Minnebar to the Stone Arch .5k

On Saturday, I ran down to Best Buy Corporate HQ to present a session on ‘Do Not Track’ and one on Font Pairings at Minnebar 6

Then after grabbing a quick slice of pizza, I caught the first annual Stone Arch .5k race.

Yes – .5k. From the north end of the Stone Arch bridge to the front door of the Aster cafe.

Both events were not to be missed – and I’m glad I was able to make both. I spent the whole day smiling and laughing harder and longer than I have in quite some time.

For the goofy enthusiasm and community-building nature of both are why I love Minneapolis so much.

Additionally – I didn’t even need to change my clothes in-between.

Here’s me attempting to make font pairings interesting:

Here’s me attempting to make the .5k interesting:

WordPress + Thickbox Requires Markup

I’ve been fighting with getting the contents of a WordPress page to display within Thickbox.

The great thing about WordPress, is that wiring this up is super straight forward.

  1. Tell WordPress you want to use thickbox in your theme by adding it to the functions.php file
    function init_theme_method() {
    add_thickbox();
    }
    add_action('init', 'init_theme_method');
  2. Update the paths to the thickbox images (cause WordPress can still get confused about something sometimes)
    <script type="text/javascript">
    if ( typeof tb_pathToImage != 'string' )
    {
    var tb_pathToImage = "< ?php echo get_bloginfo('url').'/wp-includes/js/thickbox'; ?>/loadingAnimation.gif";
    }
    if ( typeof tb_closeImage != 'string' )
    {
    var tb_closeImage = "< ?php echo get_bloginfo('url').'/wp-includes/js/thickbox'; ?>/tb-close.png";
    }
    </script>

The I spun up a get_post_content function:
function get_post_content($post_id) {
global $wpdb;
$data = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE ID=$post_id");
return $data[0]->post_content;
}

and added it as a hidden div in my footer.php
<div id="about" style="display:none;">
<?php echo get_post_content($id); } ?>
</div>

and created a link to launch the thickbox <a href="#TB_Inline?inlineId=about" class="thickbox"</a>

But it was blank.

Empty.

Nothing in the box.

Turns out thickbox requires some markup – any markup – within the requested inlineId.

<div id="about" style="display:none;">
<p><?php echo get_post_content($id); } ?></p>
</div>

In Praise of Hopville’s Beer Calculus

Tonight, I loaded my beer recipes into Hopville’s Beer Calculus (thanks to Mr. Hadden for the tip).

Yes, they’re all off style. Some by a little, and some so off – they’re on (the Maibock passed BJCP guidelines for American Barleywine).

In all honesty – this round of brewing wasn’t about hitting a style, it was about the confidence of building a recipe. And, turns out, becoming fixated on making the recipe better.

There’s a lesson in here about being ready for new tools & insights. The first time I read Hitchhikers – it was complete jibberish. Three months ago, Beer Calculus would have been as well.

Where I really see Hopville’s Beer Calculus excelling is in setting up the bounds for a style and helping me find my target within there.

Easily, the best homebrew resource yet.

With Basic Brewing Radio & The Mad Fermentationist coming in a close second.

I just had a long, difficult conversation with the Out Like a Lion. We both agree that things have to change, no one’s at fault, and we’ll both try harder next time.

Tracking Flash Movie Plays with Google Analytics

If you’re looking for a quick way to track when Flash movies (or anything else in <object> <embed> tags) are played – this works for me:

Quick overview: create a new div with an onClick action and put the Flash movie inside it.

Then in the movie’s <object> tag – add <param name="wmode" value="transparent" /> and in the <embed> tag add this attribute wmode="transparent"

The wmode declarations allow the click in the Flash movie to pass through to the enclosing div and trigger the onClick.

Like this:
<div onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'MovieName', 'PageName']);">
<object...>
<param name="movie" value="http://path.to.swf" />
...
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
<embed wmode="transparent" ..." />
</object>
</div>