Year: 2002

Categories
Burningbird

Change is good

If change is good, then I’m heading into truly grand times.

Effective now, the domains yasd.com, dynamicearth.com, p2psmoke.org, and burningbird.net (and several others) have been merged into the primary domain of burningbird.net. I’ll be using Movable Type to manage the content for all, but instead of creating a ‘weblog’ for each domain, I’m creating one for each sub-directory: Articles, Distributed Bits, Interactive, Tutorials, Expressions, OpEds, and so on. Then I’ll use categories to mark each item as “YASD”, “Dynamic Earth”, “P2P Smoke”, and use the MT category tag to load related logos and style sheets.

A small application will then poll new items from each sub-directory’s RSS file, as well as this weblog, and roll them into one main Burningbird RSS file — burningbird.rdf. That’s the file I’ll ask people to subscribe to. A little PHP application embedded into the burningbird.net main page will display the contents of this file.

All the older tutorials, articles, etc. will be converted into the Movable Type content management system, and I’ll use my PostCon post-content management system to re-direct the pages to the new locations. Since I don’t have Tomcat/JSP with this move, I’ll be using the PHP-based PostCon system.

Old weblog postings archives will remain, but I’ll be removing the comment form from the pages because when I remove any entry, the comments will be effectively orphaned.

Another major change I’ll be making is moving the technology-related weblog postings into appropriate locations within the entire system (such as Distributed Bits or Tutorials). Since all the Burningbird weblogs use the same numbering system, this is as easy as modifying the blog identifiers in a couple of tables. I’ll also be moving all political postings to the OpEd sub-directory.

During all of this, I’m going to be using Movable Type and RSS, but I’m not going to be writing about either (except a post-mortem document after all the changes are implemented, complete with links to source code). I need to re-focus my technology energies back into applications that I can demonstrate to potential employers, such as my PostCon system.

I found out the hard way in the last few weeks that many employers have never heard of weblogging, and could care less about weblogging. Talking about technology in relation to weblogging won’t get me a job.

As for the weblog, I’m going to be focusing on my mix of writing combined with photography, as was demonstrated in Wrapped in the Warmth of Glory or Parable of the Languages. Marc’s Voice, who linked to the Wrapped posting calls this type of writing, Multimedia Conversations. This is type of writing I love, and this is the type of writing I want to do in this weblog.

As for writings about the neighborhood — one whole new sub-directory is called Neighborhood, and is specifically for metablogging and my virtual neighborhood.

Watch me now as I light a match to this weblog.

Categories
Burningbird

Dueling nameservers

The nameserver change has finally propagated throughout the universe of the Internet and you should all have access to this page on the new server. Additionally, you should be seeing HTML pages rather than PHP pages for the individual entries and category archive pages.

In the next few weeks, Burningbird, and all my other web sites will be going through a mergence as well as a re-birth. I’ll be using this opportunity to introduce Movable Type as a content management system for all of my web sites, and do some drastic clean up and re-organization (not to mention seeing what I can do to make sure my pages are accessible and utilize CSS as much as possible). Fun, but a lot of work.

In the meantime, the old PHP archive pages are found in the archives sub-directory so that any links won’t break; but the new archived entries will be in the fires sub-directory.

The folks at Hosting Matters have been nothing less than phenomenal with this move. It’s not easy moving from your own server to a shared environment where you don’t have root access, and I had a lot of questions and concerns. However, the HM support people have been more than patient with me. I have also become quite attached to the Control Panel that Hosting Matters uses — it really is extraordinary.

One problem we ran into is that my old hosting company and the new weren’t exactly in synch with nameserver entries and my old host literally hijacked my domain name back to the old server this morning. I talked to them today to make sure this wouldn’t happen again and Annette from HM also reloaded the nameserver zone files to make sure that the nameserver changes are propagated correctly, once again. At this time several of my domains point to the new server, and several still to the old — including Chris’ domain and weblog, EmptyBottle. However, the doman names should resolve to the correct IP by tomorrow — knock on wood.

As we were fighting the nameserver problem this morning, it reminded me of one of my all time favorite songs, which I thought I would share (2.1M MP3, or 270k Real Audio file).

Come to think of it — this song is a perfect theme song to go with Mike Golby’s skateboarding adventures.

Categories
Photography

Wrapped in the warmth of glory

I like walking at twilight. One can think without being interrupted by joggers running past, plastic workout pants rustling as they rush by; or couples out for a nature walk, talking about anything but nature, looking anywhere except at a tree. Only the serious come out to the forest at twilight.

muted fall and walls

During one walk last week, deer appeared here and there all along the trail, starting with the two buck wondering in the bushes close to the trail as soon as I crossed the bridge entering the preserve; ending with several deer around a watering hole near the end — mere mists of gray against a night darkened forest.

deer peeking around cornerAt one point I was walking down a steep hill and a doe, startled by my sudden appearance, burst out of a bush right next to the road and started to run. For some reason, I called out to her. And for some unknown reason, she stopped, turned around and looked at me. We stood there a moment looking at each other until she slowly turned away and re-entered the forest.

I did meet a few people during this particular walk. One woman and I both paused at the same time in front of of a hillside, several deer dotting its slopes. We looked at each other and smiled — what more needs be said? At another bend in the trail, when I was watching yet another deer, a guy walked past and said quietly, “Pretty, aren’t they?” I answered, “Yuh.”

Witty repartee in the woods.

fall6.jpg

I went back to the trail today to check out the fall foliage. The woods were beginning to get colorful last week, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw today. As I drove up old Highway 66 heading to the preserve, I almost wrecked the car when I drove over a hill and the forest unfolded in front of me all at once. Brilliant, brilliant color, everywhere. Scarlet, gold, orange, green, browns, and every nuance of shade in-between.

When I entered the forest, it was like being wrapped in the warmth of glory.

Surrounded by such vivid colors one almost doesn’t feel the chill of the Fall air, but today’s walk was cold, so much colder than last week. Because I was there earlier in the day, not many creatures were about; a few squirrels and birds, but no deer. Nature gives its treats out sparingly: deer or fall colors.

During the walk, I would stop under the large trees when the wind blew, and let the leaves fall down around me as one would drop a curtain around a canary’s cage to stop its song. I stood with upturned face as they fell, faint whispers of sound moving past.

tree by river

Caution was required when walking today as the wet leaves on the paved surface of the trail made it very slippery in spots. I visualized myself falling, breaking something, unable to get out, calling weakly for help.

Well, no, this wouldn’t happen. I don’t break when I fall, I bruise a bit and bounce a bit, usually equal parts of both. And someone in plastic workout clothes would have come along directly; we could only hope they wouldn’t vault over me leaving me crying piteously in their wake.

However, the faux risk did give me the illusion of being “in the wild”.

Leaves by Monet

Today at the watering hole I found a dismal dark muddy green pool of water. How different it appeared from last week, when viewed in shades of night time gray, circled by deer with white around their eyes and flicked on their tails.

A curious thing happened during that twilight walk — I saw one of the deer scratch its neck with its back foot. I know this is a normal thing to do, all creatures scratch themselves. But in all the times I’ve seen deer, I’ve never been near enough to one in such a way that it was comfortable enough to do ordinary things, and I could see them.

fall7b.jpg

If I were a marketer I would say, “Yes ladies and gentlemen. You, too, can have peaceful moments, and be rained on by golden leaves, and look into the gentle brown eyes of a deer only feet away just for the low cost of…?” All this talk of money, and making money, when there’s so much around us and the only price we have to pay is a little of our time.

fall

Next week when I go back the leaves will be mostly gone, and the sun will finally have its way with the ground. The deer will move deeper into the woods to forage. Too soon, the forest and the bushes and the pond will lie under a blanket of white, and all will sleep.

fall10b.jpg

The deer says goodnight

Categories
Burningbird

Wired

Good and bad bits. First the good:

I received my early Christmas present and am now the proud owner of a Netgear wireless router. Both Linksys and Netgear had good ratings and recommendations, but I found that Netgear was rated a tad better for installation ease.

Easy! I was finished networking three laptops to a wireless router in twenty minutes. And it works beautifully. I’ll have to check out the range outside tomorrow, look up the warchalk symbols and chalk up my neighborhood. Thanks to you who provided good suggestions and recommendations.

I also found a new host. After looking around I decided to go with Hosting Matters. They’re highly rated and provide good value for the money. In particular, the bandwidth was better than most providers. The other recommendations were good, but Hosting Matters met our needs the best. Thanks to all those folks kind enough to make suggestions.

For moving the webogs, instead of trying to use Movable Type’s import/export procedure, I’m using MySql’s mysqldump utility to dump the database. I tested this out moving the weblog from my FreeBSD server to my laptop and had no problems. I’m still following Jonathon’s “born again blog” approach, but I’ll hold on the re-birth process until after I move to the new server.

Now the bad news: I didn’t get a job I was hoping to get. I gather that the group was concerned about my having been unemployed for almost a year — working on three books just doesn’t cut it here in Missouri. Neither does weblogging experience, and screwing with RSS and RDF, or my other tinkerings. A bit frustrating because I didn’t choose to be unemployed — it just kind of happened.

I’m still up for another gig, but not sure if the down time is going to be a concern for them, too. I hope not. Sincerely hope not.

This has me tense, stressed, very worried, and I’m sorry to say, a whole lot crankier than my usual firey self. And more than a little depressed. So, time to take a few days, work on the server move, the book, and generally have some quiet time.

However, I will leave you some pretty pictures to look at, once I get them packaged.

Next week then.

Categories
Critters

Big dog blues

I called my mother yesterday to wish her happy birthday. She told me that last Friday when she was out walking her two poodles, Amy and Crissy, a big dog ran through an open gate and attacked Amy. It got her by the throat and tried to shake her to death. Mom said it took the owner and another person walking by to open the dog’s mouth enough to free Amy. Amazingly enough, after stiches, Amy’s going to be fine.

Today when I went for my walk in Powder Valley to enjoy the fall color (photos a bit later), a couple and two large dogs entered the trail. One of the dogs saw me and started growling. Since it wasn’t leashed, and was closer to me then its owner, I was beginning to wonder if this would a case of Amy redux, but the dog didn’t attack.

Powder Valley isn’t a park. It’s a nature preserve and study center. Last week during a twilight walk of the trail I was able to meet up with deer not once but many times, in some cases only 7 or 8 feet away. One reason I can have this experience is that dogs are not allowed — dogs bark, they chase things, and, occasionally, they kill things.

I told the couple that dogs weren’t allowed, and they ignored me. However, after my insistent third repitition, the woman finally looked at me said they wouldn’t let the dogs hurt anything, and kept walking.

Uh huh. Right.

I hoofed it up to the center, found one of the employees and told them two big dogs were running unleashed along the trails. Last I saw, she was heading for the trails. Very unhappy.

I love dogs, I really do. You’ve read in this weblog about my walks among the dog people in San Francisco, and I considered the experience a high treat. However, the beach there was an open and unleashed dog area. In addition, the dogs there were very sociable — they didn’t go up to strangers and growl at them.

However, in Missouri I’ve twice encountered big dogs running unleashed that have come up to me and growled. And I really don’t care if the owners yell out, “It’s okay, they won’t hurt you.” A growling dog is a dangerous dog.

The dogs are just being dogs. But there’s no excuse for the people. Dogs should be kept on a leash except in areas where dogs are allowed loose or in your own yard.

I know that many folks don’t like poodles, and I’m normally not a poodle person. But my Mom is rather attached to that little ball of fluff. And what if Amy had been a little two year old kid? A dog that will attack another dog can as easily attack other creatures, including humans. They need to be controlled.

And since this is a weblog, might as well mention cats. We have what is called a “bird friendly” cat. This means Zoe stays inside. We make sure she gets plenty of playing time, but we won’t let her outside. I learned the lesson about keeping my cats inside when we came home one day and I found my beloved Twirp by the side of the road, dead.