Testing.. Testing... AND a Cute Cat Vidoe!

I downloaded an 'extension' for my Firefox the other day, and I wondered how well it would work, so this is basically a test. One of the cool things about Firefox is these 'extensions'. You can add things to your Firefox browser that add functionality. BUT, you only add the things that appeal to you. This keeps the browser from becoming 'bloated' with things you don't use. Of course this is taking into consideration just loading the 'extensions' you need! These 'extensions' are also easy to remove if you decide you don't want/need/like them anymore.

The extension I downloaded is called Performance, and it is a way to blog about a webpage FROM the webpage. Basically it adds a little Icon to the bottom tray of your Firefox browser. When you see a Webpage you would like to Blog about, you click the little pad and paper icon and the bottom of your browser window becomes a blog editor! I ran across this page with a cute little video of cats and kittens doing funny things using ANOTHER extension and thought I would test this out and see how I liked it.

First, it will link directly to many different blogs. And, it does quite well linking to my Blogger Blog, but NOT to AOL... go figure! Anyway, I don't see myself using this a lot, but it quite a nice little feature. If you would like to read about/try it out, go to Performancing for Firefox.... To see what other goodies there are for Firefox just go to your toolbar and click tools, Extensions and Get more extensions.

Enjoy the video, and thank you for being part of my little 'test'!

Best Laid Plans....

I had a set of pictures ready to go, and the entry being composed in my head when I ran across two links that I decided where better than my original planned entry! Go figure!

The first link is from the National Wildlife Federation and is their annual Photo Contest. This link is for the National Wildlife Federation Homepage, and this one is a direct link to the Photo Contest page... ENJOY!

This second link is another of those Fun With Flickr links. Click on this link for retrievr and you will be taken to a page that offers you a box and a simple drawing tool. Draw something in the box and it will retrieve Flickr pics based on your 'sketch'.... Interesting and strangely compelling!

Tomorrow I bring you lizards and frogs... really, I promise!

Motivational Dragon

Just having a little fun with a photo I uploaded to Flickr. Thank you Judith for the link!! If you want to go and play with your own photos, here is the link.... The cool thing? It doesn't HAVE to be a photo uploaded to Flickr. If you have a photo with a web address (i.e. anything uploaded into your AOL FTP space!), you can play with the things at this site. Make a Mosaic... a Motivational Poster... a Billboard.... Have Fun!!

Just Taking a Moment

 I just want to take a Moment and Wish all of the Wonderful People here in J-land a Happy New Year.

And I want to offer you the gift of the words to one of my favorite songs. I think that it is very appropriate for this day as we take a moment and look back at what this year brought us and forward to what the new one will bring.

Song: Seasons Of Love Lyrics

COMPANY
525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure,
measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In
inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes - how do you
measure a year in the life?
How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love. Seasons of
love.

SOLOIST 1
525,600 minutes! 525,000 journeys to plan. 525,600 minutes - how can you measure
the life of a woman or man?

SOLOIST 2
In truths that she learned, or in times that he cried. In bridges he burned, or
the way that she died.

COMPANY
It’s time now to sing out, tho the story never ends let's celebrate remember a year in the life of friends. Remember
the love! Remember the love! Remember
the love! Measure in love. Seasons of love! Seasons of love.

Wishing you Seasons of Love for the next year... Because, really, isn't that what it is all about?

 

 

Tagged by Promise

I've been tagged by Promise to tell 5 weird things about myself.... Only 5? Hmmm... this might be difficult narrowing it down to only 5 ;p

O.K., Here are the meme 'rules' in case anyone else wants to play along:

These are the rules of the game: The first player chose a topic. In this case, the topic is FIVE WEIRD HABITS OF YOURS. You must then write a journal entry listing those weirdnesses you possess~as well as the rules of the game. Then, you select FIVE PEOPLE TO TAG and link their names/blogs in your entry. Go to their journals and leave a comment informing them they have been tagged by you and to read your journal to see in what way they have been nailed! Those five then MUST (note that I insist upon it!) write an entry listing their weird habits and tag an additional five people.

1. One of my favorite foods of all time is called "Peanutbuttersyrupandbutter". Want the recipe? Well, you take a small plate and you put a good sized pat of butter on it. On top of that put a large dollop of peanut butter (smooth is best). Next, smother this all in Karo White Corn Syrup. Now, take a knife and mix it all up till smooth. Best eaten as an 'open face' sandwich on white bread. Better yet, tear off strips of the bread and 'scoop' up globs of it to eat. Yep, weird, but isn't that what we were trying for???

2. If we go to the movies I MUST get there in time to see the previews, or at the very least the ABSOLUTE beginning of the movie. If I miss even the first 5 minutes I just can't stand to watch the movie. Oh, and this applies to movies at home too. I have to watch them from the beginning.

3. When I play a video game I like to complete every little thing. I don't like thinking I missed something. I usually buy the clue book so that I know every little 'extra' I can do.

4. When I am working I like to finish one task, clean up my area, then start the next task. While I can actually do several things before cleaning up/straightening up, I am not comfortable if I can't put all of my tools, etc back where they belong before I leave at the end of the day at the very least.

5. When trying to figure out how to do something (i.e. make something happen with my blogger template, do something with a photo in a graphics program, or get a certain 'look' when taking a photo) I will often obsess and spend way too many hours just 'trying one more thing' to see if I can get just the 'look' I am trying for.

The last thing I am supposed to do is to 'tag' 5 more people to do this. Since this has been floating around for a little while in our community while I was procrastinating doing it, I am not sure who hasn't been tagged yet. So, I'm going to leave it up to you guys to tag yourselves. If you haven't done this yet, leave a comment and consider yourself tagged!

Always a New Adventure!

I sat down today to redo the template of my blog for a 'Happy New Year' Theme. For anyone who plays with their templates, and has switched them out for something new, will probably feel my pain!

For those who haven't done this.... let me explain just what it entails! I do most of my 'experimenting' in my Test blog that I have set up.

First, for me, it meant finding a tiling background image. I found one I liked, but when I typed on it the words were a little difficult to read. Since I didn't want to give my readers eyestrain, I set out to figure out something else! My solution was to make my background be the pattern, and make the header, content, and sidebar have a black background on top of it. Since I didn't want to start entirely from scratch, I went to the blogger free templates and found a basic black one. This would save me from having to go thru and change the color of every link/header/etc to a color that can be read on black.

The first step was simple..... change the background to my tiling one. Then it started to get interesting. There were 3 separate places I needed to 'add' a black background to so I could see/read my blog... but, it wasn't over yet!

I did NOT like the fact that my words bumped right up against the edge of the black.... ::sigh:: time to figure out how margins work. A quick trip over to a CSS tutorial revealed that margins can be set with 1 to 4 numbers. And, of course, the number I needed to be concerned with was the last one! Going thru and changing these margins (often having to ADD the command), and testing each time before saving was time consuming, but not insurmountable. Things were starting to look the way I wanted... So, now we move on to the Sidebar!

Just a heads up to anyone who hasn't changed out a template.... when you put the new one in everything you've added to the sidebar/header goes bye-bye! I find the easiest thing to do is bring up your 'real' journal in one tab of Firefox, and the test one in another. Now, switching back and forth you can copy/paste the old info from your sidebar into the new template easily. After you paste each item, check it, and if it looks o.k., save it and go on to the next item. Trust me... you do NOT want to do several items only to make a mistake and have to start over with item #1!!! If you don't have a 'test' blog, you will need to copy your old template before you start and have it in a notepad document so it will be handy to cut/paste from.

Once you have all of your changes in place, republish your test journal and take a look... If everything looks good, do a copy of the code and paste it into a notepad file and save it with a name that you will remember. Now open up your 'real' blog and save THAT template (just in case you want to go back to it... or you missed copying some item!). You are almost to the last step now... or so you think! Copy the new code into your template space, click on preview, and take a look... If all appears well, click on the Save button and republish.

Now for the interesting thing.... Once your code 'goes wild' (i.e. is actually published) be sure and view your blog. Often something will be not quite right. Somehow my comment count got messed up.... I had to search my code and discover why... Turned out to be a spot where somehow the code got broken into two rows in a bad spot. A quick backspace to bring the code back together and I was golden!!

As a quick sidenote, I was also able to locate what was causing my blog to look 'odd' in AOL. My sidebar had been dropping down below the first column. In looking at some posts while changing things around, I discovered I had copied a long link someone had sent me in an email into a post. The link was causing my left column to be too wide for AOL. I quickly went into edit html, changed the link to a 'click here' type and viola! sidebar returns to the top of my page! HTML & CSS can be fussy... you have to 'dot every i and cross every t' if you want it to work correctly!

I'm really enjoying the freedom of expression that we have over here. Lots of interesting things to try! If you have any questions about how I did something, just ask! That's what a community if for... We help each other out!!!

My Christmas Card for You!

I was at the zoo on Friday to pick up G and since I had a little while before he was ready to leave, I took my camera and went for a walk thru the zoo. As I turned a corner, I was met by a lady leading this baby Llama around. This is NOT a retouched photo. He was happily wearing a little Santa hat as he and his handler wandered around the zoo greeting visitors.

So, with his help, I would like to wish all of my readers a Happy Holiday!