There’s something amazing about how Internet Explorer can drive you crazy, it’s real genius here.

Anyway, I was reported a crash of IE8 with a SysFader exception. There’s some documentation about how to fix that as a web visitor, but not so much as a web designer. The only one I found was even missleading.

Simply put, IE crashed because I tried to compensate for … an IE weakness! IE6 can’t handle png transparency, so I use IE PNG FIX, but that would cause IE8 to crash.

IE PNG requires you to add something in your css that looks like that:

body, img, div { behavior: url(../images/iepngfix/iepngfix.htc) }

The fix was easy: just use a CSS hack to target IE6 and below only, with an underscore before “behavior”.

body, img, div { _behavior: url(../images/iepngfix/iepngfix.htc) }

And that was it. IE8 doesn’t crash anymore, and IE6 gets png transparency.

Here’s a little script I wrote to dump a production database on Heroku and load it locally, which can come in handy if you encounter a bug.

I have this on my Dropbox in a “dump_load.sh” file.

Since I’m extremely lazy, I also have two aliases in my .bash_profile:

alias start_cache="memcached -m 500 -l 127.0.0.1 -p 11211 -vv"
alias hdl="sh ~/Dropbox/heroku/dump_load.sh"

• aim for the kill: right clic on the dock icon. If it shows "Quit" instead of "Force Quit", press the Alt key and it should toggle to "Force Quit" 
• the worm in the Apple: clic on the Apple icon (top left of your screen), select "Force Quit", pick your app and press the "Force Quit" button 
• the Windows way: press "cmd + alt + esc" keys altogether, and it should prompt the "Force Quit" men

And as the little green guy would say, "May the Force Quit with you".

Until everything is in the cloud and you don’t have to take care about this anymore, getting a new computer often means that you need to move your iTunes library manually.

There are a couple tools online, most of the time they’re not as free as they claim, and really it will take you more time to learn how to use these tools than to read the official Apple way of doing it.

So the only thing you need to know really, is go to the Apple Support page and follow the steps.

Now there’s one point where you might get stuck at if you’re using Windows 7, which is step 4 of the “Restoring your iTunes Library backup” section, where they tell you to “Open iTunes while holding down the Option key (Mac) or Shift key (Windows).”

Unfortunately, this won’t work under Windows 7. What you really need to do is:

• locate your iTunes.exe file, which should be in something like C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\
• hold shift key
• right clic
• select Open

You should then get the “Choose iTunes Library” popup and be back on track.

Sources:

• http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751
• http://www.fr3d.org/2010/09/itunes-shift-click-update-restore-not-working/

Here's a simple, free, and quick way to combine single images into a unique pdf if you have Mac OSX with Automator (it's a pre-installed app, so you don't have to download any app).

There's a couple "classic" ways to do it, but most of the time you'll get a poor result if you have images with different sizes.

To get started, download this workflow:

Click here to download:

Images2Pdf.workflow.zip (49 KB)

Then, here's what you have to do:

• open the workflow file (it should load Automator automatically) 
• go where your images are stored, and select those you want to group 
• go to the Automator window 
• (optional) change the destination (default is Desktop) and change "PDF NAME" to whatever you want to name your pdf in the "New PDF from Images" box 
• press "Run" (top right corner) 

And you're done!

This is just a compilation of all things you should know to enjoy fully your Posterous experience.

The Art of Formatting

Start by surrounding your text with markdown tags. Anything outside will be ignored when rendered by the Posterous engine.

Note: some things are redundant and voluntarily ignored.

• Line break: two spaces at the end of the line
• Paragraph: one or more blank lines as separation
• Page break: add a line with #more before the break
• Ignore content after: add a line with #!end before what will be ignored
• Italic/Emphasis: surround with * or _
• Bold/Strong: surround with ** or __
• Unordered lists: start each line with * or – or +
• Ordered lists: start each line with a number
• Headings: start the line with #, or more to have sub levels (### is a level 3 heading)
• Blockquotes: start each line with >
• Simple link or mail: just put the link
• Link with text:

• Horizontal rule: ***
• Syntax highlighting: start with 4 spaces or 2 tabs (but 1 tab seems ok in fact) – put the language name above to get the proper rendering (with #!language_name)

The Art of Embedding (any stuff really)

By joining files

• Insert images and videos in your mail
• Max size: 100MB
• Image gallery: post a zip file of the images

By adding simple links

For those services, just put a line with the URL of the page that holds the media (it will find the content for you and/or download to your blog)

• Any online image: paste the ulr and it will be downloaded to your blog so you don’t screw someone else’s bandwith
• Flickr photo: just paste the url of the photo
• Flickr gallery: just paste the url of the gallery
• Youtube/Vimeo: juste pas the url of the video
• Google Maps can be embedded too
• Slideshare, SoundCloud and more here: http://help.posterous.com/what-content-can-i-embed-into-my-posts

The Art of Sending

Who to send your mail to

For primary site, send to :

• post@posterous.com: sends to posterous and any attached autopost destinations
• posterous@posterous.com: posterous only
• private@posterous.com: posterous only, private url sent back to you
• draft@posterous.com: just a draft, you’ve got to publish from the web interface

Or in any case, send to :

• post@yoursite.posterous.com: sends to posterous and any attached autopost destinations
• posterous@yoursite.posterous.com: posterous only
• private@yoursite.posterous.com: posterous only, private url sent back to you
• draft@yoursite.posterous.com: just a draft, you’ve got to publish from the web interface

What to put in the subject

• (mandatory) email subject will become post title
• (optional) add tags with: ((tag: mylife, gadgets))
• (optional) delay or publish at specific date: ((delay: in 3 hours)) , ((delay: in 1337 minutes)) , ((publish: on 3/12/2011)) , ((publish: on March 12, 2011 at 7pm))
• (optional) put ((nogallery)) in the subject line and your images will appear without the gallery view

Ex of title with all options: Awesome Panda Title ((tag: kungfu)) ((delay: in 3 hours)) ((nogallery))

How to reply to comments

Just reply to the mail you’ll receive with the comment

The Art of … not asking too much from Posterous

• Right you can’t have more than one markdown block
• Mixing markdown and embedded images in an email failed for me so far, so I go either for flickr links when it’s a complicated post, and use image embedding for simple ones only
• If you need to edit a post sent by email, it’s sometimes easier to just copy/past from your email client as text after the markdown close tag will not be formatted

Sources and other links

• http://posterous.com/help/markdown
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
• http://blog.posterous.com/mini-feature-auto-embed-flickr-sets-and-tags
• http://blog.posterous.com/write-it-now-and-post-it-later-drafts-now-on
• http://blog.posterous.com/posterous-works-awesome-with-google-maps
• http://posterous.weedo.fr/21763124

Other links worth reading:

• http://posterous.com/help/bookmarklet/
• http://blog.posterous.com/send-to-posterous-directly-from-google-reader
• http://blog.posterous.com/add-beautiful-fonts-to-your-site-with-typekit
• http://blog.posterous.com/posterous-unveils-pages
• http://posterous.com/help/custom_domain#fb_comments
• And in general: http://blog.posterous.com/?tag=newfeatures

When you’ve stopped blogging for a long time, or when you start, you kind of have to write some introductory speech.
Otherwise you’re that unknown guy that jumps right into a conversation as if he’d been there forever.

Mac is the new Break. Have a Mac, have a Kit-Kat

Even after years of Sci-Fi, we’re still not used to things magically popping up ex nihilo and living their own life as if they’d been there for a long time. We were taught that consequences can’t be without causes, and we get crazy and invent all sorts of things if we can’t put our finger on it. So really, a first post is just a way to control small gods proliferation.

I actually found a few good reasons to start blogging again:

• solutions/tips: some blogs saved me hours, in just a couple lines sometimes, and I’d like to help back. Those articles are made to be googled though, as unless you’re some personal development guru, it’s unlikely any regular reader have the same problem and care about it.
• life bits: friends and stalkers will enjoy it. Everybody’s a photograph nowadays, why couldn’t I spread the content of my memory cards on your screens too ?
• niche articles: some people actually care about the same things I do, and talking about it feels like a good way to find them
• self satisfaction: look mum, I wrote something that has more than 140 characters!

So, I’m back to blogging! Until I stop again that is.

Just for fun, more reading about first posts on google and twitter:

• http://www.google.com/search?q=I+decided+to+start+a+blog
• http://twitter.com/search/first%20twitt
• http://www.google.com/search?q=start+blogging+again

Photo © annacaroline23