Zibblog

Let me start with a plug for the Newsgator service. Their idea is to have an integrated one login system with client software that works well on every major platform. I used NetNewsWire on my mac for a long time and then switched over to FeedDemon since my work machine and main home machine now run windows. All my news reading at work and home are completely integrated and I find I like using a client app better than a web app for some reason.

Anyway, after reading Scott’s post, I wondered how I should share links with people. With the last release, FeedDemon’s newsbin feature got online sync and feed urls. Therefore, I can now create a newsbin that people can subscribe to if they want.

Here’s the link if you want to read the random items that I thought people might find interesting: http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/svc/ClippingsRSS.aspx?uid=113427&fid=3421340

I’m now running wordpress 2.0.2, and I’ve been pretty happy so far.  It was running a little slow, so I tweaked some settings and I got it running a little faster.  Hopefully, I’ll get some time to play around with it this weekend, but I’m probably going to burn most of Sunday getting my geek on at the Maker Faire.  The blog is currently using the theme k2, which is an updated version of the wordpress default theme Kubrick.  It’s got a lot of cool features, but I don’t think it’s quite what I’m looking for.  I’ve also been looking at a theme called Leaves Revamped that appeals to the minimalist in me.  I’m hoping to take some of the visual elements of Leaves Revamped and play around with the features of k2.  In the end, this will work for now.  I had been putting off the whole blog move until I moved the images on blogger to flickr, but I looked and I didn’t have any images from after September so I figured I might as well just move it.

In totally unrelated news, I spent the entire day trying to figure out why my new work laptop (a thinkpad t43p) kept suddenly locking up.  After letting the IT department play around with it and not get anywhere, I ended up using the update software that came with the laptop update everything it wanted to.  That included the bios, some firmware, and a few drivers.  It hasn’t frozen up on me as I’ve been playing around on it here at home, but it worked fine over the weekend too.

My dashboard on blogger tells me that this is post #100, so I figured I’d celebrate it with a post in its honor. I’ve haven’t exactly been regular in my posting since I’ve been doing it for 6 months, but I hope that everybody has had some fun reading it. I just got back from my trip to Trinidad, so expect a blog entry and some photos really soon. I’m also planning on reviewing some of the gadgets that I’ve gotten recently. Most of my month of March is going to be spent on a hiatus from work since I didn’t take any time off after leaving Mercury. My parents are coming out here to help me work on my condo in the middle of the month, so there will probably be some in progress photos of that work. If anyone is interested in meeting the Zibmom and Zibdad, shoot me and email. There will probably also be a housewarming in April since I’ll have the condo in as good of shape as it’s going to be for awhile.

Well, I’ve now entered the second calendar year for my blog, and I wanted to start off by saying thanks for reading. It’s nice to know that people find my odd little blog interesting.

If you haven’t seen it already, the short “Lazy Sunday” by The Lonely Island on SNL (available for free on iTunes) is well worth a watch. The graphic about how Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = crazy delicious is now available on Blue Collar Distro.

As I’ve been playing around with WordPress and fixing bugs at work, I’ve been thinking about content for the soon (depending on your definition of “soon”) to be launched coveringdistance.com along with a ideas for a theme to pull together the site. Given the name of the site, I feel like a running theme (or at least something with motion) is necessary. The first step is probably finding and customizing a WordPress theme. Themes.wordpress.net is a great site to try out different themes and see what fits. The site for the WordPress 1.5 Theme Competition has some nice info and spotlights some interesting themes.

Anyway, a theme and some fancy photoshopping is only part of the work (and the piece that will probably be left until my next trip home to Nebraska. The real goal of putting up my website is to provide some content that is at least somewhat useful and give myself an excuse to put something together. After some pondering, my first content will probably be a export of my rss subscriptions. Every once in a while I’ll be at work or at someone’s house and be unable to remember the url of some random rss feed that I read an interesting article on (happens mostly with comic book stuff). However, I believe that the real gem of my pondering is the idea of a Wiki for bay area runners. MediaWiki seems like it might be the best choice for the software, but I’m interested in any suggestions that people have for good free wiki software. I collect map images and PDFs for local trails, and I figured it could be a great resource if I can drum up enough interest. It’ll probably be the next piece of software to go up after I get the zibblog cut over to coveringdistance.