New Tubby

I got a bit of free time and I updated Tubby. Version 0.5 is out now. Here’s what’s new:

  • Universal Binary (haven’t tested it tho)
  • Updated CHMLib
  • Minor UI improvements

WordPress hack to make Flickr post drafts

I’m a Flickrite and I started using it to host pictures that I put up on my blog entries.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to have Flickr post the entries to my website as “Draft”. So I had to cook up a little hack for my xmlrpc.php file. Here it is in case you’re looking to do something similar with your WordPress installation:

    function mw_newPost($args) {

      // … lines omitted, find this part:

      $post_author = $user_data->ID;

      $post_title = $content_struct[‘title’];
      $post_content = apply_filters( ‘content_save_pre’, $content_struct[‘description’] );
      $post_status = $publish ? ‘publish’ : ‘draft’;

      // Add the hack for Flickr here
      if (strpos($_SERVER[‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’], ‘Flickr’) >= 0) {
        $post_status = ‘draft’;
      }


Backpack + Dashboard

A week or so ago, I learned from The Unofficial Apple Weblog about a Dashboard widget for Backpack.

I was really stoked about that since at the time I’ve was looking for something simple that will sync notes and todos between my work computer, laptop and my home computer. I wanted something easy to use and requiring little user overhead.

What’s wrong with what is out there?

Originally, I was using iCal todos to fill this void. But those don’t really work that well. They’re awkward to use and don’t sync up right away. For instance, if you enter some information before putting the computer to sleep or shutting it off, you either (1) need to manually sync with .Mac beforehand or (2) you don’t get the data until the next time the computer is on. I also found it annoying to have to open iCal just to make a note of something new or to modify a task. In the end, the list wasn’t being kept up to date.

After my iCal experiences, I used Tada List extensively (Backpack and Tada are both made by the same people). This worked okay, but I had to open Safari and go to my page just to add notes or check on existing todos. This was a little bit of a pain but, at least, the list was always synced up right away. One of my biggest beefs with Tada was that I couldn’t “clear” finished tasks. They always stayed in a list. Very weird!

The sweet stuff.

Now, since I’ve switched to Backpack, it’s been a breeze. The widget syncs up really quickly with the notes and I can edit it just about anywhere knowing that as soon as I’m done, the changes are saved on the server. If I’m at somebody else’s place, I can just login to the account and add notes that way.

Oh, and the “reminders” feature on Backpack has been an added bonus. It text messages my phone with any reminders that I set. The cool part about that is that the Backpack server does this, so I only get one reminder sent and this is regardless of whether any of my computers are up and running or not.



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