Archive for March, 2008

LaTeX in WordPress

Alright, after a long while I finally was able to get LaTeX support in this site. Two plugins made it somewhat easy: WP-Latex and its dependency, fauxML. I now just needed latex itself and dvipng. However, I couldn’t get past the configure script because it was complaining about a missing dependency, libkpathsea. After some searching, I wasn’t able to find anything but binary packages for it. I finally found teTeX, whatever the heck it is, it included dvipng and libkpathsea. The ./configure took ages, and the actual compiling took even longer, but in the end I was left with a nice little dvipng binary.

I then hurried to WP-Latex’ settings page, and filled in the paths to the binaries. That same page tries to execute a command to test if everything is working fine, but it kept throwing an exit code 1 though, and after man‘ing the dvipng binary, I realized that one of the parameters to it that the plugin was giving it, –halt-on-error, wasn’t even in there. So I went to automattic-latex.php and in line 171 removed it from the command string. I then refreshed the page and everything seemed to be working fine.

Some might wonder why I went through all this trouble, but I don’t know, I just really like how math formulas look in LaTeX, and I just kinda like the idea of being able to do it whenever I’d feel like doing it. To make sure this is working:

e^{\i \pi} + 1 = 0

\mathop {\lim }\limits_{x \to \infty } \frac{{\sin (\pi  - h) - \sin (\pi )}}{h}

Upgraded to WordPress 2.5

WordPress 2.5 just came out and this morning I didn’t waste a single second in upgrading to it. Thanks to DreamHost’s one click install I was able to upgrade with, well, one click. Afterwards, I just made some small changes and now I’m running this frickin sweet WordPress 2.5. WordPress.Org also got a face-lift, and now both the software and the site have a new…refreshing, lite feeling to it. WordPress has always been my favorite open source web software, and to me seems like a great example and model for many other open source projects out there.

This new version is just amazing. Aside from the things mentioned in the changelog linked to above, there is now automatic plugin updates. So the first thing I did after installing was go to the plugins section, and where it used to just tell me that there were new versions of plugins, it now also has a link to automatically upgrade, essentially upgrading my plugins in literally less than 3 seconds. Life has never been easier. And the administration interface is just a lot more nicer, I can’t explain it, it just feels ‘right’, fresh, like a new beginning.

To my delight, everything seems to be working fine, the cache, the theme, my plugins, etc. I had to revert to 2.3.3 on T.I.P.’s site because the integration systems (i.e. bridges) for most software such as phpBB’s WP-United, MediaWiki, and Vanilla Forums are all broken because WordPress 2.5 adds extra security by salting the password hashes and encrypting the cookies. Discussion for adjustment to these changes is going on in the Vanilla forums at Lussomo, though I don’t think it’ll lead to anything unless my old friend SirNot who happens to be a developer for Vanilla helps out.

I know I haven’t written much in a while, and I really intend to but I’ve been pretty busy lately. Ironically, I’m having Spring Break the week after this coming week, which is really weird because most schools had it the week of Easter or the week after, and I have it almost a whole month after. So my plans are to begin writing more often, and also to create some screencasts for some friends that have been waiting for months. I also intend on working on the WordPress reCAPTCHA plugin and fixing iLirix (Most likely create a GUI for it and make different lyric engines be modules to the program).

Anyways, for the time being, take care.

Epic Film Moments in Typography

Here’s a really nice idea for some videos. It’s pretty simple: Basically the video consists of text of what is being said. The unique thing about it is that it’s not merely shown in subtitle fashion, but rather the text is displayed differently each time, adjusting to the tone, speed, and overall behavior of the speech. I think it’s really sweet, and I’ve actually been thinking about something like this but for music. Stuff like this, which some people might consider boring and pointless, makes me want to learn Flash.

V for Vendetta in Kinetic Typography
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Fight Club - Chemical Burn - Kinetic Typography
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Matrix animation
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There are others, but these were my favorite.

College Basketball Game Gets Rick Roll’d

This is pure awesome, and the cheerleaders are a nice touch :P

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