Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Nothing much to say tonight

by

I have a number of things I should be doing on the computer, both online and offline. Instead I am writing this post and watching the weekend replays of older CSI: NY, CSI: Miami and Cold Case. Well, maybe not Cold Case as I would like to be asleep by then.

Somehow I missed tonight’s CSI: NY episode, “One Wedding and a Funeral,” the first time around. The storyline sends Mac Taylor back to Chicago and as the episode closes, he is getting a mysterious phone call just after he’s looked at some of the rock pieces from famous places that are embedded into the wall of the Chicago Tribune Tower (in the CSI: NY storyline, they are clues in a puzzle that started out in New York).

My first job in downtown Chicago was in the Mandel Building, which no longer exists, but was right behind the Tribune Tower. I always enjoyed taking a minute to look at some of the rock pieces before or after work. I still don’t work all that far away from the Tribune Tower, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve been around there. I never have seen the piece of steel from the World Trade Center that is now in the wall. Maybe I’ll walk over there one day this week if the weather is nice.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 7 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 134 of 274)

Godspeed, Donna

by

This evening, we said a final goodbye to Donna Hedl, Freya’s breeder and a great friend in Rottweilers. Donna passed away on Wednesday. It was quite a shock. Even though she had been fighting cancer for quite a long while, she had been doing well lately and had been out and about to many dog events over the last month.

The last time I saw her was at the ATTS temperament test last month. I hadn’t seen Donna for quite some time prior to that, and she hadn’t seen Freya in even longer. Our group had a great time socializing, and both of the dogs that Donna bred passed the test, along with most of our group’s dogs.

Freya was a gift from Donna and her then-husband Joe following the unexpected death of my heart dog Heidi on Christmas Eve 2003. After they split up, it was more so Donna who kept in touch with me about Freya and the other littermates, and who always had a moment to hear about Freya’s ups and downs.

Godspeed, Donna. Thank you forever for Freya and for your friendship.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 6 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 133 of 274)

VPS move: done, finally!

by

I am happy to report that while moving this blog gave me a few bad moments, WordPress did not actually kick my ass. The blog now even has its very own Rottweiler-themed subdomain!

The old URL links and forwards to this one, and I’ve updated the RSS feed and (hopefully) all of the directories and networking sites where we have listings.

Since the old servers were still running PHP 4 and one was still running Apache 1.3, and this one is running PHP 5 and Apache 2.2, I expect there are still a few things out there that will need fixing once we find them.

But for now, everything seems like it is going pretty well. Yay, me! Yay, WiredTree!

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 5 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 132 of 274)

VPS move: almost done, finally!

by

Yes, I know, it’s taking me long enough considering I started back on Memorial Day weekend.

There was a flurry of activity at work which took up much of my time during the week following the holiday. Plus I was almost paralyzed into inaction by reading about some of the bad experiences that some people had while migrating their sites to new servers, mostly involving PHP scripts and MySQL databases: various guestbook programs (three sites featuring guestbooks, two of which feature rather large guestbooks going back quite some time, whose owners would want to die, or want me to die, should they be lost to time), various gallery programs (two of these, one MySQL-based and one with a flat-file database), and of course, WordPress.

I have come to believe that at least a few of the unhappy people did not read any instructions or tutorials, or else read the bad tutorials (my God, are there a lot of crappy tutorials out there or what), as everything I had responsibility for is now happily residing on the new server. The old Gallery 1 gave me a bad hour of fixing paths and links to graphics programs on the server, but Gallery 2 and the guestbooks went over willingly and required only some extremely simple edits of the various config files.

I’m still singing the praises of WiredTree technical support. I didn’t have too many questions that fell into their area, because I do not think technical support is supposed to take care of my personal panic attack after reading all those bad experience stories. The one big question I had (activating PHP 4 for just one or two domains) was very important and was answered practically before I could blink.

Tomorrow I move this wonderful WordPress blog. I have a feeling that WordPress is about to kick my ass, so think good thoughts for me!

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 4 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 131 of 274)

Does everything always have to be about games?

by

I’m not cool enough to be part of the beta testing for the Twitter game Spymaster and so far, it doesn’t seem that too many of my followers and followees are involved either (not necessarily because they are not cool though as my followers and followees are all way cool).

This isn’t really about Spymaster, though. If you want to read about it, there are thousands of inches of copy about it already floating around the ‘net. You can start with the link up there. The game even sounds like it might be fun to play.

I just wonder why everything has to be about games. Why exactly does Twitter need games?

I’ve been a member of a number of forums that added arcade modules. It didn’t seem to me that the games attracted people that really contributed to what was supposedly the main purpose of a forum: discussion. And in some cases, good and entertaining discussion slowed down because people were busy playing games.

I don’t spend much time on Facebook these days either. Again, everything there seems to be about games and quizzes. The sad part is that all of the noise with game results, game invites, and quiz results sometimes causes me to miss things that are more important to me and the person who posted them. Stuff like blog updates or status updates with actual thoughts, opinions and feelings. Stuff like new photos of family, friends, pets and cool places. Even if I don’t know someone all that well, I’d far rather see a photo of their child or pet, or even hear them bitch about their job, than know the fact that they just robbed a store in “Mafia Wars” or made a building in “Metropolis.”

I’ve complained before about people who communicate solely by sending game invites and pixel gifts, so I won’t make you all listen to that again.

But am I the only one who thinks there are too many games in places that really shouldn’t need them? Or am I just not fun enough to live?

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 3 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 130 of 274)