Friday May 30, 2003

Activating Comments on FreeRoller

All you FreeRoller users now have access to the Comments feature. However, if you signed up before the upgrade your templates will need a correction to "turn on Comments". Log in, go to the Website:Pages editor and click "edit" for your Day template (most likely "_dayTemplate" or "_dayXTemplate"). Inside the foreach() loop add the following (I put mine after the permalink):
#showCommentsLink($entry)
This will provide a link to the Comments popup. If you want to use the "inline" version of comments change showCommentsLink to showCommentsPageLink. If you want "twisty comments" ala Matt Raible, read his post.

Thanks to Jason Carriera I now know that it'll take a little more work than I thought: First, change your "Weblog" page to use #showWeblogEntries("_dayTemplate" 10). Of course, use the correct "day" page and the maximum number of entries to display on your page. Secondly, you will need to convert your "day" page to use the new Velocity macro syntax. Here is an example:

<table width="95%">
<tr>
<td>
#showDayPermalink($day)
#showEntryDate($day)
</td>
</tr>
</table>

#foreach( $entry in $entries )
<p>
<b>$entry.title</b> $entry.text
<font size="2">($entry.updateTime/$entry.pubTime)
#showEntryPermalink($entry)
#showCommentsLink($entry)
</font>
</p>
#end

( May 30 2003, 02:36:36 PM ) Roller Permalink Comments [2] [Trackback] [Link]

Expandable Bookmarks on FreeRoller

I don't recall if this functionality was available in the version (0.9.6.3) that FreeRoller was using before. If you want to use expanding Bookmarks [#showBookmarks("Blogrolling" true true)] than make sure you Weblog page includes the following line:
<script type="text/javascript" src="/themes/x2/scripts/global.js"></script>

( May 30 2003, 11:05:30 AM ) Roller Permalink Comments [2] [Trackback]

Thursday May 29, 2003

Re: Comments in FreeRoller

Yet another FreeRoller user yearning for comments. Debashish, use $entry.id in your "Day" template. And then start pestering Dave & Anthony to upgrade FreeRoller (I know they want to). And by the way, I dig the look of your blog.
Update: Looks like a FreeRoller upgrade is coming tonight.
( May 29 2003, 08:38:54 AM ) Roller Permalink Comments [1] [Trackback]

Tuesday May 20, 2003

Re: Attention Ungrateful Bastards

Man, I love this!

( May 20 2003, 10:37:53 AM ) Entertainment Permalink Comments [5] [Trackback]

Re: Larger WebLogic load when using Mozilla

Jon Mountjoy wonders why Mozilla isn't obeying his getLastModified() time. I don't know why (for certain), but it sounds similar to something I read the other week in O'Reilly's Web Caching book. I don't have the book handy, but when I get a chance I'll look up the relevant bits and post something useful (hopefully).
( May 20 2003, 09:22:31 AM ) Technology Permalink [Trackback]

Wednesday May 14, 2003

Out Damn Spot!

Man, I've been getting "pounded" by referer-spam this week. To help those others of you running Roller, here are some names to add to your filter: cgifactory.net,downloadworx,salesdex,hostedcron,nametipz.

Go to the Website:Settings page and near the bottom is a textarea labelled " Ignore referering URLs that contain any of these (comma separated) words:". Copy-paste the offenders listed above into the textarea, and help stop referrer-spam!

Here's another one: free-proxy.
05/16/2003: another - adult.resourcepop.com
05/30/2003: more - openproxies and phplabs
05/31/2003: perlcoders

( May 14 2003, 08:40:15 AM ) News Permalink [Trackback]

Friday May 09, 2003

On "Hackers and Painters"

I finally got around to reading this paper that everyone has been passing around. Mr. Graham (may I call you Paul?) doesn't say anything I didn't already know, really, but I did like this quote:

Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies.

Later, Paul discusses empathy with "If someone asks (a hacker) at a dinner party what a programming language is, they'll say something like...", continuing with a pathetic explanation. I don't know that mine is any better, but I once tried to explain inheritance to a VP:

Think of a cat. Now think of the most generic description of a cat: four legs, fur, whiskers, a tail. This is the Cat superclass. Now a specific breed, say Manchester Blue, is an class which extends Cat. This makes "Fluffy" an instance of Manchester Blue, and also a Cat.

This isn't exactly how it went (a couple years ago). I don't know if I really got the point across, but I know I got the VP's attention and amusement. Hmm, there was also something about hairless cats and those that cannot meow. I remember labeling my little speel the "Bald Cat Speech", or was it the "Meow-less Cat?" My wife liked it too, though I don't think she understood any more than the VP did.
( May 09 2003, 02:36:41 PM ) Entertainment Permalink Comments [2] [Trackback]

Thursday May 08, 2003

Re: Extending the WeblogMetaAPI

Beginning with Diego's review I've started following the "blogging API's" more closely. I joined the WeblogMetaAPI mailing list where Rogers Cadenhead posted some (arguably) good points.
( May 08 2003, 02:46:45 PM ) Technology Permalink [Trackback]