Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

This and that

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  • I don’t really get Tumblr yet, but it seems like a good place to put things that are too long for Twitter or that perpetuate this blog’s recent identity crisis. So here goes with Rottweilers Tumblrd My Laptop.
  • Even though I’m probably one of the most antisocial people on the planet, I spent part of today checking out the RockMelt beta. RockMelt bills itself as a “social browser” and is tightly integrated with Facebook and Twitter. It’s based on Google Chrome which is already my secondary browser so it was definitely worth a look. Marc Andreesen’s involvement was a bit intriguing, also. I’m liking it ok so far, except that it seems to turn on my Facebook chat at random, whether I want it on or not.
  • My Hybrid server prize from WiredTree is happily chugging along. The cutover from my VPS was totally trouble-free. I asked for the cutover to happen anytime between November 1-5. They scheduled me for November 1 at 1 a.m. I got a reminder email on Halloween night at about 10 p.m., and another one at 12:59 p.m. advising me that the upgrade had started, followed by another one not quite an hour later upon successful completion. Have I mentioned how much I love WiredTree? My business also has email and website hosted with WiredTree. Today I had to put in a ticket for an email issue. I got a reply in two minutes. Yes, minutes. I love these guys.
  • Doesn’t look like we’re back on track with the Rottweiler and computer related content yet. But here comes a Rottweiler to help. I think I’d better let it do what it wants. It outweighs me.

(NaBloPoMo | November ’10: 8 of 30)

Something I’m really liking about my Sony Reader

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When I first got it, I didn’t realize how much I’d be using my Sony Reader to read library books.

I absolutely love being able to borrow books online from the Chicago Public Library. Since I don’t have as much time to read as I’d really like, it hasn’t been too much of an inconvenience to deal with the waiting lists.

In the past, I’ve been guilty of spending way too much money on books that don’t have a great shelf life. I like reading mysteries, and honestly, once you know who did it, the writing really has to be over-the-top excellent to be worth a second reading. I also like checking out best-sellers, and some (well, more than some) just don’t live up to the hype. Being able to borrow books that might not be keepers has definitely freed up some dollars for other, more lasting, enjoyments.

The other nice thing is that they return themselves. You can return them before they are due, but if you don’t, they just magically become inaccessible on their due date. No fines, no trouble. The only real downside for me has been that annoying glitch which prevents borrowed PDF and borrowed EPUB books from co-existing on the Reader at the same time. And even that can be worked around with some planning.

I have bought books for the Reader, as well as a few paper books. But I am really happy with the online library thing!

(NaBloPoMo | November ’10: 5 of 30)

Preparing for the upgrade

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I’m preparing for my server upgrade by making sure I have current backups of all of the sites on that server. Seems like I have been much more diligent about keeping up with backups for my friends and family than for my own sites. Go figure.

I have found that the mere act of making backups seems to ward off disaster. This is probably faulty logic in the extreme, but since I haven’t had to restore anything from a backup in a very long time… it works for me.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’10: 29 of 31)

Winning is good

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A while ago I entered this Twitter giveaway by my VPS provider, Wired Tree:

Guess what?

A Hybrid server is a lot more server than my current sites generally need. If you compare the specs to my current VPS512 you’ll see what I mean. But it will still be nice to move up. I’ve had the occasional out-of-memory errors and those likely won’t be a problem once we’re on a server with 2,048MB of RAM as compared to 512MB.

Of course, even if I hadn’t won the giveaway, I would still consider myself a winner. My personal sites, and those of my company, have been on WiredTree VPS servers since May 2009. It has been a happy and trouble-free 18 months. I am more than satisfied with our low-end VPSs and the fact that even with our low-end servers, I am still treated like a high-end customer in terms of response time and quality of customer service. Thanks, WiredTree… for everything!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’10: 21 of 31)

First test shots!

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Who let her bring that thing in here while I am trying to nap?

For some reason, I never wrote about it here, but back in the spring of 2009 I started asking around for advice and comments to help me pick a good digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR). I would be a first-time buyer for this type of camera. I’ve owned film and digital point-and-shoot cameras as well as entry-level film SLRs, but I would still consider myself very much an inexperienced photographer.

It took me a while, and my decision was based mostly on value and price rather than this year’s coolest technology. The camera I chose was Canon’s Rebel EOS XS.
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