April 2006

Google Calendar and trip scheduling

April 14, 2006

A bit ago I posted about using Google Calendar in libraries. Many of the same principles apply to the question of how to have online calendars automatically add our trips when we make online reservations or add links to our receipts from online purchases. Imagine how handy it will be to check out from a hardware store online and click a link that will add a summary to your calendar of your purchases.

Even better will be the day when you can make in-store purchases and have the summary easily added to your calendar. Need to know when you bought that new computer (and when it's warranty expires)? Just click a link in your email receipt and away you go. It also is the answer to the calendar feature to kill for and it is available as soon as the travel sites add it.

Clark County Fair and Rodeo - 2006 Edition

April 11, 2006

We spent the first part of our vacation at the Clark County Fair and Rodeo. Living up to expectations it was a good show. The musical acts are, however, disappointing. A couple of years ago we walked in and heard the Doo-Wah Riders a great country band. After listening for a bit we picked up some autographed CDs and have been listening to them ever since.

The last two years, however, have been disappointing. Each year I enter the fair holding on to hopes of hearing another great band. The results last year and this have been disappointing. On the other hand, the rodeo never fails to impress. The PRCA rodeo features many of the same names that compete each year at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Not only are the cowboys and cowgirls those from the NFR but many of the same stock are in Logandale as well. One has a chance to get a little slice of what the NFR is like with much better parking and a beautiful spring evening.

Always On

April 11, 2006

Tonight I wanted to send an IM to a colleague. It occurs to me that in the past I could have sent a message to someone who is "away" and not thought a lot more about it. In 2006 however, the "away" status really means "set to forward to my cell phone". With this feature IM is now always on. A boon to the ability to reach someone anytime anywhere, but not so great when it comes to leaving a quick one-line compliment on a job well done.

Blink

April 5, 2006

What happens in the blink of an eye? I've just started listening to Maclom Gladwell's book Blink and it is fantastic thus far. In the introduction he presents a study that suggests in setting of making choices the human body begins to exhibit stress reactions after just 10 choices. That's 40 choices sooner than we have a "gut feeling" forming and another 20-30 away from being able to articulate those feelings.

Say it is not so...

April 4, 2006

Having just received a book full of DVD's, each with scanned rolls of film from yesteryear I ran home to open them up in Photoshop. It appears Photoshop CS2 cannot open Nikon's .nef format raw scans. The article above explains that different "NEF" files, Nikon's raw camera format, are well, different. It seems neither Preview nor Photoshop can open the images.

Earthbound Light has a good piece that goes on to explain why one need not use Nikon Raw (NEF) format from scanners to begin with.

Grass Stains for Drupal 4.7

April 4, 2006

I've worked recently on a port of the Grass Stains theme for Drupal 4.7. Though it is not quite perfect it seems to work well for most things and I don't have the time at the moment to track down the last few glitches. If anybody is inclined to pick it up and add anything more please do so. If not it will likely stay as-is for a while.

Those April Fools

April 3, 2006

Having been a bit under the weather lately, I've had some down time. As I started feeling a bit better this weekend and the weather turned warmer, it seemed time to do a little work on the Green Bus Project. It seems the breaks stick and don't release the brake drum like they should. No problem I thought and whipped out the jack to take the wheel off and look at the breaks.

As these things go this does not seem such a major piece of work. The jack provided with the Transporter buses is a nice jack and easy enough to use. So it gets put in the jack point and away you go. Everything goes pretty well but it takes the front wheel off the ground before the rear wheel comes off the ground. It is about this time that the decision to block the front wheel with a small chalk becomes a worse idea than it was a few minutes ago. Being a believer in the principle that things do work out and being close to having the rear wheel off the ground I keep going.

It is not, of course, until the whole of the back wheel does leave the ground that the precarious nature of the situation becomes very apparent. About the same time a breeze comes up and begins pushing ever so slightly on the back of Green Bus Project. With this encouragement the bus decides to slide ever so slightly forward. Though the gradual movement was only a few inches, and no more than six, the jack twists sideways wedging between the socket for the jack point and the ground below.

Most important to all such predicaments is timing. Of course it is at this time the neighbor shows up. Fortunately for the foolish this April the neighbor lends a jack and the problem is soon resolved.

Drupal upgrade

April 2, 2006

With the recent Drupal 4.1 Release Candidate 1 I decided it was time to upgrade this site. I've been happily using the betas on other sites and it seems very close to ready for prime time. The longest part of the upgrade was working through the problems of changing collations in the MySQL database when upgrading from earlier versions of Drupal.

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