Bolloxing about with Blogger Beta

Well, I eventually took the plunge and swithced over to the new Beta. What's the difference? It's easier, for the most part, to customise and for the first time it's possible to position elements of the page rather than have them nailed in a specific location for each template.

I was able to move most of my junk over and paste in in to new html/script elements. In fact I think the only thing I couldn't do was put back my comment hack which showed the names of all commenters below each post. For the time being I've made do with something else for comments though I'm not sure it's working in real time and seems to be a bit behind. Hopefully you should be able to see the most recent comments somewhere in the sidebar though I'd really like to be able to have that functionality again.

On the whole I think the changes are good and allow the majority of non html savvy bloggers to tweak and customise. The downside is that Blogger wrote a new programming language so it's more difficult to mess with the template itself. I imagine the hackers are already on it though and some new bells and whistles will be along soon for the brave and foolhardy.

There still seems to be some glitches. Some elements don't like certain page positions so some of my page elements aren't where I want them. I imagine it'll get sorted out.

It's also now possible to post photos directly to the blog from flickr rather than simply have them hosted. Haven't tried it out yet so don't know if it's for individual pics or slideshows too.

I've spent 2 or 3 hours changing things around. Not happy with eveything yet so I'll probably have a go again tonight to see what else I can come up with.

Guerilla penguin

I did take on a biggy. Install a Linux OS and get it running on my p.c. wirelessly. Now accomplished. Sort of. For those of you who are not close to the penguin Linux is a multi-flavoured Open Source (the important bit is FREE here) operating system, a more secure, and apparently stable alternative to Windows. It's constantly in development so bugs and issues get fixed quickly and the way Linux works means you don't normally need a firewall or anti-virus program. The only problem is that hardware manufacturers don't do a lot to support Linux users in terms of drivers so there are all sorts of workarounds. I know this because I must have spent the equivalent of 20 hours pouring over forum threads about wireless networking to get my own (albeit obscure) wireless USB adapter working. It set up a wired LAN network automatically but wireless.....that's a bit different. And I still haven't been able to get it configured with security enabled. But I will, eventually.


So, if you're one of my neighbours and have attached yourself to my network (I know who you are)..... that wasn't me earlier looking at pictures of naked Australian women, but yes, they were tasteful. And that wasn't my bank account I was checking either. If I were you though I'd batten down the hatches because thanks to Linux I've just discovered two open source cracking utilities that'll mean I'll be able to unzip your WEP key post haste. You better hope you don't have any "artistic" pics of your wife on your hard drive.


Viva la penguin!