With the advent of cheaper, purer diamonds, the semiconductor industry is on the heels of a revolution. And NTT is leading the way. Sure, we’re still years away from an Athlon Diamond XP, but this is the first step on that long path.
I found Dan Cederholm’s mini tabs a while back but lost track of them somehow. It was probably one of those days when my browser was crashing frequently due to the java-based rss aggregator that was running in my browser. But thanks to Adam Polselli, I now know where to find the Minis again. And Dan has improved them as well. This is a simple styling that is very extensible and flexible. If you need some tab-based navigation for your site, be sure to check this out.
Adam Polselli must have been reading my mind when he was working up his new photo album. It’s 100% pure Movable Type. And it is pleasing to the eye as well. Have a look. Expect to see something similar in this space soon.
It’s been confirmed! As mentioned yesterday, Hitachi is breaking out the big guns this year. Now it’s official! The new giant Microdrives will be out just in time for the holidays. Hopefully I’ll be shooting 8 or more megapixels by then.
It looks like I’m not the only one who is excited about Sony’s new camera. Now when can I test-drive one?
Hitachi’s 4GB Microdrive is coming soon! Priced far below the equivalent flash-based CF card, this is sure to spark some good CF competition.
I ran across another great photoblog today: shutterbug. There is a stark contrast between this site and the site that I mentioned earlier today. They’re both great in their own unique ways, though. I suggest that you block of a good part of the day and review the history of photos on each site.
Phil Ringnalda linked to a long chain of sites that led him to Sensitive Light. And he’s right–it is indeed “absolutely stunning”. I really need to start taking more photos and get some of them up on this site.
Sony recently announced their new flagship digital camera, the DSC-F828. DPReview published a preview of a pre-production model on the same day. This looks like a promising camera for the “prosumer” market. It certainly bridges the gap between the current pro and consumer models. It’s the first Sony camera that I know of to offer a compact flash slot. The new black, slightly thicker casing seems to be a bonus as well–while it will add a bit of weight, it will certainly take away the fragile feeling that the prior models gave. I can’t wait to try out this model.
Kevin Davis has written a series of articles on using XML and XSLT templates with Movable Type. (Thanks Simon!) In the initial sample, Kevin had some problems with the HTML inside an entry body being rendered in Mozilla. That problem has since been solved. Check out this great sample!
Andy Arikawa first wrote about a new multipart form concept for making those longer web forms appear as short as possible. Simon Willison has expanded on this concept to make the same form more accessible. If you have ever dealt with a web form that was too long, you’ll certainly appreciate Simon’s example.
I just got the Semtember issue of Wired in the mail a couple of days ago. She cover features a woman adorned in nothing but diamonds. The story behind this photo is called “The New Diamond Age”. This is a very interesting read.
We all know that De Beers is the only reason that diamonds cost so much. Any many of us know of the evil practices that this company engages in. After reading these articles on diamonds, you may find yourself reconsidering the idea of spending such a large sum of money on such a worthless rock.
Remember, De Beers recommends that you spend 16.67% of your annual salary on an engagement ring. For many of us, that amount would feed quite a few hungry people for a year. I think I’ll wait for these cheaper, lab-grown stones.
Jon Hicks recently posted an excellent article on image rollovers with CSS. This eliminates the need for complicated JavaScript code in your site design while still allowing those rollovers that many have come to love. This is certainly a bookmark that should be in the toolchest of all CSS designers.
I’m not a big fan of Movable Type’s default calendar setup. With individual archiving enabled, the links for each day on the calendar take you to the last entry from that day. I think that it makes much more sense for that link to send you to a daily archive for that day. So now my calendar does just that.
Here’s how it works. First, I installed Brad Choate’s MT Regex Plugin. Next, I added a regex line at the top of my main index template:
<MTRegexDefine>s|^(.*/)[^/]*$|$1|</MTRegexDefine>
This regular expression removes everything after the final slash in the url for the calendar links. This works for my site’s setup because my daily archive is the index for the directory that contains that day’s articles. Different configurations might need some tweaking. For reference, here’s how I have my archiving configured:
| Individual | <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/%d/"$><$MTEntryTitle dirify="1"$>.fs |
| Daily | <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/%d/"$>index.fs |
| Monthly | <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/index.fs"$> |
| Category | <$MTArchiveCategory dirify="1"$>/index.fs |
I apply the regular expression to the calendar links by changing the MTEntryLink tag in the calendar to the following:
<$MTEntryLink regex="1"$>
Save, rebuild, and you now have a calendar that links to daily archives.
Dylan Tweney wrote an interesting article about using PHP to spiff up your MT blogroll. I’ve already incorporated this partially into my site. The gist of the article is that you create an additional blog which contains one blogroll link for each entry. The index page for that blog is then pulled into your main blog’s index with a PHP-based include. Very slick!
I just stumbled upon the Manhattan User’s Guide yesterday. This site seems full of tips and recommendations that should be useful for that next visit to the Big Apple. The daily articles are informative and well-written. I know that I’ll be consulting this site before my next trip to Manhattan.
I’m typically an early adopter when it comes to hardware, but with software, there are always far too many new projects for me to jump on the bandwagon of each one. Yesterday I decided that there had been enough buzz around BitTorrent that I should give it a shot. To my surprise, getting it up and running was incredibly simple. The NSIS-based installer required minimal interaction. Within minutes, I was downloading a CD image from a site that had been slashdotted. But this wasn’t the normal kind of slashdotted download. Instead of 1Kbps, I was getting about 150Kbps. That was sweet. BitTorrent works by forcing users to upload chunks as they download chunks. That way, all users form a web amongst each other and the downloads just scream. Once your download is finished, you can give back to the downloading community by leaving your BT “seed” running so that others can continue to download from you.
While I was waiting for my downloads to finish last night, I was reading up on all that has been going on in the BT community recently. One interesting discovery was the BT Experimental Client. This new client offers some great improvements over the stock client. In particular, I like all of the extra stats that it lets me monitor. Whether you are a new or experienced BT user, this client is definitely worth a look.
I think I’ve found the phone for me. It’s the xda II Pocket PC phone. No external antenna. Interchangable battery. Built-in camera! See the link for a ton of great photos.
Jeffrey Zeldman posted a link to his notes from a recent lecture titled “Accessibility and Section 508”. Not only is this an excellent presentation on accessibility, but it’s beautifully designed with XHTML and CSS.
I just found out about Free World Dialup today. It looks like an interesting free VoIP service. I signed on using a version of Xten’s X-Lite that was customized for FWD. I’ve only made one call to a time service thus far, but the quality was great. They also have a number you can dial for an echo service. This seems like a good idea for those curious about the delays that such networks have. I’ll certainly have to try this out next.
A strange thing happened tonight, though. Soon after I made a couple of test calls, someone by the name of “Rodrigo Rodrigues” called me. This is strange because I requested that me number be unlisted. I’m guessing that I may have just been a victim of random dialing, but I guess I’ll never know.
