Tag Archives: blogging

November 1st, 2011

Two things for today: a photo thing and a numbers thing.

Today is 11/1/11 or if you live over seas it’s 1/11/11. I like fun number things, in 10 days we’ll have another date number thing.

And in a few days my car milage will be 123456! So hopefully I don’t miss it. (I should verify that)

Yes, it is the little things that I enjoy in life! button-26things-125.jpg

The photo thing is a 26 Things project / collection. Slightly different than usual, it’s really 13 things but two photographs of the same topic. For example, one of the topics is “patters” so you could do two different patterns, you could do two opposite patterns, you could do two different perspectives of the same pattern (or just take a dozen different pattern pictures and post your two favorite ones). I like this twist, I’ve started a few times and never finished, but I think I will with this one. And I’ll probably post throughout the month as I get each pair completed (I think?). Plus, it’s less items to remember! Then you post your completed set on-line somewhere (flickr, blog, etc) and link to it from the project site.

GarySaid WordPress Migration is mostly done (?)

If you’re seeing this, you’re at the new site. Please leave me a comment so I can see that it’s working!. As the banner, you should be seeing the Detroit skyline at sunset from Belle Isle (not Costa Rica during the day).

There’s probably some broken stuff: the sidebar, some images, who knows what else. It’s hard for me to check it until it’s actually done migrating, I’ve done the minimal basics to see once it kicks over, that it should be functioning on a basic level (main page, RSS and Atom feeds and commenting should be okay) and when I imply that the sidebar might be broken, I actually know that it’s broken; I’d be a little more OCD about it, but I’ve barely blogged in the last month so it’ll be okay until tomorrow…

When I’m done completely I’ll let you know (once the name propagates, I’ll be making adjustments that will break things along the way).

From a geeky standpoint: If telnet, tar or ssh are too geeky of terms, then DO NO read on…

I’m migrating from 1and1.com to Site5.com in this process, exporting and importing the basic way in WordPress looked to be to slow and I’d lose some settings. So I used SSH to connect to 1and1 (basically got a DOS prompt or a telnet session) told it to tar up my files and compress them (basically zipping them up) and then I used FTP to push the file from 1and1 to site5, which was very fast since they are both on fast connections (I didn’t download then upload, I just pushed from one to another).

Then I used the phpMyAdmin mySQL web interface at 1and1 to download the database with my 2000+ blog posts (and comments and settings) to my computer. Then I created a new database at Site5 and then used the phpMyAdmin mySQL at Site5 to import the same data. I should have done all this from the command line too and avoided downloading and uploading, but I’ll confess I downloaded it about 5 different ways with different programs just in case I had any problems.

I used a fake domain name to test out the site and overall, it looks like it will work.

Then I went to 1and1 and said “let Site5 control where the site GarySaid.com is at”. Then I went and told Site5, “you’re in charge of GarySaid.com”. And at some point in the next 2-24 hours people will start getting directed to the new location.

GarySaid site migration starts today

I mentioned the other day I’d be migrating my site soon. I’m moving from 1and1.com to Site5.com. I’m some ways I think 1and1 is a little more manageable, but I think Site5 might be a little faster. But GarySaid.com is my biggest site and has more widgets and things so that’ll really be the deciding factor. Then I plan to blog more, before the sites become too out of sync, so I can see if switching was a good idea or not…

Geeky info: I’m moving the site and just switching the DNS pointers, so in theory it should be a pretty smooth transition. But Site5 probably won’t let me put in the DNS until 1and1 releases it and that will be the problem (probably). Then your browsers need to grab the new pointer to the new server. We’ll see how it goes…?

Been a Bad Blogger (or Facebook vs. WordPress)

I’m here, I’m alive. I’ve just not been blogging. I’ll fix that soon.

Announcement: I’m migrating my web host so my site may completely disappear for a few days as it makes the transition. I’m not disappearing completely if you get errors, I’ll be back. If you get redirected to a temporary site don’t bookmark it, it’s just temporary. (I’m not moving the DNS host, jut the pointers, so hopefully it’ll be kind of seamless.)

Part of my blogging issue is I post a few things to Facebook and it gets the topic out of my head. I have a WordPress plug-in to post blogs to Facebook automatically (WordBooker) but I need a way to get my Facebook stuff into my blog. Any thoughts?

New look for the blog (sort of)

So the my blog host was acting up a few days ago, but it made me look around a little bit. Tried (again) to speed things up and make the pages load a little faster; I tried some stuff a month ago, but it might have slowed it down (but then I’ve been posting a lot more photos, so who knows?). I think it’s faster, but who knows.

Sunset-ish on Montezuma Beach
Sunset from Montezuma Beach

So I removed some of the things from the sidebar, I never got the feeling a few of the things were being used. I changed the banner (it’s a snippet from the above photo) and shifted it way up, I don’t know why I never thought of moving it up before. It’s another sunset picture, but it fit well (with the title and search box), so it’s not a drastic change.

Video blogging at 20,000 feet. How cool is that!

Just testing out the Free WiFI on my plane! I shot this with my iPhone 4 and uploaded it and now I’m blogging it from my McBook.

And you can even watch it in HD!

The world of technology is an amazing place!

FYI: The WiFi is free because of a promotion Google Chrome is doing through the holidays.

Seven Years Blogging

While this is my seventh year blogging, I can’t brag about it too much since this past year I’ve only averaged five posts a month. Just a few years ago I averaged more than one post a day so this is incredibly poor. Since I received over 400 comments in the past year (on new and old posts) so you’d think that would have been a motivator…

It’s strange, I had lots of stuff to talk about since I’ve had a few trips, got a new job, saw lots of concerts, and did bunches of other things. santa-hat-IMG_1263.jpg Plus, I took huge amounts of photos this year, but still I only posted a few. (On the other hand, it’s been a crappy year in a lot of ways and I really try not to whine on the blog too much, so that’s probably had a bit to do with it.)

Also, I’ve been foursquaring and checking in on Facebook more, and while it is slightly maintaining an on-line presence, it’s not really blogging. After I mention something, it seems redundant to blog about it later. I’d like to integrate them a little more, but I’m not really sure how the best way.

Tech blog stuff: I’m still loving WordPress. I’m thinking of moving my site from 1and1 hosting to Site5 hosting; 1and1 seems a little more professional (tech support could be better) but Site5 seems faster and it’s less expensive (but that could just be that this site is more complicated and busy compared to the other things I do on-line at Site5).

Bottom-line: I really enjoy it when I’m blogging and I love the feedback (so help motivate me by providing some) so I’ll try to do better. I resolve for the next year to blog more and post more photos. My goal will be at least five posts a week; yes, I know that’s a lofty goal, but I really do love blogging so let’s see what I can do.

Just because I’m your friend in real life doesn’t mean I want you as an on-line friend.

I have friends in real life and they all get treated differently. Some are people I see weekly, some I see once a year, some I talk to once in a great while. Some I exchange pleasantries with and some I’ll complain/talk about work or my love life. Some friends I’ll travel with and and some I really only keep in touch with on the phone. Every relationship is completely different, not better or worse, just different. And I might turn down invitations with certain people for certain things, you don’t say yes to every single event/trip/movie you get invited to, do you? I don’t really like sports, a friend isn’t going to think I don’t like them just because I won’t join their group of friends in getting season passes to some team, right?

My on-line life has similar parallels. I might chat with someone often or occasionally. Some of my on-line friends are people who might have traveled to the same place I did so I friended them, but it’s so long ago I don’t even remember how we ended friends in the same place. Some are my friends in real life but I do no actual communications with them on-line. Just like real life the on-line people are treated differently treated different. So just like in real life, requests to be friends can be denied; I’m not looking for season passes that portion of your life, I’m happy with the way things are.

Facebook For Dummies Leah Pearlman, Carolyn AbramPlus you get on-line friends who ask you to join farmville, mob wars or what ever other junk they might play I automatically decline, I don’t play those things (I do play Scrabble though). And keep in mind when people invite you to those things, they are actually sharing some of your (possibly) private information with those games/programs, that’s how you get the invites.

In addition, I treat my real life differently than my on-line life. I occasionally talk about things to strangers on-line that I would never mention to friends or family; they might stumble across it, but it’s not like I had directly shared it with them.

I’ve actually got more friends and family on some social networks than I’d actually like. Who knows who might read something and share it with someone, like my Mom, because they assume I already have. And on the opposite side, in my real life my Mom probably shares more with friends and family than I’d prefer.

Here’s an on-line example, I’m friends with some of my cousins kids and one day talking to my mom and aunt I ask how my cousin’s son (the aunt’s grandson) enjoyed the high school dance the other night. When asked how I remembered, I mentioned that I saw some photos on-line (I did know my aunt knew there was a dance). So of course they asked to see them and I said, you know he’s shared those photos with people he knows who is going to see them and I didn’t feel right showing them; I was actually surprised how well they understood. I told them if I shared stuff he didn’t want shared, he might block me or limit my access or (even worse) he might limit himself…

It’s not like there was anything inappropriate in the photos, but it just wasn’t my info to share. And now that I think about it, I don’t even think they were his photos, I think they were just tagged with him in them.