You may have noticed the new “Quote” box at the top of the home page. My quote category was getting big with over 140 quotes so far, representing just over 30% of my total journal entries. I could see it becoming unwieldly in the future. Plus, I have noticed that I have slowly posted more […]
The old CowPi v2.0 Well, it seems to be that time of year again when I remodel the ol’ weblog. Welcome to CowPi version 3.0! The colors are a bit bold for my personality, but hey, I’m trying to expand my boundaries. Hope you like them? I have also used some fancy CSS tricks, but […]
In a comment to my previous entry, Karen asked a question regarding anonymity, spirituality, and weblogging. My reply was too long. It deserved it’s own journal entry. Do you see blogging as being antithetical to this sort of anonymity? Yes and no. It depends on why you blog. If you are into blogging to be […]
I have reorganized my archive structure. This should be of little concern for most visitors. Through the miracle of Apache’s htaccess file and the redirect directive, all the old links prior to this date have been mapped to their new locations, i.e. old links should not break! Any entry posted after this date will not […]
There have been certain temptations I have managed, by the grace of God, to avoid while writing this web journal. One of them has been not to look at the statistics of visitors to this site. A big part of me does not want to know how many people read my journal for fear that […]
Here are my questions for Caitlin: 1) As a junior in high school, what do you want to be when you grow up? 2) What is the best and worst thing about going to a small, catholic high school? Do you miss public school? 3) What is the best and worst thing about having your […]
Karl at St. Stephen’s Musings asked me five interview type questions. You are all invited to participate. (See directions at the end of the post.) 1) You have written some short fiction in the past. Do you have other stories in the works? Yes, I have been working on a story based on an incident […]
‘Manual Trackback’ is a PHP script that allows an author of a weblog that does not support trackback to manually trackback to my weblog. All this weblog author needs to supply is the title of his or her weblog, the title or date of his or her weblog entry, the entry’s URL, and an excerpt. That’s it. Then their trackback will be listed among the comments and other trackbacks for my entry with a link pointing back to his or her weblog.
To quote Adam Kalsey, “TrackBacks are comments. They are comments left on someone else’s site rather than your own, but they are comments nonetheless.” So, he wrote a great little plugin for Movable Type called SimpleComments. After a few modifications to our templates, our trackbacks can be listed along with your comments in chronological order. […]
Occasionally, I want more control over how certain parts of a weblog entry look instead of the default paragraph tag that Movable Type uses. Sometimes I need a paragraph to be centered, or sometimes a footnote. And what about controlling images? (Note, the rest of this article assumes that you understand a little about CSS, […]
The old CowPi v1.0 Welcome to CowPi Journal, version 2.0, a complete redesign of every Movable Type template, style sheet, module, etc. Nothing was left untouched. The biggest changes include the framing around the content with a color background, the horizonal navigation bar under the page header, and the CowPi logo. (Do you like the […]
Leslie Harpold wrote a nice, little piece of prose called “Possible Scenarios for Heaven”. Whatever your fantasies about heaven are, her piece is a gentle reminder that we all have a little bit heaven here on earth now. Remember to make the most of it. Savor the moments.
For most of my life, I have followed the advice of not discussing religion or politics with anyone outside of my comfort zone. I have found that most people are entrenched in their views and beliefs, and are more interested in espousing their own ideas and opinions at the expense of others. On a few […]
The proverbial caca hit the computer fan about ten days ago. The first thing to go was the home computer. After attempting to reboot after two power interruptions, the dang thing just seemed to hang on the last step in the startup procedure with this cursed spinning beach ball. At least Mac’s don’t have the […]
Finding a really good weblog is like finding the peanuts in a box of Cracker Jacks. They are in there, but you have to hunt for them. And when you find one, you savor it.
I thought I better document some of the things I have done to tweak MovableType for my weblog/journal. Let’s start with the archives.
Here is a short list of fun things to enrich your weblog experience. BlogShares—“a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by inbound links.” (Be warned, this will take away some of your time for writing.) the blogger code—an obscure code that describes a weblog. To […]
As a homage to René Descartes, a French philosopher and mathematican, the following question is posed: To exist on the Internet, must one keep a weblog or online journal? Update: Now one must also Twitter, Facebook (or MySpace), and have Gmail (or other) account. (15 July 2009)
Well, here I am, finally joining the blog habit too. I really don’t care for the term blog. I know it’s short for weblog, but the sound of it is too harsh for my ears. Blog sounds like blob, which brings up the connotation of a formless, goopy mess. I image many of my future […]