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A new download counter · Design · / 22 05 2005 - 22:03

I haven’t been posting in a while here but that doesn’t mean i’ve been hanging around like a lazy bum ;-)

I recently had some problems with my PHP script i use for my templates. Often the links to the files disappeared, resulting in peeps not being able to download them and my correcting the bloody thing again.

So hight time i did some tweaking and low and behold: a brand new full proof system. New script, new styling…

Tnx to my friend Gordon for helping me setting it up !!!

Comments [2]

Templates back up for grabs · CSS · Design / 7 03 2005 - 00:02

I discovered my templates section screwed up once again. It seemed it was impossible to download the templates due to a glitch in the system.

I managed to get it back in order (for the time being) so you can grab my templates again.

I’m sorry if you had to go to the trouble to try and take them but they’re up for grabs now :-)

Gravatar mania · Design · / 1 12 2004 - 23:16

It seems those gravatars, provided by gravatar.com are increasingly getting more and more popular. After installing my new guestbook, i decided to go along with the mass (not my usual thing to do) and implement them on my guestbook.

For those who don’t know what gravatars are: a gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is an 80×80 pixel image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. They help identify your posts.

But they are not only for weblogs. You can use them on any site, whether it be a weblog or not. Existing web forums, mailing list archives… can use gravatars.

The way it works is that the images are stored in a kind of dictionary and associated with your email address. Each time you leave a comment on a site and provide your email address, the site can use your email address to look up your avatar. Since the dictionary is available to anyone, a single image can represent you across many different sites. That is if they are gravatar enabled.

But one of the coolest things about the concept is that they are given ratings. Every image is manually given a rating of G, PG, R, or X . If you have submitted an avatar that contains nudity, it will be given an R rating. If you leave a comment on a kid-friendly weblog that has chosen to only show avatars with a G rating, your avatar will either not show up at all, or will be replaced with a default avatar of the weblog owner’s choosing.

I haven’t implemented them on my blog because i use Textpattern and in order to get avatars to work, i needed to hack Textpattern. Something i’m reluctant to do because of updates to Textpattern. But there are plugins for several popular blogs.

Comments [2]

Ah, something spanking new!!! · CSS · Design / 29 11 2004 - 21:42

Yesterday i installed a neat php script which produces a spanking new guestbook. The script was delevoped by my awesome friend and partner in design fiddling Dude.

We managed to get it implemented on my site and i must confess: it’s a beauty!!

Here are some features it has:

1. Server side form validation.
2. PHP live request for previewing comments formatted with Textile.
3. Gravatar.
4. Alternating comment classes (idea inspired by yours truly).
5. Automatic smileys.
6. E-mail notification.
7. Clean valid XHTML.

The whole thing is php created, so the only structural stuff you have is the one needed for your page.

I still need to tweak the CSS a bit but that’s just some minor stuff.

I say: thumbs up Dude!!!!!

Comments [2]

Something new to play with · Design · / 21 11 2004 - 23:42

I got myself a new plaything: Macromedia Captivate.

Macromedia Captivate is the latest version of RoboDemo. It’s usefull if you want to write tutorials and show a live demonstration.

Here’s a brief “what is it”:

Macromedia Captivate allows you to effortlessly record any application and enhance the recording with text, animations, audio, and interactivity to create sophisticated training simulations and product demonstrations. You can create simulations in minutes, without any programming skills.

So, in the next couple of days i’ll probably put an example up here, showing some simple thing in Fireworks.

Comments [3]

Some help needed · CSS · Design / 15 11 2004 - 00:12

I’m implementing a search engine that gives you the possibility to search my site. So far it functions perfectly but before adding it on my pages, i was checking to see if it validates because it uses a mix of php and xhtml in the php script.

And yes, it didn’t validate so i had to clean it up. 95% of the errors are fixed but i’m still left with a few stuborn things.

If somebody could assist me, i would be most gratefull :-)

Comments [2]

TextPattern and Firefox - errata · CSS · Design / 9 10 2004 - 01:40

I forgot to mention it only works on Firefox 1.0 Preview.

TexPattern and Firefox · CSS · Design / 9 10 2004 - 00:30

Today my partner in TextPattern frolicking mailed me a neat trick you can do with TextPattern to accomodate FireFox users.

If you add the following code in the head of your blog page, Firefox users will get a little RSS logo at the bottom of their browser
that will let them add a live bookmark to your page.

In the bottom right-hand corner on the status bar, whenever they
visit a site with a RSS feed a little orange logo appears with RSS
written on it in in white. By clicking on it a choice of subscription options appears and this generates a regularly updated bookmark.

By clicking the cursor over the bookmark, a list of the latest articles appears with the number of comments in brackets! It is a nice feature that saves time browsing through regular sites looking for new content.

Here are the lines to add:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" 
href="/?rss=1" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom" 
href="/?atom=1" />

Comments [6]

Getting rid of spam · Design · Small talk / 6 10 2004 - 21:55

With my previous bloggin’ system i was swamped each day with spam. I received about 30 spam messsages on my comments each and every single day. Because those spammers use it to get their rankings up with Google, they always went for older entries, thinking i wouldn’t notice.

Since b2 alerted me each time i got a comment, it didn’t go unoticed of course. But every time i had to go into my database and remove them.

But now with TextPattern i’m spam free. TextPattern uses a simple but effective system to deal with it. You can configure TextPattern to have commentss off by default. All you have to do is, when you post, turn it back on for that post. After some period of time, you just turn comments back off for those posts and you’re done.

Comments [6]

Archive of standards compliant sites · CSS · Design / 5 10 2004 - 21:44

During my travelling on the web, i encountered today a site that archives standards compliant sites. The goal is to promote web sites that are designed to comply to the web standards.

You can submit your site and be known out there as a standard compliant designer. Which is getting more and more important.

So, don’t hesitate and submit your stuff.

Comments [12]

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