I took my Web log down because I never posted and quite frankly didn’t think a lot of what I used to post was the rest of the ‘net’s business. :) However, I often need to point folks at previous posts I’ve made so I don’t have to repeat myself so I went ahead and put it back up. I don’t expect to post regularly or spend any time maintaining it (other than security related updates.) Just an FYI.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! This has been a great year and we’re looking forward to great year ahead. God has really blessed us.
You’ll notice some site changes around here. There were some security issues with the theme I was using so I just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and went to a semi-default theme until I have time to hack up a new version of the vistered little theme I was using.
The site has changed some. You’ll most likely see technical or music related posts here, and general updates. I’ve moved most of the family content elsewhere. I hope everyone reading enjoys the holidays and takes time to thank God for the blessings He’s given them.
After I started playing guitar and not relaxing my right hand while playing, the muscle/tendon that runs along the bottom of my right hand started bothering me. In the midst of learning how to relax while I play, I began to look around and see how I could improve my posture and my work habits to avoid any further issues.
I work at a computer many hours a day so naturally I need a good keyboard/mouse and a nice chair. Aside from that, I need to remember to take a few minutes to get away from the screen, refocus my eyes, and rest my hands. I found a neat little utility the other day called Dejal Time Out. It’s a little application for Mac OS X that reminds you to take breaks. It has micro breaks and regular breaks, manages the time intervals, resets itself when you’re away from the screen, etc. It’s a pretty useful application. I’ve only been using it for a couple of days but I think it’s going to help out.
I ran across this video today of Monte Montgomery playing Jimi Hendrix’s tribute to his mother called Little Wing. Ignore the quality of the video and give it a listen. Montgomery can play stuff on acoustic most people would love to be able to play on electric. This is just an instrumental clip, but Montgomery is a popular vocalist/songwriter as well as being a six-string virtuoso. If you’re interested, you should check out something like his Six String Wooden Friend.
It’s different than what I typically listen to but it was nice for a change. Speaking of guitar, I posted some info on the guitar gear I’ve been playing with over at my guitar gear page.
Between family, work, church, and getting ready for my brother-in-law’s wedding shower at our house, I’ve been too busy to post. :)
That being said, with the volume of email I’m getting regarding the BlackJack I thought I should post that I no longer have it. I sent it back to Cingu…errr AT&T. Yes I know, I raved about it in the earlier post, but that’s what I get for posting when I’ve only had something a few days. After a couple of weeks it started to wear on me. Doing anything significant on the BlackJack was quite tedious compared with my Treo. Switching between applications and launching applications was just not as quick as my Treo either. The two things I really liked about it after it was all said and done was the form factor and the bluetooth PAN support. Windows Mobile just isn’t ready for me yet. I guess I’ll just hang onto my Treo until the 755p comes to GSM land.
So, those of you that keep emailing me requesting support with your BlackJack, I can’t really help you now. :)
A few days ago, I grabbed a replacement for my aging Palm Treo 650. It’s aging in form factor, features, and due to the fact that I keep dropping it and watching it bounce on concrete (apparently not what they’re made for).
I got a Samsung BlackJack (i607). It took me a while to succumb to having to run Windows on anything, let alone my smartphone, but it appears to be the best option at the moment. The BlackJack is excellent. Good features (bluetooth 2.0, UMTS/HSDPA (3G), windows mobile), excellent form factor, and it’s light. Being a Mac OS X fan, I need it to work properly as a mobile solution with my Macbook Pro. There came the usual necessary syncing utilities, Missing Sync for Windows Mobile. Then came tethering it as a modem. That was straightforward with the right script and a USB cable. But what’s the fun of having to have a cable? :)
Next was using it as a bluetooth modem. The BlackJack, like most Windows Mobile devices using version AKU3 (or later), does not have a BT DUN (Dial-Up Networking) profile, it’s been removed in favor of BT PAN (Personal Area Networking). PAN lets you use your bluetooth phone as an access point. No dialing or fiddling with modem scripts or anything.
Here’s the catch: there was no bluetooth PAN support in Mac OS X until 10.4.9. If you want to use PAN, make sure you’re running 10.4.9 (or later if you read this post at a later date). At any rate, if you paired before upgrading to 10.4.9, delete the device (sys prefs, bt, devices) and re-pair. In my experience it works better to pair from Mac OS X to the phone rather than vice versa. At any rate, when you pair, OS X won’t find any services on the BlackJack but it will enable Personal Area Networking.
The next step is to load up the Internet Sharing application on your BlackJack (conveniently there’s no visible shortcut when you first get the device). You can find it in the Windows folder and it’s called IntShrUI.exe. I’d suggest creating a shortcut to it. Run that, select bluetooth (it’s set to USB by default) and click connect. Then on your Mac, click the BT icon in the menubar and select the option “Join Network on [insert blackjack name]“.
That’s it. You’ll then be connected to the Internet via bluetooth on your BlackJack. Enjoy your 3G surfing (or EDGE at worst). :-)
Thanks for those that have been asking, but no I didn’t get worse, I got better. :) Today I haven’t taken any medication and only minor itching is occurring so that’s certainly an improvement. I’m on the mend and almost over it .
A new Parallels came out the other day and it has a lot of nice features. If you use it, you should check out the new version.
I suppose that’s putting it mildly. A couple of weeks ago I ended up with a sinus infection I couldn’t shake. I typically don’t get sinus infections and shake colds pretty quickly. However, this one I couldn’t so I finally went to the doctor and was given a prescription for an antibiotic. I took that and all was well. I finished the last dosage on Thursday night. Friday afternoon I developed what looked like mosquito bites all over. I took some benadryl before I went to bed and figured it would be gone by morning. Saturday morning I was awake before 6am with my bottom lip swollen, my wrist swollen, and part of my hand so swollen I couldn’t bend my fingers.
I headed over to the emergency room where they decided that I’m allergic to penicillin. Given that the antibiotic I was on was a derivative of penicillin, that was the culprit. They gave me a double dose of benadryl, a dose of zantac (a histamine-2 blocker), and a steroid shot to reverse the reaction. I left the hospital with a prescription of medrol (supposed to keep the reaction in check) and I was supposed to take that in conjunction with benadryl and in a week, the antibiotic should be out of my system (I’m assuming a week since that’s how long the medrol prescription lasts).
Fast-forward to early Monday morning (now) and I’m not sure what’s going on. I’m taking one medication which has a side-effect of making you excited and another medication with a side-effect of putting you to sleep. I still have some hives and itching so I’m not sure if it’s all working or not. On the upside, my face isn’t swollen so it isn’t life threatening but it sure is annoying. I’ll be giving a follow-up call to my doctor today to see what the deal is. I’ll be glad when everything is back to normal. :)
Obviously I haven’t posted since last year. That’s quite a while with no updates. ;-)
We had excellent holidays and everyone had a great time. Ian is walking around furniture everywhere so I don’t think it will be long before he starts walking. It’s amazing how time flies. I’ve started learning and playing the guitar. It’s a lot of fun. At this point I have a couple of guitars (more than enough for me at the moment) I have an acoustic/electric and an electric. I really enjoy the sound of the acoustic but the electric is certainly more forgiving ;-)
Other than that, work has been busy, we’ve started to do some work around the house (painting, etc), and it’s been cold. Really cold. I like cold weather but I mean really cold. I’m sitting under a blanket at the moment trying to fend off a cold. I figured (with Krista’s encouragement) I would try out some Cold-Eeze lozenges and see if they help.
On a technical note, WordPress 2.1 is out so I’ve upgraded the site. I haven’t had time to look at most of the new features yet, but the auto-save is nice. OK, time to rest, more to come…
Years and years ago, before “instant messaging” arrived, real-time communication over the ‘net happened via IRC (Internet Relay Chat). OK, I’m done with the history lesson. Console IRC clients such as ircII, epic (and its oddly named derivatives *cough*), scrollz, and irssi were the norm. Loads of scripts and visually stunning pure text themes have been written for them. Most folks were using Linux or *BSD and a combination of ssh, screen, and the client of their choice.
Fast-forward and now a lot of those people (who are now older) are using Mac OS X but still enjoy the nostalgia, speed, and functionality that console IRC clients offer. One thing lacking on OS X was the ability to have what I call ANSI compatible fonts that know what to do with all the ASCII characters. I’m no font wizard so if I explain it wrong, ignore me. In short, below is how I set it up.
defaults write iTerm StrokeWidth -float -0
defaults write iTerm BoldStrokeWidth -float -2
then restart iTerm if you have it running.
That should do it. You should now have nice fancy characters in your OS X terminal. If it doesn’t work, you still got your money’s worth. :-) All joking aside, it works fine here so if you run into a snag let me know. Thanks goes to bubba for helping sort this out.
I hope everyone enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday. Ours was different this year because we spent it at home due to everyone but Dean being sick. At first I was extremely disappointed to miss seeing our families, but it actually turned out to be a really nice Thanksgiving day.
With all the hustle and bustle of preparing for the Thanksgiving dinner gone, I had time to think about being thankful. God has blessed me with so much: two beautiful, healthy children, an amazing and incredibly thoughtful husband (who also brings me my favorite chocolate more than he should), and a wonderful family. We even had turkey and homemade pie for lunch thanks to Cracker Barrel and a very good neighbor. A good dinner with no clean up is definitely something to be thankful for!
I moved this site to a new server with more bandwidth and better reliability. I was tired of the slowness and occasional hiccups. It should be noticeably faster now.
On another note, regarding personal connectivity, Verizon needs to get better broadband service… at least an ETA for FIOS availability at the office would be nice. Now that I have a nifty 10Mbps connection at home, my business DSL at the office feels like dial-up. :)
On an entirely different note, I’ve made a new personal daily record for hauling leaves. I hauled 11 trailer loads full of leaves in one day. My neighbors needed some help and I had the trailer handy so we ended up having a neighborhood lawn day. With everyone pitching in it worked out quite well. Now it’s time for some relaxation.