Ulysses is a nice macOS and iOS application for writers. I prefer Scrivener myself for writing articles and fiction. But Ulysses can also post to WordPress Blogs. I’ve recently been having a few niggles with Blogo my WordPress posting app of choice. Weird text editing glitches and stuff. So I’m thinking of starting to use something else. So this post is a test to see what posts with images and links look like when composed and posted from Ulysses.
I’m in the middle of switching my Soapbox site to a new theme. Canvas from WooThemes. I’m planning of doing a lot more writing on 4 main topics on this site in the future. These will be science, technology, teaching myself mathematics (to better understand science) and also some fiction, and posts about writing fiction.
I wanted a cleaner, simpler and whiter layout for the site. Canvas theme fits the bill very nicely 🙂 So over the next few days the layout of the site will change as I mess about with the settings in the WooThemes framework and the Canvas theme.
I’ve tried keeping a diary a few times. Even bought MacJournal for Mac and a Maxjournal for iPad to do it in. I used MacJournal for a few months last year, but I never stuck at it.
I’ve realised that I don’t need to. Twitter is my diary. I usually tweet where I am and what I’m doing. Combined with a backup of the tweets via the BackupMyTweets website I have a record of what I was doing on most days, if I should ever need it, or want to read it, in the future. Combine that with longer pieces here on the Soapbox and I have what I was using MacJournal for anyway.
Testing the WordPress app on my iPad. When I get my new Vodafone MiFi I’ll be using the iPad when out and about a lot more than my MacBook Pro. I also want to do a lot more blogging on a diverse range of subjects. Mainly from airports I expect 🙂
Well if you can see this post then the WordPress app works!
So Snow Leopard has escaped its NDA¹ cage and is running wild, eating Macintosh machines around the world. Happy days. I’ve been testing it for a while via the Apple developer releases. It was only when it got to the golden master build (10A432) that is was useable full time. Which is fair enough. That’s what testing is for!
There are still a few applications that don’t function correctly on Snow Leopard. Audio Hijack Pro and Blogo are two applications I use that had issues. Thankfully both are being worked on. In fact a new beta of Blogo is out now. I’m using it to type this post. So if you’re reading this it works 😉
Snow Leopard has a lot of changes under the hood. Most users upgrading from Leopard won’t see much difference. But as developers start to make use of the new technologies hiding in the bowels of Snow Leopard we’ll see some stunning applications.
[1] Non Disclosure Agreement
Another test of Twitme after changing the text that is included in the Twitter notifications.
If everything works okay this post should generate a tweet on Twitter notifying people following me about a new post to the Soapbox.
EDIT: to see if edits generate Twitter notifications.
Whilst I’m testing blog features I might as well test audio integration between Ecto. iTunes and WordPress hosted blogs. Here is a short piece of music, called Europa, that I created using GarageBand..
Implementing Lightbox style image handling. Shown below are some test images. Go on. Click them.
Click pictures for larger view
Since I started Twittering I’ve been posting things that used to appear here on the Soapbox, like Song of the Day, as tweets instead. I can see this increasing with Twitter been used for short posts and this site being used for longer screeds. My 3 latest tweets also appear in the sidebar on the right here. If you are not on Twitter then give it go.
The latest beta of Ecto has been doing weird things on me recently, so I’m trying MarsEdit again to see what its like. Nice Mac OS X interface. I’ll probably give the other Mac OS X blogging clients a whirl as well.
UPDATE: Back to Ecto. MarsEdit is nice and a good blog client, but I just like Ecto better and I’m used to it.
This is so cool. Updates from the Mars Phoenix lander via Twitter.
I’ve finally joined Del.icio.us. My bookmarks page is here. I’ll be using WebnoteHappy to manage my links for a while to see what its like.
I suppose it’ll be Twitter next…
As reported by Scientific American. Writing about your experiences can have beneficial effects. From the article:
Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.
I think my scribbling here certainly helped me.
I’ve changed the settings that govern comments here to remove the requirement for registration before comments can be made. I had the registration set to guard against spam. Several people have told me that they have had trouble registering, or that they don’t like to register on blogs. So from now on people can comment without registering. Comments from new posters will be held in moderation until I approve them. A name and email address (that will not be published) will still need to be entered as per most other sites.
I got back from San Francisco on Monday afternoon after Macworld last week. The weather was a bit of a shock! I saw lots of flooded fields and rivers on the approach into Heathrow. The weather in San Francisco was very good. It was sunny for the whole time myself and 2 others were there. Apparently this is unusual for January. The sun shines on the Mac users! When I got back to Belfast it was blowing a gale and there was horizontal rain. Cold. These things are relative though. I came out of the hotel in San Francisco one day last week and saw a girl on her way to work with wooly gloves and scarf on. For me it was a warm morning, for the natives it was cold. Transplant one of them to Belfast last Monday and they’d probably have died on the spot!
On the subject of travel, well flying, I have to say that British Airways are excellent. I’ve always had excellent service from them and they are my carrier of choice.
Macworld itself felt a bit flat to me. There were some good points. The Microsoft Day at the Office session to launch Office 2008 for Macintosh was good. Attendees had to pay $199 to attend this session. It was worth it. There was some very useful info from people who knew the software. They also gave everyone a copy of the Special Media Edition of the suite. A $499 value. Nice. Other highlights for me from a product point of view were: TheSkyX and Seeker from Software Bisque, Casper from Jamf Software, and Filemaker Pro 9. The new virtualisation solutions from Parallels and VMware that allow Mac OS X Server to be run in a virtual machine looked good as well.
There were several very good talks, as well as several indifferent ones. On the good side there was the talk by Merlin Mann. Very entertaining and very useful as well. Leo Laporte and Alex Lindsey gave a good talk on podcasting and video podcasting. No slides in this one, just a conversation with the audience. Andy Ihnatko gave a good talk about how to use iTunes and iPods better. The Expo show floor was a typical trade show. I had a good talk and made some contacts with Jamf Software about Casper that’ll be useful for work.
I wouldn’t rush back to Macworld. I’d rather spend the money on attending Apple WWDC. This is a better conference for my needs. Entries in the Moscone Centre schedule for June list a corporate event from 8th to 13th June. That’ll probably be WWDC 2008. I’ll hopefully be at that.
This entry was composed using MacJournal 5 which has just been released and I’m testing to see if I can adopt it as my journal and blogging software. If you are reading this then it works!
UPDATE: MacJournal isn’t going to replace Ecto for blog editing.
I’ve just signed up for the Amazon UK Associates Program. In the interests of disclosure please be aware that I will be putting my Associate ID into the links I provide to the Amazon Uk site from the Soapbox. This means that I will get a 5% kick back if anyone follows a link and then buys the linked book, DVD, game etc. If you follow this site you’ll know I link to a lot of books on Amazon. The addition of the Amazon ID, and its potential financial kickback, won’t make any difference to that. There won’t be any more or less links to Amazon. If there are any kickbacks as a result of links then that’ll just be a bonus. Any funds generated will be paid to me in the form of Amazon vouchers to buy more stuff.
I’ve just done a complete fresh install of WordPress 2.3.1 here on the Soapbox. Gave it a good scrub and now it’s all shiny. I’ll update the theme over the Christmas holidays. In the interim I’ll just leave this default theme in place.
Update: New theme in place. I like it 🙂
A few years ago I was in San Diego and got the head burnt off me by the Sun. I learnt my lesson then and don’t venture out in sunny climes now without a hat. I’ve now learnt the same lesson for my arms and neck! During a walk from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco yesterday, I got sunburnt on my arms and neck a lot. Lobster Boy rides again! Next time I’m walking along the sea front in San Francisco, it’ll be Factor 50 sun block for me (next time will either be MacWorld in January 2008 or the Apple WWDC in June 2008).
Posted from my iPod touch.
Update: Pictures from said stroll along the sea front are available here.