Evolvor has a short video clip on how to upload and place an image in WordPress. A nicely done and informative clip.
The following video is a short tutorial I found on You Tube about how to insert an image using WordPress, for those of you who are just joining the WordPress army. – How to Insert an Image Using WordPress | Evolvor
Get a lot of comments on your WordPress site? Set up an RSS feed of your comments so your commenters can keep keep up with the latest conversations. The default WordPress installation includes a comment feed, but doesn’t link it to the site. This means that while the feed exists, nobody can see it. In most cases it’s just a matter of adding a little code to your header, and your readers will be able to subscribe to your comments. The default location for the feed seems to be YourURL/wp-commentsrss2.php. In order to allow feed readers and browsers to see this feed, simply add this code to the header section of your site.
<link rel=”alternate” type=”text/xml” title=”Comments” href=”Your feed’s URL” />
Now here is some quality reporting. The second quote is attributed someone other than the reporter, but that’s the best quote they could get?
The first amendment provides the right to bear arms, but should every household have a gun?
First Amendment, Second Amendment… whichever. Is that the new math? You’d think a reporter of all people would be at least marginally familiar with the First Amendment.
Cherry Tree resident Robert Gray said, “If everyone owned a gun, then it would definitely a deterrent someone think twice.”
I miss the mountains. That might seem a little odd considering I’m writing this sitting in the Appalachians as I write this, but I miss the Cascades. Fortunately for me, Jan at CascadeExposures is on th case with posts like this and this. Not quite where I grew up, but it looks like it.
A clever episode of Heroes last night. Hiro and the episode jumped back six months to see where everything started. We finally got to see Sylar’s face. I was afraid he was going to turn out to be one of the characters we’d already met. Didn’t happen. I thought the whole “watchmaker’s son” idea was very good. Gave some depth to the character and a little in the way of explanation of his power. I’m looking forward to next week’s episode. Promo says that we lose a hero… and to expect something completely unexpected. I think the words they used were something like “A Hero will be lost – and in a show known for its surprise endings, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Now that’s how to promote a TV show!
On a whim, I’m participating in a meme that’s running at The Random Yak – Things I’ve Done Meme. Like the others participating in this, the ones I’ve done are bold.
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree (The tree was a key element in a fairly violent dismount from a horse.)
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper (in the middle of this post)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight (Perfume fight in a major retail store yes, food not. My mom started it…)
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving (Not now, or ever)
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow (Milking no, but unfortunately I have preg checked cattle. Think rubber glove to the shoulder)
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie (TV yes, movies no)
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch (Apple pie too)
78. Won first prize in a costume contest (I helped build costumes that won twice, but wasn’t wearing it either time. I’m counting it.)
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas (Only the airport… I won’t count that.)
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark (squid, octopus, moose, bear, elk, deer, rabbit, etc.)
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (trying)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived (twice, single horse accidents both times)
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears (No, and I don’t even want to think about it.)
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (All three)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad – and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (Deer with a bow and arrow)
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts (Typing on it right now)
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life
This is… interesting.
As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m. Monday, a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman.
One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.
Just another day in Atlanta? Not when you look at the title of the article. Woman, 92, dies in shootout with police.
This is very, very clever. The linked photo version is just genius.
Then I came across Richard Rutter’s CSS Image Fades page last week.
Cool, I thought. If I can fade from an image to a background, why stop there?
I used to be an extremely avid reader… Then I had kids. The last few weeks I’ve started reading heavily again. Not sure why exactly, it’s just sort of worked out that way. I’ve been catching up on Michael Connelly books for a start. I love the Harry Bosch series. Anybody who can pull off a book with a main character named after the painter Hieronymus Bosch is worth reading. Great characters.
Then somebody got me hooked on the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. Very funny, and well worth reading. You’d think the burning car gag would get old, but it never really does. Brilliantly funny author.
Tonight’s book was Night 
Here’s most of the last two week’s reading list, not entirely in the order read.
by Janet Evanovich
by Janet Evanovich
by Janet Evanovich
by Janet Evanovich
by Janet Evanovich
by Janet Evanovich
by Michael Connelly
by Michael Connelly
by Michael Connelly
by Kat Richardson Ariel Vanderhorst has an interesting post on Blogging Accessories, Tools & Hacks today.
Building a blog is a gradual process. If you’ve begun to publish posts on a consistent basis, you may start wondering how to improve your blog further – how to personalize it and make it stand out in a crowd. Of course, the best way to make your blog unique is to write good content, but there’s also a technology dimension.
He lists some interesting blogging tools and a very good list of blog directories. The only thing I see missing is Performancing for Firefox.
Update: I also prefer the Sage feed reader add-on for Firefox over the many online resources available. I combine that withBookmark Sync and Sort and I can read the same feeds on any of my computers, at work and at home. Again, with Sync and Sort, I’ve chosen an add-on that allows me to control all of the resources over the many online equivalents available. Just a personal preference.
The Save the Cheerleader, Save the World episode of Heroes just ended. Spectacular. Best TV show that’s been on since Firefly. Actual character development. Now there’s something you don’t often see in modern TV. As a graphic designer and comic book fan I can’t help but love the graphic elements of the series. The comic style paintings, the cinematography, it’s all fantastic. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Should design be simple? Not necessarily. Sometimes the correct design solution is very complex. What is complex in design though, can be simple in execution. Careful planning can keep a complex layout from turning into a design nightmare.
How do you make a difficult design into an elegantly executed piece of art?
I often have a good idea what my final product is going to be in advance of the final content. This allows me to work out the finer details of a design without having to worry about any time consuming fixes of original content. With placement or greek text I can work out the details of layout, carefully craft my styles so that everything is ready to place when the final content arrives. Using global styles, whether it’s in CSS on the web or character and paragraph styles in InDesign, my design is often finalized before the content arrives.
There are always minor adjustments, but while preparation can’t always account for everything, it is the key. Without planning a design’s execution can be haphazard and incomplete. Mistakes get made. The most complex design can be made simple, by simply planning ahead.
I always assumed that someone had written a list like this, but I hadn’t seen it before. A short list of common blogging terms commonly used in the blogosphere (including blogosphere). Quick and to the point.
h/t evolvor
Designing a new site? Updating your old one? Here’s a very clever color palette generator. You enter the URL of a photo you like, and it creates a hexadecimal color palette.
Fauxtography: How mad are your skills? Allahpundit got:
Nine out of ten, baby. Nine. Out of. Ten.
Nine out of ten for me too. I’m curious how my photographer readers do… Leave your score in my comments please.
They’re making a movie from the comic book Ghost Rider. Stars Nicholas Cage of all people. The promotional trailer looks very good. While this wasn’t one of my favorite comic books, I was a huge comic book fan when I was younger. I still like some of the well drawn ones. Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t like Ghost Rider, some of the art work done for the various comics was fairly good.
RSS feeds are a simple way of allowing people to be notified of new content on your website. Using news aggregators like Newsgator and Bloglines, browsers with built in feed capability, or add-ons like Firefox’s Sage, your visitors can be notified whenever you post new content. Most blogging software like Blogger and WordPress creates these feeds for you. All you need to do is make sure that your feeds are visible and functioning. Are your feeds working?
Try subscribing, can you read them? If you’re having a problem subscribing, check your site source code. There should be a little bit of code in your head section that allows browsers and feed readers to identify your feed. It probably looks something like this:
<link rel=”alternate” type=”text/xml” title=”Atom 0.3″ href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/HighDesertWanderer” />
In both Firefox and IE7 you should also be able to identify a site with an RSS feed by the small icon 
displayed in the URL bar. If you don’t see that icon, your site might not be allowing your viewers to see your RSS feeds.
If your RSS feed is visible, but not readable, your problem likely originated with your blogging software. Try writing another post. It sounds like a stupid solution, but this will prompt the creation of a new RSS item and might also clean up any errors in the existing feed. If this doesn’t work, check your last 10-15 posts. Did you use any odd HTML, or special characters? Since your feed is created from your blog posts, removing any garbled code from your posts might fix your RSS. If the problem persists for more than 10-15 posts, consulting an expert would likely be your next option.
Verifying that your RSS feeds are working properly and visible to your readers is important. The people who subscribe to your site are people who have come to your site before, and want to visit again. You just need to let them know when!
Somebody e-mailed this to me this morning. I couldn’t resist posting it.
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position and course to steer to the airport. Seeing a tall building, he flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter’s window. The pilot’s sign said “WHERE AM I?” in large letters.
People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.” The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.
After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER” sign helped determine their position in Seattle. The pilot responded “I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because, similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer.”
I’ve been playing with a new WordPress theme for this site for a while. It’s seems to be ready, so I’ll put it up shortly. Please forgive any chaos that ensues when it first goes up. No matter how much you test a theme, when it first goes live there always seems to be some little quirk. More often than not it’s a browser not wanting to refresh properly, but I’ve been known to make an error once in a while.
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