MacManX.com » General

Open Share Add to Any Buttons

James — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:20:38 +0000

About eight months ago, Alex King released the first version of the Share This plugin, featuring his now famous Share Icon inspired by the now standard Feed Icon. Unfortunately, Alex sold both the plugin and icon a few months ago to the entity which now owns and operates ShareThis. While ShareThis claims that the icon is still free for all to use, the ShareThis has slowly been taking on a more commercial feel and the usage of the icon has begun to show some restrictions. The icon, which was previously conceived as a standard for all sharing services, is now offered with the strong recommendation that you use it with the services provided by ShareThis, and some organizations which have sought to adapt it to use with their services have received take-down requests from ShareThis.

Fortunately, The Open Share Icon was created to provide a freely usable and distributable icon for the rest of us, and to challenge the Share Icon as a potential standard for all sharing services. Due to ShareThis’ increasing commercial feel, I have decided to leave it behind for Add to Any, which provides buttons to easily share URLs or subscribe to feeds, and nothing more. The Open Share Icon has not been widely adopted yet, so I have modified two of Add to Any’s popular buttons (a practice strongly encouraged by Add to Any’s creator) by adding the Open Share Icon. Feel free to use them on your sites.

As a possible note of interest, these are the first buttons that I have created with Pixelmator. At first, I was hesitant to replace Photoshop with Pixelmator, but I can now say with confidence that Pixelmator does exactly what I need it to do for $590 and 1.9GB less than Photoshop.

I Won Today’s NextZOT!

James — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:44:51 +0000

Well, as you can see, I won today’s NextZOT! I hate to brag, but this is the first time that I have ever won a large drawing like this.

Thanks to macZOT, I won a copy of MoneyWell, a really cool and easy to use budgeting application worth $39.99. It was being offered by macZOT for 50% off at $19.99, but it looks like I got the best deal of the day. Thanks, macZOT!

In a few days (or perhaps weeks), I’ll post more on my experiences with using MoneyWell to manage my complex budget.

Happy New Year

James — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 08:37:35 +0000

Today, the cumulative annual status is 2008.

Happy New Year!

Blog Less, Live More

James — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 01:22:15 +0000

I would like to think of this post as a New Year’s Resolution, a very important resolution which will eventually contradict itself. In 2008, I’ll be focusing less on my blog and decreasing my overall online activities in order to effectively “live more.” How will this contradict itself? Well, by living more, I will have far more experiences and opinions to share on this blog. Isn’t that funny? A resolution to decrease blog activity may actually result in increased blog activity.

2007 has been a great year. Sarah and I began planning our wedding this year and we’ll have the final plans next month, I have a new full-time job that pays very well and is only five minutes from my house, I got an iPhone, and I just received a gift card specifically intended for the purchase of a Wii (no, I haven’t been able to find one yet). But, enough about me!

So, how did 2007 fare for MacManX.com? Thanks to Joen’s outstanding work on Fauna, I was finally able to release Frost 1.0, “a cool and refreshing style” for Fauna. I also launched Program Notes (fka Music Program Notes), an exciting new resource for ensemble directors, educators, students, and anyone else with a general interest in music and stage history.

2007 also saw some cut-backs and major changes to MacManX.com. The Favored Freeware list has been scaled back to about a quarter of its size. The previous list included all of the freeware applications that I have ever used, which produced quite a few duplicates (applications which served the same purpose) and dead links, and therefore caused a lot of confusion. This new list only features freeware applications which I have used in the last few months. Along the same lines, the Blogroll Dive has been discontinued to make way for more individual postings, which will be more frequent and far less confusing than the link dump that the Blogroll Dive became. Speaking of cut-backs, Program Notes was accepted by (and moved to) Wikia just three months ago, which has dramatically decreased my bandwidth usage and average server load, and brought my operating costs of Program Notes down to zero.

As for the major changes, I am proud to say that most noticeable change at MacManX.com would be the removal of AdSense and Text Link Ads. Despite the slight drop in income, I am happy to see them go.

If I had to pick my favorite post of 2007, it would definitely be Save the Environment for Free. “For just minutes a day, you can improve the quality of the environment for yourself and everyone around you who is, or whoever will be, living on our green Earth.” That’s right I said “minutes,” not dollars or cents, “just minutes a day.”

Unfortunately, 2007 also saw a dramatic decrease in comments. In fact, you’ll noticed that all but one of the MacManX.com posts linked to today have absolutely no comments. I hope that by putting a more personal spin on MacManX.com, more people will be willing to share their comments and opinions. Only time will tell.

So, with all of that said, I bid farewell to 2007 and greet 2008 with open arms. I’m looking forward to blogging less and living more in order to blog more. Still confused? I have to admit, starting the New Year off with a contradictory resolution may not be the best of plans, but at least I’ll be enjoying more of life outside the internet. As for the predicted increase in blog activity, we’ll just have to see how 2008 plays out.

Goodbye Text Link Ads!

James — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:56:15 +0000

I am proud to report that MacManX.com is now free of AdSense and Text Link Ads. The decision to remove AdSense was very easy, as the multiple banners that were displayed throughout this blog were vastly outperformed by the single text link advertisement in my sidebar, though the unexplained termination of some of my friends’ accounts, including Jim’s, also weighed in on my decision to leave AdSense behind. This really was nothing more than your classic “this isn’t working for me” decision. On the other hand, Text Link Ads was performing quite well, and covered MacManX.com’s hosting charges. So, why did I decide to leave Text Link Ads behind?

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Where’s the Blogroll Dive?

James — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 07:34:07 +0000

The Blogroll Dive was the last of MacManX.com’s regular weekly postings, yet we haven’t seen one for two weeks. Where did it go?

The Blogroll Dive was posted weekly, usually between Monday and Wednesday, and highlighted a selection of posts that got my attention from other blogs within my blogroll. While this was a nice way to provide regular weekly content, I have decided retire the Blogroll Dive in favor of a more blog-like approach with individual “check this out”-style posts. With any luck, you should see these postings far more frequently than the old Blogroll Dive.

Southern California Wildfires

James — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:09:13 +0000

Several wildfires currently raging through Southern California have destroyed thousands of homes and forced nearly a million people to evacuate.

The most reliable and up-to-date information, complete with fire-specific information phone lines, can be found at CAL FIRE. In addition to the resources provided by CAL FIRE, a regularly updated map from the Los Angeles Times shows the locations and details of all Southern California wildfires, and a detailed map from KPBS shows evacuated regions, evacuation centers, and road closures for the San Diego County wildfires.

My prayers go out to everyone affected by these fires.

I’m Micro-blogging

James — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:41:18 +0000

Not too long ago, I asked, “To Twitter, or not to Twitter?” Today, I have decided not to Twitter, but I have not given up on micro-blogging. Thanks to Bryan and Pownce, I now have my own micro-blog-ish column. Why Pownce? Because, unlike Twitter, it offers far more options than just micro-blogging text, including the ability to post links and events, and embed photos and videos (via the link option). Why did I finally decide to micro-blog? Because some things are just too small to blog about here. So, if you’re a fan of small-yet-frequent ramblings, please feel free to subscribe to my Pownce column.

Using ReCAPTCHA

James — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:57:19 +0000

Most of you probably know that I’m not a big fan of CAPTCHAs. In fact, earlier this month, you could have quoted me saying, “I hate CAPTCHAs. They unnecessarily inconvenience commentators by adding yet-another step to the commenting process and are sometimes difficult for even humans to decipher.” But, I have come to the conclusion that CAPTCHAs are necessary in some cases. I am not a fan of having to solve CAPTCHAs for frequent tasks such as submitting forum posts or blog comments, but I can live with only having to solve a CAPTCHA once or twice during my entire use of a website. To that end, there are now no more than two implementations of reCAPTCHA in the MacManX Universe.

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Time for a Vacation

James — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:38:53 +0000

Update: We’re back, and the CAPTCHA has been disabled as promised. The photos are now available.

My family and I will be leaving for an exciting cruise to Hawaii on Monday. In order to preserve the sanctity of this vacation, I have temporarily activated a CAPTCHA to block most, if not all, of the spam sent to this blog. Just to be clear on this issue, I hate CAPTCHAs. They unnecessarily inconvenience commentators by adding yet-another step to the commenting process and are sometimes difficult for even humans to decipher. With that said, I have activated the CAPTCHA a day early to ensure that there are no serious conflicts with the plugin before I leave, and it will be deactivated as soon as I have returned.

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