Posts filed under 'Technology'
I’ve been planning on getting an iMac for some time. Even before the latest models, which have a cooler sleeker design as well as a nice glass finish to the screen, I’d thought that an iMac would be a nice alternative to the PC sitting under my desk. Instead of a big clunky case with tangled cables crowding the floor around my feet, I’ll have my entire computer sitting up on my desk. In addition, I’ll be working with OS X instead of Windows. (That is another story entirely. I’d write about all the reasons Windows Vista is horrible and all the reasons why OS X is a far superior operating system, but it’s been written about many thousands of times already on the Internet and you just need to search a little on Google to find a very comprehensive number of resources on the subject.)
My plan originally, was to wait until we got a tax refund early next year and spring for the latest model iMac at that time. This last month however, another option was made available. Gayla’s parents have some very tall trees in their back yard. These trees rain branches and leaves all over their house and yard. In addition, the back yard is about to be overrun with roots, which has caused the cement to buckle in a few places and made for a very rough lawn. They decided the trees needed to go. They learned, after receiving a few bids for the work, that the process of removing the trees was not going to be cheap.
Back before I was married, I worked for the Forest Service for a couple summers thinning trees. Having a little experience with chain saws, and thinking that I’d like to own a chain saw anyway (you never know when one of those might come in handy), I said I’d take care of his trees for him if he’d go ahead and purchase the saw for me. After they considered that option for a while, they decided it was a pretty good deal. I had mentioned to Gayla’s dad, just the day before, that I was planning on getting an iMac for our next computer. He called back and said that have me cut down the trees would save enough money on the deal, that he’d like to purchase me an iMac as well as the saw. I got a little more excited to do the job at this point!
We borrowed a rappelling harness and I got some rope to hold me up in the trees. Then I used another rope to pull the chainsaw up. After cutting down the top branches, I worked my way back down the trees and cut sections off until the whole tree was cut down. It would have been a lot easier if there wasn’t houses and fences to worry about. In that case, I could have just cut all the trees down and been done with it.
I would have been a little more nervous of being that high up in the trees if I wasn’t buckled to them so I couldn’t fall off!
Getting closer on this one.
The yard is getting a little more cluttered.
Not a lot of room between the trees and the house. This is part of the reason the trees needed to go.
A few of the stumps.
Looks like I’ll be getting that iMac a little sooner!
November 11th, 2007
I’ve struggled for a while with the content on Muhlesteins.com. I’ve wanted a place to talk about family stuff, post pictures, and tell stories. I also need a place to discuss technology though and that hasn’t seemed to fit very will on this blog. I’ve created a new site at allmybrain.com to take care of the latter need. It’s already working out great!
October 3rd, 2007
There are lots of little tweaks to make this version of FireShare better. I’m hoping that the changes help users discover a lot MORE interesting URLs.
Download the plugin from FireShare.net.
Leave me feedback at the FireShare Sandbox.
Here is the changes in 0.2.5:
* Wait longer before running Apriori so it doesn’t run after every single peer visit.
* Don’t run apriori in response to incoming peer visits if the url has already been locally visited.
* Change protocol to immediately respond to X-FireShare-PeerRequest with active peers instead of waiting and posting back.
* Enhance protocol to send back additional visited URLs in response to an incomming url that client has visited.
* 1strun page is shown until a successful connection test is performed. Also change pref name so older clients also see the new page on upgrade.
* Fix running local visit code after getting PEERs from CS can post a URL twice to a peer.
June 8th, 2007
Ok, I’ve spent a long few mornings working on the next revision of FireShare. This update should help coordinate more active peers. I’m noticing I get plenty of peers, but not a lot of peers seem to have their network set up correctly. You need to make sure you run the connection test on the preferences dialog.
Here are the main things I changed for 0.2.4:
* Don’t run apriori on local visit peers from CS (no results because
it’s a local visit)
* Fix on preferences dialog for disappearing text during connection tests.
* Posting to peer sends header that tells peer if client needs more active peers. Clients send active peers for url back to requesting client when appropriate.
* Client sends URLs that are still active to new peers.
* Enhance URL normalizer to strip named anchors.
* Enhancements to marking/unmarking peers as active/error state.
* Enhance tracking of which urls are sent to peers based on peer error state.
* New 1st Run page.
* Put suggestion to test and set preferences on a 1st run/welcome page.
* Test Data to format the peer addresses/urls correctly.
I noticed that if you downloaded the plugin from the Mozilla.org sandbox for plugins, you might not get the version update. I don’t know why this is. In the meantime, I recommend downloading the pluging straight from FireShare.net. I still need reviews and comments on the sandbox plugin site to help the plugin become public however. If you can help, you need to:
- Create an account at addons.mozilla.org.
- Modify your account preferences after you log in to show the sandbox.
- Go to the FireShare plugin to leave feedback and ratings.
Feel free to contact me if you have problems or comments.
Thanks all for your help in testing!
June 7th, 2007
I’ve registered FireShare.net and will begin marketing my plugin on it’s own domain name. If you haven’t installed this, I still need lots of new people to download and use it.
June 4th, 2007
Someone created a HUGE mosaic of the oft forgotten fish creature from Mario games.
read more | digg story
October 6th, 2006
As someone who writes code in quite a few languages, I really enjoyed this article.
read more | digg story
October 4th, 2006
Programming Quotes I thought were quite interesting and relevent to my profession.
read more | digg story
September 5th, 2006
OK, Scott Fletcher has got to be one of the most creative users we’ve enticed with our http://mydrawings.com project. Not only has he entertained us with us bar napkin designs for a while now, but he’s launched a site dedicated just to his drawings on mydrawings.com!
Check out http://barnapkinwarfaredesigns.com if you get a second.
You can see all Scott’s MyDrawings.com Drawings here.
August 22nd, 2006
Many forums allow you to choose an avatar as part of your profile. Most have a set of pre-done avatars you can choose from. There are a lot of forums that let you upload or provide the url of an existing avatar though. This lets you get a little more custom with your profile. Perhaps you can upload something that is unique to you. Here is one I use. Scott from ExtraLife drew a little bit of a caricature of me and so I use it as my avatar from time to time:
Well, here is a way you can draw your own avatar and have it hosted somewhere for free.
Step 1:
Create a free account at http://mydrawings.com
Step 2:
Draw and save your image. (You can use the link to start a new image anywhere).
Step 3:
When viewing the image, there is a text box on the right side of the page that contains the URL of a thumbnail sized version of your image. You can paste this into the preferences for your avatar on quite a few different forums.
Here is an example from MyDrawings.com:
Here is the link to the original.
August 17th, 2006
Previous Posts