Archive for March, 2006

Bookshelf

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

I’ve created a plugin for Wordpress that will display a graphical library of books that you read. This plugin allows you to track when you started and finished a book.

Download

Installation

  1. Extract the bookshelf plugin into your wp-content/plugins directory.
  2. Enable the plugin in the WordPress administration interface.

Entering books

The interface for entering books for Bookshelf is located under the Manage tab under the submenu Bookshelf

Currently the plugins stores the following information per book:

  • ISBN
  • Title
  • Author
  • Date Started
  • Date Finished

The image for a book is keyed off of the ISBN.

Templates

The Bookshelf plugin exports two functions to be used in templates:

  • bookshelf_display_library() This functions displays all books in the library
  • bookshelf_display_recent_reading() This functions displays the current most reading.

To have the current readind displayed on the sidebar place the following code in sidebar.php

<li style="height: 125px;"><h2>Current Reading</h2>
<?php bookshelf_display_recent_reading() ?>
</li>

Note: I’m not very good at CSS and the only way for me to get the sidebar to layout correctly was adding the <li style="height: 125px;">. Otherwise everything but the current reading was shifted to the bottom of the sidebar.

The following template can be used to create a page that will display all books in a library.

<?php
/*
Template Name: Bookshelf
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="content">
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<?php bookshelf_display_library() ?>
</div>
</div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

CSS

Each image is of the class reflect. If you download reflection.js and add it to you site css all book images will be reflected.

Moving

Monday, March 27th, 2006

Today, after 4.37 years, I resigned from my position at PalmSource. I’ve accepted an offer from Google. This means that Regan will be moving back out to the Bay Area.

London Checklist

Friday, March 24th, 2006

In no particluar order the things Regan and I did in London:

Energy crisis solved

Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

I(Shaler and Jeff) went over to fabulousrides.com and got this great addition to Danny. Now I just wind and go.

It’s like London knew Jason was coming

Monday, March 20th, 2006

A warning for Jason

–Regan

“Our Italian coffee machines cost a bomba.”

Sunday, March 19th, 2006

Today we tried breakfast from a place called Pret here in London. This has to be the best coffee we’ve had so far in London. Maybe it’s the fact that they claim to grind and brew their beans within 14 days of roasting. Thanks to Alton Brown we know that coffee starts to stale immediately after roasting.

That one cup, I got a regular when I should have gotten a large, makes me miss the good coffee of New Orleans.

Metro Karaoke

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

When we were in Paris a man boarded our car with a karaoke machine and performed a few songs. He didn’t look all that enthusiastic about performing the songs. Regan thought that he must have lost a bet and that was why he was doing it. This got me thinking. If I lived in a city with a subway I would totally be making bets with the wager of performing karaoke on the subway. I’ve already picked out what Regan’s song would be, Madonna’s Like A Prayer, in full costume and all. I told her that making out with Britney Spears was optional but highly encouraged;-)

I Plead Not Guilty

Friday, March 17th, 2006

Our hotel doesn’t have free Internet service. The only way to get onto the Internet from our hotel is paid ASDL dial-up, cable not supplied. I was ok with this because there is an inexpensive Internet cafe across the street. What I am not ok with is no phone service in my room. I had to make a phone call today and the stupid swipe-your-credit-card-before-you-can-make-a-call phone wouldn’t give me a damn dial tone. I couldn’t even dial 777, which is the HELP LINE! Instead of calling the front desk, which even if the phone was working you can’t do, to fix the problem I decided to “acquire” the Internet instead.

The phone is plugged into a box that has two RJ-45 jacks, colored red and green, and the RJ-11 jack. The red RJ-45 jack has a cable leading to the box that is plugged into the TV. I’m assuming the box is used for the paid on-demand programming. So I plug my computer into the green RJ-45 jack. Nothing happens. I look around for anything I can use as a screw driver to remove the faceplate. Next to the coffee pot I find a spoon. I remove to faceplate with the spoon to find that the green RJ-45 jack is not connected. At this point I figure what the hell and unplugged the cable in the red RJ-45 jack and plugged my laptop into the red jack. Success! Not really. I get an IP address but I can’t route anything. It appears that the hotels DNS server doesn’t allow for external name lookup. If I had only memorized the IP address of jparks.net… Not to be foiled, I open up my ~/.ssh/known_hosts file and get the IP address of jparks.net. Can I ping that IP address? Yes! Can I ssh to that address? Yes! Do I now have the IP address of google.com? Yes! Does a Google search turn up an IP address for a public DNS server for the UK? Yes! Do I now have Internet! YES! Am I going to get sprayed with CS gas and then arrested for “acquiring” the Internet? Probably;-)

Mole Skin

Sunday, March 12th, 2006

If you ever owned a Mole Skin, I like the graph paper ones, then you know that there is a section in the front for contact info in case of loss and how much a reward for the safe return. If you have never owned one or haven’t seen one, well now you know. In mine I just put my email address and for the reward I put “One kick in the nuts.” I am tempted to buy a few Mole Skins and put that in them and loose them just to see how many people actually contact me to get the kick in the nuts.

Metro Wisdom

Sunday, March 12th, 2006

If you go to get on the Metro and most of the cars are full except for one, first check to see if a bum is occupying that car. If a bum is indeed occupying the car simply avoid the car and squeeze your way onto one of the crowed cars. If you are unlucky, like Regan and I were, to board the nearly empty car without noticing the bum, or not knowing to check for a bum, as was the case was for us, then you will be bombard with the foulest smell that you have ever smelt. The smell was so foul that the poor girl that boarded with us eyes’ went wide as the doors to the car fully shut. She then started uncontrollably gagging and had to exit the car at the next stop and switch to a different car. I’m not sure what was going through Regan’s head but I did not want to offend the bum by moving on the next car. Neither of us were gagging so we stuck it out for the three stops that we were on the Metro.

A Wonder Full Start

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
  1. Problems with job hunting an hour before take off.
  2. Regan gets sick on landing.
  3. It’s 2°C(35.6°F) instead of 10°C(50°F).
  4. It’s raining.

On the upside, I did manage to navigate us from CDG to the hotel with out getting us lost.

Where’s jparks?

Monday, March 6th, 2006

Regan and I are off to Europe in a few hours and will be gone until the 23rd. Our hotels should have internet access, so we should be posting and uploading pictures while we are away. I wish I had time to make a niffty map like Dan did when he went to Ireland.

Here’s a funny start to the trip. Regan woke up this morning asking me if we were fighting yet because she couldn’t remember. I guess that is better than her waking up and telling me that she is a mad at me because I was an ass in her dreams.

Hôtel de Ville

Sunday, March 5th, 2006

I’m looking for a hotel Paris for two days after Regan and I return from London. Since this is the end of our stay I want it to be close to a metro station. I consult my arch nemesis’ book since he breaks down places to sleep by neighborhood. I’m looking at the map for the Marais neighborhood and notice this building labeled “Hôtel de Ville” near a Metro station. I start scanning the near by pages to find the entry for this supposed hotel. After looking at every hotel entry in the Marais neighborhood and not finding an entry for Hôtel de Ville, déjà vu sets in. Three years ago in France Joe, Justin, and I were planning a weekend road trip in the south of France. Joe and I were talking about finding a hotel for the three of us and I suggested Hôtel de Ville. Every town we been to so far had a Hôtel de Ville so I thought it was a good suggestion. Joe agrees that is a good idea and we should book the hotel later that day. Then Justin pipes up, which he rarely does, and when he does it usually is to correct me or make fun of me, and says that according to Rich Steves Hôtel de Ville is city hall. There you have it. The same mistake twice, both foiled and fooled by Rick Steves. DAMN YOU RICK STEVES!

I seem to remember after we found out that it was city hall that we planned to get some hookers and show up at Hôtel de Ville asking for a room. Then we made a rap song about it. I wish I could remember the lyrics…