Here and There

As Scott mentioned in comment on my last post, WordPress released their mobile iPhone app today. Using it to write this post. How meta.

I think I’ve added a photo from my phone’s library. No positioning available. Not much by way of settings, but the preview function works well, albeit sans photo.

Overall, i’m happy with this.

God, I almost think they should be bound to keep it up.

I’m a borderline OCD sufferer, sure. But I realize how dependent I’ve become on certain blogs when their keepers go on vacation.

Case in point: Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, perhaps my favorite for the moment. Sullivan, like most responsible bloggers, has left his baby in good, trusted hands. But it’s just not the same.

I’m not totally in love with Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix, but he’s got that damn photo of himself in a hammock up while his minions simply post open threads on a daily basis. Fine. Rub it in, Craig and Co.

I’m not always appreciative of the amazing Jason Kottke’s choice of substitute. The exception would be the last time he went away (can’t find that person’s name, and am in a hurry to pack bags and get out of here).

But yeah. That’s all. And not that I have any fans or devotees on this level, but here I am bailing out for a little more than a day. Don’t miss me.

A blog can be proud of itself, eh? I mean, I’m sitting on top of Apple.

Like many bloggers, I live for comments. I don’t get nearly as many as I’d like, and that may easily be because of my inability to mentally stimulate.

But I’d also like to think that part of it is the extra step of having to register (for some), log in, then type a comment and save.

Well …

I’ve just made things a lot easier (I think, anyway): I activated the reCAPTCHA plugin, which allows readers such as yourself to enter a name, email (kept private), website if you’d like, your comment, and which then requires you to type words rendered as images. CAPTCHA, in case you didn’t know, is simply a way for applications to tell humans from computers. Not too many computers are sophisticated enough (yet) to look at a word rendered as an image and then type it out in actual text. Humans can do that. Yay humans!

Having people register and log in to comment is a blog setting I chose awhile ago as a way to prevent the copious amounts of spam I was receiving (and continue to receive, though it’s blocked). With reCAPTCHA, I no longer need such a barrier.

So hopefully removing that requirement will generate more and more comments on this here blog, and we’ll all have a happy new stop on the internets highway.

Happy commenting!

Used WordPress’s backend to post that first blog post from the iPhone. Everything worked fine, except when I went to add categories. There was no scroll bar to scroll down my list of available categories, so I had to choose only from the first five or six that showed up.

Hmph … where is mobile MarsEdit when you need it?

Yes, I’m breaking somewhat of a cardinal sin of this blog, but I’ve got to get some of this down. I’m planning to buy the iPhone 3G on Saturday morning, breaking my contract with Verizon, and, well, seeing whether my life will indeed change with this seemingly awesome gadget.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you here, but I have a feeling I may become about as obsessed with the phone as I was Obama a few months back.

How you say, ennui??

Like this reader of Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, I’ve been wondering whether I should (can?) take a break from politics for a while.

I started trying to think what exactly my life is all about those 3.5 years between presidential cycles. Sure, I have interests. Takes a little effort to remember what they are, but they’re there.

But what I keep coming back to is this: At least in this time, politics is more than a hobby. I’ll be the first to admit: It’s an obsession. When I set out to get back to what it was I was doing before this all began (read: January 3, 2008), I arrive at this very thing. It’s not a distraction.

So, as much as I will try to post items to Here and There like I used to (more on the ridiculous, nonpolitical side of things), you’re still gonna find political news, commentary, links, and plenty of polling data here in these pixels over the next five months.

As the cheese-eating surrender monkeys* say, “C’est la vie!”

* Thx: John Cole

I just finished creating and loading a link category, News I can use.

I’ll keep adding to it as the days and weeks and months of ridiculosity from Hillary Clinton’s and other public figures’ mouths continue to pour forth.

For now, though, I’m headed south to Central California Coast wine country. I’m sure in my absence, huge news will cross.

See you Monday evening. “Happy holiday” seems inappropriate for Memorial Day, so my message is, just be good.

I don’t mean to hurt this blog’s feelings, but when I’m browsing through content in my Google Reader, I often see things I want to share with friends, but not necessarily add here as link recs.

I discovered today, however, that I can link the world (or at least my faithful readers here) to my shared items. Not sure how new of a feature this is, but there you go.

A link to my Google Reader shared items now appears under Misc. on the left nav bar (scroll down if you don’t see it now). Here’s another link.

Oh how I love the Google.

I’m announcing something breathtaking. Hold onto your hats.

I’m moving on past Hillary Clinton, past the primary season, and into general election mode.

I’m taking my candidate’s lead and focussing on John McCain.

I’m making a pledge to myself and to my readers that the next time you see Hillary’s name after this instance, it will be when she drops out. This will be the last post in the HIllary Clinton category until then.

Three out of four post headline words are plural. Rad.

Okay, while I’m dorking out, how the hell did I miss this? I feel like my sweetheart did something really awesome, won a Pulitzer or something, and I wasn’t informed.

Anyway, yes, the Goog has election results. You can view results by state and many other criteria.

Oh, and it’s a Google Gadget, so you can add it to your page. Which I may just do …

From The Onion, Researchers Discover Massive Asshole in Blogosphere.

Debuting a new feature today, one that I’ll try to keep doing fairly regularly, as it seems my readership is increasing slowly but steadily. I want to save new readers the trouble of wading back through the muck.

Here it is, from July 2007:

People often abbreviate “casual” and “usual,” but I still haven’t figured out to spell their shortened forms.

cazhe?
uzhe?
caszjhe?

Ideas, anyone?

Srsly.

But I have to give props to the Master. Now, if only I could ride those coattails …

UPDATE: Here’s a link to my shared items on Google Reader.

ORIGINAL POST: First things first: I’ve been annoyed since switching to the current theme for this site by the fact that the archives, categories, and links were all listed twice, in mirrored sidebars down the length of each side of the page. So, tonight, I set out to do some website maintenance, eliminating said duplicate sidebar.

But I went a step further.

So, seconds things second. I was poking around in my Google Reader (more on that later) today when I discovered that Google allows users to embed a little bit of fanciness into their websites in the form of Google Reader Shared Items. I’ve often wished I could easily blog those links I share so easily in my reader. And now, I can. Kind of.

Now, for those who don’t know what the hell Google Reader is, let me try to explain. You may have noticed little icons in your web browser over the last few years, little gray rectangles that say “RSS.” That stands for really simple syndication, and it (along with countless other innovations) has changed the way humans use the internet.

If you’re using Firefox to browse the internet, you’ve doubtless seen this icon floating around. That’s RSS, too.

What RSS does is set up a feed for any specific web page. That feed can then be picked up by readers, or aggregators, some web-based, others application-based. I like to think of it as web pages that appear in my little digital corner similar to the way email does. Readers and aggregators tend to display the titles (or, if it’s news, headlines), and possibly a short description or subheadline, one item after the next, usually in an order of your choosing (chronological is doubtless the most prevalent).

This has revolutionized web browsing for me because it cuts through the crap, as it were. I already know what my favorite sites are, so I can view all the fresh content on them, almost as it’s published, in a easy-to-digest format. I’m spared the “noise” of the web, and, most importantly, I don’t have to look at ads.

If you like the idea of RSS, and for whatever reason don’t like Google or want to use its Reader, may I recommend the following lists of aggregators:

• Wikipedia
• Open Directory
• NewsOnFeeds.com

Whatever you use, be sure to make Here and There your first subscription.