Blog

  • Deciding on which CS3 to buy.

    Before deciding to upgrade to CS3, I had a hard time trying to decide between Web Premium and Design Premium. I’m primarily a web designer these days, but I do some print work every now and again. Either version would work well for me.

    Web Premium comes with Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional, Flash CS3 Professional, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3 and Contribute CS3. It retails for $1599 for the full version and $599 for the upgrade. Design Premium comes with Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional, Dreamweaver CS3 and InDesign CS3. It retails for $1799 for the full version and $599 for the upgrade. (Fortunately, I was upgrading from CS2 so I qualified for upgrade pricing.)

    (more…)

  • The Time to Act is Now

    My traffic has nearly tripled in the past two weeks. The cause? People are having LOTS of problems installing Creative Suite 3. Most of the traffic has come as a result of search engine queries. Of my top 20 search terms since April 27th, 12 have been related to CS3. Coincidence? I think not.

    cs3 install problems (37); cs3 install (20); cs3 install problem (14); cs3 installation problems (14); install CS3 (14); cs3 will not install (10); adobe cs3 installation problems (9); trouble installing cs3 (6); how to install cs3 (6); photoshop cs3 installation (5); installing cs3 (5) … and so many more…

    Adobe: The time to act is now. Loyal users are suffering silently, searching the web for any and all help they can get. You’ve offered little help. Forcing people to run CleanScripts, editing their registries, changing system permissions in order to install software in unacceptable. The CS3 Installer is broken and it needs to be fixed NOW.

    What’s the solution? Calling Support is almost out of the question. Before I even got CS3 I waited on the phone three times for 30 minutes or more. I suggest we start calling and writing and/or faxing letters to Corporate voicing our dissatisfaction. What better place to start than at the top?

    Adobe Systems Incorporated
    345 Park Avenue
    San Jose, CA 95110-2704
    Tel: 408-536-6000
    Fax: 408-537-6000

  • Separating Trackbacks/Pings from Comments in WordPress

    I was trying to figure out the best way to separate trackbacks/pings from the comments here on the site. I’ve seen a number of tutorials out there, but none seemed to do exactly what I wanted. The code is piece-mealed from a couple of places, but this is how I accomplished it here on the site:

    Backup your existing comments.php file associated with your theme! I cannot stress this enough.

    Assuming you’re using the default theme, or some variation thereof, you’re going to want to look for this in your comments.php file:

    [php]

    < ?php if ($comments) : ?>
    [/php]

    You’re basically going to replace the logic on comments.php from where it says < ?php if ($comments) : ?> (Line 20) to < ?php endif; ?> (Line 61) with the logic below.

    Define the number of pings and comments (Source: Sandbox theme):

    [php]
    < ?php /* NUMBERS OF PINGS AND COMMENTS */ $ping_count = $comment_count = 0; foreach ( $comments as $comment ) get_comment_type() == "comment" ? ++$comment_count : ++$ping_count; ?>
    [/php]

    Then check to see whether comment_status is set to 'open'. If it is 'open', we then check to make sure the comment_count isn’t equal to zero. Once these conditions are met, I then display only the comments. Some other conditional logic is included, like checking whether the comment’s being held for moderation:

    [php]
    < ?php if ('open' == $post-> comment_status) : ?>
    < ?php if ( $comment_count ) : ?>
    < ?php if ($comments) : ?>

    Stuff said in regard to this entry:

      < ?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
      < ?php if (get_comment_type() == "comment"){ ?>

    1. ” alt=”” />

    < ?php comment_author_link() ?> < ?php _e('said'); ?>:

    < ?php comment_text() ?>

    < ?php if ($comment->comment_approved == ‘0’) : ?>

    Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    < ?php endif; ?>

    Posted < ?php comment_date('F j, Y') ?> @
    ‘, ”); ?>

  • < ?php /* Changes every other comment to a different class */ if ('alt' == $oddcomment) $oddcomment = ''; else $oddcomment = 'alt'; ?>
    < ?php } ?>
    < ?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>

    < ?php else : ?>
    < ?php endif ?>

    < ?php else : ?>

    Hey, there’s no comments on this post!

    How about being the first?

    < ?php endif /* if ( $comment_count ) */ ?>

    < ?php else : // comments are closed ?>

    < ?php /* Comments are closed */ ?>

    Sorry dude, comments are closed on this post. If you had stuff you liked to say about this entry,
    feel free to contact me.

    < ?php endif; /* if ('open' == $post-> comment_status) */ ?>
    [/php]

    Then we do the same thing for trackback/pings:

    [php]
    < ?php if ( pings_open() ) : ?>
    < ?php if ( $ping_count ) : ?>

    Trackback/Ping Stuff:

      < ?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
      < ?php if (get_comment_type() != "comment") : ?>

    1. < ?php comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at < ?php comment_time() ?> < ?php edit_comment_link('e',' ‘, ‘‘); ?>
    2. < ?php /* Changes every other comment to a different class */ if ('alt' == $oddcomment) $oddcomment = ''; else $oddcomment = 'alt'; ?>
      < ?php endif; ?>
      < ?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>

    < ?php else : /* if ( $ping_count ) */ ?>

    < ?php endif /* if ( $ping_count ) */ ?>

    < ?php else : // pings are a no-go bro. ?>

    < ?php /* Pings are a no-go, bro. */ ?>

    Pings are a no-go, bro.

    Maybe next time?

    < ?php endif /* if ( pings_open() ) */ ?>
    [/php]

    Save the changes and you should be good to go.

    Hopefully this is a pretty straightforward implementation… If you have any better ideas, I’d love to hear ’em.

  • Happy Birthday, Mr. Reznor

    Happy Birthday, Mr. Reznor. Thank you for the gift that is Year Zero. I can’t stop listening to it… Bonus link: NIN Remixes.

  • Google Experimental

    Google Experimental. Feeling left out? Want to take Google’s new search layouts for a test drive?

  • A Mini-Design Update

    You may or may not have noticed, but I rolled out a few design changes shortly after I upgraded to WordPress 2.2 yesterday morning.

    • I changed the color scheme a bit. Went from a dark blue background with white text to a white background with black text. It’s not a major change, but I’m hoping it’ll help with readability. More significant changes will probably be coming in the next week or so. (I’m still trying to wrap up a few projects I’ve been working on for a while, so depending on how quickly those are finished will determine how soon I get to play again with the site design.)
    • I reworked how Comments and Pings/Trackbacks are displayed on individual post items. Previously, trackbacks were displayed inline with regular comments. Now, they’re not. They used to be included in <div>s, now they’re in an <ol>. (These are subtle changes, I know, but I’m trying to improve the semantics in the markup for the site.)

    The way I’m versioning the site is sort of weird – and pretty arbitrary – to be honest with you. I’m calling this Version 14.1.0 because of some improvements I made in the code structure for my site template and some CSS changes that I made. But the reality is, I have no idea what version the site is at currently. Hopefully I can do a better job at explaining some more of the changes I make in the near future.

    (Thanks, Matt, for the nudge to do this.)

  • First Impressions of WordPress 2.2

    I upgraded my site to WordPress 2.2 without any problems this morning. I’m not sure if it’s enough of a difference from 2.1.3 to justify the upgrade for most users, but I’m a sucker for new software. In this release they’ve added support for WordPress Widgets without requiring a plugin. Among other things, the latest WordPress release also features full Atom support, a new Blogger importer, a revised Comment admin page (with AJAX-y goodness!), and a new plugin “protection system” – that will prevent you from installing a plugin that will break your site.

    • The Comment admin page now displays the last 20 comment, no matter what. When you delete a comment, the next comment dynamically gets pulled into the page.
    • WordPress 2.2 broke the FlickrRSS plugin somehow. I’ll need to look into how to remedy that…

    All in all some nice additions, but again… not sure if it’s enough to justify an upgrade for most folks.

  • WordPress 2.2 Available

    WordPress 2.2 Available. I’ll be upgrading sometime this morning.

  • Web Design Survey

    Over 30,000 people have taken The Web Design Survey, have you? (I have!) The survey closes on May 22nd. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, now’s the time to act!