A Bucket of Rain and WP Praise

December 12th, 2008 Thomasso

There were warnings issued today as our very first snow dump of the season was upon us, yet nothing happened except for lots of rain. It did snow, although mixed with the rain, but really nothing too terribly spectacular happened except for the large puddles everywhere. Oh yes, there was the usual bunch of British Columbia’s finest drivers too, but that is normal even on a hot sunny July day so no surprise there. However, the warnings are still up on the weather web site. Freezing temperatures and blowing snow, somewhere up to 5 cm of the stuff are supposedly in the forecast, but none of it has hit us yet here in Fort Langley. I guess it is a “wait and see” weather forecast as to what the weather Gods have in store for us?

I have to work tomorrow, so hopefully the roads will not be icy as it is supposed to be well below freezing tonight. The last thing I need are the roads to be full of black-ice.

I also wanted to say that the people who did all of the updates for WordPress 2.7 did a great job. I really cannot get over how cool it looks now. They did a real professional job on it. If you have a blog, and are not using WordPress, then I strongly suggest trying it out—it is really nice now—although it was always cool anyway. The Dashboard / Main Menu page is nicer looking with the way you can collapse all the menu function making it look not too cluttered. I think it is more user friendly and easier to find stuff than it was before. If you use lots of plug-ins, like I do, then this layout is great to navigate through. Before I had to click through different pages to get to the page that I wanted like change my video layout for example. WordPress keeps on getting better!

I cannot wait to see what kind of weather we will have tomorrow…. Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted in Bitching about weather, Blog and Web Tech, General | 1 Comment »

A Friendly Reminder: WordPress 2.7 is out

December 11th, 2008 Thomasso

It popped up on my Word-Press dashboard this morning in the control panel in the blogging tool WordPress saying that the latest edition 2.7 is ready for downloading and installation. I highly recommend not waiting to long for this because some of the features, and the new layout, are “sweet,” for lack of a better word.  For the first time on my site the Akismet Blog Statistics worked without any major overhauling of code—searching for bugs—it just worked right out of the box.

For those of you who are using Word-Press and have not yet decided to do the upgrade right now, I recommend that you start now. Most of you who I know personally, I have encouraged you to use WP Automatic Upgrade for your quick and painless upgrading needs.  This upgrade should be a quick 10 second deal for you. You can check out the WordPress website for further details of all the new look & feel aspects of the blogging tool. I’m very happy with it!

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Video Experiment with VIMEO

December 7th, 2008 Thomasso

I was playing around with my video settings here on the Blog because this is the third time in a month that the Creator of the plug-in has fixed bugs in it. I stuck with Viper’s Video Quick Tags because it seems to have the best interactive control panel out of all the WordPress plug-ins I have tried.

While I was re-setting my tweaks for my Blog, I started viewing some of the other video formats that I never bothered to look at before and came across VIMEO. I never really paid that much attention to VIMEO before, so I went over to at the website and then started poking around. I came across this:

I thought the animation was interesting; I’m thinking that it could be made by an armature, even the music–but sounds good. It is the X-mass story, and the song is in Spanish, I believe. Oh, and one of the wise men looks like Santa in this video! The screen credits said that this was in HD for TV, though the audio was suffering from the bandwidth, and it was is stereo. I really like this type of animation, and I have made a few myself when I had lots and and lots and lots of time to render them. Did I say lots of time to render them right–yeah, even with an Intel Quad-Core it’s slow going?

So enjoy–that’s about as far as I’m going with decorating the Blog this year for the holidays–unless I get really board and I have some time to spend getting creative.

Posted in Blog Problems, Blog and Web Tech, General, Video | Comments Off

A Discussion on the State of the Net

September 13th, 2008 Thomasso

I’m somewhat leery of the direction that Canada is taking as far the Web goes. I spent some more time reading over the proposed legislation that the Conservatives want to desperately push through Parliament to appease the business world, called Bill C-61, or the Copyright Act. I did this because I heard some more news that most Canadian Internet Service Providers (I.S.P.) are already jumping on board with gearing up their systems to facilitate the new, soon to be coming, laws targeting the Intranet User.  I think it is inevitable that Canada is shifting towards the right end of the political spectrum–and most of us are still believing that we are in our protected bubble of freedoms.

According to a CBC news story called “Copyright law could result in police state: critics,” some people are very freaked out about the whole issues of on-line privacy that maybe taken away (dumbed-down) to facilitate law enforcement to search out and capture users who are violating copyright material.  It would be ironic that the very people who value privacy are going to vote for a government that will allow itself to gain access to your every move on the Internet. At least now, ISPs are resistant to surrendering this data because of the agreements they made with their customers to protect privacy; however, right wing governments are more “law and order” oriented, and passing laws that allow for easier access into its citizens activities for law enforcement is a small sacrifice to give up in the betterment of society as a whole. After all, everyone feels that crime is always on the increase, and catching criminals is more important than our personal rights….

So back on Thursday, in my Criminology class, we talked about the state of the Intranet, and how and why it is changing. I notice that most of the students in my class were very unaware of how far reaching this piece of legislation is. It was determined that almost everyone in the class has downloaded music from off of the net. Most said that they have large amounts of music on their lap tops and that they did not buy the music, but downloaded it from sources such a peer to peer and chat groups. According to the Act, Bill C-61, there could be possible criminal charges if found guilty with “pirated” music on anyone’s electronic storage devices. There was a sobering silence in the air once the discussion moved towards the finer details of the Act.

Next in the discussion was the software licence agreements and the proliferation of illegally installed software loaded into personal computing devices.  One estimate that the instructor said was that are possibly over 40 million personal computers with pirated operating systems running throughout North America. So my question was why do people do this when there are alternatives available that are free, without (restricted) licence agreements and perpetual costs? Again, the  silence sweeps over the classroom.

Two things came out of this class discussion for me. First, I have notice small differences in my ISP’s services already.  Second, I heard that companies like Shaw Cable are going to be sending out attachments with their Bills soon that will rewrite their agreements with their clients regarding the new measures to the Act.

So what do you think? Oh, and be careful what you say from now on—they’re listening.

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The Human R.F.I.D. Chip

August 26th, 2008 Thomasso

When I first heard about this, a person putting a computer chip into their arm, I thought why would anyone want to do such a thing to themselves? I know most of my friends would first say that there are huge privacy issues with having such as thing implanted into your arm radiating all of your biometric data and identity for anyone to scan, download and save. With privacy issues asides, what about the risk of infection and other complications with having a foreign object stuffed inside your body for long periods of time. Is having an RFID chip (Radio Frequency Identification) really that necessary?

When I watched this video of Dr. John Halamka talking about open source software and the value of having Red Hat as a partner in the medical community, he was really serious about this whole concept of having the chip implanted inside him. Naturally, the video focuses on the operations of Internet Technology and the hospitals’ administration operations, but I just could not get my mind off of the applications that could be done with the RFID chip.

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I can see where applications would come in handy with having the RFID Chip implanted into your arm. Dr. John Halamka mentions that he likes to mountain climb, so if he was ever in an avalanche or found unconscious, the chip would give the attending physician all of the necessary data to know “who he was” while being treated. On the same page, any emergency, law enforcement, or rescue personnel could easily gather the correct data that they need when they find someone out in the middle of mountains who cannot speak or is dead.

So should something like this be mandatory for all mountain climbers? Should the RFID chip be mandatory for the rescue people, the police officers, and fire fighters who could find themselves in the same situation as the climber when they are knocked unconscious and need medical treatment? What about prisoners and inmates at a correctional facility? Perhaps children who attend school who live in the inner city, when we talk about child abduction and runaways. We would want to correctly identify them.

The idea of having the RFID chip is interesting because it would do-away with having just a wallet full of plastic cards with all of your ID data on it. I mean, if you had a chip instead of a drivers licence, then you would never forget it when you are racing out of house going to work. Maybe your debit card could be on the chip too, and all you have to do is have your arm scanned and “presto!” your groceries are paid! Better yet, you are going to the show-hall, and all you need to do is walk through the doors of the cinema that you wish to see and then sit and enjoy the film while the bill gets processed at your financial institution because they scanned your chip. I could even see employees walking through the doors to their jobs and the scanner recording when they arrived so they don’t need to punch in and out on their time-cards any more—it would be bad if they are late all the time.

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Full Circle Magazine

August 21st, 2008 Thomasso

When I first heard about LINUX and marvelled at the idea of having something different from the slop I was getting with Micro-Soft, it intrigued me, but that first step was a big one, and one that took another four years before I finely took it. Information was perhaps the one single reason why it took so long before I loaded my first copy Red Hat onto my PC and powered it up. The funny thing is, I never looked back.

Back then, it was pre-college and pre-formal computer science training for me. Back then, Micro-Soft was homogeneous on every home computer and that was also when I was surfing the newly popularized Intranet. I would catch bits and pieces of these strange words like UNIX, LINUX and Open-Source, but I had no idea what they meant. It was like a fence divided up everything, us on one side and them on the other.

It wasn’t until I did my first year in Criminology that I was invited to take part in my very first computer science class, a course literally called CMSC1100. On the first week of the course, it was super easy for me; I did after all embraced the world of computer and the Internet. Then it got deadly serious, with machine language, Net Working and Artificial Intelligence. My little perfect world of utopia crashed around me when we had to dive away from the safe little world of Window$ right into the murky waters of LINIX. It was then that I saw just how amazing the world of software really was.

For my life experiences it meant seeing and experiencing things that most others would otherwise not. I mean, why should a home-maker want to see the world of machine language and networking, if that person doesn’t have to–right–then why would they? However, to know that it is there and that there is a way of gathering that information and use it is another matter entirely.  So I believe that information should be made freely available and accessible to everyone, not just University students who shell out big buckles full of clams to be taught by the worlds elite.

When I see an effort of global proportions being made that appeals to my sense of being, I have to share that with you here on my weblog. I have seen this small community effort of on-line people, users, who have created this wonderful magazine that both celebrates and complements their community. They created an on-line magazine that is totally supportive of open-source and free thinking ideas. The seeds that these individuals are planting could spread like wildfire across the net. So have a look and let them know that you were there, and hopefully, you just might take something back with you? Check it out!

Click here for the home page of Full Circle Magazine.

You can download a PDF of each issue. They use no paper, no expensive publishers and everyone contributes because they love what they do.

What do you think, do we need Open Source Operating Systems in our world? Should there be alternative software made that should be free from restrictive licenses, charges and copywrite protection?

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, General, Photographs | 6 Comments »

WordPress Boot Camp in Langley City

July 16th, 2008 Thomasso

It was very enjoyable and I did learn a lot from the guest Speaker’s, including Raul, about workdpress. It was worth the time, and I did a lot of networking too–as all good bloggers do. There was a good turnout from what I could see, maybe about 80 to 100 people, and how could you tell there was a room full of geeks? The amount of lap-tops. Every lap-top at one time or another was showing the WrodPress log in page. Now that’s a room full of geeks.

Raul Pacheco was the first presenter. He talked about WrodPress from a newbie’s perspective. I have to say, he is a master in social networking.

Kulpreet Singh at http://kulpreetsingh.com/ talked on security with WordPress, and it was really good. I actually got so much information from his talk that while he was presenting from his PowerPoint presentation, I was busy implementing some of his recommendations on my blog here. He really had some food for thought for keeping hackers out of your blog.

Rebecca Bollwitt, who wowed us with her MAC…., was talking about customizing your WordPress theme and adding pages. She was geared towards the intermediate WrodPress user. She made me remember back in the day when I was searching for my “favourite” theme and I kept changing it every five minutes. I guess I’m getting older now because I change maybe once a year now? She even has a Flash Video of Raul speaking during his presentation.

John Chow–Now this guy is something. Just in spam alone he had over 700,000 comment-spam that his filter caught! His talk was on how to get traffic to your blog, and make some money too. His methods are quite interesting. Some of his tips are common sense, but his “evil” methods are way beyond where I would want to go with my blog. Stuff like RSS feeds and linking, I will start doing, but forking out money for get people to link to my site is not the direction I want to go. But I like the “evil” methods anyway…. It is nice to see someone who tests the limits of Internet like he does.

Seeing other LINUX users there was an unexpected sight. I think maybe there should be a LINUX or Ubuntu bootcamp so that open source users can get together and see how the rest of the community works. After all, there are many similarities between WordPress and LINUX.

It was a lot of fun and a great experience. I will definitely go to another one!

[ADDED July 19, 2008] For the life of me I could not remeber the guy who spoke about the busines end of blogging, in other words, why should businesses have blogs?  The guy works for, or owns BLue Fur, which has both a website and blog. Blue Fur is an Internet server company that is operated within Canada. Here is the link for their Blog, which he also used as part of his presentation: The Blue Fur Blog.

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, General, Photographs | 9 Comments »

What Do You Call A Fly With No Wings?

July 3rd, 2008 Thomasso

Well, I just got a reply on my post from June 29, 2008 called “As the Bugs Bite, I Run Inside,” and it appears that someone has been listening to our cries, whines and harping about the fly problem. The pest control people could be taking care of our little Fly Infestation sooner than I thought–like possibly today.

Here is what the Langley Township have to say on their Town Hall Blog called Langley Politics Dotcom:

The mosquitoes in Fort Langley have been terrible this year. The Township has been spraying (including, I understand from our staff, using a helicopter on parts of McMillan Island, with Kwantlen First Nations permission), but the GVRD has thus far refused to spray on Brae Island or in Derby Reach park.

That is about to change: Township staff told Council today that the GVRD has agreed to a more balanced approach to mosquito treatment that considers the interests of the surrounding community. As a result, they are moving forward with assessing and treating Brae Island as soon as possible.

To help speed the process up further, we have offered the services of our mosquito control contractor, Culex, to get onto Brae as soon as possible (hopefully today).

This has been a terrible year for mosquitoes along the Fraser, but we will continue to do everything we can to make things better.

So it looks like there could some relief in the near future from the all the biting that has been going on from the evil fly. I can’t say that I’ll miss them, but wait—yes, I want to miss them, I never want to see them again!

I know that there are people who oppose the spraying because of the chemicals that are put into the environment. After all this is an issue that I’m sure the GVRD/Metro Vancouver posed with its decision not to spray in the first place. I’m really caught between a rock and hard place on this one. On one hand I hate being bitten alive by the fly, yet on the other hand, I see spraying as concern to the environment. I guess in this case spraying wins the argument for now–until the long term effects start to show up….

[ADDED] Jordan adds: “…that bug bites, and the diseases spread through them, are a public health concern. We spray with the cooperation and consent of the Fraser Health Authority.”

Thanks to Jordan Bateman of the Langley Township Council for the news.

**The answer to the joke in the header is: You call it a “Walk.” becuase it can’t fly any more.

Posted in Blog Bugs, General | 3 Comments »

Nothing is Broken Here: I’m Going Naked Today.

April 9th, 2008 Thomasso

That’s right, nothing is broken Here: I’m Going Naked Today. As my friend pointed out, Tanya, aka NetChick said that today is CSS Naked day, where you shut off your CSS and show your true coding. You can see details about CSS Naked Day here.

The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words. It’s time to show off your <body>.

A bloger/designer by the name of J. Angelo Racoma has being promoting this idea of giving web designers credit where it should count: by showing off their handiwork. See some other bloggers who are doing it like lorelle.wordpress.com.

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Tokyo Madness

January 26th, 2008 Thomasso

It was a few weeks ago, OK it was on January 17, 2008 to be precise, as I was listing to a CBC Radio One program called Search Engine that focuses on the Internet and how it has evolved and affects our lives. Well back then they did a story on the Japanese government’s initiatives to crack down and control the Internet within the next few years–this tweaked my interest. Check the web page from Search Engine regarding the story they aired called : Japanese Internet to be gov’t controlled by 2010. So I asked myself this question: “Would the people of Japan advocate such measures by their government?” But the bigger question, “Would we tolerate it if that were to happen here…”

Japan’s government plans to impose comprehensive state regulation of the Internet by the end of the decade (link). There are three initiatives: one covers file sharing, one covers mobile web access (a huge phenomenon in Japan) and finally, one covers websites- classifying them under the same guidelines as television and radio, and making little distinction for peer-to-peer communication.

My biggest concern is what this would mean if the Canadian government were to lay down such rules and controls, for example my Blog, my “soup-box” to the world, would it be looked at as a publication that would need to be thoroughly checked by “Big Brother” and then I would need to qualify my content under the CRTC guide-lines? This is scary–censorship. I see the Internet as the true bastion of freedom of the world, where geopolitical borders are none-existent and freedom to see and hear exceeds all control from any one authority–although I am sadly mistaken because today it is not 100 percent free. But you get the point, right?

Anyway, I found a cool Blog while looking at the CBC’s Search Engine web page on this episode. Tokyo Mango is the name of the woman who they had interviewed, and I believe she lives in down in California, and is Japanese herself? She keeps an eye on what is going over their in Japan–in a Western point of view–that you can read on her weBlog. She comments on the how much the Japanese people use the Internet, and how much of their lives are spent on things such as text-messaging and other various web content. There, it seems, they go way beyond some of the trends that we in the West have evolved into while on-line. Totally different culture on-line in Japan.

If you want to listen to the Search Engine Pod-cast, click here, to down load it. It’s 12.8 MB, 28 minutes long. It is actually a really informative show.

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