Maria’s Guides

Now you can see the extremes I can take this stuff to.

Okay, so I get my category feeds set up and I get them redirected to FeedBurner. But I decide that I don’t like the name of the site feed (Maria Langer, The Official Web Site*) appearing as the name for all of the category feeds. Too much confusion for folks who subscribe to two or more categories here. (Silly me, imagining loyal readers who want to track multiple book support sites via feed.)

So I dig around in the WordPress Codex for code that’ll help me. I see some template tags there that might do the trick but don’t feel like wasting a day figuring out how to make this work.

So then I try searching the WordPress documentation and forums. I usually have terrible luck with the forums. I never seem to come up with the right combination of search words. But today, I did.

I searched for category feed title and I came up with this thread. In it, Diplo provides some relatively complex yet simple to insert code. Once I realized that the non-English words were variable names (duh) and could be used as Diplo wrote them, I inserted the code as instructed and got the desired result: if a feed is for a specific category, only the category name appears in the <title> tag. As an added bonus, the category’s description (not the blog’s description) also appears in the feed header.

Now maybe I can get back to my real work.

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*Read with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Informit gets around to publishing one of the articles I wrote in December.

Back in December, I added individual RSS feeds on FeedBurner for the book support categories on this site. The main reason I did this was to take advantage of FeedBurner’s e-mail notification feature.

E-mail notification is like RSS feeds for novices. Instead of requiring users to know how to set up a live bookmark or configure a feed reader to get new content, it simply delivers new content to subscribers automatically once a day via e-mail. Whether I write one entry or ten in a day, the contents of those entries are compiled nightly into a single e-mail message and sent out to subscribers. That’s all they get. No junk mail, no spam, no annoying reminders. Best of all, the e-mail message includes links that subscribers can use to check out the article on my site or leave comments. And a link to unsubscribe that actually works.

When I set this feature up for my book support categories, I wrote an article about it that explained, with screenshots, how to get the job done. I submitted it to my overworked editor at Informit.com, she gave me the thumbs up, and it ended up in Informit’s publication pipeline. I approved the edits in mid January and began waiting to see it appear online.

Informit apparently publishes new content weekly on Fridays. At least, that’s how it seems to me. My articles always seem to come out on Fridays. “Add Email Notification to Your Blog with FeedBurner” appeared this morning.

Enjoy.

Oh, and by the way, there are three more articles in the Informit pipeline. I’ll let you know when they appear. You can always find a complete list of my articles, with links to the ones that can be read online, on my Articles page.

But what I really need is some advice.

As my sick dual G5’s hard disk churns away for the seventh straight day of data recovery efforts using TechTool Pro and I start work on my Leopard book, I have come to realize that I’m going to need a new desktop Mac before year-end. Probably within the next month or so.

I’m not happy about this. I bought two new computers last year (a Dell PC and a MacBook Pro, both of which will be used as “test mules”) and had to spend a small fortune on each of them. I also had a number of costly computer repairs, including a new hard disk for my old server and a new motherboard for my dual G5. Now I’m facing a new desktop computer purchase and there aren’t (m)any affordable options.

What I Need

I need a computer with the following minimum requirements:

• A Macintosh. Don’t try to sell me on Windows; it won’t work. I’ve been a Mac user since 1989 and have never even faintly felt the desire to switch to the “dark side” of computing. (My apologies to Windows devotees.)
• An estimated useful life of at least 3 years. I want my computer to be able to run all the latest and greatest software for the next 3 years, without having to upgrade a single hardware component. If I can get 4 years out of it, great. Five years would be asking too much.
• A relatively fast Intel processor. Obviously. I need to be able to boot Windows and run Windows software (so maybe I can get rid of my Dell laptop before it’s worthless on eBay). I also need to take advantage of updated programs that make use of the Intel processor’s technology.
• At least 2 GB of RAM. I have 1.5 GB now and although it’s enough for now, I don’t think it’ll be enough three years down the road.
• At least a 250 GB hard disk. Probably not much more. My file storage needs are minimal. I archive old stuff I don’t access regularly. The rest has to be backed up regularly. The way I see it, the less I have stored, the less I have to back up.
• A SuperDrive. I need to be able to read and write CDs and DVDs.
• Airport Extreme. I have a wireless network at home and like it that way.
• Bluetooth. I have a handful of Bluetooth devices and hope someday to have a Bluetooth phone. (I don’t buy a new cell phone until the old one dies a horrible death, sometimes involving water.)
• Enough graphics capability to display in high resolution in millions of colors on my existing Sony 20″ monitor. (Or, alternately, come with its own monitor that’s 20″ or larger.) I need a big monitor to get my layout work done, especially now that I’ve got “middle aged eyes.” (Don’t worry, boys and girls. You’ll know what I’m talking about before you know it.) When my Sony monitor dies, it’ll be replaced with a 30″ Apple Studio Display, but I’m not in a big hurry to drop a wad of cash on that.

Do I need two Intel Core 2 Duo processors? No. Do I need expansion capabilities? Not really.

That tends to push me toward a 24″ iMac. But there’s this weird mental block in my head about iMacs. Traditionally, they’ve always been Apple’s low-end model of computer. While they were perfectly acceptable as test mules for my work, I never seriously considered them for my actual day-to-day production tasks. But in looking at the current iMac specs on the Apple Web site, it’s pretty clear that today’s iMac isn’t your Aunt Tillie’s iMac. It’s a pretty serious machine, which ample processing power for all but the most serious graphics/video/gaming tasks. And frankly, it would probably be able to tackle some of those tasks pretty well, too. Considering the price of the most loaded iMac, that’s to be expected. They ain’t exactly cheap these days. When I loaded one up on the Apple Store’s Web site, the price tag exceeded $2K. For an iMac. No wonder I have a mental block.

An update to a 24″ iMac would also update my monitor. It wouldn’t get me the 30″ display I’ve been yearning for since its release years ago, but 24″ is bigger than 20″, so it’s an upgrade. And that flat screen will take up a lot less space on my desk than the Sony CRT. Of course that leaves me with a perfectly functional 20″ monitor that I couldn’t sell on eBay. (The darn thing has to weigh in at at least 60 pounds.) But then again, according to the iMac specs, the computer can support a second monitor. But do I really want two monitors on my desk?

My greedy little mind is naturally leaning toward a Mac Pro. Now that’s a computer. I imagine two internal hard disks, two SuperDrives, 2 GB of RAM, and enough graphics power to drive the 30″ display I’ll probably never get. But when I loaded one of these up on the Apple Store’s Web site, the price tag was staggering: over $3K. I don’t have that kind of money sitting around to buy a computer. And if I did, would I want to blow it on a computer rather than, say, a two-week vacation in Hawaii?

But with a computer like that, I could do anything a Mac could do.

But do I need to do everything?

When I bought my last G3 — it was the last beige model — I made sure it had video in/out ports. The old-fashioned, color-coded kind. I don’t know what they’re called. (I’m really not as technical as people think.) I was certain that I’d be processing video on that machine and I wanted to be prepared. I think I used it exactly twice. Once when I got the computer because I had the feature and figured I should try it. And once to actually create a video that I never finished and eventually deleted as a half-finished project. Ditto for other features I’ve loaded into past computers, thinking I would use them. The SCSI card in my recently sold G4. The 250 MB Zip drive in the same machine. (Come to think of it, that machine really was loaded. The new owner got quite a deal at only $335 plus shipping. No wonder she was so happy.)

I was hoping to put off the purchase for at least six months. Actually, what I was really hoping was that Apple would introduce a new desktop Mac in the Mac Pro line at Macworld Expo in January and drop the price of the existing model. That’s usually how I choose my computer — buy the second or third model down from the top.

Maybe that model is an iMac these days. Seems that way to me.

If only I could break my mental block against those machines. Stop thinking about the ridiculous “ET” model I had on an editorial loan for about six months. I hated that computer. It seemed to mock computing with its silly design. I was not in the least bit sorry when I was asked to return it after using it for less than 50 hours of runtime.

So I’m looking for advice from folks who have purchased a desktop Mac within the past 6 to 12 months. Which model did you buy and why? What do you use it for? Are you happy with it? Use the comments link to share your thoughts with me and other readers.