Monday, November 27, 2006

Protopage v3!!!

Just forget my last post. Just start learning Protopage v3. Well done Protopage

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Desktop Widget Patterns


Many people may think it is crazy and scary to even share your desktop to other friends, family or colleagues. Protopage's ease of customization of desktops with text formatting of stickies and windows placement, it reveals a new hidden talent that other cannot provide. It is called "Desktop Widget Patterns"

Providing shared editable desktops with just a small amount of steps to setup a "Dinner Brain Storm Menu", I'm kind of explaining a Desktop Widget Pattern.

It is a series of Text formatting and rules just like wiki sites. Some basic rules in creating "Desktop Widget Patterns" are what kind of text formatting is required for each window and rules are required to keep everything in order. With the power of copy/paste and spell checking in web browsers such as Fire fox, the formatting of text is instantly duplicated very quickly. Also Protopage provides a Duplicate Window feature.

So Remember these rules when trying to make new "Desktop Widget Patterns"
  • Formatting of text in each window (What is that window used for?)
  • Arrangement of windows (Why should that window be there?)
  • Titles of those windows are very important. (What is the desktop's use?)
  • Provide Rules and a screen shot of your Desktop Pattern (Make sure there less chaos)
  • Size of the windows (Keep size of windows to size of common MONITOR or SCREEN resolutions size. Don't make page be scrollable for ages maybe. Let the Desktop Windows do the scrolling arrangements for you).
Shared Desktop Widget Pattern "Dinner BrainStorm"
Take a look at the screen shot at the top of this article, there are 3 windows, with a title, discussion, and menu area. All editable and shared with the whole family.

Required Protopage Widgets
Using Protopage, the following "STIKI NOTE WIDGETS" should be made based on the "Widget Creation Guide"

1) TITLE stickie note so others can tell what is for.
2) DISCUSSION stiki note to discuss things.
3) MENU stickie note to hold the agreed menu.
4) CODE OF CONDUCT sticki note (Optional) To everything in order and everyone plays right with the pattern.

Widget Creation Guide

1) TITLE stickie note
This should be formatted big and bold and always shown. Don't hide it !! It will show what the desktop is for. Example of a Title Text formatting.
Weekly BURDEN Menus

2) DISCUSSION stiki note
With this window, you will be able to provide talk notes from different members of the family.
You can color code who is who whilst chatting for example Bold BLUE text could me Paul

Format should be Careful on how to keep everyone clear about everything. A CODE OF CONDUCT should document how to chat. Notice time and date format is kept the same.
15/12/2006 : 2:01pm [deleteme]
Old message here that could be deleted by ANYONE!!
15/12/2006 : 2:01pm [readit]
Should we have a "CODE of CONDUCT"? or is the windows self explantary? Could more windows be create to show more detail of things?
15/12/2006 : 3:01pm [await response]
Sounds like a plan, I will let you know. Think I may delete that 15/12/2006 : 2:01pm [deleteme]

3) MENU stickie note
This is where everyone provide suggestions or make personal notes. Format of text should be
MON
Fried Chicken or Fish
with Mashed potatoes and Mixed Vegetables
TUES
Some other new meal
provide a description of stuff here

4) CODE OF CONDUCT sticki note
If things get messy you can provide RULES on how to use the Desktop Widget Patterns, should anyone forget text formatting rules etc. This should hide and other members who can see the Desktop and can optionally read it. And they should read it TOO!!!!

Final Thoughts
This is all meant to be all in good fun, to making new "Desktop Widget Patterns" fun and more interactive. Since everyone is sharing everything these days such as, videos, calendars, to dos, why not share "Desktop Widget Patterns" for Web Desktops. Customizing content is so easy with these Web Desktops. Code of Conduct should be very strong and backups is matter of a print screen! Does Desktop Widget Pattern sound good or Desktop Window Patterns?

Personally I think this idea could go wrong or get better depending on the amount of people you trust and share. Am I going crazy of a silly stupid idea? lol Well I know for one thing, it will save time coding when producing this kinda of stuff. No HTML, no programming language learning, just text formatting and sticking to 'codes of conduct' just like wiki pages really (Where code of conduct is exercised on text formatting heavily).

You know what is crazy, Firefox v2 has a 'built in spell checker'!!! You wonder why hmm (sarcastically)

Could this be the end of Web programming as we know it??? Na of course not the Internet is always evolving, creating new ways to make site building ever so more easier.

I'd also like to stress to never share your Protopage accounts with members you do not trust! could be hazardous to your desktop areas. Maybe make a new account that you are willing to share and trust with certain amounts of people. I'm sure Protopage will go through the accounts and delete the inactive users :p

This is my first Digg story and I am afraid of people's opinions. I Must remember constructive criticism is always good. There are always drafts in making blogs.

Digg Me!!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Granddaughter broke my Linux box

Me and my wife was looking after our 9 month old granddaughter. We let the baby actually move the mouse and play with the keyboard.

My SUSE 10.1 Linux box was fully booted and uses KDE's GUI Manager. we let our granddaughter play with Linux box. TAP TAP TAP, nudge the mouse a little, CLICK CLICK CLICK, maybe some more tapping at the the keyboard. Then hell broke loose on KDE

Somehow she managed to permanently move the task bar to the left side and rendered the KDE's menu button to not work. I Tried to change KDE's Task bar settings to place the task bar back to it's original location, that failed :(

After a little think on how to fix the KDE without trying to destroy my profile, I decided to let KDE make me a new set of settings by renaming the .kde/ .kderc/ folders and let KDE fix it self. After a restart KDE is now fixed :D

I felt sheepish knowing that a baby managed to corrupt KDE with VERY little effort.