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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Category: Geekery

  • BlogJet: Trying Out Desktop Posting, Again

    I have installed a potentially interesting application – BlogJet. I used BlogDesk for a while but was generally underwhelmed by the formatting it generated, so I’m giving BlogJet its 30”“day evaluation period to either impress me or follow its predecessor into oblivion.

    BlogJetWindow1If nothing else, the software is prettier than anything else I’ve looked at in its category. Seriously.

    There are also some pleasant features for WordPress users, such as the ability to retrieve X-number of recent posts for editing, cross-linking, tagging and such. (Yes, I could start using Technorati tags. I don’t know if I will, though, ”˜cause if I start down that road then I’ll want to go through the entire archive and just, no. Ugh.) One can natively drop in Flickr and YouTube material, but that’s not terribly useful to me at present since I don’t patronize those services. Someday, maybe.

    Will this revolutionize the way I post to my journal? Will it at least spur me to post more often? I have no idea. I just like playing with stuff. I am, after all, a geek-dilettante.

    (Now to find out what breaks when I click the “Publish” button)

    (Uploading. Go figure. I think it has to do with some WordPress settings but I could be wrong.)

    (Yes, it was the WordPress setting. Fixing that made uploading work, though the filename the picture ended up with isn’t quite what I had in mind. Oh well. Not bad for a first attempt, only requiring two edits to make everything happy.)

  • Not-so-scenic Vista

    Today I’m getting my first hands-on experience with Windows Vista. So far I’m not terribly impressed. There’s a little bit of good and a fair bit of annoying, if not actually bad. The good consists mostly of the built-in search capabilities and (I have to admit it) some of the visual improvements. On the downside, however, there’s the fact that I have to agree to everything if I’m doing anything actually interesting with the OS, the fact that it runs about as nimbly as a drunken three-legged basset hound, and (as usual) the fact that I have to turn off so many default “features” in order to reduce clutter and annoyance levels. Also, the “power” button icon doesn’t do at all what I thought it would, namely give me some options as to what sort of powered-down state I would like to achieve. Nope, clicking that simply put the thing to sleep without a prompt.

    Wait, wait: I have to confirm every time I want to change display settings or show additional processes in Task Manager, but going to Sleep Mode doesn’t require any confirmation at all? Oh, that’s just spiffy.

    I just don’t see myself going to Vista any time soon, I’m afraid. Sorry, Mr. Bill.

  • One for the kids, two for the Sci-Fi geeks

    I suppose there are worse things I could be doing with this space than to highlight amusing webcomics I’ve been reading lately, right?

    First, one for the rugrats: While VG Cats is often tasteless, disturbing and generally Not Appropriate For Children, occasionally there’s an entry that I can share with anybody. Under this heading I present Exhibit P, for “Pokemans.” Having played the original Red, Blue and Yellow versions, it’s nice to see that very little has changed over the years. (To understand the reference in the comic’s title I direct your attention to Exhibit M, for “Cat Macros.”)

    Next, one for the Sci-Fi geeks, especially those who also don’t care for door-to-door proselytizers: Home On The Strange has a pair of delightful entries (#211 and #212) up this week showcasing the debate on whether Jesus Christ or the last of the Timelords makes a better saviour. (I’d tell you my favorite line from the two strips, but that’d be giving away the punchline.)

    There you go. My work here is done, at least for now. (Oh, if only my work week was done…)

  • The Joys of Managed Services

    I love our managed services platform-of-choice, Kaseya. It allows me to run complex scripts, remote control machines in a number of ways, and generally stay on top of all the fiddly bits involved in keeping disparate groups of machines in peak condition. Because computers take everything literally, however, sometimes you get “critical” alerts like: “The amount of installed RAM on Machine X has changed from 3327MBytes to 3326MBytes.”

    Someone stole one megabyte of RAM! Quick, to the Batmobile! (Or, maybe not.)

    Then again, sometimes the best platform in the world can’t save you from the vagaries of the server vendor. Take HP (please! ha ha) and their instructions for monitoring drive failure. “Watch for Event ID 1214,” they say, and then when the drive fails the actual logged error shows up with Event ID 1202. It’s not even that their instructions are wholly incorrect, as the last time a drive failed it did use the “correct” ID. Unfortunately, last night’s drive failure at one of our biggest clients used the “wrong” ID.

    Guess who looks bad when we “drop the ball” in such a fashion, eh? Oh, I’ve fixed that one. Now I just have to wonder how many other little traps are waiting to spring…

  • A wee bit o’ server maintenance

    It’s always so very nice to see a high-profile notification about a new release of key webserver software, one which purports to fix a myriad of security vulnerabilities, right before I go to bed. There’s no chance of getting to sleep without taking care of the upgrade once I’ve seen such a thing. What makes the task much more entertaining is that the OS version for this server is, let’s say, a bit out of date. Getting installers for current software on this old beast can be a nightmare.

    Luckily there’s a Frenchman who believes in keeping certain key software packages installable for old warhorses like my server so I acquired the updates from his repository, crossed my fingers and ran the installers. A couple of post-upgrade scripts later and… here we are at MySQL 5.0 and PHP 5.2.2. Not too shabby, eh? I think the server may even be responding slightly faster now, and that’s the sort of thing which puts a big smile on my face.

    Now to see if I can sleep through the night without feeling the urge to check on the server every twenty minutes. Over the last couple of years I’ve grown cautious of major changes for some reason…

  • Let’s Make Believe

    Tell you what.

    I’ll pretend that I filled the last couple of weeks with post after post about how tired and out-of-sorts I’ve been, and you’ll pretend to have read those posts, with or without the requisite rolling of the eyes or the deep sigh of boredom and/or frustration.

    This past weekend we moved a bunch more of Kyla’s stuff from her old home to her new home. We also picked up a new television for her, mainly so there’s something to watch DVDs and play video games on. The highlight of the previous weekend was taking the kids to see “TMNT,” which was a better movie than I expected. (No, seriously. It’s good. While it’s not grand or epic, it’s still a solidly entertaining little film. If it doesn’t do well in DVD sales I’ll be terribly disappointed.)

    I haven’t been completely idle on the writing front, though. Consider how much time I put in over the last two months to get the new anime forum, A.E.I.O.U., up to speed!

    Now let’s see if I can strike a balance so that I’m not letting this poor journal gather dust so often…

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