AOL Tries to Challenge Gmail

AOL has always been an easy target for ridicule. So, when I found out today that AOL was trying to take on gmail with a new public beta mail service, I jumped at the opprotunity to test it out.

I was disappointed to find out that AOL did a number of things right with their new service; in many ways, I'd say its superior to gmail. Namely, AOL's webmail wins hands down in terms of:

  • Overall user experience
  • Overall design

However, even by the most charitable measures, AOL's webmail still loses to google. The first reason being:

The Eye of Power

By Michel Focault | Excerpted from Power/Knowledge

It was while I was studying the origins of clinical medicine. I had been planning a study of hospital architecture in the second half of the eighteenth century, when the great movement for the reform of medical institutions was getting under way.

How to create a block region for node.tpl.php

Update: appparently, today was the day to write about this. Nedjo Rogers submitted a handbook page that shows a different method of achieving the same end.

For the most part, Drupal 4.7's block system is underutilized. This is a shame; with the proper templating, drupal's block system can become a valuable workhorse. In this tutorial, you will learn:

  1. How to override default functions in the phptemplate.engine
  2. Create new regions to place blocks
  3. Pass a block region into node.tpl.php

By the end of this tutorial, you will have the ability to place blocks into node's like a so:

Quick and Clean CCK teasers Via PHPtemplate

If you are like me, you've been pulling your hair out trying to make teasers work in CCK. Well, as it so happens, I figured out a crazy simple phptemplate method of making CCK body fields act like any other node's body. Observe:

A CSS ID for Every Menu Item

As you can see, these menu links have unique icons. Yet another miracle accomplished using Drupal's PHPTemplate. This technique is especially cool because it automatically generates CSS ID's from the menu link's name.

TEMPLATE.PHP: Override theme_menu_item() (includes/menu.inc)

<?php function phptemplate_menu_item($mid, $children = '', $leaf = TRUE) { return _phptemplate_callback('menu_item', array( 'leaf' => $leaf, 'mid' => $mid, 'children' => $children )); } ?>

Now create a menu_item.tpl.php file.

Overriding Themeable Functions: The Where's, the Why's, and the How's

There's good news and bad news. First, the good news: overriding theme functions is easy. The bad news: every theme function is different, and there isn't a standard proceedure of going about it; if you don't know what you are doing, its quite easy to accidently do something ugly, or foolish.

So, in the next few tutorials, we are going to explore the hows, whys, why nots, and what ifs of overriding theme functions. Each of these functions will present a different set of challenges, and opprotunities to do something stupid, etc. Today's lesson is "Building a better node form". In this tutorial you will learn

Extreme Drupal Theming with PHPtemplate

Drupal's phptemplate is the most powerful, simple, and flexible templating/theming system on the planet*. Yet, it seems that the majority of drupal themers, (and wannabe drupal themers) are ignorant of its true power.

More disturbingly, vast numbers of people still insist that Joomla!, typo3, and wordpress's templating systems are easier, sexier, and slicker. These people are either loony, or wrong.

As an expert in PHPtemplate (isn't that scary), I've decided its my duty to show the true power of PHPtemplate to world.

Consider these tutorials, a proper (and steadily growing) introduction to drupal's templating system.

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

PC world's list was so well done that I've decided to forgive them for the subheading, "These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame."

Really, who could disagree with this top 5:

  1. AOL
  2. RealPlayer
  3. Syncronys SoftRAM ( Remember this? I do.. even in the sixth grade, I knew this one sucked.)
  4. Microsoft Windows Millennium :-)
  5. Sony BMG CD's
Read on...

Technology is the Problem

A snippet worth framing: 

The attractively simple thesis of The Change Function is that most tech-nology ventures fail because tech-nologists manage them. Technologists think their business is the creation of cool technologies loaded with wonderful new features. They think this because they are engineers who thrill to the idea of change. By contrast, Coburn says, "technology is widely hated by its users," because ordinary folk loathe change. Therefore, any new artifact, no matter how much its various features might appeal to technologists, will always be rejected by its intended customers unless "the pain in moving to a new technology is lower than the pain of staying in the status quo."

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