Thanks for following me over to the blog’s new home HERE at davidvanvickle.com/blog!

This is a transition from wordpress.com to wordpress.org’s blog software.  This allows me to use my home page’s theme for free, further consolidating my domains.

This is my first step into wordpress theme work.  I downloaded a theme and just started editing it until it looked like davidvanvickle.com.  Wordpress has made using their software a pleasure.  Nice work guys!

I dream up, design, build, deploy and maintain web-based tools and web sites using these tools. So much fun in so little time.

Quick Links: Social Networking | Web Programming | Web Design | Art

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Improving your site’s Alexa Rank and Google PageRank, showing code in your blog posts with syntax highlighting and line numbers, creating a custom Google search box for your website, surviving and thriving in Google Reader using PostRank, and exploring Firefox addons for web developers including GreaseMonkey and Web Developer.

Source code in blog posts:

• Google Syntax Hightlighter
• Wordpress FAQ - How do I post source code?

Ranking:

• Alexa Rank
• Google PageRank
• comScore

Google Custom Search

Toolbars:

• Google Toolbar
• Alexa Toolbar

Firefox Add Ons:

• GreaseMonkey
• PostRank for Google Reader
• FireBug
• Web Developer

jQuery Experimenting:

• My Social Rankings Table
• My News Table

So, I subscribe and listen to 49 podcasts.  (Up until I counted just now, I was saying 30.)  Some release content more frequently than others.  It’s good background for commuting, playing XBox, working out (I’ve heard), and, depending on concentration requirements, working.

Podcasting has a small audience, although growing, and is usually a labor of love.  Unfortunate.  The public is missing out big time!  Hardly any commercials; solid content on any topic.  Radio, in stark contrast, has too many commercials, has dumbed down, generic content I could give a crap about, and the sound quality sucks (if it even comes in at all).

Sometimes the only reward for podcasters is feedback and occasional donations. Unfortunately I should interact more. Everyone might benefit.

Today I was five podcasts deep when, all of the sudden, I realized I was hearing someone reading what I had submitted.  It was a comment I had sent in on this episode.  1 minute of fame!  Haha.  Very cool.  My comment was basically “good show”.  (A better comment would have included suggestions, but alas, I got nothin.)

The podcast is about being healthy.  Since I’m usually buried in tech news, as my waistline can attest, the show increases my health mind share.  That increases my chances of making healthy choices.  Health isn’t my passion, but the content is worthwhile.  You should check it out.

Like a podcast? Tell them!

Listen to Talli and David’s “Being Healthy for Busy People” podcast.

Do you like posting source code samples on your blog?

I wasn’t sure how.  I just surrounded it with “<pre>” tags. That works in the basic sense. What about the syntax highlighting and line numbers?

A search of the WordPress FAQ’s revealed this how-to on posting code.

Basically it looks like this.  Just tell it what language you’re using.

It also revealed Google’s syntax highlighter for when Javascript libraries are doable.

Pretty simple. Thanks Google and Wordpress.

“What’s up with the flames in your header?”

Beats me.  Every time I mix Beer + Internet + Photoshop, something on screen catches fire.  Listening to heavy metal probably didn’t help either.

“Hey, you have one of those avatars I’m seeing everywhere.  How can I make one?”

http://www.faceyourmanga.com/

If you make your own avatar, post a comment with a link to it here.  I’d love to check it out.

Van Turtle Blog Design - Sep 2008

This is not an ad.  I’m not getting paid.

Bluehost.com - domain hosting - PHP Hosting

Why the switch? Speed. Previous host was unbearably slow, and shouldn’t even be in business any more with performance that bad.  They’ve been a major web provider since the 90’s, and I expected more. Even their own homepage is slow.  Pitiful.

Bluehost will be my 5th hosting service, and so far I am 100% impressed with no red flags.

Server performance is excellent.  After I signed up, a human from the US called me to verify that I signed up.  She asked questions, I said yes, yes, yes and thank you.  Nice.

Keep up the good work and I’ll refer the bajebus out of you.

I saved $2 a month by going here first, then clicking the Bluehost link.

This blog is hosted by wordpress.com.  I am using Bluehost for podturtle.com.

PodTurtle.com’s “Work That Web” Podcast
(subscribe, listen)

HTML forms, which collect data from users, usually have more going on under the hood than meets the eye. They need to check the inputs to make sure they’re formatted correctly for the database. The server needs to validate the input, but validating input at the client makes for a better user experience. Let’s look at the what, why, and how of validating HTML forms on the client-side.

DavidVanVickle.com Javascript Validation Demo and Tutorial

Podcast Episode

webcheatsheet.com Validation Functions

I have Mac Leopard running Parallels 3 running Windows XP, using wired ethernet to network, not wireless.  It rocks, even with all my Adobe CS3 work on both platforms at once.  Don’t let the following comments deter you from a similar configuration.  It’s not difficult.

Two biggest tips:

1. Make sure to follow the instructions when updating.
2. Always backup first, especially now that you’re dealing with *2* OS’s!

Okay now for glimpse into my situation, stupidity included.  If this helps anyone, cool.

Because I started toggling the network settings on the Parallels Mac side around the time of my update to Parallels v3 build 5608, sometimes Windows couldn’t get on the web.  I switched between “en0″, “en1″, “host-only networking”, and “shared networking”. Eventually I took whatever brought the Internet back.

That kinda worked, but then my FTP started having trouble.  I could connect to the FTP server, but when I tried to GET or PUT files, I got the “Illegal PORT command” error from the FTP client.  This was the big mystery.  “Illegal PORT command”?!  Huh?  I latched on to the “port” part and even tried dropping my firewalls.  That surely did more harm than good.

Ultimately the correct settings (for me) were “bridged ethernet” “default adapter” (not “shared networking”).  Now it ALL WORKS!  Yay!  (Your mileage may vary. See Parallels for details.)

Now it all works again and I promise not to touch anything until the next update.

Networking without a map is anything but simple, especially with all this virtual sharing bridging NAT stuff mixed in.  I’d say Parallels does a great job of making it as easy as possible and their help pages are pretty thorough (although a forum might be cool).

Here’s a shot of where I set “bridged ethernet”.

If you have questions, don’t ask me.

Web worker? Marketer, designer, developer? Perfect!

Have a FriendFeed account? Even better!

Join the new room devoted to all things “web worker”-ish, especially the podcast.

The New “Work That Web” FriendFeed Room is here!

• Listen to any past episode
• Post your own content that would benefit others in the room
• Comment on any episode, or on each other’s comments
• Ask questions or about the show or web working
• Make suggestions for the show

… and I will listen! Visit the room.