A nice toolbar for Mozilla contains a collection of tools that web developers might find useful. Nice debugging tolls in case you are having problems with your layout. Created as an experiment in XUL+JX, /pnhtoolbar/ is a good example of the useful extensibility of Mozilla.

10:31:16 AM   Content Management Systems Open Source  comment []      

Lachko has posted a page about the Bulgarian Easter. And yes, we are planning on participating in the midnight egg stroll.

2:53:30 PM   Bulgaria News  comment []      

No entry found for civilisation.

7:45:21 PM    comment []      

This description of the charred remains of the National Library and Archives in Bagdhad is touching - such loss for civilization:

There was a request to protect a camel convoy of tea, rice and sugar, signed by Husni Attiya al-Hijazi (recommending Abdul Ghani-Naim and Ahmed Kindi as honest merchants), a request for perfume and advice from Jaber al-Ayashi of the royal court of Sharif Hussein to Baghdad to warn of robbers in the desert. "This is just to give you our advice for which you will be highly rewarded," Ayashi says. "If you don't take our advice, then we have warned you." A touch of Saddam there, I thought. The date was 1912.

7:28:25 PM   Iraq  comment []      

OK - I'm too slammed to test this Content Management System out, but so far it looks realy nice. Page templates use CSS from the git-go, there is a nice page layout process, and it looks like it has some sort of form-builder. And spigots too! If Postnuke is like going to your first concert (Cheap Trick) and smoking for the first time, then Textpattern is like having coffee with Nina Simone in heaven. (Wow - a terrible turn of words...sorry about that...)

7:16:07 PM   Content Management Systems  comment []      

Impressions of Geeklog: Geeklog sure is fast! It really makes my Postnuke installation feel really tubby. It's a great CMS for someone who wants an instant portal - it features a nice calendar, 6 skins out of the box, some simple customisation, and clean user interface. If it had better multi-lingual support, I would seriously consider it. They seem to have pretty good docs, so I could probably bake in the multi-linual suppport I am seeking.


11:41:50 AM   Content Management Systems  comment []      

I am currently testing a few open-source content managment systems. Some requirements:

• Good developer documentation
• Multi-lingual support:
• ability to target a post to different language versions of a site
• User may select preferred language from home page
  
• Simple template editing - does not necessarily need to be forms-based
• Developer can easily add fields to user database, as well as to article/file submissions
• html or php files created outside the system can be easily integrated into the CMS's permissions system
• Flexible permissions system
• New posts e-mailed to subscribers
• Database abstraction layer, with ability to work with mysql or others
  

Wishlist:

• xml-rpc or SOAP interface to CMS internals (or at least suppport for Blogger API)
• Ability to implement user blogs
• News aggregator
  

11:33:46 AM   Content Management Systems  comment []      

This morning, I had what must be the best strudel of my life. Fresh out of the oven, melting in my mouth. Simple pleasures. Since I am really embarrassed about my poor Bulgarian language skills, I decided to ask Lachko to tell me how to thank the pastry shop ladies during my next visit. So here it is:

Saturday's strudel was very tasty: Съботният щрудел беше много вкусен.
"Subutnyat shtrudel beshe mnogo vkussen"

Try saying that to a $tarBuck$ barista next time you purchase a $5 latte and $3 muffin! By the way, the cost for a pitka (small round loaf of bread), the strudel, and a "Френско Руло" (Frenchka Roulo - what we call a sticky bun) was $0.85.

10:39:44 AM   Bulgaria News  comment []      

i'm in lower-case today.

have you ever seen this movie? when i was about eight years old, my big brother, who is eight years older than me, was a big fan of the new wave cinema. i could not fathom the topics of those books but i loved the pictures. while checking out jonno's blog, i noticed a link to avventura. something i might be able to rent at the video store around the corner that isn't the latest hollywood action flick, which is the main genre here in bulgaria..i am at times pretty starved for english-language entertainment. i do get hbo here - w/ bulgarian subtitles - and i'll watch "6 feet under" or a movie when i can pull myself from my CNN/BBC news channel addiction. i bought a dvd box set of the x-file's first season, which i really enjoy, and i just found the first two season of "friends" on my ISP's pirate file server. but soon enough, i'll finish the x-files disks, and watching "friends" is an appetiser, not the main course. perhaps i should start another band ;-)

still cold here - 41 degrees. heard the birds chirping up a storm this morning, so it must be spring. but i wish the weather would behave! i travelled back to the States a few weeks ago, and the weather was beautiful in Nashville - daffodils already lining my brother's driveway, bradform pears blooming away (and stinking up the joint).
10:59:26 AM   Interests  comment []      

My first excuse would be that I was in the States when the event happened. (true) My second excuse would be that I had no idea that it was scheduled to happen (sadly, also true). But the only real reason for missing it is that I've really had my head up my ass, and have not used the miracle of Blogshares or other blog data integration website to seek other bloging-Americans-living-in-Sofia. Until now. So, a big howdy to Rich W and jkrank. Perhaps I should be spending less time at Toba&co and more at Murphy's?
3:23:36 PM   Bulgaria News  comment []      

I've been looking for a good way to serve an rss feed of server data. Here is a nice rdf format: RDF Site Summary 1.0 Modules: Service Status
12:53:03 PM   Content Management Systems  comment []