Author: Shelley Powers

Categories
Technology

New tech toys

I love technology that not only is free, it can satisfy even the most dedicated tweaker. I just upgraded to the recent release of Firefox, and have been exploring all the many extensions to the browser, including the rather amazing Web Developers toolbar.

At one point, I had so many toolbars open that the browser space was limited to a thin strip at the bottom. Thinking that this might defeat the original purpose of the tool – it being a browser – I turned off the visibility to all but the Navigation Toolbar, and that nifty web development toolbar.

I’ve also been creating search engine plugins for Firefox, including one for my own weblog. Heck, I just know that readers will want to know what I’ve said on any particular topic, so feel I am providing a real service with this addition. (Other WordPress sites can do this easily, by copying my plugin and replacing the relevant information).

Since not everyone will consider me the definitive expert on all subjects – and why is that? – I’ve also created a Technorati, Bloglines, and a Nationmaster search engine plugins. I’ve sent all three of these into the Search Engine site (though I imagine other versions have been created and sent it and just haven’t been posted yet).

That Nationmaster search engine is for a site I stumbled across that aggregates information and statistics about all the nations–providing comparison data, as well as an encyclopedia. Fascinating and useful resource. For instance, check out this comparison of the most militaristic nations.

Categories
Critters Just Shelley

Last Firefly

The weather has been unseasonably cool and dry this week, which has helped to keep the bug life down; every last biting, stinging, sucking, buzzing, feeding, crawling, creeping, icking, disease carrying bit of it.

However, last night while out walking I was surprised to spot what must be this year’s last firefly hovering in the trail ahead of me. As I drew near, it flashed once, briefly, but with no real enthusiasm. I stopped for a moment to appreciate the little creature, feeling a strange sense of kinship with it: it being the last firefly of the season; me being a 49 year old, non-Christian, liberal single woman living in Missouri.

Categories
Just Shelley

Summer break

In addition to our political views, Mark Morford from the Chronicle and I have something else in common this morning: we’re both suffering from injured wrists. More than that, we’re both taking a break from our writing: Morford because of his wrist; me because damn, but I’m tired.

My writing has been uninspired, my camera busted, and even my code sits there going, “Can you give me one good reason why I should run?” Uppity code is a sure sign that you’re overdue for time away from the keyboard.

I have some writing to do for American Street and then I’m going to see what kind of mischief I can get into that doesn’t involve the computer.

Be good. Be well. Kick butt.

Categories
Burningbird Weblogging

Source updates

I am regenerating the documentation of the PHP for my site and should have replacement pages up tonight. The pages will include my Talkback feature and comment editing. They won’t include the counter post technology, which I’ve removed.

I want to congratulate Jay Allan for winning the Six Apart contest. He deserves recognition for his hard work and I’m glad to see he got it.

This reminded me, though, that those who contribute plugins for other products, such as WordPress, also deserve recognition for the hard work they do. So I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to those who have provided documentation, plug-ins, or even inspiration for my own tweaks, including the WordPress development and documentation team, Chris Davis, Mark from Weblog Tools Collection, Craig, and Carthik.

I gather that August 1st is WP Patch Day where plugin authors pick a bug to fix in the core. Though I’m working on converting the Redland Unix libraries to Windows in order to create a PHP extension (and having a bitch of a time with it–nothing to do with the Redland code; it’s my own rusty Visual Studio/C skills), I’m going to see if there’s a bug left to claim. And then that will be it for me.

Categories
Copyright

Copyright, copyleft

Dave Shea has a set of images at his web site, depicting a photograph being altered in progressive stages. He asks the question:

Assuming the photo I started with was copyrighted by someone else and I wasn’t licensed to use it, at which step does the design process below does the work become ‘legitimate’?

I gather that his doing this was a direct result of one or more CSS designs from CSS Zen Garden being taken by one or more people, used as is, and the other person or people actually claiming credit for the work. However, people could not understand how something that is ‘open source’ so to speak, also be copyrighted; hence his unusual and rather clever experiment.

I was going to write more on this, because as you all know, I’m just so fond of discussions involving Creative Commons and copyright. And the comments at Shea’s were pretty damn interesting. I also have a pictorial essay I’m writing on the state of politics here in Missouri for American Street. However, I am feeling pretty beat tonight.