RejectReality

Cindy comments:

/wonders what MarsEdit is all about and why you haven’t told me about it. Does it build a better mousetrap (aka blog?)

Something tells me this is going to be a long one.

I’ll answer the easy bit first, I hadn’t mentioned it because I’m slack

*ahem*

Now we’ve got that out admission of the way…

Put as simply as possible, MarsEdit is a text editor with extra brains installed for how to talk to blogs. That description doesn’t really do it justice, though.

First, permit me a minor tangent.

Think about your typical blog post; it’s got a bit of text, a quote from somewhere else, maybe a couple of images and a few links.

It’s pretty simple stuff.

Now, think how you would compile such a post using your favourite blog software:

For your text, your blog software invariably comes with a web-based form to write your posts and edit existing content.

Quoting stuff is easy – copy’n'paste your quote, then go back to pick up the referring link. You do link to your sources, right?

For your images, you either need to FTP them to your web server or use your blog software’s upload facility. If you’re a Flickr user, you can use their upload facility which will provide you with a nice bit of HTML to copy’n'paste into your blog software’s post composition function.

Links are pretty similar to quotes; a few copy’n'pastes are all you need there.

Of course, all this good stuff is only useful when you have internet access; if you’re offline, you need to use something else to store your post like Notepad, TextEdit, or (heaven forbid) Word.

For something pretty simple, it’s spread all over the joint. Upload here, copy’n'paste half a dozen things between browser windows over there, wrap links in “A” tags if your software doesn’t already do it, find some way of getting your images up to your server.

Finally, and to bring that tangent back to the main point of this post …

What if you didn’t have to do all that? Would that make your posting life any easier?

MarsEdit doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t already do before. It just does it better. It’s simple, it combines multiple other tools’ functionality into one utility and it makes sure I don’t have to think more than I really need to.

Believe me – that last one’s a real valuable point

Here’s the MarsEdit way of doing things:

Say you want to quote a website or respond to one on your own blog. Highlight the bits you want to quote and use a MarsEdit bookmarklet to start a new post, automatically populated with your quote and attribution details already organised.

It links up with your Flickr account; post your image to Flickr, and use MarsEdit’s Media Manager to browse your photostream, pick your image and drop it in a new post.

Don’t use Flickr? No matter – I don’t either. If your blog software supports file upload via XML-RPC, MarsEdit will automate the upload, obtain the link to the final file and drops it into the new post for you. WordPress supports this; check your blog software to see if yours does.

Want to make links? Copy the link from your browser, select “paste link” in MarsEdit and it will automatically wrap your link in the right HTML tags to make it work.

Custom HTML/CSS fragments. I use a small bit of CSS and HTML on each post to place an image at the top which is linked off to either another site or a bigger copy of the image. Every single time I need to grab it out of my notes because I can never remember it. Now I don’t have to; I’ve inserted the custom fragment into MarsEdit as a template so I can paste at will.

It’s got offline support built in. You’re working on a local draft until you’re ready to publish. Hit the magic button and it automates the post upload and publish mechanism for you.

And the coolest thing?

Live preview of your post, including formatting and CSS, in the style of your blog. Go on – click that image to the right; that screenshot was taken before this was published (although don’t worry if you see a different header image — they’re randomised; you’ll get that one eventually).

The live preview feature takes a few minutes to set up, but it’s well worth it. Even better, the preview template is stored for offline use.

Pretty neat, eh?

So, here’s the rub.

Does it build a better mousetrap? In and of itself, I’d have to answer that with a “probably not”; improving your writing and content will take care of polishing up that mousetrap for you.

The better question would be, if you already have the plans for a better mousetrap, does it make it easier to assemble it?

The short answer is “yes, absolutely”.

The slightly longer answer will involve me stealing a quote from the guy behind MarsEdit, Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. MarsEdit will make you a more prolific blogger. I’ve seen it time and time again.

MarsEdit makes it quicker and easier to throw a new post together and put it out to see what the world thinks.

To continue that quote from above:

… it reduces the psychological burden of blogging.

By reducing the burden, you post more. You post more, you get better. You get better, more people read. The more people read, the more warm and fuzzies you get. The more warm and fuzzies you get, the more you post.

It’s a (vicious) circle

Although I’m just (re-)starting out, I’m already seeing that this is helping me post more, and hopefully keeping more than the spam bots entertained.

Go check it out for yourself; you’ll get to play for 30 days for free. It supports all the usual culprits; Blogger, Drupal, LiveJournal, Movable Type, WordPress, TypePad, plus others.

If you like it, throw a few bucks Daniel’s way and make sure to tell him I sent you in the comments for your order. You (and I) won’t get anything out of it, but I’m sure it’ll make him feel good.

And, honestly, who doesn’t like an ego stroke at the end of the day?

A couple of days ago, we had a spectacular storm hanging around Adelaide for a few hours with plenty of lightning to watch. Armed with the smallest tripod I could find, I managed to catch this photo through one of my windows during the light show before the battery gave out.

Enjoy!

To my readers and spambots, have a happy new year and enjoy 2007.

May I be the first to say the rumours surrounding my mysterious absence have been greatly exaggerated.

I’d like to state for the record that I have not mastered time travel, nor retired to a warm tropical island and I certainly have not taken over the world.

Yet.

(ahem)

While the tumble weeds were keeping the comment spam bots entertained around RejectReality (900 spam comments in 3 months?), the world has not stopped turning.

I’ve… :

• Wished Myk and Flea all the best in their new marriage (congrats guys!)
• Spent a not-insignificant amount of time arguing with rather expensive boxes with lots of flashy lights
• Assisted friends in spinning up new business ventures
• Established how “simple” SNMP really is (simple in concept, dodgy in implementation when the devices you are talking to move their answers around each time you ask them a question)
• Mocked late night TV game shows
• Taken a bunch of new photos
• Played with some new VoIP technologies
• Had a birthday
• and started researching alternate backup technologies (rather apt considering I’ve been assisting friends in the recovery of data from the untimely death of two laptops recently)

While I’m still getting my stuff together so that I can spin this site back up, here’s a quick video to watch; a recut of one of the cult movies for cube dwellers, Office Space, proving just how easy it can be to give a different take on an event with some creative editing.

I’m pretty sure that most people won’t get what is so interesting about it, but the geek in me thinks it’s great!

For reference, here ‘s the original in a horrible click-here-to-be-dragged-to-iTunes kinda way, or try IMDB.

If anyone ever asks you how much fun you could possibly have with 200 litres of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos mints, now you have an answer.

Thanks EepyBird!

[via Make]

Technorati Tags: EepyBird, Make

How great is this?

I mentioned in a previous post that I was quite fond of Cindy’s photoblog.

After receiving a slightly cryptic email asking for a mailing address, I came home from work to be (rather) surprised by a package from the US – a couple of prints from her photo gallery of a couple of camels in the Bronx Zoo and a card.

Thanks again, Cindy. Very, very cool and greatly appreciated! In case you were wondering, the camel lover was (finally) lost for words – I didn’t think it was possible

Now I need to find a decent framing place – any recommendations are welcome, given that the last decent place I found had since closed down

Have you ever had one of those days that would not start right, no matter what you did?

Today was one of those days.

Those that know me realise that mornings are not my favourite time of the day. For those that have not had the pleasure of having contact with me early in the day, let’s just say the ol’ brain just doesn’t kick over until around two coffees past ten.

To make it worse, this effect is amplified on mornings when I sleep through my alarm.

Such as today.

For those keeping score, my alarm goes off at 7; I woke up at quarter to 8 and I leave for work around 8-8:15. Please read this remembering that my brain does not kick in until two coffees past ten on a good day. This is important

After rushing around like a headless chook, I managed to get myself ready for the commute (including a shave and ironing a shirt) in relative record time (half an hour for all that and gaining some consciousness is impressive for me) whilst subjecting myself to the least possible amount of hazards. I figured rushing around straight after a shower while handling sharp or hot electrical things while half asleep would be enough to spice up my morning. How wrong I was.

After grabbing my bag and heading to my car, I realised I forgot to get some breakfast to take to work (really bad short term memory is also a symptom of having a distinct lack of coffee). I went back inside, put my keys on the kitchen bench and proceeded to acquire some cereal to take to work. Bundling up my bag (again) and my newly filled cereal container, I left the house (again) to get to my car.

Have you ever had that sickening feeling where you know you just closed a door and you realise that the keys are on the other side? I have, although it did take a while to get through the morning lack-of-caffeine induced fog.

Once the full impact of the situation was realised (namely, I was stuck in a garage with locked doors, no keys, a shift that started at 9am, a container of cereal with no milk, no coffee and no options), it was time for action.

A quick call to V confirmed that there were no keys in the near proximity, so an alternate solution of popping open the lock with a tool was approved. Simple enough, one would think. Again, how wrong I was.

A screwdriver, hammer, file, a pair of bull nose and slip joint pliers and 45 minutes later and the Door Flower was born (remember what I said about subjecting myself to the least possible amount of hazards while being half asleep?).

Incidentally, I now have some extra respect for door handles. It did not give up without a fight

45 minutes late for work, a latte and all is right with the world. Well, it was until one of the guys at work asked, “so, why didn’t you catch a bus?”

<sigh>

Recently, a fellow blogger requested some assistance from her loyal readers in some various web hosting matters. After living in the web hosting world for a few years, I figured now was a good a time as any to put my hand up and see how much damage I could cause

The work itself was quite interesting and provided a perfect excuse to flex my old web hosting muscles to see if my sieve of a brain was still working. Also, assisting someone who was rather interested in the what, how and why of the issue, not only in the solution, was a real treat.

A few days later, a bunch of emails, some redirection rules and assisting in dealing with one of the most unsavoury remote monitoring applications that I have ever bumped into and we have another happy customer.

In this case, the happy customer was the stunningly famous Cindy the Squipper. For those that do not know Cindy, she is one half of the Ken and Squip Show (personal favourite: the show released March 21, 2005) and is responsible for the general malarkey that is Dusting My Brain.

Incidentally, she is also pretty damn good behind a lens. If only she considered selling some prints (I’ll admit that last one was a tad ugly, but I know someone that has a soft spot for those things ).

I can highly recommend heading on over to her sites to have listen, a look at her photos and a read of some of her brain dustings when you’ve got an afternoon to spend.

Cindy: it was a good experience working with you, grasshopper. Give me a yell next time you need a sysadmin or some more dust for your brain.

Technorati Tags: cindy the squipper, dusting my brain, ken and squip show

A week or so ago, I mentioned a multi-touch screen UI that I would like to play with at some stage.

Whilst I suspect that this might take some time to filter through to consumer devices, a similar device has been been created using LED arrays as a touch receptor. There’s a very interesting video on it’s utilisation available here.

For those that like hacking hardware, this looks like it would be a fun project.

[via MAKE:Blog]

Technorati Tags: multi-touch, ui, led, make

As I’ve mentioned previously, my laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth. Given the success of my Mac Mini experiment and the recent release of new Apple hardware, I’ve decided to give the Mac platform a go for my primary machine.

To this end, a couple of weeks ago, an order for a shiny MacBook Pro was submitted.

During this time, I’ve been reading up on the hardware, the OS and some applications I would like to try out like Coverflow and NetNewsWire (and I found a place to find more)!

It’s amazing how quickly the internet community has moved on this. I’ve already witnessed the unboxing and the disassembly of one of these things – they’ve only been shipping for around a week.

Now all I have to do is wait for mine to turn up so I can finish the Switch. Any pointers to interesting software, stuff or tips are welcomed

PS – I wonder if this will be me in a couple of weeks….

[via Engadget and Dan]

Technorati Tags: netnewswire, coverflow, apple, osx, mac, macbook

Update: Looks like a better MacBook disassembly guide has been published. I can’t believe how small the motherboard is!