Monthly Archives: June 2009

Upgrading to WordPress 2.8

Posted on June 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

It’s 5:43 EST, if anything’s wonky it’s because I’m upgrading for the next few minutes. Unless I break something, then it’ll be longer…

I backed up everything yesterday, so I should be good :)

5 minutes later: Everything seems to be working fine!

Leave a comment

Tagged , ,

So You Wanna Be A BlogStar? #wcchicago

Posted on June 13, 2009 | 1 comment

At WordCamp Chicago last weekend Darryl Markette kicked off the day playing a song called BlogStar, it was based on a song called RockStar. He finally recorded it as a video, so here I am sharing it with you!

Here’s the direct link to the HD video of BlogStar.

1 Comment

Tagged , , , , ,

Get your FaceBook Vanity Address

Posted on June 12, 2009 | Leave a comment

Starting tonight (at 9PM Pacific) you can reserve your own Facebook vanity id. This means (hopefully) I’ll be “http://facebook.com/GaryLaPointe ” instead of “http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=736138968“.

You should be able to just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ to get your name.

As always, you’re welcome to add me as a friend…

SUCCESS! I did manage to get my name (as above). It’s not case sensitive but I like the caps capitalized. And there is no trailing slash (“/”), it causes an error.

Leave a comment

Posted in me + myself + i

Tagged , ,

Today is the last day for the broadcast transition to Digital TV

Posted on June 12, 2009 | Leave a comment

It’s finally the end of Analog TV at the end of today. If you haven’t seen the PSAs announcing this, then you probably haven’t really been watching the TV so you won’t care. This is after they moved the date from January because they didn’t think people were ready..

One tip – I heard that some stations that are broadcasting in digital may change the frequency that they are broadcasting at, so you may need to have your box/TV re-scan for digital stations.

I’m in the Detroit area, I wonder how many fans might lose their signal for the Detroit Red Wings game tonight (last game of the Stanley Cup). And and I guess the same goes for Pittsburgh Penguins fans too.

dtv-coupon.pngIf you have satellite or a cable box, you don’t have a problem, the box will convert to your TV.

If you have cable, you don’t care, they’re still giving analog signals for another year or two (or three).

If you have a digital TV with a tuner you don’t care.

If you have an antenna hooked up to your TV (on the roof or rabbit ears), you care. You need that antenna hooked up to a digital convertor box (generally very cheap only $0-$20 with a coupon)

I don’t think stations have to stop broadcasting in analog, they just have to be broadcasting in digital. I’m wondering if anyone will hang on for a bit.

Leave a comment

Tagged , , , ,

WordPress 2.8 “Baker” is now available

Posted on June 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

So you can now download WordPress 2.8, it’s named after Chet Baker; all WordPress releases are named after Jazz greats.

I’m not sure when it’s going to show up in our admin consoles for automatic upgrade though. It’s there now!


Watch the video for all the new 2.8 features.

Don’t worry, the video doesn’t cover all 180 new features.

Leave a comment

Tagged , , ,

I’ve finally got a new theme set up for my blog

Posted on June 10, 2009 | 1 comment

So I’ve got a new theme. I figure I have to mention it because if you just read the RSS feed, you’ll never see it.

themejune2009.pngIt’s pretty much the Simple Indy theme by India Fascinates. It really reminds me of a few other themes out there, but it handles my long categories, works well on Mac, was easy to modify, it’s zippy and it works really well.

I’ve modified it a bit here and there to fit my needs but it’s pretty close to the original code. I like titles on all my archive pages and added my header image. I also changed the way it marked posts with the tags and categories. I also like full posts, if it’s the main page, archive or search results. And I like error messages to come with a search box. So other than that a few other minor changes it’s 99% the original theme. I still need to integrate my old logo into it…

If you see any problems, please let me know.

The photo will probably be changed soon, but it was one of the first ones I tried that fit okay. Currently it’s a view of the Pacific from Quepos, Costa Rica. I think maybe December of 2006 (New Years Eve,I think). If it’s not a picture of the coast with two tree trunks (like the thumbnail), then I changed it to something else ;)

I liked my old theme but it just loaded too slow and it had been bugging me for a while.

1 Comment

Tagged , , , , , ,

Checking out some themes

Posted on June 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

My blog is going to be a little wonky from 4:30PM-6PM EST on Wednesday…

Leave a comment

Tagged

iPhone 3.0 MMS and Tethering on AT&T in the US

Posted on June 9, 2009 | 2 comments

mms3.pngMost of the iPhone OS 3.0 features aren’t anything new, they were announced months ago. So much of yesterday’s keynote dealing with the iPhone was not a surprise. What was a surprise was how stupid that AT&T looked when they weren’t ready for tethering or MMS!

I think 29 countries are ready for MMS but not AT&T in the United States and 22 countries are ready for tethering but not AT&T in the United States. What does this say about contracts and exclusivity with they way they are marketing this phone? If some other carriers had this phone they’d be selling like hot cakes as people would be trying to get away from AT&T…

tether3.pngPersonally, I don’t see me ever using the MMS (especially if it costs more), I just send my attachments as an e-mail. But the tethering is what’s holding me up from getting the iPhone.

FYI, when the 3.0 beta came out, it had the tethering in it and some people were able to turn it on, so this works. It’s just a matter of AT&T selling it to the customers.

2 Comments

Tagged , , , , ,