Archive for 2005

Installed Subscribe2 Plugin

I installed the Subscribe2 plugin by Scott Merrill. It lets viewers subscribe to an email version of my blog. You can probably see a link to it in the sidebar. Or here.

Shall We Dance

I wrote this list in response to watching the movie Shall We Dance with Richard Gere on my way to San Francisco in February 2005. I have only now gotten around to transcribing it. I think that it is a good list.

What I learned from Shall We Dance

  • Follow your dreams, even when they take you in unexpected and even threatening directions. Keep hold of your foundations and things are bound to go well.
  • Don’t be afraid or ashamed. There will be times when you -are- afraid or ashamed. Let the natural course of events overcome.
  • When you see a chance for happiness, take it.
  • Be proud of what you love.
  • Allow new passions in your life.
  • Don’t let your fears control you. Don’t sweat it when it does. It happens to us all.
  • I cry often during movies in which people dance.
  • The substance of what epassions you is much less important than the spirit and energy that is put into it. The spirit -is- the substance, and that will show.

Skype’s success

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 12, 2005–eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY)(www.ebay.com) has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration

Skype had been privately held.
From working stiff to billionaire, overnight*.

.

*If, by “overnight”, you mean: innovating, struggling and slaving for without any solid goal in mind for several years.

Mailinator

Mailinator

It’s like super-instant, always-ready, any-email-you-want email. right now.

Mailinator is a new kind of mail service. The biggest difference is that you don’t need to sign up. Any email name you can think of already exists at mailinator.com. Want goofy@mailinator.com? You got it. Want to be SuperGuy? BoohaBunny? FredInPants? No problem. They all already exist just waiting for you to check your mail.

How is Mailinator different than some other webemail? Say, Yahoo or Hotmail?
The differences are easy to list. Generally speaking however, anything you can do with Mailinator, you can do with some other email service. In fact, you can do more with other services since they allow you to actually send email (Mailinator only receives).
The differences are:

* Mailinator requires no sign-up. To create an account, you send email to it.
* You cannot send email from Mailinator.
* Your Mailinator email inbox can be read by anyone. There is no security here. If they know (or guess) your email address, they can read your mail.
* You cannot delete your email here (you can’t reply either), after a few hours, all email is auto-deleted.
* Mailinator has strict rules about what kind of email it receives. Plain text is best, html is filtered. Images, attachments, and fancy stuff is simply stripped away.

In a nutshell, other services provide more functionality but require a sign-up (where you can falsify all the information really anyway). Mailinator provides less, but requires no sign-up.

Installed Enhanced Post List Plugin

Enhanced Post List by Brian “ColdForged” Dupuis is similar to “Paged Comment Editing”.

It’s a good thing

What happened to Coldforged?

www.coldforged.org is down. I hope he’s ok! I only know him from trolling his posts but he’s a good guy!

I’m hoping the best for him!

I’m guessing that he lives in a currently waterlogged portion of the US…..

Update 9-12-05
Not waterlogged…. CPU logged.

From Coldforged on WordPress.org

Just FYI.

After some trouble with my hosting provider — meaning having my account suspended for CPU usage 3 times — I’ve gone ahead and shut down coldforged.org. I currently have no intention of finding another hosting provider and starting anew, so this is the end of that era. Thanks to those who read and those who found my plugins helpful.

My plugins, Enhanced Views, Paged Comment Editing, Image Headlines, and the Spelling Checker are still freely available under GPL from the plugin repository but I will no longer be supporting them. If by some chance I decide to revive the site in the future, I may pick up where I left off but I certainly wouldn’t count on it. And I’m sorry to say I won’t be checking back here for support questions on any of the plugins. There are lots of people using them who may be able to help you, though, so it doesn’t hurt to ask here.

This also isn’t a call for help, free hosting, or debugging my installation. I’ve tried many things — static caching, disabling features, cached gravars — and I realized following this time that I think I am using the seemingly notorious “Brian’s Latest Comments” plugin which has caused such issues in the past. However, I’ve apparently had one too many strikes with my hosting provider and frankly don’t feel like paying more or going through the headache of migrating. Not worth it. Thanks in advance to anyone who wanted to help :).

Adios, friends.

9-16-05 update: He couldn’t stand to be offline. Blogging is catharsis for him too.

Religious Conversion


I have had a religious conversion.

I am now borne up by the saucy tentacles of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Installed Paged Comment Editing Plugin

Paged Comment Editing by Brian “ColdForged” Dupuis is a very useful gem for sifting through comment spam.

Stolen Bike Report

:-(

Also on the bike was a silver feather belonging to Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess and embodiment of truth, tied to the front; but I figured the police didn’t really need to know that.

The lock was a Masterlock Quantum 12. from Cycleworks, 55 Rt. 206 Stanhope NJ 07874, (973) 347-3733. The thief might have defeated it by:

  • pulling the whole set over the top of the parking meter and walking off with it.
  • watching me scramble the combination
  • cutting the cable

Your online report has been approved and the permanent case number is 051014989.

update 9-19-05: here’s what I figure. I had purchased an inexpensive lock for an inexpensive bike. My main purpose was to protect it from joy riders on the playa and thieves in Hackettstown New Jersey. When I locked my bike up in the Mission District, San Francisco I should have been thinking about protecting my bike from an entirely different kind of criminal. I messed up. Oop.

I called Masterlock… there was no theft warrantee on my lock. The lock only cost $30… it protected me from the kinds of bad guys I was trying to protect it from.

Switching your cell phone plan to save money

If you are going over your cell phone minutes for the month, call your provider and tell them you want to switch to a plan with more minutes for the current month. With T-Mobile, you have to call them on the telephone, you can’t just use their web site to change your plan.

Likewise, if you are using less minutes, switch to a less expensive plan for the current month. I’ve done this several times now with T-Mobile. Before moving, I had a 300 minute plan. When I was driving cross-country, I upped to the 1,000 minute plan. Now I’m back down to 600 minutes.

Getting hit with overages of $0.40/minute is st00pid.

In a few months, after I settle down with a lease on November 15th, I might join in with my sister’s plan, getting 1,000 minutes for $30/month. I’ll wait to see how good T-Mobile service is in my new house.