Kobold Phantom Tactical

This is the utterly awesome Kobold Phantom Tactical. Upgrade to the
titanium bracelet and you could invade Iraq Iran single handed.

Just testing the insert image thingy. But for the punters – this is just too cool don’t you think?

WordPress Edit CSS

I am really enjoying my trial run at WP dot com. It is a lot of fun. What I am trying to do is to really feel the experience. Needless to say I have a compelling urge to shell out the few dollars for the CSS upgrade – but that would spoil all the fun, which is to be had in enjoying and testing the basic product – albeit free – to destruction.

The issue I have with the CSS upgrade is something I have been pontificating about for years. And here it is. It is all very well saying that CSS gives us separation of style and content; and that is reflected by the simple fact of having two files – index.php or such and style.css or similar. That is OK upto a point as they say.

It is nevertheless taking the thing to unworkable extremes to suggest that beyond a fixed point -all theme design / development can be done in CSS only. And if that is in fact the only file that you have access to then life can very quickly become very frustrating.

Putting aside the Kubrick default I have now loaded three themes on this blog in as many days. All 3 have minor quirks and glitches particularly in the CSS Positioning . Does this sound familiar?

Unfortunately in all 3 cases the fix could not be effected by editing the CSS – even assuming the user had paid for the upgrade.

In summary – before we start hacking at the CSS what we need to do is get the markup into tip top pristine shape.

And if you are relying on a third party service provider like WordPress dot com then it is imperative that they do it for you.

Video Nasties

What would happen – and how would you feel – if I put an image of lets say two megabites on the front page of my blog?

Answer: It would take forever to load, your system would freeze, and it would
piss you off. Mightily.

Would you then visit again?

Answer: Not if you had any sense.

Question: Why oh why then is the net now absolutely awash with people’s
pathetic videos all over the place?

Mea Culpa

Michael Heilemann of Binary Bonsai; international designer, established author, and developer of the legendary default interface for WordPress (aka Kubrick) is now right at the heart of the exciting Habari; the revolutionary new blogging software which has just got off the drawing board. The mega successful Kubrick, much loved by bloggers everywhere has been ported to many other platforms and hosted services.

As old hands will know – Kubrick was widely praised for its flexibility, ease of customisation, and adherence to web standards. Some folk regarded it as a beacon of quality and innovation. *Cough*.

The few people who had the wit to resist all the fun and excitement, were burned at the stake as heretics. Many of them received death wishes, threatening telephone calls, and a whole lot of intimidation, by the Rednecks.

So what now pray does the esteemed author say about his own creation for Chrissakes?

I’m asking because one of the things WordPress really has a problem with is the lack of ‘fuck it, let’s do fix this so it’s done right’. I mean look at Kubrick for frak’s sake, it’s filled with lots of weirdness that should’ve been fixed a looong time ago.

Excuse me? Leave WordPress out of this. WTF. The Kubrick mess should never have gotten into the WP distro in the first place. And the lamentable code should have been fixed by the author.

It wasn’t – because for a long time he basked in the glory of his own creation, and egged on by the pathetic fanboys at Binary Bonsai, was utterly impervious to all suggestions. And many of the folk who were so badly burned in the ego fest, quit WP, quit blogging and generally felt pissed.

The whole sorry post can be seen over at Google

Now of course (he may have learned something new) – so now – he needs to distance himself from the first fiasco. Roll on Habari. It is obviously going to be very interesting. Business as usual.

Ex Cathedra

I need a post to activate my new cat of Ex Cathedra. For the benefit of folk who did not have the privilege of a British private classical education and may not therefore be entirely au fait with the expression – it means this is the place for half-assed announcements.