catholicservant's blog

Howdy folks,

WooThemes (WordPress templates) is having a 4 themes for the cost of 1 sale until October 31st.

I've been eyeing their themes for quite some time, so when this came out today, I jumped in. 4 very nice and flexible themes for $70.

If you're interested in purchasing from them, please consider using this affiliate link when visiting their site:

WooThemes - Premium WordPress Templates

BTW...the themes I picked were...

Royalle
The Journal
Aperture
Feature Pitch

 Howdy folks,

I've just released a new website into beta:

http://community.thecatholicspirit.com

It's definitely a 'work-in-progress', but we're just getting started trying to build an online community. We're also putting in content that's a bit more relevant to 'younger' Catholics.

If you get a chance, drop on by and register, it's free! 

The Tech Details:

• Based on Joomla 1.5.14
• Utilizing the JomSocial component for community
• Using the MyBlog and JomComment extensions for blogging and commenting
• Kunena forum component
• Affinity Rockettheme Template
• Some other 3rd party extensions (EventList, QuickFAQ, GK NewsPro and few more)

On a side note, I did try using the new-ish K2 extension for CCK-style content, but didn't work out the way I wanted. Kinda boiled down to integration issues with the other components. It was a good exercise though, and I'll be implementing K2 in another project that should fit better.

UPDATE 11/27/09

Just spent the past 2 days revamping the site. 

• Loaded a new template from Joomlashack.
• Went 'RED'.
• Dropped the Azrul MyBlog and JomComment components and went with a WordPress for Joomla component from CorePHP and incorporated the Disqus commenting tool for articles.
• Removed some of the features that weren't being used such as EventList and QuickFAQ. I might bring them back at a later date though.

Hit the Apple store at Ridgedale around 11am this morning. Place was packed. Line for Snow Leopard was about 5 deep but moving pretty quickly.

Grabbed Subway, then to the home office to do some loading.

I thought I read somewhere that's it's a 15-20 minute upgrade...uh uh. Took almost an hour. While I was waiting, I putzed around on my XP machine while watching the Macbook out of the corner of my eye.

After a few reboots...upgrade complete.

I haven't really tried anything yet, but I did note shutdown and startup times. 

Shutdown - 5 seconds (no open applications)

Startup - 75 seconds

It's possible that the first shutdown/startup sequence may still be shuffling some bits and in the future it'll be even faster...but I'm pleased. Opening up applications seem a bit snappier.

I've got a 17" MacBook Pro (2008 model), 2.5 Ghz Intel Dual-core with 4GB of RAM.  

Looking forward to trying out the Exchange Server integration, see if it actually works. I've been dropping into Parallels to run Outlook 2007...and even though it's bearable running a VM, I'd prefer not to.

Anyone else moving to SL?

 OK...there hasn't been any new content in 27 hours. Not cool. I'll stop complaining and post something.

After having been on PC's for almost 12 years, I switched back to Mac a couple months ago. A long time ago in a previous career (audio engineering) I used Mac's quite a lot. Actually, the first time I plunked down my own hard earned cash for a computer it was $900 for a Mac Classic. Something like 30 MB of storage. Ouch. Still had THE COOLEST GOLF GAME EVER. It had really lo-fi birds chirping, but that 8-bit 'swoosh' of the golf club rocked. When I'd be working the recording studio with it, that golf game was a huge hit. 

I'm digressing...

So I switched 'back' to Mac...whatever that means. Over the past 18 years I've worked on Win, Mac, *nix, Cisco/Nortel IOS...etc. Heck, I even loaded up BeOS once.

Long story longer...

One of my most valuable apps on the PC was a shareware app called RoboForm. It kept all my logins and passwords in a nice tidy encrypted file and would populate forms and save them on the fly. It rocked! Sure, you can get by on a txt file...but that get's unwieldy after awhile.

When I got my MacBookPro I started looking for something similar. Yes, I know about KeePass...the OpenSource alternative. I just never dug it...don't remember why either. But hey, some people love it, that's great. Well, after not having much luck...

...I found 1Password  agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password

Really liking it. It'll even sync up with my iPhone.

So, I'm happy.

How about you? How do you handle 5,10,50,100+ account passwords? 

For the past few months, Firefox has been getting slower and slower to boot/quit and frequently needed to be restarted.

Driving me nuts. Safari and Opera run just great, so I figured it was all of my FF extensions.

I stumbled on a discussion forum of someone having the exact same problem as me...and it's fixed now. Had to delete the places.sqlite file in my firefox profile. It had grown to 350MB. Apparently, this issue is fixed in FF3.5, but since I upgrading from previous versions it brought the bloat along.

Warning: you'll lose your history and bookmarks. Not an issue for me since I use del.icio.us and xmarks.

Here's a link to forum thread I found the answer on...

http://www.boagworld.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=4787

You like a particular website and you instinctively right-click and VIEW SOURCE to see what they built it in. 

webworkerdaily.com/2009/07/15/the-open-source-opportunity/

One day during the week (2 this Summer) I do freelance work.

Since it's difficult to work at home with the many distractions, I tend to float around to various wifi locations to do my work. I've got about 3 or 4 coffeeshop haunts and about 3 public libraries that I'll rotate through.

The largest library I go to is in Minnetonka...that's where I am at the moment. They've got a large room for wifi users...4 rows of tables and some half-cubicles. It accomodates 40, but I usually only see 5-10. It's got a nice long window into a forest, so there's good sunshine. Each table has 2 sets of 4 electrical outlets in the middle of it. No loss of battery juice here. The wifi is pretty reliable. Just ran an online speed test and I'm getting 2.7Mb downloads. I guess our ridiculously high taxes go towards a fat pipe at the library!

Today, a new record...15 of us in the room, silently attacking our keyboards. It's really an interesting phenomena, definately a glimpse of the future.

Just wanted to say that I wish I was able to attend the Catholic New Media conference. Maybe next year!