Look for a more complete review soon…

Click on the thumbnail to embiggen the image of my new desktop (wallpaper, for you Windows sufferers users!). I created that while using this awesome fractal-generating app called Oxidizer. It’s an open source project on Sourceforge.com and, so far, it’s only available for OS X. Be warned, though; you will definitely need some muscular processing speed to render any thumbnail samples generated by Oxidizer to full size images within a decent timeframe.

Case in point: Chris Pirillo demonstrated this app on his quad-dual-core Mac Pro machine. That’s 8 processor cores, compared to my lone PPC 1.8 Ghz G5 processor. It took him all of 37 seconds to generate an over-2000px wide image. It took me seven freakin’ hours to generate this image you see in the post to 1680×1050px resolution!! Oh, by the way, this thing does fractal morphing animations as well. So, yup, definitely think twice before doing any serious stuff with this app if you have a underpowered (read: over 2 years old) computer.

If you want to use this image for your own (legal) purposes, click here to download it in 1680×1050 widescreen goodness. (567 Kb download)

Cheers!

I’m talking about my new addition to the blog… a Tumblelog! The concept goes something like this: Since I don’t like to do multiple small posts in one day about little things I encounter, I save the important posts for this (main) blog. The Tumblelog, for bloggers like me, is good for those “little bleeps and blurbs” that I may find amusing or interesting enough to post, but not in my main page. I feel that some of my readership wouldn’t want to have to revisit the site several times a day just to see little posts about things that don’t impact my world enough for them to read about. Aaaaand, for those who would like to keep up with it, not only do I have a new button on the top menubar (isn’t it snazzy?), but I also have a link to the RSS feed on my Tumblelog page! (The original tumblelog is served by Tumblr.com)

So go ahead and check it out! C’mon… I know you wanna! I may even install a condensed version of it in place of the Del.icio.us links in my Sidebar. Well, cheers to you all… and happy surfing!

First, I’ve been having fun with the new Megaminx puzzle. When I first started solving it, it took a couple of hours at a time. Just trying to get used to all the faces while looking for all the pieces can be a real challenge! Now, I think I can solve it in around thirty minutes. I also took some time on friday to go to a hardware store for some silicone lubricant. This is recommended for twisty puzzles like Rubik’s and Meffert’s brand, among others. Now, the minx and all three of my 3×3x3 cubes turn very well; no stiffness!

On that note, I also had a good run on Stickam.com yesterday. It seems that Thommen and I had become very popular that day, as I had a highest count of 40 or so people looking at my cam pages! I got to meet a few cool new people, while in my live cam room, and reconnect with one friend in particular. I even looked in the chat rooms and found a room called “Cubing”. This I had to see! It turns out, while talking to the guys in there, I got to meet one of the world record holders for the Megaminx, at under a minute and 13 seconds! I can’t even begin to spell Erik’s surname, but he’s listed in the Wikipedia entry on the puzzle. Watching the guy on cam with a cube was just amazing.

I’ve also been having fun, with Christine, watching the Doctor Who box set. We still have a few episodes to watch, so I’ll list my favorites here when we’re done. I’m ripping “The Impossible Planet” for iPod use as I type this! I haven’t forgotten to do a review on Lunatica’s “Fables & Dreams”, so I’ll do that as soon as I can. I also acquired DragonForce’s “Inhuman Rampage” album… I’m still recovering from one of the songs on there, so watch for a review on that one after I’ve scraped my brains off of the ceiling…

One more thing. I’ve found a good way to post some of the things in my internet (and real) life… stuff that may be too short for the blog and too long for a Twitter update. It’s called a Tumblelog! It’s kind of an internet scrapbook where you can throw a bunch of miscellaneous stuff for quick reference and communication. You can check out mine at http://chrisw357.tumblr.com/. I have it integrated into a blog page… kind of… it’s got a date bug, but it’s functional, and you can check that out over here (http://esoterik72.net/esoblog/tumblelog/). When I get the date bug fixed, I’ll make a button for it on the horizontal navbar at the top of this blog.

Well, thanks for reading up on everything that’s going on. Email me… or message me… or whatever… if any of you want to talk more. And comment here, too, if you want to; your comments are very welcome! Cheers!

After that, I found a way to do the same thing to the header graphic itself, without using a plugin, and the effect is less random. However, it gets the job done nicely, since I don’t want to change header graphics much and I won’t have a whole lot to choose from. It’s a good effect, though! I have a set of three of the vinyl graphic headers, one original and the other two are red and green, randomly popping up on the top of the blog. Maybe in the near future, I’ll create some holiday-themed sets to switch off on!

I’ll have to give proper credit for the authors of the script and plug-in that I had to use for this. Two great ways to achieve a neat rotating image effect!

So, I made a new page! The Archives and Links page is now open for viewing. The hardest part of it was trying to find out the WordPress codecs to use. The Archive template in the theme I’m using doesn’t allow for a sidebar or the tabled layout; I had to modify the template by hand to get how I wanted it to be.

Gotta go, will write tonight and tomorrow!

I made a new contact page. The reason is two-fold. One, if spambots happen on any of the pages and look at the header.php file, they’ll see my email and possibly make a meal out of it. So far it hasn’t happened (to the best of my knowledge) yet, but as some people have said, an ounce of prevention cures a pound of headaches. Two, I also have my Instant Messenger handles for AIM, Yahoo and Google on there as well. What can I say? I’m a regular chat-whore!

The only problem with the page is editing. I can’t edit it without having to redo the submit button. For some odd reason, the HTML code for the submit button keeps breaking the edit page for WordPress. If anyone knows what I may be doing wrong or if there’s an easier way to implement a HTML form in a WP page, please let me know immediately.

Another small problem is that I was trying to figure out how to change the background and text of the success page that the Perl script spits out after using the Submit button. I want it to look like a natural extension of the blog, but all I can do now is leave it at the default white page with black text. Again, if anyone reading this has experience with Perl, please help me figure this out.

Thanks, and cheers!

Technorati Tags: Esoterik, Perl, HTML forms, WordPress, Email forms, Messenger

… especially one that breaks most of today’s web standards! I keep on waiting for someone to say, “Oh my, Chris… use of frames is just too Web 1.0! And those Javascript rollovers just have to go!” (envision typical flamboyant designer talking with limp-wrist)

Technorati Tags: Esoterik, Web Design, Frames, Javascript, Award, Bird Club, ASCS

If one looks really carefully at the nav bar in this page’s header, they will see a “Webcam” tab. I’ve finally succeeded in tying a feed from my iSight camera to a blog page! Click on it, when I announce a pending or active webcam livecast, and have fun.

I will most likely make entries for special occasions and I will give advance notice of a pending broadcast. I may even make a switch in the sidebar to let everyone know if the webcam is on or not. I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I at least got the connection, firewall and router issues sorted out. I even had a friend in Germany view it to be sure it worked fine (thanks, Christian!). Oh… the switch I was just thinking of; all I have to do is post the notice on Twitter and it will show on the sidebar widget. Wow! It really IS good for something!

I’ll see you all around… wait, no… I hope you all will see me around sometime!

Cheers!

If you want to know what Lightbox is, click any of the images below:

There are clickable links inside the image’s right and left sides to go forward or backward through images. You can also press ‘N’ for Next, ‘P’ for Previous and ‘C’ to Close the window!

Now if you run a blog on the WordPress platform, and you would love to implement what you just saw, visit this page for the plug-in: http://zeo.unic.net.my/notes/lightbox-js-version-20/. There are other details on this page, http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/, on how to use the plug-in to its fullest potential. This is a great addition to my Photo Gallery, if I must be so praising. I just tested it out on my 2006 Christmas Gifts entry and it looked sweet!

I did some tweaking to the Photo Gallery, and I’m pleased to announce that it is now Lightbox-integrated as well. I’m not going to do this with the Art Gallery, since the integration effectively nixes all comments. That’s the only downside to the hack.

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Lightbox, Lightbox JS, WordPress, Zenphoto, TwiddleGeek, Rirath, Huddletogether