Ring-a-ding, ding.

in

Found out a great thing with my "phone(FeralBlog: I've got a phonecam, and I'm not afraid to use it.)":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000308/. Instead of just downloading (and paying for) ringtones, I can "email MIDI(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files":http://board.midibuddy.net/t61150.html to my phone, and save the resultant message as a sound, which I can then use for a ringer. Since I can do different rings for each person in my phonebook, I can get a little creative. * "Ryan":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20030424_holiday/P1010017.JPG gets "YMCA":http://feralboy.com/muzak/ymca.mid * "Brian and Jen":http://ankle-biter.net/ get "The X-Files theme":http://feralboy.com/muzak/xfiles.mid * "David":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/ gets "Big Poppa":http://feralboy.com/muzak/bigpoppa.mid by Notorious B.I.G. Don't know why. * The SLF gets the "Imperial March":http://feralboy.com/muzak/starwars.mid, i.e. the Darth Vader theme. * My standard ringer is now the "Pac-Man theme":http://feralboy.com/muzak/pacman.mid. Thanks to "Joshua":http://firepile.com/log/ for editing the file such that it would actually go on the phone.

Crikey!

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The Crocodile hunterSome excitement for the lunchtime hour today. I went out and grabbed some Boston Market, and when I got back Pat and I were going to go up to our little "outdoor cafe spot":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=15904 behind the building. I approached Pat, who was smoking by his car. bq.. "We might want to eat indoors today." "Oh, why's that?" "Well, because it looks like it might rain, and there's a 4 foot snake up there."

p. Wanting to see for myself, we hiked up and took a peek. Sure enough, there was a "good-sized":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=27592 "snake":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=27587 with a "banded pattern":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=27571 lounging right next to the concrete patio. I crouched in close, and took several "bad":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=27683 "pictures":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=27576 with the phonecam (I _knew_ I should have taken the "regular camera":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000192/ to work today). As I was leaving, I figured I should at least reach out and touch the thing, so I stroked ol' stripey right near its tail. That woke him up, and he contracted himself into a semi-ready "S" shape. Also, his tail started to vibrate, but because he only had a weird and "small knob":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=27684 on his tail, and didn't have a "diamond-shaped head":http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/jphealy/butterflycanyon/images/rattlesnake.jpg, I knew it wasn't a rattlesnake.

Figured I had tried my luck enough, we went inside to figure out what the heck it was. Turns out after some quick "Googling":http://www.google.com/search?q=copperhead+pennsylvania that it was a "Northern Copperhead":http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/copprhe.htm. Poisonous and all that. I obviously was not cut out to be a "bike mechanic":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000269/ or an animal trainer, so I'll just stick to programming, eh?

_(Thanks to Pat for the lovely picture.)_

Ick

in

100% humidity on the ride in this morning = suck.I feel like I bathed in sweat. And not like supermodel-sweat, either... this is the sweat of a big fat guy named Vito who had a big plate of pasta for dinner with his momma's special gravy with the extra-garlicky sausage, and maybe brushed his teeth with some _gabbagoul_.

Redesign in progress

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Got a bug up my ass over the weekend and started work on a consistant navigation for the whole site, not just the weblog. The main inspiration came from "this nifty CSS(Cascading StyleSheets) tabs implementation":http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/tabs/tab1.php that does rounded corners purely with CSS(Cascading StyleSheets) and no images (if you're using "Firebird":http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/). There are some things I'm not sure about yet... the white box over the background is only as large as content, which means that on the weblog "homepage":http://feralboy.com/log/ when the right-side column ends the white box does, too. (I'm sure there's a way to fix this.. I just need to delve a little bit into what Matt H. is doing on "his site":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/). I'm also not super-keen on the way that the subtabs are implemented. Right now they're assigned an explicit top/left position to make them fall under the main tabs (see "here":http://feralboy.com/matt/ for an example of this), but that makes me feel dirty. What if a user adjusts their font sizes? Everything will get thrown out of whack then. I'm sure there's a way to have the <ul> subnav positioned relative to the parent container, but I haven't figured it out yet. So, if you see weirdness, kindly refresh and hopefully it'll get cleared up.

I'm also not quite sure why I'm bothering to bring in other sections of the site, since this is the only place that really has fresh content. According to my stats however, it's the "TiVo hacking":http://feralboy.com/matt/tivo/ and "Building a Climbing Wall":http://feralboy.com/matt/wall/ pages that get the bulk of search traffic. So, I guess prettying up those sections might make people want to click around a bit more. More updates as the redesign progresses.

*Update 2003.08.05*:

* Picked a more muted background image. * Pat made the fun little "branding" image for the top bar. * Made the "homepage":http://feralboy.com/ redirect right to the "weblog":http://feralboy.com/log/ * "Matt H.":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/ is using a table to make the heights of his columns appear even. Booo!!!

Weekend of stress

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"Mark Pilgrim":http://diveintomark.org/ → "How to install Windows XP in 5 hours or less(How to install Windows XP in 5 hours or less)":http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/08/04/xp"Brian":http://ankle-biter.net/log/ → "Road Rage, or When Civil Engineers Go Bad(Road Rage, or When Civil Engineers Go Bad)":http://www.anklebiter.net/log/archives/000176.html "jwz":http://jwz.livejournal.com/ → "I hate MCs(I hate MCs)":http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2003/08.html#04

More job-hunting stupidity

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Even more "resume emails (FeralBlog - Idiocy (or, how not to get a job))":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000314/ from people wearing "Bad Idea Jeans(PseudoDictionary - "bad idea jeans" definition)":http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=15081. Girlove2002@BigISP.com sassyc3979@BigISP.com dammyo@BigSearchPortal.com Chocolatekissis2@BigISP.com Kissy2663@BigISP.com Divadre01@BigISP.com coccobunnie215@BigISP.com

Filesharing

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"Edith Frost(Edith Frost, Roller-skating enthusiast)":http://edithfrost.com/ made a "very interesting post(Edith Frost - Some sort of statement)":http://www.edithfrost.com/archive/2003/08/01-some_sort_of_state.html on her site concerning her feelings about filesharing. Pretty much everyone has "weighed in(Boy on a Bike - RIAA)":http://www.anklebiter.net/log/archives/000128.html on it, so I'll just briefly state what I think. I own a lot of CDs. A LOT. I went on a bit of a buying spree at some point, so I now have a decent sized collection to show for it. Consider that they each cost a minimum of $14, and I probably have purchased at least 500 total, and that's around $7,000 that I've spent on CDs alone (I won't even bother to think about tapes). How much of that music did the actual artists get? "Not much":http://www.negativland.com/albini.html, apparently. Nevermind the fact that CDs cost about $1 to make en masse and the price for CDs is outrageous. So, at this point I don't feel bad at all about downloading music to see if I'm interested in it. If I like it, I'll go see the artist on tour (or buy CDs directly from them, if possible), in order to support them as much as possible, since they are truly exploited by major labels for in many cases doing what they love.

I don't like the idea of supporting labels that are forcing their musical tastes on people. Just because it's on MTV "doesn't mean it's good(My rant about MTV and selective video playing)":http://www.plastic.com/comments.html;sid=01/08/06/1635210;pid=2;cid=6. Find music you like, "avoid the RIAA(RIAA Radar on MetaFilter)":http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/27125 if possible, and support the artists as best you can.

Slashdot now being run by Micro$entric non-loser!

in

That's right... last night I completed my hostile takeover of "Slashdot":http://www.blogshares.com/blogs.php?blog=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org%2F on "BlogShares":http://blogshares.com/. I really grew bored with the game a few months back, but the introduction of the "artifacts":http://blogshares.com/help/question.php?qstId=43 has been an interesting twist. So my plan is to hold onto the shares as long as I can, and then run up the value every 24 hours (when my artifacts refresh), sell off and then quickly re-buy shares. Should get "me":http://blogshares.com/user.php?id=3179 to the $1B mark fairly quickly.

New weblog to add to SharpReader

in ,

Looks like my homeslice "Joshua":http://firepile.com/geekday/07102003_2/images/Hawaii.jpg has his weblog "up and running":http://www.firepile.com/log/archives/000005.html. The thing that was extra-interesting to me was the link to "Edith Frost":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/artist/glance/-/55061/'s "weblog":http://www.edithfrost.com/. Here she is, a fairly big name recording artist, keeping up a weblog writing about geeky stuff like "browsers":http://www.edithfrost.com/archive/2003/07/28-i_think_i_love_fir.html, the same as the "rest":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000195/ of "us":http://www.anklebiter.net/log/archives/000142.html. I just love that the 'net has enabled artists to be able to keep so close to their fanbase through "their own":http://throwingmusic.com/ "personal":http://www.moby.com/ "sites":http://granarymusic.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi. Bravo.

Lovely Weekend

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All kinds of neat stuff, as you can probably see from my "moblog(My Textamerica blog)":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/. Went on "some":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=19651 "hikes":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=19666, met my Dad's neighbor's "Savannah":http://www.savannahcatbreed.com/savannahs.shtml "cats":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=19826, got my ass beat down in racquetball, went drinking with "Ryan":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=21064, and took my "grandmother":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=20476 "shopping":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/default.asp?r=20475. You really can't ask for a better weekend.

Dick Cheese

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If you happened to notice the music I've been "listening to":http://feralboy.com/musicarchive/?d=2003-07-22 "recently":http://feralboy.com/musicarchive/?d=2003-07-23, you'll see that I've gone through most of the "Richard Cheese" ouvre. There's just something so delicious about hearing lounge versions of Nirvana's "Rape Me" and Fatboy Slim's "Rockefeller Skank". All this lounge-y goodness has put me in a mood, and I've currently got "Portishead":http://www.portishead.co.uk/'s "Trip-Hop Reconstruction" on the "headphones":http://www.gradolabs.com/product_pages/sr60.htm.

Scotty! I've. got. to. have. more. power.

in

One of the fun side benefits of all this rain we've been getting this week (as opposed to all the rain we were getting "every other week":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000254/) is that now the power has decided to randomly cut out at least 5 times a day. I can't even tell you how fun it is to be in the middle of something one second and then be staring at a bootup screen the next. Not only is my concentration broken, but a non-clean shutdown in Win2k causes it to grind away for about 10 minutes upon booting, trying to recover lost data or crush Linux or whatever it is it tries to do. Both of the people I share this room with have laptops, so they're covered. I'm trying to find an extension cord long enough to reach the server APS that's in this room, but until I do I'll just be saving my work every five seconds, and hoping I can get stuff done under these conditions. I actually had made a bet yesterday with one of the coworkers that I could get a particular bug fixed, tested, and checked in before the next time the power went out. I made it, but just barely, and a crisp $1 bill is a symbol of my triumph.

Idiocy (or, how not to get a job)

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"Ryan":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20030424_holiday/P1010017.JPG has worked as a recruiter for much of his professional life. So, he's seen a lot of resumes. He's also seen a lot of resumes written by people wearing "bad idea jeans":http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=15081. A few weeks ago he sent me a resume in Word doc format that had "sparkly" text. Like blinking and shimmering sort of. Some engineer at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to put that in (sort of like the ill-fated <blink> tag for -Netscape- -AOL- Mozilla), and worse still, someone else thought it would be a great idea to highlight text in his resume using it. Even better was the list of email addresses he sent me today. These were pulled off of the tops of resumes he's gotten recently.

DEEPDIMPLES526@BigISP.com chocolatedelight204@BigSearchPortal.com SPHILASCOOTE@BigISP.com Datgirluwanb@BigSearchPortal.com

People, you can open up a *free* account at Yahoo/Hotmail/etc. with your full name. Did I mention it's free?

I've got a phonecam, and I'm not afraid to use it.

in ,

If you haven't noticed the low-res image in the sidebar, I caved and got myself a "camera-equipped cellphone":http://getitnow.vzwshop.com/html/phones/lg_vx6000.jsp over the weekend. I've already set up "a moblog":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/ on "TextAmerica":http://www.textamerica.com/. I can send a picture as a message from my phone to a special email address, and it automatically gets posted to the site. They were even nice enough to provide an "RSS(Rich Site Summary) feed":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/rss.asp for the pictures, so you can include data from the moblog on any other site, like this one. They had a Javascript file that you could use to do it more automagically, but:

# the link opened in another window. # the link was to the moblog homepage, not the larger image of the thumbnail picture used for the link # you didn't see descriptive text (if there was any). # there was a TextAmerica ad button below the image.

So, being a programmer, with some help from "an article":http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/031903-1.aspx from "Scott Mitchell":http://datawebcontrols.com/, I used the RSS(Rich Site Summary) feed to extract all the data I needed, and created the link and description text myself. I'm even caching the data once a minute so the page doesn't have to wait for the image data each time.

There are some other neat things besides the camera. I can put my own photos on the phone, as wallpaper or startup/shutdown screens. I can also put pictures as CallerID notifications, so when Ryan calls, "his face":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20030524_robin_joshua_wedding/P1010023.JPG comes up.

My 2nd-most favorite feature has to be downloadable ring tones. I admit, I thought that ringtones were stupid; everyone just getting the latest song from 40 cent or whatever. But "take a look":http://vzw.modtones.com/verizon/index.jsp?cid=VZW&mid=VZW_LG&hid=10 at some of the ringtones that are available! The "Alternative":http://vzw.modtones.com/verizon/mainEntry.jsp?categoryId=103&searchType=searchByGenreDrill section is a bit thin, but still has good stuff in it; Stone Roses, etc. Right now my ringer is "Let's go to bed" by The Cure.

Would you like sex with that?

in

I swear the girl at the Wendy's drive-thru tried to pick me up last night. Usually I'm pretty clueless about that sort of thing, and someone usually needs to tell me when I'm getting hit on (I guess since it's such a rare occurrence). Anyway, after I pay I pull up to the pickup window, and she's there; Black, cute, sorta indie-looking with pigtails and black plastic glasses. *Wendy's Girl:* (Leaning halfway out the window) Mmmm, your car must be new, it smells good. *Me:* (Not quite knowing what to make of that) Uh, it's actually 2 years old. (Pointing at seat) Must be the dead-cow interior. *WG:* Wow, you have airbags. _[Huh? Doesn't every car made in the last 15 years have airbags???]_ (WG then notices the couple of empty brown grocery bags I have on my passenger seat) Looks like you've got a lot of homework. *Me:* Oh, bless your heart. My days of doing homework are well and gone. Those are just grocery bags to throw my cat's litter out in. *WG:* So, is it just you and your cat?

At this point my food came and I got the heck out of there. It was almost a little uncomfortable. Flattering, but still a little uncomfortable.

Bleh

in

Really nothing exciting going on, hence the lack o' updates. Got my car's 30K service done yesterday, and need to go back in a few weeks to get my brakes done... sort of suprising that my pads would be that worn down so soon, especially since I don't ride my brakes or even really brake that hard... sort of leisurely coast up to the traffic lights, you know? This weekend is the "Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix":http://www.pittsburghvintagegrandprix.com/, which should be interesting. I'm hoping to be able to stop by tomorrow for a little while, and at least check out the "cars on the lawn":http://www.pittsburghvintagegrandprix.com/html/photos.html, if not watch a race or two. Also cat-sitting for my nizzle Paul over the weekend.. he has two _awesome_ Siamese cats.

Wow. I really said nothing substansive in this post at all. I shouldn't have bothered. Sorry for wasting your time.

Random Reading

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Got all fiesty after reading "the two MT(Movable Type) articles":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000287/ this a.m., as well as this guide to creating a links "sideblog", and did just that. Created a new blog, and after getting bookmarklets set up in -Phoenix- "Firebird":http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/ and "IE(Internet Explorer)":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000265/, I can quickly post links of interest to the new "Random Reading" section over in the sidebar.

Doing your entire site in Movable Type

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Two great articles out this week about managing your entire site through "MT(Movable Type)":http://movabletype.org/. One article from "Matt Haughey":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/, and another one from "Brad Choate":http://bradchoate.com/. "Matt's article":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/features.blah/entry/007162 discusses a few approaches to using MT(Movable Type) to manage an entire site's content, one using index templates to generate static content, and (even more interestingly) using MT(Movable Type) as a a lightweight database. As long as you can capture a page's data in six data columns, you're all set.

"Brad's solution":http://bradchoate.com/past/001656.php is a little more complex, and involves using categories to determine file structure, but seems to be worth the effort, because each page corresponds to a entry in MT(Movable Type), which means that each page can be searched on, can have comments/trackbacks, and can even use "Textile (Textile 2 beta)":http://bradchoate.com/past/001653.php and/or "SmartyPants":http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/ formatting for the content of the pages.

The only problem with doing this at all is, for me, a purely practical one. Every time I want to change permissions on a folder, I need to contact my "web host":http://www.alentus.com/, which is slightly annoying. I really should just tell them to open up the necessary permissions for my entire site, which would mean I could get to updating some of the "amazingly":http://feralboy.com/ "stale":http://feralboy.com/peeps/ "sections":http://feralboy.com/play/ of my site.

*Update:* "Doug Bowman":http://stopdesign.com/ has also "written up":http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2003/07/16/rebuilding_a_portfolio.html his non-standard use of MT(Movable Type) to redo his "portfolio page":http://www.stopdesign.com/portfolio/.