TechnoPrimitive

Think I am getting better. Will know by the morning. Took forever to wake up and get moving this morning and even after I did still had no energy and a headache all day. Kept trying to get going and do things that I need to do but getting nowhere, so ended up cleaning up and doing some updating on some of the many websites. Still got another day or two of just that stuff to do as time permits so the day wasn’t a total waste.

Had another problem with the server tonight as I posted below. After it came back up I found a post on the Wordpress site that mentioned a new version of the Google plugin that fixed a slow posting that the old one (that I was running) was causing and updated it. Posting seems to be taking less time now and so far (knock on wood) haven’t had any more problems. Hoping that got it.

The problem I mentioned in a comment earlier today about FireFox not saving the logins was a checkbox that had gotten unchecked in the preferences. Still not sure how or when that happened.

Tis late and I need to be up and gone early in the morning. Got to go work on a saw and not looking forward to it, but need the funds so gonna see what I can do toward making it function. Till I type again…

Old Bailey Online - The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 - Central Criminal Court

A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court.

This is a fascinating site. Quite interesting to look into the court proceedings and recordings from all those years ago. I also like the ability to view the original document, some of which I can actually read…

Not sure what the problem is. Went down again a little while ago after I edited a file. Been using ScribeFire to do all of the posting and most of the editing but was on the site and noticed a problem so did a edit to a file and when I went to post it everything went down. Problem is I’m not sure it was Wordpress that caused it. When I went to the webhost manager the server load was 4.59 on 4 cpu’s and memory was at 48% or more. Went to the site control panel and couldn’t access phpMyAdmin at all. When the server load dropped below 2 it all came back up. So, am still undecided. There are still several folks on the WP forums that are having trouble but no wide spread problems. Guess I will post this from ScribeFire and see what happens.

A Truly Extravagant Cocktail - Cork & Knife

When you look up “extravagant” in the dictionary, you may very well find the picture above. It costs 27,321 dirham at the Skyview Bar of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai and is, appropriately enough, named the “27.321″. For those not familiar with the exchange rates, I am told that it comes out to approximately $7,450 for one cocktail.

Even with getting to keep the glass, stirrer (carved out of a piece of Oak from an original Macallan Sherry Cask) and adding in the leather box, that’s a bit much for one drink. In another article I read (which is where I got the bit about the stirrer) but can’t find now, it stated that they are only going to “create” 10 of these cocktails, and that two of them were purchased the first night it was offered. There is ostintatious and then there is just plain crazy…

Haven’t gotten much at all accomplished today, except fixing lunch and spending way too much time staring at the computer screen. Not sure if what I am going through (and Cat has had) is allergies or if we have had a bug, or both. Today has been achy joints and sore/hurting muscles with a sore throat and headache. Not pleasant and very hard to concentrate on the things I need to be doing, so I more or less took the day off. Hoping tomorrow will work out better. Till then…

Google School: Filter Google Results by Date with a URL Trick

Google can reorder search and news results from the last day, week, a few months, or entire year by adding a small string to the end of the search URL. Just add this string - &as_qdr=d - to the address bar and hit enter. You’ll get a custom drop-down box that lets you re-order results based on date.

Cool trick! And most useful too.

Found through Global Nerdy.

Albert Hofmann, LSD inventor, RIP - Boing Boing

Albert Hofmann, who first synthesized Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), has passed away. He was 102 years-old.

Thanks for everything dude! RIP Albert…

Sierra Leone: Bio Diesel

Well it seemed all too easy in the end as we drove off with the Binkolo vehicle literally into the sunset, intoxicated with the sweet success of motoring under the power of palm nut oil. Actually the first noticeable difference was the surprising fried fish exhaust smell. Certainly no difference in power and engine noise and the town could still hear the whooping and hollering from the happy band of bio-dieselers being transported on a lap of honour. We had won the “Stanley Cup”.

Interesting article on making Bio Diesel out of palm nuts using very primitive equipment that they made or scrounged. Good stuff!

Computer languages and facial hair - take two - Just code - Tamir Khason

Very cool article. And love the comments about Lisp. Emacs forever…

A radial drill press made from spare parts - Instructables - DIY, How To, craft, tech

My radial drill press cost about the same in materials as small, cheap ones you can buy, and it isn’t much bigger or stiffer than those, but it has more freedom of motion than some more expensive machines. It’s made from some parts I found and other parts I made. It ended up so the maximum extension is about 73cm - I guess this makes the swing 57″ - and the head has about 28cm vertical travel, and it can swivel, rotate, and pivot 360°; it has a 3/8″ chuck, the quill travel is up to 8cm, and with the temporary “Hi-Power” gearmotor runs at something like 1000rpm with no load.

Neat! Gives me some ideas for sure. Got a floor standing model in the field that needs a new motor and bunch of other stuff, and an old cheap china made one with a bad motor. Think I will look at combining the two so the china one is the radial feed on the floor model post. Much more in my head right now than I can get on the computer in words. Having a bad day with words for some reason. Must be the histamine reaction from the pollen. Or something. More as I get it figured out and done.

Bert P. Krages Attorney at Law Photographer’s Rights Page

The Photographer’s Right
A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography

The Photographer’s Right is a downloadable guide that is loosely based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet that used to be available on the ACLU website. It may be downloaded and printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may make copies and carry them your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning confrontations over photography. You may distribute the guide to others, provided that such distribution is not done for commercial gain and credit is given to the author.

If you take pictures in todays world, might be a good idea to get, print out, and carry a copy of this page. The author also has a book on the subject that is available for sale from the page.

Shelby County, TN Sheriff: watch out for photographers and radical greens, they might be terrorists - Boing Boing

The insanity spreads.

Not too bad over all. Just one of the pollen days that I could do without. Spent part of the day getting info from a new client to add to their website. Another part working on bits and pieces of a couple of sites. Just wish I felt more like doing any of it. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Calling it a night and will hit at something tomorrow. till then.

Adobe Spry framework for AJAX

Spry is a JavaScript-based framework that enables the rapid development of Ajax-powered web pages. Not a JavaScript guru? No problem. Spry was designed to feel like an extension of HTML and CSS, so anyone with basic web-production skills can create next-generation web experiences by adding the power of Ajax to their pages.

Another link mainly for my reference. Though I must say Spry does look interesting from a website developers/designers point of view. Gonna have to download the package and try it out. Not sure what use I would have for it but as I once again seem to be getting more and more into building and maintaining websites, knowledge of new tools and technologies do tend to give one a bit of an edge.

The PC Weenies. V2.0: The Internet’s First and ONLY Webcomic Where YOU can Guest-Star! » Archive » R U XPerienced?

Believe it or not, there’s an Internet petition sponsored by InfoWorld to save Windows XP.

The PC Weenies is really good today. I absolutely love the last frame!

Elemental - Cup Of Brown Joy on Vimeo

Elemental. The quintessential English fellow, explorer, scientist, exotic dancer and some might say raving lunatic.

An interesting and very steampunkish video. Good stuff!

xkcd - Zealous Autoconfig - By Randall Munroe

Now THAT’S an Autoconfig!

Trying ScribeFire out for standard posting to the blog(s) too. One nice thing about it is the ability to post to several different blogs. Not at the same time but it does allow you to save a post and post it again and again. Tis quite handy that. Several irritating things too. Whereas with a right click on a word Firefox will gives you the ability to check and correct the spelling of a word but ScribeFire doesn’t. It underlines the words but as yet I can’t find a way to check and correct the spelling. Just installed a dictionary but have to restart Firefox to get it to work so am going to finish this post and then restart it. Looks like I can save it as a draft so will try that and see if I can edit it after the restart.

And it works great! I’m liking this more and more. Seems that you can even edit existing entry’s, though I haven’t tried that yet. The spell check thing still isn’t working/or I can’t figure out how it is supposed to work. Will look into it more later.

Have got it configured at present to post to 3 different blogs and need to add several more. Not just mine but the 3 or 4 that customers sites are built with, so I can edit them too.

Added another blog (customers site) today with Wordpress 2.5.1 and it seems to be working fine. The problem yesterday may have been something other than just Wordpress but the timing sure was good if it was. Both times. Course like I said in an earlier post, I did replace all the files with a newly downloaded version and also updated the config file.

Been a long day. Gotten some things done, and put some off till tomorrow. Got a pile of stuff to go pick up to get put into a customers site. And still got one more to install a e-commerce program in that I haven’t gotten to yet. Seems like it’s either feast or famine.

Gonna make one more post and then call it a night. Till tomorrow…

Linux.com :: Writer’s Café: An IDE for writers

Legend has it that a Moleskine notebook and a pen were the tools of choice for Chatwin and Hemingway — but that’s because they didn’t have Writer’s Café. Designed specifically for writing professionals, this application suite includes a few clever features that make it a must-have tool, whether you write for a living or for fun. Although the Writer’s Café developers state that it’s most suited for writing fiction, novels, and short stories, you can easily use it for all kinds of writing activities.

Not that I am much of a writer (blogging not counting) but I’m going to have to download this tool suite and give it a try. Sounds quite useful.

Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

The winter sun sets in mid-afternoon in Kolobrzeg, Poland, but the early twilight does not deter people from taking their regular outdoor promenade. Bundled up in parkas with fur-trimmed hoods, strolling hand in mittened hand along the edge of the Baltic Sea, off-season tourists from Germany stop openmouthed when they see a tall, well-built, nearly naked man running up and down the sand.

Interesting article, well worth the read.