A change in government?

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Kirk M

While perusing the news today I happened upon and editorial in the Washington Post written by John McCain praising President Obama for his speech in Tuscon, AR. John McCain? Praising Obama?

Well, why not? John McCain, before his slight fall from grace shall we say (by bringing Sarah Palin into the limelight and letting her loose) was always known to be a level headed guy even if he was a Republican and this editorial of his mentioned above just shows that he’s back on track giving credit where credit is due and not just spouting off party rhetoric. But what will his Grand Ol’ Party think?

Obviously the gentleman doesn’t care and that’s a good thing indeed. Who knows? Maybe he’ll set some sort of an example to those who definitely need examples set for them. One can always hope and the lord knows we could use some level heads in Washington for once.

Fat Fingered FTP Fracas

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Kirk M

So here I was minding to business at hand thinking everything was right with the world when, as I was about to head to the shower, my email program beeped letting me know a message had just arrived. What the heck, I thought, I might as well read it before wetting myself down since attempting to read my email in the shower tends to short out the laptop. It was a quick message from a friend of mine asking how I was and that my site (this site) was, in fact, down.

What?

So I sat down in my office type chair, opened up Firefox, checked the site and sure enough it was–down that is. Not only was it down but attempting to bring it up in the browser resulted in a blank screen with 2 PHP type errors printed in large, bold type. Oh crap, what now? Well, since I couldn’t log into the site at all I decided to do something I don’t often do when this type of situation occurs–I decided to think. I simply didn’t have the energy to rant and rave first you see.

So, once I had thought good and hard (and once the smell of overheated oil and scorched scalp cleared the room) I realized that the last thing I did to the site was to muck about with a couple of plugins and files via FTP so therefor that’s where the trouble should lie, yes?

Um, yes.

It seems that while I was mucking about my hand must have shook or something and I ended up accidentally shoving my “wp-includes” directory into my “wp-contents” directory thereby rendering my site OOC (Out Of Commission). This was on Monday and yesterday, which would be Tuesday you know as Tuesday generally follows Monday, my wife and I were on our bi-monthly trip “down country” to deliver her hammock chair seats she weaves and to generally restock various household sundries you can’t get up here in the boonies.

So to make a long story short, I went back into the site via the FTP side of things, found the poor lost “wp-includes” directory and stuck it back where it belonged, after making all sorts of apologetic noises at it of course, in hopes it wouldn’t hold this little misadventure against me next time I upgrade something. You know how vindictive these things can be.

Now all is back to normal, I’ve had my shower, dried my hair, wrote this little post and will now make ready to do battle with the latest snow storm that is currently filling my driveway with all sorts of white stuff. And I will shovel away the snow knowing that all is, once again, well.

Linux sans Windows

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Kirk M

Some of you might have notice from several previous posts that I made the switch to Linux based operating system (Linux Mint) after a bit of distro-hopping) around two years ago and I’ve been happy with the decision ever since. This comes from a guy who spent nearly 30 years using, building and testing Microsoft operating systems (starting with the earliest versions of DOS) along with using/testing MS applications. The last MS operating system I tested was the pre-release of Windows 7 and it was right after testing was complete that I switched to Linux. A decision that I still don’t quite understand to this day. Why did I make the switch?

The reason this past decision of mine still puzzles me is that I really didn’t have a reason to switch at all. Windows 7 had proven out to be a fine operating system. It even ran well on an 7 year old PC of mine on which I did the testing. This old rig was an ancient HP that once ran XP PRO, with a single core processor and all of 1 GB of memory and Windows 7 (32 bit) took to it like that proverbial duck took to water. Ran better than XP did in many ways. So why did I switch? It still remains a mystery to this day–but I ain’t complaining about it.

Now I have this new, up to date computer that has more hardware type resources than I will ever need and it came with Windows 7 (64 bit) and it runs just fine but the day it arrived and I had everything set up the next thing I did was to install my beloved Linux Mint OS and restore all my backed up data from my old machine. Since then, as with my old machine, I boot into Windows only to keep it and the anti-virus (and the 3rd party firewall for that matter) fully updated. And after doing this for yet another time today I made another decision. I’m giving Windows the old heave-ho for good.

For some reason or other I’ve been holding on to Windows, a reason I haven’t been able to figure out yet. Maybe as some sort of anchor perhaps? A link to the past? I just don’t know. And it would be nice to be able to install one or two additional Linux distros that I’ve been interested in which I can’t do presently since Gateway decided to use up 3 partitions just to install Windows. An OS that I haven’t actually used for nearly two years now except to go into to keep it updated.

So it’s time to finally bid Windows a fond farewell and thanks for all the (sometimes not so wonderful) memories. Not to worry though, eventually, once I decide to buy myself an actual Windows 7 DVD, I may allow you back in via the virtual machine but until then–hasta la vista, baby.

Note: If you folks find me offline for awhile it simply means I had to reload Linux Mint after wiping Windows. You never know about these lousy factory loads. Won’t be more than a day or so though.

Funny, I don’t feel any different.

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Kirk M

I celebrated the New Year much like I did the last few of years or so–with my eyes closed. Okay, so that sounds really boring but I figured it was the safest way. My lady Laurie felt much the same way since she also celebrated the new year with her eyes closed so I wasn’t alone in my way of thinking.

I recall well the times when New Years’ day was spent nursing a wicked hangover which actually didn’t need any nursing at all. It made me absolutely miserable all by itself and it certainly didn’t need any help in doing it. It’s a funny thing but back when I was (much) younger it seemed as if I looked forward to making myself feel lousy the next day, as if was a wonderful thing to do. These days I feel lousy enough upon waking without making any effort to exacerbate the situation any. It’s as if I gradually stopped drinking but kept the hangover and that’s not hardly fair now is it?

So here it is a brand new year and I’m supposed to make some effort at one or more New Year’s type resolutions but like all the years before I’m not going to. I always strive to do the best I can all the time anyway, to take care of myself (by not staying up all night drinking, dancing and having a good time), to be a good neighbor to those who live around me (by building good strong fences) and to just be good to people in general (unless they turn out to be complete jerks then I just shoot ‘em). So you see it’s obvious that I’m a fine person already so why should I make resolutions to improve what doesn’t need improving?

And I’m humble too.

So here’s my wish to all of you for a fine and prosperous new year. May your hangovers be short ones and may you be as fine and un-improvable as I am.

Note: It actually hurt to write that last sentence. I hope you all appreciate my suffering.