Category Archives: Tech Opinion

Breadcrumb NavXT: Remove category

Posted on October 4, 2011 by W

If you’re using the breadcrumb navxt plugin and trying to remove categories from showing up, such as Home -> Blog -> Uncategorized -> Post Title (a common request), you have to do a bit of trickery to accomplish this. You can either add a class to the category breadcrumb and style it accordingly in CSS, or you can just hide it all together. To add a CSS class, you will go to the Breadcrumbs Nav XT options page and add a class: If you want to hide it all together, add style=”display:none;” instead:

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How I think Quicksilver Should Utilize “Recent Items”

Posted on September 14, 2011 by W

So I have a trigger for Quicksilver that is Cmd+shift+Space which brings up a list of my most recent objects and items. This is pretty cool and helpful – set it up in the catalog if you don’t have it already. That’s great because most of the time you will use the same files and folders several times when working on something. But often times I want to compile, collect, and aggregate stuff – and I think this is where Quicksilver has a downside that could really be improved. This is what Quicksilver shows when I look in my downloads folder: What I would like to see is a way to select an item as normal in the first pane, choose the action in the second pane, and when a file is required, have the ability to see / choose the recent items as well as searching in the third pane. It might look something like this: Is that so hard?

Posted in Mac, Tech Opinion, Tech Tips | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Wayne Johnson Scam / 206-337-3198

Posted on August 2, 2011 by W

It seems Wayne Johnson is sending scam messages. Message Example 1: Good day, we require to know if you can supply some cabinetry for us.We’ll like to know the types and dimensions of cabinetry that you do have in your outfit so that we can make a choice,and also advise if you accept credit card as a form of payment,wish you all the best in business and we’ll be looking forward on hearing from you soon. best regards Wayne Johnson Message Example 2 Reported here via Laura Thomas. Laura says: I have gotten quite a few emails from this person. The phone numbers are bogus, and I am pretty sure that he has been wasting my time for a week trying to get some kind of information from me. From: wayne johnson [mailto:wayne.johnson65@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 4:59 PM To: ALM Fine Cabinetry Subject: Re: product info Sounds good.I will like you to use the details below and prepare a formal quote for us so that we can proceed further : New Mission Foundation Center (newly established) 1006 Meadowlane Dr. Sturgis,MI,49091 P : 248-562-8725 F : 206-337-3198 Wayne Johnson 620 S Amos Ave Springfield, IL 62704 P : 626-692-8364 We’re working on a commercial project,these units are going to be shipped to one of our newly established project branch located in Singapore and we’ll be recommending you with a freight company to come and pick the units at your location.What lead time are we looking at.How long have you … Continue reading →

Posted in Marketing, Tech Opinion | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Google Bans Adwords use for Facebook

Posted on July 26, 2011 by W

You can no longer use Google Adwords to advertise things on Facebook. If you have anything that is related to Facebook and want to promote it, you will first need to get it approved by the Adwords team. I learned about this from a friend who has founded a social media marketing company who was trying to do some advertising. He sent me a transcript of the phone conversation he just had with a Google Adwords representative so I could share it here. Caller: Hello, I am calling because I received a promotion to advertise our company on Adwords. Google Adwords Rep: Hello, let me just get your name, email address, and website please. Caller: ____, _____, and _____. Google Adwords Rep: What is it that your company does? Caller: We assist small businesses establish an effective presence on Facebook and Twitter. Google Adwords Rep: Alright well I will actually have to check with my higher up to get this approved because we recently stopped running Adwords for Facebook. Caller: You did? Why? Google Adwords Rep: Yes, well we are currently in a fierce legal battle with Facebook so we have started screening our Adwords. We are turning down adwords that promote Facebook. I will email you within the next two days to let you know whether or not your Adwords campaign is approved. Maybe that fierce legal battle, which they are not discussing the details of, is related to Facebook’s advertisements, or the new Google Plus One service, which looks very … Continue reading →

Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Tech Opinion | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Playstation Accounts Compromised – April 2011

Posted on May 1, 2011 by W

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer: We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have: 1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services; 2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and 3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information. We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable. Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be … Continue reading →

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Dropbox Command Line Interface (CLI)

Posted on April 9, 2011 by W

Dropbox has some great functionality for their Unix client: Dropbox command-line interface commands: Note: use dropbox help to view usage for a specific command. status get current status of the dropboxd help provide help puburl get public url of a file in your dropbox stop stop dropboxd running return whether dropbox is running start start dropboxd filestatus get current sync status of one or more files ls list directory contents with current sync status autostart automatically start dropbox at login exclude ignores/excludes a directory from syncing Unfortunately this functionality is not extended to Mac OS X (Dropbox.app) or Windows (dropbox.exe). To show your support for this feature request, please vote it up here: https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/2713/command-line-interface or visit this thread and make your argument and/or show your support: http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=29158

Posted in Software, Tech Opinion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hybrid Drives aren’t much faster

Posted on November 30, 2010 by W
Hybrid Drives aren't much faster

According to recent benchmarking hybrid hard drives are not significantly faster than their 7200rpm 8mb cache cousins. Users may see some performance increases, especially on write times, but the hybrid drives are not yet anywhere as fast as the Solid State Drives (SSD).

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Good Practices in PHP

Posted on December 25, 2009 by W

Here are a few tips for those of you who’d like to write good code in PHP: Set up a Development Server Set up a development server or sandbox. Don’t write, test, or develop code on a production server. If you are a *nix user, you probably already have a LAMP environment on your own computer. If you are a Windows user, try XAMPP or WAMPSERVER (personal favorite). If you are on mac, try MAMP. As you develop your PHP, you will need to be learning about the environment which it runs in, and the settings that will affect your code and/or application. This is a journey, so don’t expect to master it all at once. You will get into things like virtual hosts, .htaccess files, rewrite rules, and file permissions. Turn on Error Reporting At least, on your development server. On your production site, turn off displaying errors, but have them sent to a file. Check this file periodically as it will show you what unexpected things are happening in your code. Do’s and Don’t’s Don’t use short codes. They take longer to type, but PHP will be moving away from them in future versions. Also, the <? syntax can be mistaken for XML. Examples of short codes include <? instead of <?php, and also the syntax <?= $var ?> which is the easy way of writing <?php echo $var; ?> Do use comments and document your code. Don’t use a closing ?> at the end of your PHP files. … Continue reading →

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WPtouch iPhone Theme

Posted on December 23, 2009 by W
WPtouch iPhone Theme

“With a single click, WPtouch transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android or BlackBerry touch mobile device.” Basically, this plugin will take your WordPress 2.7+ blog and check the HTTP headers to find out if the user’s browser is a mobile phone or iPhone, etc. Then, instead of serving up your normal theme, s/he is given a cool iPhone style interface to navigate your blog. It’s really quite cool and it takes care of some issues regarding small screen size browsing. It didn’t disable some of my plugins, however, which use javascript, (for example, the snow falling script) which seem to give the iPhone’s processor  a little bit of trouble (lots of math for that script). Over, I like it.

Posted in Design, Tech Opinion, Web Development | Tagged , , | Leave a comment