The Jewish Humor Festival Ends
The Jewish Humor Festival is over, and what an event it was! Comedians from all over the Twin Cities and beyond came to perform, and I was in the booth for most of their shows, running the lights or sound. My senses of accomplishment and satisfaction right now are, I think, greater than they've ever been before. I mean, really. (Except for the closing cabaret. I mean really, that was the least technically interesting event of the whole week. But I got a lot of laughs out of it.)
I've been working the festival for 12 days — though I shouldn't include last Saturday because I wasn't involved in that event. In that time, I logged many, many hours in the booth. Time in front of both boards — light and sound — was part of it, but much of my time was spent in front of the JCC's ETC Express 24/48 DMX control board, writing lighting cues for the shows from scratch. I didn't design the pre-hung general plot (set up to provide flexibility for all the different types of performance), but even working within the limits of what was available I still felt like I was designing the look of every show. Really, it's amazing what one can do with just combinations of warm front light and blue down light.
With some of my free time during sparsely-cued shows, I availed myself of the Express' "Help" button, which helped me to learn new abilities as well as remember forgotten knowledge. Most significantly, I learned how to use the "Sneak" softkey to bring channels in and out slowly enough that the audience (hopefully) wouldn't notice, and I practiced writing effect cues.
The last two things I learned about were cue "Wait" attributes and dimmer profiles. I knew there had to be a way to tailor the upfades and downfades to the behavior of a particular instrument, and I found it by poking around in the setup menu. So if I ever need that feature, I know where it is. I also added a very useful "Wait" to the downfade of a cue in the short play Toast1 by Monica Raymond, just in time for the final performance, which worked perfectly. 
For one of the shows — arguably the most frustrating, on account of its 7th- and 8th-grade cast — I was responsible for flat-out designing the whole look with no input from the director other than approval when it looked good. The show — called A Purim Spiel—used Star Wars characters to tell the story of Purim, and included a couple lightsaber fights (because how could it not?). Despite being only 25 minutes long on a good day (20 on a bad one), I wrote more cues for that show than I did for any other. It included the only effect cue of the festival (flashing lights are always good for party scenes ) and had me glued to the board so I didn't miss a cue. Some of them were literally ten seconds apart, and I wasn't ever allowed more than a minute to "rest".2
I spent a good hour or two outside of the three 90-minute tech rehearsals for A Purim Spiel cleaning up and improving upon the cues I'd written, including a session between the two daytime performances last Friday. The last show would have been the best run technically if the two narrators hadn't decided to switch sides without making sure I knew. Because they failed to tell me, my cues lit Narrator #1 when Narrator #2 was speaking and vice versa. Fortunately I overshadowed their faux pas by running an "immediate" (0-second fade) cue from bright to dim lighting by accident. Thank goodness for the Express' "Back" button! That was a good-sized FAIL.
Beyond A Purim Spiel, my most significant lighting work was on So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz, a one-woman show by Amy Salloway. Her script included descriptions of the five general "looks" that her show required, and we spent the better part of an hour at the start of her tech rehearsal working out what those would look like. I ended up running sound for her show because Amy was uncomfortable (and I don't blame her) with the idea of having one sound op tech the show and another run it. The sound cue timing was pretty sensitive, and I do agree that someone who hadn't teched the show would have been lost. So I taught my fellow technician for that rehearsal to work the light board and copy the looks I'd programmed into subsequent cues. I hope Troy won't be as intimidated by the light board in the future. He did good work. 
While Troy was intimidated by the light board, I am intimidated by the sound board. Sound operation continues to be something of a mystery to me. I don't know what to do with all the different knobs, nor do I know how to eliminate feedback or keep a mic from popping. However, I'm hoping to get some advice from Breton Parks, the sound designer who worked on the shows I teched last summer. (Yes, that post is still coming. I might give up on getting that last photo...) Learning to adjust more than the fader levels will probably come in handy if I continue working as a generic technician, since I never know what I'll have to do. So I kind of took too long to begin the process of getting advice, but it's not like I had much time online to do it before last Saturday. 
I hope I do get some advice from Bret soon, since I'm moving on to be a sound board operator for the upcoming Theatre Or production of Jack and Rochelle (which starts teching tonight, opens on Friday, and runs Thursday – Sunday through March 28). Tonight I'll find out exactly how much I'll need to do. Hopefully it won't be anything with which I haven't had previous experience...
In addition to running sound for Jack and Rochelle, I will continue playing violin in the GSVLOC pit orchestra until the end of March. Next month, I'm working on joining the pit orchestras for Carnival at Concordia University and Cinderella with the Morris Park Players.
Notes:
- For Hijab and Toast I was responsible for designing the lighting cues, with input from the director. [↩]
- A lot of this was due to the scriptwriting, which gave only a few lines to each of most of the scenes. The rest resulted from the young actors rushing through and dropping lines. [↩]
“No Evil”: My NET10 Wireless Experiences
NET10 Wireless: No Bills. No Contracts. No Evil...?
The phone's been very handy for some important calls and the 5¢ text messaging rate sure beats major carriers' rates of 10¢ – 25¢ or more per message (on plans without a texting bundle), but I wonder how true the "No Evil" part of the company's motto really is.
Airtime Treadmill
All of NET10's airtime packages come with a fixed number of days after which users are required to reload, or face losing their accumulated minutes (and their number, though that's not a concern for me because of Google Voice). I don't use the phone that much, so I buy the relatively economical 300-minute package for $30+tax every time I need to re-up, making my effective "monthly bill" $15-and-change. The package gives me 60 days to use my 300 minutes, but — and here's the kicker — whether I use them or not, I am forced to renew every sixty days. My low usage means I've accumulated over 1,000 extra minutes since last June — minutes that I would lose if I fail to renew. In order to not waste the money I've spent before, I must continue to renew my service. I suppose I should be thankful they let me keep all my minutes as long as I continue to renew, eh? :-/
The issue here is, the $30 package is the most economical one I could find. Analysis of the other available packages shows that paying every two months is probably the cheapest maintenance option available. There's a $20 package of 200 minutes, but it only lasts for 30 days. Deal breaker. Similarly, there are packages that last much longer (4,000 minutes for $400, two years' service) but with low usage, paying in two-month increments is actually cheaper in the long run:
- 1 yr. = $200
- 60 days × 6 ≈ 1 yr. & $30 × 6 = $180
- $200 − $180 = $20; 5 days can't possibly equal $20
- Similarly: 2 yrs. = $400
- 60 days × 12 ≈ 2 yrs. & $30 × 12 = $360
- $400 − $360 = $40; 10 days can't possibly equal $40
So it is truly cheaper to pay every two months, or use one of the other packages not exceeding 600 minutes. (At the 1,000-minute level, the number of service days earned for each dollar spent goes down due to the extra $10 price increase: $30 = 60 days, $45 = 90 days, $60 = 120 days, $100 = 180 days.)
I wonder about NET10's stated motto: "No bills, no contracts, no evil". Perhaps there are no bills or monthly contracts, but if you're a low-usage customer you must continue to pay into the system even if you never use most of the airtime you're buying. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that draws people along and keeps them paying so they don't lose their previous airtime investments.
As annoying as the practice of placing an expiration date on minutes that users have paid for is, it's a practice that seems to be matched by most prepaid carriers. I spent about two hours researching all the different options at a Wal-Mart store in Colorado Springs and came to the conclusion that NET10's service was the least evil. Other carriers have no expiration but charge a daily access fee on days the phone is used. Others have ridiculous per-minute rates. So NET10 is not "no evil", but I think "less evil" would be pretty accurate.
SMS Attempt Charges
On New Year's Eve, just after the ball dropped on a rebroadcast segment from Times Square, I attempted to send out a New Year text message to Ping.fm for posting to Facebook, Twitter, and so on. Of course, because it was seconds after midnight (Central), the network was so congested that the message didn't go through. My phone displayed "Sending failed" after spending about thirty seconds trying to send out the text. I tried three more times, to no avail. (I gave up and borrowed a few minutes' access to a computer.)
It wasn't a big deal that the message failed. I knew that the network would be busy. But it was a very big deal that my account balance was still debited for the 5¢ texting charge each time. Failed messages apparently counted. (It should be noted that friends using Verizon were texting with no problems. NET10 uses AT&T's network, which often has coverage and service issues.)
I emailed NET10's customer support. After a few days' back-and-forth, they asked me to call their support center so something could be "verified" on my account. I posed my question to the operator. She informed me (through her thick foreign accent) that the software on NET10's phones takes care of managing charges, and that it is the attempt to send a message that results in a charge; the outcome is irrelevant.
The Post Office charges for returned letters, I suppose, so that's not really a violation of communications business practice. But for a company that claims "no evil", I find that policy disturbing. Blowing 20¢ on failed text messages isn't going to break the bank, but it is annoying in principle. I'll just consider whether or not the network is likely to be busy before sending a message, and refrain from doing so if failure is probable.
The real question is, do other "normal" carriers like Verizon do this? With their much higher rates, I would think conventional monthly-contract providers would have significant user backlash if they attempted such a thing. Does that make NET10 more evil than "less evil"?
Hardware Lock-in
NET10 freely admits that their SIM cards and phones are specific to them. I received the following after emailing support to inquire about the possibility of using an unlocked GSM phone (such as the Nexus One) with their service:
If your phone is not manufactured as a NET10, we will not be
able to activate it using NET10 Wireless Prepaid Services. Hence, the
NET10 Wireless service will not be compatible with an unlocked phone.Furthermore, NET10 SIM cards only work in the phones they were activated
with. Therefore, the SIM cards should not be switched between phones as
this may result in permanently disabling them.
The above was followed by a paragraph encouraging me to check out the selection of available phones at NET10's website. I did so just on a whim, and my expectation of disappointment did not go unwarranted.
NET10's website catalog lists only 16 phones at present, most of which fall into the "basic" category. Two devices have slide-out keyboards and a special text-messaging rate of 3¢ per message, but at $79.99 they are also the most expensive phones on the list. And of course, a lower text messaging rate would just mean I'd use even less of my balance than I do now. (I don't care about a camera, so I won't analyze that, but many of NET10's phones do have cameras.)
I have seen forum threads about using devices like the iPhone with NET10, and I assume the company has also seen them and works to keep users from doing so. Why prevent use of smarter phones on NET10's service? It comes back to software. Phones not manufactured as NET10 devices do not have the software to deduct minutes from a user's account. People using non-NET10 devices with NET10 service get effectively unlimited usage of voice and text communication because the phone is not configured to manage the account balance.
My question then is, why not commission an Android application to enable smartphone compatibility with NET10 and capitalize on the market of users like myself who would want a smartphone without a data plan? I would certainly be happy to restrict my Internet usage to Wi-Fi – enabled areas; having the phone+SMS+Internet functionality on the same device would be awesome if I could do it without paying for an expensive monthly contract from Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile.
This doesn't make NET10 evil or not, but it does show that they have lower regard for customer choice than one might think. By operating a no-contract cellular service, they are promoting consumer choice, but they limit consumer choice when they restrict the devices that can be used on their network to a tiny subset of the handsets available on the market. Of course, they're not the only carrier to do this; most U.S. carriers have handsets that only work on their network, and have handsets that will not work on their network no matter how much you plead. But still, it's a limiting factor.
Call & Text Spam
While it's not specifically a NET10 problem, I question the company's willingness — or lack thereof — to help me solve the problems. I received frequent and disruptive nuisance calls to my NET10 number from an underhanded collection agency for four months after activating my NET10 phone, and I continue to receive occasional calls from a second. I've never given out my NET10 number to anyone except my mother, and I made her promise never to call or share it; all communications to me come through Google Voice, and direct calls to my cell phone are by definition not for me. The calls also began the morning after I activated my phone.
Aside from the fact that there was no way a collection agency could have gotten my number that quickly, I also have no creditors that could possibly be seeking collection of old debts. I'm not old enough for that. So I was being woken up at 06:00 MDT by calls from Pennsylvania (placed at 08:00 EDT) intended for someone who had thrown away their prepaid phone number long ago. That sucked.
It did occur to me that I could just answer one of the calls and say the person the agency was looking for no longer owned the number, but even that would have cost ten or twenty cents that didn't need to be used on scumbag sub-legal debt collection agencies. (I looked into the firm that called me all summer. My research indicated that they dredge up debts that have long passed any relevant statutes of limitations and attempt to collect on them for profit. Hence my usage of "sub-legal".)
More recently, I've begun to receive spam SMS from various numbers, some of which are so much longer than 10 digits (or 11; senders are usually presented with the digit '1' prepended for some reason) that I don't think they even exist. Only opened messages are charged for, but NET10 is so focused on making money from text messaging (a trait they unfortunately share with all other U.S. cellular carriers) that the software on my phone displays only the first five characters of incoming messages. That limitation makes determining spam extremely difficult. If I could see more of the message — maybe display "Do you have more than $" instead of just "Do yo", scrolled horizontally like the phone's software does for contents of Notes — I could effectively avoid being charged for spam, but in my cynicism I have come to believe that NET10 doesn't care about spam because it potentially makes them more money.
On multiple occasions I have investigated the possibilities for blocking calls from specific numbers (the collections calls are consistent), or filtering spam from my incoming text messages, to no avail. NET10 cannot block calls, but they would have changed my number for "convenience". No guarantees that the new number wouldn't have more nuisance calls than the old one, of course. And there are no provisions for blocking text messages. The kicker is that a "normal", non-NET10 LG 300G would have the ability to block calls by itself, but that feature was removed from the NET10-compatible software. Grr...
My experience is admittedly limited (as I've only ever gotten one number from NET10) but I've heard from friends and classmates that it's not uncommon for a number from any provider to have problems with calls and texts intended for previous owners. It's not specifically part of NET10's "bad" — rather a con universal to the telecommunications industry — but it was still annoying.
Final Thoughts
Despite the issues, I've been pretty happy with NET10 itself. Even if they charge for failed text messages, require renewals every few months, and refuse to help me block spam, they're still a pretty good deal. At some point, once I establish a steady income, I plan to use up the minutes on my current phone and end its service to switch to something a little better. For now it serves the purpose of keeping me connected on the go when I need to be, and $15 a month isn't bad for a U.S. carrier. I'd move to drop them much sooner if they were more expensive.
Of course, these are my experiences with one phone, a NET10-programmed LG 300G purchased in June 2009. Any of the problems I mentioned, especially those related to features of the software features, might not exist on other models or a later release of the 300G.
Minor edit at 15:20 to correct erroneous usage of ≅ to ≈
Orchestra, Tech, & Audition Opportunities Seized
As mentioned in Guys and Dolls Retrospective, my involvement in the pit orchestra at Temple of Aaron led to an offer from the Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company. Well, last Sunday I attended my first GSVLOC orchestra rehearsal; there's another tomorrow. It followed a week of back-and-forth emails with my contact (from Arizona, where I went to celebrate my grandmother's 86th birthday). I also worked out dates for another potential gig in technical theatre at the Minneapolis JCC for their Jewish Humor Festival — about which I just happened to receive an email the day after the offer from GSVLOC.
After Sunday's GSVLOC rehearsal, I took home a practice score. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find handwritten sheet music that was every bit as sloppy as what I had to deal with during Guys and Dolls. Here I thought that that was unique to my last show. How naïve.
Fortunately, the work of transcribing the handwritten manuscript-style scores to engraved sheet music was already long done at GSVLOC. In fact, the rehearsal copy I read off of on Sunday said it was last revised in 1999 (interesting, since this is the first GSVLOC performance of this show, The Sorcerer).
So, w00t, WIN, etc. etc. I don't have to put in hours and hours to get music I can read. My contact even emailed me a PDF copy of the engraved score in case I want to print my own copy for practice. (She's the organizer; the conductor is an immediately likable Brit — a man — named Courtney.)
I was honestly expecting the music to be way, way over my head, but the fun of having high expectations comes when they're not met. The music is quite within my playing abilities, enough that I sightread with around 90% accuracy the first time. I have some annoying sixteenth-note runs to practice (typical Gilbert & Sullivan), but for the most part I have it.
It's interesting to contrast GSVLOC with Temple of Aaron when it comes to amenities. Temple's rented scores were hard to read, and they paid the musicians not a dime (save for the pianist, who was hired for rehearsals too). GSVLOC pays $17 per performance or rehearsal and provides engraved, readable scores as part of the bargain. I could really get used to this, but it's going to spoil me.
Needless to say, I'm excited about the GSVLOC gig, because I get paid to play my violin. That's something I have never before been able to do, unless playing for quarters at the zoo as a child counts. I've also heard some interesting rumors regarding the production style, which lead me to believe that it will be a somewhat Guthrie-esque presentation. I thought the orchestra would be isolated from the stage, but my veteran stand partner says we'll have monitors and will be able to watch what's happening. Yes!
I also have confirmed all my commitments to the Jewish Humor Festival, which starts on February 24th. I'm also excited about the JHF because I will be getting paid to do technical theatre work for the first time, and it will be like getting paid to go to the theatre. My favorite part about doing tech — or at least booth work — is getting to watch the show.
Last summer, I worked backstage for one show and as a follow-spot operator on another. I never got to see the show for which I worked backstage; in fact, I have almost no idea what happened on-stage except for the lines I heard over the greenroom monitor. For the follow-spot show, however, I was able to see everything. (I was technically up on a scaffold tower to run the follow spot. I do have a nearly complete write-up of what I did last summer, to be posted as soon as I can get one last required image from my teacher. Soon, I promise.)
So I like working in (or around) the booth, and I'm very happy about this upcoming JHF event because I wasn't even expecting it to be paid. My previous communications with the JCC indicated to me that anything I did there would be on a volunteer basis, so it was at least a pleasant surprise.
Of course, it took a lot of time to work out my schedule, since the JHF and GSVLOC's The Sorcerer tech week coincide. I put both sets of events on my calendar and made some tough decisions. Then I got emails back from both sides with changes. Then I agonized some more. Then I was released from some of the Sorcerer tech rehearsals (and performances) because of space constraints in the space, which made my life a lot easier.
Just as I thought the schedule was resolved, things changed again. Such is the nature of freelance theatre work, I guess. Fortunately the changes weren't too major — just a date change for a JHF event that freed me one evening. Of course, I would have rather had that evening filled with something, but I suppose I can't be too greedy as a newbie.
After all the scheduling work, I have a busy schedule of technical work from February 24th through March 7th, and violin performances throughout the month of March.
Now I really should find out the minimum income for filing income tax; ain't it great getting paid? I also have to figure out what to do about Social Security — like I'm ever going to get anything back out of it.
Oh, and as for the audition opportunity mentioned in the title, that's for StageCoach's Easy Stages production of My Fair Lady next summer, in London. I applied — and was accepted — to a program in London last summer, but didn't go because of timing and logistics. This summer will probably work better, if I'm cast in the show. Of course, what place is there for someone like me in early-20th-century London... (My summer post is coming; only one more image I need, and I can publish.)
“Guys and Dolls” Retrospective
This was meant to be published last Wednesday, but WordPress missed the scheduled post. I'm looking into how to solve that problem in the future.
I told myself I'd blog about anything significant before I started it. That didn't happen, so I'm doing my normal post-project wrap-up. Combining the first time I've ever assistant-directed a show with the first time I've ever played in a pit orchestra (despite plenty of "regular" orchestra experience) was a job. Here are the highlights — or at least the important bits — and my usual summary of tech week.
Becoming Involved
I got involved in my two different roles by two very different methods. I was asked to be assistant director, but I got myself into the pit musician job by, well, you'll see.
Assistant Director
This particular production of Guys and Dolls took place at Temple of Aaron as a youth group play. I'd been involved in their productions before, playing the March Hare and Tweedledee in their 2006 production of Alice In Wonderland, but this time — because only high-schoolers can be actors in the USY play — I was on the other side of the fence. I was basically in the "staff" category.
Pit Musician
Becoming a pit musician resulted from me being a blabber mouth. The director was fretting over who would play in the orchestra at one rehearsal in early January, and I just had to come out and say that I was a violinist. That was dumb. Never volunteer for anything, because you will be stuck with it.
I should never have agreed to do it without first seeing the scores. Thank goodness for the free software movement. It was only with MuseScore's help that I managed to even have semi-readable music for the show. I invested quite a lot of hours in transcribing the worst of the practically unreadable handwritten manuscript I got into pretty, readable, engraved sheet music. Despite bugs already fixed in the unreleased next version (which hasn't yet gone stable), I managed to bang out some decent music in time for opening night — with many hours spent staring at the notes debating whether I was seeing a D or a C and whether that marking was a "div", a "pizz", a dynamic, or just a scribble. I would have eventually transcribed the entire Violin B-D part, but ran out of time; transcribing sheet music is a slow, tedious process. What I did get done, though, really helped. Focusing on the awkward page turns and the truly unreadable pieces kept the value per transcription hour high.
Rehearsals
I began my duties as assistant director in late December, just before the holiday break. When I was assistant-directing, I did a lot of getting paper, writing notes, and generally assisting. I did, of course, get to block a few scenes, though one of them ended up being blocked by the director during one of the early pit orchestra rehearsals.
Focus issues ran rampant through the entire process, up to and including tech week. That comes with the territory of working with middle- and high-school students, but it was still mildly frustrating until I learned to accept it. I'm used to working with kids (for lack of a better term) that really want to create theatre. For Guys and Dolls, most of the actors and dancers were there because they wanted to do something "fun" with their friends. Theatre can be fun, but it's also hard work, and a lot of them didn't want to deal with the work part.
Fortunately, most of the lead actors and a few chorus members were serious enough to help keep their peers in line. Working with them made up for the difficulties of managing their peers; it was a true pleasure to work with the kids who really wanted to put on a great show.
My rehearsal duties waned a bit as I took on the role of second violin in the pit orchestra, but with pit rehearsals being only about half of the weekly rehearsal time I still was involved in assistant directing.
Tech Week
Tech week started the day after Temple of Aaron celebrated its 100th year as a congregation. That weekend was also the Winter Shabbaton for a lot of the cast members. (The Shabbaton events are basically weekend retreats for members of the youth group.) The first rehearsal was rescheduled to be an hour earlier to allow returning Shabbaton attendees to jump right in without waiting around for an hour and a half or going home and coming back to the temple.
It was a long week, but it was productive and ultimately fulfilling.
Day One: Sunday
Sunday was the first day of tech week, and the longest day of them all. Rehearsal was scheduled from 13:00 to 19:00, and we in the orchestra spent five of those six hours actually playing. (The actors and tech crew spent five of those six hours running the show cue-to-cue — one of the most grueling processes involved in creating theatre and probably even worse than what we in the pit band had to endure.)
It was the first day we had an orchestra larger than four, and it was a rather significant size increase; the final size, including people who couldn't be there for at least one performance, was 20 musicians, most of them pros. I felt much excitement when I saw the size of the growing orchestra. Before, we had mostly holes in the music; Sunday, we really filled in the holes and began sounding like an Orchestra (with a capital O).
Sunday was also the only day the cast and crew had dinner provided. The actors got to eat and get their notes from the partial run-through — they only made it through Act I (of two) in five hours — while the orchestra got to have some time to unwind and chat. Who got the better deal? I've been on the acting side for most of the shows I've done. It's not a simple or easy job. The musicians really have it easy, at least at Temple of Aaron.
There was also a bug in my ear on Sunday. That is, after rehearsal one of the other musicians came over to me and offered me a short-term job as a second violin with the Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company. Turns out their orchestra is short on second violins in March.
Day Two: Monday
Monday, the second day of tech week, might as well have been an entire week all its own. The four-hour evening rehearsal stretched nearly 45 minutes over time and still not a single complete run-through in sight. Several music cues were changed — it was the first time we in the orchestra had ever actually played along with the actors, so a lot of timing issues had to be worked out. Rehearsing with the actors was a very good thing, too, considering the amount of scene change music that had to be added, deleted, and shuffled around. Of course, most of us couldn't see what we were doing because we didn't have stand lights ready that night and half the orchestra was absent. (The temple is closed on Mondays, so there was no staff around to locate lights for us.) But we still muddled through all right.
However, several actors (including a lead or two) seemed to get some instant memory loss Monday night. Songs and scenes that had gone fine even four days before — the last "regular" rehearsal before the start of tech week — went completely out the window, especially in the second act. The long hours made some screw-ups in the later part of the evening understandable, but they seemed a bit over the top and excessive. The kids also got rather goofy, so when they did make a mistake they kept going on and on, running with it instead of just fixing it and moving on. Ah, well.
As kind of a serendipitous follow-up to Sunday's offer of a musical gig in March, I also got an email from a local theatre company at which I'd inquired last fall about volunteering or interning. It didn't work out then, but apparently they kept me on their list. I got a list of dates and times when they could use my help. Of course the woman from GSVLOC was absent from rehearsal tonight so I couldn't get a tentative schedule for that. :-/ But I did respond the next day to the other theatre to let them know I would be interested and schedule a tour to get familiar with their space.
Day Three: Tuesday
Tuesday was the third day of tech week and parent photo night. We also managed the first complete run-through with all music, costumes, props, sets, sound, and lighting. It even finished 30 minutes early! (Rehearsals almost never finish early during tech week — just see Monday...) As usual, there were some glitches — including some orchestral screw-ups and a few actors rushing through their songs — but overall the run was much better than the previous day, and actually finishing the show was but one reason.
Following rehearsal, as the actors got out of costume and waited for rides home (finishing early doesn't always work out perfectly), much of the orchestra left. Those of us who stuck around worked on the arrangement of the chairs, stands, and barriers with the music director. The saxophone section, and even more so the trumpets, drowned out most of the rest of the orchestra. In fact, the three of us violins could barely be heard over all the wind players and the piano was nearly inaudible. Hence the barriers: tall soft-covered movable wall sections that we set up between the trumpets and the audience. The first violinist also had the idea of using solid reflectors under the strings' chairs, to hopefully boost their (our) sound. I found dance floor sections left out from the temple's centennial celebration three days earlier that we could use for that purpose. After messing with the setup for about an hour, we finally called it a night.
The biggest issue, aside from singers rushing their songs, was microphone reception. There were a lot of clicks and pops in the sound and lots of plain old drop-outs. Much of the problems were fixed after an extended break (~20 minutes) between acts; however, the results still weren't perfect. The sound technician did more work on the mics with the director and choreographer while we musicians were in the pit messing with the barriers and reflectors; we all hoped the sound would be better for the final dress rehearsal the next day, on Wednesday.
Day Four: Wednesday
During the dress-rehearsal on Wednesday the show went extremely well. One or two additional tweaks were made to music and blocking; but, with the exception of adding the rabbi in on opening night, Wednesday's run was exactly what the audience saw on Thursday. A few lines that had been troublesome for the actors in the past few days also went off without any hitches, which made all of us very happy.
Day Five: Thursday
Enough playing to an empty room. Thursday, we got our first audience! The show went off so well, I was amazed. Adding in the rabbi's two cameos as the Master of Ceremonies at the Hot Box nightclub really enhanced the show. His improvisational skills are really quite good, and he gave two of the main characters some good-natured ribbing before moving on with the scenes.
There were the usual opening-night glitches, like nervousness, flubbed lines, skipped comic bits, and near – train wrecks. Some frequent mistakes that we thought had been fixed on Wednesday returned as well, but there were also some great additions. Nathan and Adelaide in particular delivered what I thought was the best version of their first big scene ever. (The scene in question is the one in which Adelaide reveals that her mother thinks the two of them are already married.) It wasn't that the delivery was script-perfect (it wasn't) so much as the fact that their few small flubs were amusing both in what was missed and how it was covered. I'm not sure that the audience got any of it, but the crew — having watched the show several times already — got a kick out of it all.
The opening night audience was a good crowd. They laughed, groaned, and generally made the right noises in the right places, with a decent amount of enthusiasm. Nobody complained about any volume imbalances in the orchestra, so the additions I helped make on Tuesday must have helped. Following the performance, we kibitzed a bit (as though we hadn't been the rest of the week?) and headed home to enjoy our day off on Friday.
Day Five-and-a-Half: Friday
Friday was a day off for everyone, but I used it to tour the local theatre that emailed me on Monday. During the hour-or-so-long tour, I discovered that what I thought was going to be a volunteer position was actually paid. Amazing that a theatre would be willing to pay me, someone with no formal experience whatsoever, to tech shows open to the public. But am I complaining? Nope!
I liked tech week, both because of seeing the wonderful production of Guys and Dolls shape up and come together and because of the two separate job offers I got. Only one was a direct result of being involved in this particular show, but the timing of the other offer couldn't have been better. Now if only I could have gotten a rehearsal schedule for the Gilbert & Sullivan company so I could alert the other theatre to potential conflicts instead of keeping them waiting... I took care of that on Saturday, though... sort of.
Day Six: Saturday
After taking a day off, everyone was raring to go on Saturday night. Saturdays are always USY night, which is an excuse for the cast to goof off. Saturdays always involve a lot of ad-libs and near – train wrecks — that is, more than usual. There were a few very close calls on this particular Saturday, and one or two veritable disasters, but there were also a lot of very funny ad-libs that more than made up for the mistakes.
For example, Sarah did "Pants on the Ground" to Sky in one of the Mission scenes — an unexpected turn from which he recovered only after being subtly prompted. Sky shot Big Jew (I know, not Big Jule, ha ha ) before leaving the Mission in the midnight prayer meeting scene, saying, "Sorry we couldn't clean them up. Except Big Jew. I don't like you." He then proceeded to behave like a burglar, "holding up" the meeting as if it was a convenience store. (Big Jew made a miraculous recovery in time to testify that he'd gone straight ever since his youth. "Thirty-three arrests and no convictions." Benny also fell asleep and had to be awakened by Nathan in order to give his testimony.
Benny and Nicely, playing catch in the sewer scene, dropped Big Jew's gun. Thankfully, Harry-the-Horse pretended to get hit by the bullet that would likely have been released. (Guns do tend to go off if they're dropped, don't they?) And of course, nobody who's seen this particular production will forget Harry and another unnamed gambler running off at the end of the show after Lieutenant Brannigan asks, "Anyone else planning to get married?" (Yes, the ending was rewritten. I don't know why, but I suspect it was mostly to get more out of the fact that Nicely was played by a girl.)
The usual minor line glitches persisted, mostly the same as had plagued the show all week like Big Jew saying he "came here to shoot craps" instead of "crap", Harry saying that Sky was "the fella I was tellin' you about" (his written line omits the word "about"), and so on. I realized on Saturday that the director was not really concerned with word-perfect delivery. Nor should he be; I'm just obsessive about things like that.
The orchestra was cello-less, but on Sunday would be minus a violin and tenor saxophone. All three musicians are important, but it's a bigger deal to lose two parts than one, especially when one of those two parts is a violin. We violins are already outnumbered 3:1 by the brass and winds, and losing one of our number means the ratio jumps to 7:1. Oy... If anyone in the audience would be able to hear us on Sunday, it would be amazing.
Day Seven: Sunday
If Saturday was joke night, Sunday was sloppy day. Much of the show ran better on Thursday, when the kids were nervous and relatively unpracticed, than on Sunday, after they'd gotten two shows down and were confident. I suspect that overconfidence on the part of a lot of the actors was a major factor in most of the sloppiness. Cues were missed, song timing got quite far off, and the sewer scene got completely butchered when Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson jumped ahead about 20 lines and then tried to fix it by going back and picking up missed bits.
The energy was also lower, collectively, than either of the two previous shows. Nervous energy is still energy, even if it results in mistakes. Dead scenes are no fun for anyone, on stage or off. Fortunately some of the leads stayed strong and carried their own parts well, decreasing the effect that the lack of energy had on the overall performance. I think the cast were tired after the poorly timed cast party the night before, which by rights should have been after Sunday's show, in the temple's youth lounge with the Super Bowl on the television.
Musically, the pit orchestra was better than I expected. Losing one violin didn't affect us as much as I thought it would; the audience could still hear the string part. It helped that our cellist, absent for Saturday's show, returned. We all got some exercise in following the singers when they rushed through songs and took entrances several beats early.
Even given all the little troubles, most of the audience was unaware that anything had gone wrong, and the show ended on a very positive note.
Closing
Closing a show is always bittersweet for me. Feelings of accomplishment and of loss commingle. But, "All good things must come to an end." And really, if shows never ended, all of us in the theatre would get mighty tired of playing the same songs, running the same scenes, hitting the same cues, and so on. Closing gives everyone a chance to move on and do something new; it's an opportunity to insert some variety — that wonderful spice of life — into our work.
Too bad that the closing of Guys and Dolls was really just everyone scattering after the final performance. It was an abrupt and very anticlimactic ending to a very intense week.
Conclusion
I learned some good lessons during Guys and Dolls. I learned a lot of little things, but these are the big ones.
First of all, in order to keep your authority, you have to assert it. Letting your charges do whatever they want won't do anyone any good, and it makes getting things done take forever.
Second, working with professional musicians is a wonderful thing. Amateurs just let the director do whatever he will, whether or not he really knows what he's doing. Professionals — and I like to think I share this quality — tell the director if he needs to be doing something differently, when he has forgotten something necessary, or is doing too much. A week before tech week, our accompanist started coming to rehearsals and became kind of an assistant music director. Since she'd played the show before, she had a lot of good ideas. When the full ensemble joined us on the first day of tech week, there were even more great ideas to be had, and the ensemble was able to do things — like stay together more often — that wouldn't have happened without concerted feedback from everyone.
Third, and finally, having experience in multiple areas of theatre is extremely useful. I was able to block scenes, help with sound, contribute to the arrangement of the pit, and assist the creation of the set, in addition to being an assistant director and pit musician. Had there been fewer people around, I probably would have been called upon even more — not that I would have had the time to take care of all the requests. 
The experience gained and the lessons learned during this show would have been enough for me, but I also made some contacts with other musicians that I think will be useful in the future. At the very least, it will be good to know others in the community, and some of them have connections with other performance opportunities. Since theatre is more about whom you know than what you know (though it still helps to be versatile and good at one or more things), having contacts will be very useful in the future.
Finally, I'd like to thank the director for crediting me and all the other volunteer artistic staff in his piece of the program. I got a musician credit in the listing section, but the listings did not include either of the two assistant directors or any of the other guest and assistant choreographers. I assume that was a decision made by a Temple higher-up and I'm sure I'm not alone in appreciating the acknowledgment. On behalf of Erika, Sammy, Kara, myself, and everyone else who volunteered but didn't get listed: Thank you, Aaron!
Now all that's left is to see about getting a T-shirt. In true Temple of Aaron fashion (sorry), nobody thought to see what size I needed, so I couldn't take one home. Maybe this bit of bad luck had something to do with the front of the shirts. Someone decided to have the dice in the shirt logo show "snake eyes" — a losing craps roll — unlike the program cover dice, which display a seven.
reMAP: IMAP reConceptualized
Gabor Cselle, the founder of reMail, recently posted an idea for replacing the IMAP email protocol with something with which working would be easier. The proposed name? reMAP, short for reimagined Mail Access Protocol.
He calls for a RESTful design that among other things would globalize message identifiers (rather than changing them the instant a message is moved to a new folder), replace folders with labels (a la Gmail), require the server to handle email search indexes, and make conversations the basic unit of email (instead of individual messages). reMAP would also make handling MIME messages unnecessary; the client could simply call the server with a request for text or HTML message representations without having to deal with parsing the MIME format itself.
I personally am in agreement with his entire proposal. The experiences I've had with IMAP in the past have highlighted shortcomings in a standard that was drafted over 15 years ago. Email has changed a great deal since then, but IMAP has not been revised to accommodate the enhancements made by newer clients and services like Gmail.
If IMAP is to be improved, it's probably appropriate to just completely replace it with something new. If the new system can translate IMAP commands into the equivalent operations in its own protocol, that's even better, because then servers can be upgraded without worries of breaking compatibility with older clients or the need to run server applications for IMAP and reMAP side by side.
There's plenty of discussion going on at the original post and on Hacker News. If, however, you would like to say something here, please don't hesitate.
As a side note, I see that Gabor is using Blogger's FTP publishing option, which will be going away soon. I hope the link will still work when he has to move.
A Thought About Efficient IT Administration
I'm kind of calling out St. Kate's Enterprise Computing Services department in a way, because I want to know why they would schedule a restart-required software deployment an hour before the computer lab is to close.
Can anyone with experience in Information Technology and management of company/school computer networks tell me why the times chosen to deploy new software are chosen? My experience last night of a new software deploy completely disrupting my very limited time on the computer happened at Saint Catherine University, which has a generally great library (unlike Concordia University in Saint Paul, though Concordia used to be greater).
Plenty of people were using the computers, and all got interrupted. Why? Why not schedule the deploy for after-hours and save everyone the hassle? When logging in, the computers at St. Kate's even display a message encouraging users to log off their computers at night so updates and new software can be deployed during off hours. I would define off hours as the times when labs are closed, not an arbitrary time like 21:00 (as was chosen a few days ago for a non-restart-required installation) or 23:00 (as was chosen for last night's disruptive reboot-required deploy).
Maybe the IT staff go home at the usual lab closing time and they don't want to stick around after closing to monitor the deploy. Perhaps they want to have extra time to debug any problems that might crop up before the morning rush. Admittedly, the labs are rather underutilized late at night, but those users there are generally working on something very important that really shouldn't be interrupted. It adds to their stress. Having to wait five minutes for the computer to finish "Applying computer settings..." and "Running startup scripts..." doesn't help frayed nerves.
Having no information on which to base any conclusions, I can only speculate wildly as to why the installation time was chosen. But I know that I was not the only user in that lab that was very frustrated at all the computers being forcibly taken offline for five minutes to install a software package.
I also wonder if it wouldn't be possible to have idle computers install the package immediately, but allow in-use workstations to delay installation and restart until the current user logs off. It seems like that would be much more efficient than having everyone in the room sit and stare at a Windows status dialog for five minutes.
Well, at least St. Kate's and Concordia haven't moved to Windows Vista. Augsburg College, when I have occasion to go there, has and their systems are a royal PITA, not to mention slow as molasses ("Designed for Windows XP" — the front of every PC tower at Augsburg).
Oh, and even if you're not in IT, I'd still love to hear your opinion.
“Houdini” plugin for WordPress is no magician
I've seen some pretty absurd WordPress plugins show up in the Plugins dashboard widget on this site, but the recently-released "Houdini" takes the cake so far. It claims to prevent spammers from copying the contents of any post or page upon which the [houdini] shortcode is placed.
The fact is the internet is open can lead to theft especially to content stealing and plagiarism.
Until now, there was very little to discourage and deter this serious crime. Yes content theft and plagarism is a crime in some jurisdictions.
You cannot rely on others or the authorities to continue to police the internet as they do not have enough resources. You need to protect your content and deter this theft.
The basic form of content theft is to copy and paste your content to another medium.
Well Houdini, prevents this using a little known special algorithm that prevents copying by making the selected text that is targeted by the perps to be copied, to disappear! Yes disappear!!! The only way to recover is to reload the page in the web browser. If they try again, the content disappears again. As long as they keep trying to select and copy your content, the content will disappear before they can get a chance to execute the copy command!
After a few unsuccessful attempts, the theives will move on to a easier target.
Your safe!
So what can we glean from this PHK Corporation plugin's description, other than the fact that the author has poor English skills? We can most definitely conclude that phkcorp2005 has no understanding of how most copying of Internet content is carried out. As I and others have pointed out many times over in blog and forum posts, copying is usually not done by a person using a mouse to cut and paste, but rather by automated computer programs called scrapers. (For the uninitiated: See these two Wikipedia articles.)
What is left out of that messy, error-riddled description is the word "JavaScript". It is by no means the only word or phrase that should be inserted, but it is the most important. That fifth "paragraph" (the formatting is also very poor) should say "special JavaScript algorithm", which is synonymous in this case with "useless JavaScript algorithm". All it does is wait for the user to try to select text in the browser and clear the selection if any is made. Besides, any copy-protection scheme based upon JavaScript is inherently useless by virtue of the fact that it doesn't do anything to prevent copying. There are tons of ways to get around it. Disabling JavaScript, for example (as mentioned below).
For example, take hatkirby's rant. I quote from that post the list of circumvention techniques below:
- Go old fashioned and turn off JavaScript. Yep, the script is rendered useless.
- More advanced content thieves likely don't just go around to random blogs and copy/paste off of them. They write screen scrapers, small programs that visit sites and download specific parts of the site. As these do not render pages and simply download from them, the script isn't even seen by the scraper.
- Due to the nature of the Internet, anyone, and I mean anyone, can see the source code of a website. It's done differently in different web browsers, but it's always pathetically easy and, as it simply shows HTML code instead of parsing anything, no scripts are run.
- RSS. Syndication feeds are normally viewed in feed readers with little to no JavaScript interpreter. Script bypassed.
- There's this cool little button on most keyboards that says "Print Screen". Even on the keyboards that don't have it, there's usually a key combination that achieves the same effect. It takes a picture of whatever's on the screen. No selection occurs and yet the thief has a copy of your article. They do, however, have to retype it, so this keeps the lazy thieves out.
That's just a smattering of ways to get around the JavaScript inserted by Houdini.
In the face of all the arguments presented, the plugin's author has insisted that the purpose of Houdini is not to "prevent" copying, but to "deter" copying. I don't think that statement holds any weight whatsoever. It still depends upon the copying being performed in a JavaScript-enabled browser by a human.
There's also the matter of just how absurd copy-protection of any kind is on the Internet. Every single document or file anywhere on the Internet must be copied in order for the user-agent (usually a browser in the case of human interaction) to retrieve and display or otherwise make use of the content. This is why it's quite simple for any user to just view the source code of a page. It has to be copied in order to display the content.
Also mentioned in the first (started, chronologically) forum thread is the ability of JavaScript to disable the browser's context menu and thus the "View source" option. That's just as useless as the selection-clearing code, and actually more so because many modern browsers allow specific JavaScript capabilities to be disabled — capabilities like removing or replacing the context menu — as an alternative to disabling all JavaScript. The "View source" option is also present in other places — places such as the browser toolbar's "View" or "Tools" menu — which JavaScript code cannot modify even in the most permissive environment.
Legitimate quoting must also be considered. There are a million and one reasons why someone might legitimately want to copy a few sentences of a blog post. Maybe they like it enough to post a quote to Twitter or Facebook, or perhaps they want to comment on it in a blog post of their own. Content theft is a big problem, but the old methods of periodically searching for and reporting content stolen from one's site are infinitely preferable to this plugin's ineffective method.
Finally, why require the use of a shortcode? Why not just add the script globally to all content pages and forget that stupid "This page is copy protected" header?
At most, Houdini has the ability to add a superfluous <h5> tag to the page and annoy legitimate users with an obnoxious script while doing absolutely nothing to thwart real content thieves. I wonder if WordPress Extend would consider removing this laughable plugin from the directory... Of course, we bloggers would then be denied this ripe opportunity to satirize this particular piece of code.
iPad? Of course I want one, but…
- Image by toykyo via Flickr
Technological progress can suck sometimes. I have wanted an iPod Touch for about a year and a half, to have the ability to play music and games while on the go as well as gain access to email, tasks, calendar, contacts, etc. while away from a computer (but near an open Wi-Fi network). I almost bought one last year, then I got wind of the upcoming third-generation models: more storage, etc. etc. So I waited. Then the Apple Tablet rumors really started in force, and I really don't have that much spare change anyway, so I continued to wait.
And on Wednesday last — yesterday, that is — the bombshell dropped. Apple announced the iPad.
I got the news late in the day, so there wasn't any point in trying to get out a quick post. There's not even any point in posting about its technical specifications or features, since that information is well covered by Apple as well as others and is a mere search away. But I do want to say this: The iPad has very nearly stolen my desires away from the iPod Touch.
Why would I want an iPad anyway? The form factor appeals to me. I like its thin, light construction, and the fact that it's completely mouseless; multi-touch interaction is definitely a win. The keyboard add-on would work to supplement the on-screen keyboard for more serious writing. Of course, there's also the Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately, the iPad isn't at all perfect, at least for what I would want to do with it. Like the iPod Touch and (save for the camera) the iPhone, it has no camera, no multi-tasking, no media card slots (so my 16GB SD card would stay in my camera), no USB, etc. So far as I know, it's subject to all the limitations of the iPhone OS. But for some reason I still want one. Probably the same reason that I want(ed) an iPhone or iPod Touch. And Apple's solution to the lack of ports? Adapters. Yeah. Not the best solution, in my opinion, and it'll definitely keep me from seriously considering acting on this want. (Unlike so many others, I don't really care about the name. I just think iPad is awfully similar to iPod.)
The lack of a camera is really strange to me. With such a sophisticated device, based on high-speed data communication over Wi-Fi and/or 3G, a user-facing camera (at least) would seem to be a natural feature especially since Apple's laptops have included a built-in webcam for a while now. Videoconferencing on a device like the iPad could be really enjoyable, what with the accessories that would probably come out to make it even better. (I would like to see a stand that allows it to be used like one of those communication screens on Star Trek. Geek that I am. )
As usual, Apple has created an incredible piece of hardware, but has omitted what I would consider to be key parts of a truly productive and useful platform. Just about every consumer electronic Apple produces seems to be focused on consuming media, whether music, video, images, or text. Their more conventional computers have productivity components, and can multitask like any Windows or Linux system out there, but they still excel at media consumption and production. This latest consumer electronic device is, to me, basically a Nokia N900 Internet Tablet with an App Store, no hardware keyboard, and Apple's design flair.
Given the limitations, there's no way I'm going to buy an iPad. It's really a bummer. I'll just have to contain that want, as I have been for the iPod Touch. Both devices are beautiful, amazing pieces of engineering (and it's interesting to note Chris Messina's hypothetical iPad Touch post from 2007, found on Twitter via @damon's timely tweet), but both are too limited and neither would really satisfy my want for a true portable computer. Too bad knowing the limitations of these Apple devices doesn't in any way alleviate my geek lust for them.
Why I’m Always Promoting Dropbox
- Image via CrunchBase
If you've had much interaction with me regarding computers, no matter what the medium — Twitter, Facebook, email, dinner conversation, small talk during a gathering — I've probably mentioned a service called Dropbox. A few of you have already succumbed to my uncharacteristic marketing tone and signed up, but I thought I'd blog about it and perhaps get more people on board.
I'll start with the reasons I like the service, and then explain why, exactly, I'm doing this a little later.
The site bills itself as an online synchronization and backup solution. I use it mostly for the backup, but that will probably change in the future. After all, it was created by a couple guys who were tired of forgetting their flash drives. It's ironic to note that my current use of Dropbox is to back up my 8GB (soon to be 32GB) SanDisk Cruzer Micro, using a modification contributed by another user.
Dropbox is just plain fun to use, and it has a lot of cross-platform compatibility. It synchronizes files between computers running Windows, Mac OS, or Linux; keeps backup copies online (using Amazon's S³ service — not that I should get too technical); stores revisions when files are changed; and keeps deleted files in case of the inevitable "damn, I shouldn't have deleted that" moment.
The backups, revisions, and deleted files are accessible from any computer with an Internet connection. Files can be added, updated, deleted, and otherwise managed via the website, too, which is great for travel or forgotten files (presentations, school projects, whatever). There is also a mobile website for PDAs and a higher-end version optimized for Android- and iPhone OS – based devices, as well as an iPhone App (there's an app for that™) which of course also works on the iPod Touch.
When naughty Vista workstations have tried to corrupt irreplaceable recordings and other files, Dropbox has restored them (with a little direction from me). Last summer, I bent the connector on my flash drive pretty severely while working on a design project at a poorly arranged Emerson computer desk. It still works, and retracts; but after asking around a bit and hearing that the drive was now likely unreliable, I was motivated to upgrade from the old Dropbox U3 mod — which had trouble on all sorts of non-personal computers — to DropboxPortable — which has worked everywhere so far. (It still won't work at the local public libraries, though. But neither will anything else; they blanket – block EXEs.) If and when my drive decides to give up the ghost, I know Dropbox will be there to give me my drive back just as I had it, as soon as I replace the failed hardware.
I also back up my music collection in Dropbox, which is a great, perfectly legal way to make sure I don't lose any downloaded or ripped MP3s. As it turns out, it's also useful because the device I use as my MP3 player — a Roland Edirol R-09HR — happens to be very picky about file structure. If there's one bit out of place, I get an "Improper Song!" error and can't listen to that file. When this happens to a song that used to play, I've often been able to go back into the previous file versions for that MP3 and load a playable version onto my R-09HR. It's much easier than using a so-called "repair tool" on the file.
There's also the matter of deleted file recovery. I've used the deleted file recovery to reinstate everything from seldom-played music (deleted to free up space) and design research (I just messed up) to irreplaceable recordings from my R-09HR (corrupted by Vista).
The list of times Dropbox has come in handy and/or saved my bacon is endless. If it's saved me so many times in the space of one year, it can surely do you some good.
So do yourself and the great people at Dropbox ("the Dropboxers") a favor and give it a try. I'll bet you won't be disappointed.
Note: Signing up through the links in this post will net you an extra 250MB* of storage in addition to Dropbox's free 2GB plan. That extra storage will stay with you if you decide to upgrade your account. (Disclaimer: You'll also earn me an extra 250MB.*) I tried to work out something special with the Dropbox team via their now-defunct affiliate program, but they stopped the program just before I inquired, so I'm unfortunately rather limited in the benefits I can pass on. Too bad, really; I had in mind something rather spectacular.
* – Please note that you must install the Dropbox application on at least one computer before you or I will receive any additional storage.
My First WordPress Plugin Patch: Wibiya Toolbar
The beauty of using WordPress instead of Blogger is, in a nutshell, the freedom that comes with using an open system instead of a closed one. Under Blogger, I had very little freedom to extend the platform. Everything I could do had to be added by someone from Google, with the exception of a few JavaScript- and Flash-based sidebar widgets. Under WordPress, I have access to literally thousands of open-source plugins to modify, extend, and replace the functionality of the site.
The beauty of using this open system is that if something doesn't work the way I want it to, I am free to simply change it; every plugin is editable from within WordPress' administrative back-end, and the core code is also hackable (though I don't like messing with it because upgrades will break changes). When I discovered that the Wibiya Toolbar (or Wibar) was showing on the mobile version of the website (which is generated by MobilePress, another good plugin), I simply looked in the source of Wibiya's plugin to see how the JavaScript for the toolbar was being inserted.
I found that instead of using the wp_enqueue_script() function as WordPress plugin developers are supposed to do, the Wibiya developers simply used echo to output a <script> tag. That explained why only the JavaScript for the Wibar was loading on the mobile site. Rewriting the plugin to use the official WordPress script-injection method solved the problem.
The original relevant code was:
add_action('get_footer', 'filter_footer');
add_action('admin_menu', 'wibiya_config_page');
function filter_footer() {
$wibiya_toolbarid = get_option('WibiyaToolbarID');
$wibiya_enabled = get_option('WibiyaToolbarEN');
if ($wibiya_toolbarid != '' and $wibiya_enabled) {
echo '<script src="http://cdn.wibiya.com/Loaders/Loader_'.$wibiya_toolbarid.'.js" type="text/javascript"></script>';
}
}I rewrote it just a little bit. My changes were pretty trivial, really. I changed the function name to be namespaced (including the plugin name) just so it'd be less likely to conflict with another plugin. I also switched actions to enable wp_enqueue_script() to work (get_footer is called too late) and added a check—if( !is_admin() )—to keep the toolbar off of admin pages, preserving the original behavior of the function (and the sanity of anyone using the modifications).
In short, wp_enqueue_script() takes five parameters, three of which are optional. The first two are the $handle and the $src, which specify a name for the script and its source address. Then come $deps (dependencies; Wibiya has none, so set to false), $ver (version; also false because it's irrelevant), and $in_footer (set to true because the toolbar should be inserted above the </body> tag).
So with my changes, the code block above becomes:
if( !is_admin() ) {
add_action('wp_print_scripts', 'wibiya_filter_footer');
}
add_action('admin_menu', 'wibiya_config_page');
function wibiya_filter_footer() {
$wibiya_toolbarid = get_option('WibiyaToolbarID');
$wibiya_enabled = get_option('WibiyaToolbarEN');
if ($wibiya_toolbarid != '' and $wibiya_enabled) {
wp_enqueue_script( 'wibiyabar', 'http://cdn.wibiya.com/Loaders/Loader_'.$wibiya_toolbarid.'.js', false, false, true );
}
}Following some light testing, I submitted an idea to the Wibiya feedback forum, where my update is currently being reviewed by the company. Hopefully, the change will be included in a future version of the Wibiya WordPress plugin. After all, it changes nothing for Wibiya but works wonders for compatibility with other plugins.
I'll just bet that this won't be the last time I'll send a patch to a plugin developer. I enjoy reporting bugs and coming up with fixes too much to not do it.
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