My Geek Notes

We had dinner tonight at Ruby Tuesday, which was my first time there. Really good food, but unfortunately our server did a very poor job. My wife ordered a fancy lemonade of some sort and never got it and if that wasn’t bad enough, it was on the bill at the end. Of course we had it removed, but needless to say I didn’t tip very well. If I didn’t tip at all she may have thought I’d forgotten. That’s why it’s always wise to tip something even if it’s just a quarter saying, “hey, you did a really, really bad job”. (I tipped 11% or so … not too harsh.) The movie we saw afterward was Meet the Robinsons, which I rather enjoyed. At least the parts I saw I liked; the youngest wasn’t too keen on the idea of watching the movie.

I need to keep track of the apps that I talk about here in my second paragraph so I don’t end up repeating myself and so I can make sure to get some of my notes in the Notes section of the site. Tonight I’ll give a quick plug on the software that is running this site, WordPress. For the last couple of nights I’ve been working on the look and feel of the site making mostly CSS changes, but also familiarizing myself with the functions it allows me to use. To date I’ve been very, very impressed with how it works and when I installed it, it was the fastest server software install I’ve ever done.

The featured article yesterday on Wikipedia was about the New Carissa, “a freighter that ran aground on a beach near Coos Bay, Oregon, United States during a storm in February 1999, and subsequently broke apart.” I was going to talk about it yesterday but ended up talking about Star Wars and space stuff. The ocean and ships have always fascinated me although I do have a horrible dread of swimming in water where I can’t see the bottom. Even swimming in a freshwater lake creeps me out. That being said, when I’m on a boat, canoe, or raft I have no concerns at all … well, except on a raft in the ocean then the whole shark fear kicks in. Either way, I don’t recall hearing news in 1999 when the New Carissa ran ashore, but it was a really interesting read on what happened and the failed attempt to pull it back into the ocean.

Wow, I really, really don’t miss dial-up internet at all. I’m away for the weekend and this was my only option for getting online. I did see a few wireless spots when I booted up, but they were all locked down. Where’s the trust? So I told the guys at work that I’d blog about where we had lunch today and what I had. There is a little cafe out west that’s attached to the school district nutrition facility - yeah, I thought the same thing. Well this cafe has some really fancy sandwiches and some other good dishes. I’m guessing that the school kids aren’t getting the same food, but boy was my Italian sandwich on sour dough complete with artichoke hearts and red peppers good.

As you may have already guessed, Microsoft has not come out with a version of their Office suite for Linux (and I’m guessing they never will), so I’ve become quite accustomed to using Open Office. In fact, I run it as the main office suite on all of my Windows boxes too. Even my wife likes it (at least I think she does), but for free it sure beats Microsoft’s Office suite. Anyway, Open Office just barely released version 2.2 so I’m looking forward to see what’s changed.

It seems like there has been lots happening in the news lately with space, that final frontier. Space.com has an article about how double sunsets are actually pretty common. Who can’t remember the two suns setting on Tatooine, Luke’s home planet? Good stuff. Also, there is an astronaut that will be running the Boston marathon in space; 26.2 miles on a treadmill. I’ll be running it in my dreams. Wish me luck.

I’ve decided I need to sit down and prioritize the things that have been pulling my attention lately. My last few posts have talked some about being tired and not having enough time, if you’ve been following along. I realized tonight that there are a lot of things I’m doing that are neat, but absolutely unnecessary within the whole picture of my life. If I can sit down and eliminate some of those things I think I’ll clear up some of my time and not be constantly running.

I read an article today about how KDE 4.0 is supposed to be really, really nice compared to the latest version. Can’t wait to see it, although I doubt I’ll use it as I’m a huge fan of Fluxbox and all its simplicity. I will for sure be looking at the new KDE though even if it’s only through using Xnest. It’s a handy little tool that allows you to run multiple desktops at once. Here is a link to an article by Linux Journal’s Marcel Gagné on how to get it working and some screen shots. Good stuff.

Nothing really noteworthy in the news except for a few Star Wars things. One, we should soon have some Star Wars stamps available to us from the United States Post Office. Two, Bono from U2 was knighted recently. Supposedly you can’t call him Sir (as he’s not British) and his youngest son thought that he was becoming a Jedi Knight. He wasn’t?

Ultra sound technology is amazing, being able to see inside of my wifes belly and even through our unborn child’s organs to see its heart beating and his entire skeletal system - breath taking. After much anticipation it would seem our child decided to take on the form of a boy! ( I don’t really think he had much of a choice, but it would be cool if he did ).

This is our first child and I couldn’t be more excited, we immediately went out and purchased clothing for his pending arrival - it’s nice to finally get some gender specific stuff.

If you run a blog and haven’t yet incorporated easy ways for your readers to integrate Web 2.0 and social media type behavior . . . shame on you!

Blogs are probably the easiest types of sites to market and can usually rank well in search engines. There are two primary reasons for this:

1. Lots of tools exist for building blogs that are pre-optimized for search engines. This Web site, for example, is currently powered by WordPress. The system is written in PHP, validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional out of the box, and includes cool features like permalinks that allow you to put relevant content in the page filenames. There seems to be nothing about WordPress that the major search engines don’t like.
2. Blogs are naturally centered around content. A good blog will focus on a theme of sorts - this Web site centers on geeky-type things from the perspective of server administration, programming, design, and marketing. We anticipate adding other geekcentricities in the near future. Search engines love original content that’s updated regularly that revolves around a consistent theme.

In fact, the two features listed above are a significant portion of what search engines look for when analyzing and ranking sites.

There’s one more important element, however, that search engines evaluate when deciding how to rank Web pages. And that, my friends, is the number of other Web pages that link to yours.

Enter Web 2.0 and social media.

The Internet has become a giant community of inter-connectivity. Even more important than the endless networks of computers that make all this possible, is the endless network of people that publish across those computers.

If you want to run a successful blog, you have to include Web 2.0 and social media elements. Having an optimized site with original content doesn’t matter any more. Millions of people have those.

Right now, the single most important thing you can add to an optimized site with original content, is active participation in the social network created by the Internet.

I’ll be working with the administrators of this site (the geeks I know and love) to incorporate Web 2.0 and social elements into what we do here. As we progress, I’ll keep notes and publish them to this site.

If you have questions, please list them below in the comments section.

I’m finding that even though I sit at a desk all day programming, I still get exhausted (mentally?) after troubleshooting code all day and finding the best looking/working and fastest solution to whatever it is I’m working on. I’ve got a big project due in a week and a half and after working up to 9pm this evening on it I came home wanting to go straight to bed. Did I, no. I ended up playing some Zelda on the Wii which was actually pretty good for cooling down my brain. After I post this, I’m off to bed to rest up for another run at the programming grind tomorrow.

I talked some about Firefox (Greasemonkey) and jEdit in a recent posts and just wanted to talk a little more about them … or part of them. I’m finding that a lot of open source(ish) apps allow for plugins and that’s really where the sugar of the setup is. In most of the apps I work with I try to tweak them out with plugins that increase productivity and functionality. Firefox and jEdit are just two of those allowing for a great set of plugins. I’m hoping at some point to write some sort of a plugin for something.

Lots of stuff in the news today. Here’s a link to a video of some sun glasses that you can turn on and off. In addition to what ikeman posted, here are some stories about a new Spaceport in New Mexico and two links on the problem we are having with space junk. Well, I’m off to bed but I’ll leave you with two more things - the new Harry Potter book cover was announced, and no, Sinbad is not dead.

Bored at work? Tired of harvesting fields all day? Need a break from reality but it’s 10:00am and too early to drink? Well now you can keep yourself busy by visiting http://www.kongregate.com/ . This website was built to function like youtube, only for video games. It’s a great way to see what kind of games others are putting out and it can help you decide what to do on your own game if you’re stuck.

10 months ago, as my wife and newly-born son prepared for release from the hospital, I sat with them through several new-parent orientatons.

Apparently, you’re supposed to feed a baby on a schedule and if they haven’t pooped for a week, you’re supposed to call the pedatrician. Aside from the terror I experienced upon learning that a human being could actually go for a week with no new poop, I was overwhelmed by the strictly engineered regiment being perscribed to us.

All along, I’d thought that you just played with the baby. If it ever cried, you checked to see if it needed a diaper or if it was cold, and if it was neither of those things, you fed it because it must be hungry. Apparently, I was wrong.

We left the hospital and the clock started . . . “Honey, what time are we supposed to feed him? How much time is supposed to pass between each nap?” The panic set in.

Fortunately, we all survived the first week of his life. He pooped on schedule, slept on schedule, ate on schedule. Everything was much better than it had seemed.

I found a product online this morning, however, that would have helped tremendously with keeping to baby’s schedule. It’s called an ITZBEEN™ (pronounced “it’s been”- as in it’s been two hours since a diaper change). This thing was invented by a guy named Greg Sheldon, an engineer-turned-father who must’ve felt the same way I did when he had his first baby.

When Sheldon’s son was three months old, he decided to put his engineering career on hold to be more involved with the baby. Apparently, it wasn’t long before his inventive nature had him looking for ways to make the job of parenting a little easier.

Sheldon created a simple, cell phone size device with timers that allowed he and his wife to recall how long ago they changed a diaper, fed the baby, put the baby down to sleep, or gave the baby medication. Whenever they performed a task, like changing a diaper, they simply pressed the appropriate button; that timer would reset to zero and start counting up again.

Anyhow, he felt his timer was useful, so he filed for a patent and turned it into a real product. Now he’s got it in over 65 stores across the U.S., Canada, Australia, Panama, and the Internet.

Add the ITZBEEN™ to your list of baby gifts for first-time parents. They have no idea how much they need it.

How can one begin his day with out it? Yes, the sweet sting of the heavily carbonated beverage hitting the taste buds for the first time that day… it won’t be the last! No, this is the first of many Diet Coke’s that will feel the warmth of my hand this day. There the elegantly designed can sits… reminding me that everything is going to be okay. I give it a nod and a wink just before I reach over to embrace it’s cold exterior with my steady hand. I bring it to my lips and drink… ahhhh!

I’m pretty convinced that when you have a certain amount of time defined to get a job done, you usually take that much time to complete it. I’ve seen this over and over again in my own life. If I had 5 hours to write a term paper, it took me 5 hours. If I had 5 days, it took me 5 days. It sure would be nice if I could get it done in 5 hours when I had 5 days. Maybe it’s just me, but it really seems that most people stretch out the clock when they can.

If you were to ask me which application I use the most, the answer would be jEdit. I’ve used a lot of text editors in the past, but in the end I keep coming back to jEdit. One of the main reasons is because it is written in Java so it can run on any platform. When, on occasion, I use Windows then I can work with it there and not feel any difference in what I’m doing. It’s simple, good looking, and I’ve used it for so long now I don’t think I could switch to anything else. Any suggestions are welcome though, I’m always willing to see what else is out there.

Two interesting items in the news. First of all, Eddie Griffin has wrecked a very rare, expensive Ferrari. I have to admit, if I owned that car it would “very rarely” leave my garage, pun intended. The other bit of news makes me a bit angry, but gives me more reason, the next time I get a new computer, to simply build my own by ordering everything I need on NewEgg. HP is now saying that if you put Linux on your HP it will void the hardware warranty. Well, let HP (and Dell) have and support their Windows, I’ll do my own thing. *huff*