I’m still working on getting things squared away here before I move on to the other sites. But it looks like things are coming along nicely after the recent server fiasco. I’m also trying out a new plugin called LinkCurl that scours the web for relative articles to add to the post. I’ve made some changes to the original code (cleaned it up a tad bit for presentation) and thats the reason for the test.

Let me know what you think.

Related External Links

• Voting and Linux Australia | etbe – Russell Coker
• teh Lolcats – LOLCATS / Cure ‘cover’ – Attuworld.com
• Blue Sky On Mars » What Server Side JavaScript needs

When I was a kid (who am I kidding, I’m still one) I can remember watching Dick Tracy in the movie theater (you know the one with Warren Beatty and Madonna) and thinking how cool it would be to have talking watches where I could communicate with my friends or who ever. With Cell phones that has gotten even closer to being and apparently, LG is working on a Watch Phone that would put your cell phone on your wrist.

It doesn’t have the built in video (yet), but its list of includes is pretty cool:

• Touch Screen
• GSM/3G capable
• Bluetooth
• speakerphone
• Contacts
• sms messaging
• Text to Speech

Currently, its slated to be released in Europe sometime this year, but you can bet that ThinkGeek will have them for sale in the states (and it should work on AT&T and T-mo networks if you can get it unlocked…)

Related External Links

• DealZone » Blog Archive » JPMorgan: Stop talking about “damn …
• LG GD910 Touchscreen Watch Phone

You heard it during the election with people claiming that Obama would be the be all end all to their problems. Promises of paid bills, government health care and who knows what else. Unfortunately, its more widespread than that. Here’s a clip of one person living a pipe dream.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/281531.php

Make sure to click the link that says stay till the end. I want to know whats going to happen when it turns out that you’re still responsible for your own bills? Oh, video after the jump!

“I am the Lorax, I speak for the Trees”. Whether or not you realize it, most of your favorite Dr. Seuss stories have more to them then a pile of funny made up words. I was delighted today when I came across a list at CNN.Com of 10 stories behind the stories I loved so much as a child.

For Example did you know that The Lorax (Classic Seuss) was indeed a book about the need to be good stewards of the environment? In fact, a group of loggers comissioned a book called the Truax, or that If I Ran the Zoo was the first time the word NERD was used (and that was in 1950!).

Green Eggs and Ham was written as a dare that Seuss couldn’t use just 50 words to write a book. Those words?

a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you

Also, one of my favorite books Oh, the Places You’ll Go! was released in 1990 and has sold approximately 300,000 copies yearly as graduation gifts alone!

For More Seuss Facts and to find out which Seuss character was patterned after Hitler and which one was about the Cold War make sure to check out the article at Mentalfloss

My Status on facebook generated a lot of comments last night and for good reason apparently. I merely commented that “(I) Wanted to know what’s different today that’s made everyone suddenly proud of their country”. I suppose it stems back to the campaign and the now (in)famous quote of Michelle Obama saying that for the first time in her life she was proud of her country. Yesterday and last night, the media was full of sound bites of people claiming to be proud of their country.

What I want to know is really what has changed that suddenly makes everyone so proud? Its as if the last 250 years of American History aren’t anything to be proud of. Yes, the fact that as a country we have elected and installed our first Black (I refuse to call him African American as he is as American as I am) President and while that was unthinkable 50 years ago, its not all that uncommon of a thing in todays global society. Does it speak well of the country? Yes, but so does the fact that we continually strap a rocket to the six people and launch them in to space, or the fact that we some how managed to cross breed a fish with Michael Phelps to produce the worlds fastest water animal.

America has always been a country where anyone with the will to succeed could and yesterday was just another example of that. I can understand how witnessing yesterday’s events could make someone happy to be an American or even reinstill the sense of hope that many felt was lost, but pride in one’s country? If you had lost your pride in the United States of America in the first place then something bigger is amiss.

As for me, I woke up on January 20th with as much pride in the United States as I had the day before, just a little more reassured about the advances we’ve made.

I didn’t vote for him. I don’t agree with most of his ideologies (both economic and social) nor the policies he promotes. I’m not sure that even he knows what he means when he says “Change for America” (it became clear during the election that most of his supporters had no idea. I will however, support President Obama and his decisions because like it or not, he is the leader of our Country. The Hawg says it best today though as he writes about the double standard displayed by many Obama supporters who are calling for the Country to support our new president while they “scraping the ‘Bush is not MY president’ stickers off their bumpers”. And I do agree with him.

While our country is founded with the idea of Freedom of Speech that so many misuse, its hard for us to take ourselves seriously when we drive around with bumper stickers that say “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for the Other Guy” or “F (and in really small letters) The President”. Yes, we have the right to make those statements, but just because we have the right doesn’t mean that we should.

Barack Obama was sworn in today as our 44th President and as the 43 men before him he deserves our respect. If we, as a country cannot show him the respect he deserves, then we certainly cannot hope that the world will and if thats the case, then we’re in a heap of hurt.

Besides we do it all over again in 4 years anyways.

Today is an important day in American History, the 44th President of the United States is sworn in to office in a peaceful transition of power. In many countries around the world, this is considered an oddity (as the outgoing president would still have his ways to control many of the things in government or the transition would be anything but peaceful). One thing is sure, no matter who you voted for in the General Election, this is truly a day to remember and one in which our thoughts and prayers should be with the Country and the man elected to serve as her Commander in Chief.

Here are 10 fun Inauguration facts for you to munch on today…

1. George Washington’s was the shortest inaugural address at 135 words. (1793)
2. Thomas Jefferson was the only president to walk to and from his inaugural. He was also the first to be inaugurated at the Capitol. (1801)
3. The first inauguration to be photographed was James Buchanan’s. (1857)
4. Abraham Lincoln was the first to include African-Americans in his parade. (1865)
5. William McKinley’s inauguration was the first ceremony to be recorded by a motion picture camera. (1897)
6. Warren G. Harding was the first president to ride to and from his inaugural in an automobile. (1921)
7. Harry Truman’s was the first to be televised. (1949)
8. Lyndon Johnson was the first (and so far) only president to be sworn in by a woman, U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes. (1963)
9. Jimmy Carter’s inaugural parade featured solar heat for the reviewing stand and handicap-accessible viewing. (1977)
10. The first ceremony broadcast on the Internet was Bill Clinton’s second inauguration. (1997)

• @vanamar serverpronto. Natnet tooi expensive in reply to vanamar #
• Is no mail today… Happy MLK day! #
• Is wondering what’s going to happen when the country wakes up wednesday morning and its business as usual in DC… #

If anyone visits this blog on a regular basis, then you’ve certainly noticed the issues the site/server was having lately. Something was causing the server to go crazy and would tie up processes on the server and slow things down to the point of a crawl. Well, last friday, when I had the host reboot the server, the disk had finally failed. I ended up having to have them boot the server with a live cd and I ran FSCK on the drive.

Apparently that was a big mistake. Whatever kind of gremlins had attacked the server, they devoured the ext3 Journal so that when FSCK ran, it couldn’t find it. It ended up dumping everything in to lost+found on /dev/hda3. Well, the server, at that point was toast. I had the host put up a new box and mount the old drive as a slave. Fortunately, it looks like everything was in lost+found and i was able to restore the databases (for the most part) and the files for the sites on this server, so not too much was lost.

I did spend most of the weekend in what appeared to be a coma fueled by some of the best diet pills you could find, though really it was pizza and caffeine that helped me get through the mess.

One thing that I am thankful for is the fact that within the lost+found directory, the directory structure was mostly in tact. If you haven’t looked in your lost and found folder on a unix file system, I suggest you check it out some time. The files are moved in there and renamed with their inode (so a file that used to be called joe.txt could now be #1132432). You can do some other reading on this @ TLDP and I suggest you do.

I was able to find the mysql files I needed to restore the databases (and all except the ones for *THIS* site were in usable condition) and the folders with the sites in them for the sites. I do have one site that is going to take a little longer to restore back to normal as it seems to have split the folders out in to more than one directory for some reason (which leads me to believe that it was this directory that caused the issues!) but as everything is there, its going to be a matter of figuring out which galleries are which….

This leads me to my next point. BACK UP ALWAYS! Us crons, use programs, whatever. Just back up and do it often. Never assume your host has a back up (because they don’t). Personally, I’m looking at backup ninja (thanks jacquelyn!) to handle it for me!

Anyways, the site is slowly being put back together and it looks like everything except the old image links are working….

It occurred to me as we were passing through city after city on our trip to Chicago recently that there are just some City Names that people like to use over and over and over again. For instance, we drove through Smyrna, Tennessee (home of Nissan). This wouldn’t be too odd, except that there’s a Smyrna, GA not but a couple of miles from my house.

We also drove through at least two Lebanon’s (not the one in Beirut). One in Indiana and one in Tennessee. It causes me to wonder, is there something about these names that people really, really like, or is it that they have a tie to the location.

For example, there’s a LaFayette, Louisiana, which was renamed for General Lafayette, a French military hero who fought with and significantly aided the American Army during the American Revolutionary War. I happen to think that its original name of Vermilionville is more unique and that they should have stuck with that. LaFayette, Indiana was officially named for General Lafayette, a French military hero who fought with and significantly aided the American Army during the American Revolutionary War. Imagine that. Georgia has one too and it was renamed in 1836 after the Marquis de LaFayette, the French aristocrat who assisted American colonists during the Revolutionary War.

Its understandable why cities are named after other cities (Paris, Rome, Athens, Smyrna) but you would think we could be a little more imaginative with other things. It seems odd though that there are no other cities like San Francisco, New York, Chicago (have you ever heard of a Chicago other than the one known for wind and the Cubs?). Why do you think that is?

Related External Links

• Generated by LinkCurl

• Generated by LinkCurl

• Generated by LinkCurl
• GoNintendo » Blog Archive » GoNintendo ‘End of day’ thoughts …

I’ve been looking for a good way to get videos (movies, dvd’s, tv shows) on my blackberry bold (I have an 8gb memory card) to make use of the space and the amazing screen on this device, plus it’d be nice to have something to watch on road trips, waiting at the doctor office, when I’m supposed to be working. You get the point.

I’ve tried Handbrake, and it works ok, but it is more of an iPhone/Pod/Touch centered app and there are some configs that have to be done in order to get it to convert properly for the bold. I’ve tried some professional (for money) converters and they all work, but I still end up having to do a lot of tweaking. Plus, many of them are for either video files or dvd only. Its hard to find one program that does it all. Until Now.

• Needs new wiper blades! #
• Just did a complete backup, wipe and install of Bold os 4.6.0.217 on his bold… #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Is @ the gym working while grace does nastics…. Anyone else go to GAA? #
• Is setting up the VCR to tape the bachelor tonight for his wife who’s at bells… #
• Is making egg salad… Yummy nummy! #
• Was called to be on True Beauty, but had to turn them down do to previous commitments! #
• Needs new wiper blades! #
• Just did a complete backup, wipe and install of Bold os 4.6.0.217 on his bold… #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Sorry for the interruption but I was out of town for most of the holiday (we left the 26th for Chicago, but thats a whole post on its own!). I did however, want to brag about some of the Christmas Gifts that blessed our house this season though.

Amy’s big gift this year is to have the Master Bath and Bedroom repainted. When we bought the house from her parents, we inherited the DEEP red color of the bath and bed room. Its a dark red (think maroon) that is hard to match colors with. Now we’re going for a lighter, beachier look and are painting them Beachnut (its a lowes color). The master bath is done (Amy found some Votive candle holders at a store in Nashville), next on to the bedroom!

Grace had a very Hannah Montanna Christmas. She got a Hannah Montanna Guitar Game (like Guitar Hero) that plugs in to the tv, a Hannah Costume, and doll. Its pretty cool and she likes pretending to be a rockstar. Maybe someday. I like playing her game (since I haven’t bought Guitar HEro World Tour yet) and she’s getting better at it.

Mose got a Trampoline. One of her favorite things to do is jump. We’d wake on Saturday mornings to the heavy thud of emma jumping up and down in our door way. Now she can do it all she wants and it doesn’t make the house shake. Its pretty cool and Grace and Emma take turns on it. Amy wanted to try it out, but its for people under 80 pounds (and neither of us meet that requirement!

The girls also got some tinkertoys, and some other little odds and ends that they like to play with, but the coolest by far is my Ultimate Wall-E Robot.

We saw the movie in the theaters and we’re big fans (mose loves him). We had seen the Ultimate Wall-e at the Disney Store but we weren’t going to get him because of the price tag. Needless to say, Santa found him on Sale and he was wrapped and under the tree for me on Christmas morning. He has fun dancing, chasing the dogs around and just exploring on his own. If you haven’t seen one yet, I’ll work on some video and see if I can get anything posted. Its pretty cool though and the way he can respond to voice commands or find his own way around the room is fairly smooth.

Was there one gift that you prized more than the others??