I swear that more people read this web site everyday. How do I know this? Because I see some of my “views” randomly appear in the news almost every week. This time it’s not a direct correlation, but it’s pretty freakin’ close. What’s the Rant of today? Oreos versus California.
Continue reading Oh. My. God. (Oreo Edition)
All posts by Randy
iHop?
Given the last dozen of Apple‘s latest products, I’ve been wondering if a) Apple is going to try to patent the lower case “i” and b) if IHOP was going to sue Apple or if Apple would sue iHop for the use of their recognizable i-design. Don’t laugh, either. I think the only thing saving IHOP is the fact that they use all caps for their logo and commercials. If Apple can get a patent for something as simple as a “gum-drop close” button, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t win a patent for one letter of our 26-character alphabet. The patent office seems to have lost it’s perspective on what they’re supposed to be protecting in their offices; Apple is being the opportunistic company that it’s always been, keeping up with Microsoft in the ceaseless patent race of technology companies.
Continue reading iHop?
SharpMT – 1.0 Final
Announcing the final release of SharpMT 1.0! I went for a few days without any new bugs being reported and even fewer “small” feature requests, and that tells me that this project is now complete – “big” feature requests got pushed to a later release. What does SharpMT do? The short answer is that it’s an offline Blog writer tool for MovableType based Blogs. Check the FAQ for a longer answer, including some information about the features of SharpMT. Where can you download SharpMT? Get the 1.0 Release of SharpMT here. What’s next for SharpMT? Read on…
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Final
A Mermaid Wearing Pinstripes?
So there I was, walking under the Major Deegan towards a crosswalk in the Bronx. Was a pretty cool day out and mostly cloudy. Not the best day for baseball, but still not the worse I had seen. The drive down wasn’t too bad and the parking was just fine. This was only the second game that my sister and I had been too, so I was looking forward to it, especially after the week I had – an analog distraction was more than welcome! After dodging the regular collection of scalpers and their typical “Got extra tickets?” and “Need tickets?” banter, I encountered what was a personal first for me…
Continue reading A Mermaid Wearing Pinstripes?
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 7, RC2
First some useful location information:
Product info: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/
FAQ: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/faq.htm
Download: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt.exe (always the latest version – currently Beta 7, Release Candidate 2)
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 7, RC2
Weird End to a Weird Week
Sorta weird anyway. Just feels like this week has gone on for forever and a day. I spent the majority of the weekdays this week at work deflecting questions from people. I spent that majority of the weeknights updating and fixing SharpMT, as the main page surely shows; I don’t think there’s ever been this many “new” posts before. I spent half of yesterday at Foxwoods casino at a Microsoft event and a Pai-Gow Poker table. And now I find myself on the train with a sniffler.
Continue reading Weird End to a Weird Week
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 6, RC1
Dare I say it? Gold? RTM? Release Candidate 1? I guess I could, but it’s sorta silly when there’s no manufacturing group to release it to! Today’s Build-that-wasn’t-supposed-to-happen comes for a couple of different reasons. One was the run of good luck that I had at a Pai-Gow Poker table, causing me to run from the pit while I still had twice as much money than what I had, when I sat down. Another thing that prompted this build was the fix of TrackBack pings that used to work (Beta 4) and now works again. Download Beta 6 now!
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 6, RC1
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 5
Nightly builds was not exactly what I had in mind, but there’s been a lot of good things – and a couple of bad things – that have caused me to post what is yet another Beta: Beta 5. I spent a good part of the day working with Jeremy‘s Apache based server and after a few hours of denting my desk with my forehead, I have fixed that problem. Right now the only outstanding thing that I know of is the Registry issue that seems to happen on non-XP machines, and that’s things aren’t being saved in the Registry. More on that later in the post – with tonight’s build notes – and you can download Beta 5 here.
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 5
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 4 (updated)
For some reason, Beta 3 might have gotten “stuck” on the server. I re-uploaded the file and just downloaded Beta 4 this time – if you downloaded this last night, please check your about box for the Beta 4 version!
Feature updates for this Beta, this time, but there’s been a couple of bug fixes as would be expected for a project that’s still in Beta. New stuff includes a tracing window for debugging purposes, a new way to set some default values for new posts, and a new registry location. More details below; download it here.
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 4 (updated)
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 3
OK. Beta 3 is now available – if you’ve installed Beta 1 or 2, please refresh your Blog list in the Options dialog! This beta address a hugely boneheaded bug that walked right past me due to a few factors. One is because I only have one Blog on my install of MT. Another factor was my crappy XML handler that I replaced in the rest of the product, but missed in the part that downloads the Blog list from Options. So, if you have more than one Blog on your MT server or if you are using Apache to host your web browser and tried Beta 1 or 2, your problems should be gone in Beta 3 – Thanks to Jeremy, Daniel, and Scott for helping me to fix this problem! What else is new in Beta 3? Download it here and read on…
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 3
Follow up to the Sony Z1A
It’s been a pretty busy week and a half for me! As is plain to see via my site, I’ve rediscovered my ability to program and get an application out the door. In fact, I figure it took a total of eight days for SharpMT, to go from start to finish… and then finish again, with a second beta on the same day as the first release. This is the first application I’ve worked on that has seen the light of day in a very long while, as well as the first application I’ve coded in C#. It was also the first application that I had the pleasure of coding from my couch, my train, and my Starbucks. OH! how I love this freakin’ Sony.
Continue reading Follow up to the Sony Z1A
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 2
It’s been less than 24 hours, and I’m already posting Beta 2 of SharpMT 1.0. Strangely enough, it’s not because I found any huge bug or massive issues in the first beta – I’m just done with my next round of updates already and I wanted to get them out there. What’s new in Beta 2? A couple of things that are in the FAQ already and in the rest of this post. You can download Beta 2 of SharpMT 1.0 from here.
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 2
SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 1
Dean Martin once sang “Welcome to my world – Won’t you come on in?” I find this to be a fitting quote, as I release the first beta version of SharpMT. I’ve built SharpMT mostly for my own uses, but I’ve decided to turn it loose on the public, because as it grew in my own hands, I thought other people might have a use for it. Using MovableType and need an offline Blog writer? Keep reading, because I might have built one for you – you can also download it here.
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.0 Beta 1
eBay: Smarter Members Wanted
I’ve been using eBay for a lot of years – I think I signed up with them only a few months after they initially launched the site. Even from the very beginning, I found them to be a great place to find all sorts of stuff – both useful and not so useful – to buy. They always seemed not only have things that were hard to find but for items that were common, you could sometimes find a discount. There’s been a number of changes over the years at eBay and what I find to be the most obvious change is the decrease in intelligence of the users on eBay.
Continue reading eBay: Smarter Members Wanted
New Frappuccino! (And more SharpMT news)
Mocha Malted Frappuccino! Had my first one day at local Starbucks and well, I can’t say it was anything earth shattering. I mean, it was good and all, but so is a regular Mocha Frap. Certainly wasn’t as “new” as the Mocha Coconut that was introduced last summer – or the CocaMochanut as I end up ordering it, first thing in the morning.
Continue reading New Frappuccino! (And more SharpMT news)