no more bedhead

I saw these today and I would so totally buy each one if someone were producing them.



Image from johnonolan

Here's the blog post where I saw it.  Good collection of shirts besides these.

So, I've got everything ready to go for convention. I've been cramming the Blue Book so that I'll have at least a passing familiarity with the legislation as it goes zipping by my mind in the next two weeks. I've gone through as many website things as I could in the time I had left. Everything is going just fine. And then I installed a Broadband Card.

You see, the hotel where I will be staying (*cough* Hilton *cough*) wants $12.95 per day for wireless internet connection in my room. Since I'll be there for almost two weeks, that's quite a chunk of change. Being nice, they offer a package where I can buy three days worth for $30. Better, but still... And then the Convention Center wants $12.95 per day for wireless. This convention could end up costing me my life savings just in wireless fees!

So, I found out that Virgin Mobile has a deal where you can buy the broadband usb card, and purchase a certain number of Megabytes of transfer without having a contract, obligation, or commitment. And the cost of the card plus the transfer is a little less than I would end up paying for just the hotel wireless. Sign me up!

I installed the card and everything was great. Until it came time to reboot the machine. Then all hell broke loose. The Dell Control Point Manager, which I'm not even using to manage my wireless connection seems to have an issue with the Virgin Broadband2Go software. Or vice-versa. Either way, my computer will not shut down without pressing the button, and it won't restore to a previous time because of that. So I cannot fix the problem. The closest I've gotten to a fix is to take the auto start off of the DCP Manager, and physically turn off my wireless connection. Then I can use the Virgin card. I'm not looking forward to the fix to make the entire system right.

But the real problem is that this happened yesterday morning. The day before I left for convention. I was faced all day yesterday with the prospect of not having any internet connection at all. Right now, things are working. But I know that could change at any moment. So, if you don't see blog postings over the next two weeks, that might be why.

My 6 year old son just got the Blue Screen of Death.

This is my computer on crack...


So, I'm sitting on the porch Tuesday. The window is open. I hear a dull thud from inside the house. I go in and find my computer lying open and flat on the floor. The dog is running circles around the table. I look at the computer and it appears that the screen is shattered. F-ing dog.

Note that I say this now calmly. I was not calm at the time.

I was, in fact, a half hour from leaving the house to deliver web conferencing equipment to a church. A church that that particular evening, did not have access to a computer. I had volunteered to bring mine, so we could get everything set up.

Great.

I did quickly discover that I could plug in an external monitor and the hard drive appeared to be working just fine. That helped for the delivery. One of the things I was delivering was a projector. I could plug that in and see what was happening on the computer.

I called Dell the next morning, and was told that it would cost $350 to fix. While that was about half the price of the computer when I bought it, it didn't seem unreasonable. I had done some research and learned that replacement lcd screens were in the $150-250 range. The Dell deal started to fall apart when "Rock" (I don't know where these technicians in Delhi come up with their "American" names- and yes, he spelled it to me R-o-c-k) said that it would take 8 business days from the time they received it before they would ship it back.

I balked. Rock said that he could "expedite" it (but never 'splained what that meant), and that he talked to his manager, and they could knock $50 off the price. (What is this, Priceline?) And, oh, by the way, have you noticed a problem with your battery? The batteries are only designed to be good for a year, and it could fry your motherboard.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Next day, went down to the local computer store. They had the lcd panel that I needed sitting on a shelf. An hour later, and $270 on my credit card, I was back in business. Sweet. (And they've never heard of a battery frying a motherboard.)

The moral here: don't get a dog.

I, like you, get a large amount of spam emails. I don't open them, but I do glance at the subject lines. Some are obnoxious, some are offensive, some are unintelligible. There is another category, though - the ones that make me laugh. Some are word usage/choice, some are kind of naughty, but they all make me crack a smile.

Here are a collection of spam emails currently in my "junk" box. (Subject line only, unless otherwise noted.)

• Super beverage for increasing man birth organ!
• Our fake watches are truly amazing
• Update your penis (what - to version 2.0?)
• No more complains! Only big duck.
• Heavy armor for your organism
• Shizzle my nizzle now
• utter and complete domination now possible (mwah, hah, hah, hah!)
• 4th of July savings on BIG, beautiful cherries! (Is this spam, or legit? It's actually from Harry & David - the fruit by mail people)
• Sperms of endearment

As spam seems destined to continue into eternity, I anticipate this being the beginning of a series, so stay tuned.

Oddly, an error message popped up when I started up my laptop today:


It was shortly followed by this one:


-1 to Microsoft.

Fun error message generator here.

73% Geek

Back around Christmas time I noticed weird things happening with my computer. Nothing that I could put my finger on, and nothing that happened regularly. Just the occasional "burp". Then, right after Christmas, I tried to Google something. Instead of going to Google, I got a message that the computer was trying to download an "application/octet". No matter what I did I couldn't get to Google. It was more of an inconvenience than anything else at that point. I tried deleting a couple of recent applications and even did a system restore. That worked for a little while, but then, wham!, back to the "application/octet" download. Eventually I tried going to other search engines, and when I would click on a link I would get redirected to other websites.

Realizing at this point that something was definitely amiss, I began to look for help. I came across a place called www.techsupportforum.com. I followed their instructions, posted some scan logs, and waited for help. I was ultimately helped by tetonbob, who helped me determine that there was a trojan on my machine, and together we ran and analyzed some system reports (ok, I ran, he analyzed). In a couple of days the infection was gone and I was good to go.

Or so I thought. About two hours after our final post, I ended up opening a new thread, as my homepages appeared to be redirecting. Tetonbob got involved again, determined that the malware files were still there and ran some more diagnostics. Over the course of the next week and a half, it seems like all I did was download a diagnostic tool, run it, post the report, and wait for my next instructions.

Ultimately, we determined that the computer was "clean" and I could go about my business. But, it took me two weeks of work that I could have spent doing other things, trying to rid my computer of stuff that shouldn't have been there to begin with. At the end of my first post, tetonbob posted a really good list of things to do to keep your computer secure. Take a look at that post here. (everything after "Now that your system is clean...")

And, keep in mind that I was running Anti-Virus software from my ISP, as well as Ad-Aware. It was Spybot S&D that first caught the infection. So, I wasn't surfing naked. But now it's like I'm wearing one of those turn-of-the-(20th)-century all over bathing outfits. Hopefully I'm better protected now. Thanks, tetonbob!

I have had my share of websites that I have set up, or helped set up, and I have always used Network Solutions to check the availability of domain names. I've done that because I trust(ed) NetSol as they were the first registrar of domain names, their customer support has been good, and I believed that I wasn't going to get screwed when I visited their site (except for price, which is why I don't register with them anymore).

Well, it turns out that NetSol is registering the domain names that people have been looking up, thereby denying them the opportunity to register the name somewhere else, at a quarter of the cost, in a process called "front-running". Bastards.

Their "official" line is that they are protecting their "customers" - the people who are looking up the availability of a domain name. In reality they are blackmailing people into using their service. If you look up your domain name on NetSol, then go to GoDaddy to try to register it, it will show as "unavailable", and owned by NetSol. The only way you can get that name is to go back to NetSol and register there. NetSol says they hold the name for 5 days, after which it is released. I'm lucky, in that most of my websites are church sites and the pace of permissions in a church is rather slow, so by the time the request has been approved more than 5 days have passed.

Still, it is an unethical practice, and I will stop recommending Network Solutions to my clients as a possible domain name registrar and web host. Better still, I think I will tell them what NetSol is doing, and let them make up their own minds.

Read more about this here, here and here.

I met with Laurie, from the Diocese of Western New York today. To simplify things, I drove to Erie, PA, and she met me there (from Buffalo). Mary, at the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania was kind enough to allow us to use their offices (and their wireless network) so that we could discuss the scope of the project.

As you may remember, I am designing a new website for DioWNY. Laurie and I met to discuss what she is looking for, what I can do, and how we can make it all happen. It is going to be a challenging project. Laurie is asking me to do things in Joomla that I haven't done before. This is good, because it will stretch me and refine my skills. I'm looking forward to it and terrified by it at the same time.

Also, we decided that we will probably go with a hosting company that will give us a portion of a server and an operating system, and we will have to load whatever programs and applications we want to use. What that means for me is (probably) that I will have to load Apache, MySQL, and php, in addition to a webmail application, a mailing list application, and a control panel. I am very excited to do this, although it means a lot more work on my part to get going, and a commitment after we're done, to maintain the system. I am willing to give it a shot, if Laurie is willing to give me a try. She actually knows a priest who hosts with this company, so she is going to hook us up so I can ask some questions.

While we were at the Diocese of NWPA, we met their bishop-elect. His name is Sean Rowe, and he's 33 years old. He seems pretty cool. Of course, when I was 33 I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. (One could argue that I still have no idea!)

Anyway, it was a good day, but long.

So I'm having this problem. I'm trying to find solutions for incorporating a mailing list into a website. I'm looking at ones that allow mail to be "pushed" out to a subscription list, and also at ones that allow recipients to view the archives and/or respond to the email and have it sent to the whole list. Most people refer to this as a "listserv" (although "listserv" is actually a copyrighted brand name, like Band-Aid for adhesive bandages). I'm looking at three different websites where I can apply this technology.

One is my parish's website, where we want to use it to send our newsletter, and have an archive of past issues. Being able to password protect the archives would be helpful.

Another is our diocesan site where I have been asked to set up a "listserv" for clergy, but don't have more specifics than that. I think it would be helpful if we could have archives, and the ability to set up more, different lists as we identified the need.

The third is the other diocesan website that I'm working on. They currently have a series of "listservs" in their site, but we are going to be rewriting the entire site, and switching hosts. I will admit that I don't yet know if this is a key issue that we need to deal with or not, but I want to be prepared with some possible solutions when that discussion happens.

The problem I'm having is with the hosting companies. Our parish is on a shared host and the TOS states a limit of 400 emails/hour. That should be plenty for the parish's needs, but I can't find any information about whether we are allowed to use those programs. I guess (and I probably will) just install one and see what happens.

The diocesan site is self-hosted so my options are theoretically unlimited, except that the way the servers are configured is a little weird. My first thought for the diocese was Mailman, but it uses Python and the webserver doesn't have python installed. We haven't checked the mail server yet, but it seems like many things are just cobbled together, so I'm not holding my breath.

The other diocese is looking for a host, so I'm trying to determine which company will allow us to do what we want. The question is - do they want a shared hosting environment, or are they willing to pony up for a dedicated server (or at least a virtual private server)?

So that's where I am, sitting here knocking my head on the desk while gigabytes, terrabytes, phps, mailer-daemons, cgi-bins, terms of service, underselling, crontabs, and streaming audio swirl around looking for a place to land.

If you have any thoughts on: Dreamhost, SiteGround, Rochen, Slicehost, or even something different, please let me know. Please. (Or your experiences with Dada, phpList, or Mailman.)

I am officially employed. My title is "Technology Consultant" and I am working for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. My job is basically to work on the diocesan website, looking at things like layout/design, information structure, databases, etc. , but I also am doing various and sundry things that need to be done that relate to web activity.

Today is my first contract day, although Monday will really be my first day in the office. I was in for a couple of hours one other day, just to familiarize myself with my surroundings, and get a feel for what I needed to do there (as opposed to what I could do from home). I was there for a meeting yesterday and got my "key fob" so I can let myself in and out of the offices and, more importantly, the parking lot.

The best part of this job is that I can do a lot of it from home. I intend to use the summer to go in to the office a couple of days a week, as there are things I can only do there, and I'm more productive there! The position is a three month contract for up to 20 hours per week, so I will still have time to spend summer vacation with my family.

And then, when it rains, it pours. I got a call today from my new boss, Martha, who said that the Diocese of Western New York was looking at redesigning their website, and probably using the same CMS that we are using, and had some questions that she thought might be another consulting job for me. I called them, we talked for quite a while, and it looks like I have another job helping them with design and setup of their site. They are in Buffalo, so my commute will be a little longer!! Actually, I will probably have to go up there once, but the rest of the time I will be able to access what I need remotely.

Perhaps this is the start of something?

I was having a problem with one of the photo-sharing services I use today. It was about lunchtime, so I figured I'd get the kids fed and I would have a couple of minutes to talk with customer service about the problem. During the course of getting the problem corrected I had to clear my cache and delete my cookies. We got the problem fixed, but the deletions affected another application, so I decided that I would fix that while I had everything up on the screen.

Since this fix didn't involve a telephone call, I thought I could make myself a sandwich and eat it while I worked on the new problem. I got out the bread and set it on the counter next to the computer. I then jumped right in to troubleshooting.

A few minutes later I was feeling a little hungry, so I picked up my sandwich and started eating it. You may have noticed in the above paragraph that I hadn't actually put anything between the pieces of bread. Oops.

The scary part of this story is not that I forgot to finish making the sandwich, but that it actually took me two bites before I realized it!

I am such a dope.

So I gave my mom the address for this blog today. This got me thinking that maybe I should post a disclaimer for close family, and then that led into thoughts about why I blog in the first place. It's not that I have a lot to say that I think the world needs to hear, and it's not a therapeutic exercise (although there are elements of both).

When I was a senior in high school, I took a creative writing class in which we had the assignment to keep a journal and write in it 15 minutes per day. I really liked the exercise, and continued it into college. It was fun writing, reflecting, and posing questions to myself. It was even more fun years later to look back on that writing and reflect on how much has changed, how much has not, and what a rambling idiot I was (arguably still am)! So I guess in a nutshell that's why I blog - it's fun writing these things down and then more fun (potentially) looking back at them later. Technology has changed the format, but the rationale is the same.

Now the disclaimer. This is my life. These are my thoughts and reflections. While everything is family friendly right now, I make no guarantees. The f-bomb may come through occasionally, depending upon my mood when I'm writing. Don't be offended. Or do. I don't care. I'm writing for me, not for you. (But I'll try to keep the "kids" postings clean!!)

Thanks for stopping by.

I just found out that Thursday is the second annual CSS Naked Day. What you have to do is pledge to strip all the css formatting out of your website for an entire day. Why? To promote web standards. Ideally, your site shouldn't look like a bunch of garbage when you do this.

I'm not going to do this, for two reasons. First, all my "real" websites are church sites, and Thursday is Maundy Thursday. If it weren't Holy Week, I might consider it. The other reason is that I have the Webmaster Tools extension for Firefox, and one of its neat features allows you to turn off all styles. When I did that to the website for my church, I saw that it denigrates nicely. No, its not pretty, but the information is all there and logically organized. I am proud to say that I actually organized the html to do it that way, and let the css put it all in the "pretty places".

A big pat on the back to me!