June 2004

Image Surfing

In case folks are running out of time to do nothing here's an interesting way of taking a sort of global cross section of photography. Try doing a Google image search for something likeDSC_4321. It provides a cross section of many different types of photography and areas of interest. If there is nothing of interest then change the number and look again.

Office 2004

Business Week has an article pointing out that Office Mac 2004 may require network admins to take a fresh look at Apple. I think they are right but for a different reason. Certainly the ability to do shared calendaring is a key new feature of Entourage and its integration with Exchange is a welcome addition. However it is the enhanced outlining and notebook functionality of Word that has me excited. After a quick look it looks like it might be the outliner that takes me away from NoteTaker 2003 simply for its integration with other Word documents.

Navigation menus in Drupal

Chris Nelson wrote to share frustration about getting good looking menus in Drupal. He likes the current menu on the right (as do I). He asked me to share the code which I would be happy to do, but it is not mine. The global navigation menu at this point is a product of Drupal 4.4.1 with the Chameleon theme it ships with. There are a few additions like the Taxonomy menu but that just adds to the menu, and doesn't change its format. I spent quite a bit of time in 4.3.x trying to get it right and never quite did.

A loss in bloggerland

I recently started reading a blog by an acquaintance. (I'm intentionally not saying how I know this person). The blog is insightful, succinct and a very enjoyable read. When the author found out an acquaintance was reading it made some of the personal revelations therein uncomfortable and they took down the blog. Too bad. I hope it will come back soon...

Amicus Attorney Restart

When Amicus Attorney appears to launch and go through all the motions but do nothing here is the solution. Run Amicius administrator which will do a database check at the beginning and then you can quit it and run Amcius Attorney.

Hooking up LDAP

MacDevCenter ran an article last week on setting up LDAP on OS X Server. The article points to a key problem I've had consistently. When looking at the admin interface the server constantly says KDC is not running. This looks to be a reverse domain name mapping problem with making sure that there is agreement between the forward and reverse domains.

Is hoarding hazardous?

We all know people (maybe even recognize it in ourselves) who tend to keep too much stuff around. Yesterday's New York Times has a piece about how the brain activity of people who hoard things. In addition it talks about some ties between hoarding and depression and how drugs have been less effective than with other related disorders. How Household Junk Can Grow Into Mountains -

Real Estate Guide

As we're settling into the place I thought I'd share my recently expanded view of real estate terminology. For those who have not yet joined the ranks of rural property owners here is a guide to terms you might encounter:

Automatic Waterers - a device that at one time is purported to have provided water to animals. The main control valve may function but don't count on it. At least you'll have a collection of semi-usable parts to start your own system.

35 minutes from ________ - fill in the blank and buy a jet. You'll need it to get from wherever they are claiming is 35 minutes away. Unless you plan on being a permanent donut provider for your local coppers you won't make it in 35 minutes. Probably better allot an hour to make it.

On moving

Moving has been keeping us busy. Overall things have gone well. It is never easy to move to a rural area. There are careful considerations of timing and getting the right things in the right place at the right time. I'll post a mover's dictionary for those who are looking at real estate later.

So what has gone well? ABF's u-pack moving is highly recommended. They did everything on time and as expected. We were originally told that we couldn't get a ramp in Sandy Valley. As it turned out they did the delivery and included a ramp as well. Also high on the good side is the help of several wonderful folks including the Spence Family on the packing end and Stacy on the unpacking end. It still amazes me that EVERYTHING was moved in less than a week.

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