revjim.net

wordpress

PubSubHubbub

Aug 5th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

A new protocol with a funny name, PubSubHubbub, is out in the wild, complete with a free-to-use implementation of the most difficult part, the hub itself. Instructions for use in wordpress are fairly straight forward.

So what does all this non-sense mean? If you happen to have a conforming RSS reader (like, say, Google Reader is now), or a service that understands this stuff (like, say, FriendFeed) then when a PubHubHubbub using website or feed updates, you can find out about it instantly, instead of having to poll for it. This means less network traffic and less work, with instantaneous updates. All the benefits of Twitter, LiveJournal, and Facebook, from the comfort of your own decentralized blogging engine.

Assuming I have all the bits in place. This should update my FriendFeed almost instantaneously. Let’s see.

Update: It works!

revjim RSS feeds

Dec 18th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

All the cool kids use RSS Readers. I prefer Google Reader, but there are lots of others out there including Bloglines, Feedreader, and even LiveJournal. And, if you prefer a desktop application there are even more to choose from.

Whatever your feed reader of choice maybe, you’re going to need some feeds to stuff into it. So, I thought I’d take this moment to tell you about the Feeds offered here at revjim.net.

I write in a lot of places.

  • LiveJournal (life, micro blogging, one line updates announcing posts elsewhere)
  • Tumblr (links to thinks I like or find interesting)
  • Arranging Light (one daily (ha ha ha) photo of either experimental or portfolio quality work)
  • Flickr (all of my published photos regardless of quality or usage intent)
  • Twitter (micro blogging)
  • revjim.net (everything else)

If you subscribe to any of those services, then you probably just want to subscribe to me in that service. However, to make life easier on the rest of you, I’ve created special RSS feeds. They are powered by FeedBurner and they will be updated to follow the particular content being presented regardless of where I happen to be writing it or what tool I happen to be using that week to do so.

Isn’t that nice of me? So, without further delay I offer you, 100% free, unabridged, unrated, and with the directors cut included with every purchase, the following feeds.

revjim world
[feed]
This is for the true revjim fan. If you need all the revjim you can get and you need it now, this is the feed for you. It’s non-stop revjim action. It has all of my entries from revjim.net, as well as my entries on life from LiveJournal. It also includes my daily (ha ha ha) photo from Arranging Light as well as all the links I post on Things Jim Likes. I do all the work to make sure you don’t get double posts and that you are presented with links to the most appropriate location. Yeah, I’m a nice guy like that. Additionally, for the RSS feeder challenged, this feed can be subscribed to via email so you get an email once a day with my postings from the previous 24 hours.

revjim site
[feed]
This contains the entries from this site. This site is basically used to house anything I don’t put somewhere else. Make sense, right. As it stands today, this means everything except photographs, random links to interesting sites, and more personal or local entries about my life. It is currently powered by WordPress and self hosted. If this should change the feed will change with it.

revjim links
[feed]
This contains all of my random links to interesting sites. It’s currently powered by Tumblr. If this should change, the feed will change with it.

revjim life
[feed]
This contains all of my posts about my life. It is currently powered by LiveJournal. This feed contains a filter of the posts on LiveJournal to ensure that you don’t get all of the little updates that I post there to tell you that I’ve posted in other places. It currently does NOT contain the secured posts I make, though I hope that will change in the future. It also does not currently contain the Life posts that I sometimes make on revjim.net. As soon as I get a few things straightened out, I will make sure that it does. If I should change my publishing location, this feed will change with it.

arranging light
[feed]
This is actually the feed from my Arranging Light site. It contains a daily (ha ha ha) photo of either portfolio quality work or something new and experimental. It is powered by WordPress and is self hosted. If this should change, the feed with change with it.

tell me where I can put it

Dec 12th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

In the long, drawn out battle of where to put what when it comes to my online writing, it seems the dust has begun to settle with the exception of one remaining factor: life.

As I see it, there are really only 2 options.

  1. My own website powered by WordPress
  2. LiveJournal

The big deciding factor between the two is whether I want to write in public or private, and how much I want to cater to lazy people.

First, the lazy factor.

I’ve found that, for entries about Life, I get far more comments in LiveJournal than I do on the same entry posted on my website. It seems that LiveJournal users are either too lazy to click the link and read at my site, or are too lazy to bother to comment once they do.

Question 1:
Do I want to cater to this? Do I care?

Secondly, there is security.

If I’m going to really get deep into the “locked entry” writing, LiveJournal makes the most sense because it has tons of features in this arena. It means that some people will be excluded if they don’t have a LiveJournal account or know how to use OpenID. It also means I’d lost a lot of control over the look, layout, and functionality.

If i just intend to write something locked once in a great while, I can find some other means for distribution or use WordPress password protection and not really worry about it. In which case, I could just write on my own website like I’ve been doing and call it good.

Question 2:
So I ask you, do you think I write enough about my personal life? Am I candid enough in public? So you think I’m too candid in public? Should many of my life entries have a lot more filter on them?

I’m really twisted over which way to go on this. Your comments are appreciated.

test post in the future

Jul 28th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

It’s currently 12:51pm. But, if all goes well, you won’t see this until 1:15pm (central time). But that didn’t work so I’m trying again for 10:00pm.

One of you let me know if it works.

it always breaks

Jul 28th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

I think I’m a target for broken things — broken anything. From techology, to things bought in various stores, to that too-emo-for-my-age feeling that even most of my relationships are broken in some way.

I go into a Starbucks with a simple purpose: get some Caffiene before going back to work so I don’t fall asleep on the job and, while I’m at it, update my website. 15 minutes later and I’m finally online. I had to wait for Vista to “Switch Users”. Then I had to wait for it to log me in. Then I had to wait for it to get all booted up. Then I had to kill a few processes because it wasn’t coming up. Then I had to wait longer. When it finally came up I had to wait an eternity for the AT&T login page on the Starbucks wireless network to appear. It never did. I eventually gave up and slapped in my Mobile Data card. 15 minutes! So, here I am, finally. I’m so frustrated I don’t even remember what I intended to write about.

Our house has one room that’s about 10 degrees hotter than the rest. I guess it’s built wrong. I have no idea. Of course, we never really started using that room until our new home warranty was up. Even better, I’ve now selected it as my office. So, instead of trying to figure out what wrong with the ducts, I just decided to buy a window A/C. Of course, my windows (seemingly the same windows as everyone else in the world) don’t quite cooperate with the type of window mounts provided. So, my office is still 10 degrees hotter. But now, I’m $150 poorer and there’s an air conditioner taking up the floor in the corner.

I bought a water proof camera bag in order to take photos underwater while at the lake. Of course, the only sizes available are too-small for $20 and way-too-big for $120. So, I opt for way-too-big since the description says the the bag has some srt of bellows to accomodate lenses as small at 3cm. That’s a lie. A big lie. So, I have a bunch of photos that have the corners cut out of them thanks to the bag getting in the way of the shot. Didn’t really matter anyway since none of the photos came out. I have no idea why.

I upgraded the LiveJournal Crossposting script that I use on this site and on my photo blog. Of course, something changed and now, my other plugin that formats my photo posts all pretty like doesn’t work leaving the Crossposted LJ entries looking more than worthless. I’m sure I can figure out what’s wrong, but I really just don’t want to.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist. Nothing works for me. If there’s a way something can go wrong or a point that should never fail can fail, it’s happened to me in some way and, most likely, at the time when I was relying on it most.

And, of course, I’m sure this griping all seems trivial. But it’s just one more straw on an already overloaded mind burdened by what seems to be a heavier and heavier heart. I need a break.

are WordPress Stats and Google Analytics broken?

Apr 6th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

Are WordPress Stats and Google Analytics broken? It seems that the stats I get from one service disagree with the other. And both of those services disagree with my raw sever logs.

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