Saturday, October 28, 2006

Beta Blogger Customizing Equals Time and Searching

I finally got an opportunity to work on customizing my Beta Blogger template - No where near done but I am much closer than I was yesterday.
The two things that were toughest was trying to figure out what I was doing and then doing it.

As soon as you go to customise your template it automatically removes everything that was not "original" on the template you first signed up with on the original Blogger.com site.

Any special things you may have added, Sitemeter, Haloscan (with ALL past comments), links to favorite sites, Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers, Blogmad, The list goes on and on.

The two things I wanted to first correct was Haloscan and Sitemeter.

Sitemeter was easy. I could have put it on the sidebar but I wanted it on the bottom outside of the box provided.

**** Be sure to Backup / Restore Template and download it to a safe place on your hard drive. **** (I actually went a step further and saved my entire blog month by month to a special folder by right clicking on the monthly archive link and clicking 'save page as'.)

I opened two windows to the Edit Template. - One of the two windows I clicked on 'Classic View' and the other I clicked on 'expand widgets'. This gave me access to the old HTML and the new template.



I was able to quickly cut the Sitemeter code from my old template and it took 3 tries to find the spot I wanted it to go. Right after 'footer-wrap 1> way, way, way near the bottom. - Saw there was a similar line with a number 2 in it so I duped the line so I now have footer wrap 1, 2, & 3... - Guess I'll see how that works later


The preview, clear edit and save template buttons work real good. I know because I used them a lot.



The Haloscan was a bigger problem. First the connection to past comments was deleted so they appeared lost. They were not however. They were just waiting at Haloscan for the connection to be inserted into the new template.

Beta-Blogger inserts all the info you need to use their commenting service and gives no clues as to how to remove it and make Haloscan work. Remove it you must or people will be given two choices as to where to leave comments...

The Haloscan boards had a good piece on it. Googling the right searchwords brought me to The Logical Philosopher's posting and whose instructions worked wonderfully. I would drag the instructions to this posting but it is just as easy for you to click on the link. - Give him a "Howdy-Howdy Hi" in his Haloscan comments if you find his work helpful...



I'll post more on this tomorrow. Some of the stuff I just cut and pasted into a HTML friendly box Beta Blogger provides. I'll be working on it some more then. I want to change the background picture and add some links to the blog surfing shops...


- I would like to leave tonight with this quote from the Logical Philosopher concerning the move to Beta-Blogger-Beta:

"For those already on Blogger wanting to do it: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL BLOGS THAT ARE HOLY - WAIT!!"



P.S. Thanks to Cary Cartter of It's Obvious for the help with where to put the background instructions. He didn't know it but I knicked the code & gathered the position from his Blogsite...
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Best Cartoon on the Web!

I've posted on this before and I'm posting on it again.

Being Five!






Good clean humor that the whole family can enjoy. George Sfarnas is a wonderful cartoonist and I recomend you stick a banner on your website to make it easy for you to revisit "Georgie" - A five year old blogger that uses voice recognition software (he can't read or write yet!) - and whose life is as innocent as a five year old's should be AND who wishes his grandmother would stop leaving comments on his blog...

Be sure to check the beginning strips in the archives.

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World Still Wonders if Tan Nguyen is Guilty

Maybe not the whole world but just portions thereof. I am anyway.

OK! Quick paragraph to get you up to speed if you missed the news on this:

A forged letterhead topped a mailer written in Spanish and sent to Spanish voters in Orange County, California. One line in the mailer said, - "Be advised that if your residence in the United States is illegal or if you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that can result in incarceration, and possible deportation for voting without the right to do so." (Translation taken from letter to U.S. Attorney General) - Involved was a Republican running for California's 47th Congressional District against Lorreta Sanchez, Tan Nguyen. - Tan said he knew nothing about the letter (still says so at the time of this posting), fired a staffer, state Department of Justice has opened a voting rights investigation. Tan Nguyen, who is running on an Anti-Illegal Immigration platform, has had his offices and home searched by the feds, his computers were confiscated, mucky-mucks from both sides of the aisle including Gov. Schwartzenegger want him to quit his run for congress and Tan still won't quit at the time of this posting. - The leader of the organization whose letterhead was abused, Barbara Coe, said she had recieved death threats as a result of the mailing.

There are variations of the above translation that went from English to Spanish and back to English. - One line missing in most news accounts is the first paragraph:

"You are receiving this letter because you have recently registered to vote. If you are a U.S. Citizen, I urge you to participate in the democratic process of voting."

As stated by commenter Captain Nemo (who pointed this out to us) on my previous posting about Tan Nguyen, "By necessary elimination, the rest of the letter speaks to those who are NOT citizens, i.e., legal and illegal immigrants who have not been naturalized. Neither group is allowed to vote."

Also Gustavo Arellano of - The OCweekly dot com The Blotter - notes that the Spanish newspaper, La Opinion (largest Spanish newspaper in So. Cal) changed the wording of the original letter and wonders why. So do I!!!

Nguyen has been on the radio and apparently made a donkey (Democratic pet) of himself. - Republicans don't trust the guy because he just recently changed party affiliations and appears to be just a wannabee politician. - Democrats want him out because they don't need the competition against their incumbent congresswoman. Tan is just losing all the way around. He still won't quit. You must admit he does have tenacity.

I can still find nothing about the death threats or indications of who forged the letterhead. The words in the letter itself I still think are no big deal. Legal and illegal non-citizens are not supposed to vote and some do. The letter merely told them what they already knew but the letter itself is what everyone seems to concentrate on.

I thought forgery through the USPS is a federal offense. - That is where the real story is. - For that answer we will have to wait a bit longer.

I'd like to know who forged the letterhead. Maybe it was the same person who forged the Rathergate Memos!!!


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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A Short Conversation

My wife leaves for her work prior to me leaving for mine. So I fix a bit of breakfast for us. Usually toast or oatmeal or perhaps cereal if the milk hasn't gone bad.

Then we sit at our computers sharing breakfast, news, email updates from friends etc.

This morning I fixed a couple slices of toast for each of us and put peanut butter on both with a few raisins on one piece and sliced banana on the other one. Brought the plates into the computer room. She said, "Thanks", and set hers to the side.

A few minutes later she picked up the plate and noticed the repast I had presented to her.

"Oh wow! Bananas and raisins! Looks good." as she took a bite and continued working with her mouse.

I looked at my computer clock and said, "Whoops, You're running out of time."

She looked at her screen and clicked her mouse and said, "Darn it!"

Clicked mouse again.

I leaned back to get a better view of her screen. "What?"

"Oh! It happens every morning."

"What?" (I'm wondering if her computer is frozen.)

"Running out of time."

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prying1 wonders...

Is this more proof that men don't pay attention to what is being said even when they are saying it???

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Does Talk Radio Have 'Objective' Hosts?

I received an email from Media Matters dot Org today with the lead line: Not fair, not balanced: Sean Hannity shows his true colors

The email stated:


Last week on his nationally syndicated radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity encouraged Democratic voters to "stay home on Election Day," adding that, "your vote doesn't matter anyway." He asserted that Democrats should not turn out to vote "for the sake of the nation" because Democrats' votes "won't change who occupies the White House" and Democratic "candidates have absolutely no idea how to win the war on terrorism."

On the same program, Hannity misrepresented the Democratic Party platform, stating: "I don't think abandoning our troops on the battlefield, or closing your eyes to enemy communications or listening to enemy communications in our country, or killing the economy, or supporting illegal immigration, I don't think that's something to run on."

Comments like this demonstrate how Hannity and other right-wing media figures hope to impact the upcoming election -- regardless of their spin about being objective.


prying1 sez: I don't remember any right wing talk show host saying they are objective. All of them claim to be Republicans or Libertarians. They present news and stories with right wing commentary and are up front about their views on it.

Often times I hear on their shows both sides of a news story (ridiculing one side) and then the breaktime news report comes on and gives only one side (the side that was ridiculed).

As far as Hannities statements re: abandoning our troops on the battlefield, or closing your eyes to enemy communications or listening to enemy communications in our country, or killing the economy, or supporting illegal immigration - That and "HATE BUSH" is all the Democrats have been presenting as a party platform.

Well! That and "raising taxes"...

- Quick Update - While proofreading this after posting it I see I missed Sean's words "Killing the economy". He did cover the "raising taxes"... - Good for him!


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Monday, October 23, 2006

Cut and Run Republicans

A lot of talk recently about "Cut and Run Republicans" - I have yet to meet any although I've heard a few calling in on the talk radio shows. Supposedly they feel that the Republicans should loose this election cycle. They should loose the majority they have in the Senate and Congress. Then all of those left in office and those who run in the following elections will know that their base wants them to pull further to the right. Shrink government, lower taxes, punish criminals, step up the war on terror, fix social security, stop the outsourcing of jobs and/or whatever other pet projects they want.

Partner of mine was wondering if they will make a movie about it. He has the central line. The one they can use in their advertising. See if you can figure where the plot will be stolen from...


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I'M MAD AS HELL!!! AND I'M NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!


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