Windows Vista RC1

On monday i dowlnoaded and installed Windows Vista RC1. We have a technet subscription through work, so it was no problem getting it…

I have to say, i really like windows vista. It runs decently (even on a mediocre laptop) and overall has a good look and feel to it. It has blue screened 5 times in 2 days, but hey – its still a beta technically.

The windows explorer interface now seems to be heavily based on the Mac interface. The bread crumbs, the structured left to right browsing, i kept thinking ‘jeez, this is how a mac works’. Running on a crummy laptop, i’m not really able to take advantage of some of the supposed 3d enhancements and capabilities, but i really do like Vista. 🙁

I took some screenshots, and also copied all the wallpapers i could find in vista. If interested—

TheSciontC.com Update

I’ve been trying to get some content posted in the forums, and have now been successful in implementing a “beta” template for a home page. (forums moved to /forums).

I found a pretty clean and nice CSS template on line, so i took that and hacked it up, changed about 60 % of it, and now we have “www.TheSciontC.com” redux.

Jja… i’m going to come right out and ask.  Will you make me a sweet banner graphic??  😛

Vanhood and Web frenzy


Constitution of Vanhood
.
I want to (for nor particular reason) make this fresh in the minds of Vans.

Moving on – Alot of web related content, update, new domain, etc. crap this weekend. As one might notice from the flurry of updates over the past few days. Not too sure why i’m all the sudden so interested in doing things with my websites and/or ordering new domain names. I really don’t like reading or writing CSS, i really don’t like html, I feel “ok” about wordpress… Really, I’m definitely not cut out to be a web designer or developer.

I think it’s creativity. That’s really the only thing it can be. Because I don’t have much of a chance for that kind of thing in my day to day life – there’s not really any “creative outlet” that motivates me. I work with computers at my job, I play video games, my life is pretty routine; and probably will continue that routine for it’s entirety(although, it is a routine that i am very, very happy with)… It’s been a very busy year. With planning a wedding and buying and moving into a house, 2006 has just flown by like a mother effing plane that happens to have mother effing snakes on it. And on this plane, the right side of my brain probably does about 89% of the flying.

Things are settling down. The wedding is almost here, and mostly planned… We’re settled into our house, so now i’m having a chance to notice that just setting yourself up with a means of creativity seems to be motivation enough. Somehow, subconsiously i ponder ideas for my websites: What should i write about? What can I write about? What should it look like? What can I do with it? Things like that. There’s no real reason for me to even give these types of questions any entertaining thought… What’s weird is this comes and goes.  Sometimes i dont touch my website for months; then sometimes i spend an entire weekend doing nothing but tweaking/updating it.  I can’t explain it.. But, at least the left side is getting some action.

Embedded Gallery

2695I first saw this when browsing the famous “csh.us“… A very slick module for wordpress that allows Gallery to be embedded. As well as easy integration so it’s easy to post images/albums into wordpress entries, side bar random images, etc.  I emailed csh, and he informed me of the module’s name, “WPG2”. This was pretty tricky to get working correctly, so make sure to read all the docs before you just dive in head first.

In a nutshell – an ORDERED list of the steps taken:

  1. Download WPG2 here.
  2. Install as a wordpress plugin, desribed here.
  3. Activate and initial configuration of WPG2 module like this.
  4. I found it helpful to change the theme of Gallery to “Siriux”. Made it fit MUCH better. Looks hot. (Gallery, Site admin, Display – > Themes, Change ‘Default’ theme from Matrix to Siriux)
  5. More or less go here after you have trouble. Depending on your theme, you might have to write custom header and footer files, but that is described in the configuration page.

This is awesome.. I highly recommend it… In fact, I actually kind of like my site now. I’m happy with the theme, i’m happy with the hosting, i’m happy with the gallery integration. Really, gallery is an awesome program/web app but the interface has always needed some work in my opinion. Navigation and management are very tedious and it always seems like a challenge to do the easiest things. This embedded mod cleans that up alot, and really “ties the room together”. Thanks CSH for putting me onto WPG2… IMHO, is the best wordpress plugin ever even contemplated.

www.palmerforpresident.com/wp-gallery.php

Forum…

As i’ve been migrating my site, i’ve pretty much settled on the fact that i’m not going to put my old yabbse/smf forum back on line.  It’s really just not worth it.

That said – I’d like to give a shot to using forums again.  Everyone’s tried them, and they go in and out of style… but I think we need to get back into it.

TheSciontC.com has a fresh install of phpBB2…  It is my suggestion that we implement a “General” or “Vanhood” category on these forums for movie/tv/videogame/paintball/etc. usage.

Suggestions?  Comments?  brb.