Pem’s Tech Blog

Installed WPtouch iPhone theme: A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for the Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android and other touch-based smartphones.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/01/01 (Friday, January 1, 2010) :: Blogging :: No Comments »

Behind corporate firewall proxy, iPod WordPress app

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/12/09 (Wednesday, December 9, 2009) :: Blogging :: No Comments »

It was really that simple – just a 1-button click to a link from inside the web page wp-admin.

For my setup there was just one tiny quirk.  It overwrote my folder (wp-content/themes/default/) with the new default WordPress 2.8.5 theme.  So I just opened up FileZilla ftp, and renamed that folder as default_2.8.5.  Then uploaded (from my local hard drive) my (wp-content/themes/default/) folder.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/11/08 (Sunday, November 8, 2009) :: Blogging :: No Comments »

Trying out WordPress iPhone app, from my iPod touch. I doubt I’d actually post anything this way due to touch keyboard is not so great, and iPod touch 3rd gen still has no camera. But still very cool!

…

The rest of this post I wrote with a real keyboard.  The iPhone OS keyboard has great auto-correcting, but it’s not the same as a physical thumb keyboard, and it’s definitely not the same as an actual real full-size computer keyboard.

To get WordPress working with the iPhone app, I did have to try disabling the plugins, then selectively re-enabling them.  This fixed the (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 64), which occurred when I tried to initially login to my WordPress site via the WordPress iPhone app.

Here’s a screen shot of the app.  Just 3 simple tabs – comments, posts, pages.  The comments tab lets you manage your comments (approve, unapprove, delete, mark as spam) – which is useful.  For changing a post’s category, it’s even easier than (logging into the web page) or (using Windows Live Writer).  But for writing any actual posts, I’d want a real keyboard.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/11/08 (Sunday, November 8, 2009) :: Blogging :: No Comments »

So much in our modern world (including computer, devices, robots, etc) is powered by electricity – as energy generated a variety of ways.  For many, this is a hot topic in technology / hardware, finances, and eco-friendly / environment.

I’ve made this new category to share some useful info / notes on the topic.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/10/29 (Thursday, October 29, 2009) :: Blogging, Electricity :: No Comments »

Tools –> Accounts –> Edit –> Pictures –> Configure FTP

Speaking of Live Writer…  Would be interested if anyone else has a favorite alternative, and specific details of why they like it better.

Overall, I think Live Writer is great, although it didn’t take me long to run into some wish list improvement ideas.  For example, I want it to ftp pictures to a dynamic folder based on date-time, such as 2000_09_25.

If you ask me, having a good (preferably open / free) SDK for plug-ins (or app stores etc) is a huge deal (for programs, platforms, etc).  Another thing I like is having both a GUI and an automation console/script UI, but maybe that’s not relevant to Live Writer (Live Writer does have Edit and Preview and Source tabs; Source lets you preview your posts HTML) (You can do automation or scripts for blog posting other ways, such as via WordPress).

So here’s where it’s uploading the picture right now (as I write this):

http://www.mepem.com/pemtech_files/0_unsorted/TestingftppictureuploadwithLiveWriter_13640/image.png

I specified www.mepem.com/pemtech_files/0_unsorted , and it generated TestingftppictureuploadwithLiveWriter_13640 based on the title of my blog post (that is, the first title I uploaded the post with).

What I really want is for it to upload here:

http://www.mepem.com/pemtech_files/2009/09/25/[name].png

Where [name] is a file name that I specify with a GUI property in Live Writer.

So… maybe I should write a plug-in?

Edit: well it turns out, there is already a plug-in called (Clipboard Capture), which lets me specify a name when I paste the picture into Live Writer.  However, it doesn’t let me specify the directory.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/09/25 (Friday, September 25, 2009) :: Blogging :: No Comments »

This new category could apply to some offline things, but it’s probably not going to be anything about family or social life or twitter-style-what-I-had-for-lunch-today.

The new category is basically an admission that this blog has gone from it’s original intent to give specific concise useful category-specific computer info / tips / tricks (“useful tech notes (info, tips, how to, ask me) (computers, software, hardware, blogging, mobile, devices, phones, Windows)”)…  To becoming more like, just me writing about whatever I feel like; though generally this is a strong computer/technology focus (or at least from that sort of angle).

I may still start up a separate / second blog that is dedicated to game development, such as for a specific project.

In theory, I might be crazy enough to put up personal stuff, or even mundane things like “today I drank a Mt Dew”.  Many other people do it, but that has issues like, do friends or family or roommates or coworkers or neighbors etc want you putting stuff up on the totally public internet about them.

In some cases, you might even risk giving someone info to encourage them to pick you (or someone you reference) as a criminal target, such as identity theft or stalker or theft etc.  Though I don’t want to sound too paranoid.

In theory, I might also put one up about day job, but that has other issues like, what if I said something as a rant, or what if coworkers didn’t like it, or what if it was against some company policy or accidentally gave out too much info, etc.

Whether either of these could be (a bad idea) or (a good idea) or (harmless yet also pointless), probably depends on the details of a particular situation.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/06/05 (Friday, June 5, 2009) :: Blogging, Personal :: No Comments »

I’ve considered doing a separate blog that focuses more on “subjective” things, or philosophy / opinions / politics etc.  But for now, I thought why not just throw out a “Philosophy and Opinions” tag.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/06/03 (Wednesday, June 3, 2009) :: Blogging, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

One thing I think I was kind of wasting time on is worrying too much about what the tags should be, and whether each post should be exactly one tag vs. multiple tags (and if multiple tags meant my post wasn’t topic-focused enough, or that my tags weren’t good enough).  I think this is pretty OCD, and worrying about the tags too much is a waste of time.  So, rather than try to look too far ahead, I’ll just add some more tags as I go.

I tagged this post “Blogging”, and I also tagged it “Web” and “Travel”.

Web is just generally website stuff that I personally noticed.

Travel is from a tech/geek – minded perspective.  So, you want to use good online trip search tools, and have a good packing system with useful travel gadgets (and computer stuff)…  For me, this is more about access and productivity, or just about having more access for something to do during the trip.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/06/03 (Wednesday, June 3, 2009) :: Blogging, Internet / Web, Mobility :: No Comments »

You may have noticed that I did (1 post 2008/08) and (2 posts 2009/01)…  And then this is my 5th post for 2009/06/03 in only a few hours.

Well part of the reason is that my sleep was interrupted by a leak in my apartment’s ceiling/roof, but the other reason is…

I think it’s obvious that using a desktop application for blogging (Windows Live Writer) (instead of just the default php WordPress web page stuff) has made it a lot less tedious and a lot more organized, for my personal taste.

So now that I’ve tried out Windows Live Writer…  I might just stop here, or…
1) more posts here: tech/computer blog
2) start tech-philosophy blog
3) video game development project blog

In reference to (video game development project blog):
* message board, but it’s all private as of 2009/06/03: http://www.mepem.com/game/forum/
* brief intro status for game just starting as of 2009/06: http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/17385

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/06/03 (Wednesday, June 3, 2009) :: Blogging :: No Comments »