Step 1: Open up a text editor like TextEdit, BBEdit, TextMate, etc. Place the following CSS code in the document:

.tickerActivityStories {
	height: 0;
	display: none;
}

Step 2: Save the document as a text file and name it, fb_styles.css (you can name it anything you want, just make sure it has the ‘.css’ extension.)

Step 3: Open Safari and go to Preferences/Advanced. From the Style Sheet drop down menu select ‘Other…’ and choose the fb_styles.css file. Quit Safari and then reopen it.

That’s it. The ticker should vanish from the sidebar the when you are on Facebook.

Note: This only works in Apple’s Safari browser. If your browser supports custom style sheets, then these instructions may work for you. Additionally, browser plugins exist that can do the same thing.

• upgrading to MySQL 5 (my Mac had an ancient 4.0 version since I’ve fallen for SQLite and haven’t used MySQL in a long, long time.)
• installing MySQL Workbench since the DB tool I had been using wouldn’t work with MySQL 5.x.
• installing ColdFusion on Wheels.
• making changes to my bash_profile to set the correct $PATH since I mucked it up weeks ago configuring Ruby Version Manager (RVM.)
• updating RVM to 1.2.8 (this had nothing to do with getting ColdFusion running but while I’m at the command line, might as well fix it.)

All set. I can start coding!

Not so fast. BBEdit and TextMate, my text editors of choice, don’t recognize CFML (no syntax coloring, text completion, etc.) So I next,

• fail to locate a bundle or extension that makes either editor CFML-aware*.
• install Eclipse instead.
• configure CFEclipse.

Great. But then,

• Subversion isn’t behaving so off to subversion.apache.org to RTFM.
• While skimming the Subversion packages, I end up at Apple’s Developer Tools area and discover that Xcode 4 is available today.

Xcode 4 is downloading now and I’m off to write some CFML. At five o’clock.

*A friend sent me a bundle for TextMate that added support for CFML. Thank you Louis.

Server software: Apache
Server name: dixson.org
PHP 5.2.12
WordPress 3.1
Feed: dixson.org/feed/atom/
Theme Name: Genesis
Theme Version: 1.5
Plugins: Genesis Simple Edits, Google Analyticator, Google XML Sitemaps, WordPress Importer, and WP FancyZoom

1. WP FancyZoom by Stephen Granade
http://granades.com/wp-fancyzoom-wordpress-plugin/

…FancyZoom is a nice, modern way of making popup images.

This is a “pluginized” version of Cabel Sasser’s FancyZoom which I had used on my old site. It rocks. [Cabel is one of the founders of Panic, Inc., makers of beautifully designed and highly useful Mac software. I use Transmit daily.] Thanks for the WP version Stephen.

2. Scissors by Stephan Reiter
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/scissors/

[Scissors] …adds cropping and resizing functionality to WordPress’ image upload and management dialogs.

Very handy and easy to use.

3. Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator by Arne Brachhold
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.

The WP install was simple and I encountered zero issues on my shared server at Joyent. I imported my MT posts into WP with just a few clicks. I also changed the theme to  iNove. Next, I need to learn more about developing my own themes.

select count(*) from idstats

In 15 minutes it went from zero to nearly 300 database entries (rows) and within a few days, it surpassed 21K rows. Talk about underestimating response.

After being down for about a month, I got this blog back up (as you can see). Upgraded to MT 3.3 and imported my previous posts from MT on my old server. Still need to work on the templates. Excuse the clutter, design inconsistencies, and other glitches – I’m aware of them and making corrections.

I gave up on the MT security plugin I wanted to use. After several careful re-installs and configuration changes, it just kept spitting out errors. Maybe I’m just too tired today to determine the root of the problem (in my defense, the documentation for the plugin sucks is lacking in many areas. ) But the errors appear to be rooted in dynamic file publishing – or the lack thereof. For now, I’ll let it sit a few days and revisit the plugin with a clear mind.