Stuffleufagus

I started getting some hits from Alltop.com a few weeks ago - not many, and never seemingly from the same URL.  I dismissed them.  Of course, I follow Guy Kawasaki in Twitter (and he follows me) - so I know well what Alltop is.

Alltop aggregates RSS feed - "the best of the blogs" but they also sort them by category - and they have a lot of categories.

Today I got a dozen hits from http://life.alltop.com before I wondered what was up.  So I went and looked.  If you scroll down a bit, there is my blog, on the left.

I think the "life" section is probably where my blog belongs - because I talk way more about personal stuff than tech - and when I do talk tech, it’s normally personal!

About an hour later I got an email from Guy Kawasaki telling me they added me to Alltop - a canned email, but that’s cool.

So how did my blog make it?  My Technorati rank is ok - I’ve been in the top 100k often.  My subscribers via FeedBurner isn’t huge - averages 115 people/month.  So how did I get any attention?

I can only guess it was via Twitter.  Depending on who is online and active I may or may not Twit about a new blog post.  If I think it fits the (current) audience, I will.

Twitter gives you a huge voice.  But I’ve found I moderate (usually) what I Twit about depending on who is online, and active.  My Twitter friends online in the daytime are mostly different from those online at 1am.

And I appreciate that Alltop included my blog - it is just another way to make a new connection.

written by rob tags: Alltop, Guy Kawasaki, Twitter

[Update - literally just as I posted this WP 2.5 was officially released.  The widget interface is, I am afraid, unchanged from RC1]

I’m sure people worked very hard designing the new Widget admin interface for WordPress 2.5 - and I really don’t like criticizing someone else’s work.  But I don’t understand the thought process here. 

A perfectly functional (and very simple) interface was completely abandoned in favor of a very busy, very dysfunctional interface.

(click images for larger view)

To the left is the old interface. 

To add a widget to a sidebar you grabbed the widget from the bottom selection and dragged it onto the sidebar you wanted it on. 

You dragged the widgets to the order you preferred. 

And you clicked "Save Changes".  Everything was on one page, in one place.

Simple. Elegant, even

Why did it change?  Especially, why did it change to this:

As you can see, I can’t even view all my widgets without scrolling the screen. 

And I can’t view both Sidebars at once. 

Really.

Seriously - you can’t. 

You can’t just drag a widget from Sidebar 2 to Sidebar 1, either.

In fact, it takes three mouse clicks to change from Sidebar 1 to Sidebar 2.

And each widget now consumes a fair amount of screen real-estate in the admin view.  Why?  Just to show the text that tells me a Calendar widget puts a calendar on my blog?  Why not just do that with a tool-tip as I mouse over the widget?

Here’s a suggested new layout:

Note that there are now two columns to display the widgets - less screen scrolling.

Both Sidebars are displayed.  No screen switching.

This would allow you to drag and drop widgets from one Sidebar to the other.

For the most part, the changes I have seen in WordPress 2.5 are nice - and they make sense.

This new interface for managing widgets isn’t in that category.  This is a huge step backwards in usability.

The changes to widget management seem to have done "just because we can" - and they don’t seem to have given much any consideration to the user experience.

But then - this is just a Release Candidate - so things could change before WordPress 2.5 ships.

For the sake and sanity of every WordPress administrator out there, let’s hope this section does change.

written by rob tags: Widgets, Wordpress, WordPress 2.5 RC1, WordPress Admin

Last year, I blogged that I had purchased a new TV.  It is a Mitsubishi 57 inch DLP High Def TV, and I have really enjoyed it.  So have my kids, and their friends.  They’ve played a lot of hours of Halo on this TV!

So this week, 1 year and three weeks after I bought the TV the projection lamp died.  Of course, it was three weeks after the warranty expired.  I called Mitsubishi parts and the woman on the phone was extremely nice.  I was in a good mood, even though I had just found that this bulb would cost me over 250 US dollars!  I was joking around, and making her laugh and she thanked me for not being upset.  I told her that there wasn’t any reason for me to be mad at her, and then I said, "If I would have called you a couple weeks ago when the "lamp" light first came on, I would have had the replacement by now".

Well, my remembering that saved me $250.  Remembering it, and being nice to the lady.  She put me in contact with Mitsubishi Consumer Relations - and they agreed to cover the bulb under warranty, since it started failing during the warranty!

Thanks, Mitsubishi.  I will do business with you again!

written by rob

Just a quick note on the Photo-stitching that is included in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

It is drop-dead-easy to use.  And it can produce some pretty interesting results.  Like these pictures combined from the photos I took when FastComapny.TV was filming at Sea World, San Antonio.

Click to enlarge.

Here Shel is talking to Scoble, talking to himself, AND merged in with Fran from Sea World.  This merged five photos. I know it looks like four - trust me, it was five

This is a stitch up of a couple photos showing the lake at Sea World (and another coaster in the background)

You can get Windows Live Photo Gallery here.  It is free.

written by rob

OK. If you haven’t read my previous post where MOSSO blew my mind, go read it now.  Then be prepared to be REALLY blown away.

I said I could create one domain that runs Windows and another that runs Linux - all on the same account.

I said I could run Windows with MS SQL or with MySQL.

I said I could run Windows and Ruby on Rails, or Linux and Ruby on Rails.

All of that amazed me.

But I had NO IDEA that I could run, ON ONE DOMAIN .Net, PHP, MySQL, and MS SQL.  I didn’t realize that my .Net app could talk to my MySQL database AND my MS SQL database.  Or that my PHP app could talk to my MySQL and MS SQL databases.

That my Linux apps could talk to my Windows databases.  And vise-versa.

All on the same domain.

All on the same domain!

I didn’t realize how many choices I had, and how many ways I could serve my clients all on one box - regardless of the application, database, Operating System, etc.

I honestly need to sit and think for a while because I have no clue how all of this can be true.  Just thinking about the back end that serves this is making my head spin a little bit.  The front-end - the part *I* work with is just DROP DEAD EASY.

I’ve got a feeling the back end is a bit more complex

The back end is where the BMVS (Black Magic Voodoo Shit) happens.  And it is some serious magic.

In my F.A.Q. page I say DesqView X is my favorite software ever.  Because it was magic.

But I think I need to update my F.A.Q. now.  MOSSO is making my head spin.

It honestly seems impossible.

And if I would not have been lucky enough to just talk to one of the inventors of the technology I probably still wouldn’t believe it.

My brain must rest.

Amazing.  After being at Rackspace all day yesterday, and visiting their new site the day before, I was already wondering if I shouldn’t just go work for them.  Rackspace is an amazing company.

But now I know.  If I leave consulting, I am applying at MOSSO.

It is that freaking cool.

written by rob tags: BMVS, Mosso, Rackspace