So I’ve been doing some crazy web-design work. Well, crazy for me at least. I’m almost at the end of a what has turned into a huge undertaking. I’ve been redesigning my band’s site eight different ways of tuesday. You’ll see what I mean soon. I’ve also just started to redesign my site, something that I inevitably do every so often. I’m sure I must have some sort of online A.D.D. or something. Basically I’ve learned so many cool little tips and tricks throughout redoing D7’s site, I just had to use a few of theme here. I’ve also sort of given in to myself slightly and decided to incorporate everything that I’m involved in into focus here. I’ll of course still be focusing on tech-related content. However, I plan to bring a bit more of my own personal take on things to the table. I also plan to write some more personal entries, and of course I’ll be doing it all with style. As most of you probably know, I play in a band called Demerit 7. And as you may not know, I’ve been a little harsh in separating that whole aspect of me from this site. So expect to hear a little more about that. But of course - I’m still a geek, there’s no turning back so don’t expect to see the tech content here disappear. Anyways, expect future posts to be more frequent, possibly shorter, and basically better in the long run. The basic idea is that I need to be a better blogosphere citizen. Step one, admitting to my readers and myself that this site is a blog first, and an everything-else second. So while I will always be writing cool little utility apps as well as taking part in full-fledged application development, I will also be writing about what’s going on with me, my friends and my life. Anyways, I’m trying to simply have more fun with all of it. I’ve got a website, I’ve got readers, so why not have a little fun. Ok, that was lame but seriously I’d rather have interesting content than a bunch of useless ramblings. So that’s what’s going on, that’s what’s going down, that’s what happening-

-a

So I’m sure all you faithful readers remember me getting more than a little upset over the website daFont.com blocking users of the AdBlock Firefox extension from downloading fonts. I myself spoke (via email) with the webmaster of daFont. He understood my position but said that they did have servers to pay for. I completely understand his POV, however I do stand by my point that the user should have control over his/her browsing experience.

Well, either the people have spoken or the daFont people got tired of arguing for themselves. It seems that you can now browse the daFont site with AdBlock (or whatever other software you use to block ads) enabled and download fonts error free. I’m happy to see the change. It shows that the end-user still has a say in what happens on the net. Anyways, let me know how you feel about this. And a special thanks to those who let me know about the update.

Forget the video iPod, I want one of these!

Its a cheap knockoff of the Aeron style chairs. Let me summarize: THIS IS THE KIND OF THING GEEKS REALLY DREAM ABOUT AT NIGHT.

From LifeHacker: “The Russell Executive Mesh Chair’s breathable material and ergonomic adjustable parts looks and sits a lot like an Aeron but sells for around $230 at discount retailers. Good deal, especially for work-at-homers looking for a comfortable place to set their bum.”

I’ve been faithful to my office chair for a good 3 or 4 years now. Maybe its time I make the jump. If anyone knows of any other chairs that could even improve on this one, please let me know. I’m still on the lookout for one with some kind of bluetooth headsets or wireless keyboard/mouse/trackpads or LCD monitors or universal remotes concealed in breakaway panels under the armrests. Seriously. I want that. I’m so cool.

(via LifeHacker)

No, I didn’t buy that Creative thingy-ma-bob. I’m talking about my new favorite “piece of software I should have discovered a long time ago instead of making this incredibly long and useless sentence about it.” Its called “NetNewsWire” and it can be downloaded, learned about, and eventually test-driven over at ranchero.com/netnewswire/.

I would love to write a little review about it, But I feel somewhat disinclined considering this is in no way a “new” piece of software. It is however ONE OF THE BEST NEWS READERS FOR ANY PLATFORM EVER! I love my powerbook. I love my desktop PC. I use both pretty regularly. I have always considered my rss news reading and aggregating to be a “Windows” oriented task. I (happily) use FeedDemon (feeddemon.com/feeddemon/) to fulfill my needs. I do, in fact, still use and will always recommend FeedDemon. [There has been some concern in the among FeedDemon users lately since Bradsoft was bought out by NewsGator (No way related to Claria, the Ad/Spyware company behind Gator)] I really do admire the things Nick Bradbury and his people are doing.

However, NetNewsWire takes the FeedDemon idea and premise, and BIG FAT HEAVES IT OVER THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. Ok, I may still be under the effect of those “first impression” jitters, but I know good code when I see it. Everyone who owns a Mac and is breathing should check out this piece of software. If you do not own a Mac (shame) or you do hate me (i hate you to) please look into FeedDemon. Both are great products. And if you do not know what news reading, rss, xml or even the concept of aggregation is, please feel free to bang your head against the nearest desk then go here: wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS.

I’ve been drooling and dreaming over the idea of a video-enabled iPod for quite some time now. However, I was poking around and found this little diddy. Its called the Creative Zen Vision. It’s interface and features are frightfully close to those one might want from a “videoPod.”

Check out a nice review/roundup over at dapreview.net

Here’s some specs:

Standard specs: 3.7′ TFT LCD and a case made out of futuristic magnesium alloy. BTW: Creative just pulled off the specs AGAIN. It’s like the girl in high school who is your best friend and she’s really hot and then she goes and dates some kid whose Dad owns an ice cream factory and who drives a Rambler. Dammit.

(Via Gizmodo.)

P.S. - In no way do I need ANY more gadgets or technology to increase my electric bill. Also, I love my iPod like I should a small child: Even mentioning this little guy makes me feel like I’m being unfaithful to my little-white-shiny-Apple-fathered-ed-serogate-child. However, I see things, my mouth hangs wide, I reach for the “Blog This” button. Sue Me.

Ok, so I’m browsing around, working on some web design stuff that I’ll reveal at a later date ;), and I begin looking for a specific font for this header image (on one of my irreplacably favorite font resource websites) at dafont.com - not suspecting a thing - and as I go to download a font there, I get an error saying this:

An error has occured : banner ad blocking.
Check the settings of your browser or firewall then reload the previous page.
Some download managers may also cause problems.

Une erreur s’est produite : blocage de bannières publicitaires.
Vérifiez les paramètres de votre navigateur ou firewall puis rechargez la page précédente.
Certains gestionnaires de téléchargement peuvent aussi causer des problèmes.

I guessed (correctly) that this was caused due to me using the AdBlock extension for Mozilla Firefox. I used the extension’s disable feature and reloded the daFont page. I clicked ‘download’ again and it worked perfectly!

Is this where our internet is going? Punishing unsuspecting netizens for using software that makes their browsing life easier? I’m almost impressed that they managed to detect that I was blocking their ads somehow. I mean that’s some innovative coding - but one has to wonder, couldn’t they have put their minds to better use?

So I wake up this morning at about 7 AM. I open up my faithful Feed Demon and just as I’d hoped: sprinkled everywhere were stories entitled “iTunes 4.9 w/ Podcast Support Now Live!” I’ve been waiting for this a LONG time. I think Apple is definently on the right track here. Now, there are a few hiccups in that throw off that feeling of perfection I’ve come to expect from Apple. But, these are not big enough concerns for anyone to worry about. Although, an iTunes 4.9.1 release in the sometime near future would not surprise me one bit. Every geek in the waking world has been voicing their opinion on the new features. A LOT of concern has been voiced about the interface and the so-called “commercilization” of podcasting. Honestly, I personally think Apple did a great job in this respect.

Continue reading ‘Raised On The Radio (Reviewing iTunes 4.9)’

So I just got done with a little coding frenzy here at migraineheartache. I’ve been reading all these awesome books on DHTML, Javascript, and the Document Object Model (DOM). In turn, I’ve been adding some pretty cool features to the site. If you look to your right, you’ll see a nifty little quip entitled “LiveSearch.” The lone simple little textbox performs like its name suggests. Each time a letter or phrase is entered in the field, a drop down list appears with all the entries that match that criteria (sorted from newest to oldest). Go ahead and try it out, begin typing the word “google” into the field. With each new letter you’ll see the list get shorter and shorter eventually showing you a list that you can use the arrow-keys or your mouse to navigate. Now, before anyone jumps down my neck, many sites have implemented this type of feature; and yes - I looked at ALOT of them while building it. In no way do I claim full credit or anything crazy like that. But I am proud of my three-and-a-half days of tweaking and debugging. I’ve got the sourcecode if anyone is interested, its a mix of javascript and php/mySQL.

I’ve also been working on perfecting the use of this iTunes recently played script for WordPress. I did my best to write a little animation script so that when you click on the cover art images (see bottom right of this page) the track’s info slides out and displays below the image. For some reason, I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around the correct way to do it. So, I opted to use a pre-built library that I found over at script.aculo.us. Those guys are doing some great stuff over there.

Also, I’ve been working on a new application for windows called “iTunerXP.” Its a small little utility app that will let you automate all those rigorous tasks you encounter while organzing and managing songs in iTunes. It will also do things like update your blog with your currently playing track, post playlists as a blog entry, and plenty of other useful little features. I’ll also be releasing a tiny library of javascripts that you can simply double-click on to run. Those will do simple autmated things like “Make All Track Names In My Library Title Case” and “Remove ‘.mp3′ from all Track Names” - stuff like that. iTunerXP will be able to do them as well but I thought some might like an easier interface to those types of features. Just in case anyone didn’t know, just as you can use AppleScript to do things like that in Mac OS X, you can use javascript to automate things in iTunes for Windows. Which brings me to my next point: I will eventually be releasing iTunerXP as a Windows app and another program simply dubbed “iTuner” as my first public Mac OS X app. It will be written in Cocoa and will surely be a great learning expierience for me. My plan is to release all my future programs on both platforms. I’ve simply fallen in love with the development oppurtunities on the mac, anyone interested should do their best to check it out.

That’s about all for now, as soon as I make some progress I’ll post about it.

-a

P.S. - I’m such a nerd…

migraineheartache, back, black, and better than ever. While I love and absolutely support moveabletype, I’ve been seeing the WordPress logo floating around alot and I’ve decided that this is the best and cleanest way to present my thoughts and ramblings. This new incarnation of migraineheartache should be booming with activity for awhile so check back often. Thanks to all of you for the support over the year(s).

America Online Inc. plans to make three small but significant modifications to the terms of service for its AIM instant messaging product to head off a firestorm of privacy-related criticisms. The tweaks to the terms of service will be made in the section titled “Content You Post” and will explicitly exclude user-to-user chat sessions from the privacy rights an AIM user gives up to AOL. I for one am glad to see that speaking out for/against a cause still holds some ground. In today’s world many such protests get disregarded too easily. Good job geeks. Your voice has been heard. out-

-b