The Geekorium

There are a number of Wordpress plugins I use to do various bits and bobs around the Geekorium. The Skribit tab and the Blogroll at the side are both produced with plugins for example. But there are some plugins that you never really “see” as such - they do their work silently behind the scenes, and most of them are primarily there to make my life easier. If you run a Wordpress site, you might be interested too. These are the plugins I have both here and on First Waves because they’re just so damn useful. Below is an introduction to each, and my explaination for why I use them:

• After The Deadline Adds a contextual spell, style, and grammar checker to WordPress. Write better and spend less time editing. Raphael Mudge

  This plugin adds options to your profile page to check for grammar and spelling errors. Chrome usually picks up most spelling errors anyway, but this is great for picking up my awful grammatical errors. I use a lot of Passive Voice for example, and this highlights it.

• SyntaxHighlighter Evolved Easily post syntax-highlighted code to your site without having to modify the code at all. Uses Alex Gorbatchev’s SyntaxHighlighter v2.0.320 and some code by Andrew Ozz of Automattic.Viper007Bond

  I can’t pretend I write a lot of code, but this one is so pretty and useful I can’t leave it out. It highlights code blocs in whatever language you specify. Check out this post to see it in action.

• Smart Link Lets you write links as link text (explicit link), or as link text (implicit link). Denis de Bernardy

  This one was useful for the couple of times I remembered to use it. Kinda superceded now by the Textile plugin (see below) but for a while it was useful. Adding a link was as simple as:

  [this is the link text ->http://example.com]

• Textile 2 (Improved) This is a wrapper for Jim Riggs’ PHP implementation of Brad Choate’s Textile 2. It is feature compatible with the MovableType plugin. Does not play well with the Markdown, Textile, or Textile 2 plugins that ship with WordPress. Packaged by Adam Gessaman.Adam Gessaman

  I’ve only just installed this plugin, so I’m yet to get used to using it. One of the annoying things about blogging is that I often include a lot of strong and emphasis tags, but hate typing them out. In fact, using the correct markup often puts me off doing what could otherwise be quite enjoyable. So after a bit of experimentation I settled on textile. Now I just use asterisks and underscores, and links are done like so:

  "This is the link text":http://example.com/

  There are a whole slew of other formatting options that will make marking up a post a heck of a lot faster and easier now, and much simpler to do on my iPhone.

• wp-Typography Improve your web typography with:

  • hyphenation - over 40 languages supported,
  • Space control, includes: widow protection, gluing values to units, and forced internal wrapping of long URLs & email addresses,
  • Intelligent character replacement, including smart handling of: quote marks, dashes, ellipses, trademarks, math symbols, fractions, and ordinal suffixes, and
  • CSS hooks for styling: ampersands, uppercase words, numbers, initial quotes & guillemets. Jeffrey D. King

  Using the correct typography is as important to me as correct grammar. I love a good em-dash and my ellipsis must be the correct three-dot character, not just three full-stops! Doing it all by hand can be a PITA (Pain in the Arse) though (particularly with HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) entities) so why not just get a plugin that does it for you? It even transforms acronyms into proper small-caps and swaps out maths symbols with nicer ones!

• WP-Footnotes Allows a user to easily add footnotes to a post.Simon Elvery

  This is seriously my favourite plugin of all time. It’s so simple it’s stupid, but I use it at least once in every post and often more. All it does is generate footnotes, but it’s so simple to use I can’t help but do it all the time.

  Simply type your text¹

  It’s as easy as that. Instant footnote section at the bottom of your post! It gives me so much scope to just throw in asides and afterthoughts without ruining the flow of the text. I’ve resisted installing it on First Waves, because I strive to be somewhat more professional over there, but for my rambling stream-of-consciousness posts here it’s the bomb.

So those are my favourite post-writing plugins. Hopefully there are one or two that might appeal to you too². If any one is interested, I’d be glad to share a couple of other useful plugins I use. What plugins do you use for your site? Which could you not live without?

Michael J. Braude wrote a post on why he’ll never be a “web guy”. The gist being, the annoyances of writing for the web are not the sort of challenges he wants to tackle as a programmer.

Then Jeff Atwood gave his two cents on why programming for the web is where it’s at — it’s fast, it gets seen by more people, and more and more great apps are being made on the web.

I’m sure Michael has a point. I think the way he said it got up Jeff’s nose a little (it certainly got up mine), but it’s valid. For some, the web just seems simple and trite. My lecturer thinks like this I suspect. I also agree with Jeff that it’s somewhat myopic — if you dismiss web apps, you dismiss a lot of clever, well written programs right out of the gate.

The debate got me thinking about why I’m studying programming. I’m a web guy, but not even “smart enough” to “throw an ASP.NET webpage together”. But I see the innovation in web pages. I also see how useful these technologies will be moving forward. While Michael is coding apps that will work on one type of system sitting on someone’s desk, programmers like Jeff are making universally accessible programs that are instantly available to anyone with access to the internet. I could learn to regurgitate borrowed code in half-arsed web pages and validate Michael’s argument, but I’d rather learn to do it properly.

When I was leaving high school and thinking about what to study, the web was just starting to become mainstream. One teacher I got advice from had been programming years earlier and painted a picture of a world of drudgery, typing pre-written code without chance for innovation or personal expression. It was not a nice picture. I probably let myself be swayed by it too much I’m sad to say now.

What I discovered in the years after, is how exciting the world of web programming can be. Instead of being a small cog in a giant programming machine, a web programmer can be a vital part of a small team who’s work can be seen instantly. Of course I know now the same can be said of non-web programming, but the web was what opened my eyes.

So I’m going back to study to do something I should have done all along. And I’m going so I can understand: “virtual methods, pointers, references, garbage collection, finalizers, pass-by-reference vs. pass-by-value, virtual C++ destructors, or the differences between C# structs and classes”. And then I’m going to use that knowledge to make the best web programs I can make. Maybe along the way I’ll learn enough that web programming seems trite to me too, but I’m not expecting to. I agree with Jeff, and strongly believe good web apps are only going to become more important.

I want a slice of that action.

A month and a half ago I was contacted by a Martin Vrabel, who sent me this:

email from Martin Vrabel of Taskee.comHi Joshua,

I found out you are writing about webdesign on your blog. I though you may be interested in writing about the new URL related task management tool for web designers - Taskee.

Taskee is a hosted website task management tool for small and medium size webdesign companies. Taskee simplifies website task management communication process and makes it easier and cheaper to collaborate during website testing process.

You can find more info and demo at www.taskee.com [website no longer working]

Sorry for this email if its not worth your attention or was interrupting you.

Kind Regards,

Martin Vrabel

This was my first ever request for comment about any product, so I dutifully starred it in Gmail and promised myself I’d look at it when I could. Well, the wait is over. I thought I’d set it up today and give it a go. This post is part review, but mostly feedback at the moment as the product is only at version 0.3 and not ready for prime time.

First up, I’ll just explain what I think Taskee is, having used it a tiny bit and finding Martin’s marketing speech a little overcomplicated. Taskee is a simple way for people to leave notes (or to-dos) about specific webpages with the people who are actually making the website. I might make a website for a client, and as they browse the site and pick up changes that need to be made, they can put them straight into Taskee instead of writing them down or emailing them to me. For sites with a lot of collaborators (or even just two) it could be enormously helpful.

Taskee is really quite easy to use. You sign up and paste a tiny bit of code into your website. The next time you load a page, you’re greeted with a big blue ‘Open’ button that helpfully stays put, even when you scroll around the page. Clicking the big blue button allows you to log in, and you can start to ‘Taskee’. The button is actually quite large (maybe a little too large). Taskee was designed I think with pre-production sites in mind. With a less obtrusive button it might be just as useful for live sites.

The software takes note of what page you are on automatically, and you can start leaving notes about changes that need to be made, information that needs to be included and ideas you’d like to explore. What makes Taskee helpful here is that you can set up multiple users and assign your message to specific people. John can tell Tony to fix the fonts, and tell Sue to spruce up the copy. Then when Tony visits the page, he can check the tasks he has to do. And it’s all done from your own site.

There is also a neat feature to set a version of Taskee for visitor feedback. Instead of the ‘Open’ button, visitors are greeted with an unobtrusive (although colour options might be useful in future releases) ‘Feedback’ button that pops up a box where people can tell you stuff like “There’s spam on this page” or “Change your colour scheme for heavens sake!”.

It’s such a simple concept that it almost doesn’t need review - either you’ll find it useful or you won’t. It’ll fit into your way of doing things or it won’t. This version does demand some feedback though, so I’ll share my initial reactions. Please don’t think it’s a comment on the idea - only on the current stage of execution.

I had a few buggy problems. The control panel gives you an option to move the ‘Open’ button somewhere else (on NunnOne it gets in the way of my title). It doesn’t seem to want to move without a cache/cookie clearout though, which could cause some confusion.

Turning on the Feedback option and clearing my cache/cookies had the adverse affect of removing my ‘Open’ button completely. If I hadn’t turned on Feedback I might still be able to see the ‘Open’ button, but I can’t find any documentation on their site that can tell me how to get it back.

Unfortunately I did this before going much further, or having the buttons for longer than a day, so I can’t really even tell you yet how useful it has been long-term. I’m sure they can tell me how to get it back, or make it easier to find out, but you might want to know that these two bugs alone have made just setting it all up a little more complicated than necessary.

There are also a few options that aren’t clearly explained (in my opinion). I just can’t get back into the admin panel to tell you what they are. I can’t even really show you any proper screenshots.

The only real non-bug downside is a bi-product of its simplicity - all the data you create gets stored at taskee.com. Perhaps a future version will have a local installation option.

Currently Taskee is in beta - everything is subject to change before the product is finished - so take my opinions with a grain of salt. Their latest blog post also seems to say that they will have both free and paid options and a new interface very soon, so it could be very different next version.

Update: 2007-11-20 The blog post on the Taskee site that first mentions the Feedback feature mentions how to get the ‘Open’ button back. It should be clearer though.

Al’s class of miniLegends got me this wonderful gift on Monday to say thank you for fixing and running the school’s computers (it was SSO week).

Little yellow dog is watching me

He’s a little yellow doggy with a web camera in his nose. The miniLegends have posted some pictures of him one close up, and one showing the unfortunate location of his USB cable (and me, looking terrible).

As their post says, bright yellow is my favourite colour and I was really wanting a web cam - so it really was a most excellent gift.

Thank you miniLegends, thank you Al - you made my day!

The Internet is so fun, I love it!

Was uploading some photos to my PicasaWeb album and noticed that someone had managed to find my photos and had left a comment!

It didn’t bother me much that the comment was in what seemed to be Spanish, or that for all I knew it could have been spam. But I did what any curious geek would do: I ran it through a translator.

ES UNA HERMOOOOSURA ..
DE PERRITO =)
PUPPY,
EL DEL ANUNCIO DE PAPEL PARA LIMPIARSE EL CULO

Comment from my photo album

becomes:

IT IS A HERMOOOOSURA. OF SMALL DOG =) PUPPY, THE ONE OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF PAPER TO CLEAN THE ASS

Of course, this is NOT a satisfactory translation. It’s almost offensive at first glance - like they could be saying he should be used to wipe someone’s butt. Or something.

But I persevered. I tried Babelfish with much the same result.

Hermoooosura didn’t translate, and I guessed it might be spelt strangely - like with to many o’s for instance. But Google wouldn’t translate ‘hermosura’ either. A quick search brought up this page and this discussion though, which says it means ‘incredible beauty’. So I believe ‘hermoooosura’ is better translated as ‘sooooo beautiful’ - like a young girl might say about a tiny white dog.

Realising that she was probably being nice, I kept trying to understand the translation. Further poking around in translations sites helped me realise that ‘anuncio’ while translated as ‘announcement’ can also be translated ‘advertisement’ or ‘ad’. I then quickly realised ‘paper to clean the ass’ (papel para limpiarse el culo) is actually TOILET PAPER! And it all falls into place. This is my rough translation:

It is soooo beautiful and small =)
It looks like the puppy off the toilet paper ad.

Translated comment from my photo album

What a lovely thing for a complete stranger to say! And how fantastic that someone I’ve never met - who doesn’t speak my language - can leave me a message, and I actually have a chance to understand her. To actually communicate across languages!

I have since learned that ‘perrito’ can be translated ‘doggie’ which is even cuter! and ‘limpiarse’ conjures images of flossing! How marvellous is language?!

NOTE: I will post this on my education blog as well.

I’ve switched web hosts. This might not mean much to some, but it means a better, easier experience for me. What it does mean though, is that I had the opportunity to switch from one blogging program to another. However they are two entirely different beasts, and I’m manually moving most of my old posts to this new system.

So there will be a small transition phase. I’ll get the bulk of the comments over to this system too.

I still have my [GodBlog]({{< ref “/categories/religion” >}} “Religion category on The Geekorium”), my regular blog, my dad’s blog will be back shortly and very soon I’ll be launching my archive of how-to documents that I’ve created in the course of my work. Check it all out!