Sunday 29 May 2011

State of the Blog: underlining & IT

Sunday 29 May 2011
This week: coding, IT at work, Twilight Zone

First, I'd like to openly thank longtime reader Alan Woodward, who helped me fix a long-running problem with DMD this week: the inability to underline links in blog posts. It's a minor thing, yes, but a tougher challenge than it would appear to be. Alan kindly spent a number of days re-coding DMD's template and, after some trial and error, I'm very pleased that links are now underlined in posts.

Alan also worked out why DMD's re-tweet buttons weren't displaying the full title of posts. For some reason the code hates the inclusion of apostrophes! Maybe we'll be able to fix that soon, but in the meantime I've ditched using apostrophes wherever possible in post titles.

So thank you, Alan! I'm very grateful for your time, effort and kindness this past week or so. *round of applause*

In other news, my IT problems have abated slightly, as I can now use the internet at work, but there's unfortunately no chance of Blogger and Disqus working for me. I'm stuck with IE6, which doesn't work with Blogger very well now, and the network people have blocked any access to Disqus. So you'll have to get used to most weekday updates being posted after 5pm GMT, although I'm trying to auto-post stuff from the night before (TV Picks, Jump the Blast, etc) just to tide things over. It's a shame--as there's less chance of me being first with a few UK TV news pieces, but that's how it goes.

I'm still planning to review episodes of The Twilight Zone in bite-sized form, remember. I've watched six episodes so far, and aim to release my first review of seven episodes later this week. It will primarily be a way to take up some slack here, as most US network shows go off-air. However, I'm not falling into the trap of assuming summer equals a TV drought--what with Breaking Bad, True Blood, Torchwood and many others airing new seasons. There will be plenty to be getting on with.

As always, this is the place to ask any questions, discuss something off-topic, bring something to my attention, or start a conversation about anything you like. Over to you!