Playing with Technology http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ~Arthur C. Clarke Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:38:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.0 en How do we include Google video? http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/11/02/how-do-we-include-google-video/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/11/02/how-do-we-include-google-video/#comments Fri, 03 Nov 2006 01:29:45 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Multimedia Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/11/02/how-do-we-include-google-video/ Does it work like this?

(gv data=”url”)(/gv) with [] instead of ()? I think it is but you need the full path to the video. How do we get that? No, you just need the URL in the src of the Embeded HTML code for the video you want to include. Then you get this

View This Video on Google

You will not be able to download the video. To download the video you need to click the Download link (on Google’s site) for the video and then you can play it in the Google Video Player. You’ll have to download the player onto your computer. Then you do not need to rely on the network to watch the video.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/11/02/how-do-we-include-google-video/feed/ Test of WP-ExtremeVideo http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/09/08/test-of-wp-extremevideo/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/09/08/test-of-wp-extremevideo/#comments Sat, 09 Sep 2006 02:25:53 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Multimedia Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/09/08/test-of-wp-videoextreme/ I wanted to test this plugin to see if it will work with the Profcast file format. I am happy to say it works very well. Note that if you view it in full screen you get the chapter marks to navigate.

View This Video Full Screen
Quick Time Logo
Click Here to View the QuickTime Movie

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/09/08/test-of-wp-extremevideo/feed/ Great news for WordPress MU http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/23/great-news-for-wordpress-mu/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/23/great-news-for-wordpress-mu/#comments Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:13:38 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site Geek http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/23/great-news-for-wordpress-mu/ donncha has updated the svn version of WordPress MU to make the layout much simpler. I have updated my test system to the new version and have encountered no errors in normal operations. There are some oddities in some additional features that I have been experimenting with, but that is to be expected. I’d say that by the end of July the software will be at a point where I’ll be able to upgrade. I’m hoping to upgrade without losing current users.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/23/great-news-for-wordpress-mu/feed/ Site upgrade in the near future http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/site-upgrade-in-the-near-future-3/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/site-upgrade-in-the-near-future-3/#comments Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:09:53 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/site-upgrade-in-the-near-future-3/ I am actively testing the newest versions of WordPress MU. There are some nice features that will make the site more conducive to academic settings. The first is the ability to just have a username without having a blog. This will allow a person to set up a community blog without killing the database by having tons of tables for people that aren’t going to use them. There are also a lot of fixes and general improvements that make it more stable. I am hoping to be able to upgrade and maintain all the current blogs. An update will probably happen sometime in July.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/site-upgrade-in-the-near-future-3/feed/ Blogging from TextMate http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/blogging-from-textmate/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/blogging-from-textmate/#comments Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:55:42 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site Geek http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/blogging-from-textmate/ Today I found a surprise in my RSS feeds. The blogging bundle for TextMate. It allows you to write and edit posts using the TextMate editor. This is a great thing since TextMate is hands down the best text editor available for OS X. It is also good because TextMate takes advantage of OS X’s built-in spell check. If you have OS X you should pony up the €39 for TextMate and then get the Blogging bundle from svn.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/06/20/blogging-from-textmate/feed/ Time change http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/04/05/time-change/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/04/05/time-change/#comments Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:13:52 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/04/05/time-change/ The blogs don’t auto update with the time change so people should check the Options section of their blogs to change the -5 to a -4. Inconvenient but necessary.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/04/05/time-change/feed/ Problems with spam http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/03/02/problems-with-spam/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/03/02/problems-with-spam/#comments Fri, 03 Mar 2006 02:23:56 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/03/02/problems-with-spam/ It seems that we have been discovered by the outside world. We are starting to get comment spam. The best thing to do is to set the discussion options on your blog to always require administrator approval. I could ad Spam Karma 2 as a plugin but don’t want to do that unless it is absolutely neccessary.

To set comments to always require admin approval go to the Options tab and then the Discussion tab. I set mine so that I get e-mail when

  • Anyone posts a comment
  • A comment is held for moderation

Comments don’t appear unless

  • An admin has approved them
  • Comment author has filled out name and e-mail
  • Comment author must have previously approved comment

Please let me know if you continue to have problems.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/03/02/problems-with-spam/feed/ New themes http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/27/new-themes-2/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/27/new-themes-2/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:28:48 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site Geek http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/27/new-themes-2/ Are you bored with the theme choices? Well, three themes were just added. Simpla, Jentri, and Rubric Updated. Rubric Updated is my update of the Rubric theme based on the work of Hadley Wickham and Tom Raftery. You can download Rubric Updated here.

If there are themes for WordPress 1.5+ that you like and would like considered for addition to the site, leave a comment.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/27/new-themes-2/feed/ Test of MP3 upload http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/test-of-mp3-upload/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/test-of-mp3-upload/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2006 04:38:06 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/test-of-mp3-upload/ Tonight I played around with ProfCast and thought I would try to upload it here. Nope. It said the file type doesn’t match the security settings. I’ll try a PDF. Yep, that worked as evidenced by the link. If I change some settings site-wide the MP3 might work. Nope. I’ll need to check with the forums to see if I can get this to work.

I got an MP3 to work which is good for Podcasting, but we are limited to under 5MB uploads and no more than 10MB per user. It seems that the system is not obeying the per blog settings I am making. But it did automatically add the MP3 as an enclosure so that someone could subscribe to the feed as a Podcast. Cool!

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/test-of-mp3-upload/feed/ Crazy long URL http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/crazy-long-url/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/crazy-long-url/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 19:55:45 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/crazy-long-url/ Liz has this crazy long URL on one of her posts. I’m trying to see if I can get the software to link to Liz’s URL. I think it worked and what was missing was the http:// in front of the www.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/crazy-long-url/feed/ Still DNS issues http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/still-dns-issues/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/still-dns-issues/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 14:59:49 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/still-dns-issues/ It seems that there are still DNS issues for some users. Prof. Havholm is one such user. If you are having trouble accessing any of the blogs, please leave a comment and descibe where you are trying to access from, when, and anything else you think might be important.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/02/02/still-dns-issues/feed/ New themes http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/31/new-themes/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/31/new-themes/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:15:16 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/31/new-themes/ I added three new themes to the server. The new themes are Aalglatt (a two-column theme), lightCMS (a three-column theme), and treacle (another three-column theme). I am going to have one of the i.t student workers take a look at getting ego1 and Horizona! to work with WordPress MU. I am also going to ask them to develop a theme that fits in with the Wooster website so that other departments can have a blog that looks more like the College website. If you find WordPress 1.5 or 2.0 themes that you would like to have added to the server let me know.

I would like to get Regulus to work but have had some difficulty. I know it can be done because it is working on wordpress.com.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/31/new-themes/feed/ Update on strange problem http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/24/update-on-strange-problem/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/24/update-on-strange-problem/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:10:48 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site Geek http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/24/update-on-strange-problem/ It appears that the issue of hit or miss access to individual blogs is an issue with our ISP, OarNET. Our systems people have contacted OarNET and told them how to fix the problem, thanks much. They hope to hear back today or tomorrow.

A quick explanation of what the problem is. Some of you may know that all computers on the internet are idendified by a set of 12 numbers broken into groups of three. When you type www.wooster.edu into a browser that name needs to be converted to a number. This is what a DNS does. Herein lies the problem. All of the blogs are on the same machine so we need all the username.blogs.wooster.edu to resolve (be associated with) to the same number. This is accomplished by using what is called a wildcard DNS entery. It seems that the wildcard is not being handled properly by OarNET or that they are not doing a zone transfer for the domain blogs.wooster.edu. Once this is fixed everything should be super.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/24/update-on-strange-problem/feed/ More on images http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/23/more-on-images/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/23/more-on-images/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2006 03:36:29 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/23/more-on-images/ To get a thumbnail image into a post with a link to the full-size image requires a little finesse. You can also have the full-size image in the post (requires editing html). Follow the steps below.

  1. Upload the image.
  2. Command (Apple key/Windows key)-click the thumbnail.
  3. Select “Not Linked” and it should show “Linked to Image”.
  4. Select “Close Options”.
  5. Drag the image into the post where you have left some space for it.
    • To have the full-size image in the post select “html” button and remove the thumbnail from the img tag and remove the width and height.

* I think this requires the WYSIWYG editor to be active.

Bad hair day
]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/23/more-on-images/feed/ Text editing options http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/22/43/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/22/43/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2006 04:26:43 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/22/43/ For those of you wishing for even more options for formatting text in your posts consider the Xinha Here! extension for Firefox. I am using it to write this post and there are about 80 formatting buttons. It’s kind of crazy. I am also using the RiteOfTongue extension which supposedly will spell check words when highlighted. Of course it doesn’t work in the Xinha window. Anyway, just thought some of you might be interested.

Both of these require you to turn off the WYSIWYG editor in the Users: Personal Options.

Want to test images again. This image is copyright Todd Lockwood

sojourn cover

It looks like you need to edit the HTML of the image you drag into the post so that it looks like
<a xhref="http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/files/sojourn.jpg" mce_href="http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/files/sojourn.jpg"><img xsrc="http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/files/sojourn.thumbnail.jpg" mce_src="http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/files/sojourn.thumbnail.jpg" alt="sojourn cover" /></a>
where you would replace sojourn with the title of your image and the blog URL as well.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/22/43/feed/ More goodies http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/21/more-goodies/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/21/more-goodies/#comments Sat, 21 Jan 2006 05:05:49 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site Geek http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/21/more-goodies/ Some of you may have noticed something new about the post area, more buttons. I upgraded the component that controls the WYSIWYG editing, tinyMCE. I think it makes the formatting more friendly for those not initiated in the joys of HTML. Still no spelling checker, and from my own posts and those of others, we need this badly.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/21/more-goodies/feed/ Strange problem http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/19/strange-problem/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/19/strange-problem/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:55:40 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/19/strange-problem/ There seems to be some strange problem with access to the blogs from off campus. I am able to access all the blogs from off campus, but I have my DNS set to use the College’s servers. I changed my settings to use my ISP’s DNS servers and coulde still access all the blogs. This seems to rule out a problem with the DNS wildcard required for WordPress MU. I am starting to wonder if it is a problem with the ISP used by the people having trouble. I think both people who have contacted me use SSSNet as their ISP. I have asked Systems to look into things.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/19/strange-problem/feed/ New version http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/15/new-version/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/15/new-version/#comments Sun, 15 Jan 2006 05:33:40 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/15/new-version/ I have just finished upgrading the site to the most recent version of WordPress MU. I upgraded in anticipation of Peter’s class using the server. As I was testing to make sure everything was working, I discovered that image uploading was broken. It appears to have broken for a month, but no one used it in that period. I tested image uploading on the latest version and it worked, so we should be set. Users should also be able to upload MP3 and PDF files, but I did not test it. I need to contact Erin Brazell at Oberlin and see if she wants some help in setting up WordPress MU.

What is Oberlin using to power their website?

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2006/01/15/new-version/feed/ Site Upgrades http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/14/site-upgrades/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/14/site-upgrades/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:01:34 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/14/site-upgrades/ So yesterday saw us upgrade from the 11-20 build to the 12-13 build of WordPress MU. The 12-13 build differs significantly from the 11-20 build. In particular new fields were added to some DB tables and new functions were added to wpmu-functions.php. This caused some problems as the update script didn’t update the DB tables and I had to do that manually. Also the new functions caused a problem for the Admin panel as a new function was added and the patched file I was using from ITDamager didn’t have the function, but that was easily fixed by copying over the new wpmu-function.php.

There is some added functionality in the new version. Most notable for the user is the ability to upload mp3 files. This will allow users to Podcast with their blog. This should allow us to conduct an interesting project with Mark Pearson and a faculty member from Earlham.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/14/site-upgrades/feed/ Very cool developments http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/11/very-cool-developments/ http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/11/very-cool-developments/#comments Sun, 11 Dec 2005 06:28:37 +0000 Jon Breitenbucher Site Geek http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/11/very-cool-developments/ I’ve taken some time to create my own variations of two of the themes available on the site. I have adopted almost-spring and ShadedGrey as the two themes I’ll play around with. Why?

I wanted to add some functionality that I saw on Mark Pearson’s blog. Mark had a Technorati service that shows blogs linking to his blog. (This entry will show on his link back.) He also had a cloud generated from his RSS feeds using Tagcloud.com that I thought was very cool. Both of these required the addition of code (javascript) to the sidebar and the code is specific to me. Thus I needed my own versions of the two themes. You can see the results at the bottom of the sidebar. I also styled the cloud CSS to fit with my site. I think both are very cool.

In the process I modified some of the other themes to have RSS feeds for the categories in the category listing. I also modified many of the themes to list a user’s links by the link category of the link. Both of these modifications can be seen in this blog to the right.

]]> http://jbreitenbuch.blogs.wooster.edu/2005/12/11/very-cool-developments/feed/