Michael Earls – (michaelearls.me) a New Website

I’ve created a new website that reflects my name.

http://michaelearls.me

I’ve also moved my blog to this location:

http://michaelearls.me/blog/

This should help associate “Michael Earls” with me.

Is “Cloud Computing” just hype?

I’m reading up on “cloud computing” and I can’t help but wonder if it’s just marketing hype. Microsoft has devoted a considerable amount of effort in selling their Windows “Azure” platform and Amazon has been offering AWS for quite some time.

However, I don’t see how this is any different than creating a web application and hosting it on a web host like Godaddy or Discount ASP.NET. Maybe I’m missing something, but I can’t see paying per transaction when all I have to do is create and host my web app on my web host.

I guess I have some more learning to do.

CSS Goodness!

I just finished working on two custom templates/themes for WordPress. I used no HTML tables, just <div> tags and CSS. There were two <img> tags – one each for the XHTML validation badge and the CSS validation badge. All the other images were background-images in CSS.

What’s most shocking is that I have one code base (XHTML and CSS) that works in IE 7+ (even in IE 7 quirks mode), Google Chrome, Firefox, and Apple Safari. I’m psyched. This is the first time in my career that I haven’t had to write javascript to detect the browser version. Of course, I am assuming that my visitors have more recent versions of their browser. That’s why I put a “this site optimized for…” deisclaimer at the bottom. Hopefully, it won’t look too awful in older browsers.

The sites both validate against XHTML and CSS. I’m really excited about this. I almost can’t believe it.

As soon as my domain name (cerkit.com) transfers to GoDaddy, I’ll post my new custom template/theme to the site and start piling on the blog entries!

Adding an RSS Icon to the “Subscribe to Comment RSS feed” link in a WordPress Template

In working with my custom template for WordPress, I came across an unfortunate problem. It seems that the default output for the function post_comments_feed_link() displays a simple anchor tag with a link to the comment RSS feed.

I like to use the RSS Icon () to indicate that the feed is, in fact, an RSS feed. It’s easily recognized over just plain text. This is not possible in the default implementation, so I had to do some hacking.

To get the icon on my page, I had to do two things:

• Edit the link-template.php file in /<your wordpress root>/wp-includes folder
• Edit the style.css file

In link-template.php, search for the function named “post_comments_feed_link()”. Once you find that function, notice that the last line is:

echo apply_filters( ‘post_comments_feed_link_html’, “<a href=’$url’>$link_text</a>”, $post_id, $feed );

Simply change it to the following code:

echo apply_filters( ‘post_comments_feed_link_html’, “<a href=’$url’ id=’CommentRSSLink’>$link_text</a>”, $post_id, $feed );

This will give us an ID to hook up with in our CSS file.

In your styles.css file, simply add the following:

#CommentRssLink
{
    background-image: url(‘img/feed-icon-14×14.png’);
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-position: 0;
    height: 14px;
    padding-left: 18px;
}

Make sure you have the correct feed-icon (you can get them here) in the <your/<template>/img folder.

You might also want to change your <your wordpress template root>/comments.php to change the wording of the text, as demonstrated below.

Here’s the final result:

All in all, I’m finding WordPress to be very easy to enhance and extend. This change allowed me to offer my readers an easy to recognize way to subscribe to my comments’ RSS feeds.

I hope this helps.

What lies beyond the limits of Mathematics?

I’ve been thinking about the universe lately and I’ve started wondering if the limitations of our understanding of the universe lies in the fact that our language of mathematics has limitations. Seriously, most of our observations (microcosms and macrocosms) are based on deep mathematics. At the end of that language of numbers and theorems lies something greater than our collective intelligence.

How can we describe our universe with mathematics alone? Even our calculations of the distances to stars and other celestial bodies is based on color shifting and radio waves which must be processed. I’m not saying that the nearest galaxy is only a few light days ahead, I’m just suggesting that our limit of understanding isn’t necessarily caused by stupidity. It’s merely a limitation of our understanding of the universe as it relates to the language of mathematics.

What if there was another language we could use? I’m not referring to religion, I’m suggesting that there might yet be an undiscovered language we can use to apply to the unknown universal truths. Something that doesn’t even require an “intelligent design versus evolution” war. Maybe I’m just referring to the “all inclusive theory of everything”.

What if this language could teach us that light isn’t the fastest known thing in the universe? What if it could reveal to us that time and light are connected in such a way that time would adjust to an increase in the speed of light so as to keep the balance there? Oh well, I’m spouting BS now.

Just something I’ve been pondering lately.

Switching teams…

I’ve converted from a dasBlog lover to a complete WordPress fanatic. I’ve been writing a custom template and theme for Laurie and it’s been a wonderful experience. I’ve had to learn a little PHP, but it’s worth it. It uses mySQL as a backend database. The Admin console for mySql is AWESOME!

I think I’m switching teams.

I am having trouble with an e-commerce gateway. It’s a little over my head and the documentation is sparse. However, it has a lot of great features, so I’m determined to make it work.

Overall, I’m very pleased with my experiences with WordPress. I’m also extremely impressed with GoDaddy’s hosting setup (I’m using the Windows hosting).

In limbo

I’ve been working on my cerkit.com blog. I’m transferring the domain name from Network Solutions to Go Daddy so I can consolidate all of my domains in one place. The main reason for this is that GoDaddy gives me credits for 9 economy hosting plans because I’m subscribed to a deluxe plan. That’s worth a lot to me. So, I’m stuck in limbo for four days while my domain name transfers.

Once I get it up and running again, I doubt I’ll restore all of my content from 1994 and on. I’ll just start over (and break all my permalinks…bad!..bad!…bad!).

I’m definitely looking forward to getting my domain back up and running.

The Sony PRS-300 eBook Reader – A Short Review

Update – July 23, 2010 – In short, buy a Kindle or a Nook.

I bought the Sony PRS-300 reader mainly because I didn’t like the keyboard on the Amazon Kindle. I have no problem having to hook my reader up to my PC to get a new book downloaded, so the Amazon Whispernet feature didn’t appeal to me, either.

I just finished reading my first book on the device and I have to tell you that I didn’t even notice that I was reading on an electronic device. The only thing that was strange was the inherent flashing that occurs when you turn the page, but that’s the e-ink technology at work. A small price to pay. The page turns were fast enough to keep up with my reading, so this was no problem for me.
The menus on the device are simple to use and intuitive. I like the fact that I can be reading multiple books at once and it remembers my place in all of them. I can have multiple bookmarks, as well, so that’s a nice feature.
All-in-all, I love the device. The only reason I gave it 4 stars on features was because it doesn’t have a search function. But, I accept this because there is no keyboard, which I stated above is something I didn’t want.
All of the low ratings I’ve seen so far come from people who are reading PDFs on the device. I can’t speak for the PDF quality as I don’t use mine for that purpose. I buy books from the Sony eBook store and I plan to get some from other free sources (ePub), as well.

The construction of the device feels sturdy. I don’t plan on dropping it to find out, but is well-balanced in my hands. One-handed reading is not a problem, either.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive device to read books on, this is the one. Because it’s Sony, I trust that it’ll be around for awhile.

Philip K. Dick Kick

I’ve been on a Philip K. Dick kick lately, reading short stories. But of course, nothing compares to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I finally read that book. What’s amazing is that it was written in 1968 and provides some pretty awesome science-fiction. If you’re not familiar with the story, it is the book that was later made into the movie Blade Runner, one of the greatest science-fiction movies ever made.

Many of Dick’s books were made into movies, including:

We’ll remember that for you wholesale – Total Recall
Minority Report – Minority Report
A Scanner Darkly – A Scanner Darkly

And I’m sure there are more that I’m unaware of.

Anyway, pick up some books by Dick and give them a read if you like science fiction.

Ahh, the beauty of vacation!

Laurie and I decided to take a vacation to Savannah this weekend. We’ve had a great time so far,  but that just turned around. It seems a large group of guests in our hotel are here together having their vacation, too – and a lot of alcohol to go with it.

We wanted a change of pace, something other than the monotonous drudgery of another day on the “farm”. Laurie and I usually go to bed around 10:00 every night. Not tonight. I think we’ll be up reading until 1:00 with the way things are going around here.

So, we’ve definitely gotten a change of scenery!

It’s the little things in life that teach us so much.