white noise

The blog was quiet all through February because I just finished a big change to what makes the site tick. Google recently announced that they’d stop supporting blogs like mine this month (edit – now extended till May), so it was time to move to new digs (sort of). I started using Blogger, one of the first (and free!) blogging platforms, around seven years ago, long before it was bought out by Google. One thing that drew me to blogger was their FTP option, in which you use their site for authoring, but then everything gets pushed to your own server. I prefer the full control that hosting all the files on my own server assures me. Blogger’s free hosting is awesome for those that need it, but since I already have a server I prefer dealing with stats, ads, backups, etc. the way I want.

Google was good to leave us FTP bloggers alone when they bought Blogger, but they are finally moving on and soon will be requiring all content to reside on Googles servers. They say FTP bloggers only comprise 0.5% of their user base (which seems REALLY low) and it’s holding them back from introducing new features. Fair enough, it’s been a good (and let’s not forget, free) run.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve picked up and moved to WordPress. Like Google/Blogger, WP offers a hosted solution, but instead of the FTP option you actually load the open source wordpress application on your site. Setting up the php engine was pretty  simple, but it took some time to touch up all the posts I exported from Blogger and make a WP template to match the design I was using. But I’m liking it. With WP you really have control of everything under the sheets,  and because it’s open source (and very popular) there are tons on plugins and published techniques for tweaking away.

Of course, one big plus about Blogger is Google’s seemingly infinite (and again, free) bandwidth, so I’ll continue to host DuctTapeServer content there. As I’ve seen in the past, one good flood from Engadget can render my server useless for a day (and taking down client sites with it).

Dave and Christian tied the knot last weekend and we’re thrilled for them. The weather was great (the wedding was outdoors). They had a very diverse set of readings – selections from Buddha, the Bible, the Bahá’í Faith, and even The Velveteen Rabbit. A string quartet played at the ceremony, and they accompanied Christian’s long time friend, Ray, as he sang “The Book of Love” by the Magnetic Fields. I think I’ll remember that for a very long time.

The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love

They exchanged vows, or rather sentiments, they had each written. Eyes everywhere fought to stay dry as Christian had to collect herself in the middle while Dave offered his handkerchief. Then they placed sealed love letters each had written for the other, and a bottle of wine, in a wooden box and nailed it shut. The box is something they can open in a dark time, to remind themselves of the magic they felt when their marriage began. Personally, I think that ink will fade and the wine will sour long, long before Dave and Christian lose their spark.

We’ve known David over twenty years and Saturday he looked as happy and content as we’ve ever seen him.

We went on a crazy paperwork clean-out spree over the past week. Among the old finds: an old apartment lease from back when I was in college and paperwork for cars we don’t own anymore. Yes, this was long overdue. In the process, D killed one shredder and very quickly broke in a new one.

We spent a crazy amount of time getting the deck and yard in shape this weekend. Pruning the trees and bushes always starts out enjoyable – especially when I get to play Mr Miyagi on the Japanese Maples. But after 15 hours over two days, the fun is long gone.

Why hello, sunshine, green grass, and blooming trees. We’ve missed you.

Yes, hello, to you too, mower. Back so soon?

Over the years, like most everyone, we have had a few horrible fiascoes with various large corporate machines. It’s not that we expect every company to get it right every time, but at least they have to step up to the plate when they don’t. Restaurants have often been a culprit, but at least we’ve had our share of free meals (and even booze on occasion) to make up it. There’s a reason I’m sad to see Circuit City fade off the consumer map – a fallout with Best Buy over a dozen years ago sealed their boycotted fate for us forever. Then sometimes, and man I mean increasingly rarely, you see a company really handle things right.

Early in ’08, Dr Pepper had announced a media stunt where they would give everyone in the country a free soda if Guns N’ Roses ever released their much anticipated and perpetually delayed new album. Last November, to everyone’s astonishment (and disappointment) Axl actually delivered the Duke Nukem Forever of the music world, Chinese Democracy. Dr Pepper vowed to honor their deal and setup an online coupon distribution system. This is when I really became interested. At work we commonly plan different promotions, and with online registrations and redemptions properly gauging bandwidth is always important. We deal with tiny numbers compared to this, but it’s still web app deployment 101. Things went south for the Dr. when they decided to limit the claim period for the coupon to a single day. So, not only have they invited some 200-300 million people to hit their site for something free, but to do it all on the same day. As expected, their site was quickly overwhelmed and their server crashed. Here, you can see how their site traffic instantly went ballistic:

I was one of the throngs of people who were unable to get through to cash in. So, I sent an email to their customer support and surprisingly soon got a reply stating that I’d still get into the promotion if I send my info through email. Well, it took quite a while, but today I finally got a coupon in the mail.

Yeah, it was kind of a insanely long road to a free bottle of soda, but I was more curious whether the company would make good on their claim and save their failed redemption plan. In this case, the big company came through…it just took a little Patience. (you all may begin whistling now)

If you need a judge of any kind, apparently I’m your guy. Back in December I judged robots for 4th to 8th graders in the Cincinnati FIRST Lego League. A couple weeks ago I judged science fair projects at a local junior high school. And last week, I spent a long 12 hours judging robots for 7th to 12th graders at the Ohio FIRST Tech Challenge. But that’s not all! In March I will again be running a robotics event at the Cincinnati Science Olympiad. I guess ever since the high school robotics team which I mentored disbanded I’ve needed something to scratch that altruistic itch.

In other news, I seem to have a huge stack of volunteer t-shirts in the closet.

We just couldn’t make it through the winter without a good storm I suppose, so we were dealt a good one. Two to 3 inches of snow, followed by a solid inch of ice, followed by several more inches of snow. It really shut things down for a couple days. Too bad there’s no such things as ‘snow days’ in my line of work. As long as I have power and internet there’s no excuse for me not putting in full days. Still, working from the couch is pretty nice!