Blog Posts & Embedded Media

Apr17
by on April 17, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Posted In: Articles

I’ve noticed a few sites that have embedded media on their sites inside posts.  Here are some of the issues that I have personally have had with them.

  1. Having the loading of the video on the front page slows everything down and can cause problems for browsing the posts.   This can occur specifically with ustream boxes or media that needs to connect to another server.
  2. The flow of the post, .. sometimes centering is a *good* thing.  The first thing people look for when going to your site is the flaws.
  3. Auto-Run of the media that is embedded.

According to behavior psychology studies people generally look for the flaws of something to make a judgment. reference “Horney’s List of Neurotic Needs“.  Karen Horney spent quite a bit of time studying basic and advanced neurotic behaviors and those neurotic behaviors can be theorized to give an underlying opinion on what types of ways people accept or deny things.

When studying behavior psychology it’s often theorized that these traits can also cause people to look at other things much in the same way.  Flaw’s in them self can be related to flaw’s in what they are looking at.

This condition I have found relates to surfing the web as well.   I have noticed that when viewing posts I like against posts I do not like; a lot of the time it has to do with the presentation that the post is placed in.

When a website is not designed for the users you want to view your site, it is my understanding that it will be a deterrent for the reader to want to visit.  This can include the page-load time to the graphical design of the site itself.  Not even necessarily the post or the content of the post.

Auto-run of embedded media may indeed trigger our a basic need self preservation.  When we hear noises or not ready for an event to occur we either get startled or get mad that we have to deal with something that is unjustified.  There are quite a number of different ideas concerning self preservation, however I have found from personal experience that the main drive is “to not die.”

When embedded media auto-starts when I do not expect it, I could either get startled or angry dependent on the situation.   This is not something I would want my users to feel when visiting my website.

Try an extra click.

The wordpress <!–more–> tag  can be utilized to allow a user a required click to another post if they wish to see the embedded media in question.   This helps with the load times and the aggravation of having to deal with the media to begin with.   I realize people want to show something off, but in my opinion it is a determent – a flaw; that people will remember and give a negative reaction.   A negative reaction that will more then likely make the reader think twice about going to your site again.

Please think twice about having embedded media on the landing page, i.e. home page of your site.   If you MUST do it, make sure it’s not slow-loading applications like ustream that needs to connect and not more then one on the page.

– Philip M. Hofer (Frumph)

And now for one of my favorite songs to listen to right now, Dankann, Aqua Diva – Just Close Your Eyes.

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^ Feeling appreciated and noticed by that FleenGuy.

Apr16
by on April 16, 2010 at 5:43 am
Posted In: Blog

Not much of a person to care about whether or not someone says a good thing about me, although being appreciated for what I ‘love’ to do gives me a huge warm fuzzy feeling.

This guy Fleen, aka Gary Tyrrell has a blog that gives out news on the webcomic community. What I like about his blog is it’s to the point, it doesn’t hold punchs and it does *not* fabricate it’s evidence.

I finally found his twitter and decided to follow him, .. of course you know me if someone doesn’t follow me back I just remove them from my follow list. So while removing him off the list I took a good time looking over his latest posts and damn, I saw my name!

“Another guy doing a lot of good for the community? Frumph (or Philip M. Hofer if you’re his mom).” … READ MORE

^ Actually my mom calls me “her little baby”. Sometimes it irks me, sometime’s I shrug it off, anyways (I am the youngest of 6 even though I turned 40 today). I do appreciate everyone on twitter doing shout outs when I help them out and even though I did nothing for Fleen this blurb of his gives me a big warm fuzzy inside.

Here’s to you Fleen, thanks for the shoutout.  You’re still off my follow list you no-following-back punk.

– Phil

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How to setup a PHP Error log for WordPress – Revisited

Apr15
by on April 15, 2010 at 10:59 am and modified on January 9, 2014. at 10:44 am
Posted In: Wordpress

There are a few hosts that do not give you an easy ability to see php errors that might happen. The first step is to edit your wp-config.php in your installation root directory.

Add these lines:

ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 );
ini_set( 'log_errors', 1 );
ini_set( 'error_log’, WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/debug.log' );

Although the use of WP_CONTENT_DIR doesn’t work for me, I did this instead.

ini_set( 'error_log', dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-content/debug.log' );

Also, since I don’t want all those silly notices and warning clogging up my debug.log file, I just want errors only, I do this:

ini_set( 'error_reporting', E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE );

This line basically tells the php parser to report all errors, except notices. If more plugin programmers would test their plugins with the notices on then I wouldnt have 3 pages of notices come up inside the debug.log file.

So in summary:

ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 );
ini_set( 'log_errors', 1 );
ini_set( 'error_log', dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-content/debug.log' );
ini_set( 'error_reporting', E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE );

Based on the comments section, this is a more proper route to go then actually using the defines that were written into the code, dunno why but I take people who know the wordpress core code better then me at their word. Thanks guys for great comments.

——–
Then if you navigate to your server’s wp-content directory there will be a debug.log waiting for you with information in it about what is wrong with your wordpress if an error ever happens.

/wp-content/debug.log

PHP.Net Manual on ini_set: http://www.php.net/ini_set

– Phil (Frumph)

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Officially going to be a mid-life Frumph

Apr13
by on April 13, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Posted In: Blog

On April 16th I turn 40 years old.

To summarize who I am.

I am able to stand up and walk away from the deathbed that was calling to me this year.

My son is my reason for continuing living.   He is 13 and is definitely the classic 13 year old, ‘nuf said.

I  will bend over backwards to help anyone out that needs help, as long as I can.

I cuss.

I would rather watch a romantic comedy or chick-flick then an action or horror movie.

I frequently belittle people for being stupid in my head.   I hate stupidity, I can deal with ignorance and be compassionate about it.

I love who I am, I feel I’m a great guy with a lot to offer.   I get sad and often lonely.

I do not feel I am intelligent, fortunately I will try and try and try to understand and learn; and keep learning.

I have lived a life of 1000 people before my son came along.  I do not regret deciding to be there as a father for him, I just wish I could afford he could have the experiences I have.

I loved my father, I love my mother.

I love most of my family, even though I rarely if ever get to see them unless there was a tragedy.

I have hurt people, I have destroyed people and I have been hurt.

I thrive to help people, especially the community in which I’m involved in.

I have been loved, have loved.

I regret leaving every girl I would now know I could have had a wonderful life with.

I wanted to be an artist.   I do not have the skill.

I have made some beautiful things, music, paintings, drawings, but never with skill backing it up.

I have given the opportunities that I should have jumped on to others because I felt they deserved them more then I.

I don’t have a best friend, no matter how much I wanted to be a part of a friends life.   No one to remember the ‘good old days’ with.

I am too proud to ever ask for help.  I am conflicted to whether or not this is a blessing or curse.

I have always wanted to believe in the Christian God, unfortunately to me that God is a lie.   Do I believe in God, yes.  That God, no.

I am not racist, I just dislike people who blame my race for their problems.   I also do not like a segment of the population who think that the society should pay them back for their problems.

I am grateful.

I am grateful for you, those people who have appreciated and felt comforted in knowing that I am there to help them.

– Philip Michel Hofer (Frumph)

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