Archive of 2006 | PolarLava::Blog

December 2006

Gallery Upgrade

Getting a jump on the changes for PolarLava 2007, I've upgraded my photo gallery to Gallery2. Can't say the integration is 100% yet, but it's reasonable at this point. For the foreseeable future the gallery will only have the PolarLava header but no navigation links. I'm not sure if I will change that or not as real estate is at a premium. If you see something quirky, let me know. The upgrade was fairly painless, but updating the PhotoBlog links was a PIA, but done nonetheless. One task down, many more to goâ€¦

Permanent link to “Gallery Upgrade”
PolarLava 2007

Being there is only a couple of weeks left in the year, I don't see any further major progress being made on any of these. Therefore, let's review how we did. The following are some of the things (generally not in any particular order) I'd like to do and/or complete here at PolarLava in 2007â€¦ Upgrade my photo gallery to Gallery2. Done. I'm very happy with how well it went and the features of this new version. Get the backlog of all my writing online. Partially Done. I got a lot of these online in the first half of the year, but I've got a long way to go. Post even more photos to my PhotoBlog. Done. This is probably one of the things that you can count on continuing around here. Add photo EXIF data to the "Read more" section on postings to my PhotoBlog. Not Done. Never even looked into this. Maybe I really don't want or need it. Add a "Bikes" page to my…

Permanent link to “PolarLava 2007”
Permanent link to “RJ King Wingwalker Pale Ale”
Permanent link to “Siamese Zucchini”
Permanent link to “Sierra Nevada Pale Ale”
Permanent link to “Squirrelly Wrath”
Permanent link to “THRAK 2006 Review”
Permanent link to “Potter Wasp”
Permanent link to “Lost Coast 8 Ball Stout”
Permanent link to “Saranac Golden Pilsener”
PolarBlog V1.9.0…

PolarBlog V1.9.0 (Bloodhound) has been released. The major focus of this release is the addition of Entry Trackbacks, Topic specific RSS feeds, and numerous bug fixes. Enhancements Entry Trackbacks Added individual topic RSS feeds. Deprecated ENTRY_LINK and ARCHIVE_LINK, now lang file entries. Made display of ENTRY_LINK and ARCHIVE_LINK more consistent with other look and feel. Comment JS validation now uses language file to support localization. Added basic user management (password hints/change). Added "Display Disabled" notice to comment/trackback emails. Added Entry insert/update status message after action. Only load PHP Mailer at point it's required for notifications. Added custom X-Tracker to email header in notifier and POP3 poster. Added CHARSET to POP3 entry poster. Changed RBL Admin Listed IP's URL link text so table better fits in window. Added Comment Display Disabled listing to RBL Admin. RBL blocked comment replies no longer mailed to commenter. Added…

Permanent link to “PolarBlog V1.9.0 (Bloodhound) Released”
Wolfgang's Vault

This past week I've learned of the most awesome site if you like (primarily) classic rock. It's the Concert Vault at Wolfgang's Vault. So what is it you ask? Well, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham apparently taped large numbers of the shows he promoted. These are recordings that were taken direct from the soundboards and are of amazing quality. There are literally hundreds of shows already online and it grows every week. We're talking classic groups in their early and prime days. How about The Who in 1968? Or ELP in the mid-70's? Or maybe The Cars in 1978 just as they are about to hit the big time. Yeah, you can go now. :)

Permanent link to “Wolfgang's Vault”
Permanent link to “Record Gallery #7”
Permanent link to “4th Blogversary”
Bravo NBA

I am not a basketball fan by any stretch and actually I have never really liked it at all. But I will give the NBA credit for doing something that other leagues often don't do. That is listening to the players and righting an apparent wrong that they made when they switched to a synthetic ball. Kudos to you David Stern for listening and going back to the old leather balls. [Insert your own crude joke here.]

Permanent link to “Bravo NBA”
Permanent link to “Pollen Head Bee”
Permanent link to “Bee on Flower”
PolarBlog…

Some of you might be wondering why you haven't seen may new entries on my blog in the past month or so. Well, here's why…I've been plugging away in what little free time I have working on a new version of PolarBlog. And now I believe it's at a point where I can start running it on my site to work out any issues while I work on the documentation and such before releasing it. The goal is to release this before the end of the year if possible. The first major change in this release that you can see is the addition of sending and receiving Trackbacks on entries! As anyone who has been following PolarBlog's development knows, this is a feature that I've wanted to implement for quite some time. Well, it's finally here. And now that I've done so I wonder how much I will really use it. (!) Time will tell, hopefully others will find it useful as well. Also in the release you will now notice the (optional) RSS feed icon next to each topic. That's right, you can now get a feed of just…

Permanent link to “PolarBlog: Bloodhound Beta”
Permanent link to “Southern Tier Porter”

November 2006

Permanent link to “Happy Thanksgiving”
Permanent link to “Blueberries”
Waiting for a PS3?

From the "I guess I'm getting really old department"… Can someone please explain to me why anyone would camp-out in line to buy a gaming system? This time around it's the new PS3. This isn't the first time for this sort of nonsense as I recall the same stupidity surrounded the Xbox360 when it came out. It's not like they are only going to be a limited number of them made. Do you really need to be the first kid on the block to have one? I guess I might be able to cut some slack to those that are going to buy them and then resell them on Ebay to make a buck. I hope it's worth the effort for you. Actually I can respect that more than those who are waiting just because they want one. And even more pathetic are the fools who are going to way over pay for it by being one of the buyers of those that are going to show up on Ebay. In short, get a life people. It's a game. Wait until after the first of they year when they will likely be widely available. And if not, wait…

Permanent link to “Waiting for a PS3?”
Permanent link to “Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel”
Permanent link to “Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier”
Permanent link to “Saranac Hefeweizen”
Entity V…

Entity V: Destination: Void "There's nothing concerning ourselves about which we can be truly objective except our physical responses — The reflections of behavior. We exist in a forest of illusion where the very concept of consciousness merges with illusion."—Frank Herbert in Destination:Void This is reality, they tell me I'm in Where did I come from, where did it begin? Is if for real or is it in my head? I have no substance, but yet I am known "To be conscious, you must surmount illusion." I don't understand, Am I deceived? Why is it I cannot perceive? What have I got that I can't see? Where am I going? Destination: Void 12/13/1982

Permanent link to “Entity V: Destination: Void”
Permanent link to “Entity IV: Third Party”
Burning Inside

Burning Inside Meanwhile back at the starting line Kind of hoped you'd start to cry Brought you with to melt my mind Provoke a feeling to burn me inside I've got the yearning I need some help to relax the lines I need your spark to ignite my eyes Running dry on ideas that fly Need your words to torch my mind Get the wheels turning Never much into suicide Needn't worry I'll be alright I need that burning Something inside I asked you here to explode my mind Needn't fear when the time it nears Towards that meeting Just keeps repeating Burning me inside 11/4/1982

Permanent link to “Burning Inside”

October 2006

Permanent link to “Happy Halloween (2006)”
Permanent link to “Raspberries”
Lighting The Dark

Lighting The Dark The bright and beaming sunlight shoots towards the ground Burning through the dark and looming clouds A single shaft of light, spreads its wealth all around It reflects from below up to my eyes It blinds my illusion show All the creatures that live in my mind Run to hide from the light They live in total darkness, sonar controlled flight A jolt of light does and erotic imbalance to the life. Fall 1982

Permanent link to “Lighting The Dark”
On A Trip In Time

On A Trip In Time No one understands me No one accepts my ways No one to stand beside me No one to come with when I leave today I'm taking off on a trip in time Forget the fine life, it's passed me by Not going far, just into my mind Alone again on a trip in time Trip in time, living in my mind Don't eat or sleep when you travel in time The forth dimension is where I lie Where I live and where I thrive I control my live, all alone No one owns me, I'm uncontrolled and on my own No one owns me, I'm uncontrolled No one owns me, I'm on my own Don't try to break me, I will not fold Leave me alone I'm independent and will not be told Don't even try, I'll just speed on by 'Cause I live alone, I'm self-controlled Able to fly right by in time, in time, in time… Du kannst nicht mich stoppen Vous ne pouvez pas m'arrÃªter No puedes pararme Fall 1982

Permanent link to “On A Trip In Time”
Permanent link to “Spaten Premium Lager”
Stocks Page &…

I've removed the Stocks page from the site. It served a purpose at one time, but I haven't been using it and don't think anyone else was either. If you were, sorry. Anybody that wants the code the drives it is more than welcome to it, just contact me. And you also likely notice that back in September I added the small validation block just below the navigation menu. I'm big on standards —after all, it's my job! Thus I've long wanted to include these, but was having problems with deciding how I wanted to include them. For me the small buttons are ideal and the color scheme fits well. You'll find that nearly all of the pages are XHTML1.1 Strict compliant. Those that aren't are either older pages or 3rd-party software written by others. Yeah, I know…who cares? :)

Permanent link to “Stocks Page & Validation Block”
Lies & Rhymes…

Lies & Rhymes & Dirty Needs Life drags from day to day Taking in pains along the way The things put up with are beyond belief Just tryin' to survive out in the streets The women you meet Just playin' games You lose on the street 'Cause they're gonna trample your face 'Cause they gotta defeat ya and get on with their game Their nothin' but trouble Out to get ya tonight It's just lies and rhymes and dirty needs Still surviving that dark street scene. They'll bury you in an ocean of rocks and steal your dreams But they still don't know the inner scene Roam the streets for blood and fun Try to join the team You're wearing black They're into white —you get attacked! Face it You're living a dream that's in-between Not too dark, but not in light 'Cause out on the streets It's just lies and rhymes and dirty needs Fall 1982

Permanent link to “Lies & Rhymes & Dirty Needs”
Revolving

Revolving Thought it was just another day Thought you would push me away Now I don't know what to say See my mind it's on the floor You got me spinning like revolving doors In commotion, emotions are torn I've got a lot to things to do I'll put the aside just to talk to you —some more I don't know what to say Got this feeling inside my brain I have to tell you It drives me insane Girl you're something You blow me away Maybe someday it will all be okay Maybe someday it will all fade away There must be some way… A way that explains Tell me something, do you feel the same? What do I say about this feeling of disarray? I'm just revolving away… 9/23/1982

Permanent link to “Revolving”
Permanent link to “The Raspberry”
Permanent link to “Otter Creek ESB”
October Snowstorm

"It's not going to stick because the ground is still too warm. We nearly always see snow —at least flurries, in October." Those would be my now immortal words to a coworker who moved to Buffalo from Florida last year. I guess I was a little (!) wrong. The official total was 22.6" at the airport. At my house we were probably at about half that, but it's hard to tell because it was so wet that it packed down a lot. And then it warmed up and started melting rapidly. But in any case this was basically a "once a century storm" sort of thing. There were predictions that we could see a few inches of snow with the "chance" of conditions producing "the perfect storm". Which is exactly what happened. I spent two long chilly days at home with the family, but had plenty of work to do around the house. I don't have many trees in my yard, but my neighbor behind my house has two huge maples at the back of his lot. These two trees dropped a good…

Permanent link to “October Snowstorm”
Online Storage

So last Friday I decided that Amazon's S3 was the way to go so I opened up an account and started playing with a few s3 tools. I've started collecting the useful things I've found on my s3 del.icio.us tag for those who might be interested in following suit. Not something I'm looking for, but if you are simply looking to backup a Windows workstation, Jungle Disk looks like a good choice. One thing I hadn't considered before was storing my mp3's ripped from my music collection. That's a quick 7-8GB (and growing) I hadn't considered. But to store that is still only $1.20/mo and $1.60 to upload it. I'd say that's pretty reasonable and it seems safe and secure in the long run. Thus the big upload push has begun… Next up will be figuring out how to backup/rsync my website on a regular basis. So for some time now I've contemplated the prospect of online backup/storage. I don't have a lot of confidence in my home PC, nor do I have the time or mental fortitude to build and maintain a…

Permanent link to “Online Storage”
New Lava Lamp

So out of the blue I got an email today from a former co-worker, Eric Nagel who stumbled into my site. Eric felt my original lava lamp didn't look good enough. So he was kind enough to send me a new one that actually matched my color scheme. Cool, but it had a white background so wasn't going to workout immediately. So from the double cool catagory, Eric sent me a new one with a transparent background. So if you jump over to the PolarLava front page, you'll see this nifty little change. Thanks Eric. :)

Permanent link to “New Lava Lamp”
Permanent link to “Contact Page”
A Head-On Near Miss

So I finally managed to drag my butt out of bed and ride outside this morning. Between the cooler weather, rain, tiredness and general laziness, I haven't been riding outside much. So it was nice actually get outside and have a good ride in decent weather. And it was a very nice ride the first 90% of the way… But just before I got to Deerwood Golf Course, heading south on Sweeney St. a car passed me from behind. Not a big deal, it happens all the time. But this time of year it's still pretty dark even near the end of my ride (6:15am). So once this car passed and just as I started to look up the road, I see a guy on a bike sort of weaving right towards me from the other side of the road! No lights, no reflectors and obviously no concern for me or himself. Fortunately I had room to swerve to the right and avoid plowing head-on into this assclown. I really believe that many people who don't ride seriously have no concept of how fast you may be moving. In this case, I believe…

Permanent link to “A Head-On Near Miss”
Permanent link to “Warsteiner Premium Verum”

September 2006

Permanent link to “Samuel Adams Boston Ale”
Blogs Without…

OK, this is going to be bit of rant… What's the point of blogging about something and not allowing comments or trackbacks? It's one of the reasons I started PolarBlog —Personal Weblog (PWL) that it's based off of didn't have a commenting system, thus I started working on it and realized PWL wasn't going to be continued. As for trackbacks, well…I'm about to start working on that soon. Without having commenting and/or trackbacks, you don't have a blog, you have a public journal. Which is fine I guess if that's what you want, but what's the point? You spew your opinion for everyone to read, but you have no interest in any feedback on it? How Republican of you! ;) Hell, I spew my writings which are probably better suited to a journal format but nonetheless, they are open and available for comments. This is where I get to throw my friend Chris under the bus. You post an entry seeking feedback, but you have comments disabled. I have the luxury of talking to you on a daily basis so…

Permanent link to “Blogs Without Comments Or RSS?”
phpFreeChat

Everyday I come across new software, but rarely comment on them. Why? Because most of them aren't worth the effort to comment on. The site and or project is lame, documentation is thin —something that I feel is important because it allows users to get up and running quicker, or it simply is just a retread of something I've already seen. And I'm sure others feel that way about PolarBlog, after all, it's just another blogging package. And it's certainly not the most full featured, but I digress… Anyhow, today I came across phpFreeChat. It's a lot like an IRC chat room, but instead runs in your browser and uses AJAX to update your window. Very nice, very slick. Don't think I have a need for it at this time, but a brief few minutes playing with it inspired me enough to write about it! :)

Permanent link to “phpFreeChat”
Permanent link to “Victory Hop Devil”
Caught In The Rain

I generally try to go for a 20 minute walk most days at lunchtime. For the most part this means a quick jaunt around the Erie Basin Marina and back to my office —The building on the left end of La Riviere Drive in the photo. Yesterday it was a bit chilly with the temperature only in the upper 50's and it had rained on and off in the morning. So looking out my window (which overlooks the marina and Lake Erie) it was grey and overcast, but not too bad. So I set off on my walk. I was about three quarters of the way out to the end of the marina when I could see it was raining out over the lake. It seemed moderate, but not moving real fast so I kept going to the end. But as I began heading back, the winds began to pickup. I made it about 25% of the way back when it started to rain. And not the moderate rain I thought I might get caught in, but wind driven, heavy sideways rain! Oops! So as I plodded onward —because there's no shortcuts on this walk unless you want to swim, I…

Permanent link to “Caught In The Rain”
Permanent link to “42”
Permanent link to “Mary's Rose”
The Joke Known as…

It really struck a chord with me while reading Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback yesterday. Being someone who travels a lot, he has an "Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week" in every MMQB article. And this week's comment really shows that the TSA's silly security rules are nothing more than a feel good moment when you travel: I am all for rules, airline and otherwise, that protect our safety. But last Wednesday, after walking through a security line at LaGuardia, I saw the total fruitlessness of this you-can't-take-gels-or-liquids-on-airplanes rule, designed to protect us from those who would take explosive liquids or gels on planes. A fortyish man, traveling in business togs, put his briefcase, laptop and shoes on the security belt and walked through the X-ray machine. No beep. He collected his stuff, walked a few steps down the line, put his laptop back in his case, and then took a tube of toothpaste out of…

Permanent link to “The Joke Known as Airport Security”
Toilet Paper Fix

I snapped this pick a couple of weeks ago in the bathroom here at work. The latch that holds the cover shut was broken so it constatly was flopping open. This made it difficult to get the paper out because it was always caught between the two pieces of the holder. But not with this brilliant fix of using toilet paper "rope" to hold it shut. This truly illustrates that Yankee Ingenuity is alive and well here in Western New York! ;)

Permanent link to “Toilet Paper Fix”
Permanent link to “Saranac Mountain Ale”
Permanent link to “The Polar Bear”
Adventures in AJAX…

Being my weekend consisted of a couple of inches of rain from Ernesto making 2/3rd's of it a wash out, I made the best of it… I've not done any AJAX coding until this weekend when I realized I needed to do so in order to make my Weather page work as I desired. With the new station selection logic I added to my new weather class, it was the best way to handle it. Thus began a forray into installing PEAR on my shared hosting and then looking into how to do what I wanted to do. Actually I knew what I wanted to do, that being use HTML_AJAX which was the quickest easiest way to accomplish the task at hand. And at this point is seems to be working well. I can definately see adding some other AJAX functionality to other areas of my site and my projects. To do that though I will need to start looking at some of the other AJAX solutions I have found. This way I can use them without depending upon PEAR being available. And shockingly, I might even have time to do this now that I…

Permanent link to “Adventures in AJAX 101”
PolarBlog V1.8.0…

PolarBlog V1.8.0 (Swainson's Hawk) has been released. The major focus of this release is the addition of real-time IP blacklisting (RBL) to the commenting system and numerous bug fixes. Enhancements Comment IP Blacklisting Added support for MySQLi extension (requires PHP5 & MySQL >= 4.1) Added automatic detection and (limited) support for PHP5 SPL. Calendar and right column CSS changes. See css/left_nav.diff or css/standard.diff for more information. Added topic_icon_image CSS class to control topic icon display. Default now sets this to (float) display on the right. title margin should be changed from 0px to -10px if you opt to change to this right side icon display. See css/left_nav.diff or css/standard.diff for more information. A number of minor tweaks were done to the CSS files plus the addition of the RBL Admin CSS. See css/standard.diff or css/left_nav.diff for more information. Changed RSS $config['rss']['feed'…

Permanent link to “PolarBlog V1.8.0 (Swainson's Hawk) Released”

August 2006

Permanent link to “Strange Individual”
Permanent link to “The Ant”
Free To Move

Free To Move I'm free, and that's the way I want to be I'm free, It's the only way I can live My life —the way it ought to be…Free! Free! To run and go anywhere I want to go Free! To be and live alone No one telling me where to go I've just got to be free, to live my life! All alone I just sit and stare Never going anywhere I'm all alone, None to listen nor talk too I've been out of it just too to long. Get up! Get up! I said get up! Get up and go! You have your move your body from that chair Go on get up! Get up! Get up and go! I'm free to fly and run and roam So I move my feet and let my body flow I've got up and learned to fly free Fall 1982?

Permanent link to “Free To Move”
PolarBlog: The…

Well, another year has gone by since PolarBlog was first released publically. (Actually it was last Wednesday, August 16 but forgot to post about it.) So in last year's post I talked about some of the progress —oddly no mention of the commenting system, but the then upcoming "Homing Pigeon" post by email feature. There's also a mention of "Bloodhound", the elusive trackback system that has yet to be started. :) The last release was in February to fix a serious problem in the Homing Pigeon release that went out last November. It's obviously been a while since there has been a significant release, but I can assure you that in less than a month the release of Swainson's Hawk —primarily the RBL system, will be out! Just doing some testing, some quick fixes and the drudgery known as documentation. Hang in there PolarBlog users. :) And after that, it's on to Bloodhound which will also include some user self-management features.

Permanent link to “PolarBlog: The Second Year”
I'm a Guinness!

You Are Guinness You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around. What's Your Beer Personality?

Permanent link to “I'm a Guinness!”
Permanent link to “Victory Hop Wallop”
Permanent link to “Floyd F. Dodd's Pillow”
PolarBlog: Swainson…

Finally I can say I have some relatively positive and good news for those of you using PolarBlog… The next release —Swainson's Hawk, is now running as a beta test on this blog. This is a fairly sizable upgrade and contains the long awaited Realtime Blacklist (RBL) feature for comments. Another major change is the option to use the MySQLi extension if you are running PHP5. Additionally there are a number of bug fixes and other smaller changes. I feel this is relatively solid code thus why I've upgraded my personal blog. This way it gets some real world testing and I hopefully won't have to issue any minor updates in the days following the release. Now the bad news… It's going likely be a few weeks before this is ready to be release. I have two things I have to do before it can go out, 1) Build an RBL administration tool to manage the RBL IP's and keywords; 2) Write the documentation to support the release so you might actually be able to set it up and use it. So what can you do…

Permanent link to “PolarBlog: Swainson's Hawk Beta”
Permanent link to “The Working Gnome”
The Computer-less…

So Kevin drove to work today, took his lunch out of his pack and soon learned that being the mental giant he is, forgot his laptop at home. DOH! So it was back in the car to make a nearly pointless round trip from the office to home and back. If it were a bit cooler I likely would have just worked from home today, but it's more productive at the office when it's warm. The icing on the cake? Knowing what a waste of gas that was and knowing the price will be going up now that BP is going offline in Alaska. Sweet. I'm such an idiot.

Permanent link to “The Computer-less Computer Professional”
Permanent link to “The Reading Gnome”
Parallel Lines

Parallel Lines Shooting out into the night, working under lights Parallel lines, stay in time Going on their own, Running side-by-side Always going somewhere, always running tight Each of us has life, our own world Synchronizing every move, your worlds side-by-side Amazing your friends, but they don't understand Parallel lines Complexity, they can't see… Nothing but, the simplicity Of your way you fight, inside of dreams Parallel lines running side-by-side They can't see… Fighting disease, rotting minds 8/9/1982

Permanent link to “Parallel Lines”
Flaming Sun (The…

Flaming Sun (The Mob Returns) Looking in the mirrors we see our eyes Fades away slowly to a burning sky "We've heard the stories, and how you lied" Quickly turning, our bodies writhe In the dirt Though of daylight, in your mind Chance to put it, on the line In the night, flaming sun Shaded light, flaming sun Burns your eyes It's the morning of the end of time Front page headline: In The Sky! Goes on to tell us, the reasons why Flaming sun, shoots out at night Flaming sun, burns your eyes Find you dead in a ally someday Learned a lesson on how bills get paid In the night, the sun it flames Burning hotter than a summer day 7/20/1982

Permanent link to “Flaming Sun (The Mob Returns)”

July 2006

Permanent link to “Fresh Garlic”
Berry Pickin' (2006)

Well, after doing so last year, I guess berry picking is now an annual tradition. We trekked out to Waterport, NY and Brown's Berry Patch for another round of berry fun. This is about a month earlier than we went last year and the raspberry picking was definately slimmer, but we still picked 3 quarts of them. As for blueberries, it was truly insantity. I basically was just holding up my basket and picking clumps of them at a time. Thus in the end we wound up picking an astounding 11 quarts of them. Had we had another basket out in the field with us I'm sure we would have picked even more. The girls even picked (and ate) their fair share. Although near the end they discovered it was lot easier to just go over and steal handfuls out of dads basket!

Permanent link to “Berry Pickin' (2006)”
Permanent link to “The Paddle Wheel”
Permanent link to “Middle Ages Grail Ale”
The Crooked Frame

The Crooked Frame Walking down the hallway, pictures in frames Notice one isn't hanging straight Enter a room with a dozen doors Too many choices grabs your brain A hundred voices, makes you insane An empty feeling as you lose your way A child's scream puts you in his place See your picture in the crooked frame You're in his eyes but your mind is here Broken glass streams out of your hair Face is torn as it falls from the hand Drops of blood seep into the floor Years pass by, looking with dead eyes Return to the house where you used to laugh See a print through shattered glass The boy he screams, feeling your pain You see yourself in the crooked frame 7/19/1982

Permanent link to “The Crooked Frame”
Permanent link to “Weapon of Mass Destruction?”
Permanent link to “Driving Gloves”
CycleLog Weather…

After way more mucking around than I wanted to do, I've converted my CycleLog to use my new weather class to populate the weather table. Writing the small script to stuff it into the database turned out to be the easy part. I then had to rework the ride display portion to handle the three different variations of weather that are contained in it. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to rework it.

Permanent link to “CycleLog Weather Converted”
Permanent link to “The Grizzly”
The Guitarist

The Guitarist I hear every note as you play the chord Your everything and a little more Fingers move up and down the board An open mind when we tell you more 'Cause you're a — Rock-N-Roll guitarist You're plaing like we said A rock-n-roll guitarist Look at them shake their heads And they don't know the story 'Cause they've never had the glory They will never know the feeling The feeling that burns in your head Waves hit the rocks The people, they get shocked By the words of the news All their friends are dead So insecure They're waiting for the words Of someone to take them home From social turbulence they turn To hear your fingers explode 6/30/1982

Permanent link to “The Guitarist”
Permanent link to “Rough Cut”
Permanent link to “Hawaii Weather Converted”
The Adirondacks

So things have been quiet around here this week because I took the family and headed off to stay a few days at The Sagamore on Lake George in the Adirondacks. I was very much in need of some time off, although I'm not sure that taking this past week off really was enough. :( And of course the weather was less than ideal as it rained most of the time. But not to be deterred, we managed to have a nice time including going to Lake Placid (Olympic ski jumps ramps are really, really scary high!) and a gondola ride to the top of Whiteface Mountain. We also took a cruise of Lake George on a paddlewheel steamboat. Lots of nice, pricey real estate on the water —as usual. And it wouldn't be a trip if I didn't make it to someplace like the Adirondack Pub & Brewery where I got to tip a couple new beers and pickup a glass and t-shirt. Other than that, it was a lot of lounging around and swimming. That's about all for now. I should have some pictures posted when I get a chance to sort…

Permanent link to “The Adirondacks”
Permanent link to “Stella D'oro Daylily”
Permanent link to “Caught In A Web”
Permanent link to “Forth of July”
Kiss Me Goodbye

Kiss Me Goodbye I saw you just the other day Hadn't spoke for quite a while Had to see you to keep going Needed something just to show me I'm not just living my life in vain Wish I had all the memories A single moment like a passing dream Take the time and let us be alone Oh, Why must we go? I never said, I said goodbye There always seemed, there was another time So don't you kiss me goodbye You didn't kiss me goodbye Won't you kiss me goodbye Please kiss me goodbye Oh, kiss me tonight 6/8/1982

Permanent link to “Kiss Me Goodbye”
Something Simple…

Something Simple, Something More See, see me through the day Screen me, screen me though your eyes What do you think of me? Something simple, one, two, three I can see you, can you see me? I'm a dream view, dreams of being Make the story line, capture me Something simple, one, two, three Fourteen miles, 50 feet Open seaside, Ocean beach Join me, join me now Have the drinks pour Roll in the sand Something simple, something more One, two, three, four Something simple, something more In the doorway, books are born These the cover, different form On the inside, They're all the same Something simple, something more 6/1/1982

Permanent link to “Something Simple, Something More”
Permanent link to “Trek 2120 (2003)”
The PolarLava…

The saga continues… Over the past several years I've maintained a Perl module to scrape data from The Weather Channel and then later NOAA's National Weather Service. These adventures were chronicled in The PolarLava Weather Project entry. Today begins a departure into a new and likely more sane direction… Last week Rob pointed out to me pxWeather, a PHP class that processes data from the NWS' XML Feed. I was previously aware of this data feed, but the last time I looked into it, it was fairly limited. The actual data provided was pretty minimal and the available locations were very small. All that has appeared to have changed as the data provided is now pretty extensive and the available locations also have been greatly expanded. For quite some time I've wanted an accurate, reliable and free XML weather feed. And I believe I now have that. The pxWeather class has some nice features, but when I started looking into and using it, I found some issue. For starters there were some…

Permanent link to “The PolarLava Weather Project II”

June 2006

Permanent link to “The Helicopter Outside”
Permanent link to “Cycling harder and faster”
Permanent link to “Southern Tier Phin & Matts Extraordinary Ale”
I Got Bibs!

With yet another cycling season in full swing, my Cycling topic gets another workout… As mentioned just the other day, I got New Wheels! for my bike this past week (although still waiting on the parts so I can use them). One of the things I was missing was rim tape which my lovely wife was going to (and did) pickup for me yesterday. This being because she was going there to pickup "something" for Father's Day. I gave her strict orders that it better be nothing more than socks or a hat after the cash I laid out last week on the wheels. Apparently she and the girls found what they were looking for —as well as my rim tape. And when I arrived home she was a giddy with concern because she bought me something and didn't want to wait until Sunday to give them to me. Thus I was quite shocked to find that she had bought me a pair of Nike - Lance Armstrong 10//2 Bib Shorts! I was quite stunned —and very pleased. I have a number of pairs of shorts, but only a couple I find…

Permanent link to “I Got Bibs!”
New Wheels!

Pretty much since I bought my Trek 2120 in 1996, the back wheel had a small "hump" in it. Nothing too serious, but something that has always annoyed me. Apparently not enough to do anything about it though. Near the end of last season while truing this back wheel I notice a couple of small crack beginning to form around one of the spokes holes. This is a sure sign that rim failure is a near certainty in your future. I was concerned, but simply couldn't afford to replace my wheels at that time. Nor was I at the beginning of this season so I've continued to ride on it and hope for the best. Fortunately the wheel hasn't completely failed yet, and it might not; although I do expect that cracked spoke hole to "pop" eventually if I keep riding on it. But in the past couple of weeks the integrity of the wheel has become suspect as keeping it true has become a constant battle. To the point that I've had to true it twice in the past week. I believe I may be close…

Permanent link to “New Wheels!”
PolarLava CycleLog…

An afternoon of hacking at it and the CycleLog now has a quick Weather Check page. This little project simply looks up the weather in the database for a given date —generally today or something in the past couple of weeks. Anything older than that won't exist as it gets purged except for weather data associated with a ride. Way too much data to keep around otherwise. To access a particular date you pass it as a "YYYY-MM-DD", "d" or "date" GET parameter, so for example "?d=2006-06-11" (2006-06-11). Sometimes on days I take longer rides and the weather is variable, I will look up the most appropriate (prevalent) conditions during the ride. This differs from my standard practice of using the closest hourly weather to when I finish the ride. And now you can forget about this because I'd guess I'm the only one who really cares. :)

Permanent link to “PolarLava CycleLog V2.3.0”
JoAnn Falletta…

In a rare night out —the last being my company Christmas party in mid-December, Mary Lou and I went to dinner and the Falletta Competition last night. First up was an early dinner at Tsunami. This is a well spoken of local Asian restaurant. We started with a bottle of Francis Coppola Bianco Pinot Grigio, a Japanese Ginger Salad from ML and a Spicy Tuna Roll for me. For our main course, ML had the Fresh Island Fish (with an avacado salsa instead of tomato bacon sauce) and I had the Hawaiian Butterfish. A truly outstanding dinner accompanied by a first class waiter. After dinner we were off to Kleinhan's Music Hall for the finals of the second biennial JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition. This concert/competition featured Isaac Bustos (USA), Pablo Garibay (Mexico) and Masao Tanibe (Japan). All three proved to be truly amazing performers and we had a wonderful evening. Bustos finished third, although I had him ranked second; Tanibe, who clearly won the…

Permanent link to “JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition”
The Artist

The Artist I'm looking over to see what's on your mind Glance down your paper, it's written in the lines Wish I had a moment to look out through your eyes Just a single moment to share a single mind You're the artist, born in this time Sketch the wholeness, pictures never lie With a story, it fits just right One look at life, through an open mind Reaching for a door, he shows another's life Drawing to a conclusion, a place where it begins You're the artist, giving what you think There's nothing bogus, just life's dreams Feel it floating, drifting in the air Capturing moments, making it all so clear You're the artist, your mind is clear Paying notice to the things we wear You never focus on your last despair You've always known that there would be something more —somewhere 5/30/1982

Permanent link to “The Artist”
Netvibes

Several months ago I raved about ig: The Google Drug, and as much as I liked that, I think I'm about to abandon it. For I'm being lured away by a new net drug Netvibes. It has a lot of what I liked about ig, but offers multiple tabs and some other things that I've grown to like. Enough so that after playing with it for a couple of days I may make it my homepage (instead of ig) and see if it has the staying power to keep my interest. Well worth checking out if you're a portal page person.

Permanent link to “Netvibes”
The Future of…

So what does the future hold for PolarBlog? I recently was reviewing the PolarBlog Users page and checking to see who was still actually using it. As suspected, there were a couple that have gone off-line and several that have switch to some of the larger blogging softwares. At the time I found it rather disheartening, but in hindsight, I guess it's the reality of the situation. PolarBlog certainly isn't for everyone and primarily was done strictly for my own edification. I only released it publically because I knew the PWL was a dead project and this was a path forward for those who were also running it. As for those changing to the big blog software, many left some kind comments on their blogs as they moved away from PolarBlog. Examples would be this, this and this (down at the moment). The simple fact of the matter is PolarBlog is a one man operation with the occasional input from others. There is no possible way I can ever compete with the large blogging projects —some of…

Permanent link to “The Future of PolarBlog”
Senior Architect

At work this past Friday I was informed the Technology Department (about 75% of the company) is being restructured. As such, my department —Engineering Practices is being disbanded and my employee's reassigned to someone else. Fear not, Kevin isn't winding up unemployed (yet again), but rather is being moved from his management position to the position of "Senior Architect". I guess one can view this move as either a) a demotion (removed from management), b) a lateral move (from manager to Sr. technical staff) or c) a promotion (for the same reason). Personally I believe it to be "b" or "c" as either way this is a tremendous opportunity for me and show somebody believes I know what I am doing. :) For more than the past year, my department was responsible for three areas: code review (enforce coding standards and looking for stupid mistakes), release engineering (management of our software and it's distribution) and bug repair (fixing other's mistakes…

Permanent link to “Senior Architect”
Permanent link to “The New Office”

May 2006

Tankless Water…

This past Saturday I walked down stairs to the basement to find my water heater leaking. Fortuantely it wasn't a major blow out, but over the next couple of days it was slowly increasing in its output. So this was an issue that needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later… A couple of months ago Mary Lou and I talked to a guy at the Buffalo home show about tankless water heaters as we liked the idea of endless hot water. We also liked the idea of moving to the "state of the art" in this exciting technology. :) The only tankless systems I had ever seen were smaller point of use units, but a while back I had heard that you could now get whole house units. So at the show we did find that they were available and learned a bit about them. This proved to be worth the time as we had to contemplate whether to switch to tankless or buy another standard tank unit. It really comes down to cost versus life expectancy. A tankless unit is 2-3 times the cost, but lasts 20-30…

Permanent link to “Tankless Water Heater”
PolarLava CycleLog…

After much annoyance over it, I've take the hour or so required to add the bike description to the default ride information display. So a quick jaunt over to the latest ride page should illustrate the point. Eventually there will be a bike page and then a bike maintenance record. But those aren't likely to happen anytime soon. Also while adding this feature I found and fixed a bug in the search page. If you enter a complete "Start Date" (month/day/year) and there is only one ride for that day (as is the case for most days), it should take you directly to that ride. But there was a bug in the search page logic which would then result in an unbounded search. This would result in the multiple results found page with all rides in the database listed as matches. Oops! This was due to the date being assigned (single equals) instead of evaluated (double equals) in a conditional check. But it's all better now. Really…you can try it here. And this morning's ride exposed…

Permanent link to “PolarLava CycleLog V2.2.1”
Permanent link to “Boulder Beer Planet Porter”
700x23

When I originally bought my Trek 2120 it came with Trek ISO 3K 700x25 tires on it. That was more surface contact than I wanted or needed for the type of riding that I do. It's pretty basic physics that a larger contact area means more rolling resistance. Thus when I wore out those original tires I opted to switch to the much narrower profile Vittoria TechoTwin Tread 700x20 tires. This was a huge improvement, but in hindsight probably less of a function of their width, but rather their lower weight. If you don't cycle you likely don't understand what a huge difference lightweight tires make. I've ridden on 700x20 tires ever since. But after numerous pinch flats, a torn sidewall and my increasingly aching old body, I decided it was time to try something different. I had also read that on rough roads —which is the rule rather than the exception in Western New York, wider tires provide more consistent road contact and in turn will increase your speed. Thus the decision was made…

Permanent link to “700x23”
Permanent link to “Model Cruise Ship”
I like the Dixie…

Anyone that knows me knows I'm not a big country music fan. With one exception being Johnny Cash who's the best. And I don't really care for the Dixie Chicks music, although being a red-blooded male, my eyes could gaze upon far worse sights. :) No, I'm talking about seeing them (mostly Natalie Maines their lead singer) on I believe it was 60 Minutes Sunday evening. I'm sure most all of you aware of the blow back in 2003 just before we invaded Iraq, during one of their concerts she said "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." OK, not a popular sentiment at the time, although know it would clearly be a more popular statement. Anyhow, they're churning out a new album and are about to hit the road to tour again. And they are not a all apologetic for what was said. No regrets. Period. And that is why like the Dixie Chicks. They too a rash of shit for the comment, but they haven't backed down. It might not be a popular…

Permanent link to “I like the Dixie Chicks”
Permanent link to “Monkey, It's what's for dinner!”
Chameleon

Chameleon They all laugh at the things you say Going around the track without a way Chameleon, Chameleon They all think you're crazed Chameleon, Chameleon Are you from outerspace? Working, working everyday now Turning, turning it all around Chameleon, Chameleon What do you say today? Chameleon, Chameleon The all thnk you're blown away Changing, changing shades Learning, learning a different way Chameleon, Chameleon Show me how you make the colors change Chameleon, Chameleon Don't you care what people think? 5/24/1982

Permanent link to “Chameleon”
Party with a…

Party with a Stranger Isn't any reason, nevermind the time Just having a few drinks, it all starts to rhyme Don't even know you, don't really care You're just the person, happened to be there I'm just laughing, you ask me why I can't believe this, no feeling inside Just like the story, on the TV shows Why we're here now, I'll never know Girl, don't even know what I say Hey, can't you read the signs I convey? Like a puzzle, you play the game Can't see this piece ain't the same The pictures don't even relate 5/12/1982

Permanent link to “Party with a Stranger”
High Heels and…

High Heels and Leather You talk about women, here's one you should know Say you're lookin' for good lovin' This one, well…she steals the show Gotta whip in her hand Got that look on her face I'm tellin' you boys, She'll put you in your place That woman, in the high heeled shoes Into leather, boys this ain't no pose Oh that woman, she like to bind up you If only she could, she would get a hold on you She's got whips and chains and a smile on her face Knowing what she wants from you She's into high heels and leather In her leopard print skin suit, he whip it flies Tie you down, Use your own necktie Oh, that woman That woman's into high heels and leather She'll tie you tonight 5/10/1982

Permanent link to “High Heels and Leather”
Iran

So I've been doing the slow burn over this whole situation with Iran. I don't have the time or patience to write a long diatribe about it, but need to have my say. An Iran with nuclear power capability is not an issue for me. Actually pretty much any country pursuing a nuclear power program is alright with me. But if one is going to do that, you should be building state-of-the-art reactors and disposing of the waste in a safe and secure manner. But an Iran with the bomb would not be a desirable situation from most of the world's perspective. Actually, with the exception of those who have it, most outsiders probably see it as a pretty bad thing. I'm pretty sure Iran and most middle-eastern countries don't see the U.S. circling overhead with the bomb as a real positive situation for them. I really fear the Neo-Conservatives in Washington because they believe they have god on their side and feel they are empowered to do "what is right" against anyone whose views differ…

Permanent link to “Iran”

April 2006

I Have Choices!

So today marks the first time in roughly two months where I've actually not been doing the "working lunch". On two days a week I have standing lunch meetings. On the other days I have…well, interuptions! :) But today I'm actually relatively caught up. Nobody is bothering me. And the weather is decent —sunny and 50°. So basically this provides me a choice. To blog or go for a walk. And the fact that you're reading this probably leads you to the conclusion that I've opted to blog. That is true, but I have another option that I'm going to exercise. Literally. I'm going for a walk now. :)

Permanent link to “I Have Choices!”
Permanent link to “Lone Crocus”
The Mob

The Mob So you think you want to see some action Little boy, first things first We need to know your sources Your inner most fears We want to ask questions To see a true reaction…No tears needed here If you pass our inspection We'll teach you our lesson The message it's so clear We're just a faction, if you're into action You've got to play by our rules When the bullets are rising And there's no place for hiding You better be firing good There's no one to save you Not even the God that made you Face it, you're gonna die! 5/7/1982

Permanent link to “The Mob”
Blog Spamming

Progress on the RBL module for PolarBlog can't come soon enough… Happily until a few months ago I saw very little blog spamming here. In the past couple of months it began to pickup with the last couple of weeks being particularly brutal. This culminated in getting hit with 160+ messages in one blast last week. I found a couple of patterns in who was hitting me. Most notably if the RBL was done it would be blocking nearly all of it. In the meantime I've hacked a quick fix in that blocks some of the common keywords I've been seeing. If you're a PolarBlog user and want and/or need the fix, you can email me and I'll send it to you. I'm sorry if you are enduring the new found love that these assholes have for PolarBlog. But the reality of the situation is that I'm basically a one man operation who's real job has run his life over. Thus I've spent very little time working on any of my personal software projects. I just wish these assholes would realize that although inconvenient…

Permanent link to “Blog Spamming”
Permanent link to “1905 Telphone Building”

March 2006

Project & Work…

Wondering how things are going on your favorite PolarLava project? Yeah, me too. MyClient is on hiatus at this time. I know of no issues with it at this time so I don't have a need to do anything with it at this time. The next thing on deck for this project will likely be the addition of PostgreSQL support. That will require me to clone my current MySQL DB class. At the time I do that I will likely evaluate the situation and extract things out further because there will be some parts that they both share. Thus at that point there will be a base class and two inherited DB specific classes. This will need to be done as the first step towards PolarBlog supporting PostgreSQL. I'd like to think this will create some "buzz" as I don't know of any DB tools that support multiple simultaneous connections to different types of databases. PolarBlog is in slow mode. I've written about 95% of the RBL class. I need to complete the keyword blocking and then integrate it. That's…

Permanent link to “Project & Work Status Report”
Permanent link to “The Port Deal Gone Wrong”
WRT54G & Adventures…

A couple of weeks ago I (finally) received my laptop from work (Dell Latitude D610) after waiting nearly six months. My company pretty much rolls around the clock so often things transpire during off hours. I generally work fairly normal business hours, but a lot of the people I work with do not. Having the laptop allows me to check-in from home in the evening with very little effort and thus avoiding getting blindsided in the morning. It also allows me a lot of flexibility when working from home or wherever. That is, once I got a wireless connection working for it… I've had reliable DSL service since that finally was resolved. But that was one computer connected straight to the DSL modem (Westell 6100). Thus the first thing was acquiring a wireless router. In an amazing stroke of luck, one of my employees was looking to unload a LinkSys WRT54G…for $20. A great deal as most of the used ones I saw were selling for at least $40. Cool, lets hook it up. Wham, bam, uh, not quite…

Permanent link to “WRT54G & Adventures in wireless”
Fuzzy White Lobster

Via this Boing Boing article…Apparently some scientists have discovered a furry lobster in the South Pacific. It's so different from other crustaceans that they've given it its own family and genus. It is white and "about the size of a salad plate". Neat stuff, but they failed to answer the most important question…what does it taste like? Oh, and how long before we can start over fishing it! ;)

Permanent link to “Fuzzy White Lobster”

February 2006

Olympic Hockey

First off congratulations to Sweden and Finland for their competitive and hard fought Olympic final. I can only hope that your gold and silver metals respectively will be appreciated for what they are. But my main point of this entry is primarily to laugh hysterically at the United States and Canada and their prima donna players and their lame attitudes. You were "supposed to be" the big gold metal showdown. Instead you flopped miserably. All I can say is HA HA! :)

Permanent link to “Olympic Hockey”
Permanent link to “Tunnel Vision”
Trying Times

Trying Times Time and time again, heard the story Of another one, who's finally made his way Betting lines, they show the times before us Hell it's hard to stay alive These times, they can be trying Searching for an answer Working late into the night Isn't one solution, can't see no end in sight It's going to take us all Just to put it all back into line Trying, trying times When I was just a child Trying, trying times When will it all subside? There are many people, people who have tried So many people, their eyes begin to cry And in their tears, all through the years They search to find the answer, a single cure The trying times, they cloud our minds And now the time has come Time for us to be aware Oh, we must lear, spread the words To find the answers that we must share. 5/17/1982

Permanent link to “Trying Times”
Down for the Count

2/23/06 And this little adventure continues… As the week has progressed my runny nose and coughing continued to increase instead of subsiding. With my wife proding me, I finally called the doctor today who has now put me on a course of a different antibiotic and back on the cough syrup. sigh I'm so tired of being sick and tired. And pulling an all nighter at work last night and again (at least from home) tonight certainly doesn't help me rest up at all. From the looks of it though, tonight might be shorter than last night. Such drama. ;) —— About a month ago I caught a cold. Not terribly suprising because I seem to get sick at least once or twice a winter. And when it lingered around for more than a week I didn't think much of that either as I often have a hard time shaking a cold. So after two weeks the runny nose and coughing subsided…for about two days. sigh So another round began. This mostly just pissed me off because it was preventing me from working out as I would…

Permanent link to “Down for the Count”
Permanent link to “The Gold Dome”
Stolen Image Payback

Yesterday I found that "Master THRak" had stolen the logo from my THRAK Football Enterprises page. Which actually, I don't have a big problem with, except he's using image from my site instead of copying it to his. Thus this eats into my bandwidth —granted to a very minor degree, but nonetheless it's better to have copied it. So what to do? My inital thought was to grab a copy of something like Goatse.cx (That's a Wikipedia link, not the image.) and substitute that for the logo. But being the nice guy that I am, instead replaced it with this stupid I love britney image instead. Thus he now has a big "I (heart) Britney" on his page instead! ;) So "Master THRak", if you're reading this and you want this image, please just steal a copy and don't pull it from my site. I would have sent you a message about it, but the lame ass MySpace service requires you to register to do anything thus you got this instead.

Permanent link to “Stolen Image Payback”
Permanent link to “Despicable Software”
PolarBlog RSS Feed…

Yesterday I was informed of a RSS encoding problem when you set your encoding to anything other than ISO-8859-1. This appears to be being caused by the third-party FeedCreator class ignoring the user setting and always using the default setting. Additionally I believe I've found a minor content type problem, but that's a much lesser concern. That's the bad news. The good news it that I believe I've solved the problem. This may go out a bug fix release this coming week, but at the moment I know of only one use that was having an issue with this so my inclination is to sit on it and instead work on the next release. I know there are other international users, so if you use RSS and are having feed encoding problems contact me (kevinp AT polarlava.com) and I can send you the fix directly. As I write this I've sent this to the user who was having the problem, but he has not confirmed that this fixes this issue —I believe it does. If there are enough request for it I will package up a…

Permanent link to “PolarBlog RSS Feed Issue”
Permanent link to “PolarBlog V1.7.3 Released”

January 2006

Permanent link to “LEAP: End the Drug War”
Permanent link to “Hose Test”
Another Day Like…

Another Day Like Tomorrow I wish I had the time to do, all the things I've wanted too Yet there is no reason why, I can't seem to find the time I'm wishing you another day Another day like tomorrow I'm looking in a mirror, nothing's there Can't see no reflection Can't see my face I can't see nothing, no signs of today I close my eyes, open my mind Open my eyes as I turn around There's nothing here Just open air 'Cause it's another day like tomorrow Maybe you, can see for me What's the story, where's the scene? Who's the people, who makes me dream? Won't you help me, just today I'm having trouble, having another Another day like tomorrow 5/3/1982

Permanent link to “Another Day Like Tomorrow”
Takeover Yapter?

Update: I have come to agreement on this with the now previous maintainer. I'm now heading up the Yaper project. As such, this will be the templating engine that will be used for PolarBlog in the future. You can learn more about that here. —- Contemplate, contemplate, contemplate… For the past couple of years I've user the Yapter templating engine to drive my site. Development on this project has been slow as it was released in a reasonable state, but then development quickly tailed off. I've had to hack most version to get them to work properly and was considering abandoning it entirely. But I don't have the time or the motivation to do that because, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?". Just this week a new version was released to address some issue with PHP5. And once again I found myself hacking on it to work out some bugs. This latest release was simply put out by the original developer, but was actually someone else's work. I've been corresponding with him…

Permanent link to “Takeover Yapter?”
PolarBlog: The Road…

I figured it was about time to sort of layout the road ahead for PolarBlog as it's been a very long time since I last did this… From the "Future Development" list on that very old entry, there are three things that still haven't been completed! Pingback functionality Trackback functionality Entry print view And two pretty big additions that did get added… A commenting system Posting entries via email Of the three items that didn't get done, Pingback seems that it has sort of faded from the scene so I'd have to say that it's unlikely that will ever be added. So in a mostly/roughly chronological order, here's what the future should bring to PolarBlog. Entry Topic Image Position Control Change to default displaying on the right. This has already been done in the development version as well as on my blog. This should also allow you to more easily use larger icons. (Mine here have been bumped from 32x32 to 40x40…

Permanent link to “PolarBlog: The Road Ahead”
PolarBlog V1.7.2…

PolarBlog V1.7.2 has been released. Enhancements None Bug Fixes The installer has been updated to address a problem with the blog administratori user being created with the same username and password as the database. You can now (again) specify a separate username and password for your initial blog administration account. This change only affects new installations. If you are upgrading from V1.7.1 you do not need to run the install/upgrade utility to update to this release. A minor fix was performed on the RSS feed generator as it was including a blank XSLT stylesheet link. Configuration Changes None See the PolarBlog Changes file for more information. Please see the PolarBlog Upgrading documentation for information on upgrading your installation.

Permanent link to “PolarBlog V1.7.2 Released”
Permanent link to “Clock Tower”
Permanent link to “MyClient V3.1.2 Released”
Permanent link to “Real Firemen”
PolarBlog Topic Icon

A couple weeks ago Rob suggested moving the PolarBlog topic icon to the right in the entry display header. I've implemented this on my blog as well as in the development version. Thus this will be the default in the future largely because I like it. If you don't it will be very easy for you to override it in the CSS to move it back to the left side. Thanks Rob! As always, your comments are welcome.

Permanent link to “PolarBlog Topic Icon”
Cassette Jam '05

I came across Cassette Jam '05 probably a month ago now. I found this quite interesting (Project C-90) because I have a pretty extensive collection of tapes. And quite a few of those I've found in this collection. I used to marvel at every new design that came about and spend endless hours testing different formulations. Depending on the music, a certain specific formulation may make it sound that much better. I have a lot of TDK's (my favorite) and Maxell's, but the coolest looking was always the TEAC with the "open reel" look. I had one with a different tape formulation, but it looked exactly like the TEAC Cobalt 52 you see here. I've heard better tape, but this one was the coolest looking of the bunch.

Permanent link to “Cassette Jam '05”
Permanent link to “MyClient V3.1.1 Released”
Permanent link to “BOINC Stats Page”