computers – Page 6 – The PolyBlog

Today I choose to search for the right tool (TIC00044d)

September 4 2020

I have a dream, except my dream is a lot smaller than racial equality. My dream today is simply that I can create a nice table on my WordPress site that doesn’t go crazy.

So let’s start with the nature of the problem. I have a post, about the top hits of 1943. It’s part of a long-term project I am working on that will eventually have me review all the Billboard hits from 1943 up to the present. Fun, right? Okay, maybe not, but I find some of it pretty interesting. I did the first year as a test, 1943, and while Billboard’s list wasn’t exactly up and running yet, I ended up with a combination of several lists and 117 songs to review. I reviewed them, I sorted them, I put them in a table.

A table that is 5 columns wide and more than 100 rows long.

It’s simple, it organizes the data, it’s boring. I would LIKE to be able to intersperse some comments here and there. Actually, I’d rather it looked like a playlist that people could click on, but that seems doubtful at the moment (Apple is not my friend). Regardless, it is a LONG table. And I have four options to display the data:

Use the default TABLE block that comes with WordPress. I can use that block, but it isn’t the best to work with, and styling is a problem at times.
Use an Advanced Table block but it REALLY doesn’t seem to like the new editor much. It might be a conflict with something, but I can’t tell what or why.
Use TablePress. This is a really powerful tool for making great-looking tables, but it comes at a cost — the table is not actually IN the page, it is generated by a database and all the data is stored in the database first. It’s easy to populate, I have the data in Excel already, but I’d prefer NOT to put it in a table that is generated. I would much rather a flat table that I can edit and add comments throughout. You can’t do those kinds of edits or tweaks if the data is just generated.
Ditch the table and use a list format. I could do this easily enough, since I have it in an Excel Table, I can easily reformat the same data into a nice “line of text” such as “##. Singer name – Song (Company)” and just paste it into a set of bullets. Anywhere I want to edit the table/list, I just add a couple of hard returns to break the list and type away.

None of those options are what I want. So I posted a Q on a FB group that has some good designers in it, and one guy got “immediately” what I was looking to do. He even noticed there was a problem with the page which might have something to do with why it wasn’t loading completely correctly, and I’ve fixed that part at least. But the table? Neither of us have a working solution.

Yet. But he is also willing to help look for an answer.

I found a great tool tonight that has some really nice “blocks” in it for doing different things in WordPress. I’ve reviewed 10 block collections previously, found some I really liked, and some that I absolutely LOVE from Stackable. So when I saw there was a great little collection called CoBlocks that had a LOT of blocks in it, a decent number of installs, and some positive reviews, AND it has something that looks like a “pricing table” where you could list a variety of information items, it sounded great. So I went down the rabbit hole of testing the set of blocks (Reviewing CoBlocks for WordPress). Alas, no joy in Mudville.

I’m also going to try GetWid (a collection of blocks that also sounds promising) and Ninja Tables (it also looks like it generates the tables the way TablePress does, but perhaps not, hard to tell yet).

There’s a simple way to do this, I know there is. I just have to get there without having to fight with the block codes I have. As I said, I have a dream…

Today I choose to search for the right tool for the job.

What choices are you making?

Reviewing CoBlocks for WordPress

September 4 2020

I’ve already reviewed the default blocks in WordPress plus nine other collections, with Stackable winning most head-to-head battles. I’m in the market for something that will do interesting tables without having to generate them from a database, but I’m also always open to new Block collections.

Let’s go through the collection of blocks:

Accordion: it is nice, simple, has a header and colour options, but I already have a good one with Stackable and an even better one with Kadence. Pass.
Alert: I’m impressed, as it is a nice simple box with a spot for a title and a background in one of four main preset styles and colours, although the colours can be altered. I’m tempted to keep it around just because it is a quick way to do a text box with light colours in it.
Author: Like many other profile boxes, nothing special.
Carousel: I have no need for a carousel as I use NextGen Gallery and it isn’t compatible. But in addition, for some reason, the images I inserted didn’t seem to line up properly for the top and bottom.
Click to Tweet: Not bad, prepopulate some text you want people to share, they click, and it will copy to Twitter along with a link to your page. Another I have no need for.
Collage: This is a really cool block, where you can have 4 or 5 pics laid out for you like a photo book, with a bit of overlap. Cool way to do a layout. I can’t think what I would use it for, but it’s different.
Dynamic HR: If you were into HTML, you’d remember HR was the code for a horizontal line. Otherwise you’d have no idea what this was. And it’s pretty bland…dots or a line, coloured, thickness.
Event: Wow, this is terrible. Bad layout, almost no styling, no box around it. You could do better on a typewriter.
Features: Logo / icon, title, text. Nothing special.
Food & Drink: If you were doing a menu, great little block. Section heading, title for the item along with icons for popular, spicy, vegetarian, adjustable sizes and fonts, prices, descriptions.
Form: Defaults for Contact, RSVP or Event, nothing special.
GIF: inserting from GIPHY, already covered with other plugins as standard embed.
GIST: inserting code from GITHUB, just as easily covered by code blocks, although I suppose it would be live update, no use for it.
Hero: Call to action with two buttons, nothing special.
Highlight: Simple line of highlighted text…which you could do in any paragraph block?
Icon: Pretty simple set of icons to choose from, hard to tell, you can’t see them all, change colour and size. Yawn.
Logos & Badges: Quick way to insert images from the media library, but for no special purpose other than perhaps to show them in grayscale? IDK.
Map: Standard insert from Google.
Masonry: Nothing special, and only works with default media library.
Media Card: Decent layout, you can insert video, but limited layout options.
Offset Gallery: Okay, nothing special, just irregular gallery.
Posts: Nothing special.
Post Carousel: Nothing special.
Pricing Table: This is the one that I really hoped would lead somewhere. It made it sound like you could do a sophisticated table. Nope, just pricing boxes.
Row: Actually it’s simple columns.
Services: Same as pricing table but with images.
Shape Divider: Eight choices, not bad, nothing fancy.
Share: Simple sharing icons.
Social profiles: Mirror image of Share for your own profiles.
Stacked gallery: You rarely see this but it is a gallery with all the images one above the other, full width. Or you could just insert them individually and have more control over them.

Wow. So I was mostly interested in the “Pricing Table” which turned out to be simply boxes side by side. The rest are okay, nothing very robust, a tier-2 set of blocks overall. I could use the Alert or the Collage, they’re different, but not enough to warrant leaving the whole collection installed for two blocks I will rarely use.

I’m out.

Today I choose to revise my gallery layout (TIC00036d)

August 27 2020

Famous last words could be added to that title — “…for the last time…”. When I upgraded and revamped my whole site awhile ago, and converted everything over to the latest version of WordPress which includes blocks, one of the pieces that I left unresolved was what to do about the gallery layout for my photo gallery. Thousands of photos are in the database and on the site, and I’m not editing any of those.

No, what was on the block for possible editing was the actual pages for individual galleries. I’ve been slowly converting from an old site running Piwigo over to WordPress anyway. The old site had 2005-2013 or so; the new site conversion had made it through 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 (general), and most of my wedding photos (with the honeymoon still outstanding). A huge whack of files to be sure, but again, only about 12-15 gallery pages per year for 4 years. Call it 50-60 pages.

The problem is that the new site config did not work very well with my old pages (the first 50-60). I had dumped a specific video plugin that wasn’t loading consistently correctly, and I wasn’t even sure I liked the various layouts and colours for the pages. Not to mention that there’s an upgrade to the individual galleries themselves to make them more WordPress v5.5 compatible.

The “right” solution is to bite the bullet, fix the 50 pages and move on. And since I truly mean for this to be the last time I go back and revamp any design stuff, at least not by myself (I could pay someone someday, I suppose, if I did a major overhaul), I want it done right.

So while I run the site and do all the work for the photo gallery, I like to pretend that I am sharing it with my wife and son. Which means — lucky wife that she is — she gets to have views on the layout and how it looks for those pages.

I did a quick layout, sent it to her about 3 weeks ago, and silence. She was busy at the time, forgot about it, finally remembered it and sent me views about a week ago. Today, I took the time to go back, open a page, review her comments (bigger, more prominent prose) and make the changes. I then tested it on a couple of pages, designed a reusable block so that I can make all the pages look the same going forward, found an easy way to make a tweak to an existing layout so I don’t have to reset a whole bunch of stuff, and saved it. Andrea approved, I’m ready for future production.

One page down, 50+ to go. I’ve also figured out a way to correct a bunch of other photo issues I was having, so even the workflow is improved. Nice.

Today I choose to revise my gallery layout, ready for replication for other months / galleries.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose a new approach to blogging (TIC00031d)

August 22 2020

I have only written the title of this post, eight measly words, and already I’m wondering if I want to word it differently. I suppose it is more that I am choosing a new workflow, perhaps?

Here’s the deal. Frequently, I have a large number of pending posts that I want to write. And if they include photos of some kind, I frequently balk at the order. For example, suppose I went to a park today (I didn’t, but work with me). And I took pictures. So I might want to write about it tonight, but the photos are going to be a surprising sticking point. Obviously I will want to include them.

But my workflow is pretty sophisticated. Detailed. Oh, alright, it’s anal-retentive, batshit crazy time.

I have 1000s of photos, and I am slowly migrating them from a general folder (albeit well-organized) into a formal app called Mylio. Once in Mylio, photos get sorted generally by date first and foremost, but they also have tags, filenames, facial recognition and more tagging, and sorting between “things to post” and “things to archive”. I rarely delete photos, at least not usually, unless there is nothing of value anywhere in it. If it is a photo of four people, for example, and one of them isn’t very flattering, I usually won’t include it. But the photo of the second person might be decent. Since I often have 5-6 usable ones, I don’t really need to include the one with a bad portion, but on the other hand, I don’t want to toss it either. So I always have two sub folders — one for “active” posting, one for “extra” archiving. If I edit a photo, the original goes to Extras, the one for posting goes to Active. Clear enough?

Step two though is to upload the photos that I’m using, after saving their meta data of course, and loading them on to my website. I managed to get 2005-2008 up on the side before deciding to redo my entire website some time ago, and while all the photos are good, I realized the other day I need to edit about 50 pages for format and consistency of layout. Normally I don’t have to do that, so I just create a new gallery, upload the photos for a given month, and then bam, they’re available for inserting into posts.

Yet therein lies the rub. I normally do a month at a time, once the month is complete. And, to be honest, I am often using photos that I took, plus those that Andrea had on her phone, and now, Jacob is in the mix too. He took some really good ones of sunsets at the cottage recently, plus some other ones earlier in the year. If I’m going to post photos from an event, like an outing to a park, shouldn’t I use the best photos from ALL THREE OF US, rather than just from me?

Perfection is the enemy of progress though, and it has been for certain posts. One of my posts some time back was about my haircut, but since I hadn’t completed the month, and hadn’t backed everything up from Andrea’s computer to mine, with the photos she took of me, I didn’t have my workflow nailed for how to get recent photos in the queue and on the site without risking needing to re-upload them later, or swap out new ones, or generally just having to update it later once I have processed the other files. Or simply confusing myself to the point where I accidentally delete something or miss it altogether.

And even without Andrea and Jacob in the mix, I don’t normally back up my phone every night to my desktop.

Enter the change

I had to “let it go”, essentially. Some of those processes are great at ensuring nothing gets missed but not so good at ensuring I can stay current with something interesting in photos. Today I wrote a post about smartphones and astronomy, and to do it properly, I needed to do about ten screen captures on two different devices PLUS four more photos of my phone and tablet with the other device. And then sort the photos, upload them to the site, embed them in the post, all while ensuring that neither the place they are stored in the website nor the way they are stored in the program application Mylio causes me to duplicate anything. A place for every photo and every photo in its place.

Whereas I used to do a month at a time, the major change in my workflow is adding a “status” tag to the folder name in Mylio. So, even if it is mid-month, I can create a folder called “22 Walk in the park” and then add a little acronym after the folder name to track the steps that are finished so far:

P = Files transferred from my phone
A = Files transferred from Andrea
J = Files transferred from Jacob
I = Photos imported into Mylio
S = Photos sorted
T = Faces tagged
M = Metadata saved
U = Photos uploaded to my WordPress site
G = Galleries grouped together in WordPress
B = Blogged

I don’t blog about everything of course, but most of the stages in PAJISTMUGB are common. Once all 10 are done, I can just rename the folder with a simple “_y” that yes, that folder is all done. It doesn’t solve my problem with not having Jacob or Andrea’s photos ready to go (A,J), but it solves MY photo processing (P).

I’ve been testing out various iterations of the work process and this one worked well today. I took the 10-15 photos, processed them, saved and stored them in Mylio, uploaded them to the site, and sent a draft of the post to someone in the local astronomy club to see if they want a copy of the article for their monthly newsletter. All of it turned out pretty well.

Anal-retentive? Sure. And that’s one of my good points! 🙂 But flexible anal-retentiveness apparently.

Today I choose a new approach or work process to blogging.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose to nuke my old laptop (TIC00026c)

August 16 2020

I have already upgraded my desktop, bought Jacob a new laptop, and bought new office furniture. Seems like I’m already set up. Why am I futzing with an old laptop now?

So I have a strange history with laptops. Back in about 2000 or so, I was convinced what I wanted was a small laptop with no CD/DVD drive, basic memory, decent battery life, small footprint. NOBODY sold them. The closest I could find was a Sony Vaio model, not sure which one, but the price was close to $2K. Because it was super slick and portable, the price was high. Which is frustrating, right? I’m looking at laptops that are close in size, but they have a DVD crammed in it which adds weight. I wanted “less” but would have to pay more? I thought about “removing” it manually, just using the rest, but I wasn’t that brave. I even reached out to David Pogue who was then the NYTimes tech reviewer, and said, “Is there ANYTHING out there like what I want?”.

And the simple answer was no. The curve was toward desktop replacements so companies were putting in larger hard drives, full DVD burners, larger screens, more memory, and bigger keyboards. Eventually, I bought a basic unit, used it for a few years, still have it but will be purging it, likely soon. I can’t remember if I ever put LINUX on it to try to reduce the overhead, I forget, but it is way too slow to use currently.

NetBooks exploded onto the scene about 7-8 years later. Exactly what I had been looking for originally. I bought an Acer One at one point, used it for a while, and put Linux on it at some point to lower the overhead and improve the speed. Back when you could go to coffee shops, this was the small portable computer that I would take. I thought I would write my first novel on it. But I find it slow and clunky. By the time it boots, I’m already through a hot chocolate and a muffin. It never sang to me, to be honest.

Eventually I bought the new HP model I have now, 15″ screen, and it has served me VERY well over the years. I’ve had it about 6 years I think, and it runs full Windows. It has a larger screen and I have used it instead of my desktop on quite a few occasions. For the last 5 years, it has been my basement computer when I was watching movies or TV shows, streaming tons of stuff.

But back in late June or early July, I found it was acting up a bit.

Dun, dun, dun

I had tried to connect it to something, and it hadn’t worked. I didn’t think much of it, assumed it was some wireless glitch while trying to connect from the basement, and I just emailed myself the files through the wired network. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

But then we went to the cottage in July and I tried to connect my phone to the Rogers hotspot. It wouldn’t connect. Well, no problem, I hadn’t planned on using it anyway, I have a hotspot option on my phone and 20GB of data, I was covered. Except it wouldn’t connect to the phone either. I fought with the settings, tried everything I could think of, it would not activate the wireless connection. I even had the latest drivers, I *knew* I did, and when I came back, I played with it some more while maintaining a full ethernet connection. No joy in Mudville.

But the problem felt a bit familiar.

A few months ago, I had a huge problem with the video driver not letting me use the built-in webcam. Since I don’t use it normally, I had disabled it long ago, and had NO idea how to reenable it. I tried about 20 different places in the laptop to tweak the setting to turn it back on, and I was about to go nuclear when I finally found a setting buried in a totally different part of the setup. Ah, gotta love/hate the old Windows menus. Although, in equal honesty, part of the problem was the naming convention the laptop was using, it gave it some ridiculous name that didn’t look ANYTHING like a webcam or even a camera at all. Kind of like trying to fix a doohickey when the thing is labelled thingamabob. 🙂

But this problem with the wifi feels/felt really similar. Is it possible that I had accidentally done something to the setting and I just can’t figure out what? It certainly wasn’t something I would disable. And the laptop works fine on ethernet, just no wireless. It’s possible over the years it has been bumped enough times that something has come loose, or it just went kaput. But there is the nuclear option first.

The laptop has one really sweet feature that I find is not as common as it should be in laptops, or even big PCs. Like a tablet or phone, it has an option built-in that you can use to reset it back to factory settings. Three keyswipes, that’s it, and it will literally WIPE everything and load a fresh but old version of Windows on to the machine. Plus a lot of bloatware for HP, but well, you can’t have rainbows. And it will be set up exactly as it was on the day I first activated it, having done a full reset for both hardware and software.

Given that I just removed a ton of stuff from my main system by doing the upgrade and blowing off a lot of old stuff I don’t need anymore, the nuclear option was attractive. I just had to move all the data off of it onto a portable USB hard drive at speeds that tortoises would mock. My lord it was slow. It probably took about 4 hours for it to transfer everything. And while I was at it, I decided to uninstall a bunch of software just in case the reset didn’t go cleanly. I basically rolled it back to almost new anyway.

Then 3 keystrokes, confirmed I wanted to do this, and sat back and waited. It took about 30 minutes for it to complete the wipe and then I had to give it the “test”.

The post-nuclear test

It was connected by ethernet and it found everything it wanted during setup. It even went off to the internet, found a few updates, downloaded those too, and was away to the races. Eventually whatever websites it was using will be dead, like a MySpace installer, but for this attempt, they all still worked just fine.

I booted up Internet Explorer, loaded Google, ran a test search, all good. Then I pulled up wifi, connected to my hotspotted iPhone (it couldn’t find ANY other networks even though my phone can find dozens in the neighbourhood, so it’s range is limited), and loaded Google again with the ethernet cable unplugged.

Bazinga!

Yep, all fixed. I’m assuming the webcam is working again too but haven’t actually tried that yet. In the meantime, my laptop is shiny and new. Not fast, it was NEVER fast, but a lot of accumulated crud is gone. I will have to spend some time removing some other bloat stuff (One month of McAfee? Trials of Evernote? HP suppliers for ink? Game links? Bye bye!) but it’s working.

Today I choose to nuke my laptop and revert it back to its default settings so I can configure it for its new life as a more portable machine for me around the house. My laptop is untethered from the TV and wifi is working again, so I can use other PC units as my downstairs streamer. I might even take a Zoom call on the deck next week.