Finally got back out on the bike tonight. I took off without my odometer, so I did the next best thing and retraced my path with Google Maps. Yup, still the best Lazy Sunday video.
Archive for the 'Geeky' Category
I use Dreamhost as the host for gotshoo.com and a bunch of other sites. Really cheap hosting with a somewhat reliable reputation. The hosting plan I have gives me 300+ GB in storage. For a long time I considered what the heck to do with all the storage since most of my stuff doesn’t take up more than a few gig. A few months ago I read a tutorial on how to backup your personal files using some Unix utilities (Rsync). So, I created a job that every night it would sync up my photos and music directories with my online storage. Awesome idea, right?!
Maybe it was the account name that gave it away, ’shoobackup.’ I got an email from support stating ‘Hey, it’s cool what your doing but your hosting plan doesn’t allow for it. Delete everything or start paying us $ .20 per GB a month’, which was up to a 100GB. I just deleted my account.
Anyone else use some kind of online storage backup? I checked out Amazon’s S3, they’re about $.15 per GB. Curious to hear what anyone else has to say.
I picked up a wireless mouse for my laptop this week. I tried to play the “I got this for both of us, honey” card. A lame attempt, but Mrs. Shoo hits up Panera quite frequently to work outside the house. I was just trying offer her equal time with the mouse. I always get all the cool tech toys, just trying to share. Needless to say, it did not work at all. Rejected like one of those E-Harmony competitor commercials.
It’s a pretty sweet traveling mouse though. It’s wireless and wired, the USB dongle fits under the bottom, and the orange top pops off and reveals the batteries and USB cable for wired control if the batteries die.
I got this keyboard for Christmas. And actually, I got two of them for Xmas. Took one back.
It ranks pretty high on the list of keyboards I’ve owned. The mouse and keyboard are both wireless. Haven’t had any troubles connecting them to the computer. Probably the best feature has to be the next track keys on the right side. They’re in the perfect position so that I don’t have to look down to change a track. I don’t really use any of the other accessory keys, but they’re nice to have. Oh except the volume keys and mute button, always great when Mrs. Shoo yells down in the basement, “Hooooooonnnnnneeeeeyyyy!”
The UPS man today delivered some new parts for my ‘old school’ pc that I am turning into a home server. USB 2.0 interal card for about 8 bucks, a gigabit lan card for about 10, and a new quieter processor for fan for about 18. Everything works like a charm.
Here’s a size comparison of the new fan vs. the old one. Intriguing.. huh? It’s quieter. I am lacking on content and the dogs wouldn’t cooperate with tonight’s photo shoot because there was a new episode of House on. The dogs are both huge fans of House and the Office. The Mrs. and I both agreed that tonight’s episode would have been much better aired before Christmas.
Isn’t beautiful!? Don’t answer that. I’ve been watching podcasts on Photoshop. I think I’ll stick to coding.
This was the first full year that I used Google’s Analytics. It’s a really good tool if you remember to stick the javascript into the page. I forgot to towards November (see the big gap). The other stats program that comes preloaded with gotshoo also tells me that 2007 was the most traffic the site has gotten in the past 3 years.
Kind of weird to think that so many people have hit the site and the number one thing they’re looking for is a reference to the Office tv show or Dustin Thayer, a kid I went to high school with who commented here a few times.
Thanks to everyone for stopping by.
Nerd alert: Nerd content below.
If you have ever designed or worked on large user base program then this video below might be of some interest. If not, sorry I’ll get some puppy pictures on here soon.
I first logged into Gmail 2/14/2005. Since then, which has been 1030 days or 2 yrs. 3 months and 27 days, I’ve received 4015 messages and sent 1840. An average of approx. 4 received and 2 sent messages a day.
I’ve never had to back up my email. I can get to my email via computer or cell phone. Very rarely do I ever get spam. I spend more time hitting the Delete All Spam, which isn’t necessary because it automatically deletes them for you after 30 days, link than deleting any spam in my inbox.
Tereasa shows us how it’s done.
GTG and I went over to our friends’ house for dinner and game night. Played some Cranium which is nothing but chick related questions. Yes, the girls won.
Afterwards we were introduced to, the gift that is on everyone’s wish list this year, Guitar Hero. I rocked missed a lot of notes. GTG handled the buttons a little better. I totally forget how well she played because she gloated the whole way home and sent out a massive text message (Stillwagon style) stating that I sucked. In other words, give me an hour alone with the guitar and I will be better competition.
Santa, please send Guitar Hero for the Wii. Thanks, Shoo.
This weekend I am planning to build some shelves under the stairs heading to the basement. I could have just busted out an 8 1/2″ x 11 sheet of paper and mocked up a version of the shelves under the stairs, but where would the fun been in that? I instead went the geeky route and downloaded Google’s SketchUp, a 3D CAD program.
I’ve got a little experience with CAD having worked at a truss plant doing house plan designs and truss designs. There are two flavors of SketchUp: free and pro. I used the free version of course which comes with the basic features to build and edit 3D objects. The program has an option to start up with a tutorial, but me being the confident geek I skipped right on by to the program. It took me about 15 minutes to get the gist of the functionality.
The program does take some mastering, but once you get the basic idea everything is a snap.
Yes it works. Yes, that’s my messy desk. I’ll follow up with details later.
The blog is kind of in a disarray right now. I upgraded to newest version of Wordpress and the K2 theme and some things broke. Whenever I can get some free time, I’ll make it look normal again.
This is actually the 999th post on Gotshoo. I was trying to hold out to do something shoo-special, but I saw this video today and was just amazed. I really wanted an iPhone, but I’ll take the 8 foot screen featured in the video instead.
Insert drool.
Apple has just released a guided tour for Mac OS X Leopard. If you have an Apple, it looks like it’s worth the upgrade. But…. don’t you think that Apple is taking the black sweaters thing a little too far? Cultic? Heaven’s Gate-ish?
They’ve seriously made the whole OS act like iTunes.
Since I don’t have a Mac or the money to buy a new laptop, I will be downloading and trying out the new version of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibson). Let you know how it is.
I helped two coworkers today setup their iPhones to work with our Microsoft Exchange server. The phones do not use the OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) protocol. They instead have to be configured to use IMAP and SMTP, which means the IT guy, your’s truely, had to setup the firewall so they can work.
Here’s a quick run through of how to get things working.
I am a huge fan of Wordpress, I’ve been typing entries into the blog-o-sphere for the last four years. In that time, I’ve upgraded countless times, changed plugins, and modified the crap out of it. I stand strong by it as one of the best and most versatile blogging platforms on the net. And it’s free.
Iggy, a local spfldblogger, is having some issues with it after moving from one blogging platform to Wordpress. Now Iggy you get cynical sometimes; so beware, this is not a potshot at you. I just feel like that I’ve been using the software for a great length of time that I have some authority on the subject and I should give back to what has been given to me for free.
Okay first of all…
The issue of your RSS feed being broke after changing themes is not impossible, but more than likely it was your RSS reader that cached your feed and you thought it was broken. My reasoning is because the framework, the code that supplies all the data connections and inter workings to the front end, works independently to what theme you’re working with.
The address to the RSS feed is always going to be http://sitename/wordpress/feed, or if Wordpress is in the root of the site, http://sitename/feed. The feed to comments is http://sitename/comments/feed.
The best way to debug this is to go directly to those pages. Another reason it may have broke is that the feed was invalid after trying to pass an invalid character in the feed. Wordpress should have handled everything, but by an oddball chance that could be your answer.
Next.
Speaking of RSS feeds. Why is the default setting to choose full or partial feed? How come I can’t have both without finding a plug-in to do this for me?
This would require modifying the framework and those nice paths shown up above would have to be modified. Why fix something when it’s not broke? And partial feeds, we’re not on 56k modems anymore.
Picture This.
I have yet to get time to find a plug-in to handle photos the way I want within WordPress.
I don’t know what you’re trying to do with your photos, but the easiest way is to upload them using the upload utility under the post editor. Wordpress does not manage photo albums, but a lot of photo sharing sites allow for easy export or direct publishing from photo sites like Flickr.
Page Me.
Page creation is easy enough but fails miserably all the same. I can’t create a page that has no parent at all. So I create a new category so that I can post the content I want within that category. However there are two problems with this. One the title of the new category wants to take over in the header. Two when I click to post only to the new category within my post. The content is still posted to the main page even though the main page was not selected. I don’t want the content posted on the main page. If I did I wouldn’t be wanting to create a new page or category now would I?
I am confused, so I’ll outline page creation the best way I can. A page is considered a static blog post, but totally seperate from the blog. Like if you wanted to post your contact information. When you create a new page, it will be posted as a link - depending on your theme, on the main page. The only way around this is to edit the header to exclude the link.
k2.
While the K2 theme is far from perfect it does make doing some task simple if you know where to look. Personally I still feel much of this functionality should be included within WordPress as default and set to be controlled under one of the numerous Dashboard tabs.
K2 is awesome, and I am using it on Gotshoo. The GUI presentation manager allows a user to move and configure modules, like Flickr thumbnails or latest posts, around the site with the click of a mouse. It would be cool if it was a default, but I think the reasoning for not using it to manage every type of theme would be that it would break a lot of other themes considering not everyone’s CSS follows the same structure. The K2 theme is special because it was specifically coded to handle those events.
Nope.
I think WordPress either is in denial or doesn’t care that it’s overall user base has changed. Originally the product was designed for web designers and administrators. However many people have sung the praises of WordPress. To the point where many less technical driven users are trying to put the product to use. I think many of these people have given up this endeavor do to the lack of ease of use.
Everything has a learning curve. You can’t go out and drive a Ferrari and expect it to drive flawlessly without knowing how to drive stick or corner hi-speed curves. Post some questions, I’ll do my best to answer.
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