John Lamansky

A very useful resource for WordPress plugin developers: Browse the WordPress 2.2 source code at PHPXref.com.

I found a webpage with some nice-looking animated GIF free public domain progress bars and activity indicators. (Wow, how many adjectives is that?) If you’re into AJAX development (or dabbling in it, like me), these little images will probably come in handy at some point.

Yep, I’ve decided that Kubrick just won’t cut it. The reason is that it isn’t “brandable.” So many sites have Kubrick that you can’t really tell them apart if you just look at the layout.

The reason I stuck with Kubrick in the first place was that I couldn’t find another theme I really liked. So I think what I’m going to do is design a new theme from scratch.

Of course, this will take a while, so keep an eye out for it in a couple of months.

FeedBurner recently released FeedFlare Phase 2. FeedFlares are links that allow blog readers to, in short, do stuff with blog posts, such as email the post to others or find Technorati links for that post. Phase 1 allowed FeedFlare links on XML feeds, and now Phase 2 allows FeedFlare links on blog posts themselves.

At first I put the FeedFlares at the bottom of my post and got all excited. “Wow, that’s awesome.” Then I wanted to tinker with it. I didn’t like those bullet points between the links and wanted to replace them with pipes, ala WordPress style.

However, the FeedFlare code that I’m supposed to put in my blog template is JavaScript, so I can’t customize the HTML directly. Hmm… that means “some CSS modification required.” Well, that’s okey-dokey with me, but this looks like CSS3 modification required, which I am quite certain will not work with Internet Explorer. Though Mozilla Firefox is superior in my opinion, Internet Explorer is what most people use. In addition, the FeedFlares are wrapped around a <p> tag, which will not be ideal for some cases in which I want to use the FeedFlares.

I finally got fed up with FeedFlare and made my own links. Things like “email this post” or “add to del.icio.us” are easy to do. Check my links out at the bottom of this post (assuming you’re reading this post directly at the site). And I recommend you also avoid FeedFlare unless you’re happy with how it looks, you’re willing to use some CSS3, or if HTML to you stands for “Hard To Me, it Looks.”

Where oh, where oh, is that John?
I wonder, wonder where he’s gone.
The haven’t been many posts lately.
Nope nope, not a single one
(well, except for a post about a rotten potato or something like that…)

The main reason I haven’t been posting much lately is because I haven’t had the time - I was working on version 3 of the Disciples with Microphones website. But now the new version is done, and now I have much more time to devote to my other hobbies and projects, such as blogging! Be sure to check out the site and the great Catholic podcasts there!