Ugh, why does it have to be so hard?

Ugh, why does it have to be so hard?

Where's My Favicon??

I was in the midst of a little facelift for this site and got to thinkin, my favicon is still the default subtext image.  So I went and made a wicked cool image that I wanted to use as my favicon.  Dropped in my slick ass favicon in the same location as the default subtext favicon, and voila. Nothin. Somehow, the default icon is still showing. 

Obviously ...

Here's the thing.  It wasn't obvious(to me) how to change this behavior.  I actually checked out the source code for the subtext project and looked for any references that might override the favicon behavior and found nothing.  I spent a long time looking and have given up.  It was an animated favicon too, soooo cool(it probably isn't but it hurt the artsy side of brain creating it so I was excited about it).

Whining

I've whined about the source code capabilities(or lack there of) of dasblog and subtext.  But it's pretty easy to get around, focus on the content, right? Who cares what it looks like.

Unfortunately for me, I care.  So I go down the path of, "hey, write my own blog thingy again, blah blah blah"... who hasn't had that thought yet?? But after today's experience with my favicon, I got to thinking about architecture, good versus bad of course, and better versus worse etc.

I am/was in the middle of another post on user interfaces, and this one kind of stepped in front(or on top) of it.  The essence of the post stems from a conversation I had with a colleage over the effectiveness of tools, web apps, really any application you can think of.  Essentially it all boils down to the quality of the user experience.  No matter how good your software is, it could be capable of coming up with a cure for diabetes or cancer, but as long as it causes the end user grief and is hard to use, it won't get used, period.

Good Enough Software

For me, good enough software is good enough until it gets in my way and causes me time I don't have.  Subtext is that software, good enough until I need to change my favicon, then it becomes an issue that needs to be dealt with, consuming time I don't have available.

I started off blogging with my own home grown blog software, it wasn't great and did not have even a tiny fraction of the total features of dasblog or subtext or probably most other blog engines.  I'm not knocking subtext, i'm just a picky user.  So I figured this was a good time to rethink my home grown blog software.

I'm a huge fan of Castle's ActiveRecord.  I know nearly nothing about MonoRail.  BUT.  I want good blog software that meets 100% of my needs, not most of my needs, but every last one of them.  And I want to learn MonoRail beyond a hello world example.  So that's the new side project.  Build my own super simple blog engine geared towards one thing, answering all of my needs while demonstrating good architecture.  I'll post the code as I go.

Print | posted on Sunday, August 26, 2007 5:31 PM