So, you may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here for the past couple of months. I’ve received a few inquiries about just what’s going on and if I’d ever resume posting, etc. The short answer is yes, and I’m going to be trying to get back into the swing of things now, though it may take a little while to get back to speed.

What happened? Well, as I posted back in January, I’m having some problems with my left hand. Since that post I have had an EMG, and it confirmed what my doctor suspected all along – something is wrong with the ulnar nerve. My left pinky and ring finger, and part of the hand, are still numb. But it has been a few months and I’m adapting to it, so typing isn’t the struggle it was at first. I’m waiting for a neurology appointment and I’m still hopeful the issue can be fixed in the end.

But that was just the first in a chain of events. I posted that on January 20th, and my blogging was a bit lighter in the days that followed as I was still struggling with typing and most of what I could manage was devoted to work. However, that soon changed – I lost my job with Sling Media on February 2nd. The short version is that I was participating in discussions at SlingCommunity.com and I posted something I didn’t think was an issue in the context of the thread, and it probably would’ve been nothing – just a small post in a discussion forum. Except it got picked up by a popular blog (which I won’t name since I don’t really blame them, as a blogger I’ve done similar things in the past) and excerpted out of context, and from there a bunch of other blogs picked it up, and before I knew it it was a major issue for management – and as a result I lost my job. I was completely blindsided by this, and I’m still out of work and trying to find a new position. I hope I can do so soon, I really can’t remain unemployed for long financially. (BTW, my resume is here.)

This was a pretty big punch in the gut, and, honestly, it put me into a pretty bad depression. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve lost a job. I’ve been laid off a couple of times, but in those cases it was a company-wide thing and there were huge signs that it was coming, so it was expected and I was ready. In this case I was completely unprepared for it. I really loved working for Sling, loved the people there, and believed in the products, so it was very hard to have that end. My job with Sling was my favorite job, ever, and it will be very hard to find anything like it again. I really saw myself working there for a long time. I’m also the kind of person who really puts my all into my job, and I invest a lot of myself in my work. A good deal of my self-identity tends to stem from my work and my accomplishments therein. So my emotional reaction to losing the job was as if someone I cared for had died – it hit me pretty hard. And with the economy as it is, it is not a good time to be looking, so that’s amped up the stress a bit.

The timing was also bad because I had a previously planned trip to visit my family from 2/14 to 3/1. I would’ve been blogging less, if at all, during that trip anyway as it was a vacation and time to visit my folks. But it also meant I couldn’t really start looking for a new position right away as I would not be able to interview, let alone start, until after the trip. And, honestly, the depressed mood I was in was not conducive to constructive job hunting anyway. I just didn’t have it in me to keep blogging during that time, my head was elsewhere. And I was still angry and frustrated over losing my job, so I didn’t really trust myself to post about it in that state. I tried to keep participating in Sling Community for a short time, but I realized it was like salting the wound at the time and it was better to walk away, at least for now. I still care about the user community, so I may jump back in once things are more settled.

The upside was that I forced myself to pretty much ignore everything in my life for a couple of weeks and enjoy the time with my folks in Florida. We also took a few days to go up to Walt Disney World, and if you want a place to ignore life, you could do worse than Disney. So the trip gave me some time and distance from everything else, which is also why I deliberately didn’t do anything related to tech, blogging, or work. (Well, except for my usual annual IT service for my folk’s PCs, but that’s family. And I could do that in my sleep.) After returning home on 3/2 of course I had a number of things to deal with – doctors, unemployment paperwork, COBRA, starting to look for a new position in earnest, and just generally pick up my life. I’m pretty much back on top of things now and my mood is a lot better, though not quite fully recovered, so I’m picking up the blogging reigns as well.

I’ve been largely out of the loop – I completely stopped reading blogs as well as posting. I needed a break from things to deal with everything – but I’ve been saving emails and the like to work my way through. Right now finding a new job is my first priority, but I miss blogging and I figure it’ll probably be good for me to keep my brain in shape anyway.

Oh, and I’m not too proud to beg – since I’m unemployed even a little bit helps, so if you’re planning to make any purchases using the site’s affiliate links will provide a little something.

Thanks again for sticking with me through the drought, and I hope to be back to my old post volume soon. I wish I could make a living doing this, but that’s not going to happen real soon. I’m the meantime, wish me luck.

So typing is difficult, frustrating, and at times painful. Since I have to do a lot of typing for work, and work is more important (sorry, but it pays the bills), I’ve been focused mainly on that and not doing a lot of additional typing. I do have additional items from CES I want to cover, for example I talked to HAVA on the last day, and I will try to get to it soon. I’m slowly getting a bit better at typing with my gimpy left hand as I get more practice.

As far as I know I didn’t do anything to cause this. It just happened all of a sudden the Wednesday before CES opened. Maybe I slept on it wrong or something, I have no idea. It wasn’t as bad at first and I thought it might go away, but the more I tried to keep working normally the more it seemed to be aggravated.

So my apologies for the lack of posts lately, I’m hoping to get back to normal once this is fixed. Presuming it can be fixed of course and isn’t permanent, which I’m rather hoping it isn’t.

Affiliate programs vary, some offer a percentage of the sale to the site, others have a flat rate depending on what is sold. It may be pennies, but those pennies can add up. But you pay the same price you would’ve paid without using the affiliate link, and you help support the site – two birds with one stone, compounding your giving. It is a win-win situation.

So, when you go online to make your purchases, start at a site you enjoy and use their links, especially the smaller sites that don’t have a corporate parent to back them. Personally I tend to throw my referrals to sites like TiVo Blog or one of the many web comics I enjoy. So, while I do appreciate the support, I’m really hoping that you’ll take the opportunity to support any site or blog by using their affiliate links. Hopefully year-round, but especially at this time of year when so many purchases will be made. Pick a site, or spread it around – you have an opportunity to help sites you enjoy, and best of all it doesn’t cost you anything. Year round whenever I buy something online (which is quite often) I make an effort to use affiliate links from the sites I read regularly.

Happy Holidays, and thank you!

I can’t express how much I disagree with the very notion of California Proposition 8. I regret that I haven’t moved to CA yet so I could be able to vote NO on 8. (I’ll be moving to CA (again) at some point now that my job is based there.)

I’ve added their domain to my ad filters, but that can take a few hours to take effect. I just hope that, if you live in CA, you’ll be voting NO on 8 tomorrow. But, in general, even if we don’t agree, I hope you’ll be voting tomorrow. (Yeah, presuming you live in the US, are eligible to vote, etc… pedants. )

Comments are off on this one since I really don’t feel like having a political discussion on this blog. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if not for the ads and not wanting anyone to think I wanted them on this site.

As always, let me know if you spot a problem.

Example templates:

YouTube:
<div class=”video”>
<object data=”VIDEO-URL” width=”425″ height=”344″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”>
<param name=”movie” value=”VIDEO-URL” />
<param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” />
<param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” />
<param name=”quality” value=”high” />
</object>
</div>

BlipTV:
<div class=”video”>
<object data=”VIDEO-URL” width=”320″ height=”270″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”>
<param name=”movie” value=”VIDEO-URL” />
<param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” />
<param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” />
<param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” />
<param name=”quality” value=”high” />
</object>
</div>

Brightcove:
<div class=”video”>
<object data=”http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854″ width=”486″ height=”412″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”>
<param name=”movie” value=”http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854″ />
<param name=”FlashVars” value=”videoId=VIDEO-ID&playerId=452319854&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://services.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false” />
<param name=”base” value=”http://admin.brightcove.com” />
<param name=”seamlesstabbing” value=”false” />
<param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” />
<param name=”swLiveConnect” value=”true” />
<param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” />
<param name=”quality” value=”high” />
</object>
</div>

I also finally got around to switching to Firefox 3 yesterday. I’d kept using Firefox 2 because of some of the browser add-ons I prefer not yet being supported on FF3. But they flipped the switch to start prompting FF2 users to upgrade, and I decided enough of the add-ons were now available to make the jump.

• Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5
• BugMeNot 2.0
• ColorZilla 1.9
• FirefoxView 1.0
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer 2.1.0.12
• FoxyTunes 3.0.4
• Google Gears 0.4.15.0
• Google Toolbar for Firefox 3.1.20080730W
• Html Validator 0.8.5.2
• IE View Lite 1.3.3
• Image Zoom 0.3.1
• InfoLister 0.10
• JavaScript Debugger 0.9.87.4
• Linkification 1.3.5
• Linky 2.7.1
• Live HTTP Headers 0.14
• MR Tech Link Wrapper 2.2.1
• Plain Text to Link 1.5.20080618
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7pre.080816
• Tweak Network 1.3
• View Cookies 1.7
• Web Developer 1.1.6

Unfortunately it looks like two of my favorite Firefox extensions are gone for good – Tabbrowser Preferences and Google Browser Sync. Tabbrowser Preferences was last updated in 2006 and it looks like development is dead and it won’t be updated for FF3. I’m trying out Tab Mix Plus as a replacement, and it seems to do a decent job, but if anyone has a suggestion for a better add-on to replace Tabbrowser Preferences I’d love to hear it.

And I was upset to find that Google has discontinued Google Browser Sync. If you currently have it installed you can continue using it through 2008, but you can no longer download the add-on and it wasn’t updated for FF3. This is the biggest loss for me, I made constant use of this. I loved being able to close FF and re-open it later with my existing session even moving from one machine to another. And keeping everything in sync – passwords, bookmarks, etc. I was thrilled back when it came out because it finally gave me something to match the old Roaming support in Netscape 4.7.

So far I haven’t found a replacement for it. I’m using Foxmarks for bookmark sync and backup, but it only does bookmarks. Tab Mix Plus has some session persistence, but only on the same machine. I checked out Mozilla Weave but it is in the very early stages, and right now they aren’t accepting any more users anyway. Google has turned over the code via Google Code so someone may resurrect it in a new form. But in the meantime I’d love to hear there is a good replacement out there.

This was an especially bad thing to find out because during the upgrade I lost my current bookmarks and they reverted to a set many months old. Back when FF3 was in beta I’d installed it alongside FF2 and it imported my bookmarks. I’d since removed the FF3 beta from my system. But apparently the imported bookmarks lingered, and when I upgraded from FF2 to FF3 yesterday instead of importing my FF2 bookmarks it just used the old FF3 set, yet it seems to have completely removed any trace of my FF2 bookmarks from my system. So I’ve lost any new bookmarks I’ve added since then, and, of course, just last week I’d finally gotten around to cleaning up my bookmarks to delete a bunch and file them, and now all the junk is back and messy. Sure there is a nice copy stored in Google Browser Sync, but now I can’t get to them. Even if I reinstalled FF2 the add-on download is gone. (If anyone knows where I can get the XPI to install it, that’d be great.)

In general FF3 is a nice upgrade, despite the troubles, though I’m really not seeing what is so awesome about the ‘awesome bar’ (as some call the URL/Location bar in FF3). Even in FF2 I disliked the way it’d suggest pages from the history and I always lock that down to just pages I’ve actually typed – as below. If there are any other add-ons or configuration tweaks you think I just have to check out, let me know. Share your Firefox tips for everyone to see.

Some of the settings I tweak in about:config in FF3 (definitely not a comprehensive list):

After five years running at CES I’ve decided on two important guidelines:
1. Book early.
2. If the hotel isn’t on a monorail stop, I’m not interested. (Seriously, since the monorail opened things are much better. Best way to get around.)

As you might have guessed, I just got around to registering for CES 2009 and booking my hotel. Once again I’m at the Sahara. Not the swankiest joint in Vegas, but it is on the monorail (and conveniently the other direction from the LVCC than most of the other hotels, which means most people are trying to pack into trains going the other way), the rooms are fine for me (I’m a man of simple needs – a clean room to crash in), and it is inexpensive. I’ve stayed at the Sahara the past couple of years. The Imperial Palace is also on a monorail stop and cheap, and I stayed there a few years ago, but frankly it was kind of nasty. The hallway carpeting was sticky and there was a funky odor. Ick.

This time around I’ve registered as Press/Blogger, though I have to see if Gizmo Lovers passes muster and they accept me. We’re no Engadget or Gizmodo, but I’d like to think we qualify. I’d like to be able to attend some of the press-only events that I couldn’t get into last year.

I’m looking forward to covering CES once again in January.

Even more stunning to me is that, at the end of May 2008 we had 2,498 posts, at the end of May 2007 we had 1,278 posts, and at the end of May 2006, 792 posts, May 2005, 367 posts, and May 2004, 86 posts. And May 2003? 10 posts – the first post was in April, 2003. That means year over year the pace of posting has been increasing – June 2003 through May 2004: 76 posts, 2004-2005: 281, 2005-2006: 425, 2006-2007: 486, and 2007-2008: 1,220 posts!

Hey, I suppose that means April was kind of the fifth anniversary of the site too. How about that. I can’t believe it has been five years either. Yeah, the site hasn’t existed in its current incarnation that long, but the foundations upon which the site is built have.

No wonder I often feel a bit tired. I don’t want to think about how much time those posts represent. There have definitely been days when I’ve asked myself “Why the hell do I do this?” But running the site has largely been a labor of love, and I appreciate all of you, the readers, for reading these posts. A special thanks to those who comment, since it helps me feel like I’m not just talking to myself.

And thank you to the companies, like TiVo and Sling Media, who have allowed us to review their products and given us sneak peaks before release. That’s one of the fun parts of running the site. I certainly hope to be able to bring you more product reviews in the future. (And if you have a product you think we should review, contact us.) Running this site has given me the opportunity to talk with people I never would’ve had the chance to talk with otherwise, company representatives, other bloggers, members of the media, etc. I’m thankful for those opportunities and experiences.

Thank you to the other bloggers who have offered me tips, tricks, and advice to help improve the site and our coverage. And I especially want to single out Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny, Alex Raiano of TiVo Blog, Ben Drawbaugh of EngadgetHD, and Brad Linder of PVR Wire. We’ve had repeated contacts via phone, email, IM, Twitter, in person, etc. over the past few years. The blogging community really is a community. (I always dread making a list like that, for fear that I’ll forget someone and unintentionally slight them.)

Thanks also to Ben and Mark, our recent blogger additions, for their contributions to the site, and for contributions yet to come.

This is by no means comprehensive, there have been countless people who have contributed to the site, directly and indirectly, via personal contact, email, comments, posts on other blogs, boards, groups, and forums, etc. I could never list them all. I certainly couldn’t have carried the site this far all on my own.

But most of all, again, thank you to all of the readers who continue to read the words we put out there. Without the readers there wouldn’t really be a point to the site in the first place. So thank you, and I hope that you continue to read an enjoy the site. And leave a comment now and then just so we know you’re out there in the wilds of the Internet.

Thanks to everyone, and I’ll do my best to make it worth sticking around for the next 2,500 posts. (At this rate, that could be next year! OK, probably not, unless I somehow start doing this full time.)

So, GerryL has just over four hours in which to contact me or he forfeits the TiVo HD and it goes to someone else. I certainly hope the new winner is watching their email, as the program official ends at 11:59PM ET tomorrow, May 28, 2008. So I think I’ll give the second winner, if drawn, until noon to get back to me. And then I’ll have to draw a third, and if the third, if drawn, doesn’t get back to me by 8PM I’ll just give up and give it to a friend or something rather than see the points go to waste.

I really never expected it to come to this, and I hope it doesn’t – four more hours.

Gerry won with this comment, congratulations Gerry! And thank you to everyone who entered, I wish I had a TiVo HD to give each of you. While the TiVo Rewards program is ending, TiVo is planning to launch a new incentive program in the coming months, so I hope to continue doing giveaways in the future.

I hope you’ll all stick around and that you enjoy the blog.

Gerry, I’ve already emailed you – please reply ASAP so I can claim the reward for you before the program ends.

If you’re curious, it is a random drawing:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -Tw

my $draw = int rand(374);
print $draw . "\n";

I’ll put this under a cut since it is long, and not interesting to most I suspect. Though I hope that this might encourage other WP users to try getting their hands dirty and tweaking things a bit.

Changing the editor buttons requires changes in two places:
wordpress/wp-includes/js/quicktags.js:

35a36
> // Modified by MegaZone / MZ
37c38
< new edButton('ed_strong'
---
> new edButton('ed_bold'
39,40c40,41
< ,'<strong>'
< ,'</strong>'
---
> ,'<b>'
> ,'</b>'
43a45
> // Modified by MegaZone / MZ
45c47
< new edButton('ed_em'
---
> new edButton('ed_italics'
47,48c49,50
< ,'<em>'
< ,'</em>'
---
> ,'<i>'
> ,'</i>'
51a54,89
> // Added by MegaZone / MZ
> edButtons[edButtons.length] =
> new edButton('ed_underline'
> ,'u'
> ,'<u>'
> ,'</u>'
> ,''
> );
>
> // Added by MegaZone / MZ
> edButtons[edButtons.length] =
> new edButton('ed_strikethrough'
> ,'s'
> ,'<s>'
> ,'</s>'
> ,'s'
> );
>
> // Added by MegaZone / MZ
> edButtons[edButtons.length] =
> new edButton('ed_big'
> ,'big'
> ,'<big>'
> ,'</big>'
> ,''
> );
>
> // Added by MegaZone / MZ
> edButtons[edButtons.length] =
> new edButton('ed_small'
> ,'small'
> ,'<small>'
> ,'</small>'
> ,''
> );
>
68c106
<
---
> /* Commented out by MegaZone / MZ
83a122
> */
117a157,165
> // Added by MegaZone / MZ
> edButtons[edButtons.length] =
> new edButton('ed_pre'
> ,'pre'
> ,'<pre>'
> ,'</pre>'
> ,''
> );
>
385a434,436
>                               + '" width="' + prompt(quicktagsL10n.enterImageWidth, '')
>                               + '" height="' + prompt(quicktagsL10n.enterImageHeight, '')
>                               + '" border="' + prompt(quicktagsL10n.enterImageBorder, '') 

wordpress/wp-includes/script-loader.php:

27,28c27,31
<                       'enterImageDescription' => __('Enter a description of the image')
<               ) );
---
>                       'enterImageDescription' => __('Enter a description of the image'),
>                         'enterImageWidth' => __('Enter image width'),
>                         'enterImageHeight' => __('Enter image height'),
>                         'enterImageBorder' => __('Enter image border weight')
>                       ) ); // MegaZone / MZ added image attributes

Another thing that I tweak is WP’s formatting code. I like having it check the XHTML nesting, etc. But for a while it drove me crazy because it would ‘correct’ perfectly valid XHTML, and often would produce invalid XHTML in the process! In the end I found that commenting out just one line and editing one other in formatting.php solved nearly all of the issues I was having.

wordpress/wp-includes/formatting.php:

64c64
<       $pee = preg_replace('|<br />\s*<br />|', "\n\n", $pee);
---
>       //MegaZone / MZ Removed $pee = preg_replace('|<br />\s*<br />|', "\n\n", $pee);
65a66
>       $allblocks = '(?:table|thead|tfoot|caption|colgroup|tbody|tr|td|th|div|dl|dd|dt|ul|ol|li|pre|form|fieldset|map|area|blockquote|address|math|style|p|h[1-6]|hr)'; //MegaZone / MZ edited list

With those small tweaks, I find WP to be a lot more usable for me. Someday I may get around to writing a plug-in to allow changing the buttons on the basic editor (I haven’t seen one, but if there is one out there let me know), but for now it is easy enough to re-apply these tweaks when I upgrade.

Now, I also make tweaks to two of my plug-ins – reCAPTCHA and Sociable. First up, reCAPTCHA. I love this plug-in, and it does an amazing job of controlling the spam comments I receive. But it had one flaw that annoyed me – it produces invalid XHTML. I strive to keep things on the site valid, so having a plug-in that produced invalid XHTML just didn’t sit well with me. I found one patch in their support group, but it had a flaw, so I used that as a starting point and created a new patch that worked correctly. That was on 2.6, and I re-implemented it on 2.7. I’ve submitted both of them back to reCAPTCHA, but they haven’t incorporated them yet, as far as I know. Oh, and one small mistake – they forgot to rev the version number in the file from 2.6 to 2.7 when they released 2.7, so I did that.

wordpress/wp-content/plugins/recaptcha/recaptcha.php:

6c6
< Version: 2.6
---
> Version: 2.7
51a52
>                       document.getElementById('submit').style.display = 'inline'; // MegaZone added
57,58c58,59
<                <style type='text/css'>#submit {display:none;}</style>
<                <input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit-alt" tabindex="6" value="Submit Comment"/>
---
>               <!-- MegaZone removed style element -->
>                <input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit-alt" tabindex="6" value="Submit Comment" />
63a65,74
> /*
> MegaZone added this function.  This will insert the style to hide the
> reCAPTCHA submit button in the header instead of the body, where it is
> invalid XHTML.  Since this disables the button even when scripting is
> turned on, there is a line of JavaScript inserted above which makes the
> button visible when scripting is on.
> */
> function recaptcha_wp_head () {
>   echo "<style type='text/css'>#submit { display: none; }</style>\n";
> }
64a76
> add_action( 'wp_head', 'recaptcha_wp_head' ); // MegaZone added
66d77
< 

And I made two really, really inconsequential changes in the name of XHTML->HTML compatibility in older browsers. I added spaces in two elements. You can really just ignore this, I was being anal.
wordpress/wp-content/plugins/recaptcha/recaptchalib.php:

125c125
<               <iframe src="'. $server . '/noscript?k=' . $pubkey . $errorpart . '" height="300" width="500" frameborder="0"></iframe><br/>
---
>               <iframe src="'. $server . '/noscript?k=' . $pubkey . $errorpart . '" height="300" width="500" frameborder="0"></iframe><br />
127c127
<               <input type="hidden" name="recaptcha_response_field" value="manual_challenge"/>
---
>               <input type="hidden" name="recaptcha_response_field" value="manual_challenge" />

With Sociable it was mainly an issue of appearance. I wanted to squeeze the icons into a small space, a single row at the bottom of the post. I fought with CSS for a while, but I never could quite get what I wanted, because of the underlaying XHTML. The plug-in normally creates the list of icons as an XHTML unordered list, with each icon within its own list item element. Trying to get it so the icons were in one solid row, with no gaps between them, just defeated me in CSS. But I knew I could make it work with small changes to the XHTML, to remove those unwanted list elements. In the process I also fixed one small bug in one of the site links in the plug-in.

wordpress/wp-content/plugins/sociable/sociable.php:

97c97
<               'url' => 'http://bluedot.us/Authoring.aspx?>u=PERMALINK&title=TITLE',
---
>               'url' => 'http://bluedot.us/Authoring.aspx?u=PERMALINK&title=TITLE',
501c501
< );
---
> ); /* Blue Dot URL fixed - MegaZone / MZ  modded */
633c633,635
<       $html .= "\n</span>\n<ul>\n";
---
>
>       /* $html .= "\n</span>\n<ul>\n"; MegaZone / MZ  modded */
>       $html .= "\n</span>\n";
653,654c655,656
<               $link = "<li>";
<               $link .= "<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"$url\" title=\"$description\">";
---
>               /* $link = "<li>"; MegaZone / MZ modded */
>               $link = "<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"$url\" title=\"$description\">"; /* MegaZone / MZ modded */
659c661,662
<               $link .= "</a></li>";
---
>               /* $link .= "</a></li>"; MegaZone / MZ modded */
>                 $link .= "</a>";
661c664,665
<               $html .= "\t".apply_filters('sociable_link',$link)."\n";
---
>               /* $html .= "\t".apply_filters('sociable_link',$link)."\n"; MegaZone / MZ modded */
>                 $html .= "".apply_filters('sociable_link',$link);
664c668,669
<       $html .= "</ul>\n</div>\n";
---
>       /* $html .= "</ul>\n</div>\n"; MegaZone / MZ modded */
>         $html .= "\n</div>\n";

And I do make some changes to the CSS as well, though some of them are just me being anal and adding units.

wordpress/wp-content/plugins/sociable/sociable.css:

1c1,2
< div.sociable { margin: 16px 0; }
---
> /* Modified by MegaZone */
> div.sociable { margin: 16px 0px; }
4c5
< span.sociable_tagline span { display: none; width: 14em; }
---
> span.sociable_tagline span { display: none; width: 28em; }
8,10c9,11
<       top: -5em;
<       background: #ffe;
<       border: 1px solid #ccc;
---
>       top: -3em;
>       background: #ffffee;
>       border: 1px solid #cccccc;
19,20c20,21
<       margin: 0 !important;
<       padding: 0 !important;
---
>       margin: 0px !important;
>       padding: 0px !important;
26c27
<       margin: 0;
---
>       margin: 0px;
34,36c35,37
<       border: 0;
<       margin: 0;
<       padding: 0;
---
>       border: 0px;
>       margin: 0px;
>       padding: 0px;
40,42c41,43
<       opacity: .4;
<       -moz-opacity: .4;
<       filter: alpha(opacity=40);
---
>       opacity: .6;
>       -moz-opacity: .6;
>       filter: alpha(opacity=60);

And that’s it. Just a handful of simple changes to make the platform work more to my liking. Very minor changes really. I know a lot of WP users are nervous about playing around in the code, but it isn’t that bad. Remember to make a backup of the files before you edit them, and if you have a problem just revert back. If you’re going to do anything major, backup your sites DB before trying the changes. You can always restore if you really blow things up – but that’s not easy to do.

PS. Don’t forget the Style Selector in the upper-right for those of you who dislike the green-on-black color scheme.

I’ll accept entries until midnight EST Friday, May 23, 2008 – that’s two weeks from now. Entering couldn’t be simpler – just leave a comment. That’s right – all it takes is a comment, and one comment only. Take note – if you leave multiple comments you’ll be disqualified.

Also, you MUST enter a valid email address in the email box when you comment. That is how I will contact the winner to get their shipping info. I won’t even consider entries without a valid email address. Don’t worry, they aren’t used for anything else. Since there will only five days to claim to prize after the end of the contest, if I can’t contact the winner, I will have to pick another. So make sure you enter your email correctly.

Now, get to entering and good luck!

¹If you already have a TiVo HD or a Series3 you can optionally take the WD My DVR Expander and a TiVo Glo remote instead of the TiVo HD.

Leigh Ann!

Also known as LJ user trinsf.

Congratulations Leigh Ann, I’ll be emailing you to get your shipping information.

Coming soon, our final (under the TiVo Rewards program anyway) TiVo HD giveaway! There are a couple of days left to donate points to the site to help fund additional giveaways. Remember, April 28th is the last day to give anyone a referral.

If you find any links to TiVo that are still broken, please let me know so that I can fix them.

I’ve notified TiVo of the issue and I’m going to give them some time to fix things before I deal with relinking everything. Hopefully they can fix it on their end, such as via redirects to map the old URLs to the new ones. I think that’s the right thing to do anyway, there are links all over the web to pages on their site and breaking all those links doesn’t really make sense – for TiVo or anyone else. So, anyway, bear with me and give TiVo some time to put this right. Thanks, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience.

By the way, is anyone using the Custom Styles for the site? Feedback has been kind of underwhelming.

If you have any issues using this, please let me know my commenting on this post. Thanks – and enjoy!

EDIT: By the way, if you are trying to create a custom style and it would make life easier if some element on the page had a class or id attribute added, feel free to ask. I can’t promise I’ll add it, but I definitely will consider it. Most of the elements on the page already have class and/or id attributes for the default style that you can use. And feel free to share any creative styles you come up with. I may even add some to the site (with permission of course) if they’re good.

Now, as a warning, it is possible to do bad things with a style sheet. So be careful about using a style sheet supplied by some 3rd party. You may want to make a copy to host yourself, so you know what is in it, rather than linking to another site. Even if you vet the CSS before linking to it, it can change at any time without your knowledge.

I’ll accept entries until midnight EST Friday, April 25th – that’s six days from now. Entering is simple – leave a comment on this post with a link to ANY previous, non-giveaway, comment you’ve left on the blog OR in the LiveJournal community! That’s a comment made before this post – so before midnight EST Saturday, April 19th. The time stamp on your comment is the link you need for blog posts – like this. For LiveJournal community comments there is a ‘permalink’ on each comment – like this one.

You can just post the URL, but it is neater if you use HTML links. For those who don’t know HTML, thusly: <a href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2007/05/20/major-change-wordpress/#comment-2320">like this</a>. Obviously you’d use your comment link URL and not that one. One entry per user, please.

Also, you MUST enter a valid email address in the email box when you comment. That is how I will contact the winner to get their shipping info. I won’t even consider entries without a valid email address. Don’t worry, they aren’t used for anything else.

The list at the bottom of this page may help you find your old blog comments. Remember, you can continue to donate TiVo Rewards Referral points through April 28, 2008. The more points that are donated the more giveaways there will be. Just one more donation and there will be a TiVo HD giveaway open to everyone. But the more the better – so send as many this way as possible to generate more giveaways. Remember, every seven donations is another TiVo HD.

Now, get to entering and good luck!

¹If you already have a TiVo HD or a Series3 you can optionally take the WD My DVR Expander and a TiVo Glo remote instead of the TiVo HD.