I used Google’s new search story video creator today to create a semi-comical little test video. It was kinda fun to use and to see the results; which it then allows you to publish on youtube if you want. Clearly I did, and my results are below.
I would say most “techies” these days are privy to subscribing to RSS feeds using their favorite aggregator of choice (read: Google Reader).
Therefore it is impossible to miss the outright flood of Apple/iPad/iPhone OS/etc/etc/etc news that continuously pours in from every single feed I subscribe to. It’s to the point that it is just effing ridiculous and it’s totally out of hand. I simply do not understand why everyone cares so much about Apple products and why they get the media attention that they do. I’m definitely not alone in this, as some media outlets actually offer an “Apple Free” feed option.
Let’s just run down this all star tech item called the iPad: With the starting price of $500, you get an AMAZING 16 GB of storage, you get no USB ports, no media card slots, no camera, overpriced apps, no flash support, and proven Wi-Fi issues. I see nothing to tell me that it’s not just a gigantic iPod.
Any other netbook or tablet device will give you more functionality for your money. Call me crazy, but I think a built in camera is simply an absolute must for any netbook or tablet device… But, people won’t line up for hours on end to buy a netbook or tablet with a camera. The “Apple hardware is better” argument doesn’t fly with me here, especially given the early Wi-Fi issues the iPad is experiencing. I know a lot of people that have owned various netbooks for various lengths of time and have never heard of any of them having any hardware issues. At some point, all hardware devices could and will have issues on some scale, and they will do so at random times… Apple is not in a special boat; and in fact they lag behind more then half of their competition.
Yet, with all this in mind the iPad still owns the news across the board, and it just makes no sense to me whatsoever. Somehow, Apple has managed to be one of the most closed/communist companies on the planet and still manage to get the majority of people to eat candy right out of their hands. “Oh, the iPad doesn’t support flash… That’s ok… Every major company will just re-design an iPad specific homepages to function on this awesome device!!” Seriously??? How and why is that even a possible scenario? Apple should be conforming to existing standards (even if flash sucks). In no possible universe should the internet be forced re-tool and comply with a device. It’s asinine, plain and simple.
Just imagine the backlash if Microsoft’s Internet explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox did not support flash. I would wager that the browser would be in ruins instantly. Keep the thought going – just imagine if Microsoft had to pre-approve ANY application that you installed on a Windows 7 netbook, tablet, or Windows mobile phone… Nobody on the Earth would stand for that level of censorship from the evil empire of Microsoft, yet when Apple does it, everyone just seems to accept it willingly. There have been numerous documented cases of fair and usable apps that Apple rejects or pulls with varying degrees of vague reasoning, and it really pisses me off that they can get away with that. I give props to the hackers and modders that give the world the option to jailbreak their Apple products, freeing them to install the apps they want.
In the end, all I can really do is hope that some day soon Apple’s antics will catch up with them and they’ll ride their wave of undeserved success right back down to ground level…
Unfortunately though I don’t think it will be anytime soon – The media flocks to Apple once again today while they announce and show off the iPhone/iPod OS 4.0. Wow, an effing software update… One that you’ll probably have to pay for no less. Microsoft, please hold a massive media event when Windows 7 SP1 comes out!! Or, better yet… at your next patch Tuesday even. Oh, wait – nobody would go to THAT.
In summary: Get bent, Apple. You continue to charge too much for your products while your earnings seem to reach record highs. I consider it literally no different from $4/gallon gas prices while ExxonMobil reported record breaking earnings (except for the fact that the public got angry when that happened.. Oddly). You gouge your faithful fan-base of their hard earned money on the premise that you’re simply better than everyone else. The majority of media and public seems to think you are as well… But, I promise you, you’re not.
I both love and hate the Twitter-Tools plugin for WordPress.
On one hand; I really like how it can integrate Twitter into my blog via both sidebar widget and weekly Twitter digest posts… But, on the other hand, I was really starting to feel like these digest posts were cluttering up both my blog and my archives. Several times recently I have found myself scrolling back through way too many Twitter digest posts in order to get at my ACTUAL blog posts and content that I had written. Basically, I came to the conclusion that “I didn’t like this” and I had to modify how Twitter integrated with my Blog.
Today I’ve taken the steps necessary to achieve what I believe is the best of both worlds. I now have weekly Twitter digest post created as usual; but they do not display in my main blog page or in my archives page — AND you have to specifically navigate to a “Twitter” page in order to see them at all.
This was actually a little more challenging for me than I’d like to admit – but I’ll go through the steps below:
First: Exclude the Category
To block out my Twitter category from displaying on my blog and archives, I added the following function to the functions.php file within my theme directory. The “-28” below refers to the corresponding category ID for the Twitter category. This code made it so all posts within the “Twitter” category are ignored in both my blog page and my archives.
function exclude_category($query){
if ($query->is_home) {
$query->set('cat', '-28');
}
return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts', 'exclude_category');
Second: Make the Category “Navigateable” from the Main Page
The more challenging part for me was figuring out an “easy” way to navigate to these Twitter digest posts. It sounded like a fairly easy thing to do; but I had a surprisingly difficult time with it.
I experimented with some .htacces redirection, and also some plugins that claimed to do exactly what I wanted (but, sucked). In the end; I chose to just modify my theme’s main loop logic and save it as a new page template. I copied the the text from my theme’s index.php file, and and pasted it into my a file called “twitter.php” which I saved as a new page template. I then replaced the following code:
if (have_posts()) :
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
With this code:
$recent = new WP_Query();
$recent->query('cat=28');
if ($recent->have_posts()) :
while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();
This actually worked fairly well, and in retrospect is very easy – it just took me quite awhile to arrive at this solution! The final step here was then to add a page called “Twitter” via the administration panel; and simply change the page to use this Twitter.php template instead of the default page template.
Voila, a Twitter page that you can navigate to which displays all the weekly digest Twitter posts created automatically by the Twitter Tools plugin.
**** UPDATE ****
Vanlandw had a great recommendation about excluding these Twitter digest posts from my RSS feeds as well. That was very simple to do… My exclude function in the functions.php file in my theme directory now reads as such:
function exclude_category($query){
if ($query->is_home || $query->is_feed) {
$query->set('cat', '-28');
}
return $query;
}
And, now the Twitter digest posts are excluded from my RSS feed as well! 🙂 WordPress and PHP are both awesome.
As I previously posted; I have been very unhappy with this season of 24. More so than in any other previous season, and with greater and greater intensity.
I had decided about 5 episodes in that I was giving myself half of the season; and if 24 did not improve or show signs of turn-around, then I was going to cease watching it forever. (as Vanlandw has stated; I have said this before – sometimes it’s been an idle threat. But, I did not and will not ever finish watching Season 6). Well, episode 12 came and went; and all I got was more and more angry at how ridiculous the show has become. So, while episode 13 was airing last week, I played my new Nintendo Wii. While episode 14 was airing yesterday, I was watching “Religulous”. Let me tell you, it feels SO good to disconnect from this show. I have jumped ship and I will never ever make any effort to swim back.
I can’t help but feel a little bit of sadness here, but the more I think about it – the more my sadness becomes anger. 24 was a truly ground-breaking series and was undeniably top notch television in it’s prime. There are few other television programs that can rival 24 in it’s golden years – but the simple fact is that Fox just utterly destroyed this program. It changed from a gritty drama to a laughable ratings-whore composed of LITERALLY trash. Well, Fox, the public noticed… You managed to alienate and infuriate the most loyal fan-base of all time; Even they can only keep their hopes and dreams up for so long, and Season 8 has proven to be the last straw. The ratings have dropped, the quality has continued it’s downward tailspin, meanwhile the only thing that has gone up has been the show’s production budget. Finally; arguably 3 years too late, Fox has decided to put 24 out of it’s misery and cancel it.
So, what went wrong? What happend? Why did 24 limp into mediocrity? Let’s run a comparative; Looking at a semi-similar series: “The Shield” on FX.
The Shield is also a gritty drama. The Shield has a similar “bad ass” main character – Vic Mackey. And, it has similar struggles of that main character as their job and life effect their friendships and families. Yes, the settings and plots are sometimes very different – but 24 could have learned alot from how The Shield bowed out. The most important thing: The writers of The Shield never changed the heart of their show. They never changed plots to try and cater to the masses. In fact, they gave us scenes that we didn’t even want to see (Lem). They gave us a final two seasons that were literally gut-wrenching, made me feel sick to watch at times, and genuinely brought me to tears. It was utter downfall…
But, it was a most epic and decisive series finale as can possibly be had.
24, your death is brought not by skilled and emotional content like The Shield; but rather by your own greed and lust for your success. The higher your ratings went, the further and more over the top you felt you needed to push the show. It didn’t take long for you to push too far, to the point where it became a cheesy satire of it’s former self. You searched for meaning in more/larger explosions, exploitations of your main character, and trying to find the charm you once had. You killed off the characters that everyone liked while keeping around all the characters that everyone hates. You bring in new characters to fill in the same old roles. You put a mask on recycled plot lines hoping nobody will notice, while you combine them and cram more of them in each season. Well, you did it – and you failed.
You straight up blew it.
You’re on your death bed and I’m not coming to visit you. I don’t want to see you this way, and I have no desire to see how you meet your end. I don’t owe you ANYTHING. You un-deniably suck. You managed to turn away your best friends at the most critical part of your life, and as far as I’m concerned you can fall into oblivion alone; reaping exactly what you have sown.
Good riddance; gtfo
The Backstory…
As an attempt at motivation, my wife wagered that if I could lose half of the amount of weight that she gains during pregnancy; then I can pick out and purchase a television of my choosing. So, that started me down the path of getting unbelievably motivated to lose some weight, and eat healthier…
I started a basic calorie cut in February. I ate grain cereals, more fruits/veggies, and overall just cut down on portions. I stopped drinking soda comletely, I started drinking water, and I went from 254.2 pounds down to 242.2 in roughly 1 month. But, my completely sedentary lifestyle seemed to only want to let go of 12 pounds of it’s “backup” – so it was time to find some exercise to keep this going.
The problem with that is: I hate exercise. Plain and simple. I hate running, walking, biking, jogging, etc etc etc etc. Really it boils down to the fact that I enjoy physically moving as little as possible.
With my stubborn and compulsive nature, the P90X program did seem like a perfect fit. I have a coworker who shed 40 pounds with the program, and one of my cousins has seen results very early on as well. I read some reviews and researched online a pretty fair amount; and it all seemed to only confirm that P90X really does work… There’s no BS to it, it’s just freaking hard core working out to get results. And the thing is, I could actually see myself pushing through a hard 90 days to get those fast results. In fact, I’d much rather do that than to go running 3 times a week. I literally hate running so much that I’d rather do 6 hours plus of working out than to go running one time.
The Beginning…
A good friend loaned me their copy of P90X so I could try it out. It gives you a full diet plan, a lot of information, and a set of DVDs containing the workouts. I used the information to do a little prep-work, create a spreadsheet to track my progress, plan my eating habits, and get some groceries.
With the pre-flight check taken care of, I started P90X on 3/14/2010.
I am so out of shape it is really pretty sad. During my first workout, my body responded with creaking, popping, and snapping sounds as I used muscles that rarely even think about flexing. I had to make sure to start slow, pace myself, and ease into P90X because it really is an intense workout. It’s designed to take already fit people that last mile and really change their bodies. So, I have to modify the techniques on many exercises (girl pushups, lower weights, fewer reps) in order to even do them. But, I am doing them…
I honestly haven’t done any exercise like this in probably 10 years. I went through phases of biking, treadmilling, and even trying jump rope – but those were all short lived phases that did little more than elevate my heart rate temporarily and make me angry.
Now 3 days into P90X, my entire body is stiff and sore – so I’m positive that it’s working. I’ve made it into a routine to start my day waking up at 5 am, pound out the P90X workout (1-1.5 hours), and then eat an egg-white omelet with fruit and whole grain toast for breakfast. Oddly enough it has been a very simple routine for me to adopt.
The Story Thus Far
As I’m sure my good friend will want their own set back, I’m definitely going to order my own set of P90X and make sure to stick to this program. With the amount of work it is, I just can’t imagine it not making significant change to my person very quickly.
Even being only 3 days in, I can feel the changes. I can tell my metabolism is jump started working out in the morning, so I use that and capitalize on it by eating better. I also haven’t drank any coffee since starting because I feel more energetic throughout the day. My weight hasn’t gone down at all yet; but it has stayed exactly the same vs a daily up/down fluctuation that I was dealing with. I think that is a good sign that I’m eating steadily vs the feast or famine mentality.
I fully expect that this first week is all about my body adjusting to this new and heavy workload…
I’m definitely keeping it up, tracking my progress, and looking forward to seeing some results.
BRING IT
**Updated** 2/24/2010
I kept the motivational momentum going here and have made this plugin totally widget-capable. Totally tested and declared stable as version 1.3! Updated download links.
Over a year ago, I decided to take Albert Banks’ WordPress Netflix plugin, fork it, and maintain it as a new plugin…
I did this because Albert’s version didn’t support newer RSS feeds that Netflix provided, and it lacked some functionality that I desperately wanted to have (displaying movie reviews I’ve written on the Netflix site). So, I decided to maintain my own version for better, and for worse.
My interest and motivation to work on this plugin has drastically diminished lately – but today I got a transfusion of sheer inspiration to do some much needed house-keeping. Ever since it’s inception in 2006 with Albert’s first version – this plugin has used functions from MagpieRSS to ingest and parse the RSS feeds. Well, unbeknown to me this library has not been maintained since 2005 and never even made it out of beta status (even though wordpress’ rss.php include file has it built in?). I decided to bite the bullet today and make some modifications to my plugin… Most notably it’s now using fetch_feed function from SimplePie vs Magpie’s fetch_rss function.
I had to modify some of my other code for pulling descriptions, titles, and links – but one of the users of my plugin had already started that for me so I just had to take it the last mile.
I did some other random cleanup, removed the annoying ^M characters that always seem to get in there when going from windows to linux, and I now call the rss.php include file instead of the depreciated rss-functions.php file. All in all, it was a good day for the Netflix-X2 plugin… maybe some day I will get around to improving the widget configuration! Right now it just hacks together an unordered-list style widget and gives no other options. but, hey… at least it is widgetized!
Feel free to try the plugin out:
Download the latest release: http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/netflix-x2.1.3.zip