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I couldn’t get plugin upgrade working from the plugins administrative UI until I read this thread, which suggested trying different hostnames for the FTP login. Using localhost worked for me.
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Interesting–hadn’t thought about the impact of snow on solar collection efficiency.
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Systemwide tagging. This sounds really interesting. I wonder how/where they store the data.
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Google Books goes mobile. Cool. Now if only they could straighten out being able to publish the “orphaned” (in copyright but abandoned) books in full, there would be true beauty in the world.
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Interesting add-on site for Wikipedia visualizes the edit history as metadata.
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Hmm. Tempting.
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Remote administration of Macs and iPhones in a handheld console.
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Just saw this on Ars. I had heard about flickery when it was released but hadn’t checked it out–looks interesting.
Day: February 6, 2009
Now serving Gravatars
WordPress 2.5 and later have built-in support for Gravatars — site-independent avatars. They’re basically small pictures that can appear next to your comments across multiple sites, depending on the email address you registered with the main Gravatar site.
I hadn’t gotten around to hacking the theme I’m using–which apparently predates WP 2.5–for Gravatar support, but (per the Codex) adding the support was trivial. I added this line of code in the comments loop and was all set, aside from some trivial additions to the CSS to display the gravatar in the right place:
<?php
echo get_avatar( $comment, $size = '48' );
?>
You can see what it looks like below. And if you sign up with the service, when you leave a comment on my blog your avatar (G-rated only–my blog policy enforces it) will appear next to your comment. Nice trick.
Is it new MacBook time yet?
I have a feeling, like a disturbance in the Force. It’s the feeling I get when it’s time for a new Mac.
I’ve been a Mac user for a long time… since my first year of undergrad, when my dad splurged on the best Mac ever made, the SE/30, for me. I’ve had, including the SE/30, two desktops and three laptops since then, as follows:
| Machine | Purchased | Duration | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| SE/30 | September 1990 | 5 years | Given to younger sister; recycled |
| Power Mac 7200/90 | ca. October 1995 | ca. 5 years | Given to father; recycled |
| PowerBook G3 (Pismo) | August 2000 | 2 y 11 mo | Given to younger sister; then to cousin |
| PowerBook G4 1GHz | July 2003 | 2 y 9 mo | Given to younger sister |
| MacBook Pro 1.83 GHz | March 2006 | 2 y 10 mo to date | Current |
So there have been a lot of machines and my laptops have been lasting a little under three years; why? Two words: case problems and capabilities.
The G3 was great; had no problems with it other than having to replace the power adapter four times. But when we moved out west to Seattle we decided that we’d keep in touch via videoconferencing, so upgraded to a machine that could handle video on iChat. The G4 had terrible case problems–a hinge stuck, then broke the bezel when it got forced open–and also had power adapter problems. We fixed the case and upgraded to a MacBook Pro when they first became available.
The MacBook Pro has been great; except… well, it got dropped. It landed on the side where the power connector was, which dented the case near the power connector, making it difficult for the MagSafe to function properly. It charges but you have to fiddle with the connection, and lately it’s been turning itself off. Plus, I haven’t been able to prune the data on the hard disk enough to keep more than 3 GB free at any given time, meaning the machine is prone to slowing to a crawl.
The cost to me to repair the case and the power board was quoted by the Apple Store as a minimum of $500, and I’m thinking very hard about doing that. But I’d also want to replace the hard drive, and that starts to bump up the cost close to the lowest-end MacBook.
Yes, MacBook. For the first time, I think that my needs are converging on Apple’s consumer line rather than the Pro line. The MacBooks are much more capable than they were three years ago, and I’m no longer doing the sort of programming that made me want a faster machine then. And I’m not sure that spending an additional $600-$1000 would give me a comparable increase in value. There are numerous side-by-sides that attest to this (Gizmodo, MacRumors, Engadget). The main issue appears to be the screen in the MacBook, and I’m going to have to go in and look at it to decide if that’ll be OK. (I don’t watch DVDs on my laptop much anymore, but I might be watching more TV there.) There’s also no FireWire support, and no card slot to plug in an expander–a problem if we want to keep using our ca. 2000 digital video cam. And there doesn’t seem to be a way around that, so we might have to keep the old Pro around just to do video.
We’ll have to think a little more about it, I suppose.