I can't leave well enough alone

Some people are willing to settle with the technology that is handed to them... but not me. I have to break it apart and understand why it works. This has been true with this whole RW Updates project. It started with a RapidWeaver Snippet, then a multi-feed website, then Authors were posted, with links to their site... Keep in mind that I am using php to automate this whole process.

So what was next? RSS Feed for the artificially generated Daily Digest "blog"? I had never really spent a lot of time in an XML file but knew it was a simple enough syntax structure but could I hack some php into that and build an effective (not to mention functioning) RSS Feed?

I was able to find one other guy who had attempted the same but the platform from which he was starting and where I intended to be was so grossly different that I feared I would have waisted too much time trying to "port" my code into his xml layout. So I cracked open an xml file that RapidWeaver generated and just started to apply php in the way I think I would have liked to see it work.

With a bit fussing and farting around I managed to get something near to what I actually want. In the end I ended up using two commands from that other guy. I liked the way he limited the number of items but I think I am going to go back to the aging technique I was using.

Is this still a work in progress? You bet it is. And I am loving every minute of it.

Blogger Widget

Thanks to Gary of RapidWeaver Themes turned me on to this nice little mac widget for posting to blogger. I am all about making things closer at hand therefore making things more productive for me so this little widget (though sadly lacking in some of my favorite editing functions) is right up my alley. Thanks for the tip Gary.

RW Update: A new RapidWeaver resource

It was best said on seyDesign in this article, but I just wanted to tell you a bit about the site on the technical side. It is based heavily on the "Show Recent Posts" snippet that we had recently released and in fact, that snippet is a direct result of our work on RW Updates. Granted the code on RW Updates takes that a little further so that we could pull in multiple feeds, sort them by date, truncate them, reveal the posting source, etc... but the real meat of it all is still in there.

Productivity comes down to searching

In my experience, how fast you work is directly linked to how fast you can find things. Finding things fast is key feature on macs with built in services like spotlight and is amplified by apps like Quicksilver but too many people neglect the simplest aspects of these tools. A new article on nutMac reminds us that spotlight commenting is an invaluable feature of OS X 10.4.

The secret is nearly out

We have a secret project nearing completion and final release. Well actually we have a lot of those, but this one is for us and a few friends (not often we get to stuff for our own enjoyment). Stay tuned, well let you know as soon as this little project launches.

Noise Industries uses RapidWeaver

It never ceases to amaze me when I stumble across a site using RapidWeaver in the wild; especially ones with some serious clout. Today on MacZot they announced a deal on FxFactory Editing Pack from Noise Industries. Intrigued, I checked it out and found that it was a RapidWeaver made site. I can't say for sure who is responsible for the theme, but I must say it is a nice site and theme.

Wiggly Wumble Poem: First day of school

Remember your first day of school? Wiggly Wumble writes all about it in their most recent poem titled First day of school. Go and have a read...

Path Finder image conversion trick

If, as a Mac user, you don't already know about Path Finder, I suggest you give it a spin. It is so many system apps built into one that it will make your head spin. To help you through some of it's features mind you, nutMac.com published the occasional article on it's use. Always in search of faster ways of getting things done, nutMac.com has found a quick and convenient way to convert icns file formats into any other workable image type at the click of a button.

Realmac Software Release RapidWeaver 3.6.3

Brighton, England - September 19th, 2007 - Realmac Software today announced an update to RapidWeaver, its award-winning website creation application for Mac OS X.

RapidWeaver 3.6.3 sees numerous improvements to the application, including:

• Greatly improved memory usage when exporting websites
• Fixed an issue with using the bold and colour attributes on a string
• Fixed some issues with the main view displaying incorrectly
• Option-Double Clicking on photos now opens the files in a Photo Album

along with various other fixes and enhancements.

For an in-depth list of new features please visit: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/ or the new http://iloverapidweaver.com/ website, designed by Realmac Software to evangelize RapidWeaver on the web. Pricing & Availability
RapidWeaver 3.6.3 is a free upgrade for registered 3.6 users, and is priced at $49 for new users and just $25 for users of earlier versions. RapidWeaver 3.6.3 is available to download and buy from today.

System requirements
RapidWeaver is a Universal Binary, requiring Mac OS X v10.4.3 or later. A free trial copy of RapidWeaver can be downloaded from: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/

Albert Kinng, seyDesign site of the week

Albert Kinng, Orlando DJ at Mega 98.1 FM, gets his personal site listed at seyDesign as this weeks site of the week.

Group photography done right

Photographing large groups poses a challenge to many photographers. All too often we try to squash them together or line them up like they're in the military. Merrifield Photography has the answer you might be looking for to help combat this battle of the boring in this how-to article for shooting group pictures.

Show Recent Posts, revisited

You might remember last week when I announced a RapidWeaver snippet, Show Recent Posts, I had been working on was released to the greater public. After some extensive feedback I thought I would dig my heels in and add a function that I certainly know I would want in the snippet, the ability to truncate posts to a predetermined length. I wasn't easy though but with some help from some friends I was finally able to pull it off. Just yesterday I let loose the second version of this RapidWeaver snippet, Show Recent Posts 2, which incorporates the new post shortening function. Enjoy!

New poem at Wiggly Wumble

A new poem showed up on Wiggly Wumble a few weeks back called Alphabet for Bedtime. It is a silly little peek into the bedtime routines of many children worldwide, as the poem makes it's way from A to Z. See if any of it rings true for you and your little ones.

Marten Claridge, seyDesign site of the week

Marten Claridge, crime writer and author of such titles as Nobodys Fool and Slow Burn, uses RapidWeaver and a well known seyDesign theme, Tuo for RapidWeaver. Marten's site was listed today as the seyDesign site of the week.

Merrifield is feeling Alpha

And finally, some really good news for all you Minolta hold-outs... well that's me and about 5 other people I'm sure. But anyhow, Merrifield Photography brings us some excellent news.

"Touching" opinions

So... I said there were a few things to get off my chest... we'll my curmudgeonly side shone through on our Mac productivity blog, nutMac.com in a post venting about the new iPods. Have a read here.

Getting the word out, one post at a time

You know it's nice to be busy, but from time to time you have to get a few things off your chest. I had been sitting on a few such things over the last few days. For starters, every one with an online store struggles to get the news out to their clients that something is new or updated. Blogs have been a real godsend in that department. The trouble is though, if your blog isn't the first thing that your clients see when they come to your site, they don't always get the information you want to convey. I used to have my blog as my home page on seyDesign a while back, which worked well but looked like crap. A blog does not make for a sexy landing page. So what I did was make a nice new landing page and buried the blog deeper in the site. This was sexy, but far fewer people were getting the news the needed about my products. My solution was to make a cute little implementation of SimplePie and put it in the sidebar of seyDesign's home page so that recent posts would always show up on the home page, off to the side where they won't dirty things up. Since I went to all the effort of coding this up to work in RapidWeaver, I decided to make it into a RapidWeaver snippet and share it with the rest of the RapidWeaver users out there. If you're interested in knowing more about it, check out this article.

Loghound releases FAQ Maker

My favorite client, John McLaughlin of Loghound.com released his latest RapidWeaver plugin, FAQ Maker. I am a huge fan of all of Loghound's plugins (this blog is made with RapidBlog), but what makes each and everyone of his releases special to me is that they use my icons. I am particularly proud of the icon I made for FAQ Maker, second only to the icon I made for RapidBlog.

If you are wondering exactly what FAQ Maker does, it's a RapidWeaver plugin page type that allows users to easily generate FAQ pages, kind of blog style. I have made a lot FAQ pages in the past, and building headers and anchors and so on is a tedious job. FAQ Maker does away with all of that and frees you up to just enter the question, then the answer and FAQ Maker takes care of all the rest. It can even mark new entries so visitors always know what's new on the FAQ.