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<h1 class="serendipity_date">Wednesday, November 7. 2007</h3>
<h2 class="title serendipity_title"><a href="/blog/archives/24-Need-Sleep.html">Need Sleep</a></h2>
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<a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/categories/10-Funny"><img class="serendipity_entryIcon" title="Funny: Laugh!" alt="Funny" src="/blog/uploads/categories/funny.png" /></a>
<a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/categories/5-School"><img class="serendipity_entryIcon" title="School: Stuff about school either things I'm learning or what I'm currently teaching" alt="School" src="/blog/uploads/categories/school.png" /></a>
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<p>I initially thought this week wouldn't be very busy, but school never
fails to find something to fill up my time 
. I have a large groupproject due this week ( it seems like I have one of those every week )so I’ve been staying up late working on that.
Today’s foxtrot comic really expresses the way I feel right now. Needmore sleep 
Click for full size imageOh, and while we’re on the topic of comics, I saw a great Dilbertcomic, too which is also attached below.
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Posted by <a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/authors/1-LinuxLefty">LinuxLefty</a>
in <a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/categories/10-Funny">Funny</a>, <a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/categories/5-School">School</a>
at
<a href="/blog/archives/24-Need-Sleep.html">14:27</a>
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<h1 class="serendipity_date">Monday, November 5. 2007</h3>
<h2 class="title serendipity_title"><a href="/blog/archives/23-A-Big-Thumbs-up-for-Markdown.html">A Big Thumbs up for Markdown</a></h2>
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<p>I have sort of a love-hate relationship with CMS (content management
systems). I love the ease at which I am able to edit content and managepages. However, I have always felt that they were too restrictive andtoo much work. I have to work to get my website template in a formatthat the CMS supports. Then I have to work to install and configure theCMS. Then (and this is the kicker for me), if I want to drop down andcode some PHP or Python, at best I have to install some plugin thatwill allow me to use arbitrary PHP. Usually, I end up having to hacksome plugin myself. Then, what if I want my blog and photo album to usethe same theme? I have to port my template to these as well and try tohack some kind of plugin so that I can integrate my blog, photo albumand CMS all together — and I have three different copies of my websitetemplate to maintain.
So with LinuxLefty.com, I ended abandoning all CMS’s (although the oneI did like the best was ModX. It is asolid system with great hack-ability) and creating my own system. It isvery simple and works very well. I am able to easily change my templateand instantly (with some minor tweaking) my blog and photo album areusing the same template as well. The only problem I was having was thatthe code was ugly. HTML code is fine, but it became a chore to edit thepages as I had all kinds of divs and html tags floating around. So, Ichanged two things in my templating system and now it is much easier toedit my site!
Firstly, I cleaned up my CSS a little. I looked for ways to reduce tagsby being smart with my CSS. I noticed I was using several tags togetherso I condensed their CSS so I only needed a single tag. Then Iinstalled thePHP-Markdownmarkup library. This enabled me to get rid of a lot of my HTML and havea much cleaner syntax. For example, here is a bit of my website beforerenovating my templating system:
[geshi lang=html]
The designs presented here are given away for free; you are free to do anything you want with them, as long as it complies with the following restrictions:
- You may freely distribute, but not sell the templates.
- I remain the copyright holder of all my designs; don’t take credit for my work
- If you wish to use a design for a commercial purpose, please contact me to obtain my permission. I don’t charge for commercial usage, but I don’t want my designs to be used on sites which sell adult or offensive products / services.
Although, not required, I would really appreciate a link back to http://www.LinuxLefty.com/ on all pages that the template is used.
[/geshi]
It’s fine, but it’s not exactly easy to wade through all the HTML. So,I installed markdown and behold:
[geshi lang=plain]
Restrictions
<
p>
The designs presented here are given away for free; you are free to do anything you want with them, as long as it complies with the following restrictions:
- You may freely distribute, but not sell the templates.
- I remain the copyright holder of all my designs; don’t take credit for my work
- If you wish to use a design for a commercial purpose, please
(contact) me to obtain my permission. I don’t charge for commercial usage, but I don’t want my designs to be used on sites which sell adult or offensive products / services.
Although, not required, I would really appreciate a link back to http://www.LinuxLefty.com/ on all pages that the template is used.
Quite nice, don’t you think?
So, I’m very happy with my templating system. It works well for me andnow it is easier to use 
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Posted by <a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/authors/1-LinuxLefty">LinuxLefty</a>
in <a href="http://www.linuxlefty.com/blog/categories/8-Website">Website</a>
at
<a href="/blog/archives/23-A-Big-Thumbs-up-for-Markdown.html">21:29</a>
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