be the change you want to see in the world

I just spent the evening installing and configuring img_assist module and TinyMCE under Drupal 4.7. I’m a little tired. My little girl has a cold and I’m not getting much sleep. I glazed over a couple times, but I got it done eventually. I now have highly configurable, permissions-based rich text/WYSYWIG HTML editing and inline image upload, resizing and insertion in Drupal. Not only that, but uploaded images become nodes that can be reused in other nodes as well as galleries. So many people complain that you can’t do this with Drupal. Ha!

If you are trying this, keep these tips in mind: you need the image module, the img_assist module, the TinyMCE Module, the TinyMCE engine. I used the latest releases of everything, including the TinyMCE editor. Inside the img_assist module is a crucial piece called drupalimage. This is a TinyMCE plugin and should be moved from the root of img_assist to the TinyMCE plug-in directory.

You also need to follow the install instruction of all of these pieces to the letter. Edit the plugin_reg.php file so the drupalimage plugin registers. Make a new Input Format called Rich Text Editing and turn off all filters except inline images. Create a TinyMCE profile with the right permissions. There’s more…follow the install instructions for all components.

But that isn’t why I’m writing this. I’m writing this to tell you about the Serverside spellchecker plugin for the Google XML service. It goes out to Google, checks spelling and when you click on red underlined words it suggests alternate spellings. So cool. Your customers will love you.

And don’t forget the compressor. It speeds up the loading of TinyMCE by about 300 percent.

Man, rich text editing for the web has come a looooong way.

Britain is set to call for the closing of Gitmo. They assert the right to a fair trial is an inalienable right. It is expected this will cause a diplomatic falling out between Britain and the US. This comes after British courts found in February that America’s idea of what constitutes torture does not coincide with civilized nations.

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is set to trigger a diplomatic row between Britain and the United States by calling for Guantánamo Bay to close.

The decision by the government’s chief legal adviser to denounce the detention centre in Cuba as ‘unacceptable’ will dismay the Bush administration, which has continually rejected claims that the camp breaches international laws on human rights.

But Goldsmith will tell a global security conference at the Royal United Services Institute this week that the camp at Guantánamo Bay must not continue. ‘It is time, in my view, that it should close.’ An urbane lawyer who eschews the limelight, Goldsmith is not known for shooting from the hip in such unequivocal terms; however, it is clear he has harboured grave doubts for some time over the legality of Guantánamo under international law.

‘There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise,’ Goldsmith will say. ‘Fair trial is one of those - which is the reason we in the UK were unable to accept that the US military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantánamo Bay offered sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards.’

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CNet is usually pretty reliable. Sometimes they really goof. Their recent comparison between an Acer TravelMate and a MacBook Pro is an example of the latter.

Not only do they seem comfortable comparing non-native software on the Mac to native intel code on the PC, they leave out the most important thing. The MacBook pro runs OS X (and Windows XP for when you are feeling masochistic). +10 points for the MacBook Pro. Contest over.

Talk about a soft lob to the blogosphere.

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I’ve always just blanked when it comes to satellite radio. Who wants it? Why would you want it? It seems so, I dunno, old-think. It has always struck me as kinda lame. Apparently it is:

Sirius Satellite Radio said on Tuesday that its quarterly loss doubled, mainly due to a $225 million stock payment to shock jock Howard Stern. For the quarter ending March 30, the satellite radio operator posted a $458.5 million loss, compared with $193.6 million a year ago.

Stock compensation charges were nearly $285 million of that loss. This compares with a $38.7 million charge a year ago. However, revenue tripled from $43.2 million a year ago to $126.7 million, and the company showed strong subscriber growth.

And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Howard Stern is a waste of air…time. With bleeding that severe, they must have some serious backage.

Stephen Colbert stood up in front of the Washington press corp, the President of the United States and countless high-ranking US political types at the Washington Correspondents’ Dinner and said this:

“Let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know — fiction.”

Opportunity of a lifetime: maximised. Stephen, you may retire a honorable man.