Nicole: 
Back to Adium...
...for a little while
Late this afternoon I decided to give Adium a try. This wasn't the first time, I've used it in the past, but before their 1.0 milestone. I grew tired of the team's apparent lack of interest in Voice and Video chat, and since Apple's iChat has all of that and every Mac I use has a built in camera, well - Adium got tossed to the wayside so I could do all those spiffy things.But I missed all the cool things I could do with it. The great sounds - including many I created and uploaded to the Xtras Site (oh how I missed my Myst soundset!) - the custom status icons, the custom buddy and message views with transparency and more.
Sure, Chax made some of these things possible with iChat, even bearable, and while iChat did become much more functional to me with it along with Apple's additions to it in Mac OS X 10.5, as a friend of mine liked to say often, "it's like putting lipstick on a pig."
With that said, Adium still hasn't progressed on the AV chat front, although they claim 2.0 will have it, but have no estimated date as to it's release. Also, the mouse-overs on the buddy list still spill over into my virtual desktops from time to time when Adium is in the background.
So, I think I'll keep using it for a bit. I spend 98% of my IM client existence text chatting and not using AV. I suppose if I want to I can always fire up iChat for that. For now Adium is like that comfortable pair of slippers you've forgotten about. Sure they might have a couple of holes, but they are comfortable.
Time Wasters
Simple On-Line Games
Someone pointed me to http://www.kongregate.com, a nice site with some top quality time wasting games. Previously I was a fan of http://www.addictinggames.com, but this site beats it hands down. Highly recommended.
Dead Wipers
Time to start posting General Happenings again.
I'm driving home from work this Friday and about half way home my windshield wipers start going slower...and slower...and stop. I'm pretty sure my wiper motor is dead. Time for a trip to Potsdam Tire & Auto to get what I'm sure will be at least a couple hundred in repairs done! If it were Christmas I'd put a new wiper motor on my list!
Comments Fixed
Comments like a turkey... *gobble-gobble*
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I didn't realize the comment system for the blog was broken. It should be fixed now. Sorry if you wanted to leave a comment and couldn't!
I didn't realize the comment system for the blog was broken. It should be fixed now. Sorry if you wanted to leave a comment and couldn't!
Back To Normal
Whew, what an upgrade...
The site is back after a big server upgrade and a switch over to a new blog engine. Pebble is quite a powerful Blogger application and a snap to setup. The longest part of the downtime was for me to design a custom theme for Pebble to match the web page.
Pebble does these entries differently, but better. Changes are: 1) This front page will now show all new blog entries in all categories. 2) Individual categories such as Humor, Steve's Gripes, and Tech notes still work from the left side menu or the Categories menu to the right and do a search on the entries with an excerpt from them. Just click the title to read the full entry. 3) comments are on and available, but are spam filtered and need my approval for others to see them.
Enjoy!
Pebble does these entries differently, but better. Changes are: 1) This front page will now show all new blog entries in all categories. 2) Individual categories such as Humor, Steve's Gripes, and Tech notes still work from the left side menu or the Categories menu to the right and do a search on the entries with an excerpt from them. Just click the title to read the full entry. 3) comments are on and available, but are spam filtered and need my approval for others to see them.
Enjoy!
Outages
Battery Backup Death Spiral
The battery backup that serves the electronics has been having a problem, one that we were finally able to catch it doing. It was power cycling the electronics on and off in a spiral of electronic death. I don't know how the router, VOIP, and switch survived, but they did. We running off battery backup until I can find the cash to replace the unit. Everything should be working again. Ug.
Fixed Width Web Pages
All the space in the universe...itty bitty pages
Why is it some web pages have fixed width web pages? You know the kind, where it looks like you're looking at a sheet of paper with the margins on each side expanding to fill the width of your display? If you have a smaller monitor, that may not be a bid deal, but I have a couple of wonderful wide screen displays. The result? A strip down the middle with content and a lot of wasted space! It's stupid!
Some web designers think it's cool to make me look at a page as if I'm viewing a 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper. Tell you what, if I want to see your site that way I'll print it out and read it. Let my browser scale to my selected screen-width please!
Some web designers think it's cool to make me look at a page as if I'm viewing a 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper. Tell you what, if I want to see your site that way I'll print it out and read it. Let my browser scale to my selected screen-width please!
Blogs Are Here
Blogs Are Here
One of my vacation projects is what you see here: to convert parts of this website to a blog engine. Since I use OS X server, it seems logical to use it's built-in blog engine which is based onBlojsom. http://www.blojsom.com Pebble: http://pebble.sourceforge.net.
Are there better Blog engines? Yup. Could some of this content be better housed in a Wiki? Yup.
It's a matter of time. Once, before the critters, I had lots of it. I could spend entire weekends tweaking, playing, and configuring all sorts of things. Now, I need something simple, quick, and easy.
This works and my time is much better spent elsewhere. So the Front Page Updates, Humor, and Steve's Gripes have been converted to the blog.
I have left comments turned on for now, so enjoy making some!
One of my vacation projects is what you see here: to convert parts of this website to a blog engine. Since I use OS X server, it seems logical to use it's built-in blog engine which is based on
Are there better Blog engines? Yup. Could some of this content be better housed in a Wiki? Yup.
It's a matter of time. Once, before the critters, I had lots of it. I could spend entire weekends tweaking, playing, and configuring all sorts of things. Now, I need something simple, quick, and easy.
This works and my time is much better spent elsewhere. So the Front Page Updates, Humor, and Steve's Gripes have been converted to the blog.
I have left comments turned on for now, so enjoy making some!
Clickers of Everything
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that after all these years of being exposed to computers, people still fall for the lamest "tricks" to expose them to a virus or spyware. Probably the truly single most jaw dropper for me is the people that have been caught by these tricks, not once, twice, three times, but multiple times and continue to get not only their shorts pulled up over their head, but tied in a knot too. Some advice: Stop. Think. Simple as that.
Here are some examples: From an email: You've received a greeting card from a Neighbor Okay, what's your first clue here? How about "Neighbor"? Why would you get a card "from a Neighbor" and not by their actual name? No service I've ever seen for computer greeting cards lets you specify a locale as a "from". That's silly. Wait! There is more! In the body of this message is a link to click to get your card. http://192.168.0.0/ ... Numbers? In a web address? Well, it's possible, but no company in the 'business' of electronic greeting cards (and I dare say any business!) is going to do that. They'll want something like http://www.hallmark.com to promote their site! Two dead giveaways that something strange is afoot. Don't click it, trash it!
Here is another fun one from the web: You're surfing around the internet and suddenly, in your web browser, you see "YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED! CLICK HERE TO FIX!" Oh no! You must have picked something up! Woah, stop, think. Why would your web browser possibly be scanning your computer for viruses? And, if you have anti-virus/spyware installed, why didn't it catch the bug? These are two good reasons to never trust what you see while surfing the internet. Chances are you're going to click that and really get something bad when you were already fine, or some software is going to get installed and you'll be asked to pay for it since it obviously just fixed something. Stop. Think. Quit Clicking Everything You See.
Here are some examples: From an email: You've received a greeting card from a Neighbor Okay, what's your first clue here? How about "Neighbor"? Why would you get a card "from a Neighbor" and not by their actual name? No service I've ever seen for computer greeting cards lets you specify a locale as a "from". That's silly. Wait! There is more! In the body of this message is a link to click to get your card. http://192.168.0.0/ ... Numbers? In a web address? Well, it's possible, but no company in the 'business' of electronic greeting cards (and I dare say any business!) is going to do that. They'll want something like http://www.hallmark.com to promote their site! Two dead giveaways that something strange is afoot. Don't click it, trash it!
Here is another fun one from the web: You're surfing around the internet and suddenly, in your web browser, you see "YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED! CLICK HERE TO FIX!" Oh no! You must have picked something up! Woah, stop, think. Why would your web browser possibly be scanning your computer for viruses? And, if you have anti-virus/spyware installed, why didn't it catch the bug? These are two good reasons to never trust what you see while surfing the internet. Chances are you're going to click that and really get something bad when you were already fine, or some software is going to get installed and you'll be asked to pay for it since it obviously just fixed something. Stop. Think. Quit Clicking Everything You See.