Livescribe 3 Smartpen

First use of Livescribe 3 smartpen

I've rediscovered how much I enjoy writing things out long-hand, and I'd like to get back into journaling regularly. But I've also noticed that I tend not to transcribe things into blog posts. It's been over a year since I blogged!

Then I suddenly remembered that "smart pens" were a thing. So I googled what the current state of the world was for smart pens and ended up convincing myself to buy a Livescribe 3.

(I just paused to see what the OCR software made of my natural, unaltered handwriting. Holy shit! Those first two paragraphs above it made zero errors into transcription! It didn't catch the paragraph-break the way I would have typed it manually, but I'll forgive it. It even correctly placed a comma I had gone back in and added after I'd kept on writing. It did miss an apostrophe, but I suppose that one was nearly non- existent. As for underlined words, it just ignored it entirely. Which seems fair. Smileys confuse it, though.)

The docs also say it can be multi-lingual...

Y ahora he cambiado el idioma. Me parece que no es posible escribir en dos idiomas a la vez — debes cambiar los ajustes, que se aplican a una parte? página? cuaderno? Sí es posible re-transcribir algo en otro idioma. Pero no se puede mezclarlos.

Und kann ich auf Deutsch schreiben auch! Sehr toll. :)

Perhaps there shall be more blogging in the future...

Tweet Posts: Good or Bad?

I started my automatic tweet round-up posts for two reasons: 1) to have all my info backed up and in one place, and 2) to let my older ;) friends in on my internet-doings (some of them read my blog but don't have and don't want Twitter accounts).

But I dislike how the "Today's Tweets" blog post title is spamming the list of recent posts. And it is duplicated info for my friends who do have Twitter accounts. And I will probably make my own "me on the web" consolidation page that I'll have full control over.

So what do you guys think? Do you like the new Twitter posts? Or do you think they're spammy and should die a big, horrible death?

Comments are Fixed

Eek, posting comments was broken! I've revert back to the "full page" comments like they were before. I'll try following a suggested fix for embedded comments later. Sorry 'bout that, guys!

Photos of Oaxaca

Feed-subscribers, beware: I've updated my Oaxaca (December 2005) posts to include photos that I only uploaded after the fact. Now the blog posts from my Oaxaca trip are colorful and photography, but it does mean that the posts may pop up in your feedreader.

In less happy news, I seem to be missing a large chunk of the photos I took in Oaxaca. :( I have two hard drives that are inaccessible — the one in my old broken laptop, which may or may not even work, and the one in Jhorjhelle, the server staying at my parent's house that needs a new motherboard fan. I hope the photos are intact and will eventually become accessible again...

Moblog Test

Testing whether mobile blogging still works. I haven't tried it since the switch to the new Blogger.

Bah. Apparently Blogger no longer applies a moblog-specific template anymore. Hrm...

Backdated Holiday and Vacation Posts

I'm a bad person; I didn't use any of my month and a half of vacation to blog. And now, looking back on all that I did, I don't want to type it all up at once. But I did take photos, so now the plan is to backdate small posts with the photos to remind me. Watch this space for backdated posts for December 2007 and January 2008. Because I'm a bad person. :)

No Post for You!

(5:08:08 PM) Forrest: how come you haven't posted a blog post in a while?

(5:08:12 PM) Forrest: you were on a roll there for a bit

(5:08:14 PM) Arthaey: 'cause I'm a lamer :P

So there it was.

Blog Update Progress, Part 2

Per some design discussions with Forrest, I have an updated to-do list for finishing up my blog layout update:

1. make comments appear above post footer
2. remove dashed borders around posts
3. re-color comment and profile icons
4. do something about the Friends sidebar having so much empty space
5. do something with footer
6. update all labels :( . Useful links: [1], [2], [3]
7. re-do peek-a-boo comments, like how they were pre-redesign
8. hide permalink-link on post page

Update, 10:15 PM:

9. look into the anchor scrolling issue
10. re-do highlighting of my own comments, like how they were pre-redesign
11. add « and » to the "Newer posts" and "Older posts" links
12. pull user icons onto peek-a-boo comments, like how they are on the "post a comment" page

Update, August 2, 11:14 AM:

13. replace? add? calendar view of archive [4]
14. make a hierarchical label display [5]

The above items will be strike-through'd (struck-through?) as they are completed.

Blog Layout Upgrade in Progress

Don't panic! I have not forsaken Blue, I'm just finally upgrading my Blogger template to their Blogger v2 system. Your Arthaey-approved blue colorscheme will be forthcoming, no worries.

Update, 11:13 PM: I've got the old colorscheme back in place, more or less. So now it looks like my blog again. (Not that you feed-readers care; that's okay. :)) Next up on the list is peek-a-boo comments, like they were before.

Update, 11:55 PM: I have peek-a-boo comments back in place now, though I'm not entirely happy with them. The old-style Blogger instructions don't work for the new Blogger, so I had to follow Stephen Weber's instructions. He has asynchronous and synchronous versions of his instructions; I went with the former because all the script-loading for the synchronous version made the page very slow to load. But now you see some "loading..." text for a moment before the post's comments display, and I don't like that.

I also still need to redo the graphics that make this particular Blogger template have rounded corners [1] on the divs... But I'm ridiculously tired — I should have gone to bed hours ago — so I'll look into fixing up the graphics and comments some other day.

This Is Not a Blog Post

No, seriously. This doesn't count as a post; this is an excuse for the lack of posting. School's started, work's started, peer pressure requires I socialize at least occasionally ;), multiple times per day I stop to eat, and the apartment still needs major cleaning. Sigh.

WordPress: Should I Switch?

Problems with Blogger

For the entire life of this blog, it's been hosted with Blogger. Blogger currently lacks many features:

1. categories
2. more themes
3. more add-ons
4. comment feeds
5. friends-only posts
6. quick template changes

Is this just a rephrasing of "What's new in Blogger?" for the new Blogger Beta being rolled out? Nah...

Okay, so maybe it is. Blogger is promising to fix these things in their new Blogger Beta. But what new "standard" things will develop outside of Blogger, and will they be just as slow to adopt changes again? A specific annoyance with the Beta version is their support of categories -- "labels," actually -- do not allow for sub-categories, so far as I can tell. And I want to add a calendar navigation, which looks too "out there" for Blogger to consider adding.

Another Option: WordPress

So I'm very seriously considering self-hosting WordPress. I've heard very good things from the blogosphere about its customizability. People also rave about its available themes, though I'm a little less impressed on that front. I'm not afraid of rolling my own themes or significantly modifiying an existing one, though, so that's not a big deal.

The themes I looking at for starting points are, in order of my own preference:

1. shiny rounded corners (I would probably change the color to blue)
2. less shiny rounded corners (I would replace the red with something else)
3. blue and gray, minimally rounded (I'd do something different with the banner)
4. simple blue
5. simple white (I would definitely be changing the photo)
6. simple gray (I would probably change the color to blue)

Now accepting votes! :) If any of the above themes that don't resize well, I'd fix them so they do.

If anyone's got experience -- positive or negative -- about switching from Blogger to WordPress, importing content, or setting up WordPress on your own server, I'd love to hear from you.

When?

I'm holding back on switching until after I move back to SLO and get internet set up at my new-old apartment. But after that, you may see changes around here. If it doesn't happen before the start of fall quarter, though, then I can't give a reliable ETA on site migration until I see what my courseload is going to be like.

Categories: blogging

Better Colors

Vik'jheruvpeni ne ánisim e'kath gir'shanolel riga'ai oya no alunsa pas arevecoleni damilsha. Jhor'uyan t'dogír, t'ves mmelnev sevena n'o kes. (Pas dotrésharivteni ne nase'mmavon kegha "mmelnev no n'o," ve'dida vo e'kath "ghishovni ne kegharn " so'Google. Zeijha, daed nom. Kájeyal.) Chenil, llavni ne kénillevejhim jun Giynlith t'Iyimadhi ne nes lomael e'kath kedotreth; choteir kashivtejhim ne bia vajhír. [explanation]

Or, in English:

I've fixed up the colors to something prettier than the pea green thing the template gave me. Blue is the best, and purple plays nicely with it. ("Plays nicely with" is a mean idiom to have to translate, like Google's "I'm feeling lucky." Ah, two of them. Even better.) Now, I realize that only Giynlith and the Cheesemeister saw this blog in its ugliness; I hope they appreciate its newfound splendor.

Bia Sharídim

ai'oya [ei'oj@] a tall, thin, wavy plant found in the southern savanna that is extremely poisonous and has a characteristic green hue; unpleasant green

ánisi ['AnIsi] color. from ANSI

chenil ['tSEnIl] see, look (interj.). from cha'énillev

damilsha [dA'mIlS@] generic pattern (esp. of shalnenim), template. from das, ml'shaln

dida [didA] similar

dogír [do'gir] best, most. from do, gir

ghishóv [xI'Sov] to hunt. from Hishn

imadh ['ImAD] cheese. from Tim

jheruv [ZE'ruv] to improve, to fix. from *jh, rúriv

kedotreth [kE'dotrET] unyielding, unaccomodating; ugly. from kre, dotrev

kájeyal ['kAdZejAl] sarcastic wonderful

kegha ['kexA] difficult, uncooperative. from Kegharn

ketate [kE'tAtE] a short, thorned, gray plant found in the eastern savanna

mmelnev [m@_X'mElnEv] to tug, stretch, alter (esp. of shalnenim). from mmav, shalnen

nase'mmav ["nAsEm@_X'mAv] to be an idiom. from mmav. eg, Nase'mmav sharídim egik "mmelnev no n'o,", The phrase "to stretch something" is an idiom."

riga ['rig@] than, compared to the gir. from gir

sevena [sE'vEn@] purple-maroon. from seven

shanolel [SA'nolEl] pretty, visually pleasing

vajhír [vA'ZIr] splendor, beauty. from vastille, *jh, gir

zeijha ['zeZ@] ah, good (interj.). from *jh

Jhurilla! Welcome!

Sireveithim mlen'i illem egik das — jhi, das — ne lomaelim, t'ves goldavni n'o sai. Kr'tajílivkoni ne di'ay emaelivon en'i done n'om dávila. [explanation]

Or, in English:

All my friends — yes, all — have webblogs, and I want one too. I can't guarantee that I will write anything interesting.

Bia Sharídim

dávila ['dAvilA] interesting

done ['donE] ne in an embedded clause

lomael [lo'mel] webblog

tajíliv [tA'dZIlIv] to guarantee, from -t- and -j-