Dana's Mixed Bag

As you may know, AddThis is a great way to add a social networking link to the end of each of your blog posts. There are many ways to implement AddThis for WordPress, but the published means only use the four stock button styles. Those styles are alright, but they feature del.icio.us, Digg, and Microsoft Live icons. It is 2009! Get with the program and update those icons, man!

In order to implement a custom AddThis button for a stand alone WordPress installation, one must download the AddThis plugin for WordPress, upload it to the plugins folder, and activate the plugin from WordPress’ dashboard..

You should see AddThis as an item in the Settings section in the left sidebar of the Dashboard. Select AddThis, and select “Use dropdown menu" and “Show on homepage”. Once you hit “Save Changes”, you should see an "AddThis” button appended to each of your posts. The order of sites shown in the pop-up hover window is determined by what is written in the “Drop-down options” entry in the AddThis Settings window. These must be in all lowercaps, and separated by commas. I set mine to “twitter, favorites, facebook, email, digg, friendfeed, delicious, myspace, stumbleupon, reddit, more” and have been happy. The stuff for common people shows in the left column while the geeky links are in the right.

So far we only have a stock button, though. Go make a 16-pixel tall button in your favorite graphics program, and save it as a .gif file. Then you’ll have to alter the addthis_social_widget.php file (which is found in your wp-content/plugins/addthis directory). Open the file (I had to download it and open it in Wordpad to edit it).

Find the “$addthis_styles” line, which is very close to the top of the file. The items in the group of lines following determine what options are offered in the “Button style” pull-down box in the AddThis Settings window. As the helpful comment says, you can add your own style by copying their sample line and editing the graphic location. You’ll also want to specify the width and height of your .gif file (so the browser doesn’t stretch it when rendering). Mine reads:

                      ‘plus’ => array(‘img’=>’sm-plus.gif’, ‘w’=>16,
‘h’=>16),

                      ‘customGGR’ => array
(‘img’=>’http://www.gogoraleigh.com/wp-content/themes/df_
3col_theme/images/share_button2.gif’, ‘w’=>125, ‘h’=>16)

                      /* Add your own style here, like this:
                        , ‘custom’ => array
(‘img’=>’http://example.com/button.gif’, ‘w’=>16, ‘h’=>16) */
                    );

Be careful that the syntax is consistent with the default entries (commas, apostrophes, etc). My graphic is 125 wide and 16 high, and lives at gogoraleigh in the images directory. You’ll need to upload your graphics file to the location you’ve specified, and you’ll need to replace your old addthis_social_widget.php file with the one that includes the new call for your custom button.

Return to the AddThis Settings page in the WordPress dashboard and refresh the page. The Button style pull-down should now include the custom button you’ve added. Select it, hit “Save Changes”, and refresh your view of your site. You should now see your AddThis graphic at the end of each post.

Tags: Tech // 1 Comment »

Today Ed Bott wrote an article reminiscing about his computer hardware collection ten years ago. IN the article he describes an inventory of what he had, which reminded me of a spreadsheet I made in 1997. I was trying to convince my boss to implement computers into our dental office. Just 12 years later computers, digital x-rays, intraoral cameras, video education systems, and more are the standard. Back then, though, it was a steep hill to climb.

After doing some comparison shopping, I recommended that we get a system from Intrex. It featured a 200MMX Pentium processor, 4.0 GB HD, 32MB of RAM, a 24X CD-ROM drive, 33.6Kbps Fax modem, and 1MB of video memory. Total cost: $1,330. This was a system that was fairly middle-of-the-road in performance and price.

Price was a huge factor, because that $1,330 only included the CPU. Also recommended: 15” monitor ($230), Iomega Ditto Tape Backup Drive ($170), 6 Ditto Tapes ($120), Windows 95 ($100), HP 6Pse Laser Printer ($800), HP ScanJet 5pse ($300), Microsoft Office ‘97 ($480), and a $30 surge protector.

The total cost of this workstation was $3,560. After adding in the dental software which cost somewhere in the $10,000 range, my boss balked and the practice remained computer-free long after I left.

That was a different era. I was busy trying to score on NHL ‘97 with my 40MHz desktop machine. Email was becoming popular, and Juno was the first to offer it for free. The internet was text-only, and download speeds of 56K were expensive. Removable media meant 3.5” “floppies”, and digital cameras where thousands of dollars. Portable music players were CD players that skipped with much motion, and to record TV, it meant finding a blank space on a tape, and going through your VCR’s cryptic on-screen programming sequence. Music subscription meant the $6 Music Choice service that Time Warner had available only through the services of a separate tuning box.

That was just 12 years ago, a blink of an eye compared to the 44-year drudgery of dental school. Where will we be in 12 more years? Progress will continue, and we’ll one day laugh at today’s isolated DVRs, movie rentals, cell phones, reliance on powerful PCs, “slow” internet speeds, and possibly streaming network TV.

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Recently a few blogs have referred to a piece describing the evolution of Windows Media Center. After Microsoft bought WebTV, the product evolved into a very mature, robust, and downright delicious application known as Windows Media Center (The Vista version is commonly termed “VMC”).

Meanwhile it seems two other Microsoft teams were busy developing two other Windows media applications. The Windows Media Player (which first appeared in, what, Windows 3.0?) has evolved into a very nice mp3 library and video file player. Meanwhile Microsoft developed another team meant to tackle the music market’s biggest entity, iPod/iTunes. This team introduced the Zune line of players two years ago. The robust players are nice and boast something Apple doesn’t, a full-service subscription service (like Rhapsody’s fantastic service). However, they require their own desktop media software.

So, for a person using a Zune and VMC in their lives, they have to use three separate pieces of software that contain many redundant features. I would like to see Microsoft roll up all of their media players into one umbrella: Media Center. Get rid of stand-alone Windows Media Player and Zune software and make them subsets of VMC. Put the Zune store (containing music subscription and purchase outlets as well as TV and Movie Rentals) inside of VMC. The Zune subscription service could be a no-brainer if it could be accessed by all extenders on the VMC’s network + up to 3 Zune Portables. Finally, have two VMC viewing modes: 2ft (“Desktop”) and 10ft (“Theater”). The Desktop mode would essentially be the quick-loading Windows Media Player branded under VMC, but would contain the current Zune store. The Theater mode could offer media browsing and purchasing, but would be more specialized for playing already-obtained music, like VMC currently does.

By wrapping up all of these services into one umbrella that appears on everyone’s copy of Windows, users could have a completely vertically integrated, logically arranged solution that the average person could easily understand.

Tags: Tech // 1 Comment »

I have an Epson 1680 scanner at my office and it is an impressive piece of equipment. It’s ability to scan a legal-size transparency, as well as a sheet of photo slides have allowed us to digitize many objects and clear up some space.

The Epson Scan software works great with Vista Ultimate, however it suffers mightily in XP. After a few days of being installed, it disappears upon launching and is unusable. After several attempts to update the software, drivers, and other hacks, I found the problem. Some problem with the software is causing two variables in the Windows XP Registry to change. This change forces the application to load way off of the screen, in an unrecoverable state.

Should you launch Epson Scan, see the splash screen, and then have no function once the splash disappears, try this:

• Open the Windows Registry (Start | Run | Regedit)
• Open this registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\EPSON\EPSON scan\ES001B\Environment

Look at the values for these entries: “Main Window Position X” and “Main Window Position Y”. Both should contain the value “0000000a” (that’s seven zeros and the letter “a”). If they do not, change the value, close the Registry, and relaunch EpsonScan. Hopefully this fix will help you, too!

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Apple unveiled its iPhone last year among an incredible swell of hype. While the phone was ground-breaking in some areas, it was extremely expensive and woefully short of basic features seen in PDAs for well over a decade. A year later, Apple released its second version of the phone and made huge strides in some areas, yet still leaves a tire stuck in the mud.

The Good

The new iPhone is the best mobile web browsing experience to date, and it’s not even close. The full rendering of non-flash containing websites is fabulous, and has made my life on the go much more seamless. I’m able to save time by checking restaurant hours, check my gmail email, view maps, view traffic conditions, etc. The phone is slick as all get-out. By that I mean that the multi touch interface is incredibly intuitive and fun to use. I love scrolling a long screen by dragging. The flick action, which makes pages spin by like the Price Is Right Bonus Wheel, is outstanding.

The phone’s ability to know when it’s being turned sideways comes in handy when viewing wide websites, video, and photos on its large screen. Also, the fonts used and the layout of operating system pages is beautiful. It is a gorgeous device that I enjoy powering on.

The biggest impact of the new iPhone is not its speedier 3G connection, but rather the Apple App Store. Tons of free and cheap applications allow users to add applications for their favorite social sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc), play games, listen to music on the internet, etc. The most useful for me have been the Facebook app, Twitter, and Pandora apps. With Pandora I’m able to ride around town listening to free music on Pandora instead of the radio or CDs I’m sick of. (I would love a Rhapsody app, but that’ll be the day)

There are some fabulous apps, and there’s no reason to believe the selection and functionality won’t improve. One of the best apps is the Evernote app. If you have a free Evernote account, the iPhone app allows one to access their online notes with an  interface that is much more appropriate to mobile units than Evernote’s web page. Evernote is by far the best system by which to jot notes that you want to always access.

Remember The Milk is my new ToDo list manager. Based on a web interface, RTM allows one to assign multiple tags to tasks. This is perfect for a Getting Things Done system of lists. Therefore items like “Buy balloons for reunion” could show up in a project-based list (like “.reunion”) AND a context-based list (like “@errands”). This feature was one of the key factors leading me toward the iPhone. Palm’s todo list app does not allow multiple tagging.

The phone aspects of the device are excellent as well. When I actually get an AT&T signal (most places not called “my house”), the sound quality is fantastic. I adore the Visual Voicemail portion of the phone, and the Contact Manager is well done. (this allows me to a see a list of my voicemails and play them as local files)

I really enjoy the iPhone’s 3.5mm headphone connector. The first generation’s socket was recessed, and only cheap headphone plugs would fit. This socket is flush with the convex exterior, and is a joy compared to my Treo’s 2.5mm socket (which required an adapter). Now I’m able to plug in nice headphones and feel like I’m in the room where the music was originally compressed!

Finally, I am enjoying the iPhone for playing podcasts. I listen to about 8 different podcasts weekly, and the iPhone’s syncing to iTunes and its system of marking which episodes have been heard is great. It automatically bookmarks so when you listen to music and return to the podcast it picks up where you left it. I avoided iTunes for a long time due to its slugging performance and walled garden feel. However I have to say that the newest version, running on Vista, works very well. It launches in 4 seconds and manages podcast catching and dumping very well.

The Meh

There are some ballyhooed features that just don’t impact my life at all.

• Movie/TV Show watching – I simply refuse to give in to iTunes’ price-gouging, and have absolutely no desire to keep some DRM-laden copy of an episode of “The Office” in my collection for all time. (I never actually got around to buying the plug-in that converts Windows Media Center files into a format for PDAs, but this subject has become muddy. I plan on buying a dedicated Windows Media Center computer with the Fiji upgrade. That means it will record shows in the new format, not dvr-ms format, so that plug in will be broken anyway)
• Coverflow – What a joke this feature is. It’s pretty, but given that album art isn’t automatically discovered and tagged in iTunes, it’s just a big hassle. I can read, and I like alphabetical order, so give me a list.
• 3G – I guess I can’t appreciate it because I didn’t have Edge, but I find myself pulling on the internet more from places that already have wifi, I suppose.
• Camera – It’s better than the Treo camera, but it’s not that great. It’s….a camera.
• Google Maps and GPS – The phone knows where it is and the Google maps look pretty, but for most of us who spend 99% of our time in the same domain, we really don’t use this feature. My Prius has an excellent nav system, so I will hardly ever use the iPhone’s clunkier GPS system.

The Bad

When things get bad for the iPhone, they aren’t kidding around.

I’ll start with the biggest problem: the battery. I cannot attend a football game and make it through one charge of the battery. It is so bad, that I cannot make it through a day without charging at least twice. While the phone recharges within an hour, it’s no laughing matter. I got the phone for its abilities to surf the net and listen to music. If I have to turn off 3G and wifi sniffing to get decent battery life, then why even have an iPhone? The Treo would make it for three days between charges. I’m getting about six hours with this thing. To make matters worse, there isn’t a replaceable battery. If there were, I could carry around a spare for days that I foresee being hard on the device. So, if this battery is so bad at keeping a charge now, what isn’t going to be like at the end of my 2-year contract period? This is the overriding feature that keeps me from loving the device. Of course, I can compromise by buying a battery sleeve thing for it and a car kit, but then I’ve spent another $100 to make a $200 device operable.

Costs: While the iPhone is only $200, the new plans at AT&T are so much more expensive, that over a two year period the phone actually costs a little more than it did before. AT&T does what they can to take the fun out of things.

Thin and slick – The device looks sexy,  but in real use, it’s too thin and slick to handle. I’ve spent $20 on a Speck rubberized cover for it, which sticks to my pocket liner and accumulates lint. Very sexy.

Notes backup – The iPhone has a nice little Notes application. Too bad it doesn’t sync with Outlook. This makes the application useless.

Cable – I like the idea of the sync/power cable. It has one end that is a USB male, and another with an elongated, proprietary iPhone connector (around which an ecosystem has evolved). The phone pulls power over USB when connected to a computer, however the best charging situation occurs when the USB end of the wire is plugged into a supplied power cube. The 1″ cube has two prongs for an AC outlet, and a USB female, into which the cable is plugged. Neat! No cradles. No separate power and sync cables! The problem lies in how cheap this cable feels. It’s thin, limp, and has cheap collars at the connector. Will it make it longer the battery? Who knows. A mini-USB interface would have been far better for this device. Consumers would be able to obtain quality cables from an array of sources.

Lack of Local Productive Apps – While I enjoy Remember The Milk, it is a web-app. They have an upgraded interface for $25 per year that makes the service far easier to use, but at the end of the day, the data and all interaction rely on a decent internet connection. I use mobile todo lists because I think of things to add when I’m shopping, driving, in the yard, etc. It is incredibly frustrating to think of a todo while in a store and spend 2 minutes finding a connection and entering the item. I would far prefer a local todo app that syncs with Outlook and keeps all of the data on the phone.

Wish List

How can Apple make V3 The Ultimate Phone? Simple

• Sync todos and notes with Outlook
• Create a thicker phone with an excellent battery

Really? That’s it? Yep! No device out there is going to be perfect for everyone. However the release of an SDK by Apple has allowed some great developers to create applications that make the iPhone extremely useable. It has the best interface and the best web browsing experience. If someone can just fix this productivity application synching issue, then the woeful batter would remain as the only inexcusable defect.

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Here is a great idea for a new online social networking app: StomachBook. People can link through their stomachs, not by their faces. It’s time we get down to meeting people who eat like we do, not think. There could be a whole linky thing with recipes and restaurants. Friends would be called TummyChummies. Just a thought.

Tags: Food, Great Sites, Tech // 1 Comment »

Engadget recently posted a story about the BuzzBall from Evento. They describe the toy as a personal rollercoaster, enabling riders to have fun on flat surfaces or even hills. This looks like fun and the seed to a new field sport.

via Bornrich

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I’ve certainly loved having my Treo650 for the past 3 years. It’s allowed me to carry all of my contacts, do-lists, calendar, and phone wherever I go. Frustrating, though, is that it seems like a piece of technology that hasn’t evolved in over 10 years. Vista users, imagine still using Windows 95 for everything!

The Palm was a big step up in convenience from my 5.5 x 8.5 Covey-based planner that I constantly forgot to bring with me. After reading and appreciating David Allen’s Getting Things Done book, I’ve come to realize just how outdated Palm’s organizational tools really are. (If you haven’t read that book, BTW, it’s great. Amazon has it for $9!)

Here are two minor changes that would revolutionize the Palm platform:

1. The ability to tag ToDo list items and Calendar items with more than one category. This would allow sublist items in a project tag to show up in a context list where the task needs to be done. For instance, “buy streamers” is a “+Reunion” project item, but needs to be completed in the “@Errands” context. When I’m getting things done, I refer mainly to my context lists. When I check the item off, I want it gone from both the context list and the project list.
2. The ability to have multiple calendars, each acting as an overlay. If arranged like Google Calendar, the Palm Calendar would allow me to walk around with my local minor league baseball and soccer schedules without them cluttering up events on the calendar such as important meetings and appointments. Of course, each of these sub-calendars should be synced with Outlook’s subcalendars, and Google Calendar should also sync with Outlook’s subcalendars. This way, we Palm users could find a publicly shared calendar at Google Calendar (such as the complete ACC football schedule or complete CBS TV listings), add it to their Google Calendars, sync it to Outlook, then have it appear on the Palm. A simple check-box of viewed layers would allow people to easily temporarily view the non-important subcalendar.

The chances of Palm waking up and realizing their software shortcomings are slim-to-none. Microsoft released information to developers about programming for Vista in the Summer of 2005. Palm didn’t release a Vista version of their desktop software until January of 2008!!!

The iPhone’s quickly developing ecosystem and semi-open SDK make it a promising device. To date, though, the $500 phone doesn’t even have a ToDo list, much less a crappy one! The iPhone would be a $500 downgrade for GTDers who want to run local organization applications. Chances are, though, that an excellent set of organizational applications will accompany the new G3 phone this summer, and blow away Palm’s family of devices. As annoying as Apple is, I won’t shed any tears.

Tags: Tech // 2 Comments »