President-Elect Barack Obama Uses Hide-a-Pod
Back when I created my little Hide-a-Pod site joke, I never would have guessed it would get dragged into presidential politics.
In fact, I had been thinking the phenomenon had just about died down with newer Zune models and traffic to the site tapering off. Then 9to5 Mac brought it back up as an explanation to reports that president-elect Obama was seen with a Zune.
So maybe our next president was just protecting his iPod … but all as part of his plan to bring the country together by carrying both devices.
I often get more laughs out of what others do with Hide-a-Pod than the original joke. Nice job 9to5.
What Makes Some People Bald?
We picked up an old book at a garage sale titled The Book of Wonders. It has a copyright of 1914 by Presbrey Syndicate, Inc. The description on the inside cover reads
“Gives plain and simple answers to the thousands of everyday questions that are asked and which all should be able to, but cannont answer.”
It’s been the source of some good laughs. This is our favorite entry. It explains that baldness is caused by wearing hats, just as flowers die if you block them from getting enough air circulation. 
Lazy Lawn Mowing
Sometimes a low-tech solution to automation is all that is needed to save a lot of work. Although I now use robotic lawn mowers, you might still enjoy the story of how I once turned my gas-powered walk-behind mower into a work-saving autonomous mower. My neighbors certainly found it amusing. (More on that later.)
This simple hack cut my mowing time to about a third of what it used to be. I’m not sure of the exact cost because most of the parts were scrounged. Even the mower was a $30 garage sale special. In total, I probably spent less than $50 for the whole project, including the mower.
Lazy Lawn Mowing from Doug Smith on Vimeo. (Also available on Youtube.)
[ Continue reading Lazy Lawn Mowing … ]
The $8 Tomato Report
Okay, I feel a little odd posting this because I have personally made jokes regarding those who blog about their cheese sandwich. But I just have to tell a little story about my lunch.
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- One slice of this huge tomato fills the bread.
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- Look how large and red these tomato slices are.
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- That's a big tomato. It may not be perfect on the outside, but it was perfect on the inside.
Actually, it’s more about being a garden geek.
[ Continue reading The $8 Tomato Report … ]
WordPress & My iPhone in the Garden
I just had to try the new WordPress application for the iPhone. So I snapped a couple photos while out in the garden gathering lunch and wrote this post.
It connected to my blog effortlessly and allowed me to easily add categories, tags, and a photo.
Great job WordPress team!
I only have a couple minor gripes that I hope will be addressed later:
1. It would be easier to type if the application supported landscape mode and the wider keyboard that provides.
2. It’s too bad WordPress does not extract and store the GPS information along with the other metadata it grabs from photos.
I would love to hear comments from others who have tried it. How has it worked for you?
WordPress Admin Color Scheme: Fresh Plus Visited
Although I like the new look of WordPress 2.5, I miss having the visited links in the dashboard shown as a different color. I like to keep up on the latest WordPress news and I previously relied on the link color to see what I had not yet read.
Fortunately, WordPress 2.5 has a way for plugins to add additional color schemes. So I whipped up a quick plugin to add the style necessary to mark those visited links in a different color. You can grab a copy from my downloads page for admin color scheme: Fresh Plus Visited.
WordCamp Dallas 2008
I’m looking forward to attending my first WordCamp this weekend in Dallas. I’ll be eager to learn from the great lineup of presenters, and hopefully, personally say thank you to some of you who have contributed so much to the WordPress community. Be sure to say hello if you’re attending too. I’d love to meet you.
I believe they are still taking registrations, so you may not be too late to sign up if you haven’t already.
It’s Spring and Even the Porcupines are in Love
Happy spring everyone! Our Illinois Winter has seemed a little longer this year so it’s nice to feel things warming up.
Every spring I recall an old Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies cartoon from my childhood. The cartoon starts out looking like a nature documentary as the camera pans through the forest. Then the narrator says, “It’s spring … even the porcupines are in love.” Two porcupines repeatedly pucker up, kiss, then jump back in pain with an “ow ow ow ow!” You gotta love that classic Looney Tunes humor.
So here’s a little spring quiz for everyone. What is the name of that episode and is it available anywhere?
My kids are probably tired of hearing my wife and I quote it every time someone mentions spring. I’d love to show the cartoon to them but I can’t find it. It would stand to reason that it may be a Pepé Le Pew story, but I’m not sure. We own the first three Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD box sets and it’s not on any of those.
Happy Pi Day
Happy pi day to everyone. Here’s the dessert we served tonight in honor of the day.
I know, purists might only celebrate at 1:59 and 26 seconds, but we saved it for dinner anyway.
Nofollow and the Spam War Arms Race
Recent events have caused me to rethink the use of the nofollow attribute on my blog comment links. Much has already been written about whether or not to use the nofollow attribute, so I won’t re-hash those arguments here. Personally, I had come down on the side of believing that nofollow did little to stop spam. Besides, commenters add value to my sites and it’s appropriate to reward them with a link. So I’ve been running one of the DoFollow plugins for WordPress to override the default nofollow behavior.
Then the spam flood came that most of us have seen by now. These spam comments are harder to detect because they seem to be written by a human and customized to somewhat fit the post content. [ Continue reading Nofollow and the Spam War Arms Race … ]
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MacUpdate Promo Deal of the Day
