This is just a quick test to see if the following actually works:
[audio:BT_Movement_Promo.mp3]If it doesn’t play for you, please let me know what web browser you’re using and on what operating system. Thank you.
Category: Geekery
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Going down in flames?
As one travels along the so-called Sunset Highway, near the crest of the Sylvan hill one spots a sign advertising the presence of a church. I don’t have much use for churches in general, but this one amuses me.
Its logo consists, as near as I can tell, of the image of a white bird going down in flames. No, I’m not kidding. You see the stylized white dove (common Christian imagery, that) and above it is a wavy, spiky line that is supposed to denote… something. An aura, perhaps. It looks like nothing so much as a representation of fire.
Can anyone explain what may have possessed the designer to go with such a motif? I’m sure there’s a valid theological reason; I just can’t come up with an idea which doesn’t involve the concept of a church poking fun at itself.
I remain amused, of course.
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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.
If 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.)
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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.
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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…)
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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…
