November 2008

Views attachment display type

November 16, 2008

While doing some overhaul this weekend I had a plan to put a feature story on the front page of my blog and link to a number of shorter items in a series of blocks across the bottom of the page. This got me to thinking that James Walker, aka Walkah, had done something similar. But it turns out it's much cooler.

James posted how he was using the attachment display type in Views 2 to display two views at once. Sure enough the attachment display type is yet another awesome feature in the long line of cool new functions in Views 2.

The great thing is the workflow couldn't be simpler either. By default my blog posts are now not "promoted to front page" and instead go to the "In Brief" section of the page. When I put together a little longer post with a little more thought behind it then I can check one button and the story makes it way to the "featured" position on the front page. It took a very little bit of CSS styling to get the grid view with the in-brief section to do just as I desired but it was quite simple all and all.

A little site cleanup

November 16, 2008

A redesign of the site has been on my to-do list for some time now. It is a bit of a cobblers children have no shoes problem. Between the book chapters to be edited, the site work to be done and the need to solve customer problems there aren't enough hours in the day. Today was a great day to get out and do some non-computer work so it left even less time. However tonight I finally decided to just jump in and do it.

I still haven't decided between modifying an existing theme and doing it from scratch. Each time I think I've found the reason to go one way or another something else comes up. Among other changes the Twitter feed and Archive made their way from pages buried in the site to Ajax-based slots in the footer of the page. Even managed to do a good deed and file a bug report on some broken parts of the otherwise awesome Nitobe theme.

If you have feedback on the changes please feel free to leave a comment.

Home again Colorado

November 9, 2008

Crossing the Rockies, descending along the Front Range into Denver International Airport at sunset brought back so many great memories. Each time I make that descent and come upon Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder and the other towns tucked up against the foothills it is hard not to imagine returning in a more permanent way.

There are so many beautiful places in the world but here, where the mountainous backbone of the continent meets the great plains is a very special place. And of course walking out to see the Colorado State University banner didn't hurt either. Combine the great city, a good dinner and getting to video chat with the wife and daughter and things look pretty good. Onward to Chicago.

Google will OCR some PDFs

November 9, 2008

At the Reno airport catching up on some news reader backlog I came across the Uncletterer headline Google can now OCR all PDFs. Jumping out of the newsreader and to their site it was exciting news. Well it turns out the headline is misleading. Google can, and will, OCR public PDFs. It won't, however, do any OCR on the documents in private spaces including Google Docs.

I wrote some time ago about the plan for scanning documents and getting rid of our filing cabinets. Well with all that's been keeping us busy since then it hasn't happened. The scanner part of the workflow is great and I have some ideas on what I want to do with the documents once they are OCR'd but haven't taken the time to work out the workflow.

On a completely unrelated note why is it that TSA spends so much time looking at my bag of clothes and completely passes on the bag I forgot to take my ziplock of fluids out of?

We interrupt this program

November 3, 2008

Truth be told there has been less program and more interruption happening here of late. I'd make a statement about that changing soon but the next couple of months are looking to be a little on the crazy side. In the meantime take a look at this video. Likely I'm not alone in musing that there are some folks who I wouldn't mind having them stay home on election day. The truth is, however, the system only works when we all vote. Sure the robo-callers and excessive punditry will be great to put behind us (and hey not everybody has a Nevada cell phone number mind you).

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