AbeOlson.com

If you’re visiting abeolson.com, you may notice some changes in the scenery. I’m developing my first wordpress theme, based off a design inspiration from BenGillbanks.com. I started with Kubrick, cut a bunch out, added a bunch of my own and borrowed from else where to assemble this theme, dubbed SimpleCity. Since the main push, I’ve been tweaking here and there for the past few weeks, and by now most of the main styling is complete. There are still a few color inconsistencies, and the comments need some help, but other than that the theme is working out alright. It’s hard to get everything right when I don’t have much time or experience. Also, I’ve been developing purely in Firefox3, so I have no idea what it will look like on other browsers.
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I recently decided to add a tumblelog to my website, and found it not to be a trivial thing to incorporate into a Wordpress site. For those who may be interested, here are some brief instructions on how I set it up on this website.

What I wanted to accomplish
I wanted to have two tabs on my website, one that has the main blog, and the other which would show my Tumblr posts. I also wanted to have two separate feeds.

Step 1: Set up your Tumblr account

Go on over to Tumblr and set up an account. Put up a couple posts for good measure so that later on you’ll be able to see if things are working right. I’m using the bookmarklet they supply in the “goodies” section to post to a Tumblr account. (more…)

As I’ve been anticipating the release of a Google Geared Gmail, I got to thinking about something I’d really like to see from Gmail. The ability to merge conversations. As Google’s support says:

At this time, you can’t manually merge or separate messages from conversations.

Why is this still the case? People started getting gmail in 2004, and were requesting it then. Anyone know what the hold up is?

I’ve just used Wordpress to set up two websites. I had been using Wordpress for the blog portion of abeolson.com. Just recently, you may have noticed that the site has been updated (e.g. color, slightly changed layout, still doesn’t work perfectly in IE6/7). Now, all pages–the links in the top navbar–are run through Wordpress’s Pages. So, whenever I want to make changes or add pages to the site, all I need to do is login into the wordpress admin portion, and never even worry about uploading the new changes/pages.

Polymer-Specialties is another website I just finished putting up that uses Wordpress as the content management system (CMS). By using Wordpress, it’s really easy to go and update the site as changes are made without having to know anything about ftp clients, html or css. It’s great for setting up for a small business that just wants a simple website with the easy ability to go and edit anything in the future.

Both sites use modified versions of Jack’s SybmimDX Wordpress theme. One is of the standard, the other of the ‘ghost remix’. Both have been fun to modify to fit to what I was looking for.

I got a call from Jott founder Shreedhar Madhavapeddi (Shree) today. I was surprised to get a call from the service which I have enjoyed using, and a bit perplexed until he stated the purpose of his call: They had accidently sent some of my Jotts to another user. What follows is a condensed version from what I remember of the conversation from that point.

Me: Oh; do you know which Jotts?

Shree asks if it’s okay for him to read them, and then reads them to me.

Me: Hm. And you know who they were sent to?

Shree: Yes, it was ____ _____. We’ve contacted him and asked him to delete them.

Me: Okay. How did this happen?

Shree explains they changed the algorithm and somehow that caused 5 or less users to have their Jotts sent to other users. He was really apologetic.

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At this point, there’s nothing to really be upset about. The Jotts that got sent were just basic reminders, nothing too personal. Also, Jott is free, so it’s hard to complain. And it was impressive that Shree was taking the time to call each person whose Jotts had been shared. I told Shree as much. That I was really happy with the service, that it was unfortunate that the Jotts had leaked, but that all and all I wished the best for him and the company as they move forward.

…

Shree: Again, I am really sorry this happened.

Me: Hey, I forgive you. It’s unfortunate, but thanks for calling. God bless.

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Though, if they ever figure out a way to monetize the service, I hope they’ll give it to me for free…