People warned me. But did I listen? NOooooooo. I’ve been away from blogging for a while. When I came back, some 10,000 spam messages stained my comments. I have no time to deal with it except to delete all existing comments and turn comments off. Deleting comments the easy way required logging into mySQL. mysql> DELETE FROM mt_comment; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) Rorshach over at scary sharp is right. Upgrade to MT 3 and get TypeKey. Most ricky tick. ...
This is a rework of a previous speech. I delivered this talk for today’s Early Risers Toastmasters club speech contest. I changed the middle by replacing the work context with a general life context. My evaluator pointed out one area of needed improvement: I should relate the closing to my own life. I agree with her. Of course, I’ll have to trim something out of the middle or talk faster to stay within the time limit. ...
This is a must read. Title is ‘The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story’ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html I tried to use CUPS from my Mac. Crikey! I don’t know HOW it happened but I can now print to my laser printer over ethernet. Of course, it has one of those [not supported on OS X] ethernet dongle thingies from NetGear. But I can now print And it wasn’t CUPS either. I really don’t know if I’m printing through CUPS or over AppleTalk. Of course, I can’t print from ALL applications. Office-yes. PDF-yes(slow). Illustrator/Photoshop-no. ...
A pig and a chicken are walking down the road when they come upon a church where a revival is going on. {gesture towards audience} Any of you been to a revival? It’s been a while for me. Let me tell you, a revival is MOVING. Pig and chicken were moved, overcome by the spirit. Pig says, “I want to contribute something.” “Me, too!”, says Chicken. “Me, too! Let’s contribute some ham and eggs”. ...
I got a message from Dan last week asking about favicons. See, we both are on Mac OS X. It seems anything that comes from the Windows word requires an extra level of understanding when it’s in the Mac world. After a bit of googling, I found the no non-sense answers I needed. ...
I said it last year, “This is my last COMDEX for COMDEX is dead” Yet, I went again. Just to see. It’s true. Last year was the death of COMDEX. This year was the ‘viewing’. All that’s left is to toss dirt in the grave. ...
I read a fair amount. I wouldn’t say a lot only because I don’t really read that fast. Well, that’s not true. Fictional and biographical works I cruise through fairly quickly. It’s non-fiction that slows me to a crawl. It was a decade ago that I realized the obvious. Just because you start reading a book doesn’t mean you have to finish it. I can still remember the book that broke the spell: The Vermont Papers If I’m reading a book for my own enjoyment and edification, if I can’t relate the book to my life, if I’m getting nothing out of the book, it’s history. Ciao, baby. The Vermont Papers was my last “I’ll finish the book simply because I started it” experience. When I finished that book, I said, “What a waste of my time.” Currently, I’m reading Battle for the Mind. This book I will finish and read again. ...
As some of you know, my one and only purchase on eBay was the famous Fred G. Sanford Memorial Trailer or simply The Trailer. Tracy is still under-whelmed by its appearance but has conceded its occasional usefulness. To bring everyone up to speed, the trailer is the back half of a ’67 Dodge Stepside half ton pickup. It really is quite the eyesore. Yet, as anyone who has been to the garden store knows, you really don’t want to toss three sacks full of chicken manure in your trunk. It’s on those occasions that the trailer justifies itself. This year, the floor boards rotted out. The bed is made of wood, you see, and the old boards were breaking through in places. I said to myself, “This could be really cool. I can replace the old 1-by pine planks with sturdier 2-by douglas fir planks.” I’ve been reading George Buehler’s book, again. While I may have neither the time nor the cash to build an Archimedes class cruiser right now, I figured the little trailer project could be just the fix I needed for my boat building jones. When I pulled the old planks out, to my surprise and dismay, the entire box fell off the frame. Seems the box was secured to the wooden bed and the bed in turn bolted to the frame. Oh, well. To the drawing board. ...
Anatomy of a spam message: I got this one in my box. It didn’t display properly since I’m not using a Microsoft mail reader. But it did slip past the junk mail filter. Most filters work on a point system. If a message accrues enough spam points, it’s flagged as junk. It’s a good new, bad news thing. Bad news, spam still gets through my filter. Good news, there’s still much furtile ground for intelligent spam filtering. Let’s take a line-by-line HUMAN analysis and see how many spam points we get. (Answer: 80 points.) ...
Tony sent out the theme for this coming Tuesday’s Toastmaster meeting. “THEME – Exercise and Nutrition” “Seems like there are many ways we hear about improving our exercise and nutrition, from TV commercials for those perfect abs, to fantastic weight loss meal plans.” “Even the Dr Phil show has a season long weight loss challenge.” “There must be a simpler way.” “Do you have a favorite nutrition plan that really works? Or perhaps you have an exercise routine that is effective? Or what is a good suggestion to get into that routine or zone?” My role this time is as a speech evaluator. As such, I need to send in a brief comment that would be used to introduce me to the group. As I have studied and corresponded extensively on this subject. I think I could summarize my thoughts inside of 5,000 words; That’s a bit long for an introduction. So,… here was my stab at a brevity. ...