Category: stuff

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Cool Tool

I’ve tried various backup utilities for my Windows desktop over the last couple of years, including File Hamster and Microsoft’s own Synctoy, but I’ve finally found the one.  You know — the one that does everything you want it to easily, nothing more, nothing less, and is free.

That tool goes by the name of Karen’s Replicator.  It will run in the background and synchronize changed files at given intervals.  This makes it easy for me to do lots of work on client web sites, then rest assured that anything I’ve done is backed up to my spare external hard drive every day.

I learned long ago the value of making backups on a separate disk.  Unfortunately, I learned it the hard way, which is why I implore anyone reading this to make backups!  Hard drives do fail!

On a side note, let this be the first time I’ve italicized text so much in one post in all my 8 years of blogging.

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McBurger

Q: What’s wrong with this picture?

A: Many things, on many different levels.

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Time to Abandon Internet Explorer 6?

37Signals has decided to abandon support of Internet Explorer 6 in all
of their web applications (Basecamp, Backpack, etc). I think this idea
is superb. IE6 came out in 2001 and is an antique which is hard to
support in modern web applications and design. Yes, it still has
roughly a 20% marketshare, but it is quickly being ousted by IE7,
Firefox, and Safari.

What do y’all think? Ditch IE6 or still support it?

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Blogging by email

If you see this, it means I have succesfully made my first blog post
by email. I set up a cron job to check the blog email account
automatically every 10 minutes, and it takes anything it finds and
converts it to a blog post.

This has been a built in feature of WordPress for quite some time, but
I never took time to try it out until now.

If all goes well, I will be able to blog much more often 🙂

Sent from my iPod

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The Whappers news

We had a great time opening for The Trainwreks last night at The Garage last night. We only got asked to turn down once, and the only thing running through the PA was the kick drum and the vocals (hehehe).

Thanks to our ever-present fan Don, we have had a sting of great pictures from each performance in and around Asheville. Here are a couple from the Stella Blue gig a few weeks ago:

On my new Tama Superstars :)

The Whappers

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Rocking in Boone, Part I

We pretty much rocked the house at Flipside in Boone, NC last night.  Flipside is a pizza-pub right across the street from the new sports stadium at Appalachian State, and there were tons of summer session college kids crawling all over the place in search of beer and hooking up.  Luckily, The Whappers were there to help facilitate.  And we rocked their Polo shirts and tube tops off, Asheville style.

The best part of the evening was rocking out on my new set of Tama Superstars.  These suckers are LOUD.  24 inch bass drum, the shallow style rack tom, a 16 inch floor tom, and an 18 inch floor tom.  WOW is all I can say.

And, by the way, my older set is up for sale.

We will be back at Flipside on June 19.  Look for us this coming weekend in Asheville at Stella’s!

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Geek Humor

If you find this funny, there is something seriously wrong with you. But that’s OK, because I thought it was hilarious. You are in good company. You may need to click the image to see it bigger.

From XKCD.com

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What’s Been Happening

Let’s see…Back at the end of February, I got rehired by one of my previous employers, P3I, and am now the Web Developer/Windows Security person supporting the 14th Weather Squadron here in Asheville. Same place of work, slightly different position. I’m still doing mostly Linux system administration (RedHat and SuSE), but with the new Windows part of my title comes the duties of Sharepoint administration. I got to go to Atlanta for a week of Sharepoint training a few weeks ago, and I’m headed to DC for another week soon.

The Whappers continue to rock, and we finished our 3 song demo earlier this month. We have put the finishing touches on our press kit, so look for us starting to play out much more often soon!

Gray turns 5 in May, which is pretty crazy. Dax is 2.5 now. It’s amazing to watch them each develop the individual personalities. They have both reached the age where they play together, which is great during those times that Alicia and I need a little downtime.

Alicia has had several openings at the Merrimon Avenue Galleries, and she continues to sell many paintings and jewelry at the Kress Emporium. It seems her booth is one of the most popular. She has even branched out into finding old furniture, fixing it up, and painting it. Look for an updated web site soon.

I’ve been doing a good bit of side work still too. Nothing to show yet, but several projects are nearing completion.

I think that’s not all, but that’s all I can think of.

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The Music Biz

Remember the late 90’s, when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), backed by meatheads such as Lars Ulrich of Metallica, decided to go on a suing frenzy to stop outfits such as Napster and Kazaa from enabling people to share files with each other? (Ok, the obvious answer should be “Yes, Will, I sure do!”)

Well, this is funny:
“RIAA Pockets Filesharing Settlement Money, Doesn’t Pay Artists Whose Copyrights Were Infringed”

In case you haven’t heard, the RIAA soon turned to strong-arming consumers once they had extorted all they could from the file sharing software companies.

The fact of the matter is that they are resisting technology. People want music in a new way. They don’t want it bogged down by Digital Rights Management. They want it cheaply and easily, and the technology to give it to them that way — AND to pay the artists fairly — exists.

Just look at what Radiohead did last year by letting people decide what they wanted to pay for the album, making them an estimated $6 to $10 million. Or see how “Nine Inch Nails make $1.6m on free album” just this month.

Both bands turned their noses up at the record companies and did it their own way. And it seemed to resonate well with the fans.

clicky