Category Archives: Development

Google Analytics – not working for mpomy.com. Yet.

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I realize the point of Google Analytics is to help generate ad revenue, but, as with most of my internet experience, I’m checking it out because I’m curious.  I don’t really need to know about hits and who’s checking in, I’m just curious.  Anyway, the functionality for Blogerantz is great, prbably because that’s also a Google product – Blogger.  The graphs are easy to read, and I can see how using the Twitter tie-in has allowed for a few more hits.

But, for some reason, it’s not working with this site.  Which is OK, because there’s a nifty widget that’s already tracking site usage by the outside world – Counterzeii.  But the appearance and attributes of the Google site is just nicer to look at.  There is, of course, a WordPress widget that plugs into Analytics, but the way I have set up my site is, I think, confusing the counter.  I don’t have everything sitting in an ‘mpomy’ directory, but rather in a WordPress subdirectory – that’s why the main URL is mpomy.com/wordpress.

I’ll fool with it some more and see if I can’t get the thing to work.

Twitter and #racistpool

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I’m happy with recent Twitter integration, but not exactly thrilled with how it has come about.  If you don’t already know about the latest shame of the city, here’s an excellent video posted on Philebrity, and The Inquirer has more conventional coverage.  Philebrity tracked the progress of the story as it spread outside of the local interest by, in part, reviewing the comments posted on Twitter.  So, as I watched the story spread over the course of the day, I saw how people communicated, a little bit of how the @ and # symbols are used, and how a story can spread exponentially.

Currently, I’m tracking (not the pool story, but) lots of Phillies stuff, some music stuff, a few friends and some political things.  It’s a little like the Google Reader, but I’m able to tolerate higher volume because the content is so light – the fabled 140 characters.  With Google Reader, it’s hard not to get sucked in.  Even if the site’s feed is abbreviated, I still can’t help but wonder what I’m missing.  With Twitter, I’m actually seeing the whole thing, because that’s all there is.

I’m afraid of Twitter

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AND, I don’t understand all the functionality.  But that’s not the only reason for my fear.  I have the Facebook-style fear of being hounded by those I don’t know or don’t want to know.  As far as functionality, I’ve had a Twitter account for some time.  I only got it because I wanted to ‘paste my taste’ with Progfreak.com.  It’s supposed to be a place for rating music, but I gave up on that pretty quick.  What I really wanted was to show off what I had been listening to.  Somehow Twitter picked up info coming off last.fm and generated this:

I have no idea how that works, but it does work.

I’m now interested in getting and giving ‘updates’, as I see the way those 140 characters have insinuated themselves into mainstream communication.  And it’s simple and clean, unlike Facebook, which I find complex and annoying.  I think I understand what the ‘@’ is for, but I still don’t understand ‘#’.  I also don’t understand what other things I might be able to do, beyond just making asinine comments and reading other people’s updates.

Crossposting not working anymore?

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hmmm…

What a pain in the ass – I think I’m just going back to the old cut-and-paste mentality. It seems like this crossposting thing should be easier, but everybody’s got different tables and things. Blogger doesn’t want to talk to WordPress; CrossPress only works from the admin account and then doesn’t transfer categories or tags; and to have comments appear on two blogs at once, well you can forget it.

I take it back…

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ReadAir sucks.  I’m going to stick with Google Reader until there is some native app that (a) notifies me when I have new items to look at, and (b)  syncs with Google Reader so that I don’t have ‘unread’ items to look at if I check online from another machine.

It was a good idea, but it didn’t update, it didn’t hide cleanly, it was just too tough.

Adobe Air to the rescue

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I find that, more and more, I depend on rss (or Atom, or xml, or whatever) tp deal with the net.  I like for content providers to tell me when they have something to say, and I don’t want to bother with tweets or Facebook.  I wasvery happy with NetNewsWire, a native application that sat in the dock and and showed the number of unread messages as things got updated.  The problem was that there was no way to read news on a mobile device – I had to have the computer.

I set up a ‘Reader’ account through Gmail, but that created two problems.  Firstly, I had to surf over to Reader in order to see what’s new.  Second, between NetNewswire and Google Reader, I was basically getting two notifications for each news item.  When that’s spread over 20+ subscriptions, that’s inbox overload.

Adobe to the rescue.  Adobe Air is a developer tool that lets web apps run on the computer like they would on the iPhone or iPod Touch.  ReadAir required me to download Air from Adobe and then download the reader app.  It works just like the NetNewswire native app, but it syncs with Google Reader – even to the point of delivery settings and folder management.  Plus, it displays the number of unread messages on the ap icon in the dock.  Problem solved.

Other stuff (not Wayne Shorter-related)

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F1 racing – is getting ready to tear itself apart.  Teams refuse to be subject to standardized technology and budget caps.  To make matters worse, the proposed changes are voluntary, meaning that the 2010 Championship is expected to be a two tiered affair.  I’m very much in favor of some measure of fiscal control on the sport, but standardized technology takes away a key element that is really integral to the tradition and definition of F1 racing.  And a two-tiered championship is absolutely unacceptable.

Phillies – pulled out a nice squeeker tonight.  Hamels gets the win, although it seems he’s not quite as sharp and dominant as he was last year.  Same with Lidge – BIG TIME.  But he did get the save tonight and was a damned entertaining game to listen to.  Franzke is coming into his own (as Scott Graham did, a few years back) on those exciting calls at the end, particularly Lidge’s strikeout for out number two with two on in the bottom of the ninth.  Nice job.

John Scalzi – is a fine SciFi writer, a real professional.  He’s been blogging prolifically since 1998.  That’s some pretty good output for one guy.  Getting the benefit of really good writing on a daily basis is quite a treat.  But when its Scalzi’s twisted sense of humor, well then it’s priceless.  And, hey, it is priceless, totally free!  He recently featured an interview with a stick of butter, and today confronts his inner geek as he contemplates the purchase of a new computer powerful enough to play fancy new games:

As an example of this problem, note the picture above, of CyberPower PC’s “Lan Party Commander.” Leaving aside the name of the PC, which screams “I am encrusted in the residue of Cheetos and Mountain Dew,” this rig is one of the more subtly-designed of the gaming rigs CyberPower puts together, and it still looks like a cooling tower at Chernobyl. If I walk into a room and something is glowing like this thing is, my first instinct is to dive toward the lead shielding.

Read the entire post here.  I particularly like image of him encrusted in the residue of Cheetos.

WordPress – is ready to getting ready to go to 2.8 and only just installed this version (currently I’m using 2.7.1) on March 26.  That’s less than two months ago!  But it’s a dilemna because the last update (that I just installed) was terrific.  Fortunately, it’s still in beta testing, and I’m not feeling that adventurous at the moment.

Mpomy/Blogerantz Artist Of The Week – Wayne Shorter

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It’s a little hard to understand the gravity of this man’s achievment.  He is, without a doubt, one of the most outstanding American composers ever.  He’s up there with Zappa.  He’s that big, but simply doesn’t get the credit, most likely because he has always taken things, especially with his solo albums, in his own direction.  But, besides being singularly unique and enormously influential, he has also managed to create the most delicate, complex and achingly beautiful music I have ever heard.

I am going to try and start something new with Wayne – an ‘artist of the week’ feature.  So I’ll try to share some of my general thoughts and observations on this sight and I’ll post some music over at Blogerantz, and, hopefully, there will be conceptual continuity and rejoicing.

More to come…

I just have to say…

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The design is adapted from a really user-friendly template developed by these folks.  Those nice looking links at the upper left are a bit of a bother, because I kind of let those ‘pages’ get away from me.  The real music content is, of course, over at Blogerantz.  Also, this VodPod thing on the right is going to get on my nerves.  It looks too much like an advertisement, and, unless I’m the guy getting paid, there’s no advertising on this page.  And when I say paid, I mean getting paid real money.

UPDATE: VodPod thingy is gone. That didn’t last long. Maybe I’ll use it on the video pages, but not here on the front.