So on the index page I created a very simple function:

<?php
if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
echo 'Here is your free audio file! ';
echo '<a href="\http://www.yoursite.com/files/audio.mp3"\> FREE FILE!</a>';
} else {
echo 'Register to this blog today and receive a FREE audio file!';
}
?>

Rather simple. We are seeing if the current visitor is logged in, if so, give them their free gift, if not, ask them to register!

Now, of course, WordPress makes it possible to use this just about where ever you would want. Want to display a message to only users logged into your site AND are viewing the Contact page? Try this.

<?php
if (is_page('Contact') && is_user_logged_in()) {
echo 'Hello Registered Member, here are the latest updates!';
} else {
echo 'Hello Visitor, Please register for complete updates!';
}
?>

Of course, there is much much more that you can do with this Template Tag. You could even use this Template Tag within Sessions (view a welcome message during first page load, etc.).

Have any suggestions on how to further use Template Tag: is_user_logged_in()

Take a read at this, “France warns against Internet Explorer use“.

Funny thing is, they are only playing follow the leader, apparently Germany did the same thing!

Exactly why I don’t use Internet Explorer! Go Firefox!

Okay so on to my first new years resolution, which is to blog more. No it’s not the first priority on my list of resolutions for the new year, however, by putting this on my blog, I am already on the right track.

I miss blogging! More than that I miss the internet. It’s been awhile since I’ve had time to do anything. A new job, new place, things are looking really good. In fact last month, we paid off one of our cars. We now own it and did it feel good! One down and one to go!

More than just blogging, I want to “photo” blog each day, if I can remember to keep it up that is. But I’ve been really impressed with those who take a photo each day and post it to their blogs. It’s more than just a “hey here’s a look into my life” kinda thing, I see it as a “hey this was something special, fun, or interesting on this day and want to remember it vividly!”. So basically, yeah, I want to try that.

So here’s my first step into my first new years resolution. More to follow!

Damnit!

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

That is all I have to say about that!

Are they honestly bringing Megatron back to life? Or now that I look at it again, it looks like Starscream down at the bottom of the ocean grabbing something from Megatrons lifeless remains. Hmmm, now I wonder what happens!!

Here’s the code I used:

<?php if ( is_page() ) { ?>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/page.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<?php } else { ?>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>"  type="text/css" media="screen" />
<?php } ?>

So a simple explanation of this is to start with the “if” statment. Our “if” statement starts by asking is this a WordPress page (using the conditional tag is_page) and if it is to load the page.css stylesheet. But if it is not a page (else statement) then load the default style.css.

You may also have noticed that within this code I used the bloginfo() template tag. This can be used within a template file to gather information about your blog. I used the bloginfo() tag within my header.php file. Now you can also use the get_bloginfo() template tag to pull your blog information into a page outside of a template file.

So now go and have fun templating your WordPress blog!

As far as products, simply check out their website and you’ll soon discover that you can nearly do everything straight from Google.com! For example, iGoogle.com, what better home page can you think of? It’s got everything and it’s completely customizable. It’s the best in my opinion.

Here is the Wikipedia list of acquisitions from Google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_made_by_Google

Google Summer of Code 2009

I so wish I could do this (but I’m not a student). The Summer of Code is going down again real soon. I probably wouldn’t even have the time to mess with anything. I really want to try and get some nice themes out this summer and work on a couple of plugins that I have been kicking around.

But if you’re a student and want to spend your Summer coding – check this out!

Oh Google!

How I heart thee!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D532bRgjzds[/youtube]

What’s funny is I can see no difference between what AIG is doing and what Bernard Madoff did. Bernard Madoff tricked people out of millions of dollars. AIG tricked the taxpayers (and the President) out of millions of dollars. Like looking in a mirror. *shrugs*

I think one Congress person made a great comment. Why give someone a bonus if they are the ones responsible for helping to land the company in the trouble they are in. Thanks for canning our company, here’s $4.62 million dollars for your efforts! WHATEVER!!!

Plus it appears that AIG with these contracts made no clauses to protect themselves? Did these “contracts” come into play before the bailout money or after? So even without the bailout money, AIG would STILL have to pay the bonuses? Sinking the company even further? Makes no sense. Even as I try to explain this to myself, I can’t understand it.

In my opinion I think whomever took these “bonuses” from AIG are no different in their actions, than Bernard Madoff.

So at the end of the day AIG laughs while on their way to the banks and Bernard Madoff goes back to his penthouse, while we all suffer.

Yeah something seems fishy with him being late and with Dennis Rodman not showing up at all. If I was the project manager staring down a 2 week loss, I would have been there in the wedding shop with the team until it was ALL done. The shop looked horrid, that I agree with, and yes Tom Green did not bring in ANY money. But honestly, he’s not as big a celebrity as some of the other members of his team. Dennis Rodman actually came through this challenge and brought some money in. Clint Black did amazing. But to defend the men, what is with these challenges? Cupcakes? Wedding dresses?? The superhero one was just crap, Zappos.com is in my opinion dumb, prices are high, web services are confusing and just not appealing at all and they’ll never be Amazon, so why bother? Really one sided on the challenges.

I have mixed feelings about this seasons Celebrity Apprentice, mainly due to Mr. Trump and how he seems to attack some of the celebrities personally. Especially with Andrew Dice Clay. Whenever Mr. Trump can he brings up issues in the celebrities past (or present) and seems to use that to fuel some attack against them. Watch his face next time, he really gets angry  towards that celebrity. Mr. Trump has a past just like everyone on that show. Tonight Mr. Trump again pulled the rabbit 0ut of the hat and had to mention individuals such as Phil Jackson and Micheal Jordan when trying to “attack” Dennis Rodman. Not appropriate at all, Mr. Trump is really playing dirty. Mr. Trump should really check himself and keep this on a professional level. Just because a celebrities issues may be splashed all over the press, doesn’t give him the right to use that to make some point against them.

I didn’t like to see Tom Green go. Definitely not after seeing the previews for next week, when Dennis Rodman has his “meltdown”.

Sorry Tom, hated to see ya go!

When trying to login today I am getting this error reported from Hotmail.com:

It’s cool to see a “hipster” on a talk show that actually gets cool people on their show. The guys from diggnation and engadget? Awesome!

I really wanted to catch the first show of Jimmy Fallon on Late Night but I totally forgot. I had to stream it the next day, but it was just as funny. It’s great to see a guy like Jimmy Fallon behind the desk. Sure he appears to be nervous at times but with each passing show he’s becoming a natural. I never have really understood Russell Brand but that must be why people love him. He is quick and quircky with his comedy and it seems genuine. He was funny to watch tonight, well until he said he wanted to kiss Jimmy. I think that even freaked Fallon out.

I know I’ll continue to tune in and I can’t wait to see what and who else Jimmy Fallon will bring in.

That is not too shabby! I get booted a lot, but I think there’s something wrong with my router, just having a hard time pinpointing that problem right now.

Breast-feeding, cell-using driver charged (MSN.com)

I am so glad for this weekend!! YAY!

Tonight was game night, and we all had a blast. A few folks showed up and we loaded up Halo 3 and some Rock Band. We probably would have played Rock Band all night, but it finally happened. The yellow drum pad broke completely off (it was either the yellow or green one, sorry I’m color blind!). So that was cut short and now I must replace yet another piece of equipment for that game. First, it was the drum pedal, which quickly snapped in half after having it for not even a month. Next it looks like my guitar will be going out. The strum bar is getting pretty weak. I should just pick up the complete Rock Band 2 set anyways, have yet to pick up that game.

But Halo was fun, until (yeah it’s always something with me, right?) we had problems loading maps. I’ve NEVER had problems with being booted, not being able to load maps and what not. Until recently! I think my game disc has just been overplayed and is not loading the maps correctly. In fact I hear a little “click” when it tries to load some maps. Yeah I know, I was worried it was the hard drive too, but it’s rather evident that it’s coming from the DVD tray. So yay, another game I have to replace. I have had 2 other games get scratched from my own Xbox. Yeah somehow the system put a rather thick scratch line all the way around a couple of my game discs. I was NOT happy about it then and am still not happy about it now. ARGH! Plus I do seem to get booted more now, not sure if it’s the game disc issue or just my overall network issues. I have had this router for awhile and this modem, maybe they too are starting to flake out.

OH, and I got to dust off my old skating skills. Devon brought over his 755 (?) board and I gave it a try. I have no problems riding, even though I skate goofy, but the ollies weren’t coming to me as easily as I remember. I managed to land a few, but nothing spectacular. I really do miss skating!

The biggest news today was that I got my new gadget. A multimedia player, it’s awesome and hope to do a full picture review this weekend. I really like it. Have to get a few more things to make it exactly what I want, but it’s off to a great start.

So yeah, I best get some sleep. Night everyone.

Okay, just pulled up the Halo Wiki and YES it should be available first with the Limited Edition of Halo Wars. Saw something there I didn’t know though, another set of maps to be released with Halo: ODST. Check it out here.

Here’s what I found, let me share it with you if you too are having a “blah” day!

CHOICES by Unknown Author

Rob is the kind of guy you love to hate.

He is  always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, hewould reply,

“If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivater.

If an employee was having a bad day, Rob was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Rob and asked him,

“I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Rob replied,

“Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” Rob said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or  bad mood. The bottom line:

It’s your choice how you live your life.”

I reflected on what Rob said.

Soon thereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Rob was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Rob was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw Rob about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied. “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his  mind as the accident took place.

“The first thing that went through my mind was the well being of my soon to be born daughter,” Rob replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or… I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?”I asked.

Rob continued,

“…the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, “He’s a dead man.” I knew I needed to take action.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Rob.

“She asked if I was allergic to anything.

“Yes, I replied.”

The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled,

“Gravity.”

Over their laughter, I told them,

“I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Rob lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about  itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

After all, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

(found here, thanks to Google)

Upon installation of the Facebook Photos plugin I received the following error.

Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argument is expected to be a valid callback, ‘media_admin_css’ was given in /derekdesigns.com/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 339.

The plugin continued to work, but the error was annoying.

I did some digging and it appears that one of the CSS loaders got changed and the function for media CSS was depreciated.

I found this fix and applied it to the last line of the “plugins-class.php” file.

if( ! function_exists('media_admin_css') ){
function media_admin_css(){
wp_admin_css('css/media');
}
}

This is a great plugin and I know I will get a LOT of use out of it.

Hope that helps!

Once again the winter seasons in Indiana have proven to be as unpredictable as Joaquin Phoenix’s’ acting career, however, it was predictable enough to know that it would suck! Just as we all thought “hey this might be a mild winter!” it hit us. Slammed by at least 10-inches of snow and major waves of freezing temperatures. The first day was no fun at all. I spent most of the day digging out the car so my wife could go to work, only to have to turn around and help out the lady who works at the church. Which was no trouble, honest, just got my workout that day and took a very healthy nap afterward.

At least we all got out and went sledding. Picked up a nice (at the time) snow tube and headed to the in-laws to hit the only hills we knew of in this area, which are surrounded by trees. The kids loved it and the snow was perfect, but the location, horrible. After a few times down the small and branch filled hill, a twig ended our joyous slaloms.

Oh and thank you for noticing, yes those are my new transition glasses. They work great!!

“Anticipation around the upcoming release of “Halo Wars” is mounting. The demo, which was released on Xbox LIVE on Feb. 5, quickly set the day-one record for the most demo downloads on the service, and in just its first five days, has been downloaded by more than 2 million Xbox LIVE Gold members around the world.”

from the Official Halo Wars Community Site.

I was and still am a huge fan of Age of Empires. In fact while working for Easylink Services in Dayton, Ohio, we regularly would have LAN parties playing huge multiplayer battles of Age of Empires. I learned quickly to fear war elephants! I continued to support the game purchasing AOE2 and AOE: Age of Mythology and mastered the use of tribuchets. I have yet to pick up AOE3, but have played it and it is awesome!

So then can the world of Halo and the familiar game play of AOE be combined in a fun fast paced action packed RTS game? Heck yeah it can! I was among those 2 million and downloaded the Halo Wars demo the first day it was available on Xbox Live. I had a blast playing it. I started by trying the tutorial but quickly became bored and simply wanted to start playing a real skirmish.

I started with a base and one active warthog, who had no weapon upgrades yet, but had a special ability of ramming enemy targets. The base setup is different but really sets the stage for a fast paced game. Confined in a small square sector you have your “town center” or your main base. Around that base are what I would call building pods. Selecting a building pod section will give you options to build onto your base with whatever building you choose. Such as an armory, supply factory, reactor plant and continues with additional building options opening as you progress your army. Unlike AOE you do not have to go out forging for wood, stone or gold. Rather you use your supply building to add additional building supplies to your base. Also attached to your base are smaller building pods to use for turrets. I constructed 2 turrets on each corner which proved to be a great protection as seconds later elite were attacking my base with their energy swords.

So then I began to build. I added 2 supply buildings and an reactor plant. I then was able to upgrade my supply buildings to increase my supplies much quicker. I then added an armory and also added the gunner upgrade to my warthogs, allowing current warthogs to have a gunner as an added weapon. I started to build infantry men and noticed that they came out of my base in packs of 3, awesome! I quickly had an army of battle ready warthogs and infantry men, so on I went to engage the enemy.

As I journeyed to the enemy location we were attacked by a prophet? Weird, but yet, a prophet was attacking us in his floating chair with some kind of laser weapon. I quickly ended his effort to stop me and continued to find the main base of the elite. We began to attack when elites began to come out of the base, followed by what looked like walking banshees. Sadly my small army was defeated but I now knew what was in store. So back to the base I went to rebuild my forces.

This whole time I was still learning the game and by merely just testing the buttons I quickly understood how to select individual troops, local units, all units and even units of a certain type. Even using the select tool to select multiple units at once was rather easy. But I still was unsure how to jump back to my base or how to switch to troops that were engaged or scouting on the map. I hadn’t tried the D-pad and found that yep, there it was, I could toggle to my base and even find troops on the ground with ease. I even discovered special weapons when pressing up on the D-pad. Awesome!

I would go on but I am now wanting to play the game again! So yeah I’m excited about this game. I know they have tried RTS games on consoles in the past and none of them really got my attention. Either due to bad controls or just a game that wasn’t all that exciting. But now with Ensemble using one of the most popular game formats out there in Halo, this game is looking better and better the more I hear about it.

If you haven’t played the demo, I highly recommend it. It’s a lot of fun!