Bit-Shift.Net

In one of my previous posts, I shared my initial impressions of Microsoft Live Writer (Beta). One of the reasons I gave for trying this program is the troubles I had with losing posts I was composing with the web interface for DasBlog.

Well, it appears someone has had the same troubles I had and did something about it. Enter Protect TextArea, a script addition for GreaseMonkey. This little gem protects all that hard work from going to waste if you happen to accidentally navigate away from the page.

It watches textareas (multi line input boxes in web forms) for changes, and makes sure you don't throw them away. If you: navigate away from the web page, close the tab, or close the browser after making changes to a textarea on a web page, this script will throw up a prompt.

For those of you that work a lot with web forms, this script could be your next best friend.

I've been blogging now for just over a year. Up until now I have been using the web interface for DasBlog to write my posts. To an extent, the web interface gave me all the functionality I needed for composing and posting articles to my blog. Now before I get into the reason I dislike using the web interface for posting blog articles I should mention what I use to write them most of the time.

For work I was given an IBM ThinkPad T43. I use this machine a lot since my personal laptop is getting up there in years and can't wander far from an outlet for more than 20 minutes before it dies. It has a pretty nice screen and a keyboard light for when I'm blogging in the dark, which has come in handy more times than I can count. Another thing it has is forward and back keys on either side of the up arrow key, so you can navigate through web pages quickly. Therein lies the problem. I used the keyboard and particularly the arrows keys quite a bit while composing posts and on numerous occasions while making final edits, I will accidentally hit the back key and lose something I've spent several hours writing.

For that reason and because I wanted to try something new, I installed Windows Live Writer (Beta). The first thing I noticed is the interface is really simple to use. Along the top are large buttons for the major writing actions (New, Open, Save and Publish). Just below that are the font and layout manipulating controls.  On the left side of the screen are some shortcuts for viewing drafts of posts in progress and recent posts, published from either Live Writer or published via the web interface that Live Writer can download and edit. Also on that menu are shortcuts to insert links, pictures, tags and even maps. Below is a picture of the building I work in. Pretty cool, huh :)

Where the work happens.

Another cool feature of Live Writer, for the more ambitious blogger's out there is support for posting to multiple blogs. In the top right corner there is a drop down for selecting which blog the current post in progress will be published to. Pretty handy for those people that have a personal blog as well as a blog they may get paid to write for. Just below the blog list is a drop down list containing all the categories I setup for my blog. Next to each category in the list is a checkbox, making it simple to assign a post to multiple categories.

So far I'm really liking Windows Live Writer. It has nearly everything I liked about the web interface of DasBlog and I no longer need to worry about accidentally navigating away from a post in progress. The one feature I'm missing is the ability to control picture placement via CSS, but maybe I'm just missing something or maybe they'll add it when this product goes gold. To any blogger out there I recommend giving Live Writer a shot. I think you'll be surprised at what you've been missing.

You can download it here.

Reposted from Bernt.net

Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community.   The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. 

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours. 

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times he still was a crusty old man, and was considered a positive roll model for millions. 

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart. 

The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes. 

If this made you smile for even a brief second, please rise to the occasion and take time to pass it on and share that smile with someone else that may be having a crumby day and kneads it.

According to my calculations, it has been nearly a month since I've posted anything on my blog. For those few readers I have, I apologize. Needless to say I have been pretty busy these past few weeks.

To start off, I purchased a house. For the past two years I have been sharing a house with a couple friends from college. When people would ask me if I liked living with them I would say sure, with all bills split three ways, living was really cheap! Which left me with a surplus of disposable income.

Most of the time this was a good thing as I was able to build up a nice little nest egg in case of emergency. Sometimes though desire got the better of me, like when I bought my motorcycle or the time I pursued a hobby in sky diving (more expensive and more addictive than any drug).

Other than few financial responsibilities, we also had the ultimate bachelor lifestyle complete with kegerator and home theater with 8 foot screen and projector. Despite all this I found myself wanting more space to myself and to stop throwing money away on rent!

So I bought a house, and I'm loving it. The house I decided on is a bit smaller than the place I moved out of, but that is no problem since 90% of all the furniture in my previous residence belonged to someone else. So here I am, in a 1200 sq ft house with nothing but a bed, dresser and desk. I have an inflatable river tube sitting in the living room which serves as a conversation piece and running joke until I get some real furniture (hopefully today). I've had many late nights painting, hanging blinds and unpacking. 

In addition to dealing with the stuff I already had, I've begun to acquire new stuff. I've spent more money in the past two weeks then I've spent in the previous 12 months, but when I come home and look around, I can't help but smile and realize that this place is mine and I can decorate and do with it as I please. For those of you out there considering purchasing your first house, despite all the headache and stress of looking and getting a loan, know that it is totally worth it.

The other major event I've been pre-occupied with is the death of my grandmother. It has been a long time since I've attended a funeral for a family member and this is the first funeral I've attended for someone I was close to. My grandma Ona passed away March 17, 2007 at the ripe old age of 93. An interesting fact I didn't realize till this weekend is that she died nearly 40 years to the day that her husband passed away in 1967.

I thought I knew my grandma pretty well, after all I'd known her all my life. At her memorial service, listening to all the people that had known her throughout her life, I learned a few new things about her. It was mentioned several times during the ceremony that to know my grandma was to be loved by my grandma. She never met a person she didn't like and was very adept at making new friends. One sentiment was common to everything said at the service, Ona was a wonderful, caring women who was an important part of many peoples lives. A sentiment I can testify to.

One of the toughest parts for me was when a women my grandma had known practically all her life began to speak. This women and my grandma had been friends since she was very young. After many years they lost track of each other due to moves from place to place. They finally met up again during a chance encounter on the street. They exchanged contact info and promised to keep in touch. But days led into months which led to years and she never got around to checking in. She had all but forgot about my grandma until she read her obituary in the paper.

Her biggest regret was not making the time to pick up the phone or write a letter. I say this was the hardest part for me because I have many friends that I've lost contact with and though I want to get back in touch something always comes up that prevents me from doing so. I wonder if the next time I see these people will be at their funeral (probably a bit extreme considering my age, but you get the idea).

One of things I found pretty funny is that during the service, while all the people that knew my grandma spoke about how they had met her and how she had touched their lives, there was one common theme in each testimony, apple pie. All the people that spoke raved about my grandma's apple pie and with good reason, it's the bomb! To my grandma, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you much those last few years and I'll miss you.

There was also a quick business trip to Santa Barbara which I thoroughly enjoyed save the trip home, which you can read about here, and a few odds and ends that have kept me distracted but that about sums up the past few months of my life.