GeekLimit

Post Titles

The second thing I want to change in my Blog design is the size, type and color of the fonts.
By default, the Minima template uses three main colors for the design.

• Orange for the post title
• Grey for the post date, blog title, description and sidebar titles.
• Black for the main post text

We can change all these if we want to, by editing the CSS code in Zone 2. This is where the font settings are defined for the whole blog. So any changes we make here will flow through the entire blog. Easy eh!

Post Title:
I wanted to keep the orange text, mainly because orange is quite a popular color on the web at the moment, but I want to change the font a little and the size too.

The area in Zone 2 that controls the settings for the title is as follows:

.post-title {
margin:.25em 0 0;
padding:0 0 4px;
font-size:140%;
font-weight:normal;
line-height:1.4em;
color:#c60;
}

I want to make the font larger so I am going to increase the font-size to 250% and I am also going to make the font bold by adding changing the font-weight:normal to font-weight:heavy. After that update, the code should look like this:

.post-title {
margin:.25em 0 0;
padding:0 0 4px;
font-size: 250%;
font-weight:heavy;
line-height:1.4em;
color:#c60;
}

Remember not to delete any of those semi-colons at the end of the line otherwise your CSS code will all go wrong and the page layout and design will change.

Next I want to get rid of that nasty little grey date header above the post title. Ideally I would like to show the following information:

TITLE
DATE
NUMBER OF COMMENTS

This format is quite popular at the moment in blog design, but it will involve moving code from the bottom of the post to the top.

The current code to display the post, title, date and comments can be found in Zone 3:

<BlogDateHeader>
<h2 class=”date-header”><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></h2>
</BlogDateHeader>

<!– Begin .post –>
<div class=”post”><a name=”<$BlogItemNumber$>”></a>
<BlogItemTitle>
<h3 class=”post-title”>
<BlogItemUrl><a xhref=”<$BlogItemUrl$>” mce_href=”<$BlogItemUrl$>” title=”external link”></BlogItemUrl>
<$BlogItemTitle$>
<BlogItemUrl></a></BlogItemUrl>
</h3>
</BlogItemTitle>

Tip:
One of the excellent things about the Blogger default templates on offer is the use of the “comment tags” that let you know where in the template you are. For example, towards the bottom of the template you will see the following lines:

<!– Begin #profile-container –>

<$BlogMemberProfile$>

<!– End #profile –>

Any portion of the template code that begins with <!– and ends with –> is interpreted as a comment.
It’s easy to see here that the first line informs us that the profile information is about to start and the last line shows that it has ended.
The <$BlogMemberProfile$> template code in the middle tells Blogger to display your Blogger profile photo, name and location. It’s worth remembering to check the comments in the template code to guide you to where you want to make edits.

Firstly, I want to delete the first 3 lines from the code.

<BlogDateHeader>
<h2 class=”date-header”><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></h2>
</BlogDateHeader>

This code displays the date at the top of the posts. However it will only be displayed once if you have more than one post per day:

DATE HEADER

POST1
POST2

What I want to achieve is to show the date on each post so those first lines get deleted.
I then need to add the code underneath the post tile to display the post date and comments.

After the </BlogItemTitle> tag, I will put in a <BR> code to force a new line. We then need to insert the Blogger tag for the post date, which is <$BlogItemDateTime$> followed by the number of comments. You can show the comments number by using the <$BlogItemCommentCount$> tag. We will need to make this nicer by adding text to the code otherwise it will just show the date followed by a number to represent the number of comments.

<BR>
Date: <$BlogItemDateTime$>
<BR>
Comments: <$BlogItemCommentCount$>

That will make the post title look like this:

We can tart up the date and comment text a little by adding more HTML tags like this to make the words Date and Comments appear in bold:

<BR>
<B>Date:</B> <$BlogItemDateTime$>
<BR>
<B>Comments:</B> <$BlogItemCommentCount$>

I then decided to make the text “web 2.0 green”:

<font color=”green”>
<BR>
<b>Date:</b> <$BlogItemDateTime$>
<BR>
<b>Comments:</b> <$BlogItemCommentCount$>
</font>

I think I will leave the rest of the code how it is. I want my readers to see the title of the post, the date it was posted and the number of comments that the post has received. If they want to leave a comment, they can scroll to the bottom of the post and click the usual link. I don’t really want my readers to be searching all over the place for my “hidden link” to leave a comment.

This is part of the Blogger Template Overhaul series.

Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Template Code
Part 3 – Design
Part 4 – Headers
Part 5 – Posts
Part 6 – Comments
Part 7 – The Sidebar
Part 8 – The Footer

Hey all, I was trying to dissect what, if anything, makes the ‘perfect blogger’. I try to do as many of these as possible, but it’s pretty hard sometimes. What guidelines do you all set for yourself? What seem to be some trends out there that really set some blogs apart? Got any other links for blogging self-improvement?

(in semi-random order)

1. at least 3 posts per week
2. at least a paragraph per post on a topic
3. only one link dump post per week
4. no posts that will get the site kicked (illegal)
5. if you’re describing something screen-shottable, post the screenshot
6. posts should be somewhat technical-related
7. no mirroring posts elsewhere, or being a mirror of somewhere else
8. if you’re talking about something link-able, link it
9. don’t get in flame wars with trolls, that’s what devoweler and akismet are for…
10. hook your reader in the first paragraph, b/c the rest will be truncated on the front page
11. images in posts should be left- or right-justified so they’re surrounded with text. white space is ugly.
12. only one adsense ad per page. if you want more ads per post, split the posts up into multiple pages and put one on each page.
13. split long posts (over 1200px tall) into multiple pages
14. spell check!

Here’s some general writing tips

…and some good reasons why some web apps don’t do too well

edit: some additional ways people guarantee their failure

When it comes to choosing a processor for my computer, or when helping some friend of mine to assemble a new one, I prefer to go with AMD CPU. In my case it’s 100%, while some friends still have the notion of that Intel are superior and so on (result of strong branding and history) and AMD still not being 100% compatible(!). They are not geeks, so I try to forgive them for such, hmm …, meaningless thoughts. Well then, to previewing the latest processors from AMD that are Socket-AM2 based.

Despite the upcoming announcement of pretty promising Intel CPUs, Socket AM2 platform from AMD attracted a lot of attention. The AM2 desktop (revision F) processors being announced today are based upon Windsor, Orleans, and Manila cores for the Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64, and Sempron series respectively. AMD’s physical socket change does not appear to have been necessary for the move from DDR to DDR2, but it was likely done to prevent consumer confusion when installing components. While component-wise this AMD launch today isn’t as ground-breaking as Intel’s Grantsdale and Alderwood launch that had delivered DDR2, PCI Express, Land Grid Array CPU package, and other changes for the platform, today is AMD’s first time benefiting from Double Data Rate 2 system memory. With many of the initial DDR2 problems now addressed, such as the high latencies, and the frequencies now exceeding 1GHz, it is certainly time for AMD to join this bandwagon. One of the advantages of AMD’s DDR2 adoption is the official support for DDR2-800MHz by the CPU, while Intel’s competition remains at DDR2-667 until later this year when they will finally get into DDR2-800+ support.

Speaking of the “devil”, here are what Athlon 64 X2 core Revision F and AM2 scoket with 940 pins look like:

(not much different from current S939 X2 processors)

Another important achievement resulting from the transition to AMD’s new Revision F core is the lowering of processors’ power consumption. As announced last week, the energy efficient (EE) AM2 processors can provide 37 percent greater performance-per-watt than standard AMD processors, and the new Athlon 64 X2 solutions can provide up to 154 percent greater performance-per-watt. One of the numbers that AMD has thrown out in its press release last week as a dual-core processor consuming a mere 14 Watts … picture that.

One of the other advantages to have been delivered is with AMD’s Pacifica Virtualization Technology — the competitor to Intel’s Vanderpool Virtualization Technology. AMD’s Pacifica will support all x86 modes, including the Virtual 8086. AMD has also implemented Presidio technology for enhanced security built-in and can support TPM components. Pacifica technology will also boast an exclusive feature for protecting buggy code or malicious content from running on the AM2 processor.

All major motherboard makers have shown strong support for AM2 socket – DFI, Epox, ABIT, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, which have ready versions to roll-out. On the chipset side, nVidia’s nForce 500 series becoming available today include the nForce 590 SLI, nForce 570 SLI, nForce 570, and nForce 550. The ATI Xpress 1100, for use with AMD notebooks can also be used with desktop systems and Xpress 1150 now integrates faster graphics (X300 core), and a handful of additional optimizations. SiS and VIA will also be throwing new AM2-supportive chipsets as well. As usual I see nVidia having the best mix of features to performance comparing to competitors, and as I currently am using nForce4 Ultra, when time will come to upgrading my system, I am likely to go with nVidia again. Here is how they have categorized their 5xx family.

On Linux Front

ATI’s SB600 with its SATA, PATA, and audio capabilities, have already been merged with the 2.6.17 kernel in its release candidate 3. For those motherboards continuing to use previous Socket 939 Chipsets, such as the ASRock AM2NF4G-SATA2, there should be no extraordinary Linux problems to note as the nForce 4 is already well supported within Linux. We do anticipate that the nForce 500 series arrival will be smooth now that NVIDIA has experienced territory in Linux as they now know what will be required of them in this arena.

My Upgrade Path

As I am currently running Athlon64 S939 Venice E-6 core processor, which is overclocked to 2.9Ghz, I find it quite sufficient and wont be upgrading to AM2 this year. You may ask why. Well the reasons are that not much applications, including games, are utilizing the power of dual-core processors. I don’t see that I’ll be able to run dual-core each running at 2.9+Ghz. By the time I decide to upgrade the prices on processors will be lower, compared to premium AMD will charge in coming months as they are new, and newer revision will be out, with even lesser power consumption, maximising the overclocking potential of the CPU. The pricing on DDR2-800 are also likely to fall in next 6-8 months, especially the ones with lower latency, though time has shown that prices start to go up on DRAM chips when there is high demand, or cause of some factory catching fire. Same is true for motherboards. When they are just released in market, pricing is quite harsh on users, and I am no rich guy.

Another factor, which is very important one for me is the support of new hardware in Linux kernel. By the time I will decide to upgrade, newer kernel be rolled out with much better support and integration for AM2 chipsets, and the features that these chipsets will have. Hopefully such kernel will be supplied with the next major release of SUSE Linux, which will be 10.2. And really would love to see much lesser problems when encountering with smp-kernel and drivers and also applications.

In future I’ll be looking at mid-range AM2 Athlon X2 processor which can overclock to around 3Ghz on each core, and also motherboard with nForce 570 Ultra. Why not SLI, because I don’t need one. If I have money for two video cards to use in SLI mode, I will prefer to go with one card that is more powerful. And on top of that I don’t have 3-4 monitors, hence the need for more than two connectors. I can also opt for video cards that have 2 GPUs on one PCB. And as I am not into gaming that much, don’t think I’ll be getting such one either. Unless I find a bag full of $$$

Final Thoughts

Am I impressed? Not sure, at least as of now. One thing that I have to mention is that I was expecting more performance gain when switching to new AM2. Basically I see minor modifications to already famous Athlon64 processors and noticed that they didn’t make any in-depth architectural changes. These type of moves from AMD can lead to loosing market share and eventually to complete defeat. So I hope that AMD will be gearing up and bringing faster technological breakthroughs and implementing them in their processors and really hope that they have some trump card under their sleeves.

More on this:

• AMD Socket-AM2 (anandtech)
  
• AM2: AMD Reinvents Itself (tomshardware)
• AM2 Platform: Athlon 64 FX-62 (pcperspective)
• AMD Launches The Socket AM2 Platform (legitreviews)

If you’re a geek, you know about Wikipedia. If you’re a real geek, you’ve found yourself wanting access to wikipedia when you, ahem, go outside. It’s true tat you can fire up your web-enabled phone, surf to wikipedia, search for what you want, and finally get the information on what you’re looking at. Chances are, you might learn more about wherever you are, and maybe even learn some things they would never tell you on the tour.

If you’ve found yourself in this situation, the wait is over. Semapedia has developed a 2D bar code that maps to a specific wikipedia article. A small application on your phone analyzes a 2D barcode affixed to an object or location via the phone’s camera, and pulls up the corresponding wikipedia article. Cool!

Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks. Whoever owns the object might not like to have barcodes stuck to it. Imagine the problems with marking a national monument… But it wouldn’t be hard to have it affixed to a plaque or something, right next to the text and braille descriptions. Besides the sticker ugliness, there may be those who don’t have a favorable wikipedia entry that they want advertised. But for those who do, there may be an opportunity to put a 2D bar code on the back of a business card.

To me, this is what Web 2.0 is all about. The name has been tossed around so much that it’s pretty much a joke now, and has come to describe rounded corners and AJAX-y effects. But Semapedia is on the right course here as to the true meaning of Web 2.0; to add more functionality to the web to the same degree that web 1.0 added more functionality to everything.

One thing I noticed is that you can make a semapedia-based hyperlink tag (physilink?) of any URL. Check this out:

In the true spirit of Web 2.0, I hope this means that the mobile application by Semapedia is set up to access the web directly, which would be ideal. This system could easily be overwhelmed if it depended on a single point of failure, i.e. a table at the Semapedia site that is doing the “tag #100237563 = http://www.geeklimit.com” translation.

I don’t think this is the case, but I can’t confim, since I’m not fluent in 2D bar code… If anyone can confirm the mechanism, please do so.

Over a few nights last week, I spent some time working on someones PC that had crashed and would not boot into XP Home. The error was one of the usual "Blue Screen Of Death" greetings cards that Windows likes to send you on occasion:

0x000000ED: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

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You’ve probably noticed GL looks a little different. We figured it was time to have a site that looks as good as the content, er, reads.

This theme is K2 beta two r167. K2 is a theme that is style-enabled, which basically means that people make plugins for the theme that have images, icons, stylesheet spec’s, etc. We’re using a style made for K2 called True Blue from Stevelam.org. The thing I like about the trueblue theme is that the guy offers photoshop files for most of the major images in the style, which is allowing me to easily modify the style.

For example, we’ve already modified the tabs across the top to give it a little more transparency. While I was at it, I modified out Post Teaser plugin to give reading stats when you mouseover the ‘read more…’ link. Try it out! Hopefully people will notice that we’re still offering this information…I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out how to make the ‘title’ tag on the link pop up immediately under all browsers…

In addition, AtariBoy and I have been working on some header images. Let us know what you think, and if you have any better ideas, feel free to submit one. (750×150, I’ll take care of the black shading across the top). We’ll even do a post on you/your blog if you come up with something that knocks our socks off.

edit: moved the header search to the forums

Now that GeekLimit has been going for a month I’m after some feedback on how we are doing, below is a wufoo form. We’d love any feedback or comments be it positive or negative.

Thanks very much The GeekLimit Team

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