Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Reading on hold

Published on 27 February 2007 ago in Geekiness. 2 Comments

So I’ve been using the Now Reading plugin for a while, but there was one feature I wanted: an “on hold” status so that if I am in the middle of reading a book but stop for a while, I don’t have to mark it as “Currently Reading” or as “Yet to Read” (the two non-complete statuses). So, I added the “On Hold” feature yesterday. It was pretty simple (modify two files and run one SQL query). Here’s the file changes:

in now-reading.php around line 36:

PHP [Show Plain Code]:
  1. $nr_statuses = array(
  2.         ‘unread’        => __(‘Yet to read’, NRTD),
  3.         ‘onhold’        => __(‘On Hold’, NRTD),
  4. +       ‘reading’      => __(‘Currently reading’, NRTD),
  5.         ‘read’    => __(‘Finished’, NRTD)
  6. );

and line 340:

PHP [Show Plain Code]:
  1. case ‘unread’:
  2.         case ‘reading’:
  3.         case ‘read’:
  4. +       case ‘onhold’:
  5.                 break;
  6.         default:
  7.                 $status = ‘all’;

Then, in template-functions.php, around line 130:

PHP [Show Plain Code]:
  1. function book_status ( $echo = true, $unread = ”, $reading = ”, $read = ” ) {
  2.         global $book, $nr_statuses;+   $text = $nr_statuses[$book->status];
  3. +       /*
  4.         if ( empty($unread) )
  5.                 $unread = $nr_statuses['unread'];
  6.         if ( empty($readin) )
  7.                 $reading = $nr_statuses['reading'];
  8.         if ( empty($read) )
  9.                 $read = $nr_statuses['read'];
  10.         switch ( $book->status ) {
  11.                 case ‘unread’:
  12.                         $text = $unread;
  13.                         break;
  14.                 case ‘reading’:
  15.                         $text = $reading;
  16.                         break;
  17.                 case ‘read’:
  18.                         $text = $read;
  19.                         break;
  20.                 default:
  21.                         return;
  22. @       } */
  23.         if ( $echo )

Finally, run this query through your favorite MySQL interface (phpMyAdmin):

MySQL [Show Plain Code]:
  1. ALTER TABLE `wp_now_reading` CHANGE `b_status` `b_status` VARCHAR( 8 ) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘read’;

And presto, an “on hold” status that removes the book from the library’s public lists, while keeping it in the manage books section.

Deleuze

Published on 26 February 2007 ago in Philosophy, Postmodernism and Theology. Closed

Just posted an article about Deleuze and religion over at Church and Postmodern Culture.  Direct link.  Overall, I was happy with it, but I would liked to have written more.  I will be posting more extensively on Deleuze in the distant future (probably after the summer), but I will also have a more in-depth article in the next week or so on the same subject (and a bit more).

Christian No More

Published on 25 February 2007 ago in Asides. Closed

A friend of mine gave me this link to a parody of the Mac vs. PC commercials: Christian vs Follower of Christ.  There’s four videos on YouTube.

(0)

Reading list

Published on 23 February 2007 ago in Lists. Closed

Today, I finally received my reading lists for my comprehensive exams. I still don’t know which two of the three traditions I requested will be the chosen traditions. As it stands, I was given a list of 10-13 books for each possible tradition, as well as for the “theory” exam. I choose seven for each and return that list to the professor that will be giving the exam. Here’s my list for each exam (I put up all three traditions I requested). I have underlined the ones I have read previously for classes or own.

Theory

  • Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions
  • Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
  • Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents
  • Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo
  • Roy, Olivier. Globalized Islam
  • Taylor, Mark C. About Religion
  • Smith, Jonathan Z. Imagining Religion

Christianity

  • Ahltstrom, Sidney. A Religious History of the American People
  • Ehrman, Bart. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
  • Logan, F. Donald. A History of the Church in the Middle Ages
  • McGrath, Alister. Christianity: An Introduction
  • Ozment, Steven. The Age of Reform, 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe
  • Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volumes 1-5
  • Stevenson, James. Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church

Islam

  • Arberry, Arthur. The Qur’an Interpreted
  • Denny, Frederick. Introduction to Islam
  • Geaves, Ron. Aspects of Islam
  • Madelung, Wilferd. Succession to Muhammad
  • Rahman, Falzur. Major Themes of the Qur’an
  • Schimmel, Annemarie. The Mystical Dimension of Islam
  • Watt, W Montogmery. The Formative Period Of Islamic Thought

Hinduism

  • Bayly, Susan. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age
  • Eck, Diana L. Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India
  • Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism
  • Khandelwal, Meena. Women in Ochre Robes: Gendering Hindu Renunciation
  • Miller, Barbara S. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War
  • Ramanujan, A K. Speaking of Siva
  • Smith, David. Hinduism and Modernity

I guess that means I have quite a bit of reading to do over the next 10 weeks.

The bureaucracy of Vista

Published on 23 February 2007 ago in Geekiness and Rants. Closed

So, I got an email last night from my universities Vice Chancellor for Technology saying that students who run Windows should not get Vista yet because it is incompatible with:

  • Symantec Antivirus
  • The Wireless VPN
  • Blackboard
  • Webmail
  • Pharos public printer system

OK, I can see it not being compatible with actual software on the computer (Symantec and the VPN client), but Blackboard? Webmail? Bull. These are web apps that run off of old technology that any modern browser can handle: HTML and javascript. That’s it. I’ve gotten these things to run in lynx, a text-only browser that is run from the command line. I don’t think Microsoft screwed up IE that much in Vista that these no longer work. The university says that in Vista, both of these services have “limited” functionality. I’m sorry DU, but that’s a lie. BOTH of these sites will work as well in IE7 on Windows XP and IE7 on Vista. Users may need to allow content from these sites (i.e. change a setting), but that’s it. I have found that the techs at my university are rather ignorant of operating systems. Case in point: I run Iceweasel in Debian. When I go to the university login, I get a message saying that my browser isn’t supported. Why? It’s because the script reads my User Agent as Netscape 1.8 instead of Iceweasel 2.0. My first response was to fake the User Agent as Firefox 2.0 (which is “supported” by my university). Well, even as FF 2.0, the script still reads it incorrectly. So what did I do? Sent an email to the tech guys saying that the script isn’t reading my User Agent correctly. Their response?

At this time the Helpdesk only supports Windows XP sp2 and Apple’s OSX. The warning message you see is because your browser is not one supported in WebCentral.

Sorry, but User Agents have nothing to do with Operating Systems. If a web app gets a User Agent as Firefox 2.0–a “supported” browser–it should treat like FF 2.0 There shouldn’t be a “well, it only works for FF 2.0 in Windows XP.” FF2.0 is FF 2.0, regardless of what system it is installed on. After reiterating this fact to the “tech support,” they said they’d forward the info to the script developer. Thank you, that’s all I asked for. And one last thing, I’m not going to install Windows XP SP2 on my computer so that I can use the school’s “preferred software.” I can do everything I need to on my computer without needing the crap they give out. I already have a SSH client, so I don’t need the crap one provided by them. I don’t need a “secured wireless VPN” because my system is secure. I don’t need Symantec AV because ClamAV works better. Yeah, it’s a pain living in a Microsoft world, but I survive rather nicely. And, unlike their computers, mine’s been running for 19 days straight. The only thing I can’t do is print directly to their networked printers because it goes through Pharos and I haven’t researched how to make it work (I don’t print much at school). Nevermind…thanks to the Princeton Unix Group, I have enough info to print to the Pharos server through CUPS.
So, in summary: “tech support” at my university is a joke. Vista isn’t worth the upgrade. Try Linux.