Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

I apparently spoke too soon when I said that WordPress was back to normal. I’ve had some ongoing problems with 3.1.1 and some plugin or combination of plugins. I’m still not entirely sure what the magic combination is, but I think that this time, things are really, finally, back to normal.

I’ve still been trying to keep my April NaBloPoMo going offline, so you will be seeing back posts appearing as I transfer them over.

Although I first learned about the GNC Pets line of vitamins and supplements last October, I didn’t get around to actually trying any of the products until last month. Freya and Axel have just finished their first bottle of GNC Pets Mega Hip & Joint Health with what seem to be satisfactory results.

I give all of my dogs joint health supplements once they reach adulthood. The ones who did have hip or elbow problems visibly benefited after a month or so. I feel the supplements help as a preventive measure for the others. It’s difficult for us to do a full review of any joint health products, though, since neither of the current dogs suffers from any hip or joint ailments. Axel failed OFA elbows with DJD1 (degenerative joint disease, Grade 1) but is completely asymptomatic. Freya passed OFA hips and elbows but has just entered her senior years as she turned seven in November.

At first, I was a little bit put off by the slightly chemical smell of the chewable tablets. They definitely did not smell like “Savory Beef” to me. I was concerned that the dogs would also find the chemical smell objectionable. They won’t take the tablets like treats, but they will happily eat them when mixed into their regular meals.

The pricing and ingredients are comparable to the brands I’ve tried in the past, and it is convenient to order them at GNC.com along with my own vitamins. I will likely purchase this product again in the future.

This product was purchased at a regularly advertised sale price. I have no connection to GNC other than as a generally satisfied customer, nor did I receive compensation for this quick review.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 9 of 30)

Since I had that bad moment with the WordPress 3.1.1 upgrade yesterday, I expected to be immune from technology meltdowns for a while. Not so much.

Like yesterday, it was a first-time problem with a product that had always worked well for me. Clear’s 4G mobile broadband service has been reliable for me since I opened the account last July. Not today. I had lights and connection. I didn’t have the Internet. Fortunately there was an actual informative error message saying that it was unable to connect to an IP address that turned out to be a DNS server. Switching to Google’s DNS servers got me back online. The actual Clear DNS server was reachable at a later time.

Can’t wait to see which technology bails on me tomorrow!

(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 8 of 30)

The latest WordPress upgrade to 3.1.1 is the first time I’ve ever had any problems updating, so it really took me by surprise. On the scale of bad technology moments, it was still pretty low (maybe 2 out of 10). I had two very recent backups of both database and files, one at work and one at home. I ended up not needing either one.

What happened is that all of my admin functions slowed to a crawl. The site itself was loading fine for viewers. But it took forever to publish a post, open a post for editing… or to do anything at all. After googling to see whether anyone else was having similar problems, I disabled all of the plugins and re-updated. Everything was back to normal speed, so I started adding back plugins one by one. When I got to the last one, I added it back to verify that it was the culprit. It wasn’t. Everything was still back to normal speed. It still is. So I guess I’ll never really know for sure what the problem was.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 7 of 30)

Spring is not springing anywhere near fast enough for me.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 6 of 30)

I’m thinking about using Joomla! 1.6 for a major reboot of a website I maintain. So I’ve been wrestling with it all night. I just popped over here to make my daily post, and I see that WordPress 3.1.1 is waiting for me.

I’ve been a little lax about updates and stuff, so I’m going to make this short and take care of my updates and scans and backups and such before heading off to bed. Good night, and hope with me that I don’t break anything!

(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 5 of 30)

If not, take a look up there, over a bit to the right. World domination is still a core value here. But now we’re going to take pictures of it, too.

One of my goals for the year is to gain some proficiency with the Canon EOS Rebel XS entry-level DSLR I bought last fall. Seeing as even the birds say “no photos, please” when they see me coming…

…this might be a bit harder than I thought at first. I’m seeking professional help, though, and there will be much more about that in future posts. I’m taking some of Kent Weakley’s photography e-classes and they have given me a good start toward learning more about how to effectively use my camera.

I still have a long way to go, so I hope you don’t mind hearing about my progress (and hopefully it is forward progress, not lack of progress) in the days to come.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 4 of 30)