what's up with jbo
We just had a nice visit with our aunt and uncle who came up from N.C. This aunt is my mother's sister. On Saturday my parents and our visitors took their tools with them and created two beautiful flowerbeds in front of the house. They really look good now, but in bloom and with growth I can only imagine how nice it will be.
Between the few jobs I've been doing I am hoping to have enough money to cover Finale 2007 upgrade and a newer 88 key MIDI capable (most are) keyboard that doesn't have cheap plastic keys. I will do what I can to find a good one and a good deal, but the keyboard I have now--though functional--is archaic to say the least. And it doesn't have enough keys to play live recordings or functionality to record velocity and other MIDI attributes. I'm really looking forward to these improvements so I can return to composing with a vigor. I have missed it so much and have longed for it quite enough. Now I am going to dig in.
On the RSD front, I'll be getting a lumbar sympathetic block on June 29. We will see how that helps and assess the situation from there.
And I'll try to be on my computer updating my blog and saying hi to people through email and chat more often. I have been feeling a bit better these past few weeks.
But now it is 2:30 am and way past my bed time.
To all the saints scattered throughout all the world,
grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Performancing ext. for Firefox
Performancing by Jed Brown
Performancing
is a full-featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser
and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted
content, including images, from the page you are browsing and take
notes as well as post to your blog.
goal
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing his opinion.
Proverbs 18:2 (esv)
I read that on Tuesday, and I thought what a perfect verse to underpin a blogging purpose statement. My goal should be understanding...not just expressing my opinion.
On a side note, I am going to keep this verse in mind when I post on Sharper Iron.
bbcode extra has html for blogging
Here is another cool Firefox extention that might help you blog better. I found it from those good folks at sharper iron.
It is very helpful for Movable Type too, because Firefox doesn't display the HTML menu at all.
kan u spelll?
If you have Firefox, there is a really nifty extension for spell checking text boxes. So now, I can check my spelling right in the blogging window. You have to follow some pretty detailed instructions to install it. But it isn't too hard.
It has been very nice. I can't take credit for it though. I got the link from sharperiron.org
comments are back up
My comments are working now as usual. If you have any more trouble with them just send me an e-mail. Also you can use the javascript buttons to enter links, blockquotes, etc. It should be working as well. I will design some new buttons though, the ones I did this morning are pretty dinky.
commenting to the clipboard
My comment section is acting up. If you are desperate to post a comment on my blog right now (and I do love your comments), I have to let you in on a trick. Now, if you can do this on your own, don't mind this post. I am trying to help out those who don't WWW as much as others. (Okay, I admit it. Maybe it is I who am desperate for comments.)
1. Type your comment.
2. Copy the text of your comment to the clipboard.
3. Click the Preview and Post button.
4. Your comment will not show up.
5. But you can now paste your comment into the empty text box,
6. And hit Post.
Now, like I said the comments haven't been working for a day or so. But Ben, I'm sure, is about to announce another miracle save. But this round about way works well enough.
spam
I'm sorry if you caught the torrent of spam on my blog today. That's a great way to start the new year with my blog. I think I have removed it all. I hope so. Watch out for it on your blogs if you have one. This is the worst kind of spam you can get.
In spite of the state of the world and spam, I pray that you have a blessed Lord's Day. It's my parents' 27th anniversery tomorrow. And my cousin's 6th, I think.
RSS
I was playing around with my.yahoo this morning. I couldn't sleep. The covers hurt my foot. The cold too. What's a guy to do? Anyway, I was playing around with my.yahoo. If you don't have a Yahoo! acount let me explain. Yahoo! provides page(s) where you can choose your content. So it is like having your own little news, entertainment room on the web.
Well I was adding content (for instance I added World Magazine's Weblog) and I typed in Bensfriends. And it came up! I guess this must be Ben's doing. Anyway, jbo came up too, and e-ink.
It's pretty cool. Of course, I hadn't blogged in so long, it didn't have any content. Hence my telling you this.
It's not like I don't want to blog. I haven't had my computer since Tuesday. And I haven't really been feeling that well. Plus the wedding is on Saturday.
But God is so good; I am so underserving of his grace.
bible toolbar for firefox
Those of you who use Firefox might be interesting in this extension.
It adds a toolbar that allows you to search Bible Gateway. The toolbar seems to work okay, and it allows you to set your prefered translation and whether or not to open the search in a new window.
books and music code
Here is the simplest form of the code I can find. And some notes follow.
<MTwair asin="0330323121" imagesize="s">
I'm reading <$MTwairName$>, by <$MTwairAuthor$><br />
Here's the cover, click it:<br />
<a href="<$MTwairURL$>">
<img src="<$MTwairImage$>">
</a>
</MTwair>
- MTwairName - The name of the book
- MTwairAuthor - The author
- MTwairImage - The cover of the book
- MTwairURL - The Amazon page for the book
- ASIN or ISBN - number to plug in
- imagesize="s" - you can use s(mall), m(edium), or l(arge)
Here is the code I used in my sidebar:
sidebar: books and music
Well, after talking with Ben, I have tried the "currently reading" plugin again and it is working just fine. I managed to get it on my main index and on my individual archive entries with a new thing called MTInclude that Ben will no doubt be telling everyone about very soon.
Also when I first tried it there was no way to size the pictures. But there is now. You can have small, medium or large. Or tall, grande and venti if you prefer.
In any case, the plugin seems to be stable now. I think I might have had some extra spaces that was confusing it every once in a while. Maybe. I don't know. Computers.
Now that I have the plugin, hopefully I will actually finish books and use it. And maybe write some posts about the books. We'll see. I will post the code I used once again. If you dare to use it.
plugin
I had to take down the plugin I was talking about. The errors seemed to get progressively worse. I guess I should have continued testing before posting about it. Anyway, I'll keep on working on it, and Ben and I will discuss it.
currently reading and listening
Benjamin asked me to play around with a new plugin he installed for Bensfriends. Now, I may be jumping the proverbial gun, but at least you can say I did what I was told.
Anyway, I do like the plugin...I think. At least now that I have the design part done, it will be easy to update in the future. Plus, typing in a few numbers is easier than going through all the mess of getting a picture to put on the sidebar.
The only thing that I don't quite like (besides what I state below) is how big the pictures are displayed. But I think I can live with that for now. You can only see this plugin working on my main index. So, if you are reading this from the extended entry, you can use the link above to see it in action.
Here are two links that Ben posted earlier on my blog for more information:
MT Plugin Directory: WAIR, Movable Type
Also, I'm sure Ben will announce this plugin soon. And he might explain it better than I have. Probably.
Here is the code I used for my sidebar. Feel free to use it, modify it or whatever. Just type in the ASIN or ISBN number where it says <MTwair asin="##########">. (note: I used the ISBN numbers for the books. You are supposed to use ASIN or ISBN.)
As you can see this also works for music.
Note: This plugin gave an error multiple times when I went to build/rebuild on both an individual entry and my main template. My solution was to re-save, then rebuild (again). Unfortunately, I am still having problems rebuilding my entire site and individual archive entries. You can see how this might be a problem.