MenZa’s Weblog

After quite some time without any updates to Mesozoic (with several promises of releasing one within a short period of time), I finally bring you:

Mesozoic 2.0.2

This new version contains numerous fixes and additions, which I’ve outlined in the CHANGELOG:

2.0.1 => 2.0.2 (April 10th, 2007 @ 18:40GMT)
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* Fixed footer being positioned wrong for some people
* Commented RSS 0.92, 1.0 under Subscribe in sidebar
* Narrowed column in single.php and added sidebar (If you want the old style, read notes)
* Produced more generic header.jpg
* Fixed various minor beauty-flaws
* Updated for 2.1.x compatibility (wp_list_links(); -> wp_list_bookmarks();)

More can be found in the CHANGELOG.txt file located in the ZIP (/mesozoic/)

The theme can be previewed from here and downloaded from here.

The .zip also contains graphics for changing the header- and sidebar images (in .PSD format).

Don’t forget, if you customise it or even use it, I’d appreciate it if you could drop me line from the comment form.

I recently started playing the guitar myself, and I stumbled over this video of Andy Mckee, who has some serious skills. I’m actually tempted to get one of his CD’s.

I normally wouldn’t post videos on my blog, but this one truly deserves it.

Here’s his rendition of Toto - Africa.

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After having used the same theme for several months, I was starting to get pretty sick of it. So after viewing a free css template gallery (strangely called freecsstemplates.org), and was already slowly converting it into WordPress, but luckily I Googled the theme name a bit later and fell over this template, converted by WP Theme Spot.
However, I think they did make some pretty ugly theme modifications (red links rather than orange, stupid choice of fonts, etc.), so I’ve been tinkering with it for the past couple of days (and still am).

Of course, this theme is released under a CC-SA licence, so I’m forced to release it (not that I really mind), but I’m just going to ask for a couple of days to mess around with it as I please.

Functions include:

• Built-in UTW support with regular comment-fallback if UTW isn’t installed,
• Built-in support for Gravatars (if it’ll let me have its way with it),
• A jibbalicious (yes, I just made up that word) header loaded using AJAX, once Morten has shown me how to do this.

So yes, a very exciting new theme coming up (or so I think). I’m expecting to release it within 2 or 3 days, but I’ve pushed my deadlines before, and I can’t really help doing so. Very busy schedule.

I’m an idiot designer. There, I’ve said it. I’ve been completely unable to think of anything new and unique lately. I’ve spent hours and hours in front of Photoshop and drawn lines and rounded boxes without making any coherent, good-looking website designs.
I call myself a designer, and everything I seem to be able to do, is the same thing over and over in different colour schemes. What is wrong?!

This post is fueled by rage, and rage alone, because I’m mad at myself. Mad doesn’t quite get it. I’m stuck with a rage I seem to be unable to vent, and the fact that none of the ideas I get are satisfactory to me doesn’t help either.

Most people know the role-playing game Second Life where you can do most of the things you can in real life—purchase your own flat, make friends, visit (actual) companies and benefit from all these services.
Sony has announced a similar concept for the PS3, and it looks nothing short of amazing.

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I happened to stumble over Wordhacker’s blog today, and read the most awesome article I’ve read in a long time. It’s basically about tynonyms (or t9onyms), you know whenever your phone decides to spell out “have” rather than “hate” and “able” rather than “cake” when you use the built-in T9-dictionary?
Wordhacker analyses this phenomenon pretty well, and compiles a decent article about it.

I highly recommend reading it.

I’ve been annoyed about this so often — how about yourself, what is your stance on tynonyms?

There’s a digg submission for his post here — drop a digg :)

I just finished watching V For Vendetta for the second time, and I’m just as amazed and impressed as I was the first time.
This movie is so good, I decided I would make an exception of my hatred of writing reviews. Yes, it really is that good.

However, I will have you warned: I am no review writer, and I fill my reviews with personal opinions and bias, which you can either choose to accept, or not click the link to the review below. I jump around in various parts of the film as I please, and I comment on things as I see fit, and as I think of them.
I will also warn you that this review will be filled with spoilers, and will most likely ruin the film for people who have not seen it. Note, you can still skip to page three and read my conclusion of the film.

V For Vendetta is a wonderful film, which can only remind us of the greed and power-craze of our governments today, and stand as a warning to us and future generations.

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Yes. I don’t usually do these (because I’ve never been tagged–that is, not that I know of), but here goes.
Anyway, Tony has requested I do the meme “Five Things the Average Person Doesn’t Know About Me”, so here goes.

1. I’m scared of big crowds. Call me a wimp, but that’s how it is.
2. I play the keyboard. I’m no good, but I /can/.
3. I hate CSS. It’s my least-favourite part of developing a website.
4. I’d like to get myself a Ph.D. some day. No idea what topic though.
5. I am extremely critical about user interfaces. I can rant for minutes if I spot a bad website or UI design.

So yeah. A few things. I think I’ll pass this to… Jim, Indranil, Mark, and Chris.

It has come to my attention, that way too many people open source their applications and code, without even knowing the actual consequences.
Always read a licence before licencing your products under it, or you risk giving away rights you’re not really happy about giving away.
Personally, I try to open source as much of my designs and themes as possible, however I like to stand out, which is why e.g. this theme hasn’t been released yet.

One thing motivated me to write this post.
Recently, a user entered #wordpress and exclaimed that his theme—the default theme for Drupal 5—had been mercilessly copied to wp.com before Drupal 5 had even seen its release.
He was most displeased, and wanted to talk this matter over with Matt Mullenweg, the primary developer of WordPress.
He was mad that his theme had been copied to WordPress, ruining the surprise of the theme on Drupal.
Obviously, he should’ve considered the fact that Drupal is—and has always been—open source, and by developing a theme for it (and releasing it with what I’m assuming is either SVN or a beta), he agrees to let anyone use any content, as long as the user promises to abide by the guidelines specified in the GNU General Public Licence. Obviously, the person who converted this theme to wp.com does this.

Shortly after, a discussion was posted on the WP-Hackers mailing list.

So, what’s your opinion? Were the WP.com developers in their right converting this theme to WordPress?
I’d love to hear your opinion.

I’m not planning on being online very much the coming weeks, for personal and medical reasons.
I won’t elaborate further, so please don’t ask.

This is mostly a bulletin for the ones of you who already know me, the rest of you–just ignore it.

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