Ignorant People Should Not Vote!
No commentshttp://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3
After listening to this the other day, I thought of a brilliant idea. Why not put a simple but relevant 5 question quiz at the top of every ballot and if you cannot get at least 3 questions correct then your vote doesn’t count. This will ensure that only informed people vote. This example is against Obama but I’m sure this kind of ignorance happens on both sides of the coin. Trust me, I live in Central Florida. I see it daily.
iBrowser - Free Image Uploader for Tiny MCE (and SPAW, FCKeditor, Xinha, and HTMLarea)
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I, like many other people, did not realize that TinyMCE did not include the image upload plug-in as shown in the full featured example. But after using TinyMCE for quite some time without the image upload feature, I became comfortable with the interface and the source code, and was hesitant to switch.
In the forum I came across a third party plug-in iBrowser written by Jaeger Consulting that works with Tiny MCE, SPAW, FCKeditor, Xinha, and HTMLarea.
The readme is vague at best and doesn’t offer any solutions to troubleshoot problems. Of course, the plug-in didn’t quite work right out of the box. Following are the steps I took to implement iBrowser.
- Download the latest version of both iBrowser (1.3.8) and TinyMCE (3.1.1 at the time of this writing)
- Upload the “ibrowser” directory to the TinyMCE “plugins” directory
- Create one or more directories to store uploaded images and edit config/config.inc.php
$cfg['ilibs'] = array (
array (
‘value’ => ‘/path/from/webroot/images/’,
‘text’ => ‘Images’,
),
array (
‘value’ => ‘/path/from/webroot/gallery/’,
‘text’ => ‘Gallery’,
),
);
- Ensure that ibrowser/scripts/phpThumb/cache, ibrowser/temp, and your image directories have write privilages (i.e. 755).
- Copy the file ibrowser/interface/tinyMCE.editor_plugin.js with your corresponding version number to ibrowser directory. If your version number is not there, use generic javascript file without the version number.
- When you include TinyMCE in a page with javascript (tinyMCE.init), make sure that the following options are included.
tinyMCE.init({
...
plugins : "ibrowser",
...
theme : "advanced",
theme_advanced_buttons3_add : "ibrowser",
});
- If you included everything correctly, you should see a new icon in your editor. If you don’t, you are either using an incompatible versions of TinyMCE/iBrowser or your paths are wrong. Try the other TinyMCE Javascripts and double check where the iBrowser directory is located. It should be in the plugins directory of TinyMCE. If that doesn’t work, download a version of TinyMCE that is compatible with iBrowser (see interface directory).
- If you do see the new icon but nothing happens when it is clicked then you must add a line to the begining of the javascript file you are using.
var ib = null;
- If you open iBrowser, click Insert, then click Upload and you do not see a green icon with a white arrow to the right of the Browse button then you must modify ibrowser.php to have a smaller input box, say 40 instead of the default 53. This uncovers the upload button.
<input name=”nfile[]” type=”file” class=”fldlg” id=”nfile[]” size=”40″
- That should be all you need to enjoy the benefits of uploading images to web pages with iBrowser. Let me know if anyone else finds any other problems that I didn’t address. Enjoy!
Stop and Smell the Roses
No commentsI seem to find it difficult to take the time to stop and smell the roses. My fiancee, Kristi, often reminds me about this, thank goodness. Take my house, for instance, I am 24 years old and am building a brand new house in an up and coming area. It may sound silly, but in my youth, I often dreamed of having a new house, like many of my friends’ families. So this is a dream come true for me. However, I don’t display the emotion of excitement very well, and now that it is happening, I don’t really think about how much I dreamed of it in years past, because I’m too busy looking at the benefits the house will give us down the line. I’m just looking ahead at what can be instead of what is, as usual. And I always thought women were difficult to figure out.
Truth of the matter is, I have a ton to be thankful for. First off, I have a great circle of family and friends that surround me, I live in a first world country, and I am active and healthy. I am 24 years old, am college educated, have a fiancee who cares about me dearly, am building a house, have a career path set for myself and have a fire under my ass to help me reach my goals. I’m not one to look back on things and dwell but every once in a while, it is nice to look back on your life and know that the decisions that you made have been for something and reaffirm that you are heading in the right direction.
So here and today, I am stopping to smell the roses.
Oil Prices and Energy Conservation - The problems with America
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Photo by Ianz
This 4th of July got me thinking…
Don’t get me wrong, I love the United States. I love BBQ, free refills, and I prefer ice in my drinks. However, I feel the US could take a page out of the books of other countries and regions when it comes to conservation.
To conserve energy, Japan has sensors that turn on escalators as people approach.
Using native or local plants for landscaping. For instance, using cactus to landscape your desert home or using palm trees to decorate your tropical home. Although this is beginning to gain popularity, it is not yet the social norm.
Satellite sprinklers are currently gaining popularity even though the technology has been around for many years. These satellites link to a receiver in your yard to communicate local weather reports to your sprinkler system. If it is going to rain, your sprinklers say off.
Public transportation and bullet trains are probably the most cost and energy efficient methods of transportation. How come it has taken us so long to start considering this when Europe has had an extensive rail system for years.
The list goes on…
If I were a political leader, I would visit these countries, write down all of their great ideas, and bring them to the United States to be implemented and offer grants for those willing to research and develop the technologies.
Although, I am suffering too, in a weird way, I am glad gas prices have sky rocketed. Every-time oil increases in cost, the topic gets 10 more seconds on the evening news and gets 80,000 more people thinking of ways to lessen our dependence on oil.
Update
Shortly after posting this, I received an email from a friend with a link to an article entitled “10 Things you Can Like about $4 Gas.” The article re-emphasizes my point that although we are suffering at the pump, pain is the fastest innovator because it causes necessity and people begin thinking and acting differently.
From the article
But it’s also true that Americans are finding options where there seemed to be none. They’re ready to change — and waiting for their infrastructure to catch up. They are driving to commuter-rail lines only to find there are no parking spots left. They are running fewer errands and dumping their SUVs. Public-transit use is at a 50-year high. Gas purchases are down 2% to 3%. And all those changes bring secondary, hard-earned benefits.
…
“Nobody wants high prices for oil. But there’s also no faster mechanism to change behavior.” The suffering will go on. But the story, like any good tragedy, is not without redemption.
Engagement Photos
No commentsSo we got our engagement photos done last weekend and got to view the online proofs pretty quickly after that. I was expecting maybe 10 poses or so, but it ended up being a 3 hour ordeal. I’m not complaining, because I feel we definitely got our money’s worth but it was pretty exhausting. I’ll never say modeling isn’t difficult again. Anyhow, below is a couple of my favorite photos from the shoot. If you are looking for a great photographer and do not want to spend a fortune, check out Bryant’s Photography.
New Site, Fresh Start
No commentsSo I finally decided to switch my website over to Wordpress, a content management system specifically built for blogging. Until now I had been updating and editing my website with text editors and uploading files manually, which took too long, so I rarely did it. In order to rank well with search engines, websites must provide useful information and content must be added often. This was difficult with the old method and it seems that Wordpress is the new normal CMS for both personal and many business for both John Doe down the street and sites like About.com and the New York Times.
New Site
No commentsI am in the process of updating my new site with some of my old content…Please check back soon.