Ranta Blog

Twitter Backgrounds

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:07:11 +0000

I really wish Twitter would allow more options in the styling of it’s backgrounds. Currently there are two ways to make your twitter page look a little less cookie-cutter:

1) you can make a background that repeats or “tiles” (no x or y, just both). Background color won’t show up so don’t even bother.

2) Make a single image background combined with background color. Good for fading.

Although I appreciate the fact that twitter is growing and allows us to change a couple things to our twitter page there’s a couple things I don’t like. If you choose #1 for your background good luck making it the perfect size for monitors of all large and small. Hence, pick #2 and you’re very limited to what you can put in there, practically have to be a expert in graphic design to get it to work.

Happy tweeting. I’m anticipating the day when Twitter will have a advanced setting that will be more flexible with their designs.

Apparently Minnesota isn’t that happy according to this Twitter vid

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:29:38 +0000

USA in World Cup 2010

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 20:26:25 +0000

With as a big as a sport soccer (or for those of you who live outside the USA - Football), I’m really surprised the USA doesn’t focus more on this sport. It is considered the “world’s sport”. I think I might know why it’s not so popular in America. Money.

When you think about the big money sports in America, Soccer really isn’t one of them. Why? How can America make money off of soccer, especially the world cup when it only happens every 4 years? What advantage does America have by focusing on a winning team? A cup? What benefits does a cup have for America. Most American’s don’t really care about a cup. So I ask then, why would someone or some people, pay $250 million for a well known soccer player to come to America? This being Beckham. And, why of all reasons wasn’t he playing in this world cup? Would he even play for America or would he play for England, because as cocky as the English are about their soccer team, they suck too.

Even though I was disappointed in the USA this year and the previous years it’s not like they didn’t play their hearts out. They gave it all they had and I’m surprised they even made it past the first round. It’s not like they’re bad, they’re just inexperienced. The coaching, just like most coaching in America, lacks proper decisions and has little risk taking. I don’t blame the team. I blame our country. American’s really get pumped up when the world cup does happen, but when it happens it’s like we have our second squad out there. Is this really the best we have I asked myself numerous times while watching America in the world cup this year??? For a country of our size and our power and all our money, is this really the best we have? I’m so surprised we let Ghana, a country the size of Oregon, beat us, again. History repeated itself and we didn’t learn anything from the previous world cup, played pretty much the same, no changes, it’s like we don’t care about doing anything to improve our world cup team. Come out there with the same expectations, same energy, and same lack of experience. It’s embarrassing. Especially for a country that spends so much money on Basketball, Football, and Baseball - and the same exact thing happens every year with those boring sports. Maybe if the world cup was every year we would spend more money on having a more successful team.

Time’s 50 Best Websites 2009

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:48:20 +0000

If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out these sites last year I highly recommend it, they’re all very useful in one way or another.

You can see a write up about all these here: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1918031_1918016,00.html

How to Change System Hosts File (Vista)

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:33:49 +0000

So I was waiting for a domain to propagate today(rush rush for a site) and my co-worker showed me a nifty little trick. Change your hosts file:

1) Browse to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories
2) Right click “Notepad” and select “Run as administrator”
3) Click “Continue” on the UAC prompt
4) Click File -> Open
5) Browse to “C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc”
6) Change the file filter drop down box from “Text Documents (*.txt)” to “All Files (*.*)”
7) Select “hosts” and click “Open”
8) Make the needed changes and close Notepad. Save when prompted.

Changes needed in this case are as follows(IP address, domain), example below:

127.0.0.1 www.yourdomain.com

New HTML5 Tags

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:43:54 +0000

The task that had to be accomplished by the developers was to create the richer and meaningful semantics for HTML5 version – plus the fact that new solution was supposed to be flexible, strongly efficient and of course to correspond to all modern web standards. Now here comes the list of the new tags that will available in HTML5.

tag defines an article

tag defines content aside from the page content
tag defines sound content

Time-Lapse of Milky Way over Hawaii

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:34:08 +0000

In all the messiness of life’s day-to-day, one tends to forget the majesty that is the universe on a grand scale. Let this stunning time-lapse of the Milky Way over Hawaii remind you of your insignificance.

Minority Report Is Finally Here

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:13:04 +0000

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Wordpress Image Upload Problem

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:35:32 +0000

I’ll be writing more on this is in the future but for now I just want to talk about custom installs of wordpress and a couple problems you may encounter when trying to upload images:

#1 Make sure the folder you have chosen to store your images in is writable. This should be the same for the whole folder. The file attributes on that folder should be 777 and recursed into all subdirectories.

#2 Make sure you’re uploading your files to the right place. This problem happens a lot when sites are being developed and moved to a different server, etc….. You can find where you’re storing your images under Settings > Miscellaneous > “Store uploads in this folder”. Kind of a tricky little spot to find that info.

Hope this helps someone.

You can’t fight the future

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:28:37 +0000

I started reading this article this morning over coffee and found it fascinating and well written. I couldn’t find a link when I did a quick search but had to share part of it with you. Let me know if you find a link for it less you be a spammer:

“In Silicon Valley the world is divided into two kinds of people - those who “get it”, and those who don’t. The people who get it are the ones who understand that the Internet is the biggest thing that has ever happened in the history of the human race, a wave so huge and so powerful that the only way to cope with it is to jump on and hope to make money building a new world. Those who don’t get it are the ones who try to fight the Internet wave. Entire industries fit that description: movies, music, publishing, real estate, cable-TV providers, operators of mobile-phone networks - the list goes on.

Now, at the top of the list, goes China.

That is the message Google is sending this kerfuffle…..”

Newsweek, January 25, 2010
Google vs. China
You Can’t Fight the Future, why China is no match for the internet
by Daniel Lyons