(-: New Uploads to Flickr :-)

47 shots from the last two months. The arrival of spring for the most part. I've got three more batches to look over. For every twenty I posted nearly one shot. Cut pretty deep and despite the weather this spring I did well. Wanted some trees in bloom and I got'em a plenty. I'm a little tired of daffodils and tulips so they less prevalent. A few odds and ends photos like above are coming too. Good to get mostly caught up.

Philadelphia and the Tyler Arboretum are up next.

I Haz Google Famous Toes

Looking around my Flickr stats I made a curious discovery; my jammed toes photo is the number one Google image search result for jammed toes. Still makes me wince thinking about that injury. Took months before I was fully healed.

Strange Google search results as it's a mix of injury and foot fetish imagery. I still much prefer my shot of my jammed toes and my cat. Google results get fuzzy when it's jammed toes and cat. Mostly cat feet but it's still rather odd.

Bloggy Update

About time too... I never intended to take March and April off but that's what happened. What's happening now is that I've finished moving my photoblog from wordpress back to blogger! Yay.

Summary is that wordpress.com has several tiers of blog design avalible. You pay for CSS which grants you the ability to modify the CSS of all the templates available on wordpress.com. Unfortunately for me the number of one column templates was limited and then each template was hamstrung in one way or another. I'm not complaining but Blogger offered the better non web host option. Now Wordpress.org is a whole other matter but I have no desire to get a web host at this time. I've mothballed my wordpress.com blog.

Back to Blogger. I've lots of issues with the XML blogger requires you to design templates with. The number one issue for me is that the Blogger available templates are so old and so highly modified that learning new Blogger's XML is difficult. The starting point is way over developed. Took me a while to see that.

Not fond of Blogger's labels - followers - ratings - the tiny update form - the blog widget. I set all that aside and just made a template and then I made it do what I needed. Turned out rather well.

My new photoblog template is a simple one column and I've only modified the Blog widget. It's lean compared to this monster here. In the coming days I plan to add back the silly Blogger color/font controls and then I'll offer it to any one who wants it. Big photos rule.

Anyhow, that's my Bloggy update.

tags: bloggy update

Welcome Ghostery!

To my Firefox addons :-) Given my stance on web advertising, Ghostery is a welcome addition to both adblock and flashblock. While Ghostery does not block advertising elements, it does inform on the presence of tracking services deployed on various website.

My AVG virus scan already informs me of tracking cookies but detection of the tracking scripts is something new to me. Still not sure what to make of the various tracking services. Some are tied to advertising and some are part visitor tracking and others are just counters. Interesting mix.

The mischief maker in me would like to see Ghostery grow into a blocking tool. Not along the lines of an adblock, flashblock or a cookie block but a selective block. I’d like the ability to favor one tracking service over another. I can do so in adblock but it’s somewhat abstract. I allow Google’s adsense to be displayed in my browser for example.

I’d like the ability to easily reject tracking by certain services. Introduce a level of competition to those companies who employ tracking. The web advertising debate seems too black and white. For it or against it. I’d like to see web tracking advertising companies competing against another in my browser window!

We see the results of the struggles facing web advertising companies every quarter but there is a little battle going on everytime I visit a webpage. I’d like to play that game rather than block every instance of online advertising. Favor Google’s advertising over AOL and then let in a little Yahoo. Something like Ghostery could do that instead of blocking all.

May the most user friendly, privacy inclined win.

Life Imitates…

more icanhascheezburger

Technorati Tags: icanhascheezburger

Obama Cat Rides Again

Just a little fun with Obamicon.Me. The site does require you to pony up an email if you want to easily grab your creation. Not sure what’s more labor intensive, registering for a site or processing a screen shot. Oh wait, this is labor intensive.

And in case you are wondering, Pickle cat is Obama Cat.

Technorati Tags: obamicon,obama cat

New Additions to the Feed Reader

Some discoveries too. First up the new additions. Government feeds, specifically the “new” government. Yup, I’m no longer leery of .gov

usa.gov has a feed. Not just any feed but a newsgator power round up of rss feeds from multiple federal agencies. A bit overwhelming but it’s worth following as I’m picking up new specific agency feeds.

Today’s Document from the National Archives.
U.S Census Bureau – New on the Site.

More for the feed reader and I’m sure there will be more goodies as .gov opens up.

On the subject of feed reader I’ve discovered why I can’t make most of my Google Reader subscriptions public! Google won’t pass the label/tag structure I use. I grouped my feeds in Bloglines like this: Blogs | Design. The spaces or the “|” or a combination make Google choke. I’ve a lot of renaming of label/tag to do in order to clear that up.

So far I can’t seem to figure out how to change an existing label or tag in Google reader. I can delete a tag/label but not edit one. I’m considering exporting as OPML, making the changes in notepad, and then importing the new OPML. Probably best to export/import.

Technorati Tags: feeds,.gov,rss,google reader

Miro 2.0 :-)

Yay! The new Miro is almost here. Pre-launch testing so it’s nearly ready. No troubles with my install or usage tonight. Miro is the app if you want to watch video on your time and not in the web browser. Huge improvement over the current version of Miro. I’m happy.

Search is very much improved and it now gives you a bit of a clue as to what/where the video is located. Helpful that. It’s so hard to find RSS enabled video feeds as so many sites are using flash for page views with inserted video adverts. Love to see a add your own search engine like Vuze offers.

Miro is bit-torrent download which makes it similar to Vuze except the RSS really works well for frequently updated video content. I’ve got my feeds all imported into Miro 2.0 and added a bunch more for good measure.

Veoh is driving me nuts with it’s hamstrung approach to both bit-torrent and RSS. I joined it as a Stage6 replacement but it’s never really fulfilled that want. There are still a few video enabled RSS feeds on Veoh but they’ve pulled way back in favor of page views.

You can’t even get the Howcast vids through Veoh but you can get them in Miro via RSS on the Howcast website. Since I just want photography videos from Howcast I’m subscribed using Miro to a specific Howcast RSS feed. Simple and I can download the videos at my leisure which also means I can watch them anywhere.

I convert my downloaded vids to 3gp and then load them onto my phone’s memory card. I can watch my video anywhere. Still pretty simple as often enough I’m miles away from video in a web browser. Miro rocks.

Technorati Tags: miro,video,veoh sucks

Stargate: Universe

One of My Big Announcements for January « Whatever

Uggh. Just when I've completely given up on the SciFi Channel they throw this into the mix. I was so done with the whole Stargate thing. SG-1 ran it’s course and then ran it again. Stargate Atlantis had it’s moments but I never really watched it like SG-1. Now this announcement.

Ok, I’ll commit to watch as the last season of Battlestar Galactica might suck.

Technorati Tags: scifi,tv,it's cold

Flickr Image Test

Just a test of a Flickr plugin for Windows Live Writer. So far the only annoyance I've spotted in Live Writer is the use of the <p> tag to format posts. Not a huge issue but it does mean I’ll need to craft some CSS for the tag. I’ve not used <p> in ages.

The “Blog This” Firefox extension from Microsoft is a bust. Not compatible with FF 3.0.5. There is another extension (non Microsoft) and I’ll try that another day.

The Flickr plugin does not require me to grant access to Flickr or log in. Just needs my Flickr screen name and then searches out my photo stream. Nice and simple as I don’t need to fret the security of the plugin.

Technorati Tags: windows live writer,blogger,flickr

Windows Live Writer

Testing out Windows Live Writer as a way to skip the Blogger home page.

For a while I used ScribeFire but it seemed like it was constantly updating. I love Firefox extensions but too many updates from an extension tends to frustrate me given how you need to relaunch the browser. Been stuck looking at the Blogger home page ever since.

Not pretty. At some point Blogger allowed one to hide blogs listed so I took advantage of that to hide all the private test blogs I keep. Cool. Then “followers” showed up. Creepy green people icons and the number of followers. Yuck.

I’m not using the Blogger “follower” widget so why do I need the follower information? A Google Analytics expression would serve me better on the Blogger home page. There is also some kinda “follower” reader thing below my listed blogs. No. I don’t need another RSS reader, I need a new interface.

Enter Windows Live Writer!

So far I like what I see. Clean interface, spell chicken, a plugin for Flickr. Lots of plugins but they all look a bit dated. I can add technorati tags. Neat – I’ll be using windows live writer when I blog now.

No more creepy green follower icons.

Technorati Tags: blogger,windows live writer

The Blue Hour

The Blue Hour. Hurmph. I always thought twilight was part of the Golden Hour but it appears there is another hour after the golden hour. The first link takes you to a site where you can find the time when the blue hour appears in your location. I have another method though.

Weather Underground.

Search for your Zip Code. Visit your weather page. Scroll down to the Astronomy zone and you'll get the times for sunrise, sunset and something called civil twilight aka, the blue hour. You also get moon rise times and moon set times.

tags: blue hour

Snow?

If you are looking for my Round Robin, it's posted here. Feline and Furball Friday with Feathers is here.

Pickle cat is doing well and demolishing bowl after bowl of cat food. Switching gears from concern over his kidney function to getting some weight back on the cat. Unfortunately for Pickle doing both is not realistic. The cat is happy with the change in diet.

I was promised snow today. It's Saturday and I can enjoy the snow only if it falls from the sky.

tags: snow?

Thanks

Pickle cat is doing well although stressed out from the vet. Blood work in a few days but we've done this before. I'm not expecting anything other than a continued decline in kidney function. Pickle's weight is decreasing so he's going back on a mix of wet and dry k/d. While the wet food is ideal, he simply does not eat enough of it to maintain his weight. Dry k/d may hasten his decline but so will continued weight loss.

No easy choices but he's a seventeen year old cat. Lots of fight in him though and I'm happy about that. Pickle cat wants to stick around. He's stable for now, so I wait now and see what the tests turn up.



tags: thanks