Monthly Archives: November 2005

Business Trip

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For me, this is a very abnormal week. First and foremost – Disturbed is playing. However, I had to relinquish my ticket because i am currently on a business trip for this entire work week.

Although i feel absolute sadness and sheer despair over missing disturbed for the second year in a row; this week is really pretty exciting for me. I’ve never been on a business trip before now. I’m in chicago about 5 miles from the Ohare airport, spending 5 days at EMC receiving training on how to administer and manage their SAN hardware. That said – it is effing wierd to be in a huge city all by yourself. I don’t feel ‘scared’- but something like anxiety almost all the time. Well… i guess i’m kind of lying… Something about huge cities just absolutely terrifies me. Walking around looking up at 15 story buildings, watching airplanes fly almost directly over my head, driving on 47 lane highways; its just a feeling that i’m not used to and so far cannot get over.

Overall, its exciting to be on a business trip, sure.. but I didnt have to be here long to realize that I absolutely hate this town. People drive like assholes, alot of people are assholes, theres more of everything i hate and less of everything i like. I feel like chicago is nothing more than an ant hill that somebody just needs to shake up and pour water down. Maynard James Keenan might be the smartest most intellectual human being on this earth.

just let me get out first.

Google Rocks

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Google is one of the few software companies that have become a house hold name. Even most “non technical” people know the word “Google”.

Basically, everything that Google does is awesome. Not only for their search engine capabilities, but for the assortment of all kinds of online services they offer – for free. Google analytics, Rss reader, Gmail, Google local, etc. I am very impressed with this company; specifically that they are able to offer great software and services completely free of charge.

They probably are able to do this because they really dont advertise. You don’t see google tv commercials, google newspaper/magazine ads.. etc. They dont have to. Everyone just knows their name. But even so, not everybody knows them beyond their search engine.

I think Google is going to be the company that breaks Microsoft’s dominance in the computer industry. Although their business model is mainly an online initiative, they have written desktop software such as Picasa and Google earth. If i were google i’d be having a development team writing an operating system, a vendor like HP or dell ready to use that OS on their hardware, etc. I know that I would definitely give a Google OS a spin if it were available for download.

People know and love Google… and with Google’s past record with software I’m more than certain they are capable of producing such a product.

Check out Google’s stuff.
Google Services
Check out Google’s “beta” stuff
Google Labs

ef

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Apparently, somehow… my forums mysql database got corrupted. Going to www.palmerforpresident.com/forum would just hang there… and my server would eventually kill the apache process. I’m 99 percent sure this points to database corruption.

I tried to restore the database from backup… but that doesnt work correctly. basically…. things are effed. I might try some more, i might not. For now, i have phpbb installed at http://www.palmerforpresident.com/forum

Many people have tried running a message board software- it seems that they just kind of die off. Maybe its not worth even tryin to get back.

rm -rf /home/vanberge/yabbsebackup ??

p.s. Im using google analytics to track this site’s stats now. I just added the javascript so we’ll see how google does on website usage statistics

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Updated – after some sql editing, some database delete / renames, and some php tweaking, i got the effing forum database to restore. But, since this is as of august 8th, i lose 3 months of data.

Migrated

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As of late… I’ve been trying to talk myself out of migrating to a solid CMS such as wordpress. “There is honor in coding your own website” i would say… I always kind of feel the need to do my own stuff. Work on my own car, fix my own toilet, etc. This applied to my website wholly. For the most part… web design was a hobby.

Although that is still somewhat true- there really just isnt a point. A content management system like WordPress does it so much better than I ever could. It makes things so much easier.. And truth be genuinely told, my table and iframe really did need to go. Plus, wordpress is pretty much completely customizable. It is based on CSS, which i have little to no experience with. I’ll have to learn a bit about that since it is the ‘way to go’ nowadays vs layout tables/cells combined with html formatting.

The only thing that bothers me is that it is mysql based. I liked blosxom for its simplicity… lightweight, reading text files, etc. WordPress is a little heavier using a backend database. Now i just have to figure out how to migrate my blosxom content into this wordpress deal. Anybody who might have done that can feel free to point me in a good direction…

—- slightly edited for content—-
I also figured out how to import my blosxom entries… on to ‘tweaking’ wordpress

sheer fury.

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I picked my car up from the body shop on Tuesday. It looked great. Like new. They replaced a window, and re-tinted it. It didnt match exactly… that was the only problem. overall, i was very happy.

Wednesday, i was driving to meet a vendor for work… heading on 131 north. I was following a semi: he in the middle lane, and myself in the far right lane. Apparently, this semi truck ran over a piece of plywood that was lying in the road. This piece of wood, caught in the brisk wind, fluttered and hovered up to 20-25 feet in the air. Then, just as i’m thinking ‘its going to fly over my car’ – this wood dive bombs right into the side of my car. It ripped off my side view mirror. It scratched the front quarter panel. It scratched the door. It scratched the rear quarter panel. Un. Be. Lievable. This happens on the DAY AFTER I PICK MY CAR UP FROM THE BODY SHOP.

Long story short. My car is going back into the body shop to get fixed again.

I have never been been so irate in my entire life. I genuinely had to stop myself from punching through my car window. My face was white hot. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. Sheer, unaldulterated anger.

Also. If anybody wants to go to disturbed on november 29th, i will sell you my ticked for exactly what i paid for it. I’m not going to be able to go. I cannot get out of going to Chicago for ‘training’ for work. email me: vanberge@gmail.com