Month: January 2011

A fix for WordPress gallery comments not showing up in comments RSS feed

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This won’t be of a huge interest to a lot of people, but it took me a while to find an answer, so hopefully this will save someone else a little time.

WordPress has a very nice built-in photo gallery feature where each thumbnail in a gallery automatically links to a dynamic page for that image, allowing visitors to comment on the photo.

Unfortunately, there’s been a bug in this feature ever since it was first introduced. Comments made on these dynamic gallery pages don’t show up in the site’s comment rss feed. The feed ignores them completely.

For whatever reason, the folks behind WordPress haven’t seen this as a high priority issue, so it’s never been fixed. I’m currently working on a personal project (more on that later), that would really benefit from these comments showing up in the comment rss feed like they should. Fortunately, after a fair amount of digging I found the answer in this comment in the WordPress Forums.

To force gallery-page comments to show up the standard WordPress comments rss feed, simply add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:

function fix_comments_rss_attachments($cwhere) {
return "WHERE comment_approved = '1'";

add_filter('comment_feed_where', 'fix_comments_rss_attachments');

Or, if you would rather not edit your functions file, I’ve dropped this code into a handy WordPress plugin:

  1. Download the plugin
  2. Unzip the file
  3. Upload “gallery-comments-rssfeed-fixer.php” to your Plugins folder and activate it. There’s no configuration options – it just works.

Rubber: In Theaters April 1st, 2011

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Synopsis:

RUBBER is the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life. As Robert roams the bleak landscape, he discovers that he possesses terrifying telepathic powers that give him the ability to destroy anything he wishes without having to move. At first content to prey on small desert creatures and various discarded objects, his attention soon turns to humans, especially a beautiful and mysterious woman who crosses his path. Leaving a swath of destruction across the desert landscape, Robert becomes a chaotic force to be reckoned with, and truly a movie villain for the ages. Directed by legendary electro musician Quentin Dupieux (Steak, Nonfilm), aka Mr. Oizo, RUBBER is a smart, funny and wholly original tribute to the cinematic concept of no reason.

YouTub Link | Official Site

Wunderlist Task Manager: A Compelling Alternative to ‘Things’

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In terms of task management, I’ve been a very happy user of, Things, on both the Mac and my iPhone since the software first came out. I haven’t had any plans to switch apps, but today I noticed a todo app called, Wunderlist, that Apple is featuring as this week’s, iPhone app of the week. I decided to take a look, and I have to say I’m pretty impressed.

Like Things, Wunderlist is available for both the Mac and the iPhone, but, unlike Things, it’s also available for Windows. Wunderlist isn’t nearly as full-featured as Things, and it is missing some high-priority features, like scheduled and recurring tasks. But, Wunderlist does have a few key advantages over Things:

  • Wunderlist is free on all 3 platforms. (Things costs $49.95 for the Mac, and $9.95 for the iPhone)
  • Over-the-air syncing of tasks between Macs, PCs, and iPhones via their free cloud-sync service. (Things can sync between a Mac and an iPhone if they’re on the same local Wifi network – they’ve promised cloud-sync, but haven’t delivered yet)
  • Wunderlist can share tasks with other Wunderlist users – over-the-air. (Things can’t do this at all)

I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to ditch Things, but over-the-air syncing is a huge deal for me. It’s been my only real complaint about Things – and it pains me every time I have to remember to launch the app on both my Mac and iPhone while I’m on my local network so they’ll sync up.

Whether you’ve already picked a task-management solution or not, Wunderlist is definately worth a look – especially if you’re on multiple platforms.

On a side-note to this, I do feel a little bad for Cultured Code (the maker of Things). Contrary to the popular belief, I personally do NOT think all software should be cheap (or free). Those guys have put a lot of effort into their apps, and they deserve to make a living as developers. It always irks me a little when someone comes out with a free app that is solid competition to a well established paid app. However, the flip-side of this is I personally think $49.95 is too much for the Mac version of Things. I think $24.95 would be a little more reasonable.

Links: Wunderlist | Things | YouTube

Yul Brynner: A Photographic Journey

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Yul Brynner

I’ve always enjoyed Yul Brynner’s movies, but until recently I had no idea that he was also an avid photographer.

After his death, his daughter went through 40 years of his photographs and compiled them into a set of four books. Here’s the descriptions from the website:

LIFE STYLE (Vol. 1)
Bruce Weber so appropriately describes it as, “an expression” of Yul’s world. Indeed Life Style is a surprisingly simplistic portrayal of life as he wished to see it, unpretentious, comfortingly real, and utterly unglamorous at times. Intimate portraits of Elizabeth Taylor playing with her daughter in her swimming pool, Charlie Chaplin walking with Oona after a swim at La Reine Jeanne, and Audrey Hepburn aboard a gondola in Venice.

LIFE ON SET (Vol. 2)
Foreword written by Ingrid Sischy and the second of four books in the collection, Life on Set personifies a genuine sense of life behind the scenes. Through its unplanned expressions and out-of-focus backgrounds, the intent of the imagery becomes clear as it brings its subjects back into the reality of everyday life and emotion.  Yul Brynner knew how to take pictures of the most beautiful women, Sophia Loren, Ingrid Bergman, Anita Ekberg, and Joan Collins to mention a few.

1956 (Vol. 3)
Martin Scorsese introduces us with his foreword, to the colorful journey through the creation of some of Yul’s most memorable films made in 1956, The Ten Commandments, The King and I, and Anastasia.  The third volume documents the busiest year of his career, which resulted in an Oscar for his role in The King and I.

MAN OF STYLE (Vol. 4)
A nod to Yul himself is delivered with the fourth and last album. Foreword by Stefano Tonchi, Man of Style is a remarkable portrait of Yul and his undeniably vivacious spirit. Whether on set or at home, these images illustrate his love of photography, individuality, family, friends, and, quite simply, the art of living.

The books look pretty cool, but they are a bit on the steep side. Amazon is currently selling the set for $120. You can view a handfull of the images on the website, and here’s a video of his daughter being interviewed about the project.

Amazon Link: Yul Brynner: A Photographic Journey

Get Little Snapper for $5 until January 17th

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LittleSnapper by Realmac Software

I’ve been using Little Snapper for a couple years now. It’s a very nice little app for capturing and managing screenshots, webpages, etc… I’ve generally been pretty happy with it.

When I bought Little Snapper in 2008, it was $39. Last week when Realmac put it into the new Mac App Store they dropped the price to $25. Now, they’ve temporarily lowered the price even further to just $5 – until January 17th.

I highly recommend taking advantage of this offer. You just can’t beat $5! If you want to try before you buy, you can still download a demo version from the Realmac site.

App Store Link: Little Snapper

T-Mobile mocks iPhone 4 on Verizon & AT&T

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I actually really like this new campaign by T-Mobile. I would go as far as to say they’re slightly brilliant, as the ads manage to say they’re the best, without saying anything negative at all about the iPhone or Apple. You can tell, they totally want to sell the iPhone. If this campaign lasts long enough, I bet we’ll see the iPhone guy hookup with the T-Mobile girl.

YouTube Link | via Macworld

iPad Wallpapers at iPad Flava

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iPad Flava

I recently came across iPad Flava, a site that showcases images that have been pre-formatted for use as iPad wallpapers (1024px x 1024px). Some of them are a little lame, but they do have some nice ones too. Check it out if you’re tired of your current iPad wallpaper.