virtues & values: the children’s book

When we were kids, we had a few books from a series that had a great influence on us. They helped steer our imagintion and moral compass in the way that good children's books really should. However, they did not effect such a great influence that we remembered their series title.

For most of our book shopping life, we have been looking for a series called "The Virtue of…" They were tall, thin, white books that each focused on a single person from history: Lincoln. Louis Pasteaur, Will Rogers, Helen Keller, Christopher Columbus, etc. All thes, we had. And each story told the historical person's life through the lense of a virtue they were perhaps known for or that guided their lives.

We knew we wanted these books for our children. And we wanted them for ourselves, to relive our younger days and look at the old footprints by which we once measured our own feet. In every used and new bookstore we entered, we asked after this series. And, to a bookseller, each said, "Wow, that sounds like a great series, but I have never heard of it." We've been seriously buying books for the better part of 15 years now, and it's been a fruitless search.

But you, dear kind reader that you are, knew this tale would have a happy ending. And so this one does. Behold! They are not "The Virtue of…", but "The Value of…" The series itself is called ValueTales. How happy we were to find a "shrine" for ValueTales right here on our very own Internets. We came across their true name through ebay, and there are many for sale on ebay, and some for sale on amazon. But the most we found for sale are through abebooks. And this makes us so very very happy. Alas, they are out of print, but just knowing they are alive and well (and exist! they exist!) on the used books scene is good enough for now.

mailing with php

We hate it when things are more difficult than they should be. (And who is to gauge how difficult it should be? We should!)

That's how it was in our latest struggle through the Great App that will Solve all Problems (GASP). One of the last things we chose to implement in the GASP is a mailto function that will mail an internal user when an external user does something. Sounds easy, yes? And in fact, it is. But it took us a while to get there. Because we learn everything the hard way.

So to keep anyone else from going through the crap we went through: make sure the server you are working on will send out mail before you go nuts trying to make it work. That might seem obvious to others. But remember: we learn things the hard way. Having an external, private server can help immensely on this. Before you fuss about scripts that don't work, test them on a server you know is good.

So what did we use, what did we learn? Mailing something in php is a snap. Just use the mail() function. Do not listen to all the other crap out there about needing x number of files to get shit done. Use the friggin mail() function. It goes mail($to, $subject, $message).

That said, the Surreal-Atmosphere tutorial was very helpful. So thank you for taking apart a small script and kicking it around until it made sense.

Many people apparantly found the emailform.php script very useful. That may be. We did not. We also did not find Jack's FormMail.php useful. But both of these failures were, most likely, due to the server we were developing on.

Lastly, if you need more features in mailing, you might want to check out PHPMailer on sourceforge. They seem like there's a lot there to work with. And they have docs, which makes our cold blackened hearts happy. 

harassment takes a back burner

So it seems that the whole Winnie Pooh stuff has gone away. We can only hope.

The Taquito is on the way soon. We've been thinking a lot about home movies recently. While we don't have a fancy shmancy movie camera, we do have a small camera that will take clips, and we can take still pictures like a muthatrucker. So what we need is editing. We have been really interested in Jahshaka, the open source movie editing software. But then recently, we've been seeing some free online tools. Eyespot is one such online editor. Jumpcut is another. We haven't tested any of these, but we are willing to check them out.

Another big thing we have been seeing a lot of online talk about it Firefox extensions. Now, we love ourselves some Firefox extensions. And we are aghast to find that SessionSaver is a veritable memory sieve. We've been wondering where our memory has been going (and no, this has nothing to do with the parking lot at the slam). TabMixPlus is supposed to be an excellent replacement for SessionSaver, with a whole bunch of tabbing and memory saving built in. W00t! Plus, our good buddies at lifehacker have been putting together some interesting Firefox extension packages. We're excited about those, too. And lastly, this might be our favorite extension since "Open all linked pictures in new window": DownThemAll! This little bugger downloads everything off a site. It's like pictures and sitesucker all in one. Neat!

Now here are some things we might classify under web design and general design. Firstly is an AJAX-enabled color themer: Color Tool 2.0.1. We've used lots of themers before and this one is nice, too. Next is an awesome gallery of classic arcade artwork. One of our earliest calls to the world of design was the come-on in the darkness of the Bunny Hutch and Corbin Bowl arcades. Wait, rephrase. Oh, nevermind. Behold: The Arcade Art Library! Now granted, we've never Varkon in our lives, but damn, that's some great sideart. And lastly, there is EveryStockPhoto.com. This site collects Creative Commons licensed pictures and allows you to use them at your whims. Nice.

If you've been following our trevails in this blog, you'll know that we have some serious-ass networking issues. We've tried a lot, but we're always willing to try more. We're hoping Network Magic won't bite up in the ass. Yet another software package that promises to make networking easier, file and printer sharing a snap, and etc., etc., etc. And then there's Vyew, which promises easy web conferencing. Though when they require Flash updates and recommend IE and Java, we wonder at how much we would really use the damn thing to begin with.

2 more that we can't leave without telling you about. First is a nifty Ray Carver site we found, and it includes a few (3) audio snippets of Ray laughing. Joy. Pure joy. PinkDome is a local lefty news & politics site our friend Gen tipped us to. So far, we haven't been greatly offended.

AJAX: ajaxwrite on the web

AjaxWrite promises MS Word-like functionality in a web app. Very neat.

creating ideas

Wow. So the Winnie-The-Pooh business continues. Amazingly. We thought the point had been made, but we guess not. Another WTP pic appeared on the company fridge last week. When it was uncermoniously replaced with the building’s new parking lot rules, it took up residence on the lower door. Which we all know is the spot of disgrace for refrigerator art. Alas. But then a brand-new fresh-from-the-printer one appeared on the door to the hallway that leads to the restroom. And that was nice, too. Yes, Winnie the Pooh does oversee everything. And don’t we all feel better for knowing that?

Today we have been loving a movie made by the good people at belief, a studio in Santa Monica, CA. They made a movie about the desk’s relationship to creativity. It is called The Common Desk, and it’s a playful, insightful look at creating a workspace that will help fuel creative ideas.

Perhaps the WTP pranksters should redo their desks.

Ya know what would be a good prank? Free tacos for everyone. With salsa, and guac, but no cheese. That’s what we are all about.

some people

Some people get their kicks working in mystery and spreading fear. Back where we come from, if you had something to say, you said it.

Edit: We are famous. Turns out some yucksters at the office had nothing better to do than check out a 5-year-old pictures of us from the Mirror Project. Wow. Gee, we had no idea we were so interesting to you.

In fact, the joke was so obscure (Internet years are like dog years, you know), that we had no idea they were quoting us. Until they realized they would have to explain it by writing our alias. And then we had to look up the line. If you have to explain the joke…. Nevertheless, we are touched. This is like an after-school special.

Good guys

penn jillette: the rock

Through one of those weird internetty trails of story to story to page to page, we found out that Penn Jillette has a podcast. We dig it.

The podcast is a snippet of his 1-hour daily radio show (very annoying setup to actually listen, but that’s corporate America for you; have to know the demographic) — 1-2pm Central — from a station in NYC (though he lives in and broadcasts from Las Vegas. It’s maaaaagic!). We don’t mind so much. Another of our favorite podcasts, Studio360, does the snippet thing, too. And, after tuning in to the actual broadcast, man oh man are we glad we just get the 10-19 minute snippet! That radio station is noi-sy!

Anyway, we are enjoying his podcast. During a recent show, we found that he did a series of Ford commercials with little tricks in them, most famously is the balls in cups trick, except done with clear glass cups. We never saw the commercials live, of course. So, again, in one of those oddball internetty ways of the world, we had to find them online. And thus, theoretically, pay to see what we are getting for free. Whoever can figure out that economic system will win a Nobel Prize.

YouTube has all the commercials. Including the balls in cups one that got Penn and Teller kicked out of the Magic Castle in LA.

software: background switcher, project alternative

Our friend Big Poppa E has a Mac notebook computer. And mostly, we do not covet it. Except one night, we spied that it changes the background on his desktop every once in a while. We tend to think that things like that are distracting, but still, it would be nice to do.

Enter John’s Background Switcher, which does it for you, for free, on your Windows box. And it can poll from flickr, the web, or elsewhere on your computer. Neat!

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We cannot load up MS Project on our computer. We don’t know why, but we can’t. We have been using an open source project manager for a while, but it leaves much to be desired. But we found a nice free alternative, Open Workbench, that gives a lot of power and flexibility. Very nice.

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Bonus link: We work in a slightly-noise-but-not-so-horribly-noisy office. There is a dull background noise that varies just enough as to be noticeable. What’s a taco to do?

Pink Noise. Honestly, we thought pink noise was a joke we heard once on a Kleptone’s album. But it’s not. It’s not quite white noise. There is variance to it. And here comes the pink noise generator. These handly apps create a small section of pink noise that is easily looped. We prefer pink noise #1, which is 2 minutes long. The #3 loop is too long for us at 6 minutes.

myspace: the phone

Holy spit.

Yesterday, we talked about myspace and identity (see the danah boyd link). Then, while checking on something for Ed, we came across some information last night that sorta blows our socks off. There are going to be myspace telephones.

We admire this sort of convergance. In the back of our minds, we always wondered what the other side of a major media conglomerate owning a ppopular social networking site would be. Whoop, there it is. Earthlink and SK Telecom (South Korea) are putting together mobile phones that integrate fully with myspace. One can only assume that they work equally well as cellular phones. Or perhaps they land in our other favorite topic, mobile VOIP.

When we saw the mock-ups on benbarren’s flickr pages, we thought for sure they were just idle sketches. Because they look really neat. But surprise of surprises, that is what they really look like. Check out Helio, the company that is putting out the phones. We’d like ours in black, please.

how to bury your dead

This news piece was so incredibly sad, we waited 9 days to post it. From Reuters, the government is preparing for the upcoming pandemic of avian flu. Are they stockpiling anti-flu vaccines? Are they making the world country cleaner, safer? Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Presenting: How to bury your dead. In your backyard.

“We talk about how people should bury their dead in their backyards, how far from the septic systems,” said Dorothy Teeter, director of the King County public health department in Seattle. “In case you’re wondering, it’s $20 apiece for high-quality body bags.”

But while you are still alive, you might enjoy your music online. Here’s something we’ve been meaning to try out: Picard from MusicBrainz. It promises to help you organize and tag your mp3s. Okay.

Also, while you are still above ground, you might check out MIT’s free open courses. You think “burying your dead 101″ is a course? Don’t bet on it.