blogging « Tim Anderson’s ITWriting

Speeding page load with dynamic JavaScript

By tim, on June 15th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

I’m delighted that ITWriting.com is sufficiently popular to sustain some advertising. I’m not pleased though with the impact on performance. The problem is that ads such as those from Google Adsense or Blogads are delivered by remote scripts. It usually looks something like this in the HTML:

When the

…continue reading Speeding page load with dynamic JavaScript

A note to RSS subscribers

By tim, on January 21st, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

This blog has a full-text RSS feed. In other words, you can read the entire contents of a post without visiting the site – though I hope you will visit the site from time to time to read the comments, like the excellent discussion on web vs desktop applications here.

The reason for this

…continue reading A note to RSS subscribers

Fixing a WordPress plugin setting

By tim, on January 19th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

I changed the theme and plugins used on this blog recently. Along the way I managed to slightly corrupt the settings for one of the plugins, GD Star Rating, the result being that the stars in the Top Rated Posts widget would not display. I figured out the problem: the plugin stores the path

…continue reading Fixing a WordPress plugin setting

Seven years of blogging, and a redesign

By tim, on January 10th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

This blog began in 2003, though the website goes back to 2000, and I now see little difference between what is now a blog, and what in 2000 was a more painful process of authoring web content, especially with the decline of RSS readers. Still, my first blogging efforts were powered by a now-defunct project called bblog. I modified this heavily to add features and cope with comment spam – almost non-existent in 2003 – and then in 2006 accepted that I would be better off with a mainstream blog engine and selected Wordpress, which has exceeded

…continue reading Seven years of blogging, and a redesign

A year of blogging: another crazy year in tech

By tim, on December 31st, 2009 Follow tim on Twitter

At this time of year I allow myself a little introspection. Why do I write this blog? In part because I enjoy it; in part because it lets me write what I want to write, rather than what someone will commission; in part because I need to be visible on the Internet as an

…continue reading A year of blogging: another crazy year in tech

10 Mac alternatives to Windows utilities

By tim, on September 2nd, 2009 Follow tim on Twitter

I’ve been spending an extended time on the Mac in order to explore Snow Leopard. As far as possible, I’ve done all my work on the Mac since its release. The trial will be over soon … but in the meantime I’m sharing notes on some of the utilities I used for tasks I

…continue reading 10 Mac alternatives to Windows utilities

More RSS madness from Microsoft – this time it’s Live Mail

By tim, on January 28th, 2009 Follow tim on Twitter

Once upon a time I was enthusiastic about the “common feed list” in Windows. I thought there was all sorts of potential for sharing and synchronizing content across the network. When it was introduced, Microsoft called it the Windows RSS Platform, though it gets installed as part of IE7.

What’s curious is that even

…continue reading More RSS madness from Microsoft – this time it’s Live Mail

2008 on IT Writing: browser and OS stats, plus what you’ve been reading

By tim, on January 1st, 2009 Follow tim on Twitter

There were 780,000 unique visitors to this site in 2008, according to my stats, up from 650,000 in 2007.

OS stats

Windows 80.5% (down from 82.1%)

Mac 4.2% (up from 4%)

Linux 4.1% (up from 3.5%)

Browser stats

IE 51.5% (down from 58.8%)

Firefox 25.3% (up from 20.5%)

Opera 4.1% (up from 3.2%)

Safari

…continue reading 2008 on IT Writing: browser and OS stats, plus what you’ve been reading

WordPress company acquiring IntenseDebate, makes a blog into a forum

By tim, on September 24th, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

I was glad to see on Matt Mullenweg’s blog that Automattic, the WordPress company, is acquiring IntenseDebate. I’m not actually familiar with the product, but the features it promises address an obvious deficiency in WordPress: the comment system. IntenseDebate adds features including comment threading, reputation points, comment widgets, and Twitter, FriendFeed and email integration.

…continue reading WordPress company acquiring IntenseDebate, makes a blog into a forum

WordPress permalinks broke my RSS feed

By tim, on July 2nd, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

I am beginning to regret my pretty permalinks. Apparently it broke the RSS feed for some subscribers. The problem was caused by a combination of factors. When I started this blog, I used a different blog engine; and when I migrated to WordPress I fixed it so that the old feed URL still worked.

…continue reading WordPress permalinks broke my RSS feed

Tim Anderson’s ITWriting

Recent Comments

Blogroll

Archives