What I love about this house is the courtyard, with the old Ash tree (100 years) in the middle. Not only does this tree provide shade, but it’s also a great climbing tree for kids (extra bonus points if they can make it to the roof).

Another very cool feature is the windows and/or opaque walls. Not only does it allow for the obvious natural light to come in through the days, but it also allows the interior lighting pour over it’s boundaries onto the yard.

And along the lines of having opaque walls, take a look at the material they used. It’s nothing more than fiberglass roofing panels (well, that what we use them for up here in South Dakota (esp for sheds, and back porches )). Well played for using material in ways not intended to be used, but still get’s the job done.

I found this house originally posted at the Contemporist, along with the specs:

Architecture: Bark Architects
Location: Marcus Beach, Queensland
House Area: 260m2
Site Area: 727 m2
Builder: Murray Wall
Structural Engineer: Meecham Engineers
Materials: Spotted Gum hardwood Timber, zincalume sheeting, corrugated zincalume, clear & opal polycarbonate, Fibre Cement sheet cladding, timber tongue & groove flooring, plasterboard wall lining, plywood ceiling lining.
Photographer: Christopher Frederick Jones

Feel free to skip on over to the Contemporist’s post for more details and pictures

I came across an old post by John Crenshaw over at rlmseo.com, that explained what’s happening with WordPress the best.

The solution to this problem is pretty simple. You need to tell WordPress to use the “paged” query variable in your custom loop, otherwise it’s ignored. If you’re using the query_posts function for your custom loop, the easiest way to do this is like so:

He goes on to give a 2 line solution that’s pretty simple to implement. Below is my version of that implementation

<?php

$orginal_query = $query_string;
include(TEMPLATEPATH . "/includes/featured_post.php");
include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/includes/sort_posts.php');

if ($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == 'dev.example.com' ) {
    $q_cat = '4590';
} elseif ($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == 'beta.example.com'){
    $q_cat = '392';
} else { // for prod.example.com
    $q_cat = '138';
}
$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
query_posts('paged=' . $paged . "&cat=" . $q_cat);
if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . "/includes/main_content.php");
endwhile;
    include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/includes/pagination.php');
else :
    // other stuff happens here
endif;

?>

I Write Like is a site that analyzes your writing style and then compares it with some of the more famous writers out there. Once the comparison is complete, the site returns it’s results with a list of books on Amazon from that famous author. Pretty cool (I write like Cory Doctorow, just incase you were wondering).

The other site is called Postling and basically, they let you manage all your web properties in one location. There’s many sites and services like this out there, either in web form or downloadable application, but this one seems to have a fairly streamlined signup process, simple explanations and an easy to use interface; which tells me it will be a handy tool to use in the future. The secondary benefit for this site would also to manage your online identity, and not just content, in one location.

Ogrydziak/Prillinger Architects describe it as:

Sited on 4.5 acres on the South Fork of the American River, overlooking one of the best  kayak runs in Northern California, this 3,745 sq. ft. house is for an avid kayaker and his wife. Several years ago, the owners decided to sell their suburban tract home and move to the country to live on the river. They chose Lotus because it is arguably Northern California’s kayaking center, located at the both the end and start of two of the state’s best runs. The project design arose from an intersection of this spectacular site and the clients’ own specific interests.

Personally, I love the interior much more than the exterior; although, no matter how you spin it, this house has been well thought through, from the outside and in.

Thanks to DigsDigs for the write up & for more a full write up see Ogrydziak/Prillinger Architects site.

Basically, he guts the place out and installs adjustable walls, which reveal various rooms, 24 total combinations in all. From kitchen, to bath, to screening room, he does a good job about utilizing the space he has, which also forces him to be efficient.

The article in ArchDaily states:

The local construction code demands free space at both sides and limits the extraction of trees. The future owners –a couple that will change their boat for a house in the forest- requested that great care should be taken to preserve the natural conditions of the plot of land and to profit as much as possible from the natural qualities.

The house was built in the mid 2000’s and credit goes to Martín Fernández de Lema, Nicolás F. Moreno Deutsch (Architects), Héctor Ferraro (Construction Co.), Julio Zapico, ing. (Structural Engineer) and Gustavo Sosa Pinilla (Photography – http://www.sosapinilla.com.ar/)

Full writeup can be found at http://www.archdaily.com/49336/house-among-trees-martín-fernández-de-lema-nicolás-moreno-deutsch/

If you thought that modular homes are ugly then A-Cero could prove that you’re wrong. The company designs modern and minimalist houses and its modular houses isn’t the exception. They have extremely modern look as inside as outside thanks to glossy black exteriors and black and white interiors.

Here’s a few front and back photo’s and an interior shot

Go to  http://www.digsdigs.com/modular-glossy-black-houses-by-a-cero for the full article

Summary: A web host had a crappy server configuration that allowed people on the same box to read each others’ configuration files, and some members of the “security” press have tried to turn this into a “WordPress vulnerability” story.

While every blogging platform / cms has their own set of quirks, one thing I’ve never had bad luck with is security when it comes to WordPress. Now that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen malicious code within WordPress, but it has never been because WordPress had a security hole & if there had been one, they’ve always addressed with an update or a patch.

The post goes on to say

A properly configured web server will not allow users to access the files of another user, regardless of file permissions. The web server is the responsibility of the hosting provider. The methods for doing this (suexec, et al) have been around for 5+ years.

and I would have to agree in saying that the times I’ve seen an install compromised was because of extremely loose FTP or server passwords, or some other issue.

In conclusion, I’d say WordPress is still a great blogging / small CMS platform to use & work with.

-Tim

5 * * * *  /var/www/username/bin/update_website.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

I found a great article over at xaprb.com that does a pretty good job of explaining it.

Given that context, you can see the command above is redirecting standard output into /dev/null, which is a place you can dump anything you don’t want (often called the bit-bucket), then redirecting standard error into standard output (you have to put an & in front of the destination when you do this).

The short explanation, therefore, is “all output from this command should be shoved into a black hole.” That’s one good way to make a program be really quiet!

if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
    $comment_array = get_approved_comments($post->ID);
    echo '<h2>'.the_title().'</h2>';
    echo '<div class="post">'.the_content().'</div>';
    echo '<div class="comment">';
    if ($comment_array) {
        echo $comment_array->comment_content;
    }
    echo '</div>';
endwhile; endif;

To get a full view of what’s in the $comment_array use this piece of code instead of echo

echo "<pre>"; print_r($comment_array); echo "</pre>";

Side note, since the one required argument is the post id, you don’t actually have to include it in the WordPress loop structure[update], so long as you know what post id you’re trying to use[/update].