Some of you (especially the Vistered Little users) may be wondering what I've been up to lately. Well the good news is I've been really busy, which is why there haven't been many updates lately.

Busy with what? Well, here we go:

  • Vistered Little

    I've been spending a lot of time working on Vistered Little 1.7.0. I've added a couple of small bug fixes and I'm almost finished the following features:

    • Fixed Links at bottom of page (previously seen as an empty box)
    • Added monthly links to Archives panel. Thanks go to ChrisCJD for providing this one.
    • Added support for 'Bunny's Technorati Tags' plugin. Thanks go the Scott-O-Rama for providing this one.
    • Added support for 'Sociable' plugin. Thanks go the Scott-O-Rama for providing this one.
    • Added an optional banner at the top of the page, like the one I'm using for Adsense.
    • Added wide option for the default skin. Thanks go to ChrisCJD for inspiring this one.
    • Merged the various default skins into a configurable default skin and upgraded the Theme Toolkit to support configurable skins.
    • Created a Skin selector and editor similar the the Theme selector and editor (I hope to turn this into a plugin).
    • Added option to display a image frame around the wallpaper thumbnails.
    • Added option to display wallpapers on the bottom-left and not tiled. Place the wallpapers to be displayed this way in wallpapers/bottom-left.
    • New wallpapers. The old ones can be found in wallpapers/extra_wallpapers
    • Added option to remove the search box from the header.
    • Added option to remove the search box from the header.
    • Added option for random wallpapers.
    • Added option for displaying a logo instead of the blog title. Logos will be selected randomly from the directory specified. Thanks go to Scott-O-Rama for inspiring this one.
    • Added option to position thumbnails to the left or right in the header in the sidebar (widget compatible) or not at all.
    • Added option to have the header fixed to the top of the page. This is similar to how the background is fixed, however the header stays on top.
    • The Archives/Post Info menu item is now a widget, so you choose not to show it if you are using the 'Sidebar Widgets' plugin.
    • Fixed links to new/old posts in Post information box.
    • Added support for the 'Print this Post' plugin. Thanks go to ChrisCJD for providing this one.

  • Google Search Plugin

    I've been tinkering away to create a plugin for the integrated Google search results that you'll see at the bottom of the page. Basically you specify a custom field called 'web_search' with your search term and the plugin will pretty much do the rest.

  • OpenID and openWallet

    Some of you may have noticed the stale openWalletproject I've been working on. Well due to OpenID's recent advances I've been doing a bit more research for openWallet and hope to start working on it again soon.

  • Reading

    A friend lent me 'A Spectator’s Guide to World Religions', which I enjoyed very much. I then stumbled upon 'The God Delusion', which I found even more interesting. Needless to say, both of these books consumed valuable code time.

  • JAHA and Event Driven AJAX/Comet

    I've also been doing some work on JAHA and I've almost finished a javascript library that will allow you to dynamically create hidden applets using javascript.

    I've also discovered that the demonstration that uses JAHA for doesn't work when you are behind a proxy :( . More work fiddling with that one.

    I've also been working on a demo that uses TIBCO Rendezvous to communicate with the server, rather than http.

  • New Domain Name

    Out of a whim, I've decided to get a new domain name. howardfamily.id.au is great for my family tree and other family related stuff, but it's kind of a lame name for a technology site. Given that all the technology related names I could think of where already taken, I've picked a name that has nothing to do with tech, but a lot to do with my journey along the path of technology. Say hello to Windy Road

Well, as you can see I've been a busy boy and I hope to actually finish some of these tasks off soon. In the meantime, don't hesitate to let me know if you have any feature requests.

Cheers,

–
Tom

Update: 06.Mar.2007

Just a quick update to let you know that vistered little 1.7.0 should be available in the next couple of weeks.