Joped.com

I was playing around with multiple monitor support in X-Plane 8 on my Mac Pro and I have a few suggestions if you are having trouble getting this to work.

• Inside System preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement make sure your menu bar is on your left most monitor.
• All monitors need to have the same height resolution set.  If you are using monitors that support different max resolutions, you should change all of them to match the lowest monitor resolution.  When setting things up initially, you should set the width all the same as well, then tweak from there.
• Add up all monitor widths and set your X-Plane resolution to that width.  For example, during my testing I was using a 20″ Samsung, very very old Samsung 15″ and a Samsung 61″ HD DLP set.  The max the 15″ could accept was 1024, so I set X-Plane to 3072×768.  At that low of a height, the TV had large black bars around it … but it works for my needs.

When money gets better, I want to get another Samsung 20″ monitor … they aren’t too expensive and work fairly well.  Then I will use my laptop for the other screen.

Totally unrelated to the above, but here was me flying a jet around tonight chasing this airliner

I played a few games of Urban Terror tonight, I needed to get some practice in because Friday I am having a match with some co-workers.

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In celebration of 2009, I will be releasing 2.15 of Linkped which includes the new my sent links and new home page.  This is a feature that has been in beta for a while now, and new years day seems like an excellent time to release the new feature to the masses.

This post was created the day before, so the new version won’t actually be released until later in the day.

After using the default theme in Wordpress since like version 1.x, I decided it was finally time for a change. Amazingly, I found the theme I am using on the first site I went to.  This theme is very customizable and the snow flakes is a swapable image.

This is great because it will allow me to change up the theme a bit without working out a total replacement theme.  They also provide a plugin to modify colors and what not without touching the CSS.  That is also excellent because I would rather re-write someone elses CSS then try and work around it.

Hopefully, the new theme will encourgae me to spend a little more time creating the posts that I really wanted to but was too lazy to do.

Difficulty: Simple, or so I thought!

Smaller bag … eh ok

Oh come on, this is ridiculous!

Its about damn time!

After all that work, I ended up eating a reese peanut butter cup …

Over the past few months, I have been researching how different websites are implementing OpenID.  The major conclusion that I have come to is that many site operators don’t understand OpenID.  One of the main selling points to OpenID is not having to register with every damn website you come across.

What really drives me nuts is finding a site that accepts OpenID, I then authenticate with my OpenID provider, only to be bounced to a registration form.  What the hell ?  My OpenID profile isn’t empty, it contains some basic information about me.  Zip code, timezone, Firstname, Lastname and email address.  Why would you go and ask me for the same information again ?  This information has already been passed back to you with the OpenID protocol!  At very least, can you please pre-populate this information ?

When you return to an OpenID site and change your timezone in your OpenID profile, why doesn’t the site you are logging into update your information with the new data sent back from your OpenID provider ?!  I know this can be a tricky thing to do, I am working on it for Linkped.  I had this support at one point, but had to remove it when I refactored the OpenID login code. My first run with OpenID was a very lame way to support it. Don’t worry, support for updates will be returning very soon.

Many websites hide their OpenID login screens and for the life of me I can’t figure out why!  Hell, I use it as a selling point on Linkped.  With 83% of the user base using OpenID who can blame me   The OpenID logo is a slick design that fits into almost any website.  Don’t make me hunt for your OpenID login screen, put the logo right on your registration form to let your vistors know they can sign up even faster by using OpenID.

OpenID is a great thing, and I am happy to see it getting adopted everywhere.  I know that one day spammers will become a problem and site operators will revert to using a captcha after login, but I am ok with that.  However, unless more developers stop to think about how difficult and ass half backwards their OpenID implementation is, OpenID isn’t going anywhere.

If you are developing a site that uses OpenID, take some time out of your day and go use some sites that have OpenID.  See how bad and annoying some of the implementations are, learn from their mistakes.

This trailer was leaked at some point yesterday.  The quality is really terrible but gives you an idea.  Supposedly, this will be featured tonight on Entertainment Tonight. I won’t be watching it because I honestly can’t stomach that show. Hopefully, they will post the HD version soon.

For the past month I have been cleaning out the remaining protype code thats haunting the code base.  I have already re-written about 85% of the code base.  There are a few small user facing changes:

• Paginated inbox
• New pagination
• Different javascript framework
• CSS sprites for faster page loads
• User settings
• Fixed error checking on send link

The new sent links is coming along very well.  This next round of beta tests will invite much more of the user base into it.  I don’t want to include too many new users, since the new features could could confuse them when they change.  Of course, beta testing is totally optional.

I have also created a twitter for Linkped.  I will announce new releases and issues on the feed.

I released a new version of Linkped late last night, which finally contains the new inbox.  I went through a very heavy testing period before this was ready for public use.  Thanks to the beta testers who helped me a lot with tracking down some odd bugs.

The biggest change is removing the hide button.  This button honestly made things confusing and didn’t work very well.  Its one of the oldest sections of the code base and needed a rewrite badly.

However, its now even easier to find what you have missed in the new inbox. There are filters for All, New and Viewed.  (Sorting is in development)

There are a number of UI improvements that I will be introducing over time, however there are more critical section that need a rewrite first.  My sent links and send link are coming down the pipe soon, but they are also going to require an intensive beta test.

Enjoy!

This update contains an AJAX hide link for the alert system.  There are a few minor bug fixes as well, mostly related to the display of dates from months ago.  There are a few more minor features I am working on for the alert system before I move on to the next polish up, which will be annouced later on.

I pushed this update last night and noticed a bug this morning that was preventing it from working correctly under SSL, this was fixed this morning.