>> Archive 2006
[December 4th, 2006]
SiteGround Gift Certificates - 2006
(Udpate: Ended Jan. 10th)
Got some SiteGround "$20 bucks off web hosting" gift certificates available. First come first serve. if you'd like one. I'll spare you the cheesy Ginzu Knife routines of the past. They simply give you a crazy amount of space, traffic and features at a very inexpensive cost. Then factor in the discount. It's sick man. Check 'em out, drop me a line. If I got, you'll get.
[November 11th, 2006]
New & Improved Linux Box
Removed the bad graphical representation of Debian from the old Dell Optiplex (an unbearable 640x480 res) and replaced it with Ubuntu 6.0.6.1 - aka Dapper Drake. It's impressive! And dude, what ease of installation. I have never installed an OS with such simplicity. Ubuntu does it all for you. No usual Linux questions that confuse and discourage most Linux newbies from the initial set up. And way quicker than my re-installation of WinXP on the much faster Dell Dimension. There's also an expert installation mode for those so blessed with the advanced Linux know-how.
The only thing that slowed me down was needing to burn the ISO image to disc after downloading. Usually friends just provide me with that stuff. I soon learned 1) burned data discs are not bootable, and 2) that my computer's pre-installed burning software doesn't burn images to disc, unless you upgrade. But I found this, CDBurnerXP Pro 3, and it's free. To burn the image in CDBurnerXP, File > Write Disc to ISO File > click ellipses, navigate to your ISO > Write Disc.
Also went out the other day and picked up a copy of Ubuntu Hacks to accompany me into this penguinesque world (note: all O'Reilly computer books are currently 30% off at B&N through most of November). If you know your Windows and have command line familiarity, this looks to have everything needed to get quickly waddling (<< oh stop cringing). Anyhow, you can follow dude's linux learning and random notes here.
[October 25th, 2006]
Firefox 2.0
Installed brand spank'n new Firefox 2.0 yesterday. Very awesome. While Microsoft plays catchup to yesterday's features with IE7, Firefox stays well ahead of the game. FF's new built in spell checker is sweeeet. Barely took a day before coming in handy. I also love how links that opened up as new windows now open as new tabs.
Watch news.com review of FF's new features here.
Watch news.com Security Bytes with Robert Vamosi's IE7 thoughts here. Best quote: "you gotta qualify that" regarding Microsoft's 'most secure browser ever' claim (as in, for Microsoft).
Firefox Bookmark Synchronizer: Get add-on here to synchronize your FF bookmarks across computers. Very easy. I'm psyched to be synched. Works with 1.5 and 2.0
[October 24th, 2006]
Dell Dimension 8300 Drivers
A very important link for Dell Dimension 8300 owners who end up reformatting and reinstalling WinXP. Click Here to download those missing drivers. Funny, I did this a couple years ago with no problems whatsoever. This time, 4 went missing. No Ethernet, Multimedia Audio, Video, or SM Bus controllers. What gives? Anyhow, the link is here to never get lost. And maybe it can be of help to others :)
To install the SM Bus controller, you need to download and install the Intel Chipset R58201 (from same above link).
[September 20th, 2006]
3 New Songs ...
... I can't get enough of ...
She Wants Revenge: Out of Control (scroll a bit)
Kill Hannah: Lips Like Morphine
Jet's newest, playing on their homepage.
(Update 9/25/06) Check it out, as of today you catch all of Shine On at Jet's MySpace. Doesn't release until Oct 5th.
[September 11th, 2006]
Firefox Defaulting After Each Restart - The Fix
Encountered a rare Firefox problem this morning. It was defaulting after each restart (displayed default icons on toolbar only) and all the search engines were missing from the search window. If I re-added icons to the toolbar and restarted FF, they disappeared again.
Here's the fix for FF 1.5:
Close FF
Restart FF in safe mode Start > Programs > Mozilla Firefox > Mozilla Firefox(Safe Mode)
In Firefox Safe Mode diaglog box, Check Reset toolbars and control
Click Make Changes and Restart
Search engines automatically reappeared. Had to re-customize my toolbar. This can also fix disappearing bookmarks or when the Add Bookmarks dialog isn't working. Been experiencing a random 'network cable unplugged' error this morning (still tracking down the cause), and when it hits out of the blue, XP completely freezes, forcing a reboot. Most likely the cause of FF's localstore.rdf corruption.
[August 30th, 2006]
Colberts, Bill Nyes, and Krugles! Oh, My!
Dude's been slackin'. Here's some stuff I've been meaning to mention...
Stephen Colbert is awesome funny. Check out his green screen challenge and official submissions. Colbert vs Star Wars Kid, vs Martina Hingis, iPod commercial, Conservative Ghostbuster, Angry Kid ... endless fun.
More Colbert on YouTube.
Bill Nye is awesome smart. Here's a link to encarta.msn's Ask Bill Nye columns where the Science Guy answers fascinating and compelling questions essential to our understanding of universal complexities. Like, what causes morning breath, why does the moon appear larger near the horizon, how boomerangs fly.
Krugle, an awesome new site for coders. Pretty rad. Everything is in tabs. This is important: The back button is useless. Do Not Use. It's an AJAX app. and you'll only end up leaving the site to whatever you previously visited (something that happened to me over and over and over). Notice the tabs for 'Code', 'Tech Pages' and 'Projects'. Notice after searching there is a 'results' tab. Notice again when clicking a link, there is a new tab next to 'results'. Click between tabs, close tabs you don't need. Krugle is very cool. Give them a try.
[July 5th, 2006]
MySQL & PHP
Created a MySQL database and moved all my run entries into it. Using PHP to query and display the run tables. Soon I'll wonder how I ever survived the old way. Working on a login page so I can add entries directly from this site. Cumbersome entering siteground > cpanel > then phpadmin, and a few steps inbetween. Will make the add entry page with drop down menu's and validate before adding and/or updating (a.k.a. protect me from myself). Someone recently (no names being mentioned) overwrote many of their entries with one small oversight.
Check out a new home page feature. Down the right column (currently below google ads), you'll see an international visits list. Using ip2nation's free downloadable database, it resolves visiting ip addresses to their respective nations. Added a column called visits to one of the tables, initial value NULL, and increment it by one with each nation's visit. Then list all nations where visits != NULL. You can find the AMP notes in Project Journal. Trying to keep my journal jabberings more concise. Hopefully, for your sake, it's working.
Last note: Rock Star's awesome.
[June 23rd, 2006]
AMPed
Began the day dusting / forcibly airing out / wiping down the computer components. Reconnected/tested. Winamped some 80's rock. Then got down to business, installing AMP. 5 hours and 3 AMP installers later, it's aliiiive! Started with Foxserv - installation (both of 'em) ended with a certain file being "missing or invalid" and syntax error on line 61 when trying to run Apache. Wasn't excited about trying to figure it out. Was hoping (maybe too optimistically) to get started creating a MySQL database by days end. Removed Foxserv and installed PHPTriad. Realized after installing all were older versions. I should've turned around right then. A couple troubleshooting hours later, thought I'd give XAMPP a try. Before the switch, had to find the very un-obvious PHPTriad uninstaller. Not only did one seemingly not exist, but PHPTriad nor Apache nor MySQL nor PHP showed up in add/remove programs. After an hour of web-searching with no answers, there it was, uninstall.exe, sitting in amongst the installed folders. Freed thyself.
Downloaded XAMPP 1.5.3a. Has all the current versions and works like a dream! Piece of cake - double layer, german chocolate! The messiah of AMP installers. It'll be a good nights sleep. XAMPP also has a nice easily understood control panel.
Side note: So I could effectively test on the local host, went into IIS and stopped the default web site. Haven't experienced an error '8002801c' since.
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services > Local Computer > Web Sites > Right-Click Default Web Site, Stop
College news: Finished my last full-time quarter at WCC. Still two classes remaining until my degree. One can be taken as an evening class in the fall while the final course can't be taken until winter quarter '07. Now that college is for the most part done, I'm on a full-time job search. Resumés, cover letters... now there's work. Essays don't having anything on them. Hopefully soon it's back to the everyday workin' folks world.
(my resumé)
[May 30th, 2006]
Linux Box
Over the weekend, packed up the blazing Dell OptiPlex GX100 (700Mhz - Celeron enriched - 10Gig HD - 256MB RAM). Trekked it to Marc's. Under his tutelage, installed Debian 3.1 for my 1st Linux box. Besides the unexceptional and so far unchangeable 640x480 resolution, everything seems good. Have worked around it by connecting remotely with vnc. Next task, hopefully getting vncserver to start automatically during boot.
[May 3rd, 2006]
Verizon Notification Workaround for Google Calendar
Here's an easy to follow workaround so those Verizon customers (like me) can get their Google Calendar notifications sent to their phone. If you don't want the notification in your gmail inbox, add step "8.5 select Delete it."
[May 1st, 2006]
Take Your Vitamins
There's a new dev resource in web-town, Vitamin. Give it a check out. The choice to bookmark will be an easy one.
Spent some quality time reading up on my Sony DSC-V3. One of those little things I've meant to do since, well, buying it a year ago. There are so many options have yet to use. Time to experience it's full potential, to unleash it's full power.
Began the calorie counter program this past week. Coding in C# using Visual Studio (a wonderful IDE). Though there's temptation to put to the test Netbeans new Matisse GUI builder. And there are some useful Java classes from that recent course project. Huh, maybe will switch over. (Sudden indecision paralyzes me!)
[April 19th, 2006]
Stanley Cup Playoffs!
The emptiness is over! Stanley Cup Playoffs are back! And at a bad time. Trying to lose a couple pounds. Will it be BeerFest or BeerFast? This could tear me apart.
Thanks to the CBC, there are some 3 game days. Aside from the couldn't-cut-it-Canucks, it's a wonderful life.
Dude's Stanley thoughts:
- Ottawa could be in big trouble without Hasek. He was the man to get them over the hump. Now there's a big question mark.
- I like Tampa, but just as the Canucks, they don't have the goaltending and have shown alot of inconsistency. Would enjoy seeing them move past the Sens. Doubt they will.
- Flames are roaring into the playoffs. Yeah, they don't score alot, but with Kipper in net... (dude, like it needs to be said) ...the Ducks, and everyone else, are in trouble.
- Another Team that's hot? San Jose. Joe Thornton single handedly destroyed the Canucks. Give him a wrecking ball as a head. Nashville's wonderful season is over.
- Olay, Olay Olay Olay, Olaaay, Olaaay... Go Habs!
If and only If... Huet, Huet Huet Huet, Hueeet, Hueeet
- Dallas vs Colorado. Dislike 'em both. Have fun guys. I'll be rootin against one of you in the next round.
- Flyers will rise up and muss-cull their way to at least the 2nd round.
- If the Rangers can get it together, I think their series with the Devils could be the best.
- On the other hand, if the Devils aren't brought back to Earth, then they've got to be the most dangerous team in the East.
And whose my pick?
- Let's go Red Wings! clap-clap-cla-cla-clap Let's go Red Wings!
Wife and kids, big Detroit fans. We'll be cheerin 'em to the cup. What a group of professional, studly, Presidents' Trophy winnin guys. (Argh. I did not just call them studs.)
[April 13th, 2006]
They Did It Again
What's new and cool? Google Calendar, my friend. How many times does my wife and friends ask what my schedule is? More than I care to think about. And now I have an answer, "See my google calendar!" As always, to partake of this service one must possess a gmail account.
Very Cool. Create multiple calendars. Share publicly or only invite friends to view. Give friends different access levels. Make multiple instances of a single entry (a standard weekly or daily event). Get notifications via cell. (unfortunately, Verizon isn't listed--see May 3rd entry for workaround). Have a location with map link. Click here for more info.
[April 2nd, 2006]
More Video Fun
Latest Google Video distractions:
Surf
Awesome surf
Check out this sick long barrel
Highway to Heaven. 7min 53secs of cool stoke.
Jamie O'Brien, 2 days in the life of
Snow
SWK Collection. I was a little slow on the wagon here(like by a couple years), but now that I'm on...
Original
2.0
2 fighting
A new hope
Undercover brother
Matrix
Reloaded playground
Monty Python
Hitler in England
Twit Olympics. Blurrry, but still funny.
Lumberjack song
Parrot sketch
Slapping fish dance
Misc.
Base jump
Multi-Touch Interaction Research. Very cool. Here's their site.
[March 24th, 2006]
Movin' On
Wow, what a couple days of complete freedom can get you. Aside from crankin' 80's remix tunes, put the finishing touches on Designing with Web Standards. A very good read. Highly recommend. Now onto another long neglected book, More Eric Meyer on CSS. Also puttin' the wraps on Head First Java. Good book, funny, entertaining. Does very well at getting you the basics. But don't take it in the deep end.
Canucks stuck it to Edmonton 2 games straight. 3rd game tomorrow night. Yeah, sounds like a playoff series. There's a lot to be said about the NHL's ‘bright’ scheduling this season. Guess if we ‘sweep’ and further distance ourselves from missing the playoffs (whodathunkit), then I should be all for it. And let's say it gets us amped and in playoff mode early and we put a whoopin' on our 1st round opponent? Yeah, alright, way2go NHL...sure.
Put the word out, dude looking for job. Time to start the new career. Preferably web based, or starting out network administrator, or beginning programmer. I enjoy the relative freedom of web design and programming. Then there's Cisco routers, routing protocols, ACL's... I don't know man, it's fun. Reside in Bellingham, WA. Full time WCC student this spring with a 3.88 GPA. Am available part time now, full time starting mid June. Resumé
[March 17th, 2006]
“Delete Forever”?
Does Gmail's 'Delete Forever' really mean forever? The Gmail Privacy Policy, under ‘Your Choices’ states:
“Residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems.” (italics mine)
1st off, how is it 'your choice' to not delete your mail forever after choosing forever?
2nd, in theory, your message could exist forever.
(3/28/06 1:24pm... the more I've thought about this, the less it seems to matter. The whole point to Gmail is never having to delete your email anyway. I guess, if they want to back up all my 'forever deleted' spam, I'll be happy for them.)
[March 13th, 2006]
HeartBreaker
Overdue for an update. Who knows where this might lead. Picked up Jeffrey Zeldman's book for the 1st time since, who knows. Now a couple pages into Ch. 14. Should put some of the accessibility to work on this site.
Rear bumper replacement finished from accident a month ago. Got the privilege of being front car in a 4 car fender bender.
Puttin' a lot time in today on the Java project. Due week from today. Said something silly below about hardcoding GUI 'not being complicated'. Dude, Java GUI hardcoding is as complicated as it can possibly get, and then some. Below comment was a fairly simple layout. Start trying to open windows in windows, mess with different layout managers, add a JTable and figure out how to populate it with the data in saved files (in this case, emails sitting in user's inbox folder)... Taken 2+ days to figure out the JTable and as of 2 hours ago, finally works. Thanks in huge part to this fella's example. Can add and delete rows with simplicity. If you'd like, you can read my probably uninteresting project notes here.
Dude, pulled out the Pat Benatar today. HeartBreaker is awesome. Single most influential song in my life. Opened young dude up to the world of Rock-n-Roll.
Nearing the end of another quarter. Cisco final this week. Finished Java project week from today. Computer Support next week. And next quarter? More invigorating Cisco (CCNA 3 & 4), Servers (software side) and PHIL 112 'logical' thinking.
[January 31st, 2006 ... 10:11 pm]
Tree of Life, Branch of Death
Wind storm blew through tonight and extended to us, not an olive branch of peace, but the sword of war. Some pics here.
[January 14th, 2006]
Can Never Get Ahead
Can't believe over a month has passed since last entry. Man, how the free time flew. Made it to Ch14 in Mr. Zeldman's book. Read 1st 8 1/2 chapters of Head First Java in an attempt to start the quarter ahead, only to discover Mr. Instructor's decision to jump in at 14 & 15. Get to write a Java SMTP client/server program. Have decided to hardcode the GUI. Found some useful information here at Sentex and Sun. Thought it would be more complicated. Maybe web design gives you a step up with layout understanding OR maybe it's because everything starts with “J”, JFrame, JPanel, JLabel, JButton, JTextArea, J-Dude...(haha...ha)
Anyways, when finished, maybe I'll post thy humble code. Open source. Let it take off and become it's own beast. (If that ain't wishful thinkin'.)
Finally made that journal page. Maybe call it Jjournal. We'll see how well that gets kept up.
