Web Log

All I wanted was an electric typewriter.

That was back in 2001. I was writing a lot lately and my old manual Underwood just wasn't cutting it anymore.

So I started naively asking around. "Hey... If you know anybody who wants to sell an electric typewriter, I'm in the market for one. Nothing too fancy. Just something that works."

Everybody just responded with a glassy eyed stare.

"What the heck do you want an electric typewriter for? Why don't you just get a computer?" they said.

"A computer? What's a computer?" I asked.

Okay so I didn't say that but I might as well have since back in those days I knew absolutely squat about computers. In fact if you asked me what RAM was I probably would have mumbled something about an uncastrated adult male sheep.

So I figured okay, a computer... What the hey?

So I started naively asking around. "Hey... If you know anybody who wants to sell a computer, I'm in the market for one."

"What kind of computer do you want?" they said.

They also said:

"Do you want an Apple or a PC?"
"What kind of CPU do you want?"
"How much hard drive space do you need?"
"How much memory?"
"SCSI or IDE? Or both?"

To which I responded with a glassy eyed stare. "A hard memory apple with a PCU scuzzi what now? HUH?!? I don't know! Whatever. I just want something that works."

I then realized I'd have to spend a considerable amount of time researching this whole computer thing before I could even buy one. Dang it. You know, all I really wanted was an electric typewriter.

Fortunately a friend of mine who had been into computing going back to '92 came to the rescue. He had a closet full of outdated computers that he had collected over the years of his personal struggle with upgrade-itis. He opened the closet and showed me a waist high stack of desktops, monitors, keyboards, mice, printers and whatnot almost all of which was in perfect working order.

"Robert", he said "You can have everything in this closet for FREE if you simply take it all off my hands. I have no need for these anymore but I can't bear to throw any of it out."

I took one look and I said, "Deal."

Several cab rides later, my own closet was now stacked waist high full of desktops, monitors, keyboards, mice, printers and whatnot almost all of which was in perfect working order.

After a bit of wrangling and a couple or three phone calls to verify which whatchamacallit plugged into which thingamajig, I managed to get an 8088 with a green monochrome screen up and running.

The next day I went to work.

"Hey guess what," I announced. "I got a computer."

"Oh yeah? What kind of computer do you have?"

"An 8088 with a green monochrome screen!" I beamed proudly.

(*uproarious laughter*)

Not really getting it, I continued. "It's got DOS 3.1 on it but I'm thinking of upgrading to DOS 3.3. I heard it's better."

(*more uproarious laughter*)

"But- But it's perfect for my needs," I stammered. "I'm running Word Perfect 5. It's really cool...!"

(*uncontrollable fits of hysteria*)

"...n-no more messing with Liquid Paper whenever I make a typo. Like... Y'know...?"

I shrugged thinking, Okay I'm not really getting this joke but whatever. The thing was, I was incredibly thrilled about typing stuff out in digital format. It was all so new and wonderful to me. Producing written material using a typewriter was often a humongous hassle. Sometimes a single typo on one page could ruin a dozen or more successive pages of perfectly typed material.

But I figured, okay, maybe they're right. Maybe my computer was a little old. So I dug into my closet full of newly acquired old computer parts, found a 286, mixed and matched it with a slightly bigger orange monochrome screen (which back then seemed to me like a big improvement) and fired it all up.

"Okay, now we're talking," I thought. "And this thing runs DOS 6.22! Cool!"

Back at work a few weeks later...

"So Rob... (*chuckle*)... how's your new (*cough*) 'computer' coming along? (*snicker*)"

"Oh really good!" I said. "I upgraded to a 286. I'm running DOS 6.2 now. And I've got a 33 MB hard drive!"

(*glassy eyed stares*)

"Uh Rob.. Listen.. You can't even get on the internet with that thing. Like... y'know?"

I thought... What the..? Now that I've got a computer, if I can't get on the internet, I'm not cool? Man.. When does it all end? Sheesh! All I wanted was an electric typewriter!

Alright, alright...! ...(*groan*).. So I started looking around for a computer that would be powerful enough to get on the internet. During my travels I ran into a 486 laptop with a 400 MB hard drive and 4MB of RAM. 50 bucks, cash on the barrel.

Wow! 400 Megs of hard drive space, I thought. Man, I'll never fill that up!

"I'll take it!" I said.

Back at work a little later...

"Hey guess what! Now I've got a 486 laptop with a 66MHz CPU, a 400 MB hard drive and 4MB of RAM! It's really cool! I'm running Windows 3.1! I'm looking to buy a modem so that I can get on the internet..."

(*glassy eyed stares followed by peels of laughter*)

Finally, my boss got wind of what I was doing lately and just couldn't bear to see me putzing around in the stone age of computers (even though I was perfectly happy). He told me his wife was upgrading to a new system and I could have her old Pentium I that had a 166 MHz CPU, a 2 GB hard drive, 16 MB of RAM and Windows 95 installed on it. State of the art.

In 1995, that is.

Okay so what that it was now 2001. Damn the torpedoes, I thought. "I'll take it", I said and rushed out to buy a 33.3K modem and then off to my local ISP to sign up for dialup internet access.

Alright, I thought, rubbing my hands with glee. In your face everybody! Now I have a Pentium I and I'm on the internet!

I have arrived!

Or so I thought...

Soon I started thinking, Hey why write a book when I can make a website? Let's see, I'll need an HTML editor and a graphics editor... Hmmm this Paint Shop Pro 9 looks really good. I think I'll try it out. 58 MB download, eh? Sheesh. That's gonna take forever on dialup access. Oh well, it'll be worth it.

Half a day of downloading later, I finally noticed the fine print:

Paint Shop Pro 9 - Minimum system requirements: 300 MHz processor or faster, Windows 98 or better, 256 MB of RAM, et cetera ad nauseam...

Dang it!!!

When does it all end?!?

AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!

Okay so I need a better computer... sheesh.. Hey I got it. Why don't I just take a big wad of cash and throw it at this my-computer-isn't-up-to-date problem and make it all go away once and for all? (Little did I know...)

So I went out and purchased a top of the line (at the time) AMD Duron 1200 with a 40 GB hard drive and 512 MB of memory. $550, cash on the barrel. Wow, I thought. Now my computer officially kicks freakin' butt. And I've got a 40 gigabyte hard drive. Sheesh! I'll never fill that up!

I have arrived!

Or so I thought...

Six years of rampant upgrade-itis later, I now had two closets stacked waist high full of old computer parts. One full of the really old computer parts my friend gave me back in 2001 and the other full of 'new' old computer parts that I had purchased, used a little bit and then eventually left by the wayside including but not exclusive to:

• Three CRT monitors (none of the major computer stores sell these anymore, it's all LCD now)
• One AMD Duron 1200 desktop (perfect working order but a complete dinosaur by today's standards)
• One Athlon 2800 desktop (perfect working order except for a noisy CPU fan)
• One External USB 56K FAX dialup modem (perfect working order but I had to abandon dialup and get broadband so I could load my friends' MySpace pages)
• Two printers (both in perfect working order but had to get a better one)
• A wide assortment of serial cables, parallel printer cables, power cables, 2 button mice, 3-button mice, memory sticks all in perfect working order.
• A brand new video card that I never actually used because I upgraded to a better computer that it wasn't compatible with before I got around to installing it. (I've now forgotten why I bought it in the first place).

And in all that time, the only computer part that ever actually broke down on me was the CPU fan on my Athlon 2800. A $15 fan. Actually it didn't really break down. It just got really noisy. Of course when that went on the fritz I couldn't find a replacement fan to save my life. Everywhere I went I got the same answers:

"Sorry. Out of stock."
"They don't make those anymore."
"What's that for? A 2800? Sheesh that's ancient.."

Ancient, I thought? I just bought this motherboard and CPU a year and a half ago! Top of the line! (*grrrrr*) Okay, to heck with it. I'll just buy a new motherboard and CPU and slap all my old computer parts onto it. (Little did I know...)

Back down at the local computer store:

"They don't make DDR1 memory anymore. You'll have to upgrade to DDR2."

AND...

"All the new motherboards are designed for SATA hard drives. Those old IDE hard drives are going out of style."

AND...

"Don't you want a dual-core processor? Everybody's got dual core now."

"Yeah but I'm just a webmaster," I said. "I don't need all those computing resources. My web hosts do all my heavy lifting. What the heck am I gonna do with a dual core processor and 300 gigs of hard drive space? Run the dashboard of the space shuttle? AAAARRRRGGGHHH! You know, all I really need to do is replace a $15 CPU fan on my Athlon 2800."

(*uproarious laughter*)

"A 2800?!? Sheesh... That's ancient. You should get a better computer. Besides they don't make that CPU fan anymore."

As an afterthought, I asked, "Hey, you don't by any chance sell electric typewriters, do you?"

(*more uproarious laughter*)

With a strange feeling of deja vu, I thought, "Okay. I've got a great idea. I'll just take a big wad of cash and throw it at this my-computer-isn't-up-to-date problem and make it all go away once and for all."

Soooo... $700 later, I now have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual Core processor with a whopping 2 gigabytes of RAM and a ginamagantic 320 gigabytes of hard drive space. Now with this computer, I can load every program I can think of all at the same time and have them all merrily popping and fizzing away and still be using less than 1 GB of RAM. And I've barely made a dent into the 320 GB of hard drive space. This is officially way, way, way more computing resources than I could ever possibly hope to put to good use.

Seriously now.

So to the computing world, I say shaddupa your face already with this upgrade business. I'm there. I've finally arrived. Go away now and leave me alone.

Okay?

Well, at least for six months anyway.

Please?

You know, all I really wanted was an electric typewriter...

Epilogue

So about a year ago, I started thinking, hmmm, I've always been into video games... Ever since I was little. I think I'll start a website about video games. Of course, first I'll have to get up-to-date on the latest and best video games out there. Hey this sci-fi first person shooter Crysis looks like a good place to start.

Hmmm... I wonder what the system requirements are?

(*checking Crysis system requirements*)

....

..

.....

Damn it.

Aftermath

I'm pleased to announce that after purchasing a whole new computer (ATHLON X2 DUAL CORE 5600+, 2GB RAM, 9600 GT video card) to serve my new video game needs, I haven't bought a single computer part for almost a year...

No wait, that's not exactly true.

Last September I had to upgrade my video card to a 9800 GT so that I could record gameplay videos of Far Cry 2 for my Youtube page. Oh yeah and I also bought 2 more gigs of RAM.

But that's it.

Oh wait, yeah okay, I bought a microphone a couple of months ago so I could add narration to my Youtube videos.

But that's it.

I haven't bought a single computer part in over 7 weeks.

....

Actually I'm thinking of getting a better microphone...

Shameless Plug Dept.

By the way, my website about new & classic PC Games is now in effect!

(*ahem*)...

Have you ever wrestled interminably with a Wordpress blog post trying to get it formatted exactly the way you want it?

And it just won't bleepin' behave?

Heh heh, I feel your pain.

I know HTML like the back of my hand. I know exactly how I want my blog post to be formatted. So I enter the appropriate code using the code tab on the rich text editor (a.k.a., WYSIWYG editor). Click 'Save' and view my post.

And what happens?

Yeah you know it...

The formatting gets all messed up. Wordpress decides it's going to do things ITS way and:

• Remove your <br> tags.
• Mysteriously add empty paragraphs, e.g., <p></p>
• Parse all your character entities or just disappear them into some kind of virtual black hole —thereby making it impossible to post example codes.

...and generally get you so riled up trying to have things your way and not getting it that you're ready to toss your computer off a cliff. (And then climb down the cliff with a sledgehammer and beat the wreckage to a pulp.)

Now there are a couple or three good Wordpress plugins out there that will solve all this —TextControl being one of them.

However —and with all due respect to these authors— I found some of these plugins to be a little heavy-handed for my tastes. I don't need a whole gaggle of options. I know exactly what I want to do (get Wordpress to post my HTML exactly how I coded it) and, moreover, I want solutions that are easy to understand.

Then whenever Wordpress pumps out yet another security fix, reimplementing my tweaks will be a simple matter and will not be dependent on any plugin authors making sure all 4 bazillion lines of code in their PHP plugin files are compatible with the latest version of Wordpress.

So, after Googling extensively and searching far and wide through the Wordpress forums, here is what I came up with to put a clean and simple leash on Wordpress and make it do the following:

1. Stop parsing my example codes.
2. Stop fancifying my plain quotes and double quotes into those damnable fancy curly quotes.
   
   And above all...
3. Stop pooping all over my raw HTML code, sweeping it aside and then formatting everything into its tunnel vision idea of paragraphing and creating line breaks.

In other words, display my blog post using the exact HTML I entered on the 'Write Post' screen.

1. First of all, I disabled the WYSIWYG editor. To do this, you have to go to Users >> Your Profile and simply clear the checkbox beside "Use the visual editor when writing". Then click on 'Update Profile' to apply the changes.
   
   Done and done.
   
   Next...
2. I installed Jason Litka's Disable Texturizer plugin. This will prevent Wordpress from fancifying a lot of your input like turning plain double quotes "..." into curly double quotes “...” and the like. This great little plugin is only 3 lines of code. All it does is disable the wptexturize filter for your posts, excerpts and comments. Very simple, very clean. Easy to install.
   
   And finally..
3. I hacked into the Wordpress formatting.php file just a wee bit. To do this, go to the wp-includes subfolder in the folder where your Wordpress blog is installed, open the formatting.php file in a plain text editor and do a search for "function wpautop" which will bring you to this line of code:
   
   function wpautop($pee, $br = 1) {
   
   Directly after that type in (or copy and paste) these two lines of code:
   
      // Disable WP auto-paragraphing on call
   if ( preg_match('/<!--PLAIN_TEXT-->/', $pee) ) return $pee;
   
   The rest of the wpautop function should remain as is.
   
   Example:
   
   function wpautop($pee, $br = 1) {

   // Disable WP auto-paragraphing on call
   if ( preg_match('/<!--PLAIN_TEXT-->/', $pee) ) return $pee;

   $pee = $pee . "\n"; // just to make things a little easier, pad the end
   $pee = preg_replace('<br />\s*<br />|', "\n\n", $pee);
   // Space things out a little

   The rest of the code follows...
   
   Save the file and you're done.
   
   Now, whenever you want to have Wordpress treat your blog post as plain text and parse your HTML exactly how you coded it, all you have to do is begin your blog post with this HTML comment line (no spaces and don't forget the underscore ( _ ) between PLAIN and TEXT:
   
   <!--PLAIN_TEXT-->
   
   And boom. Bob's yer uncle. No more wrestling with Wordpress trying to get it to behave.

So why not just disable the Wordpress auto-paragraphing filter (wpautop) altogether and be done with it? Well this would be great if you're just starting your blog. But if you're like me and you already have a number of blog posts that you wrestled long into the night to get just right, you're probably going to want to leave those just as they are and just disable the auto-paragraphing for any future posts.

And whenever you want, that is.

There may be times when you're feeling lazy or you just don't give a rat's arse what Wordpress does or maybe you want auto-paragraphing for a particular post (e.g., you share your blog with your cat who doesn't know much HTML). Who knows? The point is you're free to implement the plain text version at will.

And that's it.

So what do those two lines of code do?

Well, the first line is just a PHP comment line. You don't even need it. Actually, when it comes right down to it, you only need to add the second line of code which uses a regular expression to search for any instance of <!--PLAIN_TEXT--> in your post. If it finds one, it immediately returns the $pee variable (your post content) which aborts running any of the following lines in the wpautop function which, in effect, bypasses the auto-paragraphing filter.

All said and done, the three steps outlined above will create a web developer's version of Wordpress as opposed to (how to put this delicately...?) the default Internet for Dummies version of Wordpress.

I actually wrote up a plugin to automatically install step #3 but then I backed off and thought—

"What the heck am I doing?!?"

"It's only two lines of code!"

"It would take longer to install the plugin then it would take to insert the two lines of code into the formatting.php file!"

So I scrapped that idea. I figured if people are at the stage where they don't like the way Wordpress autoformats their posts then they're up for a bit of two-minute code hacking.

Alright, in case you haven't already noticed uses of plain quotes, character entities and free HTML formatting in this Wordpress blog post, here's a demo just for posterity:

"plain double quotes"

'plain single quotes'

Example HTML code:

<img src="http://www.example.com/example-pic.jpg">

Formatted example HTML code:

<img src="http://www.example.com/example-pic.jpg">

Text smiley?

:o)

Oooo... How sweet it is!

Alrighty then... MySpace blindsided us with another modification to one of the external stylesheets which controls the display of MySpace profiles. The line of code they added ended up turning the background color on a number of my layouts an offwhite color.

There are two ways to fix this...

1) MANUALLY EDIT THE LAYOUT CODE

Go to the 'About Me' box on your 'Edit Profile' screen and locate the following code near the beginning of my layout code which looks like this:

body {background-color: ...

Change this to the following:

body.bodyContent {background-color: ...

Essentially you'll just be typing in ".bodyContent" (without the double quotes) directly right after "body" and that's it. Click on the "Save All Changes" button and your profile will display normally again.

Let me know if you have any issues with this fix or if you mess things up trying to apply it and I'll come give you a hand.

OR...

2) REINSTALL THE LAYOUT CODE

All the layouts here at Iron Spider have been updated with this fix so an alternative would be to simply reinstall your layout code fresh from the page you got it from.

This modification affects the following layouts in particular:

Plain MySpace Layouts
Professional MySpace Layouts
Chromatic Table Layouts
2 Color MySpace Layouts

Okay that's it, friends... Have a good one!

~ Rob