Now that DestroyTwitter 2.1.0 supports themes, I decided to make a NASCAR inspired theme. It’s very similar to the one I made for DestroyTwitter 1.X. You just need to download, unzip the file and install the theme through preferences.
Download DestroyTwitter 2.X NASCAR theme
Since these are just CSS files, they are very easy to modify how you see fit. Enjoy! 🙂
This is just a quick test post for the Twitter Tools 2.4 WordPress plug-in and its new Twitter OAuth mechanism. I “think” I have configured everything correctly and it should be using my URL Shortner/Redirection.
It’s probably a good thing I waited until today to write this; otherwise, it would have been full of many colorful words. 🙂 This is a follow-up to my last post. I tried to run NASCAR.COM’s RaceView during the Michigan race this past Sunday and all I got was either a window with “loading” at the bottom or just a solid white window. This occurred in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. I opened up the Java console in both Firefox and IE and it just had a Java error of a Null pointer assignment:
Yes, I did try to reload several times. So I gave up and just started PitCommand to listen to Dale Jr’s audio. I did have to start it in IE first before the audio would work in Firefox and I just didn’t care to investigate this further. I was frustrated and missing the race. Before you ask, I do meet their minimum system requirements.
Now, I don’t mind troubleshooting problems; however, I do not want to do it during the actual race! It totally ruins the fan’s experience. How can you expect fans to search knowledge bases and forums, reinstall Java, plug-ins, audio and video drivers, and do whatever else might be potentially involved? It boggles my mind that there isn’t a race simulator that we can test these applications with during the week. If I was a NASCAR website/TrackPass developer I’d scream for this. I am quite sure the website team has no desire to fix the software during races either (I only hope they at least have some internal system to do this). Normally I wouldn’t give a flying fruitcake about it, but I am paying more for TrackPass than I am for my webhosting here that my blog, among several other sites, is on. The IndyCar RaceControl works (yes, they do loose timing and scoring sometimes but that’s an issue at their end when it happens) and it’s free.
This will probably be my last season to subscribe to RaceView. If the preview works during next year’s Daytona 500 then I might reconsider; otherwise, I’ll just stick with the scanner.
I welcome any comments about other’s experiences and how you got it to work, if you did.
(If you’re having problems with RaceView, you might want to check out this post: Getting NASCAR RaceView Working with Internet Explorer 8)
During Sunday’s NASCAR race I was trying to get the audio working in NASCAR.COM’s PitCommand using Firefox (version 3.6.8 at the time). No such luck, even after disabling AdBlock Plus and enabling 3rd party cookies. So, I decided to try it in Internet Explorer 8. Naturally, it worked just fine. I tried it again in Firefox, and it worked! Hmm.. what’s going on here?
I knew that the audio stream was being handled by Windows Media Player since it was using the .ASX extension. I did have the Windows Media Player plug-in for Firefox installed. There’s an article at mozillaZine which gives information about it. In fact, my MIDI page is designed to work with it. Since it only worked after I tried it in Internet Explorer, I figured it must have triggered something or saved something into Temporary Internet Files that allowed it to then work in Firefox. Since WMP is a Microsoft program, it stores its files in IE’s Temporary Internet Files directory. So, I deleted the Temporary Internet Files using the Internet Explorer Control Panel applet. The audio quit working with PitCommand in Firefox again. I launched PitCommand in IE which worked and closed IE. The audio started working in Firefox. At this point I restarted Windows and went to Firefox first thing and the PitCommand audio worked.
It seems that some Javascript or other file that gets saved to Temporary Internet Files when using IE is letting the WMP Firefox plug-in to play the audio in this specific case. This leads me to believe that the code on NASCAR.COM’s site might be doing different things based on the browser it detects. Because I was sick of troubleshooting and missing the race I stopped here.
NASCAR.COM really needs to have a fake race stream during the week so that all of us, and them, can work on software issues then and not during the actual race! Who wants to do that? I also tried RaceView but it wouldn’t work in either Firefox or IE. I just got a blank page with a Java error on it. Early this morning I got a Java update (version 6, update 21) but I won’t be able to test that out till the next cup race. 😕
Wishing everyone a Happy (and safe) 4th of July weekend!! 🙂
