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Announcing DailyTasks 0.1

Published

1 year, 9 months ago

in Programming and Unix / Linux / *BSD software

. 2 Comments

A few minutes ago, I submitted my first piece of software to Freshmeat (it hasn’t been approved yet; it will probably take a few hours): DailyTasks. It’s a small utility, written in PHP, with both a command line mode and a web interface, which, surprisingly enough, reminds you of daily tasks.

The web page linked above tells the “story” in more detail, but, basically, I’m much too chaotic to use traditional task management programs (every time I tried, I seemed to spend more time updating tasks than actually doing them), but I wanted something to remind me, every day, of doing something — from “clean up GMail’s spam folder” through “update a blog” to “do the laundry, if necessary”. There was already a similar program (frequent-task-reminder), but it lacked some features that I wanted (such as non-accumulating tasks), and so I wrote my own.

It’s really basic stuff, with no bells and whistles, and the PHP code would probably scare you, so impressionable young people should avoid looking at it. But maybe — just maybe — you’ll find it useful.

More about tidying up HTML

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Blogging, Blogging software and Unix / Linux / *BSD software

. 0 Comments

If you’re curious about the last post…

I accept that making some HTML code validate in validator.w3.org shouldn’t be the be all, end all of the problem. A piece of code can validate and yet be… horrible. On the other hand, a piece of code may not validate because of a minor problem, and yet be better than 99% of what you see out there.

Still, that applies mainly to your code. What if you’re aggregating other people’s code? What if they’re using bad HTML, which their blogging systems (mostly Blogger or WordPress) automatically converts to a feed, which is then converted back to (simplified) HTML by a Planet? And what if you want all of that to validate?

Well, tidy works very well; it fixes the worst problems, mainly, badly nested code, and unclosed tags. But… well, if you’re being pedantic (like the W3 validator is), then there are still problems.

They’re mostly one of the following: 1) img tags without an “alt” attribute, and 2) proprietary attributes.

tidy, by default, doesn’t deal with those (since its point is for you to correct your code, and those problems should really be fixed in the code itself). But you can make it do so.

How? Well, here’s the command line I’m using for Planet Atheism:

/usr/local/bin/tidy -wrap 79 -m -i -utf8 --alt-text "" --drop-proprietary-attributes 1 -asxhtml filename

It should be obvious what each parameter does. The “ alt-text "" ” part adds some empty alt text to any img tag that hasn’t got one. The “--drop-proprietary-attributes 1” part removes those weird attributes inside other tags, which make the W3 validator choke. I don’t want them anyway, since a Planet site is supposed to display a basic version of a post — not a Flash-y, YouTube-d, animated one.

The result is: complete W3 validation, and readable code. From many other blogs, by many different authors. Automatically. What more could anyone want?

Adventures with moonmoon and tidy

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Blogging, Programming, Systems administration and Unix / Linux / *BSD software

. 1 Comment

As I’ve mentioned here before, for Planet Atheism I’m using moonmoon, mostly because 1) everyone else uses planetplanet, and 2) it’s in PHP instead of Python, and I know a little PHP.

moonmoon is still on version 0.2, however, and, while it removes “dangerous” tags from feeds automatically, it doesn’t (yet?) deal with unclosed tags. As most of PA’s members are as far from being geeks as possible, they tend to use WYSIWYG editors, and aren’t really worried about “validating HTML”. So, from time to time, a post would make every other post after it show in bold or italic. Annoying, to say the least.

Yesterday, it was even worse: some posts “spilled over” to the sidebar. And it wasn’t just one post causing it, but two, from different blogs, at the same time!

Well, enough was enough.

“Fixing” moonmoon (or, more precisely, SimplePie) was out of the question; I simply don’t know enough PHP / XML parsing to do it. But I tried something else: I saved the generated HTML to a file on the site’s directory, and used tidy on it. Surprise: this new version was perfect! So, I got the idea of using tidy on the generated HTML every time.

Now, PHP has a tidy module, but in PHP5 I would have to compile PHP by hand. Ubuntu doesn’t have a package for that module, unfortunately, and I really didn’t want to make an exception from using apt packages on that server. So, I had to find another way.

My solution was to dump all the page into a buffer (using the ob_ functions in PHP), save it to a temporary file, use the system command to apply tidy on it, load the altered file, and show it to the browser. It’s probably not very efficient, but it works… better than I expected, too. It may be a crude solution, but I’m proud of it anyway.

Dealing with a PHB

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Fun stuff

. 0 Comments

Dilbert (unlike, say, Wally) tends to be quite naive from time to time, but for once he achieved true genius.

Twitter

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Fun stuff, Miscellaneous stuff and World Wide Web

. 0 Comments

I know, I know, Twitter is last week’s news, so I’m late. Sue me.

Twitter is a system where you can tell, easily and quickly (for instance, by instant messaging, or cell phone), what you’re doing. You can also “follow” other users.

Anyway, I just joined. My username is “Dehumanizer”; feel free to add me (I like to convince myself that people are actually interested :)).

Twitter, at first glance, looks a little fun (it’s a new thing, after all), but completely useless, and even a bit self-masturbatory. However, looking at how other people use it, I’ve found that it’s not just for telling the world about useless stuff like “I’m going to the toilet”. People are using it as a mini-blog of sorts - with quick 1-2 line posts. Unlike a “normal” blog post, a Twitter post is so short that you can simply write something you’ve just thought or done, without interrupting your normal flow.

It’s also a way to, in a way, keep in touch with people, even if you don’t usually talk to each other, such as former co-workers.

Anyway, we’ll see if I keep using it or not. I probably will, but not “religiously”.

WordPress 2.1

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Blogging and WordPress

. 1 Comment

It’s out. It’s got some very interesting new features.

Upgrading my blogs was, again, a piece of cake. I just checked whether the plugins I use have been tested as working; luckily, all of them were. I also used this excuse to update a couple of them to the most recent version (which is almost always a good idea).

WordPress is really a great piece of software. I know it’s “unfashionable” to say that some software is good or bad, as it looks like you’re somehow biased, but I’ve used other alternatives before, and WP is nowadays really, really good. I’d choose Drupal for a more “serious” site, but, for a blog, WP simply can’t be beaten, nowadays.

Does belonging to a ‘Planet’ site increase or decrease traffic?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 3 Comments

A question that arose among members and possible members of my new Planet Atheism is this: won’t people start reading my writings through the Planet, and never visit my blog again? In other words, won’t it reduce traffic?

Traffic is important to many kinds of blogs (and sites in general). Maybe you are supported by ads, either as a main source of income, or just as a little extra cash every month. Maybe your blog is more about the comments than the posts themselves. Maybe it has other interactive features, which won’t be seen by anyone reading it through the “Planet”.

So, the question makes sense.

My own experience of being a part of a Planet — in this case, Planeta Asterisco, which aggregates this very blog — has always been positive. It hasn’t made me “famous” , but I notice that I get readers from the aggregator, that other members themselves sometimes comment on my posts, and so on.

But you can consider the following factors:

losing any traffic should be incredibly rare, if it happens at all. Any regular readers you already have will probably keep reading your blog the way they’re used to.
belonging to a Planet will increase your readership; depending on the Planet’s success, it may increase it a lot. An increased readership, even if many of them don’t actually visit your blog frequently, has many advantages; among others, they are likely to link to any posts of yours they find interesting. And comment on them (which, incidentally, means they visit your blog after all). You also begin to slowly build a “name” for yourself.
you can gain a lot in terms of search engine optimization (SEO). The aggregator includes permanent links to your blog, and to each individual post. Since many of the Planet’s members will also link to the Planet itself, it will probably soon be very well positioned in terms of SEO, making links from it valuable. As a result, you get more visitors from search engines.
you get other members of the Planet as regular readers (since most tend to read the Planet themselves). They all have blogs about (mostly) the same subject as yours, which increases the likeliness of they expanding on your posts in their own blogs, linking to yours. Again, more readers (coming from their blogs), and SEO gains (because of the links).
if you’re afraid of being part of an aggregator, then you should be afraid of having an RSS feed at all, shouldn’t you?

Tip: give your blog’s readers a way to contact you

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 1 Comment

A few days ago, I created a “planet” site, Planet Atheism, aggregating (guess what) atheism-related blogs. Since everyone uses Planet (or “planetplanet”, a much cooler name IMO), I decided to be different just for the heck of it, and use moonmoon (also a great name! :)). It’s still early in development, but it does exactly what I want, and couldn’t be simpler to configure.

From the start, I made it my policy not to add any blog’s feed to PA without express permission from the blogger, even though I could — both technically, and legally — do so. Therefore, I posted about it in Way of the Mind, and I’ve also been contacting the owners of other atheist blogs, asking their permission.

Or… trying to. Because it’s amazing how many blogs — especially Blogger ones — don’t have any sort of contact information available. Not an email address, not a contact form. Nothing. The only way to contact them is to post an off-topic comment on the newest post — something that is annoying and can even been seen as rude. Therefore, except in some particular cases, I have been avoiding it. Yet, it’s either that, or nothing.

People, having some form of contact info is important. It avoids having unrelated garbage in your comments. It makes your blog look more “professional” (which is important if you’re trying to establish yourself as an authority in some subject, though I’m sure some Portuguese bloggers will now cry that they don’t want their blogs more “professional”, that they just blog for fun, and that anyone who blogs for any other reason is a dirty money-grubbing bastard. Sigh.) Along with an “about me” page (also important), it “humanizes” you; suddenly, you’re not just some generic blogger, but a real person, in the mind of your readers.

If you’re worried about email spam (a legitimate concern), there are many ways to disguise your address so that spam bots can’t get it. Or use some contact form which doesn’t reveal your address at all. But don’t just “hide” from your readers just because you’re afraid of spam.

WordPress 2.0.6 FeedBurner fix

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 11 months ago

in Blogging and WordPress

. 1 Comment

WordPress 2.0.6, released a couple of days ago, has a bug that causes FeedBurner, from time to time, to be unable to download the feed correctly.

Mark Jaquith, one of the WP developers, has a fix. It’s a simple patch, though he also provides a fully updated functions.php file.

Aviva Directory: 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 11 months ago

in Blogging

. 2 Comments

Usually, I try to avoid short posts of the “look at this cool page!” kind, because a blog full of those, usually, has little original content. But, from time to time, there’s something so good out there that not linking to it would be a crime.

Here’s one: 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch, at Aviva Directory.

Despite the title, the tips aren’t restricted to a blog’s launch; some of them are surely of use to many an experienced blogger.

Nintendo Wii: first impressions

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 11 months ago

in Console games and Consoles

. 6 Comments

NOTE: the following is translated and adapted from a post of mine on the Nintendo DS - Portugal forum.

I have it at home, since yesterday.

I’ve been playing with it for several hours, now. Unfortunately, my brother (who is the one who bought it for me; I wasn’t in the country on release day) was only able to buy the basic package: the console itself, Wii Sports, one wiimote and one nunchuk.

I haven’t been able to explore Wii Sports thoroughly, as my TV is in my bedroom, and the bed is in the way. I’m going to move the TV to the living room today or tomorrow, hopefully. I’ve won a couple of tennis games (which is much more fun than you’d imagine), but the “real thing” will be when I can play with more room, and with more people (which will require more wiimotes, and they’re completely sold out right now).

Besides disk-based games, the Wii supports several channels, and can go online. Connecting it to the Internet was extremely easy; there were no compatibility problems with my Linksys WRK54G router, which I already use for the Nintendo DS. The wireless range seems to be better than that of the DS, and it now supports WPA encryption (which I’m not using, though, because of the DS - only WEP there). As soon as you go online, the console updates its firmware, which takes a little while, but no effort at all.

News and weather channels are available on the channel selection screen, but they’re not working yet; according to Wikipedia, they’ll be up and running either this month, or in January. Same thing about the Opera browser, whose release date is apparently December 23.

One of the most interesting channels is, of course, the Virtual Console. Apparently, new games will be released every friday. I’ve already bought a few: Donkey Kong (NES) due to nostalgia (even though it’s a relatively poor version, quite inferior to the original arcade), F-Zero (SNES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Donkey Kong Country (SNES), Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive), Super Star Soldier (PC Engine) and Dungeon Explorer (PC Engine). A special note about Mario 64: I never had an N64, and, though I had already played the game using emulators, and later on the DS, I had never played it using an analog controller (in this case, a GameCube one) until yesterday. And the game really needs one; it’s like I was playing a different game! Moves and tricks that I had to struggle with on the DS come up absolutely naturally here. The N64 version doesn’t include the DS extras (3 new characters, more stars, better graphics), but this game really requires an analog stick…

A couple of PC Engine games support 5 players at a time. Dungeon Explorer is a more complex Gauntlet clone, and Bomberman 93 probably needs no introduction. Since the Wii can only support 4 wiimotes or classic controllers at a time, and up to 4 GameCube controllers, you need to use a combination of both. I have 4 GC controllers, so I will, hopefully, be able to play 5-player Dungeon Explorer after the next lunch here.

One warning: some (not all) NES, SNES and Mega Drive games (not PC Engine, oddly enough) weren’t, originally, properly converted from NTSC (60 Hz) to PAL (50 Hz); they had black borders on the screen, and were about 13% slower than the original versions. Since they’re perfectly emulated here, and the European Wii uses emulated PAL versions, the problem persists. If you’ve played the original versions and were OK with them, you won’t see a difference here, but it’s a pity that Nintendo didn’t do the extra work of fixing this problem… after all, the Wii supports 60 Hz PAL, unlike the original consoles.

And that’s it for now. When they’re available again, I hope to buy Wii Play (which includes an extra wiimote), a second nunchuk, and a couple of classic controllers. As for games, I want Zelda, Red Steel, DBZ: Tenkaichi 2 and Call of Duty 3. It’s likely that I’ll only be able to get most of those next year, though…

The Nintendo Wii

Published

Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 12 months ago

in Console games and Consoles

. 1 Comment

Unlike Ricardo, I am — hopefully — getting a Wii this Christmas. In a few hours, in fact.

I don’t have a pre-reservation, and I won’t be here this weekend; I’m going to Barcelona tomorrow morning — and, by “morning”, I mean before sunrise. I could get one there, of course, but the Spaniards have a nasty habit of translating absolutely everything, so I prefer to get it here. Therefore, my brother will try to buy one at midnight, or tomorrow morning. Which means that, if he succeeds, I won’t get to play it until Sunday or Monday…

Why do I want to get one? Well, I’d get it for Wii Sports alone. Zelda is a bonus. I’m also interested in the Virtual Console; even though emulators and roms are easy to get, having perfect versions (some even slightly enhanced, like the N64 games), playable with gamepads on a TV, is something that you simply can’t get — easily, at least — using emulators on a PC.

Unlike Ricardo, I have exactly zero interest in the PS3; if I was going to buy something like that, I’d go for the Xbox360, which has Dead Rising, the Jeff Minter lightsynth, and which Minter is developing small games for. Besides, Sony is one of the few companies in the world that make Microsoft look ethical…

As for Wii games, there are many more interesting ones than it seems. As I said, Wii Sports is a game I still expect to play 2 years from now. Zelda is Zelda. Then there’s Super Monkey Ball, Call of Duty 3, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Trauma Center, Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi 2, and, coming sometime in the future, Wario Ware, Super Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (zombies!), Metroid Prime 3, Sadness, the inevitable Mario Kart, and many more. There will be new games released for the Virtual Console, too; it won’t just be used for past games. It’s a great time to be a gamer.