Pope exhorts us to reflect in silence during 2012 Communications Day
Pope Benedict XVI's message for the 46th annual World Communications Day has been published on the Vatican website. We learned earlier that his theme for this year is silence, and the message is brief and impactful.
One passage that stood out in my reading was the following (emphasis mine):
Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning, as well as making space for silence and occasions for prayer,
Photography book â thoughts and questions
I recently told my Facebook friends that I was thinking of writing a book to help people get better photos with their fancy cameras, and received a lot of positive feedback.
Some of the things I want to write about include:
- Getting photos that aren't too bright or too dark.
- Getting photos where people aren't blurry.
- Making people look great.
- Taking pictures that are beautiful, more often.
I don't want
Filter/Search on multiple fields with Views 3.x
[ Update : As of Views 7.x-3.4 , you can now use the new "Global: Combine fields filter" to combine fields for an exposed search. Just add the fields you want to search to the view's Fields section, then add a 'Global: Combine fields filter' and select all the fields you want to search. Simple as that!]
A common need I run into with a ton of Drupal sites and Views is searching/filtering content based on multiple fields.
Pope Benedict XVI on Catholic Identity in Educational Institutions
From the Vatican Information Service:
"It is no exaggeration", the Pope added, "to say that providing young people with a sound education in the faith represents the most urgent internal challenge facing the Catholic community in your country"."First, as we know, the essential task of authentic education ... is not simply that of passing on knowledge, essential as this is, but also of shaping hearts. There is a constant need to balance intellectual rigour in communicating ... the richness of the
Review: Nikon 18-35mm AF-D Lens
tl;dr : A limited range, inexpensive wide angle zoom that's very sharp on any Nikon FX or DX body.
I bought this lens after accidentally dropping my 18-70mm lens, because I wanted a lens with a little less distortion than the common kit lenses I'd been using for a few years, and I didn't want to spend a ton of money on it.
Minecraft Patching Guide for Macs
I've watched a few episodes of 'The Minecraft Project' on YouTube for inspiration, and I occasionally play Minecraft for an hour or two as a diversion (it's like LEGOs on a computer, but much more fun, because there are zombies!).
One thing I've always liked is The Minecraft Project's look and feel, mostly due to syndicate's use of the DokuCraft Light texture pack. However, getting that texture pack to work along with
Getting Back into Photography - Lens Debates
I'm getting dangerously close to GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), as I've just purchased a dream lens (the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR ), and now I'm thinking hard (probably too hard) about whether I should sell a couple other lenses and get a nice f/2.8 wide angle zoom lens.
Finding an Image's width/height dimensions using JavaScript
For a complex Drupal node form I've been working on for flocknote, I have a relatively complicated image switching functionality that lets people change an imagefield on the node (either when creating a new one or editing an existing node), and once the imagefield is changed, some custom jQuery code will grab that image and display it in the form, for a very WYSWIYG-like experience (the node looks almost exactly the same when editing/adding as it does once the user saves the node).
One problem
A Few New Sites
Lately I've been working on finishing a few side projects â some websites, some apps, etc., and I thought I'd list off a few of the things I've done lately here for posterity:
- Keith English for Missouri State Representative (website)I've worked with Keith to make a nice website where he can present his campaign platform and show some of the things he's done for the area he's hoping to represent. The site has some neat little front
Getting Ping statistics with PHP
[ Note: Since writing this post, I've created the Ping class for PHP , which incorporates three different ping/latency/uptime methods for PHP, and is a lot more robust than the script I have posted below.]
I recently needed to display some ping/server statistics on a website using PHP. The simplest way to do something like this is to use the built-in linux utility ping , and then parse the results. Instead of doing complex regex with the entirety of ping's output