Rodney Campbell's Blog

I recently became the proud owner of one of the new Apple 17" MBP’s (MacBook Pro) (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, 160GB Hard Drive) and am enjoying the experience so far (except for that rediculous wireless mighty mouse).

I’ve been a Unix user for some time (I’ve mostly used Solaris (& SunOS) on Sun SPARC machines over the past 15 years and have dabbled with various Linux flavours) however I’ve also got to use windows at work as well (those corporate app’s I need to run).

I’ve been relatively happy/tolerant with windows (probably because I spend most of my time on my Unix workstation) over the years and all my previous laptops have run windows. However late last year I had major malware infections to both my windows machines (desktop and laptop – at different times) – which required a complete rebuild of each to be safe. I was pretty p***ed to say the least and whilst I don’t necessarily believe the Mac OS X is more secure than windows by design mantra I do expect it to be significantly less of target. With the advent of Parallels (I’ve been a VMware user on Windows for some time) and the time came for a laptop refresh I decided to take the punt and see what the other side of the fence looked like.

On the Wireless Mighty Mouse front – perhaps it’s just a carry over from my other window managers I’m used to (on Solaris or Windows) but I still like to use the context sensitive right button menus (a lot). The mighty mouse doesn’t have a "real" two button mouse (it emulates it by detecting whether you’re clicking down on the left or right of the shell). The problem is that this is so flakey (if you are even barely touching the mouse anywhere it almost always treats it as a left click) – and as the Mac has so many one click actions you end up left clicking and doing something (you don’t want to) when you just wanted the right button menu.

Having two separated buttons would make this both more reliable and you’d get that tactile feedback doing it – I’ll persevere a little longer but I think I’ll be switching to a "real" bluetooth mouse soon – any recommendations of ones which have decent support under Mac OS X?

To transport my new pride and joy around I grabbed an STM bag for the 17" MBP – I got the STM Large Convertable (shoulder bag and backpack in one) specifically because it was small, thin and light so I wouldn’t be able to cram too much crap into it – just the MBP, wireless mouse, my 160GB external laptop hard drive, eyetv and perhaps a few papers and discs. This way it isn’t some huge bulky backpack which weighs a ton (like my previous laptop backpack) – in fact it ends up nice and close to the body when I’m using it as a backpack and it feels incredibly light – even with my 17" laptop in it – marvelous.

Lastly I also picked up one of the Elgato EyeTV Diversity’s (my kit also included a 3 month IceTV trial code as well). It is remarkably good and HD is glorious – however one tip I have for reception is that (the antennas have magnets on the bottom) if you put the antennas onto some metal surface (at home I have a metal frame desk so I just magnet onto that – anywhere basically – so the antennas are actually under the desk – and at work just onto a metal filing cabinet) it seems to give MUCH better results.

This is a 60 second helicopter view of these appliances…

I have just completed a four day training course and hands on with the BlueCoat Web Proxy Appliances and I thought I'd give my quick impressions of the technology; based on what I've seen and played with – with particular emphasis on comparing to the Network Appliance NetCaches (which I'm already very familiar with) – I'll put those items I think are probably the most important near the top of the lists.

Note: this doesn't of course factor in any real world things like how these features perform under load, actual capacity with relevant features turned on, dealing with our specific bizarre configuration requirements, finding any particular flaw or bugs our real world users/traffic might toss up or how the support stacks up.

BlueCoat Pro's (stuff which NetCache doesn't have?):

• Supports more built-in "features"
• Content Policy Language and Visual Policy Manager – modeled on Checkpoint GUI – multiple rules in multiple layers – seems pretty extensive and powerful and VPM is obviously way easier to manage rules than text NetCache ACL rule sets
• BlueCoat Director (Centralised Management Console – central policy and config, automate device management (backups, etc))
• IM protocol support (MSN, Yahoo & AOL) (it does even seem to "recognise" this when it is tunnelled over the HTTP or SOCKS5 proxies) allowing you to specify policies on what is and isn't allowed, etc – doesn't fully support new MSN and Yahoo yet
• SSL Proxy (man-in-the-middle SSL intercept – requires SSL hardware card) – this is destination, etc configurable via policy, categorisation, etc – requires CA cert be installed on all client browsers for warning free use
• P2P protocol support (BitTorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella & FastTrack) (I expect it should also "recognise" this when it is tunelled over the HTTP or SOCKS5 proxies) allowing you to specify policies on what is and isn't allowed, etc
• Onbox Web/Content Filtering/Categorisation (BlueCoat, Smartfilter, others) + Local database (with hashed lookups – could be significant performance boost for ACLs here)
• ProxyAV – BlueCoat have their own ICAP based AV appliance (Kaspersky, Sophos, McAfee, Panda)
• Spyware Prevention (some portions require ProxyAV)
• Cisco IOS like CLI
• Role based security
• User Notifications – Exception Pages, Splash pages (show once – e.g. a daily AUP), Coaching Pages (option to continue)
• Bandwidth Management – could be especially useful for our inbound streaming events (reserving streaming bandwidth and/or limiting users)
• HTTP Compression (server side and/or client side including storing multiple variants (gzip, deflate & text) in cache)
• Able to eject/flush "sites/tree's" from the cache – unlike NetCache which can only do individual objects
• Native FTP Proxy and a generic TCP tunnel proxy
• File type matching based on (File Extensions, MIME Types and Apparent Data Type (magic headers))
• Supports more Authentication Realms including multiples of the same type (Win NT, AD, LDAP, Radius, Cert, Siteminder, COREid, Local, etc)
• Reporter – centralised reporting software (probably not capable enough to cope with our log load) 

BlueCoat Con's:

• The Java applet filled Web based GUI is a big turnoff. I absolutely hate the single Java applet in the NetCache web GUI which loads as part of the default web page and invariably doesn't work in most browsers but the BlueCoat takes this to the extreme with a separate applet which has to download and run for EVERY freakin' page in the web GUI – they cannot get rid of this fast enough for me
• Still not sure if all of our existing NetCache ACL functions will translate
• Win NT/AD authentication integration seems a bit messier than with NetCache (requires installation of agent software on windows boxes in the domain)
• doesn't have equivalent of ACLstat (for optimising rule ordering)

Are you running Internet Explorer 7 and having problems with some sites not working properly or even completely rejecting you when they used to work when you were running IE6?

A http header called the "User Agent String" sent by your browser to the server identifies the major version of the browser to web sites so that the sites can offer certain functionality on particular browser versions. In some cases, websites might misidentify a new version of IE as an outdated version, with results ranging from rendering and behavior issues to total rejection of the user.

The following utility temporarily changes registry keys on an IE 7.0 installation to allow a user to mimic an IE 6.0 installation as a simple workaround until problematic sites update their code. It also offers users the option to report these problematic sites to Microsoft.

The following utility once installed opens an Internet Explorer 7.0 window that is configured to report its identity to websites as being Internet Explorer 6.0:

Download: User Agent String Utility version 2

 

In a previous article (Choosing a Blogging Software Package) I went through my thinking in selecting WordPress for my blogging software package. In this follow up article I'll detail my selections for extending and enhancing my WordPress Blog site with a Theme as well as the Plugins and Widgets I use.

WordPress Themes

Fundamentally, the WordPress Theme system is a way to "skin" your weblog. Yet, it is more than just a "skin". Skinning your site implies that only the design is changed. WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the look and presentation of the material on your website.

A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files. A theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.gif), style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php).

There are hundreds of WordPress Themes to choose from. All do basically the same thing but graphically present the information in a myriad of ways.

I found a number of good resources for previewing a large number of freely available themes which made the process of visually selecting an appropriate theme easier. I've listed what I think are the best of those below:

• Theme viewer
• Using Themes/Theme List « WordPress Codex
• How to Blog : Comprehensive list of 960+ Free WordPress 1.5 and 2.0 Themes / Templates

My main technical criteria for selecting a theme to use with WordPress was WordPress 2.0 and Widgets support, because I wanted to be able to easily extend and enhance my wordpress blog site with additional features and capabilities (some of which I already had in mind – not the exact plugins but an idea of what I wanted them to do). I also wanted a theme which was fairly simple looking without too much on screen clutter and preferably one which had mostly white (or at least lighter elements) – I didn't want a dark or black theme. I was primarily interested in a two column layout (a main text column with a sidebar). I was initially hoping for a theme which auto sized the width depending on the resolution of the browser window – however these were pretty uncommon (and none I liked) with the vast majority of themes designed for a standard fixed width.

Eventually I had shortlisted about ten themes which included Binary Blue, DFire and Lush. As you can see I eventually selected a Widescreen version of Lush. 

This theme includes support for a number of useful items including some ajaxy items like live search (type a search string into my search box at the top right but don't hit Enter – just wait and see), the customized table-less comment form and various script.aculo.us visual effect enhancements. It also includes a print stylesheet, adjustable font size for improved readability (try clicking on the Large, Normal and Small links next to Readability at the top right) and it also has support for WordPress Widgets.

WordPress Plugins

Plugins are cool bits of programming scripts that add additional functionality to your blog. These are often features which either enhance already available features or add them to your site.

WordPress offers simple and easy ways of adding Plugins to your blog. From the Administraton Panel, there is a Plugin Page. Once you have uploaded a Plugin to your WordPress plugin directory, activate it from the Plugins Management SubPanel, and sit back and watch your Plugin work. Not all Plugins are so easily installed, but WordPress Plugin authors and developers make the process as easy as possible.

I found a number of good resources for finding a large number of freely available plugins which made the process of selecting appropriate plugins easier. I've listed what I think are the best of those below:

• WordPress Plugins Database
• Plugins « WordPress Codex
• Red Alt – WP-Plugins Download Interface
• WordPress Plugin Repository – Trac

You will most lilkely notice a pattern to the plugins I selected to use on my site – many of them add Ajax capability to the site. Ajax (short for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) is all the rage these days on the Web 2.0 and the technology offers all sorts of interesting interactive capabilities which make web based applications seem more like desktop applications.

The plugins I have installed and use on my blog include the following:

• Inline Ajax Comments

This plugin allows for the ability to expand the comments of a post below the main post content using ajax. To see what this works like just go to the main page for my blog and find an entry which has comments and click where it says "show comments inline".

• Inline Ajax More

Inline Ajax More is a plugin that displays content that is hidden by WP’s <!– more –> Tag on the same page using AJAX (instead of linking to another page).

• Lightbox2

A plugin that turns linked images into neat Javascript-powered overlay popups. This plugin integrates the cool javascript done by Lokesh Dhakar. Lightbox 2 is seriously good stuff and I'd already been using it for some of my recent web based photo albums so adding Lightbox 2 support to my blog was a no-brainer.

Try this javascript based page overlay image viewer now by clicking on one of the thumbnails below and then mouse over the displayed popup image to see the Next/Previous navigation links: here are a few pictures of my family:

There are actually a number of different Lightbox based plugins for WordPress. I tested about half a dozen different ones and finally settled on this one; however if you are keen to test out another one I found the stimuli.ca Lightbox 2.2 plugin for WordPress to also be very good. 

• Sociable

Social bookmarking sites allow websurfers to save, catalog, and share interesting pages they find online. The Sociable plugin appends links (with icons) for your readers to use those sites to the end of each of your blog’s posts, increasing your potential audience.

• Ultimate Tag Warrior 3

Ultimate Tag Warrior allows you to add tags either through the Write Post page in wordpress in a tag box, on posts using an AJAXy box, and in posts using special syntax from external editors (or internally, if you’d like). From the write post page, you can also get suggestions for tags using the Tagyu service.

Once you’ve got your tags entered; you enter a realm of interesting ways of doing things with your tags – you can automagically have tags included at the top and bottom of your posts without making changes to themes and you can add a Tagcloud widget (built in) to your sidebar (which I have).

• EditorMonkey

EditorMonkey for WordPress 2.0 supercharges the built-in rich editor with the latest version of TinyMCE. EditorMonkey also provides an easier way to configure the built-in rich editor and can replace the comment editing area with a WYSIWYG editing area.

• DropCap First Character

Finally there is my own DropCapFirst Character plugin which DropCaps the first character of each post and page automatically.

WordPress Widgets

WordPress Widgets (WPW) is a plugin designed to provide a simple way to arrange the various elements of your sidebar content without having to change any code. Basically it breaks down the sidebars in themes into discrete blocks of goodness, and there is an interface for you to add, delete, and rearrange them by simply dragging and dropping.

The first thing you need is to install the Automattic » WordPress Widgets plugin – after that you can install widgets (like plugins) and activate and set them up in your sidebar.

I found a number of good resources for finding a large number of freely available plugins which made the process of selecting appropriate plugins easier. I've listed what I think are the best of those below:

• Plugins/WordPress Widgets « WordPress Codex
• WordPress Widgets

The widgets I have installed and use on my blog include the following: 

• LiveCalendar

LiveCalendar is a widget plugin for WordPress which energizes your calendar with the magic of Ajax. It allows for calendar navigation without refreshing the entire page.

Other Updates and Final Words 

A number of the plugins which I installed on the site make use of versions of the excellent script.alico.us and Prototype JavaScript Framework libraries (as does the Lush theme itself). Rather than having these javascript libraries being downloaded and sourced multiple times I made some modifications to the PHP code for any of these plugins which use these libraries to not pull in the prototype.js & effects.js javascript includes again because they already exist in the lush theme.

OK – I've written my first WordPress plugin – it is incredibly simple and VERY short but it does the job none-the-less. The plugin is called dropcap_first and is available for download if you so desire.

What it does is it makes the first character of the post BIG in a magazine style. I got the idea (and most of the CSS code) to do this from an article called Magazine Style CSS Drop Caps and then it was just a matter of writing the relevant PHP code to do what I wanted.

Current Version Download: dropcap_first plugin

Installation:

• download the latest version the plugin (above).
• upload the entire plugin folder to your wordpress plugins folder (wp-content/plugins) on your server.
• activate the DropCap First Character plugin in WordPress Plugins administration tab.

The plugin consists of two files. The PHP file (dropcap_first.php) which does the work (the important code is below):

and a stylesheet file (dropcap_style.css) which defines what the character will look like and uses the :first-letter pseudo element to limit the effect to the first character of the post.

p.dropcap-first:first-letter {
color: #D4D4C7;
float: left;
font-size:80px;
line-height:60px;
padding-top:4px;
padding-right:5px;
font-family: Times, serif, Georgia;
}


If you wanted to change what the first character looked like (the colour, size, font, etc) then you just need to adjust this stylesheet entry. If you like the look of this you can add it to your own WordPress blog by downloading the dropcap_first plugin and installing it as per usual – this plugin requires no other manual edits to work.