create dynamic and interesting playlists, or mixes. MusicMagic automatically analyzes your music collection. Analyzed songs are used to build custom mixes for hours of listening enjoyment.

Basically, it (apparently) looks for songs that are similar in some quality to the one(s) you choose. I don’t know how long it will take to index a 6000 track library, so that might be a nice test for it… I’ll download and test it out tonight.

A while ago, I played around with my site StyleSheet, and set it up so that a paragraph of text with the class iTunes had a little icon placed next to it. This seems to have stopped working. Must look into it. Edit: I fixed it. Originally the code was:

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    .itunes:before
    {
            content:url('/images/itunes.gif');
    }

I changed it to:

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    .itunes
    {
    	background:url('/images/itunes.gif') no-repeat;
            text-indent:16px;
            font-size:0.8em;
    }

I mused a couple of days ago about better headphones for my daily iPodding-commute. I looked at the Sony ones, and they varied in price between $75 and $119 (AU$). I wasn’t quite prepared to pay that much, so I found another, cheaper pair. Enter the JVC HA-FX55W in-ear buds: @ AU$37. Still more than I have ever paid for a set of headphones (I think $2 was the most, and they were crap). They are not noise-cancelling buds, or at least not active ones: they a more like the soft earplugs I use most days at work, and I quite like the feeling of them in my ear. The best feature is that they really do cut down on the amount of outside noise that gets in, so I can keep the iPod on a lower (constant) level, no matter where I am: be it on the train or next to a busy road. I have found one possible drawback, when in medium-high wind, there is a whistling noise I can hear. Would not be good on a bike, but I’ll see if I can adjust them using one of the supplied covers.

I have been using a Toolbar Script called “Open Terminal Here” for a while now (thanks Marc), and the one thing about it that annoyed me was that when Terminal was not running, it would start the application, and then create a second window with my path in it. I’ve fixed this, by altering the code slightly. Note that the only changes I have made are to the last function, process_item(). I have just inserted a check for if the program is running, and if it isn’t, I call the same do script, but with in window 1.

– when the toolbar script icon is clicked on run     tell application “Finder”         activate         try             set this_folder to (the target of the front window) as alias         on error             set this_folder to startup disk as alias         end try         my process_item(this_folder)     end tell end run – This handler processes folders dropped onto the toolbar script icon on open these_items     repeat with i from 1 to the count of these_items         set this_item to item i of these_items         my process_item(this_item)     end repeat end open – this subroutine processes does the actual work on process_item(this_item)     tell application “System Events”         try             get process “Terminal”                          tell application “Terminal”                 activate                 do script “cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of this_item)             end tell         on error – Terminal Not running, launch and run in first window.             launch application “Terminal”             tell application “Terminal”                 activate                 do script “cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of this_item) in window 1             end tell         end try     end tell end process_item

I’ve written about referrer logs before, on various points, but today something strange occurred. I checked my referrer logs just now, and I had nearly 500 hits. Cool, but it’s only early in the (server) day, and I normally only get around 300 for the whole day. So, I checked the logs, and most of them are DIRECT, and point to invalid URLs. The weird thing is that they are all /wp/admin/, and I am the only user. When I try to visit one, it fails:

http://schinckel.net/wp-admin/www.blogsome.com//page/5/

Not only is it a weird URL, with a www.blogsome.com, and /wp-admin/, it’s also got a double slash (//). But otherwise, it nearly points to a valid page (schinckel.net/page/5/ is a valid and active URL). Strange.

I was reading up on the WordPress SEO scandal from late March/early April, and a comment I found in it got me thinking about keyword values. I then found a page that offers to sell a list of keywords, that can be used on Overture (a competitor to Adwords/Adsense) to receive high dollar values per click. (I’m not going to link to it, to protect you, loyal reader…) They ask for a payment of US$99. Bargain! (Note sarcasm). I’m not suggesting I’ll get into any SEO stuff, or try to scam Adsense, I tjust thought it was interesting to see how people do make money. Of course, it reminds me of the books you can buy telling you how to make a million dollars. I think the best way to become a millionare is to write a book telling other people how to do it, and sell 50,000 copies at $20 each.

One of my pet hates is the lack of knowledge about which your/you’re should be used in a particular context. From JB Hi-Fi’s website.

If your looking for batteries, headphones, plugs and leads or cleaning products, venture into any one of our stores and experience the JB - You’ve done it again philosophy.

I’m not totally happy with the standard iPod headphones. They don’t prevent much noise from outside, and they tend to make my ears sore after a few hours of listening. Quite by accident, I came across a review on Amazon.com for some Sony ‘in-ear’ headphones, that have silicon buds that actually seal quite well in the ear, increasing both comfort and noise reduction. I went into Sony Central in the city, and they have them, but at $99. I’m not quite sure I’m ready to buy $100 headphones.

Drunken Batman has an interesting post about the failures of trackbacks, and how he is going to remove them from his site in the near future.

He actually makes an interesting point at one stage in the post:

I did put the trackbacks over the comments for a reason, and preferred them over the comments for a reason. In a small way, trackback encouraged people to do their own site, because, well, they had to have one in order to trackback and have their stuff right there front and center and maybe get some hits from it.

I found this quite amusing, especially after this comment I received some time ago:

Blogs have polluted the web. Now, every time I search for a topic, most of the links send me to blogs. I want real information, not some blogger’s thoughts on the matter. How boring.

The irony of this comment is that I originally started a blog so I can post the sort of information I had searched for, and struggled to find initially, and then worked out for myself. My “thoughts on the matter” are indeed egotistical, but I’m like that. People as good as me usually are.)