graeme.blog

Blog

  • WP-Amazon plugin – Add Associate Links to Amazon the painless way

    So what you would like is an easy way in the middle of a blog posting to find a link to a product, and an image, and tie the link up with your associate ID? Have you tried doing this quickly on Amazon? Not much fun. Here to save the day is WP-Amazon.

    I’d suggest installing this using Matt Read’s installer plugin, as you can just upload the zip file for WP-Amazon via your admin interface, and set it up in a minute or two. You just need to choose which country’s Amazon you want to use, and add in your associated ID, and you are ready to go. From there, when you are writing a blog posting, you can just click on the Amazon logo on the right hand side, search for a product, drag and drop an appropriately-sized image and link in place, and you are done.

    For example, one of my favourite books is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. And that was pretty painless to drop in, although it doesn’t like to flow the text around the image, may have to play with that. For a quick book or album reccomendation, it looks spot on.

  • Diagnosis for WordPress

    Well Lorelle has got me writing again, with her article about admin plugins for WordPress. There were a few in there I liked the look of, so I’m going to work through them and see how I get on. The first is Diagnosis, which is a simple but very useful addition that tells you quite a lot about how your blog is set up. Installing it just adds a link on the dashboard, which then shows you information such as the versions of MySQL, PHP and WordPress you are running, which ports are being used for various things, what modules are installed in PHP, and so on.

    If your command line skills are sometimes lacking, it is very useful for getting a lot of knowledge about these backroom things very quickly, and gives you a handy place to check such things when you are debugging issues with your blog. I’ll put this on any blog I install in future, particularly if I was installing on someone elses hosting, as it would tell me a lot about the setup there without having to dig to much.

  • Old Skool like Happy Shopper

    Listening to 90s rap mainly today, from the somewhat more aggressive era. And Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, which is one of the few songs I like recorded this century. Really like in fact, love hearing that incredible voice echoing around my head, hearing the dirty noise in the background that whooshes in for the chorus, then just turns off, the insistant bassline, and those truely unhinging lyrics.

    Have been playing about with autoblogging a bit on other sites, it is interesting to see you can create a whole site off other peoples content, with very little work. I’m actually going to step back from it a bit, what I really want is a site that shows other stuff, but that the main focus is still my own writing, just seems fairer really.

    BrotherinlawFB is down to visit tomorrow, will be good fun, he has booked tickets for us all to see Hot Fuzz, and if that wasn’t good enough, he has booked the fat bastard seats at the back that I love so much. How to get on my good side right there, take me to a good movie, and let me sit somewhere that doesn’t wreck my back for two hours. Normal cinema seats hurt me, have done for a good decade or two, but these don’t. These are hald sofas, and I love them. Can’t wait. Should also get a little meal out somewhere, possible the noodle bar in the centre of town, then meeting friends for drinks, so looking forwards to the weekend arriving. Ideally no later than tomorrow please.

  • Coming Soon

    Have been working tonight on some changes and updates for my sites. Mainly installing a few new plugins for WordPress, but also looking at new themes. I am hoping that all of my sites will get a makeover over the next few months, but if you look very hard you will notice a few changes immediately, with more due soon. Exciting eh!

    I know 😉

  • Terminal Window in Netbeans 7

    I’ve just started using the beta of the Netbeans 7 IDE. There are a few sharp new little features in there. The HTML5 support is much needed, but a nice one I’ve just found is the ability to launch a Terminal window (in Linux and on OSX). Just go to Window > Output > Terminal.

  • No pop no style

    I’m still not really listening to music, and it is getting towards the two year mark now. I just found something better, i.e. podcasts. When I say not really, I do sometimes stick on mixes of my collection in the evening, or listen to the occasional track on the ipod, but it is just that, occasional. I can manage sometimes 3 or more hours of podcast per working day, just seem to prefer the spoken word now. Seems like, especially looking at the charts at the moment, that I really have heard it all before. Bar my blessed electronic music of various guises.

  • Productive Weekend, mostly

    Well, we got a few things organised, most of all, got ourselves new bikes. This is Mrsfb’s:
    mrsfb's new bike
    and this is mine:
    My new bike
    I am never drawn to bikes by fancy things like suspension or disc brakes, noooooo. It was fun riding them home, as Mrsfb hadn’t cycled for about 13 years, and in her own words “the last time I did I went on the wrong side of the road, and was quite indignant at all the drivers honking their horns at me until I realised”. So she was a little nervous, but got back into it very quickly, and is now quite enthusiastic about getting out for a little ride somewhere this week. I can’t wait too, will be great to be able to go off on a long cycle ride together when it gets warmer.

    We also managed a meal out at Loch Fyne, gorgeous fish restaurant in Jericho. I had kippers followed by pan-baked bream with watercress pesto, mrsfb had an assortment of herrings, followed by crab cakes. One of the advantages of giving up smoking appears to be having money left over at the end of the month for meals out and buying bikes.

  • Do you know what I miss? In-out lists.

    Invented by The Farm they were, too.

    IN OUT
    Podcasts Music
    Singing Humming
    Out Shaking it all about
    Packed Lunchboxes Posh Sarnies
    Walking Cars
    Not eating Cheese Cheese

  • Back not too hurty

    Well I am definitely on the mend now, in far less pain, although I have to be careful when coughing or yawning. Otherwise I get psychadelic levels of pain. In general though, I am utterly peachy compared to last week.

    A nice relaxing weekend planned, meal out tonight at a nice fish-based restaurant, then a little walk tomorrow down by the river (and the first chance for me to use my new camera outdoors properly). Plus a spot of mild DIY, and some planning for our major holiday this year (NYC here we come). I’m being ultr-organised, tracking down our passports, and actually checking them now to see they are in date, rather than panicking in 6 months time. This is a hitherto unknown level of organisation for me.

    Also hopefully watching The Devil Wears Prada on DVD, and some good long lie-ins too.

  • If I had been Norwegian, I could have been Ski-Jumping at 3

    I wonder often if being an Olympic Ski-Jumper was the destiny that was chosen for me, and by some bizarre twist of fate I ended up being born in England, doomed never to have the appropriate advantages in life to help me achieve that goal. I love the concept of flying unaided. I happily watch hours of ski-jumping on the hallowed channel that is Eurosport. Yet I cannot fly. Seems a shame.