Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari

Remember when I said there was a problem with my template layout that caused it to display funny in every browser except Firefox? Well I finally got around to fixing it and thought I’d share the solution with you all. I figured it might be helpful to someone.

Why The Difference?

The different browsers display things slightly different sometimes because they use different “kits” (or rather — rendering engines)
to parse the HTML/CSS/JavaScript and convert all that code into the page you see (I’m trying to keep this in layman’s terms as much as possible).

Who Uses What?

Firefox uses Gecko
Chrome and Safari use Webkit
Internet Explorer uses Trident
Opera uses Presto

What To Do?

For code you only want used by Webkit (Safari & Chrome):
follow the guide here — http://css-tricks.com/how-to-create-an-ie-only-stylesheet/

For code you only want used by Trident (Internet Explorer):
follow the guide here — http://www.evotech.net/blog/2008/09/css-hack-for-google-chrome-and-safari-31/

oops! I guess my theme is broken!

I spent a lot of time looking into the problem I was having with the SFC plugin and after all the searching and digging I’ve come to the conclusion that my problem is most likely my Template.

The problem (as far as I can tell at this point) is that I made this template way back when I was using WordPress 2.1 and there have been many significant changes to WordPress since then and especially with the latest version (3.0).

So in the next few days I’m going to have to either make a whole new template or do some serious revisions to this one. Please be patient with me during this time, hopefully it will be a fairly painless process. I will post updates as time allows to let you know how it goes.

If I discover anything significant along the way I’ll be sure to post it here. Maybe a tutorial is in order?

Facebook and WordPress (image from: www.serifgroup.com)

I find that I am on Facebook a fair amount during the day and since I have friends and family who may be interested in reading my blog and perhaps sharing an article or two here and there, I thought it might be worthwhile to integrate my site with Facebook.

I looked into the Facebook Docs to see what kind of options they had. It looked simple enough, but I thought it might be even more simple, so I checked for existing plugins for WordPress that might simplify things even further!

There are a lot of plugins to sort through, but the one that seemed to stand out the most was: Simple Facebook Connect by Otto. (Note: he also has a nice one for Twitter from what I’ve seen).
I installed the plugin (requires WordPress 2.9.1 or newer) and then activated it. When you go to activate the plugin you will see several (more than a few) plugins starting with SFC. Start by activating SFC Base. After activating the base plugin there will be a redbox at the top of the Dashboard telling you some configuration is needed and it provides a link to the settings page. Click it and you will see you need to do some minor work on Facebook to get it working right.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, I’m going to refer you to Otto’s page that explains some of the steps you’ll need to take to get it configured properly. There have been a few minor changes to things since he posted that, but it is close enough to not bother mentioning the differences.

After getting that setup, go back to the plugins page and enable the other SFC plugins you want to use. Right now I’m only using the SFC Like plugin (which you can setup to show a “like” or “recommend” link at the top, bottom, or top and bottom, (or if you’re really brave you can do manual and put it in your template wherever you want) of your post.

I think I still need to activate my “Application” on Facebook, but I’m going to test it out with this first and see how it goes.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments. Most people who read don’t comment, but I know you read anyway.

**UPDATE**

I forgot to grant permissions to the plugin on the Simple Facebook Connect Settings page. I tried to grant the permissions before I fooled around with the settings on the Application page on Facebook and it didn’t do anything so I assumed it was already granted. I had a friend test out the “Like” button and it didn’t work so I had to find the problem. I think that should take care of it now.

**UPDATE 2**

OK, it’s just plain broken. The only thing that works right now is the Base plugin and the Publish Plugin. I have deactivated the rest and will take a closer look at it tomorrow. If you have a tip for me on getting it to work, please let me know!

Image from daskeyboard.com

Wow has time passed since my last post or what?!

Well I see I still have some readers still hanging on so I should update if nothing but for your sakes. Thank you for sticking around.

I can’t recall if I mentioned this before or not, so I’m going to talk about it now anyway. I purchased a Mac Mini for my business. Why a Mac? Well because it will allow me to develop iPhone apps to sell on the App Store (man I really need to get cracking on that). Yes, I know it is kind of like feeding the beast, but do not worry, I still run Ubuntu at home and even run it on this Mac (yeah, I’m at work) through VirtualBox (I suppose I should post something about that sometime soon). And yes, I’m running Windows XP through VirtualBox too. I’m such a wreck right now!

So, what do I think about my first Mac?

Well to be perfectly honest, I love how smooth the boot and shutdown processes go, and how clean the interface is. I am still getting used to having the menu bar for each application stuck at the top of the screen instead of the top of the application window, but it is growing on me. I thought I would loath it, but I am finding more and more it is quite convenient actually. I also like how clear the display is and I like (for the most part) the dock at the bottom.

I do not, however, like the mouse/keyboard situation. I purchased a PC mouse and keyboard (the Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser) because I have to have a right click button, and I have big fingers and those tiny Apple keyboards just wont work for me. Not to mention I had planned in advance to use VirtualBox to host Linux and Windows and wanted to have a familiar keyboard/mouse feel when working in those environments.

Everything on the mouse and keyboard work as expected in Linux and Windows (even through the virtual machine), but there are some serious annoyances when it comes to using them in the Mac OS.

PC I/O devices on a Mac

The Home and End keys do not work the same in OS X as they do in Windows or Linux. On Mac they take you to the top of the document or the end (or something, it honestly confuses me when I press them and I really don’t know what is going on). Either way, I can’t stand it. When I press the home key, I want it to go to the start of the line I am currently on (this is huge for coding). When I press the End key, I want it to go to the end of the line I am currently working on… Similarly with Ctrl+Home (sorry, that’s the windows/linux version, on a mac it’s open apple + home or the “Windows” key + home on Windows aka the “Super” key + home on Linux), or Ctrl+End (you get the idea), I expect to go to the beginning or end of the document respectively. Additionally when holding shift and pressing any of those combinations, I expect it to highlight the text between my current location in the document to the respective destination.

Additionally, I want my 4th and 5th mouse buttons to work properly! right now they work just like a “middle click” in the Mac environment.

How to solve this? — Well I’m looking into it. If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments!

What next?

Not sure yet. I’m working on some websites and going to be quitting my other job (I’m so burned out and it’s falling apart everywhere), so I will be focusing on this business full time from here on out! I’ll try to keep the updates coming more frequently.

What about Linux?

Don’t worry, I have not and will not abandon my obsession with Linux. The new version of Ubuntu is here! So I am downloading the ISO and will at the very least be booting it up here on my virtual machine to play with and will be doing a complete system wipe and re installation on my laptop at home when I have time (was playing around the other day and found out I was using the 32-bit version of Ubuntu when I could be using the 64-bit, and also still have Vista partitioned there taking up 50GB for nothing!).

It never ceases to catch me by surprise how quickly time flys when you are preoccupied with living life…

So much for a post a day, huh?

To update you on what has been going on lately: my beautiful little girl was born a few weeks ago and has been keeping me quite busy (as is my son as usual). Work has been hectic at best, and I am really tired of ignorant (and I mean excessively ignorant) people…

Also, in place of school work and studying (I decided to take a break for a while in case you didn’t know), I have been taking on a few web projects and in the process o some big changes in life… But more on that another time…

I recently received an invite to google wave and also one to google voice… Both seem very promising…