(default) April 11 2002, 15:15 EDT  

 
 
(1/11/2002) Happy 2002 and welcome to the new host...
 
Guestbook
My old version had a guestbook feature. It needs to be recoded.
Netrunner Lives!
I have a lot of Netrunner content on my old site. RNN used to mean "Rob's Netrunner Node".
My dog, and other pictures
Paradigms
I am so locked into the paradigm Kyle and I developed for the original version. You can see from that page how the "blurb" concept was supposed to work. Implemented horizontally it makes much less sense, and presents a design challenge I that I can't quite figure out how to solve. Oh well, this all-horizontal layout was just a workaround to accomodate Netscape 4's performance issues with hugely nested tables.

I'm not going to let it bug me. The original layout remains my best vision for how this should work. I'll work on that soon.

 
Hello and welcome to my Turbine Weblog!
 
This is it!
OK time for another cutoff and cutover to a new version. I feel it is decent progress (though just at this moment it might not be obvious why I say that) and it's time to jump.

I'm excited and nervous -- wow I actually felt a bit of adrenaline there for a second! -- as I record for all time the following statement: I'm about to cut this version off, move it elsewhere, and start a countdown. I am giving myself 10 weeks to get the next revision together and back out on a publically available website. Or rather, 10 weeks from Monday, on 6/24/2002, I need to be ready to write a (perhaps large) check and "go for it" or understand specifically why I cannot or will not pull the trigger.

This deadline leads to a couple of other conclusions: right now I'm counting down to my birthday July 31st as a date everyone can be assured will happen "sometime this summer". There's another (working for the man) target date out there that is much less well defined; since I can't count down to that date, I'll count down to my birthday instead. Fun.

July 31st is about a month after the above deadline... plenty of shakedown time on a new hosting platform. I better be ready to roll out the new offering by then, again or if not then I better be able to explain reasonably why I cannot.

Also, with only 10 weeks between today and "put up or shut up" I will need to focus even tighter on what it is that I need to do in order to be successful. But those details can wait for another post, because the work today is to take the first step...

...and close out this episode of the "Rob's Newest Homepage" project, and move on. Wish me luck!
Posted 6 minutes ago
MySQL unload
I just needed to dump a 'mediumtext' field out of the database for use with awk/sed/grep... and found this technique worked well:


select * into outfile 'myfile.dat'
fields terminated by '|'
lines terminated by ''
from MYTABLE
where ID=123;


The trick here is the lines terminated by nothing part... else it was (I think) backslash ctrl-M.
Posted Tuesday, Mar 19 at 11:24 AM
temp report
It's been warm in my house lately.

Right now it's 79.9 in my office and 78.1 in the server room. The thermostat is set to 73, Monica was cold.

I haven't reported in nor cleared the peaks and valleys in awhile... the facts are these:

Since the last time I reported, my office cooled down to a low of 66.9 while the server room was never colder than 71.8... also, the hottest my office ever got was 83.8(!!!) and the server never got hotter than 78.4

I recall Monica pulling a stunt recently with trying to fix the house being too cold... she was completely out of hand, ha ha. I didn't think it was that recently. Wonder when/how it got to 83.8 in my workroom?

Shrug. At least the server room is within nominal range!

Posted Saturday, Mar 9 at 2:58 PM
Keyboard Repeat Rate in X
Here's a juicy Linux tidbit, I found it on some guy's page discussing tweaking Linux for his Dell laptop

The key repeat rate in X is too slow after resuming from a suspend. To get around this, after resuming run xset r rate 660 25 in X to set the repeat rate to the normal default. Set it faster for more fun.
Posted Sunday, Mar 3 at 9:48 AM
steps backward
Man I hate when a project suffers a blow... I had a "tasty link" management system once and now it is down. Actually I think I've got it working, some, but... well, watch this, I think this is 4 postings in a row with nothing to say 'cept "here's a nice link" -- kills me!

Anyway, check out this spiffy layout.
Posted Wednesday, Feb 27 at 8:34 AM
FlashKit!
flashkit.com
Posted Tuesday, Feb 26 at 7:23 PM
Goofy
That was a goofy site I hope you didn't find it, or rather me, dumb for linking it. ha ha.

Pink is pretty goofy too.
Posted Tuesday, Feb 26 at 7:08 PM
Everywhere this site does NOT want to be :)
NURPLE DOT COM

enjoy!
Posted Tuesday, Feb 26 at 6:53 PM
server room temp check
I know you're curious about my unventilated server room... so here, enjoy knowing this:

Since I checked (and posted) last, the min was 72.1 in the server room and 70.5 in my work room, and the max was 74.7 in the server room and 75.6 in my work room.

Yay. I wish the server room got as cold as my work room, but at least it didn't get as hot! Makes sense, I have a heat duct in my work room but we fixed the server room to not get heat, or AC for that matter.

Weee.
Posted Tuesday, Feb 26 at 11:22 AM
Sunday
I've been coding my butt off. It's hard to sit down now. Ha ha.

And, I turned the "linen closet" (the old owner referred to it as the "gun safe") into a "server room". Cool beans.

I booted an indoor/outdoor thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature, as the room isn't well ventilated. So far so good, in the last 24 hours my work room had a low of 72.5 and a high of 75.0, while the server room was low 73.2 and high of 75.9... I said I could accept a 5 degree variance and we're well within that tolerance -- though there's only one machine so it's not proving much. But I am happy to see the server room only get .9 degrees hotter than my work area.

Both rooms are pretty close to the furnace and neither are well ventiated. I am fairly certain the thermostat aims the house temp at not more than 72.

Shrug, I'll keep an eye on it.
Posted Sunday, Feb 24 at 11:25 PM
Thursday
Last night I made some HUGE progress (though the code was not the best) at delivering on separate layouts from CSS.

Happy happy.
Posted Thursday, Feb 21 at 12:08 PM
TDMA
TDMA

TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA TDMA

Yes, I need the Tagged Message Delivery Agent. I won't say it again, ok once more.

TDMA!
Posted Tuesday, Feb 19 at 3:34 PM
Another nugget
Google is amazing.

But that's not the important information nugget. Heh. Here's another that will likely not be useful to too many people, but who knows... and the important point, my most satisifed customer (me) will want it again sometime.

Q: "How do I unfreeze messages frozen for delivery by Exim?"

A: exim -qqff
Posted Sunday, Feb 17 at 9:52 AM
Difficult Freecell Games
My wife is a Freecell champion. Game 13306 took her three times to play. Unheard of. I looked at it and it is scary hard.

Know of a toughie? Write me with the number!
Check out this weird picture. Wild stuff!
Posted Friday, Feb 15 at 5:53 PM
A nice tip...
Here's a nice tip, great when the need arises. To copy an entire directory structure, including hidden files, from one place to another (say, from a fixed drive to a removable drive, heh) just use:

cd /fixed/backthisup
find . -print|cpio -pmdv /path/to/removable

Of course the v parm is optional, if you don't want to watch the file list on stdout then skip it.
Posted Sunday, Feb 10 at 1:30 PM
Score Yet Another For Kyle
I told Kyle about Domain Fellow. He told me about Name Boy. He wins again. In fact, I had to agree with his disparaging remarks regarding the site I found.
I need a new name. Decisions decisions...
Posted Thursday, Feb 7 at 2:12 PM
Feature suggestion
My boss had an interesting suggestion for this. After I told him what I have planned, he said, "sounds really neat, all I hear missing is a way to trade MP3's with my friends".

Hmm. A "personal file library" would be kinda neat. Probably needs to wait for phase II but it should be doable.
Posted Thursday, Feb 7 at 12:08 PM
Time for some upgrades
I need to spend some time on my desktop... here's one about fonts which reminds me I could/should do better... and then there's a new Mozilla, and a new Opera too!

...but I do have a few other pressing matters to attend to, so who knows.
Like Visa, Jim Thompson is everywhere (this page) wants to be. Snappy layout I think I might have to appropriate it for a little bit.
Posted Tuesday, Feb 5 at 6:35 PM
bleh
Well I tired of that game fast... it seems evident, heavy access will kill the CPU. Less than that just puts moderate/high load on the system.

Doh.
Posted Tuesday, Feb 5 at 11:28 AM
pegged
I bet I can peg it now it is .73 yow
Posted Tuesday, Feb 5 at 11:27 AM
Wow
I'm watching the CPU usage on this box... it's at .63 and climbing. ouch
Posted Tuesday, Feb 5 at 11:27 AM
Monday
My friend Todd and I were talking about the weather... compare his to mine. Interesting, no?
Not bad for a Monday but I'm glad to be home. I cannot recall just how or why I had this in open Opera windows, but it seemed a nice BASH reference... sure wish I knew about it back when I could have used it!
Note to self: next time I'm fidding with my stylesheets, I need to redefine the HR tag badly... then again, there's lots about this layout that need to be done badly. OH well.
Posted Monday, Feb 4 at 6:17 PM
Weekend
Another weekend has officially begun. It's Friday afternoon, I've got just a few commitments on my time, the weekend is loaded with potential.

But I don't know what the heck to do. I've been agonizing this week about what I've done here and where I need to go next. The current layout is killing me I hate it... but without a clue about what I want the site to be, I don't know how to design it.

My potential homepage is crying out "make me!" but also asking "who am I and why do I exist". I don't know the answer. Getting closer, but I still don't know.

... so thus, it seems time wasted to code anything too specific for my homey page.

Oh, one thing I've decided, THIS is not my home page. This is an experiement. A test suite for the tools I've coded thus far. A place to plug in new ideas and such. My true home page has always included a section for content such as this, but in the past I've tried for a decernable something more.

I'm a pretty good speller but this entry is reminding me of a missing piece, a preview and spellcheck option for entries. Hrm. I could work on that feature, but again -- who the heck is reading this and posting new items? Nobody. OK maybe Kyle but he forgets he can log in and do so. Ha ha.

Jeremy Keith, that dude I linked last night, added a link to another page of similar interest. I might be able to keep up with these guys, if I could decide on a premise for my page and get it up to what I'm seeing they're doing there. But I cannot get off the dime about what I'm coding, if not an experiment with some weakly defined objectives.

Dunno. But I picked up an interesting trick from Paul Snowden (linked above)... when he finishes a thought for the day, he uses an HR and then picks it up later.

So if I did that then this would be a new thought. Maybe I'll place some games and eat and look for inspiration for a session later. Heh.
Well I had a nice meal and then searched the web one more time for a suitable photo album candidate. Found some new stuff but nothing that I'm confident would work on this host. So I guess I'm coding my own!
Posted Friday, Feb 1 at 7:17 PM
If I were a pre-1985 video game character...

What Video Game Character Are You? I am a Light Cycle.I am a Light Cycle.


I drive fast, I turn fast, I do everything fast. I even breakfast. I tend to confuse people with my sudden changes of heart. Sometimes I even confuse myself, which tends to cause problems. What Video Game Character Are You?
Posted Friday, Feb 1 at 5:58 PM
heehee
The previous entry is dedicated to my friend Kyle, who has stated that most blogs remind him of John Doe's notebooks in the movie "Seven".

Sometimes I think he's right... though I've seen plenty of blogs that contradict this notion.

hee hee
Posted Friday, Feb 1 at 1:25 PM
puppets
What sick, ridiculous, puppets we are, and what a gross, little stage we dance on. What fun we have, dancing and fucking, not a care in the world. Not knowing that we are nothing. We are not what was intended.
Posted Friday, Feb 1 at 1:17 PM
WHATEVER!
Darn. I got the skin design stuff working again, better than ever actually... and wham -- all the things I hate about this layout are right back in my face.

It's really, really hard to come up with a color scheme that looks decent at all. I was inspired by a page I saw tonite and "borrowed" a palette from there... but I can't make it fit! Doh!

Oh well at least my tools are working again.
Posted Friday, Feb 1 at 12:43 AM
Two 127's
I learned something the other day, but don't think I'll use it again soon... but it's interesting. `ping 127.0.0.1` will ping your local host, yes... but did you know `ping 127.0.0.2` also pings locally? 127.0.0.1 tests the TCP/IP stack, while 127.0.0.2 pings THRU the network card.

Might be good to know, some day.
Posted Sunday, Jan 27 at 4:48 PM
Progress
Well the site is mostly restored and working. I still need to work on skin creation, and the photo album. Then I'll be ready to resume development. Lots of fun, I've gotten out of the habit of working on this and need to be more persistant in fixing the stuff that I lost and being in a position to go forward.

Bleh... not today.
Posted Sunday, Jan 20 at 11:37 AM
Huh
Now it's not as fast again... I think. I need to set up a monitor.
Posted Monday, Jan 14 at 12:42 PM
not slow?
Huh. I'm working on it again today and it doesn't seem as slow on the host side as before. Of course it's hard for me to know since I'm on a crummy connection from home.

Will have to do some more experiments.
Posted Sunday, Jan 13 at 12:32 PM
Pokey slow
Well shoot... this is the first time my new host has failed to deliver in a superb fashion. I will ask them if they have any ideas, my app should be serving a lot better than it is.
Posted Sunday, Jan 13 at 12:30 PM
Back online!
Hey there! We're back up and things are mostly working. Yay.
Posted Friday, Jan 11 at 7:04 PM
 
Slashdot

Wired
Eugenics: Remastering the Race - Human cloning may be on President Bush's mind, but there's an equally furious debate raging over eugenics. It's not whether scientists should engineer embryos, but how far they should go. By Brian Alexander of Wired magazine.
Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant - President Bush is pressuring the Senate to pass a bill that would completely prohibit human cloning. But experts say a ban in the U.S. will not prevent scientists from moving forward with human cloning in other countries. By Kristen Philipkoski.
MS: Mac Software Connection Solid - A Microsoft exec says it will continue to develop Mac software, quelling rumors that the relationship with its rival was on the outs. Leander Kahney reports from Mountain View, California.
Are Ads a Gateway to Illegal CDs? - Gateway is showing people how to download music and movies and burn them on to CD-Rs. Heck, it's even tossing in some free blank CDs. But it's against piracy. Gateway has a singing cow to prove it. By Brad King.
Software Writers Patently Enraged - A new claim over patent infringement creates an uproar among software developers, who believe the entire patent-awarding system needs to be rejiggered. By Michelle Delio.
Sally Ride Still a Hit - The first American woman in space returns to her alma mater, hoping to inspire others to follow her lead. Katie Dean reports from Stanford, California.
Yahoo Gives Pro Forma the Boot - The bellwether Internet firm says it will stop reporting earnings in pro forma, a controversial accounting method popular in the technology sector. By Joanna Glasner.
Another Call to Open Up Windows - Antitrust penalties against Microsoft should force the company to open up its operating system for better access to competitors' products, a computer scientist says in court. Robert Zarate reports from Washington.
The Poop on Fuel-Efficient Cars - The first National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Day Odyssey showcases vehicles powered by electricity, hydrogen, natural gas -- and even a diesel generator that runs on chicken excrement. John Gartner reports from Philadelphia.
Connectivity Kings: Oh, Canada - With 60 percent of its households connected to the Internet, Canada is well ahead of the United States. But Canadians lag well behind their southern neighbors in terms of spending their cash. Charles Mandel reports from Ottawa.

 
v2.10 © 2001, Rob Leachman. All Rights Reserved