Tempus Fugit Blog
Welcome to Tempus Fugit
Welcome
to Tempus Fugit, Mark Jaquith's weblog: covering topics ranging from
religion, politics and current events to entertainment, technology,
humor, and personal topics. Commenting is encouraged, and frequent
visits will be rewarded... but not here... in Elysium. You should
probably check out the rules if you are unsure about what conduct is allowed here.
This site was recently converted from Movable Type to WordPress. Some features that were previously availible, such as being able to edit your comments are unavailible until I have time to rewrite them. Drop me an email if you find something that isn't working as it should.
- MarkJune 14th, 2004
Here Comes the Spam
I just got my first attempted comment spam since moving to WordPress. I was hoping I could go without implementing a CAPTCHA, but that may just be wishful thinking. This comment spam was caught by WordPress because of the number of links it contained (I have WordPress set to hold on queue any comments with 5 or more hyperkinks), but spammers may become warry of this restriction and start limiting the number of hyperlinks placed in spam comments.
When I get back home, I’ll start working on a CAPTCHA plugin for WordPress. It’ll likely require modifying a line or two of a WordPress file, but I’ll do my best to keep it as simple as possible.
June 11th, 2004
A Free Lunch
My thanks go out to the random careless individual who paid for my lunch by leaving $11.00 on the table at Wendy’s today. Yes… I left the money on the table until I had finished my lunch to be sure they weren’t going to claim it. I even said, “Going once, going twice… a number two biggie sized with a Coke!” Was that wrong of me? Does the amount of money matter? You wouldn’t think twice about picking up a quarter, why should a $10 bill and a $1 bill be any different? Discuss.
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June 8th, 2004
Mobile Version
I’m experimenting with auto-detection of mobile browsers and automatic redirection to a slimmed down version of this site.
Work on the mobile templates is not complete, but I have it up and running. What I really need is some unique text strings that are contained in the HTTP_USER_AGENTs of mobile browsers. I have “PalmOS,” which should get those using Palm Pilots. I’m testing for “AvantGo” which should get Sidekicks as well as a host of other random mobile browsers. And I’m testing for “WAP” which should get some mobile phones. But what I need to know is what other strings I should test for. Particularly, I’d like to know what to use to redirect RIM devices.
If you can offer any help, please leave a comment! If you are using a regular browser and find you are being redirected to the mobile version, leave a commant so and tell me which browser you are using so I can tune the rule. Finally, if you just want to see what it looks like, you can find it at http://mobile.txfx.net/. Note, however, that if you click on any links on the mobile version, you will be directed back to the main version, if you are not using one of the browsers I am checking for. If you are using a mobile browser I support, all WordPress pages starting with http://www.txfx.net/ get redirected seamlessly to http://mobile.txfx.net/
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The Left Button
Note: do not tell bored people sitting in dental chairs that your pants are water resistant. Those air/water tools have quite a range. And although my pants are water resistant, my lab coat sure isn’t.
June 5th, 2004
I have a problem
You might be obsessive-compulsive if:
You mouthwash religiously, and have three mouthwash bottles: the 1 liter size, which you buy in bulk and use to refill the 500ml size bottle whose only purpose is filling the 250ml size bottle, which is the only one you use.
This I realized as this morning both the 250ml and 500ml bottles were empty. I filled the 500ml bottle from the 1 liter bottle, filled the 250ml bottle from the 500ml one, and then topped off the 500ml one with what was left of the 1 liter bottle (for good measure). Please don’t think any less of me. I could certainly stop if I wanted to… … …stop using 3 bottles, that is, by cutting back to two. Not stop mouthwashing. That would be unthinkable.
June 3rd, 2004
On Again, Off Again
Starting tomorrow, I have an 11-day or so temp job that will be taking up most of my time. I’ll do my best to check in here every day or so, but I’m not promising anything.
Show/Hide Comments in WordPress
As more and more people switch over to WordPress, they are wanting some of the features they enjoyed when using Movable Type. Rest assured, there are people working overtime writing plugins. I’ve just now installed a “Subscribe to Comments” plugin by Jenn from ScriptyGoddess (which is in beta right now… keep your shirt on), and I just wrote up an article over there about how to do Show/Hide Comments.
The whole thing is quite lengthy, as I went into detail as to what code you should change, but for people who have a stronger understanding of PHP, I can give you the short version.
Basically, we’re going to harness a variable, $withcomments, that is used as a switch for RSS feeds. It really isn’t used in your main templates, but it suits our purposes here. Since your entire wp-comments.php file is wrapped in an if($single || $withcomments){ conditional, all you have to do is go in and separate code chunks into the stuff that should be shown on an $single page, and the stuff that should be shown on a $withcomments page (dropdown comments, that is.) Any code chunks that should be in both, leave alone.
What you need to do in your index.php template (besides making the links to expand the comments), is set up code near the top that will designate certain types of pages as $withcomments. The simplest form would be this:
if(!$single){
$withcomments = TRUE;
}So every page that isn’t $single will be $withcomments. As you can imagine, you can get much more complex if you like. This was merely an overview of the basic approach. Maybe you’d better just go read the whole thing.
Wow, this comment preview thing is nifty as well… hehe
June 2nd, 2004
Like a Charm
I just chased down the last of the validation errors on this site that were introduced with the WordPress install. The fault wasn’t that of WordPress alone, but was due to the fact that my entries were exported from Movable Type with <p> tags wrapping some stuff, and it lead to some messy interactions. Other validation errors were created because of my nice image macro… WordPress kept trying to close them off with </p> tags. Some of it just required cleaning up the entry, and then I wrote a few search/replace macros to clean up the rest. </blockquote></p> should never happen… ever.
Anyway, I validated my entire site, including comments, by submitting two URIs to the validator. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a picky validator scan through tens of thousands of lines of XHTML and declare it perfect.
I’ve also got a few other things working on here that I think are rather cool.
First off, my 404 page (you know, the one that is generated when you go to a page that doesn’t exist) does a WordPress search. So if you go to http://www.txfx.net/something something something, it’ll search for “something something something.” Let’s test it, shall we? I’m going to type a word that is contained nowhere else on my blog: autochthonous (it was Dictionary.com’s word of the day.) Now, if you go to http://www.txfx.net/autochthonous, you’ll end up right back at this entry. Slick, huh?
Also, you may have noticed that my comments now have live previews (for those of you with JavaScript enabled). I’ve placed it below the textarea so that you are forced to scroll past your comment before you submit it. It even handles markup such as bolding and links! Note that it will display markup that will be stripped out of your submitted comment, so don’t think you can post pictures or anything like that, because you can’t.
Also, stay tuned for a rather cool WordPress plugin that I am writing. Here’s your hint: Hansel and Grettel. (Come on, I know someone got that).
June 1st, 2004
The Movie Forgotten Tomorrow
Ouch. Watch as Richard Roeper rips “The Day After Tomorrow” a new one in his rather amusing review.
That Al Gore is using the film to lambaste President Bush’s environmental policies is like something out of a movie.
A better movie than “The Day After Tomorrow.”
Thanks to Steve for the tip.
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It’s not wrong if you use it to buy me lunch.