Tag Archives | Blogging

Switching Soapbox to a new theme

By on September 25, 2011 in General

I’m in the middle of switching my Soapbox site to a new theme. Canvas from WooThemes. I’m planning of doing a lot more writing on 4 main topics on this site in the future. These will be science, technology, teaching myself mathematics (to better understand science) and also some fiction, and posts about writing fiction.

I wanted a cleaner, simpler and whiter layout for the site. Canvas theme fits the bill very nicely :) So over the next few days the layout of the site will change as I mess about with the settings in the WooThemes framework and the Canvas theme.

 

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Twitter is my journal/diary

By on December 5, 2010 in Writing

I’ve tried keeping a diary a few times. Even bought MacJournal for Mac and a Maxjournal for iPad to do it in. I used MacJournal for a few months last year, but I never stuck at it.
I’ve realised that I don’t need to. Twitter is my diary. I usually tweet where I am and what I’m doing. Combined with a backup of the tweets via the BackupMyTweets website I have a record of what I was doing on most days, if I should ever need it, or want to read it, in the future. Combine that with longer pieces here on the Soapbox and I have what I was using MacJournal for anyway.


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iPad as a blogging tool

By on July 17, 2010 in Technology

Testing the WordPress app on my iPad. When I get my new Vodafone MiFi I’ll be using the iPad when out and about a lot more than my MacBook Pro. I also want to do a lot more blogging on a diverse range of subjects. Mainly from airports I expect :)

Well if you can see this post then the WordPress app works!

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Snow Leopard escapes…

By on August 30, 2009 in General

So Snow Leopard has escaped its NDA¹ cage and is running wild, eating Macintosh machines around the world. Happy days. I’ve been testing it for a while via the Apple developer releases. It was only when it got to the golden master build (10A432) that is was useable full time. Which is fair enough. That’s what testing is for!

There are still a few applications that don’t function correctly on Snow Leopard. Audio Hijack Pro and Blogo are two applications I use that had issues. Thankfully both are being worked on. In fact a new beta of Blogo is out now. I’m using it to type this post. So if you’re reading this it works ;)

Snow Leopard has a lot of changes under the hood. Most users upgrading from Leopard won’t see much difference. But as developers start to make use of the new technologies hiding in the bowels of Snow Leopard we’ll see some stunning applications.

[1] Non Disclosure Agreement


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Another Twitme test

By on January 22, 2009 in General

Another test of Twitme after changing the text that is included in the Twitter notifications.

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Testing Twitme

By on January 22, 2009 in General

If everything works okay this post should generate a tweet on Twitter notifying people following me about a new post to the Soapbox.

EDIT: to see if edits generate Twitter notifications.

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Testing audio integration

By on September 15, 2008 in General

Whilst I’m testing blog features I might as well test audio integration between Ecto. iTunes and WordPress hosted blogs. Here is a short piece of music, called Europa, that I created using GarageBand..


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Testing Lightbox plugin

By on September 15, 2008 in General

Implementing Lightbox style image handling. Shown below are some test images. Go on. Click them.

Test Image 2 Honda SuperMoto Click pictures for larger view

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Soapbox and Twitter

By on July 26, 2008 in Writing

Since I started Twittering I’ve been posting things that used to appear here on the Soapbox, like Song of the Day, as tweets instead. I can see this increasing with Twitter been used for short posts and this site being used for longer screeds. My 3 latest tweets also appear in the sidebar on the right here. If you are not on Twitter then give it go.

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Trying MarsEdit

By on June 19, 2008 in General

The latest beta of Ecto has been doing weird things on me recently, so I’m trying MarsEdit again to see what its like. Nice Mac OS X interface. I’ll probably give the other Mac OS X blogging clients a whirl as well.

UPDATE: Back to Ecto. MarsEdit is nice and a good blog client, but I just like Ecto better and I’m used to it.

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Mars Phoenix lander is Twittering…

By on June 5, 2008 in General

This is so cool. Updates from the Mars Phoenix lander via Twitter.

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Now Twittering…

By on June 1, 2008 in Writing

I’ve succumbed to Twitter. My page is here. Surprisingly IanRobinson was not taken!

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Joined Del.icio.us

By on June 1, 2008 in Technology

I’ve finally joined Del.icio.us. My bookmarks page is here. I’ll be using WebnoteHappy to manage my links for a while to see what its like.

I suppose it’ll be Twitter next…

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Blogging is good for you

By on May 25, 2008 in Science

As reported by Scientific American. Writing about your experiences can have beneficial effects. From the article:

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

I think my scribbling here certainly helped me.

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Change to comment settings

By on April 1, 2008 in General

I’ve changed the settings that govern comments here to remove the requirement for registration before comments can be made. I had the registration set to guard against spam. Several people have told me that they have had trouble registering, or that they don’t like to register on blogs. So from now on people can comment without registering. Comments from new posters will be held in moderation until I approve them. A name and email address (that will not be published) will still need to be entered as per most other sites. 

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