Arranged Delirium

So with Facebook no longer publishing RSS feeds, I’ve been prompted to move to a different publishing platform for Arranged Delirium. I’ve been using ExpressionEngine (previously pMachine) for years; but the newer version is simply overkill for a single blog, and unnecessarily complex. So, I’ll be moving to Wordpress over the next month and simply starting up all over again. This will take a bit of time, so activity will be little here for a while…

But it the meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a few things to read:

1) Are you using the latest version of Firefox? It’s a winner. You can read about it at this WebMonkey article, but go download it immediately - it’s the best new browser I’ve worked with for a while. Very quick and now nicely streamlined while maintaining extensive customization abilities. It’s my current browser of choice.

2) Since Steve Jobs’ passing, there have been a good number of items written about him. Some of these, as is the case with history recent or ancient, revisions take place. I think its important to remember the humanity of Steve Jobs - he was, like all of us, a great and terrible person. Here’s an article from Forbes reflecting on the Think Different ad campaign.

3) And finally, thanks to AW for this Slate article which does a very good job of bemoaning the increasing complexity between our competing tech platforms. It’s the 80’s/90’s all over again!

See you in about a month!

I’m continually infuriated with the large media companies and their efforts to control my consumption. If I’ve bought a DVD, I think I should be able to watch it - on any device. I also think I should be able to put it on my computer and watch it in my living room. My thanks to the studios that get this, is truncated by my furry at the more numerous conglomerates which want me to buy multiple copies of the same thing. This effort to protect content really only hurts the honest consumer - the folks stealing content will just continue to do that. It’‘s not an ease-of-use issue (or lack thereof) that inhibits piracy.

Anyway, I think it should be easy to take your DVD’s and put them on your mac. But it seems a bit complicated and if you do some reading through a Google search on this, you can be led down a number of paths that make the process more difficult than it needs to be. Here’s how you do it:

1) Download RipIt and go ahead and pay the Little App Factory for it. You’ll never regret it. If you are pressed for cash, RipIt will run you $25. But you can get all their software as a bundle for $60, and you might be surprised at how much you use it.

2) Download VLC - an open source, cross platform, media player. You can get it here.

3) Start RipIt and put a disc in your machine. Click Rip, and save the files somewhere you’ll remember to look. Then point VLC to the files, and save them to the appropriate format (I’ve been using AppleTV2, but depending on your needs you might want something else.

I see my DVD collection going the way of my CD collection…

Thank you Facebook, for removing the last useful feature (for me at least). Today, FB removed it’s feature for posting RSS feeds via Notes, which was a convenient way for me to post once to my blog and have it posted to FB:

I’m saddened in some sense, because it really does remove that last reason for sticking with Facebook for me. But at the same time, it makes it easier to leave FB forever now. With the absence of the functionality combined with the never-ending privacy concerns, it’s just not worth it. BTW, there’s a recent article at ReadWriteWeb that does a good job of articulating Why Facebook’s Seamless Sharing is Wrong. And, am I really the only one that finds the streaming update feature creepy? It seems excruciatingly easy for that content to be taken out of context (since, in essence, it has none).

Anyway, I’m done with Facebook. I hope you’ll consider joining me on Google+. It’s quiet over there, but perhaps it’ll pick up as others become more active. At least it provides a way to share limited information in ways that I want to. I’ll admit Google+ is still going through its growing pains, but I don’t feel that I need to be constantly on guard to protect the information. I’ll leave a pointer page up on Facebook over the break, but won’t be reading or posting anymore.

A couple of unrelated notes that I’m stuffing together into this one post:

1) I’ve been amazed this term by how few of my students know Jeff Bezos. Here’s a Wired article for the uninitiated. Of course, like most tech leaders, you’ll find both lovers and haters; but if you actually do a little research, you’ll be able to develop an informed opinion…

B) We’ll be talking about CMS software soon, and I was struck by a recent quote from Matt Mullenweg, referring to users of enterprise software: ‘How come the [content management system] that my company spent $4 million for is crappier than the thing I use for my blog, that I pay $12 a year for?’ Good question. You can read more here.

As students in ITL 275 (Web Design and Development) manage to develop more skills, here are a few resources that might prove useful:

1) A list of fonts that play nicely on various platforms. It’s a bit dated, but the screenshots will give you an idea of how different fonts render in different browsers on different platforms.

2) A very nice posting on some of the newer features implemented in CSS3. Keep in mind the Box Model that we discussed in class, and this will all make a bit more sense. PS: He’s wrong about black/white creating eye strain. Well, it does - but it also creates great contrast.

3) Don’t forget your custom favicon. If you want to create a custom image for this, then you can find complete instructions here. For a truly simple experience though, you can’t beat faviconist.com for generating easy text-based favicons.

4) Several folks want to implement button rollover effects. Naturally. One way of doing this(rather old-fashioned) is with javascript. But I think you’re better off using CSS. Here’s a link to a tutorial that you might find useful. If you are willing to implement your photoshop skills, you might try this one instead.