This morning, I had a meeting with someone who was interested in collaborating on a project. We picked a small boutique coffee shop near my office (that I selfishly could walk to) and a time that seemed to be between the morning rush, and their noontime bump. Fortunately, the person I was meeting got there plenty early to grab a table. Holy shit, that place was packed at 9:45. People talking...
As a long time Apple person, and a dedicated Mac user, starting with Mavericks, I had stopped using Apple’s built in mail client. I stopped using it for a variety of reasons, but essentially, the integration with Google mail really became, uh, shitty. Really weird, unreliable connections to the Gmail IMAP server, and finally I just gave up. I also subscribe to a mailing list of some really...
As a voracious reader, who primarily focuses on Science Fiction, I do branch out. One genre that I enjoy is the detective thriller. This penchant can be traced to my love of the Doc Savage stories of my youth, and has jumped into some more or less serious threads of what I read. From the flippant Stephanie Plum novels (a guilty, fun pleasure) to the work by J.A. Jance, I have enjoyed many a cliff...
Back to the real world. I have re-immersed myself in the learning required to build a little automated, web connected weather station. I have been learning a lot about working with the Arduino (proto boards built around the Atmel ATMega 328 microcontroller), and have added some goodies around connecting sensors, working first with a 1 wire humidity and temperature sensor, and soon to come some...
As anyone who knows me in real life knows, I have rescued Greyhounds. I have donated a lot of time and money to the southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption org, and ran their website for a few years. Last Tuesday, we had to put one of our greys to sleep. He had long suffered from seizures, big, scary grand-mal epileptic seizures that had been increasing in both frequency, and in numbers (clustering)...
Enough with the complaining about hosting, while I am sure I will again blog about the sad state of affairs in that realm, today I want to talk about something fun. I have been a guitar player since 1983 or so. I got a late start, in my last year of high school, so I wasn’t a child prodigy or anything, but I had long wanted to play, and guitar was the cool thing. Many stepping stones...
I learnt early on that you get what you pay for, and web hosting is no different than any other good or service. There was a time when $3 – $6 a month got you a pretty good deal as the explosion in hosting services was happening, but as with all services that are shared, the only way the economics work out is to over subscribe. The same happens with internet service (if everybody downloads...
Why is it so hard to find a decent web host? Way back in 2009, I began blogging on wordpress.com, and by the end of 2009, I was hooked. I took the plunge, and signed up with MediaTemple hosting, a pretty slick operation that had a quite good product offering, with their “gridservers”. That worked well, and apart from some shared Mysql server bog downs, it was a pain free time. The few...
It is that time of the year, where I once again mark an auspicious anniversary. On Sunday, January 3rd, 2010, at about 8:00 AM, I had a heart attack. The morning began as usual, up at 5:00 AM, fed the dogs, had coffee and a light breakfast, a quarter cup of Grapenuts with skim milk. Then I headed to the gym, for an hour of cardio. I felt a bit off on the elliptical trainer. I was just...
As part of my Netflix binging, I have watched (most) of the original Hawaii 5-0 and the 2010 remake. An interesting amalgam of shows. The original series was a Jack Lord vehicle, a way to justify living in Hawaii, and to promote tourism in Hawaii. Beautifully filmed, the writing was crisp and fresh (for 1968 that is), and the stories were compelling. The Remake is refreshing. A lot more character...