Mon - April 25, 2005
Problems with iBlog
I have been having trouble with iBlog, the
program I use the write this blog. It has never been the most stable program but
it does let me make a custom blog and post it to my dot mac account pretty easily. Well last
week when I created the Bike category it really started to piss me off. I moved
some old post that were in the Life category to the new Bike category. Every
thing seemed fine until I opened the program again and the posts I had moved
were not there anymore. This happened with one of my Neon Shop posts but I just
recreated it and chocked it up to a fluke. The files that contain the post
information are still on my disk and in the right place but the program refuses
to see them. I can pull the data out and recreate them but, that is such a pain,
and then the posts will have the wrong dates and be in the wrong order. So I
decided I need to look for a different solution. One that was more robust but,
there are a couple of little problems. Like I said earlier I use dot mac for my website, I already have
the space and I feel like I should take advantage of it. The problem is that dot
mac is a very simple web server, it can't do any of the nifty server side apps
that normal blog programs need and I don't want to use a server like Blogger or LiveJournal because I like to
have my media were I can get it. iBlog creates
static pages that have to be rendered out of the program every time there is an
update to the site (like I post something.) This is just what you need for dot mac but it has some real draw backs.
uploading the post is quite time consuming and its easy for one page to not get
updated and be wrong and that really annoys me. I don't really want to buy web
hosting somewhere else because I already buy space from dot mac. So here is my solution. I am in
the process of setting up a blog that runs off our spare imac. I don't expect
very many people to be visiting my site so I don't think bandwidth should be a
problem nor processor power for the same reason. I installed MySQL and PHP so I could use WordPress. I have it running now
with a test log. I am using a free dynamic
DNS domain name and it seems to be working great. Check it out at
frogbyte.homeip.net and let
me know how it works for you. Is it fast enough? Does it look like it is
displaying correctly? or what ever... you can leave comments directly on the
site (isn't that cool) you just need to register (I think I have this setup
right let me know if I don't.) or you can just email me. As I get to know the
program and learn a bit of PHP the layout will change. Once I have it just the
way I like I will move all the stuff from here to there and make frogbyte.net point to it.
Posted at 10:30 PM
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Road Ride: April 25, 2005
Today I did the Pinehurst loop. I got up to
Skyline the Butters Dr way. I went down Skyline to Redwood Rd and made a left on
the east side of the hill. I zoomed all the way to Pinehurst not going below
29mph! Its a really fast section of road. I made the left up Pinehusrt and road
its hole length back to Skyline. Then Skyline to Joaquin Miller to Monterey and
home.
Ride
Stats:
Distance: 19.49
miles
Ride Time:
01:08:36
Average Speed: 17.05
mph
Max Speed: 43.9 mph
Posted at 09:56 PM
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Sun - April 17, 2005
Moutain Ride: April 17, 2005
Today I went up Redwood Road to the Dunn Trail
head (at the Skyline Ranch Equestrian Facility.) I took the Dunn Trail to
Baccharis Trail which dumped me onto West Ridge. I went all the way Down West
Ridge to Bridle Trail and made a right. Bridle ends at the park road which I
took to Canyon Trail. Up Canyon Trail to East Ridge where I made a left and road
all the way around to West Ridge again.I took West Ridge to Graham Trail. Graham
Trail meets back up with Dunn Trail and I took that back to Redwood Road and
home.
This is the most common Mountain Ride I do. I
would like to do some other trails but that would require driving and that takes
so long.
Ride
Stats:
Distance: 17.88
miles
Ride Time:
01:38:23
Average Speed: 11.03
mph
Max Speed: 41.9 mph
Posted at 10:35 AM
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Wed - April 13, 2005
Road Ride: April 13 2005
Today I went up Monterey to Joaquin Miller. Then
Joaquin Miller to Butters Dr, and Up Butters to Skyline Blvd. I made a left on
Skyline and took it until it was really starting to get dark. I made a left on
Snake and headed back down into Montclair. I took the Park bridge over Highway
13 and then a left on Monterey, and took that all the way back to Norton and
Wisconsin and the Laurel.
Ride
Stats:
Distance: 12.59
miles
Ride Time:
00:47:15
Average Speed: 15.98
mph
Max Speed: 38.5 mph
Posted at 08:42 PM
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Tue - April 5, 2005
Growing Tomatos
A few weeks ago I planted some tomatoes in the
half barrel in front of our house. They aren't doing as well as I would like.
The lower leaves turned yellow with brown spots. yesterday I did a tiny bit of
research on the internet and I think the leaves have a fungus. It's probably my
fault I got some dirt on the leaves when I was planting them and I think that
might have caused it. Anyone have any suggestions on how to make our tomatoes
happier? some of the peas that we planted last season in the same barrel are
coming up again. I am going to tans-plant them to the back of the barrel and
this time tie them to the trellis I made. Last time I didn't and they just fell
over and the snails ate them.
Posted at 10:50 AM
Fri - March 4, 2005
Glass Blowing level 2
This Saturday will be the 4th of 5 classes. I am
having a really good time. Last week I made a big (for me) foot ball shaped
vessel. I have to start coming up with a shape/peace I want to make. I have a
couple of ideas. One idea I have had since my first class: a clear, strait,
slightly in slanting sided picture with translucent colored dots. My other idea
is to make some glasses: tall inverted cones with circle bases. I would like
them to have opaque white inside and orange outsides.
Posted at 07:23 PM
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Wed - March 2, 2005
iPod shuffle
Last week my parents surprised me with an iPod shuffle. It's really
cool! I was kinda sorta thinking of getting one but now I don't have to worry
about it. For the past few months I have been taking my PowerBook to
work to listen to
music. It was kind of a drag to cary it around all day. if i went to the store
after work I had to either take my back pack with me or put it in the trunk. My
shuffle is way easer. My only trouble is that I don't have a USB 2.0 port so it takes a
reallly loooong time to transfer a GB of music to the
iPod over USB 1.1.
Anyway last weekend I downloaded the mp3 of Living On Earth from NPR and listened to it while I was
trimming the bushes in the front yard, it was fun. I have yet to transfer a file
with it but I did leave about 100 MB free for
that.
Posted at 07:10 PM
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Sun - January 23, 2005
Neon sees green
I have finally started the process of building my
neon shop. I have put in the order for the equipment and I think I will have it
in the next couple of weeks. I am getting almost all of it from IEC (Interstate Electric Co.,
Inc.), for what I think is a pretty good price. The one piece of
equipment I will get from a second vendor is a regenerative air blower. IEC only
has very large blowers and I need a quite small one. The blower provides the
forced air that is mixed with gas for the fires. At this point my shop is really
just for glass work. I am not buying any pumping equipment yet. What that means
is I won't be working with any actual
neon
[gas] in my shop. I will have to take my peaces somewhere else to light them up.
Most of the work I plan on doing will be single electrode, which requires
special equipment to pump, so I'm not sure where I will do that. The single
electrode pieces might just have to wait a while till I have put together a
pumping station. Once I have all the equipment I will need to figure out how to
arrange my shop to fit it in.If you (I write
this like someone other than I will be reading it :-) are wondering what exactly
I mean by all this. So wrote up a basic explanation of the neon process at my
new Neon
site.
Posted at 06:10 PM
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