Categories
Burningbird

Moved

You can never keep an old bird down…

The mass weblog integration has been made, but not without a lot of problems. Most of the category associations were lost, and since I used categories as part of the permalinks, posts will end up with a new permalink that doesn’t map to the old. The only way to fix this will be to manually edit the posts.

WordPress also sets up the .htaccess file in such a way that if a subdirectory is protected with .htaccess authentication, such as my Adding Ajax review directory, it intercedes and wants to fulfill the request. In the .htaccess file, two conditions check to see if the object being accessed exists as a file or a directory. If it does, the request is passed through; if it doesn’t WordPress assumes it’s one of its pages.

However, an authentication request is neither a file nor a directory, and these ended up triggering WP processing.

I found that several other people had this problem, but I’m using workaround which seems to work well. Once the book review is over, I won’t have a password protected subdirectory and can get rid of it.

The site design: simple. My main interest was reducing the amount of white in the text area, providing a site that could display photos, and I wanted to incorporate Hubble images. The banner has a changing Hubble image, which of course you have to click through to see if you’re reading this in a syndication feed.

Speaking of which, these are all redirected, and should show up in your aggregators.

This is brand new, and I only have so much time with the work on the book. Please be patient while I work through the kinks, but do let me if there’s a problem.

Categories
Burningbird Diversity

End of the week

hadn’t planned on jumping on to this year’s seemingly annual look at the appalling state of women in technology, as painfully demonstrated at tech conferences. It’s a subject I’ve lost a lot of heart in fighting–not because there are fewer women then ever before, but because too few people seem to think this is a problem.

The issue of women in technology will never be effectively solved, or even fought, within weblogs. I think weblogging is actually counterintuitive to true social change. If I continue to work for change, and that’s a big if now, I’ll do so outside of the weblogs.

So why did I respond to Eric? It seemed like the marketable thing to do.

I’ll leave the comments open for a few days on the post, but remember, none of these posts are being migrated to the new weblog; none of the new posts and the new comments. Feel free to copy what you want, but I’ve already made my snapshot. Don’t want to waste your good words, but I definitely don’t want to go through another WordPress weblog merge.

Categories
Burningbird

Cleaning House

I’m wanting to cut my online costs, including moving my account to a smaller one. Another cost saving move is to eliminate most of my domains.

Most don’t have any page rank, but a few do. One I’ve offered to someone, but I have a couple of others that might make good weblogging homes for new webloggers.

One is einsteinslock.com, which would be a good home for a philosophy or science weblog. Another is scriptteaser.com, which would be good for a tech. Both of these currently have a page rank of 7. The last few that have page rank are tinfoilproject.com and wordform.org. The wordform.org one would be nice for a word smith, language enthusiastic. As for tinfoilproject.com–eh, at least it’s unique.

I’m keeping burningbird.net, of course, as well as shelleypowers.com and possibly missourigreen.com.

If you’re a person who has thought about starting a weblog, and you think one of these domains would be a good fit, let me know. Note these would be for personal weblogs, only, though I imagine there’s not much I can do if you take it and then use it as you will. The domains are free, though if there is a transfer cost you’ll need to pay it on your end.

Categories
Just Shelley Legal, Laws, and Regs

Hanging up the keys

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

A few weeks back, an 84 year old woman drove her car through a grade school lunchroom, killing an 8 year old. They haven’t come out with the specifics of what happened, but it was broad daylight, good weather, and the school was a distance off the road.

This led to more discussion about when people should hang up their keys. After this weekend, I’m even more acutely aware of this as an issue.

Yesterday, driving through a parking lot, a women coming in from a side road just pulled out in front of me, without looking, forcing me to slam on my brakes. I was lucky, and I didn’t hit her. Today another young woman wasn’t as lucky.

I had to go to the Radio Shack, at the mall near my house. The mall’s parking lot is typical for the area: a line of shops with a road in front and parking on the other side of the road. The only cross walks were in front of the all-you-can eat buffet and the department store.

I was standing by the side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic to cross, when one person stopped for me to my left, and a woman to my right slowed down to stop. She stopped right in front of a lane leading into the road, in the lane closest to the shops. As I started across, I noticed another woman pulling out in the lane, right at the woman who was stopped. I yelled and waved my arms; the lady who was stopped was pretty limited on what she could do with a pedestrian, me, in the road and a car behind her.

We both watched as this woman just drove into the side of her car. Bright sunshine, 100% visibility, the bloody car is right in front of her. She wasn’t looking to the front, though. Nor did she look to the left, either. She was looking to the right, and didn’t once look anywhere else. In fact, if the car to the left hadn’t stopped for me, it probably would have hit her, or she would have hit it.

I checked to make sure the woman who was hit was OK, and she was fine, suffering only a combination of being rattled and astonished. I then went over to the older woman to see if she was fine, and she said, “Oh, I’ll pay for the damage. Just have her contact me,” and then started to pull away.

I put my hand on her car, and told her, “Ma’am, you can’t go. You have to exchange insurance cards.” As she was blocking the lane, I mentioned she needed to pull over out of the way. Again, she started pulling forward without even looking, this time right at an SUV. I stopped her, and signaled the other horrified driver to go. Didn’t have to signal that driver more than once–she was out of there.

I got the older woman parked finally, and she got out. Sweetest thing you’ve ever seen. The younger woman was, also — more concerned that the other wasn’t hurt. Though this was a parking lot accident, she called the police and though they can’t cite anyone in a parking lot accident, I think she wanted the police to check out the older woman.

Bluntly, this woman did not belong behind the wheels of a car. She was easily confused, extremely malleable, and did not once properly check before making any moves. Not even completely aware of what she needed to do after an accident.

Hanging up the keys. For many, it means losing independence. For this older woman, it probably means not meeting her friends at that all-you-can-eat buffet, a favorite place for the seniors. For others, it means not taking off for the trails, not shopping, having to depend on others, trying to depend on public transportation, which is still quite poor in most communities.

I only just started driving in my 40’s, and I love to drive. I shudder at the thought of the time when I’ll have to give up my wheels. I hope I make that decision before it’s too late.

My Dad gave up driving at about 75, because he had arthritis in his back and neck, and it was too hard for him to look around for cars when he wanted to change lanes. It was tough for him to quite, because he was then dependent on family or whatever public transportation existed. Luckily, in Seattle, and then later in Bloomington, he did have access to public transportation.

One of the reasons he made this decision is because, long ago when he was a Washington state Patrolman, he was racing about 70 MPH to an accident scene, lights and sirens on, when a elderly man pulled right out in front of him. The man and his wife were killed, and Dad was in the hospital for three months.

Statistically, the most dangerous drivers are under 24, but the people who get involved in more accidents in ratio to how much they drive, are over 70. The AARP recognizes this and provides special driving classes for folks over 65.

In our state, once you hit 70, you have to get your license renewed every three years, rather than six. In Illinois, there are more restrictions, including driving tests every two years after you hit 80.

When is the time to quit? There are people capable of driving into their 90’s, but others suffering vision or other problems who should quit in their 50’s, or sooner. We’d like to leave this up to the individual, but as this woman today demonstrated, as the woman who killed the child, or the man who drove out in front of my father, people don’t always make the right decisions.

The day when I have to hang up my keys is far off, I hope. May I have enough wisdom to know when it’s time. I can’t help thinking, though, that the day I can’t drive anymore will be the beginning of the end for me.

Categories
Books Writing

Finished the Draft

I finished the book draft today. I don’t remember ever being so tired when I’ve finished a book, previously. Perhaps it’s the cumulative effects of all the words written, code samples created, proofs read, edits made, reviews read with trepidation.

Next week I need to review the errata for the Learning JavaScript book, so those making the language translations can start with clean copy. Then on to the Adding Ajax editing. By the first of March, I’ll be ready for a break. During that time, I might see what I can do incorporate some of the stuff I wrote about into my own sites.

Books, that now makes lots of books:

Powerbuilder 5.0 How-To, July 1996

Special Edition Using PERL 5 for Web Development, October 1996

JavaScript 1.0 How-To, December 1996

Dynamic Web Publishing, December 1997

A couple of chapters for a book on Perl that I can’t remember the name of the book’s title.

Java 1.1 Unleashed, 1997

Maximum Java 1.1, 1997

The Power Guide to Dynamic HTML, January 1998

Developing ASP Components, 1999

Developing ASP Components, 2nd Edition 2001

Essential Blogging, 2002

Unix Power Tools, November, 2002

Practical RDF, 2003

Learning JavaScript 2006

and now…

Adding Ajax, with estimated publication in June, 2007