Category: Electronics & Software

 

wordberry

Will wonders never cease. WordPress for. Blackberry.

The Unpublished Works

Everyone likes seeing their name in print.

Well, unless of course it’s trash tabloid-ism or an arrest warrant… But I’m not talking just-printed-on-paper but I mean a by-line of one sort or another. I can say that from experience as I’ve gotten that kick — seeing “John Fontana” linked to letters-to-the-editor, or being sourced/interviewed by USA Today, being quoted in The Hockey News, The New York Times Slap Shot blog and la-de-da.

But I can also say that wasn’t where I intended to go with writing when I started out as a kid.  My intention wasn’t to be a face-in-the-crowd (though no matter what you write or publish, you are another face in the crowd of literature) in the newspaper.  Not another source for magazines and what not.  Not a weblogger.  I planned on doing things creatively and having my own book.  Or books — plural.  Take your pick.

But that never happened.  See, when i was a teen I got away from story writing so much and was writing poetry most of the time…  a habit that’s followed me into adulthood.  Lyrical verse more-so than deep observations and perspectives..  Well, yeah they are perspectives but they are my perspectives.   Sometimes just pop, sometimes inspired by events or people or feelings  in my life.

Over the years, I’ve had some of them available to the masses through the web…  Certainly you can find a couple of them on this site and probably elsewhere on the web…  But they’ve never really been published in the sense of print.  Never published in the sense of being out there for any traditional form of mass consumption.  I haven’t bothered to take the time with sending out poems to magazines who have niches all of their own (and aren’t available unless you pay for a subscription or pay for a copy — while you’re not getting paid for your contribution).

I ought to put together a manuscript and do something with it.  But I’m hesistant.

Catherine Durkin Robinson, local blogger and Creative Loafing contributor, has written two book manuscripts.  Her first one is being published, chapter-by-chapter, on a blogspot site.  The other, a more recent work based on her life as a teacher in Hillsborough County, is being sent around to literary agents in hopes someone will pick up the work and mass-market it. Sadly, that has not been the case and the rejections have been comical at best.

Their loss.  I’ve read the book and it’s not only a good read, it’s provocative and controversial enough to be read widely by those fearing school-district scandals.

I also have another friend, in the Pacific Northwest this time, who went out and self-published her first novel.  The book, Steel Goddesses, is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase.  It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that and self-publish any work…  But it sort of cuts out the middle-man of having to appease literary agents who tell you what a proper market for your writing is-or-isn’t and tells you to change your work to fit that niche.  At least that’s what I’ve seen with rejections served up to Catherine.

So the idea I am kicking around is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry I’ve written over the past decade and self-publishing it.  I realize that poetry is not exactly a hot seller and not going to lead me to riches…  It’d cost me more to publish than the commissions I’d get in the long run from doing it…  But it does what I have long sought to do — take the writings jammed in Mead notebooks that I’ve carried around since High School and take some of those verses and show them to the masses.  Will people connect?  I have doubts.  Will strangers read what I’ve  written?  Even more doubts…  But it’s mine, and it’d be out there.  My claim.  My piece of literature.

My book.

It’s a thought, at least.

In the news today (oh boy…)

No sooner do I find myself in print in The Hockey News

…do I find out I can’t find a print copy of The Hockey News in Palm Harbor. Sheesh.

An Open Letter to Oren Koules

Posted on Raw Charge, this piece responds to remarks made by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Oren Koules after he remarked about blogging on 620 WDAE radio.

Overdue: Deleted my MySpace profile

Late 2004 I had a friend I met through Yahoo chat who only had images through this weird network type thing called MySpace… She had joined the network because of the indie music scene on there and socialized with both real and online friends through there.

This was before their was wider network access to MySpace and therefore I had to join in order to view any member’s profile information or photos. So in early 2005 I joined MySpace…

And hated it the entire time I was involved.

MySpace was like the AOL of social networks to me. Oh, it had a lot of bells and whistles you have seen copied and imitated by other networks… It introduced people to the web in general in a lot of ways (design wise – with customizable profiles where you could change every aspect of your profile with a bit of CSS know-how, which fathered an entire sub-market of web design sites). It was the forefather of other social network sites and catered to the mainstream while it’s “competitor” — Facebook — was aimed specifically at the college crowd and linking college students and alumni.

I connected with a few people on MySpace – old friends, new friends – but generally loathed the experience. MySpace was technologically obsolete, even if it’s vision was advanced. Social networking and it’s strength for marketing and message spread was something only just catching on.

The problem with MySpace was that it did not advance itself like most web properties do — no significant design changes, no huge additions or subtractions. Oh, there was one significant change that helped put it on the outs with me and others: More flash advertising. Videos, interactive applets and other intensive ads that belabored my browser and annoyed my web surfing experience. I don’t want to see a video for “Miss March” when I just want to see the message that was sent to em from an old friend! I just wanna’ log in and get it done.

Why did I stick around four years with MySpace? Friends who aren’t on Facebook (which I joined at the behest of hockey bloggers in 2006 or so, after the network started allowing the general public to join). Family as well. Just appeasing them because there was no way to stay connected to them without a Myspace profile.

But really, it’s over now.

I didn’t like the Web 1.0 design, I hated the crappy design jobs that people employed on personal profile pages, I hated (abhorred, loathed, etc) all the flash bullshit that was lumped onto people’s profiles (tons of youtube videos stacked on top of each other, tons of different photo album bells and whistles in the middle of the profile, etc) as well as the advertisements.

In the end, MySpace felt like a toy that had never had it’s packaging improved. A toy that’s never had it’s design flaws corrected besides the barest of changes. A toy that’s been improved-upon and leaped over by it’s competitors.

A toy that’s lost it’s novelty and wore out my patience early on. I endured. But no longer.

Don’t tweet like a twit

I’ve found myself forced to use Twitter. I’m learning the ropes and all that… And while I’ve learned plenty of do’s and don’t, I have one peeve that people ought to learn regarding Retweets:

When someone Retweets (RT’s) another person’s message (rt @username ) — they can cut down the original message to get under the 140 character length. But if you’re going to add text to the Retweet, do it BEFORE the RT. Otherwise, you make it look like your comment was part of the original message someone posted.

One other thing: if you’re going to follow someone because they cover a certain subject matter, don’t badger that person when they go off-topic and talk about something else. No one, and I mean no one, is on topic 24/7/365.

Rumors of my demise have been greatly appreciated

Yeah, I’m still here. Hello.

Sorry I have not posted here on Der Stonegauge for something like… well, a long while. How long? So long, in fact, that it’s an opinion of a falsehood and not the truth. That’s how long.
Part of it’s just lacking motivation to write something not hockey related. Part of it is the inability to collect thoughts. I get an idea for a blog post and by the time I am back at the computer I find myself having to report on something else.

I’ll try to be more involved here, but if life calls — I have to put everyone (both of you) following Stonegauge on hold again. Sorry.

The Epic nature of Clarketplace

My buddy Clark has taken the time and the effort in recent weeks to offer some very worthwhile items on Craig’s List. So worthwhile, in fact, the advertisements border on EPIC in nature! It’s a steal! Get it while you can! (and it’s humor! Yay humor!)

It’s amazing! It’s spectacular, and it’s leaving me in stitches with every week’s new offering. Check Clarketplace and see absurdity at it’s finest!

Ain't Technology Grand?

Will the technological wonders never cease?!? Behold the latest offering (by way of Penny Arcade):

Technologial advancements and good for the environment!  Uses next to no energy at all!

Technologial advancements and good for the environment! Uses next to no energy at all!

Indifferent on history

There are a lot of people around Tampa and the greater Tampa Bay area who know more about the historic Floridan Hotel in Downtown Tampa (it’s distant past, it’s declining years, it’s failed restoration attempts in the past, it’s present, etc) than I do. That being said, why does the hotel have such a sorry ass Wikipedia page and why am I the one updating it?

…And not even doing a good job of it, but it’s better than it was just a few hours ago.

My Quest for Glory

I’ve been re-playing the old Quest for Glory games from Sierra Online the last few days. The redesigned Trial by Fire from AGD Interactive, Wages of War and Shadows of Darkness. So I’m really re-living my love for the game.

Re-living it so much that I took the Famous Adventurers Corespondence School’s Admissions test:

My name is Forge of Armongaar and I am a Paladin.

Paladin Shield

What kind of Hero Are You?

www.theschoolforheroes.com

The odd thing was that with my love for the game, I wanted to finisht eh series and re-play the fifth and final game of the series: Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire.

After I installed it and played for a few minutes, I couldn’t believe how much I hated it.

The three previous games I had played (I skipped the original game, but the design I am about to talk about holds true for that game as well) were graphical/art driven adventures. Dragon Fire, however, is a bridge game for Role Playing Games in general. Everything is developed in computer-animated 3-D… Not the quality you would see if you were playing a MMORPG now, but a very early version of such interfaces.

I just wasn’t satisfied with the product, which I had played before, this time around. Not after playing the other adventures back-to-back-to-back. I expected the cartoonish 2-D fun and instead I got early 3-D boxiness that just didn’t fit in the overall scheme.

**shrug**

Ya-hoo!

Anyone else catch the change to Yahoo profiles? Maybe it’s been around for a while but I only just noticed the fact that the feature has turned into a psuedo social network.

Of course, they need to still do a lot of work and cut out a lot of BS — The Yahoo 360­° thing remains bullshit (and solely a source of spam) and a lot of Yahoo features are redundant (as I could see from a list of Yahoo features listed on the “All Yahoo Sources” area of the profile setting update messages.

So this is what it's like running the local blogroll…

Almost a year ago, Tommy over at Sticks of Fire and Brett Glisson worked out a deal where Tommy…  well, he bought / took over Brett’s brainchild TampaBLAB.  For the uninformed, uninititated or the plain flat out uncurious (helloooo Bush family!)  the TampaBLAB is an aggregator / blog reader.  It shares new posts from blogs in the greater Tampa Bay metropolitan area.

It sounds really complex but really, it’s not.   It’s simply like this:  You have a blog, most (if not all) blogs provide feeds — ways to syndicate or share their content with other web sites.  If you’re a  blogger living in the Tampa Bay area and you wanna’ share your blog with the rest of the Tampa Bay blogosphere, you submit it to TampaBLAB and lo and behold — every new post you write gets published at the BLAB (not in it’s entirety, mind you, just a lead in).

Of course, someone has to be in charge of the BLAB (acronym for Bay Local Area Bloggers).  Tommy didn’t have the time to update the theme and add newly submitted blogs, nor maintain the main blog page on the BLAB.  That’s where I’ve come in…  Running the day to day and keeping an eye on things…  Dropping defunct blogs that haven’t updated in a long while…  Adding newly submitted sites.  Occasionally posting on the BLAB Blog and fixing technical SNAFU’s that show up from time to time.

…Well, more often than not with thanks to the number of upgrades WordPress has gone through in the last few months and compatibility issues that arise because of it.  But that’s techno-jargon you could do without.

So it’s been good so far, a little slow. Know someone who blogs in Tampa Bay and wants more readers? Suggest they submit their site to the BLAB. Brand spanking new blogs with no posts need not apply, though… Sorry. Blogs come and go so quickly that we can’t accept the newest of new kids on the blogging block.

Also, I’m trying to figure out if I should make the Skyway theme that’s employed at the BLAB available to the general WordPress-blogging public for download. It’s cute but not cutting edge, you know?

A Day in the Life at the Tampa Tribune

Copy Editor: “RUMORS OF OUR DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED“; bold faced and centered across the front page. Print it.

Janet Coats
: What are you doing?

CE: Refuting the rumors that are going around that the newspaper will be ceasing publication in the coming weeks. It’s really heinous stuff and we have to re-assure readership with…

JC: You can’t print that headline.

CE: Well, no, I guess we can’t now that I look at it. It’s kind of long… We could, well, you know, find another phrase to use…

JC: No, you can’t print a headline like that — in bold — at all. Ink isn’t on sale this quarter and stockholders are upset as is that Mother Corporate‘s share price is down. You need to pare down that statement to the bare bones.

CE: Well, all right, we’ll —

JC: Look, “exaggerated” is too big a word to stick in there. No one who still reads a print edition of a newspaper will understand it… That’s got to go.

CE: Oka–

JC: And then pare down the most common words you are using: of, our, have… They have no relevance in this age of buzz words. Change the typed out version of the word “are” to “R”… See, it’s looking fine. Now nix the -ly on greatly and we can save all of another penny on ink! This will so please everyone back in Richmond!

CE: But —

JC: Just LOOK! It’s a bold statement in itself without actually being bold! It’s hip and now! Print it! Ship it!

CE: “Rumors r great”?

JC: Don’t QUESTION it, just DO it. We’re in the Internet age! By now the Times has already posted three stories on their blogs and out on the rest of the Internet, there are thousands of new, fresh stories! How can we be with-it with you lolly gagging in your old ways?! HOP TO!

Life. Printed Inanely.

Johnny Fonts

About JohnnyFonts.com

Johnny Fonts is the continued web presence and weblog of life-long online personality, sports fan/writer, and Tampa Bay-area blogger John Fontana (a 1997 graduate of East Lake High School).

Lemme stop with the third-party writing and say it directly. I’ve been online since the ear;u days of dial-up and the Prodigy network. JohnnyFonts.com is built upon my time as a blogger, which started officially in the summer of 2002. Unofficially, I began what I didn’t know was blogging in 2000 on a Tripod web page.

  • I’m more well known for my involvement in coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning as the Bay area’s original Tampa Bay Lightning blogger. I started in February 2004 (the season in which the Lightning would win its first Stanley Cup championship) and later founded Raw Charge on the SB Nation network. I’ve also spent plenty of time on baseball and had a web site pushing for the end of the designated hitter rule, how about that!</p>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>I also have the rare disease Neurofibromatosis Type 2. This disease has too often affected me physically in life. An unknown fact: It was while I recovered from back surgery (an operation necessitated due to the disease) that influenced me to start hockey blogging, Sadly, NF2 has ended my involvement in sports coverage by way of low-vision.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>Plus it’s made typing a bitch (grumble, grumble). New, fresh blog pposts on this site are less common</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>I ramble, I rant. I can be funny and I can be an outright asshole (anxiety can influence that). I can be naive and ignorant in a man-boy way (my experience with the Beatles shows this) and I can be creative. In simplicity: I’m a writwe. The archives of this blog and elsewhere onoine show thAt.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>Much of what you can find on this blog is pop – movies, music, ‘net stuff – and other times it’s personal. It’s also gone political, Will it piss you off or please you, I don’t know. Ir’s the avenue of my self-expression…and typos. Lot’s of typos.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>I spend much of my time now researching and editing TunedQuest, a list of radio stations accepting music submissions. I got uibto that gavut in the summer of 2019. Why? Read about that here.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

 

.

As for the nickname Johnny Fonts: it’s been clung to since 2010. It comes from a minor anecdote on social media. John had helped his friend Catherine Robinson’s novel writing by editing drafts of Learning Curves. In one status post on Facebook, her husband, Marc, simply barked the name “Johnny Fonts!” in an enthusiastic-yet-bizare show of thanks toward Fontana. It came out of nowhere and… and… well, why not go with it?

For those interested in guest post advertisements: I do not accept guest post.This is a private blog, not a commercial company. Please do not request information about guest posts.

Social Nutwork

Here’s a quick way to either get on my bad side or get yourself flat out removed from my friends list on Facebook: Use status updates for advertising and only advertising.

I hate to break it to bloggers across the Internet but Facebook has a tool built in called Notes and that gives you the ability to import your RSS feed from your blog onto your profile.

Your status? That’s about you. That’s not for blog headlines, requests for people to become-a-fan-of through Facebook Pages or some other promotional crap like that. If you need help marketing your blog or site, there are plenty of tools out there on the web and plenty of better (less annoying) strategies regarding social media.

I add friends and networking contacts because I’m friends with them or they are colleagues. Sometimes it’s because I am a fan. But it’s a real big pet peeve of mine for someone to find the only use for their Facebook profile as a large EAT AT JOE’S advertisement.

Vote Calrissian

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

"Are you eyeballin' me, son?!"

One fo the tough things I have to do when handling graphic design is trying to eyeball graphics out to see how aligned the graphics are — or how pleasing to my eye things look in their final arrangement. It can drive me crazy.

That being said, I got a kick out of this Eyeballing game. It’s basic geometry and a lot of alignment spotting. Though my average is quite high, it was better than I figured it to be.

48 hours of Metroid update

Just a little update regarding those crazy college kids who are playing Metroid to raise money for Child’s Play: After 24 hours of play, they have earned $366 dollars. Their goal is $500.

It’s kids being kids for the kids. Stop by the site and help’em out by donating.

going to "wars"

I’ve got a few minutes here while waitng for technical support to get back to me on a plugin issue with some software, so I’m doing my normal Wednesday web-surfing rounds while I wait and I come across the always enjoyable Penny Arcade (10 years of Tycho and Gabe! All rejoice!) and their latest comic and it gets me to thinking…

One thing I hated about the Star Wars prequels was the defining of the Force, or the defining of Storm Troopers (they were all clones!) and other rationalizations that killed the mysticism of the original trilogy. Conversely, it’s the pop culture references to Star Wars and inane in-depth discussion that I love. I mean, Clerks? Randall and Dante musing about the construction and destruction of the 2nd Death Star? INSANELY Funny in it’s inanity.

There are other places that don’t immediately come to mind regarding Star Wars and inanities about the how and other side stories that never get to the forefront of the story. One of the classics that I can think of is this image:

…and of course Penny Arcade’s latest comic seems like another great example… Though it goes a bit beyond just Star Wars: It’s the story about henchmen’s families. You see guys getting offed here and there… But we don’t care about them. That doesn’t mean other’s don’t.

[ad#ad-1]

Dice it up

Anyone tried Dicewars yet? Strategy! Flash! Dice!

They're not even trying any more

Anyone else getting hit with massive amounts of spam labeled “CNN.com Top 10” or some such? How about being blasted the last 12 hours with another Phishing attempt from someone posing as MSNBC?

Let me first make this clear — you don’t have to be signed up for either site for these malicious emails to be sent to you. They aren’t news pieces, they are attempts to get your interest and lead you to fake web sites. So, no, you weren’t signed up for things without asking.

That being said, I just guffawed looking at this headline:

msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS: NASDAQ index gains 720 points overnight upon war announcement

Uh, newsflash: NASDAQ doesn’t do shit overnight. Unless you are in Asia. In that case, why send out an email in English with that title? Because the English speaking world (most of it) who follow MSNBC are awake during NASDAQ trading.

But I digress. I find humor in this… But I’ve also given it more attention than it deserves.

Novelty! Yay novelty!

I’m trying to get the WP-Cumulus tag cloud to show up. It already shows up in the sidebar but… Well… I’m trying to get it in the content body of the front page (and elsewhere) so… Wish me luck?
[WP-CUMULUS]

Update: As you can see, this nifty, fantastic, rootin’ tootin’ tag cloud is working.

Astra logical

That being said, I’m tired of waiting for Trillian Astra to go to Beta or the official release. Tired of reading the development blog that updates too slowly and only talks about the technobable in developing Astra which goes beyond the average user (which I am)… And of course, I’m tired of Trillian 3 Pro. I’m ready for an upgrade.

This was originally due last year and at this rate will not be out until next year… Please, get it done. Get it done, gentlemen.

posted September 7th, 2007 by me.

Here we are now on August 11th, 2008 — just a few weeks shy of a year to the day of the original post I made about development of Trillian Astra.

I realize it’s a labor of love, more than profit, for the Trillian team and my impatience may not exactly warm the hearts and minds of said developers. But I worry, I worry greatly, about the future of Trillian if they are still fine tuning the software and can’t update their web site front page to remove a warning that was posted in March for a previous prototype build of Astra.

Two years in the making now… All while the major clients of various varieties (my blog software, WordPress; Firefox, multiple others) have been upgraded several times over that span. Of course, those are also open source and have a huge viral development team. Trillian is less viral and more product, sans the major development team.

I still ask to get it done, please. I have Digsby installed on my computer but it doesn’t do much for me. Trillian 3 Pro remains the standard. The outdated, unstable standard at that.

No Boltsmag is not Dead

Just FYI for people who are being redirected here while searching for the other site. It’s an issue I am only starting to deal with now.

Six years ago today…

The St. Petersburg Times gave me my closeup (as Cecil B. DeMille was not available)

Oh boy

I wanted to upgrade Stonegauge’s theme today. Or at least work on a new concept. The theme currently employed is not widgetized and — well, for the uninitiated, widgets are fancy thingamabobs and doohickies (dare I call them watchamacallits) that you can place in a sidebar on WordPress and they can do various things aor let you re-arrange the sidebar with ease.

That’s besides the point…

So I went to my Happy Five years Hosting Me Now webhost and went to their one click install area and…

Well, to put it lightly, I fucked up.

I accidentally deleted Stonegauge from the Interweb.

It was just one simple miscue and yet everything I have ever uploaded to Stonegauge.com (the domain) was sent to a digital grave, to rot along with billions and billions of 1’s and 0’s. Every POST I ever made on WordPress (and a few dozen from my former MT and HTML based sites) were safe in a database but immediately after this deletion had happened, I feared the worst.

And as the afternoon progressed, the worst got worse.

I couldn’t gain access to five years of inane blog posts and personal shit that I have rambled about on thsi Interweb and this site. I mean the information was there but WordPress — the software I use to run Stonegauge — wouldn’t even look at it. It refused to acknowledge it.

I can’t send software to the corner for a timeout, can I?

I could barely figure out MySQL (database language) and contacted the Happy Web Hosting Overworked-and-Underappreciated Tech Support team. I laid out everything that happened in 2 different support tickets and chronicled all of my screw ups attempts to make things work.

But having not hear back from them by 7 in the PM, I decided to try to take things into my own hands — post another blog site just to see if I can rescue the database and then import an upgraded version of that DB to Stonegauge.com.

Well, I was in the middle of all that crazy shit when I get a little letter from a member of Tech Support. Everythign was fixed adn fine and back to normal.

MY BABY’S ALIVE! Try as I may to screw everything up to end all means fof ever restoring the site, it’s live and kicking again. Seems I screwed up a setting or three.

A bridge too far (test post)

OK so I’m writing this on the Stonegauge as those who regularly stop by will see. I’m also testing out a WordPress/Myspace bridge to see if I can post from my WordPress blog onto my Myspace blog. Lets see what happens eh?

A limp yellow dog

I get sorta pissed when I keep hearing die-hard fans or supporters – be it in politics or pro sports – confess their undying devotion towards one thing or another… and then cynically stomp on what they love or some item they are true-blue about.

I mean, I just wrote an article last week at Boltsmag (yeah, Boltsmag isn’t gone yet) about sports fans not being willing to leave their comfort zone to devote themselves to something bigger than their pro sports team… So what do you say about a political junkie who cynically tears down an issue, or a candidate, or a part position… All for the sake of the opportunist stance of “wait and see”?

If you really believe in something, aren’t you supposed to be willing to stand up for that something or at least do what you can to put its best foot forward? Be it an idea, a team, a principle, etc? Or are we all supposed to be just blind soldiers who will accept whatever we are handed by the powers-that-be?

Happy New Gears

I’m in the middle of testing some new stuff that I normally would only do on a testing blog… But I would like to implment these things on several sites, so… Stonegauge may be a guinea pig for a while.

Will wonders never cease?

Stop the presses! Big news! Huge news!

I actually posted on Boltsmag! Twice today, in fact! Like, Ohmigod!

(why the snark? I’ve been avoiding Boltsmag for quite some time due various reasons expressed on the site tonight)

Site Notes

First off, I’ll be upgrading the site to the latest version of WordPress…. Knowing my regular reader (hi Kate 🙂 ) doesn’t check in THAT often, I can’t say this will cause much trouble. Of course, if you happen to actually look at the site and don’t happen to be Kate, you should voice your disgust that I forgot you in comments — cuz having people comment would be grand. Grand I tell you!

Of course this could effect those who are searching for Andy Kim’s “Rock me Gently”. It would seem that Der Stonegauge has become the place to get the lyrics to this song (dude, look at my latest referrers and tell me that’s not the truth).

Back to the upgrade note, I’ve been putting this off because I’ve been intimidated with the new version and the built in tag support for WordPress 2.3.x. It’s true that I already run the site with tags (and categories) but this is a new wrinkle to have it built in and have to update templates and such.

At worst, I MAY have to switch themes on top of making minor changes to pages to implement tags…. which would suck. But it’s Sunday so I might as well do something now because I ain’t gonna’ want to do it tomorrow.

update: Might need to find more bells and whistles for the site but everything is coming up roses right now after upgrading the site and the plugins. Of course I still have to change some markup on the site but I will live.

The Write Stuff

For a couple of years I had my writing online on various extensions of this domain name. Basically it was one short story and about a hundred poems that I had decided to put online.

Being the busy bee that I am and having other things to do online, I decided instead of keeping the site up and running, I took it down. All while saving the files.

Well, in a limited case I’m putting a definitive writing section back online. You can access it directly and you can also access it from the above menu by clicking WRITING.

Oh, and for the moment you can jump to the poems directly on the sidebar here on der Stonegauge’s main site. Some were never part of my collection on the old writings site and some were.

Trillian Astra upgrade and the lack thereof; Get it DONE

More than a year ago I learned about Trillian 4 — AKA Trillian Astra. I won’t even go into the bells and whistles that are supposed to be part of Trillian Astra but I will give readers the only thing that matters in a testimonial: I’ve been a paying customer for the Trillain Pro IM client since Version 1.5. I love how it integrates IM clients (AOL IM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, and all Jabber IM clients including Google Talk) and it’s interface more than any of the IM applications on there own.

That being said, I’m tired of waiting for Trillian Astra to go to Beta or the official release. Tired of reading the development blog that updates too slowly and only talks about the technobable in developing Astra which goes beyond the average user (which I am)… And of course, I’m tired of Trillian 3 Pro. I’m ready for an upgrade.

This was originally due last year and at this rate will not be out until next year… Please, get it done. Get it done, gentlemen.

Focus, Daniel-san

You know what’s hectic? Getting a thousand things on your mind you want to accomplish, only being able to accomplish a fraction of them because you’re depending on other people, and not starting on other things because you lack the focus to follow up on your thought. It’s maddening.

It’s good to be thinking straight again but it’s horrid having so much I want to get done and only being able to do a fraction of it before I burn out.

What's the Font?

I’ve been struggling to figure out what is the name of the Typeface being employed by the Tampa Bay Lightning in their (alleged) new logo layout:

Tampa Bay — what’s the font?!

In all honesty, the closest typeface I can find to font being employed in the logo is the Star Jedi typeface — yeah, that’s the Star Wars font for all those who don’t want to click on the link. I’ve been searching a few font sites but I’m not even sure where to begin looking regarding this typeface. Some people complain how “Cartoony” the font is, some people complain how “comic book” the font is… Yet it looks like a variant of Ariel or some other standard typeface and not cartooni-ish or whimsical in the least bit (that’s coming from someone who has actually seen what font creators think “comic” or “cartoon” fonts look like).

Any leads to the appropriate type face are appreciated.

Blogroll

Well, I rarely give props to links I add to my blogroll but seeing this is Madeline’s 2nd birthday today, I thought I would announce (for good measure) the addition of a link to Whippet Rescue and Placement.

A loyal, sweet, athletic and extremely bright breed of dog — Whippet Rescue and Placement focuses on finding homes for Whippets that need them. These are usually rescued animals that either had problems in their former homes or just couldn’t be looked after any more.

Bonus for Boltsmag

So for 3 years I have been toiling (off and on) away at Boltsmag. It’s got a reputation as the Lightning Weblog, it’s renown around the hockey blogosphere…

And as of a few days ago it’s linked to on Sports Illustrated’s Tampa Bay Lightning team profile page. How is that for a birthday gift?

Switcheroo

So just in case you haven’t been on Stonegauge in a matter of days, just so you know, I updated the look of the site to something totally different… What do you think? (Oh, it’s not like I expect any comments as I don’t get any comments — but I ask anyway just for shits and giggles).

Looks and what not

I’m planning on doing a new theme for der Stonegauge sometime soon. But for now, check out the poll at right (that looks odd — if not ugly) and vote vote vote. Maybe? Possibly? Please?

It finally happened…

I’m on Facebook. For good or for ill.

Final tracking stats for Extreme Tracking 1.0

Planning to upgrade my public Extreme Tracking software, so I want to keep a public record of stats this site has had over time… Since July 12th, 2001 to be exact
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Overdue for some changes

Following Nick Starr’s lead, I’ve upgraded der Stonegauge to WordPress 2.1. I gotta do more upgrading — like, content wise — in the near future.

Contact

So it’s come to this, eh? Would you like to contact me about site content you’ve crossed? Have some type of business proposition (be it advertising or job opportunity)? Just want to say hi in a personal communique (Hiya… ?_?  Drop me a line in the form below.

If your contac6 intention is about Advertising, read this first. 

Email John at JohnnyFonts.com 
Twitter 1: 1@Johnny_Fonts
Twitter 2: @DJ{JohnnyFonts
Facebook: Johnny Fonts Page

A rare event

I’ve been doing all I can to prevent people from visiting my CSS testing site… Now I need a little input on changes I plan to make to Boltsmag‘s design…

Losing a room mate

Many of you don’t know this but about 19 months ago or so I contact a guy who was using blogspot to post his items for his Tampa based blog, about me hosting his blog and upgrading things for him.

It’s been a long, strange trip but in the 14 months I’ve been officially hostingSticks of Fire, it’s gone from blogspot hotspot to dot-com phenom. I knew at the time I approached Tommy about upgrading things that he had something great going on… Little did I know how much it would grow.

Tommy Duncan is probably the Bay area’s most unheralded media star. He gets invites to speak in various capacities (round table discussions, conferences, TV spots) and pretty much has Tampa covered with himself and his cast of supporting writers.

And now, Tommy has taken the next step by getting into a business alliance with Tampa Gold. When that officially kicks off, Tommy will be departing from my server space at Dreamhost and going to the land of far-far-away… Or on shared hosting package with Tampa Gold, take your pick.

I haven’t seen profit from hosting Tommy’s site and I haven’t requested payment for doing so. I never stuck in some personal reference (“Hosted by Dreamhost” etc) or anything like that… It made me feel good to be doing this.

But to just make a long story short, I want to wish my buddy well with his new venture and I hope it takes him where I couldn’t take him — to his rightful place at the to of local pop culture and beyond.

Re-design time

With the coming NHL hockey season, I’ve been working on a new design for Boltsmag.com.

Only problem is that Boltsmag’s new design isn’t cooperating and is driving Johnny insane…

To be continued.

Lets try this one again

Wanna’ domain name? Blackjackslots.net is currently up for bid on Ebay.

Guess I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue…

OK, this isn’t an Airplane post, or a Llyod Bridges fanclub post. No, sir… This is just me harping that I picked the wrong time of year to get less-lazy with shaving. (headnod to the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams for the awesome title to this post)

I’ve been shaving daily the past few days and it’s been nice to be “smooth as a baby’s ass” with regards to my facial skin. But alas, I can do this no more.

It’s playoff beard time.

Revamp

Upgrade, ebay sales…  Lucky hats, I am on a tear posting here…

But you gotta admit, I gotta change the look of this site.  It looks like shit