I just finished the book last night - it's a G.K. Chesterton and somewhat reminiscent of his Father Brown stuff. It's a detective novel, but not a very conventional one. The detective in question is one Basil Grant, a retired judge and unsocial but not antisocial type, who is followed about by his brother Rupert, an ever suspicious amateur detective himself, and the narrator of the book, Swinburne.

As described on the back, there are six chapters, but not a crime in any of them, unless of course, you could consider some of the actions involved in investigation criminal. That is, of course, where the Club of Queer Trades comes in, that mysterious bureau of entirely new occupations. And they really are queer, in that old British sense of the word. I confess that some of them had me until the very end (and they certainly have Rupert and Swinburne to the end every time).

Basil seems insane to his friends, but I found myself rather trusting him even if his ideas seemed absurd. So, to wrap this bit of the post up, it's not too long of a read (my edition is 126 pages) and is worth a read for each chapter, and especially for reading through and discovering the ending (if you don't guess it before, that is).

Dev Update

Now then, the report on the new a broken mold. I'm happy to say that the development, which consists of bending WordPress and CSS to my will, seems to me to be almost over. While I'm here, let me give Firebug a plug; it's a web development add-on for Firefox, and boy is it ever cool. It has JavaScript and DOM tools, which I don't use, but the HTML and CSS tools are handy. The killer feature: you can edit code and see the results in real time (I'm not sure how that works with JavaScript). If you've ever done CSS work, you can probably imagine how handy that is.

I'm also happy to say that I contacted NearlyFreeSpeech.NET last night and was elated to learn that I could pay through the parents' plastic (with me giving them equal cash, of course) since I don't have a checking account yet.

So I'm hoping to get it up within the next half a month, and I suppose a month at the latest.

Time for homework now -- catch you later.

I confess, like Aaron Weiss did, that I want to get famous.

However, I don't want to get too famous. Because that either leads to a bunch of good comments, flame wars, or spammy comments.

I think I would prefer to have a smaller, but still present, audience. I do like to do this kind of informal writing, and I would think it nice if I had a small audience with which to discuss it.

In the blog world, however, you usually get famous for one of two reasons: either you did something that made you really famous, or you provide good fresh content regularly. I hope to do the latter. And I figure the best way to do that, since I'm not that astute of a writer, is to assemble a team of writers, which is, incidentally, what we want to do. Funny how that works, huh?

Anyway, enough down that road. More shall come later on the subject.

For what seems to be to have been a couple weeks, I've been working on getting WordPress all customized to my liking. Right now that mostly means struggling with the theme. PHP and CSS. I hope I can get it sorted out within, say, the next week and a half. Anyway, probably sometime before the end of the year, we're going to be online with our very own website (thanks Google, it's been nice knowing you). I'm still leaning towards abrokenmold.net. I think that's going to be www.abrokenmold.net, even though I like the no WWW look, because it can present some issues. Even if I'm not dealing with those issues at the moment, I do want to be prepared for the future. One might also notice that there is a website at brokenmold.net and that having such a similar domain name is a poor idea. Maybe so, but we already have the name and I want to stick with it. Plus we have a jump in that brokenmold.net seems to be abandoned.

So, anyway, a somewhat quick dump of some thoughts.

Although the final release isn't scheduled until tomorrow at 9am, a sharp-eyed blog contributor sent us a link to what is almost certainly the final version of Matthew's rhetoric essay, probably leaked by inside sources.

Joking aside, this is the rhetoric essay I've been working on, the first of many rhetoric papers to come. I chose to tackle the subject of Christians drinking underage because they don't believe the government should be able to restrict that liberty. Well maybe it shouldn't, but if it *does*, do we have biblical grounds to disobey our civil authorities on that point? I argue not.

Enjoy!

This isn't actually all that much of a post, but I did want to refer you to some reading.

So anyway, this thing is mostly about female modesty, but it is mentioned that guys should be modest too. I believe that. It is a somewhat different affair, but worth remembering.

Anyway, here's the thing. Pastor Tollefson preached on Proverbs 7 a couple of weeks ago and I think that reminded me of seeing this mentioned on Covenant Eyes' blog and going to check it out. It's The Rebelution's Modesty Survey.

The Modesty Survey is an anonymous discussion between Christian guys and girls who care about modesty. Hundreds of Christian girls submitted their questions and over 1,600 Christian guys (of all ages) submitted 150,000+ answers—including over 25,000 text responses.

source

I think sometimes it bugs me when people give these general, Sunday school, perfect summary answers to spiritual questions. Yeah, those are good, and sometimes they are helpful. But sometimes specifics are a lot more helpful and maybe more personable. I like the Modesty Survey because it some of both. Some good general answers about Christian modesty and some very specific questions. I have to admit it was somewhat disturbing how specific some of the questions are and what they might make you think about. But, as Christians, keep your mind out of the gutter.

I think it's a good read / browse-through for guys and girls, I think. It might give some insights to the female side and let guys see what a sampling of other guys think about all this stuff, maybe learn that they might be thinking about the issue wrongly, or see other perspectives on it, or get some good clarification on it, or what you will.

Anyway, I found it interesting. As a technical aside, the questions and answers are loaded up with AJAX, so it's not so easy just to hit up a bunch of links in new tabs for later reading (plus there's often a read more responses link).

P.S. Not to be immodest myself, but…

This is our 100th post.

They weren't all big, intellectual, meaty posts; some were actually a bit trivial. But hey… two people, 100 blog posts, 1 year and 17 days. Not that bad, is it?

And…

…hopefully sometime in the soonish future, there will be a post up about us seeking some new bloggers. Also hopefully in the next few months, I can get a sweet WordPress setup all made and get a proper domain for a broken mold… either abrokenmold.com or abrokenmold.net, I would think. I'm just not digging .org for the name. I'm thinking we can get hosted with the awesome NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. It should be rather affordable with the low traffic I'm expecting (at least at first… if it ever picks up, I'll probably be able to afford some decent fixed price hosting by then).

Two common maxims are: "Familiarity breeds contempt," and "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

While there is latent truth to be found in these statements, one might conceive of a scenario where proximity to an object brings one under some some degree of influence of that object, causing one to take a more favorable view of said object. In this case, distance from the object in question and the resulting objectivity could in fact engender contempt. In this way, the proverbial dynamic may be shown to not always hold true.

Just by way of sharing one of my more interesting trains of thought...

I got a business doing websites
When my friends need some code, who do they call?
I do HTML for ‘em all
Even made a homepage for my dog

-Weird Al Yankovic, "White and Nerdy"

Wednesday was a kind of milestone, or climax, or finish, for a project of mine. And that project was Matt Barley's website.

It started as a idea in Matt's head at some time or another, and he eventually conveyed to me at the New Year's 2008-2009 party at the RimRock Inn that he had been procrastinating on the project for some time and didn't get it done in 2008 and so wanted to get it done this year. I said I could help him, and so, on January 9, the domain name was registered, and a web page converted from a Word document made on Matt's MacBook was thrown up, slightly hand edited.

The first thing I did after that was to recode the page cleanly, with the help of KompoZer. Matt wanted a menu on the side, so it went table based. Yep. I just said that. It wasn't the best of designs, and later on I changed that to a menu positioned left with CSS. Praise God for CSS. Eventually it went back to plain HTML structure with a text menu below the header. Also, somewhere along the line, Matthew of abm fame gave a couple design suggestions and some code for one of them.

And then there was the photo galleries. First I did them with Web Album Generator and tried to embed them in a page, and then tried a page per album, using in iframe. That was a pain, and eventually I gave up and put them on separate pages and edited the CSS in each album folder to make those pages appear look like the rest of the site. And then Matt didn't like so many pictures on a certain album, or something like that. So, we ended up switching to Picasa Web Albums and linking to Matt's public page from his website. That worked out pretty well, since Matt can now manage the pictures all himself, which is great for both of us.

Eventually, I wanted to set up some sort of solution so Matt could edit the site on his own. I thought of a content management system first, and looked up one I recalled seeing linked from BugMeNot called CushyCMS. So I went and checked it out. It turned out to be, as one reviewer put it, more like a remote content editor. You put the proper class on div elements you wanted editable by Cushy and give it an FTP account to work with, and that's how it works. As another reviewer said, most of the time he'd probably forget to download the version from the site if he wanted to edit with something else (e.g., by hand with a text editor). So, that idea ended up being quashed before I even tested it.

I checked out three systems after that, really: Joomla, WordPress, and CMS Made Simple. XAMPP running on Windows on my laptop was my testbed of choice. Joomla was easy enough to set up, but seemed kind of complicated. WordPress looked like it might work well for blogging, but that's not what I was gunning for (although abm may be gunning for it in the future). CMS Made Simple ended up being it. The template/stylesheet system was easy enough to understand, and the use of the Smarty template system seemed nice. Not that I had heard of it before, but inserting Smarty tags seems to me a good way to insert special content into pages.

The first day of development gladdened the heart, because it seemed like it would work out great, and there was a pretty sweet little Picasa Web Albums module I found. There were some frustrations after that. A lot of aggravation dealing with CSS. In fact, that's been a thing all through the development of the website. Eventually things got ironed out and the site was finally ready for launch. The launch however, was terrible. I tried several times to upload and correctly configure the site for being on the server, and made a clean version of the site a couple times while at it. This process was highly frustrating, the least of reasons not being that I still have dial-up! Anyway, I finally got it nailed down and done correctly.

After after putting it in a test directory and then getting the go ahead from Matt, it went root, and now sits there beautifully. It's not much, but I have to admit I'm rather proud of it and am thinking that I may even redo our church website with CMSms if given stewardship of it. So, go check it out.

So I just thought I'd put fingers to keyboard, so to type, since I had a couple thoughts...

(Yes, that was a not-so-subtle parody of Nat's post here.)

-Part 1-

Well, over the course of our vacation/trip, we've been staying at the houses of various friends and relatives (similar to Linux distro-hopping, I daresay) and one of the features that varies between locations is the reading selection. At one of my uncles and aunts' house, they had a number of Frank Peretti books; I've read several of his: The Oath, Hangman's Curse and Nightmare Academy, some from the Cooper series, and also Piercing the Darkness. However, I had not read Monster or House, a book he co-authored with Ted Dekker, nor had I read This Present Darkness, to which Piercing the Darkness is a sequel. They had all three of these books, and I read all three last weekend.

This, I imagine, puts me in a somewhat qualified position to review and comment on Peretti's literary offerings, and that is what I intend to do.

Peretti's books might be generally described as supernatural thrillers; he gives angels, demons, and spiritual warfare a very real place in everyday life. In addition, he provides insight on modernity and culture from a biblical perspective; his plots depict the consequences of fallen human nature in a gripping and lively fashion. His simple and unrefined dialogues and almost over-the-top vivid descriptions combine to create an urgent, driving story.

In Monster, for example, the story begins with a handful of people taking a weekend retreat into the wilderness, but an ongoing thread of perplexing hints and puzzle pieces races through the building tension to form an entire web of intrigue that involves Sasquatches, hair-raising hunts and gruesome deaths, and the ruthless advance of Atheistic science. House deals with a deadly game of manipulation and greed, fueled by fear and Satanism, and ultimately exposes our bondage to Sin in our own hearts, and liberation through Christ and sacrifice.

"Light came into the darkness, but the darkness did not understand it."

This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness vividly depict the struggle of the Remnant against the onslaught of Humanistic (and ultimately Satanistic) agendas, power struggles for the education system, government, and even entire towns. But beyond this superficial picture, the awesome conflict between angels and demons, good against evil, is beautifully portrayed. These books are a powerful testament to the efficacy of prayer, with the prayers of the saints providing "prayer cover" for angels to carry out maneuvers, and strength to meet demons in battle. Finally, the assurance that shouts so gloriously from the pages is that God IS ultimately in control, and "light will always pierce the darkness." Shades of C.S. Lewis's deeper magic. I get goosebumps.

So, as the angels say, "For the saints of God and for the Lamb!"

-Part 2-

Now, a bit on mewithoutYou (mentioned of course in many previous posts), arguably my favorite band. To be perfectly honest, my estimation of mwY may have been somewhat lowered by what I've recently learned. Then again, maybe I've just *altered* my preconceptions, while still holding their work in the same esteem. I think that really is the key word-- preconceptions. Not to flood this post with C.S. Lewis references or anything, but I think there is something to be said for his (if somewhat Universalist) account in The Last Battle of the dialogue between Aslan and Emeth (a Calormene), where Aslan explains that, while Emeth thought he had been worshipping Tash, he had in fact been serving Aslan, "For I and he [Tash] are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him." Okay, so it isn't just Lewis's idea either... maybe that's what Paul was getting at in the Areopagus, eh?

The point I'm trying to pose for consideration is the possibility that, despite maybe not holding the correct understanding/belief of Scripture, it is still possible to worship and obey the one true God. That does seem to be validated by Paul's speech. Of course, you don't yet know what I'm referring to, do you? Sorry...

*deep breath*

Well, being on vacation and all, I was able to take some time to do a bit more research on mwY, the band philosophy and background, etc. And I came across a few things that I found a bit unsettling. First there's the fact that their lyrics and philosophy are influenced by Sufi Islam teachings (Aaron was raised in a Sufi household before he converted to Christianity; his father converted from Judaism and his mother from Episcopalian). Then again, it isn't as if such beliefs are *necessarily* in contradiction with a Christian aesthetic. However, it does indicate to me that they aren't on the page I thought they were, at least not nominally, and sometimes nominally can be important. More on that later. Next, I found a couple of interviews with lead vocalist Aaron Weiss found here and here. From the first interview, we find this excerpt:

It’s not like I’m offended if someone says we’re a Christian band. I just don’t think it’s true. I don’t think we live up to that calling, so I’d be reluctant to go saying that, and God knows the truth. Our hearts are very far from Jesus.

Now that concerns me somewhat. However, if you take that in perspective with their lyrics, what do you end up with? They certainly don't seem "far from Jesus" in the many references to Jesus in their songs and the story that they tell. Eh. Hmm.

From the second interview:

I'm trying to understand the Bible, and um, but I definitely don't put it on the same pedestal that I used to. You know, where I'd say, "this is the word of God that I'm holding in my hand and this is infallible and perfect, and there's no contradictions and is scientifically accurate," and all the rest...

And then he goes on to point out reasons he now regards it as more of collection of holy Jewish stories and poems. In this list he cites various "inconsistencies," and how he just wasn't convinced by efforts to sustain their validity. I'm glad, however, to see that he goes on to say, "There's just some things that I pray to God to guide me in the right way and to guide me to the truth in the best way." He's evaluating things that the Bible says by what is written on his conscience, and I hope God will grow him that way.

So, to conclude, I want to express a few final thoughts about the worship/worldview issue. Looking at Romans 1, we seem to find another indicator of God's natural revelation and the potential to worship Him with the knowledge given. Is one absolutely required to have received the gospel to be included in God's kingdom? I hope not... what about those far-flung tribes who have lived for centuries "without excuse"? Then again, I do think it's important to claim the name of Christ if you've received the gospel. I don't know how that all works out... I realize this is sort of a whole different topic, but it is one that pertains directly to the subject at hand, so I'm trying just to briefly set up a framework. C.S. Lewis (last reference, I promise), in Pilgrim's Regress, outlines such a model, where he describes the heathens as being given a "picture" of "Sweet Desire" by God, and in striving towards that, they were living by His law. The Christians in Puritania, however, have the law without the picture. At any rate, I think it does make sense.

However it may be, I love the poetry and passion of mewithoutYou and believe their theme is in worship to God, and I certainly pray for them and hope to see them in Heaven. Can't wait to listen to It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright when I get home in a week or so.

Bonus material: check out http://improveverywhere.com. Hilarious stuff, but language disclaimer.

-Matthew

So I just thought I'd put pen to paper, so to speak, since I had a couple thoughts.

First thing: the free culture music scene. I don't really have a lot of experience there, but I do know this so far: there is some great talent there. For instance, I've downloaded all of JT Bruce's released albums on the fabulous Jamendo (which I gushed about back here). I have some other music from there, but his are probably my favorites so far. And I've heard about Jack Conte… sounds interesting. In fact, I find the whole culture interesting. In a related channel, some of this vibe seems to be seeping out into mainstream music. Notably, Nine Inch Nails (and by implication, its sole member, Trent Reznor). Reznor seems to have gotten sick of major label trash, and in fact gave some thoughts for new and unknown artists recently on the NIN forums.

So, while I don't think I would completely abandon the mainstream industry, I respect this free culture. It's really a fascinating thing to me and I do want to learn more. I'm still coming to grips with what I think about copyright law (well, okay, maybe I should say I haven't sat down and given it a deep think-through yet). I think it's right to obey copyright law, because it's the law and there doesn't seem to be anything inherently evil about it, but maybe it does need to be revised (I'm talking U.S. here). When Congress finally gets around to it (2014 maybe?), it's going to be a doozy, whatever happens. The explosion of the digital age cannot be ignored. Anyway, it's an interesting thing, and I want to learn more about all of it (did I already say that?). Hopefully, I can eventually make my music collection 100% legal (meaning buy copies of all the stuff I don't own and want to keep; some CD's and some single downloads).

Second thing: Rockbox. If you're the type who might run Linux, you might like Rockbox, the awesome alternative firmware for jukeboxes (mp3 players). OK, maybe you don't need to run Linux, but I just thought maybe there's a similar appeal. Anyway, I've been running Rockbox on my Sansa e200 version 1 since fall or early winter last year. I was running the few week old 3.0 release then. Now, it's up to 3.3. This seems like a growing up release to me; support for JPEG album art finally and native USB support on some players in Rockbox (thought at least on mine it uses the original firmware if plugged in while off). In any case, it has support for bunches of codecs (including, of course, unprotected iTunes). It also has a load of plugins, many of which can be used while playing music, divided into applications, games, and demos. Anyway, enough with the infomercial. All I'm saying is if you have a supported player (more in development!) and want some more out of your MP3 player, check it out.

Edit: July 25, 2009: As an addendum, I really enjoy the playlist management Rockbox brings to my e200. I couldn't do it with the original firmware but using Rockbox I can follow my habit of making custom playlists consisting of songs from different albums. This was sort of possible with the OF, but was fairly painstaking (you had to play songs you wanted in the list and add them to a 'go list').

I really think Facebook should give this hint up front on the photo upload page, and maybe even point you to some helpful tools. You see, as far as I know, the pictures you and others post to Facebook are only stored on Facebook servers in the size you see them. Often enough, though, the original pictures uploaded are bigger than this. Thus, uploading time is wasted when you could just upload the right sized pictures in the first place. The Picasa Facebook plugin does this, for instance, allowing pictures to actually be uploaded using dial-up. Woot!

To the point, the maximum width your photos are displayed at on Facebook is 604 pixels, the maximum height being 604 also. If you're uploading anything smaller than that, don't bother resizing. But if they're bigger than that, you can save some time. So, use your favorite program to size your photos down to this width or height. Or if you have no idea what to use, try Fotosizer for Windows and RapidoResizer for Mac. Linux users, figure it out (you're supposed to be smart).

And as a side note, I think Facebook should seriously add a real yearbook view, where you could view a spread of thumbnails of your friends, since that's what it's named after (yearbook/facebook - see the connection? Check this ZDNet definition for full info - it's actually a bit different take than I have, and in fact I guess I'm wrong about what it's named after, but I still think a yearbook view would be cool).

P.S. If you have a free Flickr account, the max size your photos will ever be viewable at is 1024x768 pixels, I think (and as I remember, I think you might even have to turn that size on). So, you might be able to save some time the same way there.
P.P.S. I'm wondering if your photos are somewhere on the Flickr servers at a larger size than 1024x768 even if you have a free account - maybe if you upgrade to pro, you could get access to these bigger versions. Just speculating. Take the Flickr tip at your own risk.

Edit: July 25, 2009: I re-registered for Flickr today and contacted them about the original file free account to Pro thing. Speaking about Flickr free, I was told this by Natalie at Flickr Customer Care:

Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later).

Bingo. Just what I wanted to know. So upload at 1024x768 with that knowledge - if you go Pro, your photos will only be viewable at that resolution max. So, if you think you might go Pro in the future and think this could be an issue, upload accordingly. I personally plan to upload at 1600x1200 or widescreen equivalents, because that's what I've been doing with my photo blog to save upload time (and download time for viewers, now that I think about it).

Edit: July 27, 2009: I just found a way to get at the originals with a free Flickr account. Who knows how long it might last, but here goes (might make a post out of it later). It's the photostream RSS feed (I haven't tested Atom yet). Just stick it into a feed reader that supports attached media (including Firefox's Live Bookmarks) and grab that attached media. It appears to be the original. Test it out right here on my RSS feed. I'm suspecting that maybe Flickr doesn't mind as much about this, but they just make it easy on Pro and call it a Pro feature. In fact, they start you on your way to finding the originals over here by documenting the photo source URLs.

I've recently started using Gnome Do in Ubuntu 9.04, and I've not yet explored the extent of its functionality, but I'm continually discovering more uses. It includes plugins for GMail contacts, Firefox bookmarks, a Gnome dictionary and calculator, Pidgin messenger, Imageshack uploader, and more. One useful plugin is the Microblogging (Twitter) plugin; it shows your friends' status updates in the notification tray, and you can post directly from Do. You can even manage your Gnome session and windows, and control your media player. Oh, and all this is just an extension of the main function, which is a search/launcher; however, I have yet to put it to use as effectively as Launchy. Finally, you can use it with a dock skin, wrapping yet another desktop function into one tool.

A few configuration options are available by right-clicking on the Do icon in the dock, but to further customize dock settings, you can use Alt+F2 > gconf-editor > Apps > gnome-do > preferences > Docky > Utilities > DockPreferences. Icons are added or removed by dragging to the dock. Screenshot here.

Now the Twitter plugin would be really handy, except for the fact that it, along with most third-party Twitter apps, was broken to some extent by the Twitpocalypse. Although the crisis was mostly averted, it left in its wake a bunch of mal-tweeting apps. In the case of Do, upon an attempted post to Twitter, you would receive a notification that the post had failed, when it had in fact succeeded. While not exactly an epic fail, it nonetheless was an undesirable state of affairs. Enter open source developers.

The bug was reported and dealt with on Launchpad here. However, finding all the dev language a bit difficult to follow, I headed over to the Ubuntu forums for some clarification, where a user linked to the same fix page, but with a more lucid explanation.

Go to Synaptic, go to Software Sources, pre-released updates, close, look for gnome-do, update gnome-do plugins, go to .local/share/gnome-do and delete (or move) your plugins directory, open gnome-do, enable the microblogging plugin again, and you should be good to go.

So, to further expound ... you open Synaptic package manager, then open Software Sources and enable pre-released updates (instructions). Then go back to Synaptic and search for gnome-do-plugins, and update the package. Next, open a file browser, and show hidden files if they are not already visible (View > Show Hidden Files), then navigate to your home folder, where you should find the above-referenced location; delete or move. Finally, simply open Gnome Do and re-enable your plugins.

Viola! You should now have tweets that flow like clockwork.

For me, that is.
I blogged a while back about Vista/XP Virtual Desktops being virtual desktops in Windows done right-er. Well, I have a new love. VirtuaWin.
I believe that probably over a year earlier than this second time, I have used VirtuaWin (the default taskbar icon looked familiar). I probably didn't like it so well back then, but I think it's pretty rad now.

• under 10 MB memory usage on my system
• low CPU usage on my system
• simple
• fast
• small size of core files
• extendable by modules

Awesome, huh? It doesn't do any fancy Exposé style desktop previews like some other ones, but I don't really think Windows is setup for that (hopefully Microsoft will make some changes in this direction in the future. Native virtual desktops in Windows would be great).
And some nice news for the Ubuntu (and others, I think) users among you: you can set up hotkeys to switch and follow windows to the previous and next desktops.
Sweet, huh?
As a postscript, I like using the XP bars icon set for VirtuaWin because it allows me to keep tabs on which desktop I'm on, Ubuntu/GNOME style (pic). Check that set out or take your pick of the others. You install them by putting them in the icons folder in the VirtuaWin folder. Refer to the help file included for more info (help not working on Vista? Try xchm for Win32 [v. 1.16]).

So it turns out there are a couple ways to do this. It depends on what kind of search you want for your blog. Actually, you can even go as far as setting up a Google Custom Search for your blog, like we used to use, but these are a bit simpler and faster to set up.

First, you've probably seen the search box on the Blogger navbar.

By my guess, this is probably in the source code of all or most Blogger templates, but I know for a fact that some of them hide the bar (it's actually an iframe if you want to know), such as our template, Subtlebeauty. You'll have to remove some code from your template if it's hidden on yours and you want it to show. For example, in Subtlebeauty, I'd probably remove the lines:

#navbar-iframe {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none;
}

Check out this page for a full tutorial on how to remove the bar (possibly because it looks terrible with your theme or you're using a different search box). If you want to change the color scheme of the bar (there's only 4 available), check out this page.

The second way is maybe a little easier. It's pretty much the same search as the navbar provides, just using your own search box, which means you can put it wherever you want on your blog. Head over here and grab the code or press the Add To My Blogger button. You can change the text displayed when the search box is not being used and the text on the search button as described over there. Just take a look at the code and you'll probably get it. Easy as pie. In fact, I put the code in below so you can test it out right here.

And the third way is a piece of cake. It's the new Blogger Search Box. Quote from Blogger Buzz: "To add the gadget, go to your blog's Layout page, then click “Add a Gadget” and click on “Search Box.” Super easy, and it has some cool options. It's a lot more advanced than the previous two (but just as easy to use). It used to only be in Blogger in Draft, but now it's public, so woot woot!

With a lot of Unix and Linux window managers, you can drag a window around by holding the Alt key and using your mouse anywhere on the window. (The GNOME window manager can use some different keys, probably other WMs, too). This is incredibly useful. It allows you to get the window around quickly, and is so much faster than seeking out the title bar and dragging with that.

Anyway, enough with the persuasion; if you're going to like it, you'll be convinced when you try it. To the point, I found three programs to do the job for Windows: the Easy Window Dragging -- KDE style AutoHotkey script, AltDrag, and Win32WM (direct .zip link).

The first of these, Easy Window Dragging, is the most simple. You'll need AutoHotkey to run it. If you want, you can use the AHK2Exe compiler included with AHK; this will make an .exe you can run without needing AutoHotkey. I think performance may be slightly better when it's run uncompiled, but the difference may be negligible. The functions of the script are (quote from script comments):

Hold down
; the ALT key and LEFT-click anywhere inside a window to drag it to a new
; location; 2) Hold down ALT and RIGHT-click-drag anywhere inside a window
; to easily resize it; 3) Press ALT twice, but before releasing it the second
; time, left-click to minimize the window under the mouse cursor, right-click
; to maximize it, or middle-click to close it.

There is a tray icon that allows you to exit the program.

AltDrag has a few more features. Quote from the info file:

Drag windows with the mouse when pressing the alt key.
You can use the middle or right mouse button to resize windows.
If you press the shift key while you drag or resize, the window will stick to other windows.
You can double-click a window to maximize it.
You can double-click with the middle mouse button to roll-up windows.

There is also an experimental feature to make it stick to other windows (what does that mean?) along with another option in the .ini file to make Alt+right-click minimize windows. Tray icon included.

Win32WM does not have a tray icon, so you'll have to end its process with Task Manger in order to stop it. In addition to alt-dragging, it has some keyboard driven window management functions. Quote from the readme:

Maximize vertically Win+V
Maximize horizontally Win+H
Maximize window Win+X
Minimize window Win+Z
Send window to background Win+B

It also has some other functions, such as snapping windows to desktop edges when alt-dragging, but they appear to need VirtuaWin (what Win32WM was originally made for) to be enabled.

One other thing to note about Win32WM: it appears to send click and drag mouse events to the window it's moving - repeatedly. Take a look at this blank canvas in GIMP that I dragged around with it:

And another note: while the CPU usage of these applications is mostly not that bad, the CPU usage of programs being dragged around on the screen can spike as well as applications behind those you are dragging. I think this has something to do with the way Windows draws windows and I also think it may be different in Vista and beyond. However, this is mostly with violent thrashing of the window about the screen; gentler window dragging should have quite acceptable CPU usage.

In any case, take your pick, and enjoy.

Update: June 12, 2009: Just a quick note: windows don't seem to drag using this method when they are not responding (hung). I think this is probably also something to do with the way Windows draws windows, and it also may be different in Vista. And as far as I remember, hung windows drag fine in Linux.

Update: November 1, 2009: I've switched to using KDE Mover-Sizer, a modified version Easy Window Dragging. It supports window snapping and is distributed ready to go in an .exe. Go read the page if you don't understand that. And let me reiterate one last time - alt dragging is an awesome time-sanity-saver.

This bugs me to death since I'm on dial-up. Just last night, I pulled a process out from under the nose of my firewall while it was asking about it and it locked up my (Windows) system pretty nasty. I should file a bug report with PC Tools about that…

Anyway, thanks to burning desire and this and this thread on mozillaZine Forums, I found Cache Fixer. Quote: "Cache Fixer extension drops the "dirty" flag on every startup and if Mozilla crashes, you still loose cached data, but only the current (crashed) session. I think it’s better, than loosing all cached data."

That's awesome, but it only works up to Firefox 3.0pre. So I used the maxVersion trick so it will work with up to Firefox 4.0. Here it is on Box.net. Hopefully the developer will put an official updated version up soon. Please note: I have nothing to do with development, I just changed a text string and then zipped the files back up.

Also, as I posted back here, the dumped cache is intentional behavior. We're just choosing to change that behavior (woot!).

Thanks much, Mr. Ivanov.

Having finally read Claus' post about Kon-Boot from the 25th, I thought it pretty cool and felt like posting about it over here.

He goes into some detail about the tool, so you can check it out if it interests you. But here are the juicy and important points.

What it does is modify the operating system kernel in memory (grabbing control at the BIOS to bootloader handoff), changing the necessary parts to disable the need to use a password to log in. It runs off of a CD (or a floppy… maybe you could get it to work off a USB stick, too). Hot stuff.

From what I read at GSD, such techniques aren't new, but this is a pretty sweet implementation. It doesn't work with computers on a domain setup, but that makes sense; you would have to inject code into the server, too, to make it work, because the computer needs to authenticate with the server, and unless the server is compromised, too, it's not gonna let you login with out proper credentials (password, keycard, whatever). And even if you could get through to a local account on the computer, you might not be able to nab anything important since user data might be stored on the server. I'm not sure about the caching methods used, though (I'm talking about Windows here; I don't even know if Linux has domains). Maybe some user data would still be cached on the hard disk, I don't know.

In any case, it's a pretty cool technique, even if I'm not so geek about it as Claus.

It seems to me there was a point when blogging was 'in'. At least with the younger population. It was, well, a fad, and like all of them, it passed (or should I say will pass? passes?).

But why did the young'ns not stick around? I believe the answer to be simple: writing about what you did today gets boring after a while -- for reader and likely enough the blogger, too. And if you're not celebrity, what stranger in the world is going to read your boring personal weblog?

Now that you've figured it out, consider the hundreds of non-celebrity blogs that get a nice chunk of readership. Why do they get readership? Content, content, content. Plus presentation, of course. Your average personal blog might have a terrible template (or just a popular and familiar one), but I think people appreciate good design, whether consciously or subconsciously. It also seems to me that blogs with high readership have a topic, or a category to their posts -- thus a reason for people to come back: more content in that category. Example: Download Squad. Though it covers tech news, they are always talking about software, new and updated. So people have a reason to come back. Unless you are some hot celebrity, your personal life probably is not enough to draw someone back to your blog.

And one note: it seems to me that a lot of popular blogs (at least that I run into) are run by a team. Keeping quality content coming is important, too. Who would get used to watching TV if programs came on randomly, sporadically, and far between?

Enter microblogging, and by the numbers, Twitter. And Facebook*. Why do daily details of your personal life suddenly become hot fodder for the internet masses (OK, maybe just your friends, but I do have random people follow me on Twitter -- it's been spammers recently, though)? Manageability. Or should we put it, digestibility. And the social ties. One can eat spoonfuls, in fact, one wants to eat multiple spoonfuls in a day, but not six whole pizzas.

Check out this article, In defense of Twitter. After you read this quote from it, that is:

Of course you'd like to think that most of your daily conversation is weighty and witty but instead everyone chats about pedestrian nonsense with their pals. In fact, that ephemeral chit-chat is the stuff that holds human social groups together.

So while we post some more personal stuff to the blog (and it can't help bleeding through), I like to think of it as a sort of formal publishing platform. It's information, subjective and objective, and it's there for your taking. And if you feel like coming back because it interests you, do. If not, don't. If you're my friend, you might find such disconnected and random thoughts as Twitter produces to be noteworthy.

Anyway, some interesting thoughts…

*Facebook status updates

How annoying. A day or two ago, Javascript popups started opening in new tabs. They are popups for a reason. I had Firefox set so that links that would open in a new window would open in a new tab, but popups like this didn't use to be affected.
Anyway, after another Google today, I found the fix. 1st Byte Solutions has the answer. Quote:

if you open about:config in your address bar, you can change the setting manually.
Change: browser.link.open_newwindow
Mine was set to 3, which told the popups to always open in a new tab.

Niceness. It's a pretty easy fix. Set it to 2. I just wonder what changed it to 3. Wasn't me. It appears this is something of a longstanding issue; the Firefox team should probably add a GUI option for this. Check out this thread on Mozillazine, where the same fix is given (in 2004) and this one, where Tab Mix Plus is the solution (it occurs to me TMP might change that value).
Go give some kudos to 1st Byte if this makes you happy.

Update; Feb-15-2010: So it busted again. And this time setting browser.link.open_newwindow to 2 didn't fix it. Garr. Fortunately, setting browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction to 2 did fix it. Thanks, harrymc.

Today I found two extensions that can give you some more space on your bookmarks bar in Firefox.

First, the Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar, which gives you more rows as you need them. If your bookmarks overflow when you size down the window, it catches it then, as well as just a plain overflowing bookmarks bar.

Second, the Smart Bookmarks Bar. It removes the text on the bookmarks and leaves the icons, but shows you the text when you mouse over the icon, like so:

 

There are some options: you can choose not to show bookmark names on mouseover, to unhide the names of folders on the bookmarks bar, and to unhide bookmark names that don't have a favicon, and vice versa for all those. Also, you can adjust spacing and autohide the bookmarks bar (which I haven't tried out yet. sounds like it could be handy).

Cheerio!

Today I came across a link to a web page that purported to make available various wallpapers included in the Windows 7 releases to date. That page is located here. More specifically, the downloads referenced are located here.

However, if you were to open that link, you would likely find yourself confronted by an unsightly window requiring you to complete an online survey prerequisite to access of the wallpapers. I hate online surveys. The corrupted, beastly things are laden with bloated spam offers. Never, NEVER sacrifice your personal email address to these bloodsucking devices (if the need should arise, I suggest a disposable email such as offered by mailinator.com). And, after a cursory review of the comments at the bottom of the page, I see an attempted justification of the survey requirement... to avoid server shutdown. LAME!!!

Ha. Allow me to provide anyone interested with the direct download links to the zip packages containing the wallpapers (with the exception of the RC1 wallpaper download, which appears to be MIA). Actually, even if you have no interest in the wallpapers, I would suggest pure spite as a motivation to avail yourself of the downloads. A protest of the sick and juvenile institution of an online survey.

So, to get down to business. There are a few methods available to circumvent the undesirable restrictions. Being the rookie operation this apparently is, you can simply view the source of the page, and pick out at your leisure the download URLs which they carelessly leave lying around. Alternatively, you can copy the source, edit the scripts out, and reload the then uninhibited page. Furthermore, I imagine the use of NoScript or some such apparatus would effectively render the script nugatory.

For your convenience, though, I will post the links here:

http://windows7-wallpaper.com/wallpapers/windows7wallpaper.zip
http://windows7-wallpaper.com/wallpapers/rc1wallpaper.zip
http://windows7-wallpaper.com/wallpapers/win7build7000.zip

Note: I include the RC1 link in the event it should be restored to functionality, for which we may certainly hope if we wish to experience such content as referenced here.

Enjoy.

Update: the RC1 link appears to be working now.

Just a quick post to expand on my comment in a previous post on switching to AHCI mode (to enable full SATA functionality) after installation (in IDE emulation mode) of the operating system. See this for further information. This is particularly useful if, for whatever reason, an F6 floppy install of the SATA drivers proves futile.

Here is the thread I found. I basically followed those instructions, except it's an MSI-specific forum, so I believe the IATA621_CD.EXE file specified may be such. I also believe the IATA88CD.exe file I found on my driver disk from Gigabyte is the corresponding file. Nevertheless, to be safe, I downloaded the Intel Matrix Storage Manager executable directly from Intel, to be sure I had the real goods.

I then followed the instructions, but I used the text found here. It was a bit of a long shot, perhaps, but mine is a ICH10R-based board, and that was supposed to work... and it did! I did have a couple devices (IDE primary and secondary controllers, to be precise) show the infamous yellow question marks by them for a few reboots while I installed other drivers, and then they resolved themselves.

So, there you have it: an ex post facto method to enable SATA mode.

NB: Only tested with 32-bit Windows XP Professional and the specified Intel chipset.

So, three things:

I had been wishing for a sort of label management tool for Blogger. Finally, I just did a Google search (doh!) and found that Blogger itself has a sort of label mangement. So, it looks like I can edit labels fairly easily and delete rarely used ones. Sweet. Check out this Blogger help page and this blog post at BloggerStop.net for a guide to a few common actions.

Second thing: Windows Live Writer. I had been using a beta version for a while, and a few weeks ago updated it to a 2009 version. It's not the snappiest in performance, but I think the updated version improved that. I'm happy with it; it works well for what I do. I can save drafts, link up a storm, and pull up cached copies of posts. I know there are other blogging applications out there, I haven't tried any yet, but maybe I will in the future.

And finally: feed widgets. I have been checking out a few recently to use for a feed from the CaringBridge journal for Isaiah. WidgetEasy is quick and, well… easy, except it broke somewhat on that feed. Arg. Also no customization. Feed Informer I found via a Wild Apricot Blog post; it requires registration but is pretty customizable. You make digests: they can contain more than one feed if you want and you can set some options relating to filtering incoming items, sorting, and such. One thing I like is that it seems to (at least with some templates… I shall have to investigate what exactly causes it), you can truncate the post content; for the Isaiah feed on PAN, I used a template that had a read more.. link. Nice. And finally, from a comment on that post, Feed2JS. It's quick, it needs no registration, you can plug in CSS styling.

Edit : April 24, 2009:
Some more info: you can truncate post content with Feed2JS also, if you turn off HTML display from the feed. Also, you can run it from your own server. And finally, the Feed2JS server caches feeds for an hour; seems to be faster than Feed Informer, which is nice; it was getting behind the feed on the Providence blog. 60 minutes is much more acceptable.

Last Friday (4.10.09), Nathaniel, Hugh, Elliot, and I gathered to build the computer I had researched and purchased the parts for. It was my first build, and quite educational and satisfying, even if it did thwart our purposes until the early hours of the morning.

Specs:

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W
ATI HIS Radeon HD 4850 512MB DDR3
Crucial 4GB PC2-8500/DDR2-1066
Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB SATA 7200rpm
LG 22X DVD±R Black SATA GH22NS30
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW
LG 19" Flatron W1952TQ-TF

The log of events:

5:13:00pm Watches synchronized.

5:16:26pm Pictures of components.

5:18:28pm Case removed from box.

5:19:35pm Side panel removed.

5:23:19pm Pictures of heart throbbing loot.

5:28:00pm Preinstall SATA drivers downloaded from Asia.

5:31:23pm Front panel removed.

5:33:41pm Motherboard drivers transfered to floppy disc via USB floppy drive.

5:47:27pm Moved to kitchen in order to circumvent electro-static discharge risk.

5:51:52pm Removed motherboard from box and anti-static bag.

6:03:54pm I/O panel busted out after much difficulty.

6:04:09pm Installed I/O panel.

6:14:49pm Standoffs installed.

6:17:47pm Motherboard mounted.

6:33:31pm Began testing screws due to irregularity in tightness.

6:35:54pm Standoff discrepancy diagnosed and motherboard removed.

6:49:39pm Discovered we had no less than FOUR faulty standoffs.

7:05:59pm Dinner break.

8:15:21pm Motherboard installed.

8:21:14pm Power supply installed.

8:38:51pm Front panel connections established.

8:50:45pm Prepared heatsink for installation.

8:53:34pm CPU installed!!!

8:57:03pm Checked motherboard screw tightness.

8:03:52pm Arctic Silver thermal compound applied to CPU.

9:08:12pm Heatsink installed.

9:12:27pm After much deliberation decided to install HDD in the top slot.

9:14:49pm HDD installed.

9:23:41pm Memory modules installed.

9:34:33pm GPU installed

9:42:27pm Optical drive installed.

9:56:08pm Double checked everything.

10:09:07pm POST!!!

10:14:36pm The zip-tie attack begins.

10:59:07pm Windows XP installed.

11:14:01pm BSOD due to incorrectly configured AHCI BIOS options.

11:26:07pm Began reinstalling Windows XP, having floppy problems.

12:20:00pm Tried enabling Mode 3 Floppy support.

3:24:17pm Must.... have..... sleeep.

[Next day]

2:07:14pm Successfully switched to AHCI mode after Windows XP installation.

[Also known as (for the Google's sake): How to fix far right links with Subtlebeauty Blogger template or How to fix Subtlebeauty Blogger template sidebar poking into posts]

We noticed a while back that links on the far right of a post using this template were at least partially unclickable - you know, the little link hand cursor disappears. The beam cursor also disappeared when mousing over unlinked text there… made it harder to select such text. I did a little code tweaking and found something that solved the issue: changing the width of the sidebar-wrapper div in the template CSS. It is by default at 35% ("of the parent element's width"); I think I had it at 27% in the last couple days, just did some experimenting, and I think 28% percent is the highest you can go without having the sidebar wrapper bleed into the posts. You might need to do some expermenting, maybe set it lower, if you have lots of buttons on the top navigation bar (the links just above the posts). I haven't noticed any squishing of the sidebar, or any breaking of it otherwise because of the tweak; it seems to work fine.

So, if you haven't done it before, here are the editing instructions: go to your blog Layout settings (accessible from your Dashboard) and click to the Edit HTML sub-tab. Now, use your browsers search function (Ctrl+F, probably, or Edit menu > Find) if you wish, or just find it manually; look for #sidebar-wrapper (it won't be italicized). Find the width property under #sidebar-wrapper and change it from 35% to 28% (or whatever other width you decide; that's just what I am recommending).

I don't know if this is an issue with the WordPress version of the Subtlebeauty template, but I know it certainly is with the Blogger version. But… issue fixed.

--Nat

Last Tuesday, one of my friends tumbled off a road and down a hill in a crew cab pickup truck. We got news of a rollover on Tuesday night, and not too much later we heard that Isaiah Buck had been life flighted out.

He is in a Lewiston hospital now, and has been in a coma for over a week. The amount of prayers going out really has been explosive. The word went out, and the saints hit their knees. All over the world, really; Sweden, Hong Kong, Africa, US, etc. Really it has been amazing… it has gone out through church networks, prayer chains, word of mouth, many emails.

If you want the story and aftermath of the rollover, this Chieftan story does a fairly good job; I don't feel like fully recounting it here.

We Providence people (and then some) had a prayer meeting in the school chapel this morning at nine. It was good to have another group prayer; there was a more general gathering (less school specific) at the Hurleys' place last Wednesday. I think it would be good to have a prayer meeting every Wednesday somewhere until the end of the matter, which we do not know when that will be.

We shall not stop praying, but we have many things to thank God for already; that there was only one fatality, that the rest of the young men are doing relatively well (broken bones and Jaymz has a fever), that there is the means to care for them, especially Isaiah, that the Lord has been upholding Mr. and Mrs. Buck in an amazing way, that we can come together freely and pray, that we are never alone, that Isaiah is alive (it was iffy that first night… shallow breathing and that stuff), and many more praises. But do not stop praying, in the faces of either good or bad news. The woods are thick yet.

I'm compiling a list of public stuff on the internet concerning Isaiah. It's under the tag isaiahbuck in my Delicious bookmarks. Feel free to comment about stuff that's now on there and I will probably add it. I am adding Mrs. Bakker's blog posts about Isaiah to the list as they come… she is a pretty active blogger, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more to come.

This truly is a new experience to me; never before have I been in danger of losing a friend, never before have I had one in a coma like this. It's something new, and it's something that's stretching us. And that is good. Good things already are coming out of this, praise God for that. And I pray that more may yet come; we are connected here in this little county, and this is rocking the boat a bit, I should think. Well, let's walk on water.

The Changing of Times by UnderOATH, by the way.

Since I wrote my last post about this, I read some stuff and thought somewhat shortly after the post about writing another one, but never did.

However, I don't remember exactly what it was that I read for sure, so I'll talk about what I've been thinking about recently.

Last time, I talked about three types of 'bad language' (and that is such a wide phrase to mean something much narrower): profanity, obscenity, and cursing, the last of which may bleed into the first two. Like I said before, profanity is disrespecting the sacred with language, obscenity is making that seen which should not be seen (vulgar; it comes from Latin meaning "the common people", which is where such things should not be talked about; they are out of context), and cursing is calling, wishing, or commanding something bad or evil upon a person or thing.

I must say that I have already become somewhat numbed to some offensive language; I see and hear it enough that it begins to bother me less. And that seems a bad thing.

The thing with this group of 'bad language' I call offensive is that it is offensive. Nobody likes pooh in their face for real, so why would they like it in their face with words? Sexuality is meant for marriage, and there is a shame in bantering about it in a public and common manner; thus comes the offensiveness of such words. Furthermore, who likes to be cursed? Do we really have the right to proclaim such things upon people anyway?

Now, this is not to say that every time these words appear in print or are spoken that it is evil. I mentioned before the dynamic nature of language and also the intent of the heart. These both come into play. Not always when people say "damn" are they cursing someone. Not always will people consider words to mean the same thing. Different things are offensive in different cultures.

It seems to be one of those Christian liberty things and one we should be very careful with. These words obviously carry some meaning that at least to some, is offensive or evil. Some seem to me to be universally evil; these would be those that profane that which should always be sacred (such as God's name), and those things that should not be seen by those they are communicated to (such as talking about sex in a dirty way). If we are to be different from the world, and these are the worlds vulgarities, some explicitly wrong, some not loving to our neighbor, shouldn't we not use such language?

Don't get me wrong; I am not declaring this group of words absolutely evil, but I think as Christians we need to be careful and discerning in this area; for some of us, perhaps it is better to forego them completely as we can, for others it may not be so. Using any words to intentionally and maliciously hurt others is obviously wrong, so let us keep that in mind.

I personally steer clear of common words considered offensive ('swear words', obscenity, profanity) in my speech, because it seems safer to me, and there are other words in this language to express my feelings. Don't let me dictate how to live your Christian life, though; that is the job of God's word, so pick it up and read.

I wouldn't call myself a music connoisseur, but I definitely enjoy music. Thus I share this with you. It's an instrumental album; modern orchestral rock, as one reviewer on Jamendo called it, seems to be a good description. There are no lyrics, but some backup vocals, and just some straight talking on the last track.

The music in and of itself is superb; the technical workmanship is excellent. The artist is JT Bruce, but I know not how many individuals may hide behind such a title. The story is somewhat intriguing. I listened to the album, and then I found out in the last track. After the music comes to an end, a voice begins to speak about The Dreamer's Paradox. Here it is in a nutshell: "One third of your life will be wasted. You’ll lie in an unconscious, catatonic state and sleep your life away. What if you could take those years back?" The music of the album represents a person's journey of escape into dreams, and their subsequent blending of dream and reality… until one is the same as the other.

Pretty scary. I confess it freaked me out the first time. I had to like… conquer it -- by sleeping through a night. Even then it took a little longer, I think.

The whole album runs about 74 minutes, but the last track may not be as enjoyable for listening as the others… it's rather anarchic and part of it is just speech. The preceding tracks total about 64 minutes, though, which is a pretty good amount of listening.

The Dreamer's Paradox on Jamendo 

P.S.  It doesn't really happen… I'm pretty sure you're awake. Well, I think so…

You may have heard about the Adobe Acrobat vulnerability a while back. OK, so maybe you're not using it right now. But… if you even have it installed, you could be at risk. Since it integrates some into Explorer on Windows, if you just select an infected PDF file, the proper malware could take advantage of the hole and do… bad stuff.

The recommended action for now is to uninstall Reader and Acrobat if you have them and use an alternate PDF reader.

I'm still using Adobe 8 (for the Firefox plugin, which I rarely use anyway), but it's leaving for now… I'm just fine with Foxit.

[via DownloadSquad]

[This is a bit of a rewrite of Tuesday's post.]

The quick edit icons,   and , can be handy for, well, quick edits, but I personally prefer the clean look of our blog without wrench icons cluttering up the sidebar (by the way, they only appear when you are logged in as an admin of that blog or on a post you made). Fortunately, LawnyDesignz has a simple and elegant solution.

Here it is: you have to add a bit of CSS code to your template. So, get your blog template HTML open in the Blogger editor (Layout settings > Edit HTML). Now the important part: you have to put this in the right section to work. You have to put it in the section between the opening tag <b:skin> and the closing tag </b:skin>. For convenience, just make a new line right after the <b:skin> tag (i.e., insert your cursor right after <b:skin> and hit Enter). Now copy in the following text:

.quickedit{display:none;}

Press Save Template and then take a look at your blog. Wrench icons have disappeared, hopefully.

This still leaves the little pencil icons, but I don't find them so obtrusive and deign to leave them there. However, these can be removed, too, if you so desire. Go into the Settings tab (Basic sub-tab, selected by default), in your blog settings, and select No on the drop down box for 'Show Quick Editing on your Blog?'. Save Settings and pencils-B-gone!

Note: in the previous version of the post, I mentioned you can put the code in the first style section before <b:skin> but I would recommend putting it in the b:skin section. Lawny told me about putting it in the b:skin area, so thanks Lawny!

Also, if you have Firefox, you can grab the Stylish add-on and use this userstyle to quickly toggle the pencil and wrench icons visible/invisible, no reload required. Pretty cool.

I got a bit envious of the nice breadcrumb style location bar while messing with Snowbird recently. So, I went a-Googling.

With some light searching, I turned up two options: QT Address Bar and Minimalist Explorer Breadcrumbs. Both are shell extensions to Explorer, taking the form of toolbars.

I downloaded both, but have not installed QT Address Bar because of reported issues and the stellar performance of Minimalist. Also, QT looks like Vista, but Minimalist blends in nicely enough with your visual style.

Screenshots of Minimalist (traditional Address Bar disabled):

Note: StExBar (StEx in screencap) is a different shell extension I have; it's not related.

And, a nice feature, just like Vista, is that when you click on some empty space in the bar, it switches to an address bar and highlights the current path.

 

Having been shown by Elliot how the Vista breadcrumbs work, I think this shell extension has done a good job of bringing a (hopefully) helpful Vista feature to XP (and supposedly to 98/ME/2k/2003, too, though they haven't tested on those).

One last note: Explorer Breadcrumbs is completely free and functional, but they ask you to register it ($7.95) if you find it useful. Time will tell for me.

Actually, I won in the Judges' Choice student category and tied for second in the People's Choice category with Samantha Robbins (who also took second second Judges' Choice with the same picture, it seems, and also tied for third in People's Choice with Ashtin Olsen). In the second annual Chieftain photo contest. To be specific.

Here's the Judges' Choice winner (yes, that's Matthew):

And here's mine from People's Choice second place:

I am told there might be monetary prizes, but I don't remember for sure and nothing has appeared in the mailbox yet.