DesignThis

XPrize News for 09/08/08

admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:40:41 +0000

So even people in nice houses steal wi-fi

admin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 02:18:18 +0000

Ok, color me stupid, I really didn’t think any of *my* neighbors would steal from me. They all seemed so nice, seemed to have their own connection. We all usually banter occassionally on the unreliability of our wonderful ISP, and I’ve SEEN the company trucks in their driveway too. So who is stealing Wi-Fi from me, and why?

But tonight, when I realized that after an extended period of leaving my router wide open, and checking its status, I learned otherwise. TWO. Two piggybackers. Humpf! (grumble, grumble)

I know better than to leave my router unsecured. I had some connectivity issues, and at some point, I thought it was necessary to disable the security. No big. *If* I had remembered to turn it back on. Ok, so it’s partially my fault.

In all reality, I wouldn’t mind an occasional piggy backer. I can share. But then I realized, it isn’t just my connection I’m worried about, it’s my data. My personal data. If I thought a piggybacker would just surf the net, but what happens when that piggybacker is a criminal sitting in his car just outside my neighborhood. It opens up the possibility of loads of trouble. Loads of privacy and identity thefts. And while I like to sit here in my house, and think it won’t happen to me, I better think again.

So now I sit here and wonder who my two new friends were. I mean, they must be friends, right?? we shared the Internet together. I wouldn’t do that with just anyone.

admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:14:36 +0000

I need an e-commerce solution. That almost sounds like an oxymoron. And in this case, it probably is. I have a wonderful client who would like to update their own stuff. Great, I say. Power to the people, and all that. But then reality sets in, and code is code. And broken code is quite a drag. And people who aren’t coders usually don’t know what to do with it once they see it. Hence, broken code. Ick.

And my lovely client is anxious to be in the driver’s seat. But said client has very limited computer skills. So my thoughts are if I put together a very user-friendly e-commerce solution, I can give said client exactly what they want. Everybody wins.

But at this point, said client wants to just update their own stuff in the code, or so they think. That’s not gonna be pretty. And when I say limited computer skills, I mean, not-emailing-pictures-lack-of-skills kind of thing. So if you can’t email a picture, heh, how are ya gonna write me some code that works.

I know I could just code the back-end of the database and hope for the best, make it all user-friendly myself, but I was hoping to find a simple one-click-install kind of app out there to do it for me. Yes, today I’m lazy. Wordpress has made me dependent. I love the ease of a beautiful app that manages to make my job of giving non-computer types, their free reign on the net.

Which brings me to my next question. Does wordpress have such a beautiful thing already available as a plugin? I’ll have to search. I don’t quite recall seeing it, but then again, I wasn’t looking for it either. I’m quite happy maintaining the e-commerce sites I have for the client. It’s what works.

So I’m off to see the wizard (of wordpress) and find a quick and easy *solution*

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Update: (Angels singing..) I have found quite a few plugins. Most look scary hard to deal with, so now I’m off test the ones that look promising. Suggestions welcome.

Tried and true image program

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:48:42 +0000

Years ago, I used to use an image program called ThumbHTML. At the time, it did exactly what I needed to do, that of being able to put images into an HTML page and upload thumbnails as well as full size images. After changing computers several times over, I lost sight of this handy little app.

So I googled the google all over, looking for something similar, or better. I was surprised to find very little out there. And even more surprised not to find anything better. When I say ‘years ago’ I mean the better part of a decade. Now there are plenty of excellent image programs out there, but I was looking for a very specific process. I wanted to be able to batch resize my images without too much confusion. And ThumbHTML is still the easiest thing out there.

I don’t really need the webpage layout part at this point, or even slideshow, but those are nice amenities to have built into the program. I just love how quick and easy I can make thumbnails out of a folders of images that I just took with my digital camera. And when the file size is over 2MB from the camera and I want to upload those image, thumbnails are really handy.

When I’m looking to do something snazzier with my photos, I like SmoothGallery

SmoothGallery offers a non-flash based image program that shows off your photos in a variety of ways. Very customizable, javascript-driven photo solution. I like to integrate it with WordPress for awesome photo galleries.

News Feeds for Every Block

admin — Sat, 24 May 2008 21:37:05 +0000

I am just totally fascinated by this new site I recently discovered. It’s called Everyblock.com and it literally has everything from ‘lost and found’ postings imported from craigslist to street closures and filming locations. Very cool concept. I wish they had it available for more cities, so far, just Chicago, NYC and San Francisco. Really a cool concept, aimed at answering the never-ending question of “What’s really going on in my town?”