A sidebar widget to display a list of authors in your WordPress blog. Based off of List Authors Widget 1.0 by Mike Smullin. Improvements include a revised options screen (uses checkbox input fields instead of free text where appropriate) and the ability to include links to authors’ RSS feeds. If you find it useful, please leave a comment. Thanks!

The List Authors widget showing two authors along with links to their respective RSS feeds.

The List Authors plugin is hosted at wordpress.org. You can find the latest features list, installation instructions, and install file there.

Update: The project page for this widget now contains the latest info and changelog.

Projects widgets

I created a Twitter account this weekend and I am definitely underwhelmed with the de facto micro blogging service. I quickly registered my mobile and sent out my first “tweet.” The next step was to find some of my friends to follow. “No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just click on the Find People link and start searching.” Nope. You can search by email address but, if you can believe it, there currently is no way to search for people by name on Twitter. The site offers to search your webmail account for Twitter contacts. It found none in mine which wasn’t surprising considering I don’t keep my contacts in Gmail and many of my friends have multiple email addresses.

I find it completely mind-boggeling that Twitter allows no searching by name, something that I thought was fundamental to a social networking site. And I’m not the only one. I’m not sure what Twitter’s business strategy is, if they have one. What I am sure of is that they need to do a better job of keeping their user-base happy if they hope to grow. As for me, there’s probably lots of interesting people out there I could be following (getting Twitter updates from), but I might never know.

Rants blogging, Twitter

I ran a 5k yesterday along with more than 700 of my Cargill coworkers in the 5th annual Turkey Trek. I did jog a few times this summer but I was definitely slowing down around the 4k mark. I finished with a time of 29′ 58″ which I’m happy with. I’ll make it a goal to practice for next year’s race and bring that down. My cousins recently trained for and completed a marathon in Chicago which makes me look like a weakling in comparison but I don’t mind because that goes for just about everyone else too =).

Natalie has been acting up somewhat more in the last few weeks, keeping Tally and me up. Sometimes she continues to cry or whine when she has a clean diaper, is fed, burped and is being held which is so frustrating because we don’t know what else she could want. I think part of it is due to an upset stomach for which the doctor suggested we switch to soy formula and give her an antiflatulent (hehe) called simethicone.

Natalie accomplishment, colic, jogging

I’m in Atlanta all this week learning the ABAP programming language for work. So far, so good. Yesterday was the first day of class and was mostly review but I’m sure I will be learning a lot starting today. Last night Tony and I ate at Taco Mac where they have 100 beers on tap. I asked for a local brew and ended up with Sweetwater Blue which smells and tastes like blueberries! Everyone give a shout out to Tally, I know she’s pretty stressed having to take care of Natalie on her own for a week.

Travel Atlanta, beer, work

Here’s the story:

I go into Bruegger’s Bagels to order a Cinnamon Sugar bagel with cream cheese. As I’m waiting for my bagel, an older fella walks up to me and says, “Oh, so you have a little one on the way?” Caught completely off-guard, I look down at my tummy and respond, “Oh, I had one a few weeks ago.” He then points to his own tummy and asks, “Oh, so you still…,” before I decide to cut him off with, “Yeah, it’s still going down.” It was obvious he didn’t know what to say (although he should have apologized), and he asked whether I had a boy or a girl. I answered that I had had a girl. He congratulated me and then walked out the door. I just stood in awe for about 30secs when the cashier handed over my bagel. I quickly said, “Thanks,” and rushed out the door.

And just so this is clear to everyone, before this incident I was already quite aware of the small pouch (or so I thought) that sits where my waist used to be.

Also, I want to add that I forgive that man. I know he wasn’t trying to insult me. I’m sure he really did believe I was a few months pregnant. But for Pete’s sake, he could have apologized!

P.S. If I weren’t against littering, I’d have tossed the damn bagel out the car window!

P.P.S. And yes, I ate it.

Daily Journal