Thoughts and Ramblings

General things I find of interest.

Google's Analytics Mistake

So, as I said earlier, I have started using Google Analytics. Google now suggests some new code to use in running the analytics. The problem: it’s broken! Here’s their code: <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? " https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write("\<script src='" + gaJsHost + " google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'>\<\/script>" ); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); </script> Now for what is broken: There is a space between the " and google-analytics.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Sapphire Plugin

Well, it’s official. Sapphire, one of the best AppleTV plugins, has released beta 4. This is a major upgrade from beta 3, adding support for movies and improvements overall. One of the most interesting features is that this version also works as a frontrow plugin in Leopard. As far as I have been able to find out, this is the first plugin to do this, which means it could open up a whole new world for frontrow.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Monday, December 3, 2007

Custom RSS Feeds

So, lets break down the problem. I use RSS feeds a lot to read the news. For the uninitiated, RSS feeds (which stands for Really Simple Syndication), are a nice way to aggregate multiple sources and see changes from said sources in a convenient manner. Basically, I can see the headlines from many locations in one place and read the articles I want. Sounds good, right? It would be, but most sites have only a single sentence description for the “article” which means you have to load the full site to realize that, more often than not, the article isn’t something you wanted to read, or so horribly written you wish you hadn’t read it.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Sunday, September 30, 2007

Ripping DVDs to play on the AppleTV

First, I should start off with the prerequisites for the AppleTV itself. I have hacked my ATV and installed Perian. I also have installed Sapphire to play back the content. And lastly, I have installed the USB kernel extensions to allow use of an external hard drive, but this piece is not a necessity. The second piece I used is Handbrake to actually rip the DVDs. Most people try to make the choice between AVI or MP4 file formats.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Sunday, August 26, 2007

New Hardware

It has been a while since I updated this. I promise a followup to my previous post about open source attitudes is coming up. I realized from the comments that a few of my statements didn’t come across exactly as I had intended them. Well, with the Perian donations, Chris and I went to buy some AV equipment. This enables us to test out Perian in other situations than we had originally intended.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Monday, August 6, 2007