Tag: web-fu

Getting my Android to sync podcasts like an iPhone does

The situation:

I listen to a lot of podcasts.  I like to keep up with all of the episodes, not just the most recent one, and I like to be in control of exactly what plays and in what order.  (So stitcher is out.)  In my iPhone (and before that, iPod) days, I used iTunes to create Smart Playlists for the different categories of podcast I want to listen to.  E.g. all NPR podcasts go in one playlist, all short story podcasts go in another.  I define them like this:

iTunes Smart Playlist showing MediaKind = Podcast, Plays = 0, and Any of the Following: Album contains NPR, Album contains PRI, Album contains WNYC. Limit to 25 items selected by Least Recently Added, Live updating.
my smart playlist in iTunes

See, it only lists podcasts, that haven’t been played, with certain names.  So if I’m in the mood for NPR, I start at the beginning of my NPR playlist.  As I play each podcast, either in iTunes or an iPod-like device, its play-count is incremented, and it no longer appears in its playlist.  The next time I sync the device with iTunes, it deletes played podcasts and loads on new unplayed ones.

The problem:

I switched from iPhone to an Android (Motorola Droid X), and didn’t want to have to carry several devices in my purse.  I wanted my Android to be a one-stop-shop just like the iPhone was, which meant it needed to sync podcasts.

Continue reading Getting my Android to sync podcasts like an iPhone does

Modifying the query used by The Loop in Thesis, to use Custom Post Types

Let’s say you use WordPress, and Thesis, and you decided you wanted to add a custom post type (new with WP 3.0!), for whatever reason.  Maybe you just wanted a way to differentiate book reviews from other blog posts, with a custom taxonomy called Authors* and no Categories, because they don’t make sense.

You might do a web search and find these helpful links about how to make the Thesis meta boxes appear in the custom post type’s edit page.  That’s awesome!  But really, I want those posts to show up on my home page and in my RSS feed.  I couldn’t find it documented anywhere.  There are lots of examples of how to narrow down query results in order to show only some of the normal post-type posts, but not on how to add posts that aren’t showing up in the default search.  It turns out it’s actually pretty easy.

So, here’s what you do!
Continue reading Modifying the query used by The Loop in Thesis, to use Custom Post Types

Progress!

The first post worked, but I didn’t quite like the plugin, so I switched plugins.  But I didn’t like that one’s footer, so I’ve changed the footer.  Do I like this one better?

(I’ve also noticed that my website seems to either think it’s still in daylight savings time, or it thinks I live in the Mountain timezone, so all of my posts are dated an hour in the future.  And off by a few minutes.  Go fig.)

EtA: Trying again with yet another plugin.  I want moods & locations!

EtA: Last try… with a better mirrored line…

Trying a new thing…

For a long time, I’ve had a website, http://www.intelligentlizard.com.  For almost as long, I’ve been planning on finishing it and making it look pretty.  Finally I’ve given up on making my own, and I’m just using WordPress.  You could see that version at https://www.lizaolmsted.com.  (Much nicer looking, huh?) But I’ve always liked posting to LJ, and I have friends there.

So I’m trying a new thing: composing on my website in wordpress, and having it cross-post to LJ.  It should be just like posting in LJ directly, only not.

(Also: I need to figure out how to fill in “music” and “mood” and “location”.  Those don’t exist in my WordPress yet.)

So, this is my experimental post.  Will it work?  Won’t it?  Once it’s working, I’ll post about TGS.