A while back there was a neat little styling script being passed around that tuned the Ubuntu Forums to match the new official designs a little more closely. While its not official and no where near a perfect solution, it does dramatically improve the appearance of the forums overall.
Before
After
To use this, all you have to do is download and install the Stylesheet or UserJS file and configure it in your browser! I’m using the UserJS version, but you may prefer the other. Either way, enjoy!
I’ve thrown together a quick script for Opera that you can use if you’d like to see rounded corners (aka border-radius). It seems that Twitter currently sends Opera a style sheet with empty settings for rounded corners…
…so, all I did was write a script that will insert a link to a style sheet that’s stored here at kyleabaker.com which overwrites these empty styles with the correct ones.
If you’ve never used scripts before then you should first learn how to setup UserJS. After you’ve setup Userjs, you may need to enable UserJS for secure pages (https) in Opera’s internal configuration page….”opera:config#UserPrefs|UserJavaScriptonHTTPS“. Just check/enable that option. Make sure to click save!
Lastly, save the “Twitter-Rounded” script to your UserJS folder that you setup in the steps above.
Now you have a more pleasant looking Twitter page in Opera 10.5. 
After coming across this nifty little Twitter Badge at Techie-Buzz while reading a Google Chrome OS article, I realized how cool their little Twitter link was and I instantly new it was going to be on kyleabaker.com as well. 
After a quick look at the source code of the page, I had decided to build a quick plugin for WordPress to insert the same code. So the plugin process began.
I didn’t want to hard code it into the footer of my K2 theme, because I frequently update to the latest K2 theme nightly builds. This way would save me a lot of trouble and even make this neat little Twitter Badge available to thousands. And so…WP-TwitterBadge was born.
I traced the code back to an embeded script from go2web20.net and realized how n00b friendly this script would have been to install anyway even without an easier plugin to install it for you, but the fact that it would save me time in the future was well worth it.
Basically, if you’re not using the WordPress plugin, you just link the script and set a few variables. This made it very easy to make it customizable as well!
Just mimicking their own setup page, I was able to make a quick Options page featuring a live preview (as all of my plugins have so far ). I even coded the preview with way less script than they used on their own page since extreme error checking is really not needed (everything is live so you can see the problems there).
At a rate of 20-30+ new downloads per hour I would say that this plugin is by far my most favored project…considering that it hasn’t been reviewed yet (no trackbacks thus far) by anyone whereas others already have.
If you’d like to checkout this little Twitter Badge on your own site, just head over to the plugin page or search for “WP-TwitterBadge” from your “Add New Plugins” page in WordPress and install it from there. If you like it, pass it on!
I just finished (or reached the publishing or pushing live step) the update to the NC State ACM/AITP website.
The improvements over the previous design are pretty drastic when it comes to user interface and ease of use.
I ended up going with a K2 theme for Drupal since I’m such a big fan, but it just didn’t seem right for the site at first. I ended up going through and modifying a great deal of a barely and poorly done version that I came across online so I had to finish up most of it myself, but that just allowed for making it suit my (read ‘our’…for the club) needs.
After working with the html and tweaking it hardcore until I got it clean so it passes HTML Validation inspection it was time to tweak the CSS.
This became a breeze with Opera’s Dragonfly developer tools. I was able to select an element and tweak the style sheet live so I could see real-time results. After making an adjustment it’s as simple as updating the actual stylesheet.
After tweaking the style almost obsessively for hours the first day I decided it was time for a break. It wasn’t long before I got back into the groove the next day and finished it up (for the time being).
I really have to say that I am in love with Dragonfly now. I’ve used Firebug in the past and to be honest I’ve never been a Firefox fanboy…it’s a good browser, but it’s not pushing standards support at the rate that I want and Opera is just better at a lot of the things that I use and need from a browser… anyways, I got used to Firebug a while back and Dragonfly vs. Firebug isn’t a fair competition because the both are still very different, but I find Dragonfly being easier to use ever second compared to Firebug.
After getting the code working it was time to push the update. As a result, the NC State ACM/AITP club now has a much friendlier outlet on the web!
Now I have the pleasure of tackling any smaller issues such as stylesheet problems. Updating the content will now be much less of a pain now that it can be updated directly from the browser for most everything.
I’ve just uploaded an update to my WP-UserAgent plugin that improves a great deal on the settings page in the administration panel.
This update also has several backward compatibility fixes. Just looking forward and trying to make sure everything works fine in other versions of WordPress since not everyone uses the latest version.
You can find a list of changes to version 0.5.3.3 and the download on the same page.
I’ve also updated the download page to reflect the browsers and operating systems that are currently detected.
If you know of one that is missing and would like to see it added then feel free to let me know in the comments on the download page. If you can post a user agent string sample as well then that would be great, but if not then it’s not necessary.
If you are using a browser and/or operating system that is not listed then please just post a comment letting me know what browser and/or operating system you are using. I should be able to do the rest. Thanks!
I’ve spent some time today improving my Google Translator widget for Opera. You can find the changelog here, but I’ve uploaded a screenshot of the tab changes that I made.
Basically, I just made it follow the layout of the Google Chrome browser a little more closely. In version 2.3 I was going for more of a Gmail design with the folder style, but it was difficult to work with since I had to make it hide a little to make more room. This change will actually help me with my next big feat…making the widget resizable.
Here is the screenshot comparing v2.3 to v2.4pre1:
I’ve had a lot of good feedback on this widget with over 114,000 downloads (currently at 114,174). The one feature request that continually comes up is for a resizable version.
Unfortunately it’s not as easy as one might think so it’s taken some time to change my code. It’s been completely rewritten for a third time now as each time it becomes more and more optimized and fluid.
I’m hoping to satisfy everyone with v2.5 which should be the first resizable build so stay tuned.
Today I came across an interesting web site with the goal of keeping people notified when their web browsers are out dated. It’s called Pushup.
It’s a simple project and it’s something that you install on your website so you yourself can make a difference online.
In short, Pushup is a simple javascript file (images and css included) that detects the browser bring used when you visit a web site using it. After detecting the browser and browser version it does one of two things:
You can download a compressed file containing the javascript, images and css from the Pushup homepage. After that it’s as easy as adding these lines to the header of your web site:
<link rel=’stylesheet’ type=’text/css’ href=’css/pushup.css’ />
<script type=’text/javascript’ src=’js/pushup.js’></script>
Depending on your directory names you may need to slightly adjust those paths. Other than that it works immediately (clear your header cache if you’re serving cached files if you want to see it immediately).
I just finished writing a new widget that may be helpful to some of you Opera Desktop Team enthusiasts. It reloads the latest builds every 5 minutes by default, but can be configured to any interval.
The widget is very simple, and if you want to test it before it’s available from the Widget repository then you can grab it from my site here.
The current version as of making this post is v1.0, but I’m going to be releasing an update soon to notify you when a newer snapshot build is available and also show in the widget the current build that you are using so it’s easier to reference.
If you have any comments or suggestions please leave them on the widget page here. Enjoy!
I’ve been working on my Online Alarm clock that I start writing more than a year ago! Really, I’ve just been going back to try to finish more of the user interface and clean up more of the code.
The work that I’ve been doing to the user interface includes bringing the design into the years of Web 2.0 with cleaner, larger and simpler layouts.
Just take a look at the difference between the original log-in page (top) compared to the log-in page after I completed functionality and updated the styling to make it a little more Web 2.0 friendly!
It’s amazing to me how you can have a functional web application, but if you don’t make it look nice then it seems like it’s so much more difficult to navigate and use. User interfaces really help sell a product as well, so hopefully I can get this one setup nicely.
I had planned on uploading the source code to the Google Code page that I made for it, but I’m still waiting to work out some kinks.
Mainly, I’m waiting until I get the GUI finished a little more so I will know which MySQL fields are needed and should be installed by an installation script.
The script itself shouldn’t be too difficult, but I really need to map out the process before I start coding it so I can make the installation as simple as possible at the same time.
I’m thinking it will be as simple as uploading all of the files to your server and completing a setup form that just requires server credentials (of course) and an initial Admin username and password. That should be quick and easy and get everything ready to start using!
There is also the issue of completing the admin control panel. If I don’t complete it then the admin will have little control over the service unless they choose to edit everything via phpMyAdmin or something like that.
It shouldn’t be too long before I can bring this project to a version 0.1 level, haha. Then you’ll be able to download the source and do what you wish with it for free (hopefully submit bug reports and patches 
)!
It’s been a while since I’ve worked on the widgets that I submitted to Opera Widgets. So I spent the last few days in my spare time just working on one of my most popular widgets…Google Translator. For the longest time it was handy, but not very well designed and the layout was poor…just a quick solution.
If you do translations from time to time or even often then you may find my widget very useful! You can convert text to and from many different languages and even web pages. The translations are done using ajax in the widget to fetch results from Google’s Translate service.
This widget, which is currently only available through Opera and Opera Widgets, happens to be a very popular widget and downloads count some where near ~82,000 at the moment.
I just uploaded version 2.1 yesterday, but the Opera team has to inspect the widgets to make sure there are no problems or possibly fraudulent activities going on in the background (kind of annoying since they don’t go live immediately and end up taking days, but worth the security).
Anyways, v2.1 included several improvements over the previous 1.42 (a.k.a. 2.0). An update notification is now included, the tabs are redesigned to match Gmail’s design a little closer, jQuery effects are now tied into the widget to make it more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, options were moved from a sloppy and quick side panel to the footer of the widget and can be toggled on and off, a more menu was added to pack in several more features that didn’t fit anywhere else (similar to Gmail’s more menu), useless images that could be replaced with css have been removed and a stylesheet has taken the burden off of inline styling which was never intended to be permanent..but a quick way to get the layout fixed right.
There are actually many many more changes and if you want to see a list then you can take a look at the changelog here.
I actually went above and beyond v2.1 almost immediately after publishing it. After creating a stable version (2.1) it was time to push the widget further, so v2.2 has many more fixes and updates. Optimizations are in progress and going well to reduce wasted code and duplicate elements that are not needed. There is actually a “Beta” version of v2.2pre1 on my Google Translator site. You can go a head and check it out if you want and see some of the updates from 2.1. It should be stable enough to use, but it’s not finalized just yet.
Anyhoo, just wanted to update everyone who reads my blog! Hope you’re all using Opera or at least gave it an honest run. It’s a great browser, but sometimes you just can’t break away from the chains that tie you to another piece of software (most of us that would be Microsoft, lol).
Stay cool!