Just a Memo

After 12-hours or so of usage and debugging my MT templates to properly integrate with coComment, I finally got somewhere to say the least. If you need to catchup to what this is all about, you may read my previous article on what coComment can do.

Anyways, I finally got around fixing my Individual Entry Archive template. I did the following:

• I formatted the TITLE-tag as stated in coComment’s Support section,
• fixed my old MT2.661 JS comment-related code to use the mt-site.js provided on MT3.2,
• and edited my CSS to reflect the change I have done with respect to the mt-site.js

Thing is, now I’ll have to fix the cookie part. It should be simple. I think I just need to change the comment form’s variable to match that of mt-site.js. Then, match those changes in my CSS.

One other issue I found through this little experiment was that coComment looks for the default markup in terms of the submit button. That is,

<input type="submit" accesskey="s" name="post" id="comment-post" value="Post" />

So keep that in mind for those of you who just cut-and-pasted your MT2.661 code during your upgrade to MT3.2. It’s just too bad that we can’t use our custom image-buttons. So @Steph, if you are reading, could you please address this as well with the team =)

Also, placement of the coComment JS code in the header is tricky and strict. I was trying to figure out why the heck it wasn’t working when I went on to try JS placement. I ended with the following:

...
<script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTBlogURL$>js/general.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTBlogURL$>js/mt-site.js"></script>
<MTIfCommentsAccepted>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
window.onload = function() {
individualArchivesOnLoad(commenter_name);
}

// coComment entry-specific variables
var postURL = "<$MTEntryPermalink$>";
var postTitle = "<$MTEntryTitle smarty_pants="1"$>";
//-->
</script>
</MTIfCommentsAccepted>
</head>

Last but not least, how do we tag keywords with multiple words? I tried separating with commas, using double-quotes and plus-sign but to no avail. If you know, let me know. Help me, help you.

Other than that, coComment’s current version is rock solid of a tool for bloggers. Enjoy!

I was actually thinking of something like this. I was going to make it my first RoR project but that might just be to ambitious. Anyways, plain and simple,

coComment is the only service that allows you to enjoy the full potential of blog comments on the web. Before coComment, the blogosphere was not a global conversation, but tons of fragmented, hard to follow, and untrackable discussions.

Using coComment, you can now keep track of what you have been commenting on, display your comments on your blog, and see what is new in the discussions you are participating in (if other users are also on coComment).

One con (at the moment), is that “users can only track comments from blog posts that they have actually commented on, and only comments left by other cocomment users are shown^[1].” But this was a day or so ago. I have to check the new version out myself as I’ve just signed up a few moments ago.

Along with their news yesterday about version 0.4c being released, the team also mentioned the fact that there is now a Firefox extension for coComments. This addition, for sure, will make things a bit easier than having to use a bookmarlet on the user’s computer.

There might be one small gripe though. As I was taking a look at coComment’s Blog Integration section which lists which browsers and blog/CMS/site-platforms it supported, I read that Movable Type blogs must have the following format,

<title>blog name : article title</title> or
<title>blog name | article title</title>

Otherwise, the comment (in coComment) will show up as “(untitled)”.

So, seeing that, there might be an issue of having everyone involved have a standard way of templating their TITLE-tags. I, for one, see this as a big thing (so it ain’t “small” after all). If this is true, and hasn’t been addressed in it’s next iteration, coComment is pretty much forcing everyone to do “this and that.” Then again, we’ll see how this plays out with Microformats. So if you are listening/reading this oh-Lords-of-coComment, please do let us know. (Then again, I just signed up and haven’t gotten to play around with coComment that completely yet.)

All in all, the service is practical and very useful for those that like to read and interact with different blogs. It’s great for coComment to have gotten around and implemented something useful to the millions that are very involved with interblog-interactivity. In it’s current state of version 0.4c, I just can’t wait to see the other features it will have when it rolls out from “beta”. Pretty much, like all the other “Web 2.0″ application-sites. =)

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1. Michael Arrington, coComment visit to Silicon Valley [↩]

I just overheard someone saying this:

I get lazy when I don’t do anything.

Does that sound weird to you at all, or is it just me? I mean, aren’t you already lazy if you don’t do anything? The definition of “lazy”:

adj. la·z·er, la·zi·est

1. Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.
2. Slow-moving; sluggish: a lazy river.
3. Conducive to idleness or indolence: a lazy summer day.

Meanwhile, I also know that if you don’t do anything, you are relaxing, but that itself is weird too. I mean, “relaxing” is a verb.

Abbr. V or vb.
* The part of speech that expresses existence, action, or occurrence in most languages.

“Action” is the keyword. So I guess, if you are relaxing you ain’t really doing nothing or anything. Thus, my previous statement that “if you don’t do anything, you are relaxing” is somewhat wrong to an extent to what relaxing is define d as. Knowing this, it proves saying that

“[you] get lazy when [you] don’t do anything”

just doesn’t make sense–just plain pleonastic.

Bottom-line kids, don’t do drugs.

Well, I’ve been sick the past two weeks. I’ve been coughing and all that other nasty stuff that comes with it. This past weekend, I wasn’t even able to get out of the house. I pretty much stayed in my room and just coughed my lungs out. Oh what great fun it was?!

Anyways, given the fact that I picked the High-Value PPO for my medical when I came in to work at the Bay last April ‘05 (and the fact that I haven’t gotten sick till now), my primary physician is in LA. So, after calling Alameda Hospital for the past two days and emailing them to help me find a doctor that can do a check up on me, Dr. Mom (and sidekick, my aunt) bugged me and told me to just call in to our family doctor’s clinic.

Funny thing though, my mom called the clinic first to setup some kind of appointment with the admin personels to get the doctor free for a bit in order to talk to me. But thats not it yet, my mom told the admin lady that since I’m over here, he (the doctor) should just listen to me cough “over the phone” so he can prescribe me some medicine. Moms… moms…

Meanwhile, I got some prescription–believe it or not. The clinic then faxed the order over to the Rite-Aid across the street from work so I can easily just pick it up. After fifteen minutes or so, I finally got the drug for $85. Damn, I hate getting sick–you feel like crap and get robbed at the same time.

So, fast forward to about a couple of minutes ago… remembering what the pharmacist told me about the dosage of each prescription, I decided to just take everything at night before going to bed. Then, the moment of truth came. After taking out the stuff from the paper bag, I thought to myself: “this better be worth $85, and not get me sick for another year or so.” Taking one teaspoon of the cough syrup and a tablet of some allergy stuff (seems it’s a seasonal thing), I finally got to the last item; which was for Bronchitis (I guess).

Carefully trying to open the package, I saw the following:

The quantity on the receipt and brochure states that there should be 5 pills. One pill per day. But damn, WTF?!?! This ain’t 5.

Wowsers. Haven’t gone running for days; coughing my lungs out; had to pay $85 to get well; and now this. Damn. Ai Dios Mio!

That being that, I just have to write about it and share it. Just remember to check your prescriptions when you leave the pharmacy so you don’t run into things like this. I never thought it was possible for such an oversight from the pharmacist. They usually do double-checks/triple-checks so they give you the right stuff.

I’m going to try and wake up really early to go to the pharmacy and do something about this situation. Sucks ass. Damn. This is so messed up.

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Caren, Jenn and I left Friday, 3/31 around 2pm.ish from SF/Alameda. With rainy weather, Friday traffic, an avalanche, bathroom-breaks, multiple road closures and detours, etc… we finally manage to arrive at Mammoth Lakes Saturday, 4/1 around 6am. Being that we only had one day to board, I didn’t even sleep after taking the 13-hour-drive shift. Man… I was knocked out Saturday night. Good times.

Album link.