If you want a meeting, ask for a meeting. Provide some time options and ask for a specified length. If you want an introduction, ask for an introduction. If you’re looking for funding, tell him you’re currently fundraising and ask to meet to show him your pitch. Don’t be sly. Don’t hint. Make the process ridiculously easy by just asking for what you want.
How to email busy people, by Jason Freedman


Output default thumbnail in Movabletype 4

In a recent website redesign I wanted to have a simple article photo thumnbnail beside the title in a recent articles list placed in the site’s sidebar.
Using Movabletype 4’s asset manager this is relatively painless to implement unless their happens to be no assets associated with that entry. In that case MT will output the title without thumbnail.
What I want to happen is MT to output a default thumbnail in those instances.
I spent a couple hours trying to get this to work until a kind member of the MT community forums gave me the template code below:

<mt:SetVarBlock name="fallbackthumb">[FALLBACK CONTENT]</mt:setvarblock>
<mt:Entries>
    <mt:EntryAssets setvar="postthumb">[DESIRED CONTENT]</mt:entryassets>
    <$mt:Var name="postthumb" _default="$fallbackthumb"$>
</mt:Entries>

This is how mine looked after replacing the bracketed content.

<ul class="featured clearfix"><mt:Entries lastn="8"><li><a href="<$mt:EntryPermalink$>"><mt:SetVarBlock name="fallbackthumb"><img src="<$MTBlogURL$>img/default.jpg" /></mt:setvarblock><mt:EntryAssets setvar="postthumb" type="image" limit="1"><img src="<mt:AssetThumbnailURL width="70" />" alt="<mt:assetlabel>"/></mt:entryassets>
    <$mt:Var name="postthumb" _default="$fallbackthumb"$><strong><$MTEntryTitle$></strong></a></li>
</mt:Entries></ul>


Control-option-command-8

Thanks to Gary on Forumosa for this Mac OS X tip. Pressing the key combo “control-option-command-8” inverts the screen. It is cool in it’s own right (windows look like portals to heaven) but might also be useful for those staring at text all day.