brendoman's bits

adios

The preview period for TypePad is ending on August 31st. I'm not going to subscribe to the service because I have my own hosting and use Movable Type. I would highly recommend TypePad if you don't have your own hosting and want a great blogging tool. It's way, way, way better than Blogger and there are three different subscription levels. If your interesting in TypePad, let me know. I have 20 codes for 20% lifetime discounts. That's a stinking good deal. You can get TypePad Basic for $36 a year with the discount. Anyway, it's been fun messing with this, but I've got my own site to worry about. I'll see you over there.

Back

I'm back in Missourah (that's how they pronounce it here). Just thought you all would like to know that.

Going Out For Ahwile

Like I said at the big page, I'm going to be at C.I.Y. in Oklahoma with a bunch of high schoolers this week so I probably won't be posting. i haven't been blogging at all hardly because I've been in Hannibal and then when I got back here to Adrian I helped my friend sell videos at an antique tractor show. The excitement just never stops. Heh....

Anyway, I've also been playing a lot of The Sims: Superstar that Ric was so kind to hook me up with. I love it. It gives the game a whole new life. I can't wait to get The Sims on PS2 once I get one.

I'm a little pissed off at the Audblog service right now because they automatically billed my paypal account for another 3 months of the service, even after the guy told me they wouldn't do that. Caca. I need to use that service more often to make it worthwhile. Hey! I can Audblog to my main blog while I'm in Oklahoma! Sounds like a plan. Catch you all on the flipside.

Knapsack

My friend David wrote this sweet web-based RSS Aggregator. Check it out here. You supply it with RSS Feeds from websites (like this one) and it gives you the headlines of the last 10 entries. You then click on the headlines you want to read and it displays the entry. This makes for fast, easy reading of blogs and other sites all in one place. I have never seen a web-based aggregator before, so this is pretty darn sweet. I have a couple RSS aggregator on my own PC that I use (NewzCrawler is my favorite), but I think I'm definitely going to start using this one.

Leaving....

I'm heading back to Misery tommorow. It isn't so bad though because I'm going to go visit my brother who is going to be in town. Then I'm going to camp in Oklahoma for a week. Then it's back to school. Holy crap, back to school. For future reference, I am making a list of things I need to make my dorm room a better place.

• Thick Curtains (to prevent glare)


• At least one cool poster/art print (Van Gogh maybe?)


• Cool bookcase


• Small file cabinet (our desks don't have drawers)


• Good hangers


• New comforter and big pillow


• Rug


• TV Stand for new TV and PS2


• Big trash can

Am I forgetting something?

It's Working!

A little while ago I talked about my new idea for the big site about using server side includes. I tried it out today with the navigation and hosted link sections and it works perfectly! It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. I created two new blogs in Movable Type and then edited the templates so only the posts would show up. Then I posted each individual link just as I would a blog entry. After that I just included the page where I wanted it and boom, it's there. Now updating those links is as easy as posting to a blog. It's also easy to edit them. I'm going to do this for each little chunk on the menu bars so I can get rid of some of the clutter in my template. I'm proud to say I'm a happy geek right now.

Harry Potter Predictions

I thought I would start a thread here about some Harry Potter predictions. I don't want to run something with a lot of spoilers over at the big site. Read on to hear my thoughts.

My Dream Machine

So I talked about the case/mobo I want in this post. Now I'm going to run down all the components I want complete with prices to get an idea of how much this is going to cost. I'll surf on over to Pricewatch to see what we can find.

ICE-Cube Bare Bones system case with MoBo and Power Supply: $202.40

P4 2.6 Ghz Processor: $186.29

PC2700 512MB DDR RAM: $63.00

40 GB EIDE Hard Drive: $53.74

Soundblaster Audigy Gamer Sound Card: $87.00

GeForce4 TI 4200 128MB DDR Video Card: $103

I already have a good monitor and DVD Drive, so let's see what the price is with this. Total: $695.43

Wow! That's cheap. I could probably boost the RAM and Hard Drive space a bit, maybe even go for a 3.0 Ghz processor. Let's add a new monitor and an optical drive into the mix first.

Phillips DVD CDRW Combo: $48

KDS 19in CRT Monitor: $148

Grand Total (with shipping): $891.43

Yeah, I definitely think I'm going to do this pretty soon. It's the perfect LAN party machine and a gaming powerhouse.

My Great New Idea

Last night I had a great idea that I'm sure is not original. Even so, it will be very useful for brendoman.com. Even though I'm using stylesheets, my template for my blog is still a mess. I figured out a way to solve that problem. The solution is using Server Side Includes. I'm already using an include on the main page for the link dump. What the include does is it includes a file (such as this page) and inserts it into the webpage. I can then format it any way I want using stylesheets. This only takes up one line in the template. If I did this for each little section on my template (links, rings, navigation, poll, etc.), my template would be a lot less cluttered. It would also allow for much easier updating of these elements since I won't have to navigate through my cluttered template every time I want to change or add something. This process is going to be slightly time consuming because I am going to create a blog for each individual element and then include that blog into the template. While it might take a little while, it will be great in the long run because I will be able to edit all my content on the fly from anywhere without any hassle. I only wish I had thought of this sooner.

New Computer Possibilities

I'm thinking of purchasing a new computer in the fall. I want to be able to play Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, and unless I get a new motherboard, RAM, processor, and video card, I can't play them on my current machine. Buying a new machine would probably be cheaper than upgrading everything. I'm really looking into buying this case. It's really small and perfect for LAN parties. Check it out:

If I went with this, I would probably end up paying around $1200 for the system since I already have a DVD drive and a good monitor. I'm also thinking about going in a totally different direction. I would really like a laptop with integrated wireless for use at school. I'd also like an I-Pod. I found a pretty sweet deal on an I-Book/I-Pod package. It would be my first Mac ever. I'm a little more hesitant about this option, but it would be pretty cool.

I'm currently watching Cannibal! The Musical. It's pretty stinking funny. Not much else going on. I'm going to test out TypePad's Photo Album feature.