Archive for the Web/Tech Category
Written on August 31, 2010 by Jen
Filed Under: Web/Tech
I started my new job nearly four weeks ago and one of the perks was that I get to play with the office iPad. Like a kid with a new toy I took it home at the end of last week after a short tutorial from my colleague.
The experience left me a bit disillusioned though. Let me explain.
I could logout of my colleague’s Facebook and Twitterific accounts and login as myself. Facebook played nicely but Twitterific still had my colleague’s tweets on there until mine started taking over. I did find a way to clear the cache – not that any of mine, or hers, are sensitive and we follow each other anyway.
But when it came time to update the applications I couldn’t because it wouldn’t let me logout of her iTunes account and login as myself.
iPad, as I discovered the hard way, is not multi-user.
After that I couldn’t be bothered adding any other apps because I didn’t want to spend half my Sunday night finding out how to log out of them.
I’m still to get my iPhone – long story – but I imagine they’re quite similar which I don’t see as a problem. But an iPhone is less likely to be shared. Sure, your kids might play some games on it but it’s fairly unlikely they’ll be using the same applications like Facebook, email, and so on, as you are.
iPad, on the other hand, I think is more likely to be shared. Come on Apple, multi-user would be nice.
I’m not alone in sharing this thought according to MacWorld and macenstein
Written on August 30, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Web/Tech
photo credit: Simon Pow
I’ve been doing some extra work – paid – so I have to do it. There’s a deadline and there’s SO much work to do. It’s a very content rich website that’s getting a completely new look. If I don’t say so myself, I’ve done a damn fine coding job (with a bit of help from a colleague with Javascript). I did a lot of it over the last weekend and by Monday I was proudly showing it off to some colleagues (it’s work related) because I was really proud of myself.
My CSS skills have grown exponentially over the last couple of years and I’m quite confident in what I do now. Practise makes perfect and all that, and I’ve been using the most excellent Firefox extension called Firebug. It lets you debug on the fly so you can really easily experiment with webpage development. If you’re building websites – especially ones that are built with CSS for layout and look, then you should be using it. I love it.
So I am really chuffed with my interpretation of the designer’s brief, and the ‘client’ is really happy so far and said ‘you’ve done an excellent job mate’, and he never calls me mate. Although the designer wants to come and sit with me and go through the website so I’m sure I’m going to have to explain some things about accessibility and CSS, so it could be an interesting meeting. I know from a previous meeting that he doesn’t have any or much experience with HTML etc.
But now it’s at the stage where all that content’s got to come from a single column layout into a two column layout and it’s time consuming. I spent three hours on it today and thought to myself earlier I’m going to have to sit down and work out how long each one takes me and times that by the amount of pages I’ve got to do. I’m getting some nice extra pocket money and am thinking of how to reward us, and it has to be us because JJ feels some effects of my doing my work. Although it’s been a bit tricky this weekend because he’s been banned from all electrical games for the weekend. He did inform me that taking things away like this isn’t helping his behaviour at all. Other consequence ideas anyone?
Along with this extra draw on my time other things have been happening too but that’s for another post.
Written on April 13, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Web/Tech, Weblogs
Thanks to one of my gorgeous readers – Jeanie – I found out that my blog had all but disappeared. Any page I tried to view gave me a 404 page error. Everything else was there, just no content. She emailed me first thing this morning and I didn’t read it until I got back from my mini Easter break this afternoon.
I immediately panicked and wondered when the last time I did a backup was – too long ago I’m sure. Once my little panic was over I thought I’d better fix it.
Knowing that Wordpress runs from databases I logged into my blog’s Cpanel and went to view the post database to see what was there. A message informed me that I had a “WordPress MySQL database error: Table is marked as crashed and should be repaired.”
After doing a quick search I came across this very helpful post, and within a minute had repaired my database and was back in business. So if this ever happens to you, it’s probably a database error. I’m thankful that it wasn’t someone hacking in which has happened to me before too.
Naturally I’ve now done a backup. I was imagining having to manually redo my last few week’s worth of posts since my last backup but it’s all sorted.
Written on February 15, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Web/Tech
I’ve been using Twitter for more than a few months now and up until recently I’d never done anything to really enhance my use of it.
I recently found out about a Firefox add-on called ‘Power Twitter‘ and I really like it.
One of the things that used to annoy me about Twitter was that the links to images and webpages were always in a tiny.url form, or in a form that was so early web days (a ‘naked URL, not a link behind words) and didn’t mean anything.
Power Twitter adds this functionality. (Click on any image below to view larger one).
It also shows images, rather than links to images which I just love because I’d rather see it all in the one application rather than have to open another application. To tell the truth, I usually didn’t click on image links and it took me ages to learn about this thing called Twitpic. Apparently it will show Flickr, Twitpic and Youtube links inline within Twitter.
There is also an inbuilt Twitter search function. It doesn’t show trending topics like search.twitter.com does but you can search for anything you want. It’s very handy.
Another handy little feature (you can see why they called it Power Twitter) is hover over people’s avatars and it shows their latest status updates.
The only drawback – and it’s only a very small drawback – is that it takes that little bit longer to load. Twitter loads as normal, then Power Twitter kicks in. It doesn’t bother me at all.
All in all I like having Power Twitter in my Twitter life.
What makes your Twitter life easier?
Written on January 30, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Web/Tech
Just as well I’m fairly active in the blogosphere, twittersphere and a few other electronic spheres because I’ve been hearing about people having to move their Feedburner account to a Google one.
I login to Feedburner every now and again and all I had to do one day was sign in with my Google account. I didn’t receive any notification to do anything else and so I didn’t.
But apparently I’m supposed to change my Feedburner address and add a 2 in it in some places.
To say I’m quite annoyed is an understatement. I’m not so annoyed that I have to move to something else that is Google, although they’re taking over Microsoft in the takeover stakes, but I’m annoyed at the fact I haven’t received any information about it.
Surely, an email to all Feedburner customers would have been in order with step-by-step instructions on what to do?
I’ve found something along those lines over here.
So this post is a bit of a rant about what a hassle (and I nearly wrote another word starting with H but this blog is the one place I don’t swear more than bloody) it’s been and to make sure that this appears in the feeds okay, both for me and for you.
I’m now off to make some food to take to the pool. Ta ta.
Written on January 13, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Cool stuff, Web/Tech
I’ve been having trouble with advanced scheduling of posts so this is a test. I think it’s something I’ve been doing wrong, ie not selecting published as the publish status while also setting a time in advance for when I actually want it to publish.
UPDATE: Yes, it was indeed me. In Wordpress, select Published as the Publish Status. Edit the time you want to publish the post and then select publish. It will schedule the post for publishing at the allotted time. Make sure you’ve set your local time settings in your Settings though.
I was going to delete this but thought it might be useful info for someone.
Written on December 1, 2008 by Jen
Filed Under: Web/Tech
Yesterday in the early evening after a couple of other things I had to do, I attended my first blogger/social media meetup in Adelaide.
I was really nervous because I wasn’t exactly sure who’d be there and if I’d know anyone so I had someone to talk to at first. It didn’t matter because there were a couple of people I’ve met at Flickr meets and the others were very friendly so my nervousness was unfounded.
It was one of the rare parties I’ve been to where my son was one of the oldest kids and it was great not to have to supervise him too much around the water feature – not like the other parents had to do for their young-uns. I was surprised that my son didn’t want to go into the spa which of course was fenced.
I finally met Shai Coggins who I’ve been friends online with for a little while now and who raved about my banana cake recipe. If you haven’t made it yet, it comes highly recommended.
It’s kind of strange to go to a function where everyone’s talking about blogging, plurking, twittering, facebook and just about everything online, and everyone knows what the heck everyone means. The consensus at the end of the night was that JJ should start his own blog. I can’t remember how the subject came up, but should he ever want to blog, I’m all for it. I may have to censor it a little bit so he doesn’t incriminate me himself.
I didn’t meet everyone there but there’s always next time. I’m a bit naughty because I took my camera but didn’t take any photos. Again, next time.
