Steve ST
Steve Sweeney-Turner is a professional scholar
& online freelancer
Main Archives: Newest Posts
Marking HTML5 <time> with PHP
The HTML5 <time> element can be confusing at first — as can its datetime attribute. But once you get used to its quirks, it’s fairly simple. It’s even simpler if you handle all those quirks with something like PHP! Basic Usage The first point to note is that if the text-content of your <time>… Read More
Portable .htaccess Domain Rewriter (www/non-www)
How to use Apache .htaccess directives to tweak the “www.” domain prefix of your site’s URLs is a common problem, normally solved along these lines — <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.MyDomain\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://MyDomain\.com/$1 [R=301,L] </IfModule> But while the common solution is fine for MyDomain.com, you have to manually re-code it… Read More
Best Online Sources for Robert Burns?
Well, that would all depend on what you’re after, wouldn’t it….? But, since I can already hear those who know me too well starting to whimper at that characteristically-tricksy “Traditional” can o’ conditionally-cryptic worms of evasion, I’ll try and be brief (at least for now). For me, the simplest answer is also the best… Read More
The Web is Going Out of Date
I don’t know about you, but I’m increasingly finding that the web is getting bogged down by woefully-outdated information about itself. Google practically any web-related topic (whether technical or otherwise) and you’ll see what I mean. Vast piles of advice about how to do things in totally outdated ways which, if you follow it,… Read More
ScotMus.com is Back Online!
After a week or so of being offline due to undergoing a change of web-hosts, I’m pleased to announce that ScotMus.com is back online. As has been the case for over a year now, though, I’ve still not had time to upgrade the technologies it runs on. However, now that the hosting situation’s been… Read More
How to Read Older Scots Texts
Aye, actually, it’s not always too easy even for native-speakers of Modern Scots! But then again, how many Modern English-speakers can really get their heads ’round Chaucer? Some even have problems with Shakespeare! But getting to grips with pre-Modern Scots texts can be a total nightmare for non-natives. And yet, Scots literature has a… Read More
Pythagoras and The Beans of Doom
αἲ, αἲ, Πυθαγόρης τί τόσον κυάμους ἐσεβάσθη; Woe! Woe, Pythagoras! Why such fear of beans? In his biography of Pythagoras, Diogenes answers his own satirical query with several, often contradictory answers. Over the centuries, there’d been a fair bit of confusion about what exactly was going on between Pythagoras and The Beans. So Diogenes… Read More
Holes in Blogosphere Cause Global Warming
We rumble around in the blogosphere, digesting and regurgitating and emitting ever-expanding clouds of hot air (mostly guffing on about the blogosphere itself). While we’re doing this, apps, servers, providers and devices pump it all through the backend. Naturally, all this e-guff burns up hefty piles of fossil fuels. And as the cloud expands… Read More
Online Scottish Manuscripts @ NLS
It goes without saying that the National Library of Scotland is the top spot on the globe for Scottish manuscripts, but its online collections are pretty neat, too. And they’re all free-to-access for scholars and Normal People alike, without any pesky signups or logins. Of course, NLS offers way more than just manuscripts, let… Read More
Posted in Cultural Technologies
Tagged Gaelic, Latin, Literature, Manuscripts, Maps, Politics, Scots
Leave a comment
Census 2011, Q16: Can you “do” Scots?
. . . w h i t . . . ? ? ? Naw, ye cannae “do” Scots! – hou can ye “dae” ony language? Ye cuid dae the Fandango, Scaramouche, but ye cannae dae a language – easier tae shove yer proverbial aff a bus nor dae thon! It’s the wrang verb, ya… Read More
Serving Dynamic CSS with PHP
A constant source of irritation with CSS is that it’s not exactly “programmable”. You can’t define any constants, you can’t perform any real calculations, and you certainly can’t run any functions. Sometimes, the idea that CSS “cascades” can seem like a bad joke. In the vexed quest to make things even vaguely-dynamic, most folks… Read More
Making Child Themes Work in Live Writer
The problem with using WordPress Child Themes in Windows Live Writer is that they don’t always work. View your post in the “Preview” pane, and it can be like staring into the pale face of your blog’s ghost. A bit upsetting, after all the care you’ve given it in real life. Generally, the cause… Read More