Dear Diary,
Couldn’t sleep well at all last night. I was really tired and went to sleep at about 8, which made UltraGirl nervous so she woke me up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep again until it was almost time to get up
Gave UltraGirl a ride to work. Was planning to work at the office, but the parking near the office was full, and I was exhausted. I wen thome instead and crashed into bed for a brief nap to get mne through the day
Woke up and wrote out my todo list for the day, knocked a few things off the list.
Was feeling cold and dirty so I hopped into the bath to do some reading and write up a draft of a blog post coming soon to the Akatombo Media site.
Saw UltraMom on Skype and walked her through getting her e-mail client set up so that she can send e-mails again. She has apparently been unable to click on links in web pages and send e-mail since she moved to Nevada.
Got out of the bath and knocked off most of the rest of my ToDo List items.
Went to starbucks, got some coffee, and finished reading the relevant sections of the svn book. Captured a few new ideas in a text file
UltraGirl came home, so I went home too, listened to the new Anti-Flag album on the way home. First time I’ve had a good chance to listen to it. It is really good. Can’t wait to spend some quality time with the liner notes.
Gave Kuri feedback on an alpha release she is working on.
Realtor came over to deal with some last minute paperwork
An old friend of UltraGirl’s called on the phone, and our movie watching plans were shot as they talked on the phone for three hours
We went out for a couple of belgian beers at a nice little bar here in Zushi, and now we are going to bed.
Go forth and rejoice! You will now be able to view UltraMom’s ginormous popup images in their entirety. Well, actually unless she or I goes back and fixes the one’s she has already posted (and I have fixed a few) then you’ll only be able to see the new photos in their entirety.
I may be the only one who has been bothered by this, but whenever Mom added an image to the site recently it was always too big for my laptop screen, and the popup window had no scrollbars so I was unable to see the parts of the photo that didn’t fit into my screen. As mentioned in my post about how to link (for which I haven’t gotten so much as a thank you I might add), I was planning to do a write-up on how UltraMom could fix this issue when uploading her photos, but then I thought, “She shouldn’t really have to do that. It is our site that is generating the code for her popup window, so why should she have to go back and correct it. I should go in and make the system generate the code how I want it.” So that is what I did. I dug into the code that runs our blogging system, and found the part that generates the popup window and modified it. I was a bit hesitant to do it, because our blogging system is written in Perl, and I’m not all that familiar with Perl, but it was extremely easy.
Anyway, unless we have gone back and fixed it, the images on this old post from UMom should demonstrate the popup window with neither scroll bars nor the ability to resize.
The test post I just put up should have a popup that should be resizable and have scrollbars unless your screen is big enough that the image fits in it without scrolling.
Now just in case you want to go back and fix your old popups Mommy, you can do that by changing two things in each popup link:
scrollbars=>no,resizable=no
should change to:
scrollbars=>yes,resizable=yes
If you examine the source for your posts you should be able to find that for each popup.
We have upgraded the RSS feeds for this site, so please let me know if you see any problems in your aggregator. If this doesn’t make any sense to you, I plan to explain all about RSS feeds in a post very soon. After that I will add links to the RSS feed somewhere on the page (they’ve been kind of hidden up to this point). In the meantime though, I just wanted to post some aggregator specific links for any of you readers who already use aggregators, so find your software or serve and click away.
Subscribe to The Dynamic Duo
Well, boys and girls, you are in luck. My dearest UltraMommy tried and failed (some advanced linking there) to insert a link in her blog post using the automated tools in w.bloggar.
Looking at the source code of her post, I can see exactly why:
<a href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/" title="Hearst Castle"></a>
Unless you are familiar with HTML (HyperText Markup Language) you probably don’t yet see the problem but you soon will. Let’s start with the html tag that we use to make a link: the ‘a’ (anchor) tag. This let’s you drop an anchor into your text that will jump the reader to another point in this or another document.
To get started we need to familiarize ourselves with the anatomy of an html tag. html tags that encompass text or some other content begin with an opening tag, <p> for example to start a paragraph, and end with a closing tag like </p> for example. Notice the ‘/’ in the closing tag. There are a few special tags, like the img (image) tag for example, that ARE the content instead of enclosing content:
<img src="img/puppies.jpg" alt="Cute Puppies" />
As you can see in a tag like this delightful picture of the cutest puppies you’ve ever seen, these single tags are closed by putting a slash inside the tag after all the attributes. “The attributes? What attributes,” you ask confusedly. Be patient grasshopper, you’ve just seen them, but I’ll explain them to you now:
Many html tags need more information than can be provided by a simple opening and closing tag set like <p>Your paragraph here</p> The img tag you saw above is one such example, and another is our beloved anchor tag. Attributes to html tags take the form parameter="attribute". There are two attributes I’ll talk about for the anchor tag though there are actually more that could be used, and coincidentally they are both in my mother’s nice, albeit invisible link:
<a href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/" title="Hearst Castle"></a>
That’s right, the two attributes I’m talking about are href and title and the ones in mom’s link are fine specimens.
Let’s start with href because this is the only one we really can’t live without in our link. Let’s have a look at the href attribute in UM’s link: href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/". href stands for hypertext reference, and contains the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) of the page you are trying to link to. Without this handy dandy attribute, the viewer’s web browser wouldn’t know where to go when you clicked the link.
Next is the title attribute. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but is helpful for a few different reasons, most of them related to helping both humans and search engines know what is at the other end of a link. You see, the clickable text in a link may have nothing to do, with what is at the other end of the link, especially of it is not in the context of the linking page. How many times have you seen a link like this: Click here for more information. “here” doesn’t tell you much about what you’ll be seeing when you get to the other side of the link, but try something for me. Put your mouse pointer on the link, and then hold the mouse still (don’t click just stop moving the mouse pointer and let it hover over the link). In most browsers you’ll see a tooltip pop up with the information in the title attribute in it. This can be one additional clue for users, and a great assist to search engines, and all it costs is a few extra keystrokes.
So let’s have a look at the link we were just dealing with, next to Mom’s:
Mine: <a href="http://www.akatombo.com" title="Akatombo Media">here</a>
UltraMom’s: <a href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/" title="Hearst Castle"></a>
Do you see the difference? If not, think back to the ‘M’ in HTML, HTML is a markup language, which means it needs to be marking something up. What Mom probably wanted the link to look like is:
In html code: <a href="http://www.hearstcastle.com/" title="Hearst Castle">Hearst Castle</a>
which would output: Hearst Castle
In the context of w.bloggar it probably means that the way to make the link work like you want it to is (1 is probably what you’ve missed so far):
- Type the text that you want to appear in the link (‘here’ in my earlier example)
- click the link icon in the toolbar
- enter the title and url when prompted, and click OK or whatever you need to click to accept it
- Admire your shiny new link
- muse that on second look it isn’t really all that shiny, but it sure is a beauty nonetheless
I hope this was helpful. Let me know if there was anything in there that was confusing, or if you want to know more about something in particular.
Up next: How to create image links in movable type that are viewable even to those without gigantic monitors.
California continued!
One of my priorities when I am in California is to spend as much time as possible close to the ocean, so I was excited that our first day of activities included a trip to Avilla Beach. Unfortunately, however, it was not the calm, sunny day I had ordered up. It was pretty windy, but the ever-prepared Dave extracted three kites from his hidden reservoirs of fun, along with a plastic backpack filled with sand toys. Jim tried his hand at the boxy Sprite-kite; this one was so good it seemed impossible NOT to fly it. Dave flew a more traditional kite (can’t remember what that one was) and I got to fly the Barbie kite with the long, pink plastic tails. It was a lot of fun since it was something I don’t often do nowadays, and because I was flying it perfectly (something I don’t often do any day) ! I put this down to a combination of wind and skill, but I think it was mostly the wind.
The dauntless Michael rented a wet suit and surf board and hit the waves. By this time Jim was coming down with Michael’s cold, so he wisely opted out of this activity. It was pretty cold, but Michael played in the surf for quite a while, even though he “biffed’ it a few times. Debi kept a watchful eye (and camera) on Michael, Jane explored and Francie & Neil watched all activities from a comfortable bench.
Later Jim and I got into a “kite war” and he broke Barbie’s string! After carrying the sand toys around all afternoon, I decided to try some out, only to discover that they were sealed shut with inpenetrable plastic ties. They probably remain in that state to this day, as do many of the items I purchase. Anyone got a quick trick for opening CD and DVD cases?
When it came time to find a place to eat, Jane was the hero of the day. She insisted we try the restaurant at the end of the pier, and it proved to be a winner. On our way down the pier, we saw a platform filled to the brim with harbor seals. More were trying to get on, but it was pretty much filled to capacity. There was a little one on one end who seemed to be in danger of being bumped off, but he was still there when we traversed back down the pier after an excellent meal of fresh clam chowder & fish & chips.
The next day was Hearst Castle day, a must-see attraction for anyone visiting in the San Luis vicinity.
(Okay, Bob I tried to insert a link here to the Hearst Castle website, but it doesn’t show up in the ‘preview;)
I was excited for Jim to experience this, and I think he thoroughly enjoyed it. Willima Randolph Hearst constructed this edifice about 50 years ago in the hills of San Simeon. It was one of many homes he owned, but he loved entertaining guests, who included many of the era’s celebrities, there with the help of his mistress, actress Marion Davies. Many priceless art treasures and construction wonders are featured in the several offered tours. The tour starts with a panoramic movie (what do your call theaters where it seems you are right there?) of Hearst’s life and times. His architect was the amazing Julia Morgan, the first female architect in California. After the movie, we were bussed to the actual mansion complex. We had an excellent tour guide who kept us entertained with little known tidbits of information and was very personable. Mr. Hearst, it seems was the ruling monarch of this little kingdom, and imposed several rules on his guests. Though he stayed there with his mistress, no unmarried guests were allowed to cohabit. He didn’t allow sleeping in; he wanted his guests up and doing stuff. He did not allow food in the rooms, and the evening meal was a mandatory affair. Apparently, when you first arrived, you were seated near Mr. Hearst at the long dinner table. The longer you stayed, however, the further away became your placecard. A subtle hint, perhaps?
Our tour guide encouraged questions, ( I think he enjoyed showing off his knowledge), and I took full advantage of this. Halfway through the tour, while we were standing in the formal dining room, my brother, Dave whispered to me a question. I guess (according to him, at least) he asked, “Did he say anything about the chairs?” (meaning the old & uncomfortable appearing dining room chairs) But this is what I heard, “mmmmnnn chairs?” “What?” I returned. He repeated the question, with the same results. “What?” I asked again, “You want to know if I said something about the chairs?”
Again, he repeated, and this time I said, probably a bit too loudly “I can’t hear you!”
“You can’t hear me?” asked the tour guide. “I thought I was speaking loudly.”
“Yes, I can hear you,” I flustered, “But my brother…………uh,……..the chairs….and I couldn’t hear him, and ……..uh…..Can you tell us about the chairs?” The chairs, it appears, were not antiques, and were, reportedly, comfortable.
On our drive back to San Luis, we stopped at the elephant seal beach. There are usually lots of elephant seals and harbor seals basking on the beaches there, and this day, fortunately for us, was not an exception. I’m not sure what the place is actually called. You are separated from the seals by a fence & railing, but are close enough. It was really cool.
I believe that evening we had dinner at Francie and Neil’s. Their kitchen was very well-stocked in anticipation of our visit, and Neil skillet-grilled hot dogs. There was also sliced ham, cheese, avocado dip and lots of chips and soda. Perfect.
The game-playing afterwards was a nightly ritual. Diminishing Whist, Hello Kitty Uno, Scooby Doo Monopoly. For the non-game players, there was a large selection of videos to choose from, and a playful Andre to entertain. Also a nightly ritual, it appeared, would be the presenting of the birthday gifts. Dave & Jane had gone all out and had some Harry & David gift box assortments, actually one for each night! I had been accumulating some small gifts for my adorable, totally-deserving-of-gifts sister, so I was able to hold my own in the “gift war”, all in fun, of course. Panther had a beautiful, original painting for Francie, but was afraid it wouldn’t travel well in luggage, and decided to mail it later. The gift de resistance was from all of us. It seems that many years ago (in a galaxy far, far away), Francie had asked her brother if he had Aunt Essel’s quilt. If so, and if he wasn’t going to use it, could she have it? Aunt Essel was our grandmother’s sister. The only memory of her I have is going to her hospital room in Texas shortly before she died. I think I was about 10 or so. I fainted in her hosptial room, apparently jealous of the attention she was receiving. Actually, I think it was the smell of some of the medications. As a child, I had a quilt on my bed that either she or my grandmother made, and I used it to oblivion. They were that sunburst, or starbust kind of pattern, like rays shooting out from the center to distant points along the borders of the quilt. Anyway, Dave remembered this long-ago conversation, and miraculously was actually able to find the quilt. We wrapped it up and presented it to Francie in Dave & Jane’s motel room near the end of the week. At first Francie didn’t recognize it, but as she became aware, she was overcome with emotion. I am so glad she has it now.
This vacation isn’t over yet, not by a long shot ! Stay tuned for more exciting San Luis adventures!
UltraMom
Michael’s Goin’ Surfin’, Surfin’ USA
Hearst Castle, the Infamous Neptune Pool. Word is that all the castle employees get to have a swim party there at the end of each season.
Near the pier at Avilla Beach. Isn’t the little one on the end cute?
Elephant Seals are big!
The Quilt
GeoURL
April 16th, 2006 - 01:22 JST