Ali Hassan

Here’s a widget for adding a list of books/albums/movies/whatever from AllConsuming to your WordPress sidebar. Set up should be simple, just upload the widget_allconsuming.php file to your plugins directory and activate it. The widget only has a few options:

Title

Self explanatory, I think.

Username

Your username. Obviously you need to have an account at AllConsuming for the widget to work.

Number of items

The number of items that you’d like to have in the list

Tags

You can show items with only certain tags if you wish. Enter as many tags as you like, separated by commas. If you want to show everything enter all

Suppress header

Turns on/off the the “I am consuming …” header.

Completed items

If this box is checked the widget will display items that you have finished consuming. Note that for this to work you will need to enter the date that you completed the item in All Consuming. Kudos to Chris Merriman for figuring that out and to Tristan Havelick for incorporating it into the widget.

And that’s it.

UPDATE: I’ve altered the widget so that it is now a multi-widget so that you can create multiple different lists using tags. For example, one widget could display books, the other could display music.

UPDATE 2: Tristan Havelick has updated the widget so that it can now display completed items.

Download the widget here.

[ more … ]

This picture was taken in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee. There were lots more signs exactly like this all over the trail. Personally, I think it’s a sad day when people think “the great outdoors” needs to have warning labels affixed to it. I’m also irked by the appalling redundancy in the sign’s wording. Aren’t all cliffs, by definition, both hazardous and dangerous?

And in this sort of situation, if a person can’t determine for themselves that there is a hazard, shouldn’t we just let events run their course?

I’ve just finished reading Al Gore’s book on climate change, and I have to say that I was not particularly impressed. I hadn’t expected a great piece of literature, and I wasn’t wrong. But I’m not going to pick holes Gore’s turgid prose style (though I do wonder if the text was even looked at by an editor). My problem is with Gore’s representation of the scientific data on global warming. [ more … ]

This is a story about the single most frightening experience I have ever had.

It takes place in the summer of 1995-96 when I was working in a lab at University. One of my lab-mates, Doug, came up with the idea of trying a parachute jump. Doug had managed to organize a “great deal” on the jump ($140). Looking back, doing this on the cheap doesn’t seem so smart. But I’m always game for a challenge so I said “sure, why not”. [ more … ]

Using a cellular phone to connect to the internet is a great way to get online when other options aren’t available. It’s not a fast connection, and not especially economical, but it’s enough to check your e-mail and it’s better than paying through the nose for an hour of WiFi. Though many cellular networks include data access in their service plans most do not publicize it widely, and there is little in the way of instructions for getting it set up.

[ more … ]