Archive for June, 2005
My dog took the site down
Posted by: | CommentsI know how messed up this sounds, but my dog Twiggy managed to take the site down for several hours today. A thunder storm overnight drove the poor dog crazy and she ended up in the server room downstairs.
Like most dogs, loud noises like Fireworks and storms sends them scurrying for cover. When the storm started Twiggy managed to get herself under the small shelf I keep the server on, tore out some cables and took everything offline.
We found her this morning, still under the server caught up in cables that had her trapped. It took a couple of minutes to get her unhooked from everything and then get the server back online.
Deja vu all over again
Posted by: | CommentsI talked to my parents last night and told them all about Michael’s accident. Then we talked about how freaky my accident was compared to what Michael went through yesterday — the similarities are kind of incredible.
When I was 11 or 12, I had a similar accident to Michael. Most people don’t know, but I have a false tooth in the front — it came out through my lip when I crashed. For many years I had a mustache, which hid the scar, but over the past few years the scar has almost disappeared.
Here are a few of the similarities:
Jim: Riding down a hill a few hours before my soccer game and lost control of my bike.
Michael: Riding down a hill a few hours before his soccer game and lost control of his bike.
Jim: Went over my handlebars and knocked out my front tooth.
Michael: Went over (or sideways, we don’t really know) his handlebars and knocked out the same front tooth.
Jim: Two strangers (a young man and woman) stopped and took me home.
Michael: Two strangers (a young man and woman) stopped and took him home.
Jim: When I got home, my father said I just stood in the driveway bleeding. When I approached him, I stuck my finger through my lip where the tooth came out. I don’t remember most of that.
Michael: He got out of the car and just stared at us bleeding, not really knowing what to do.
Jim: My parents got the tooth (I’m not sure if they went back or if the people that brought me home picked it up).
Michael: I went back to the accident scene and picked up the tooth off the road.
Jim: My parents took me to see Dr. Christie to have my tooth put back in my mouth. We then went to the hospital.
Michael: We took Michael to see Dr. Christie (yep same guy) and he sent us to the hospital.
The next day, Michael and I both looked about the same. I feel so bad for him.
Wordpress update available
Posted by: | CommentsThe Worpress development team has taken a respite from developing new features for an upcoming version to issue a point release for the current stable version. The issue according to the Wordpress Web site deals with a security issue.
The developers didn’t say exactly what the issue was, but they did say that the issue was not public yet. They recommend every update to 1.5.1.3 as soon as possible.
If you are not able to update, they said to delete the xmlrpc.php from your Worpress directory.
Michael had a serious accident today
Posted by: | CommentsI seriously thought my heart was going to break as I watched my 10-year-old son lying in the hospital, covered in blood. earlier today Michael was driving down a steep hill on his bike and lost control. Besides the fact he lost nine teeth, we know very little about what happened.
Mike left the house with his friend to spend the afternoon bike riding — the last thing Monique said was “don’t race down the hills.” A few minutes later she walked into the family room and said “I hope he listens to me about going down the hills too fast — I would hate for him to crash and knock out some teeth.”
She turned around, walked to the front door as a strange car drove up and stopped in front of our driveway. The passenger’s door opened and a young woman got out with Michael, completely covered in blood. Monique screamed and I ran to the door.
After we made sure he had no broken bones, I hopped in the truck and went to the accident scene to recover the missing tooth. It was still in the middle of the road where it landed. I grabbed it drove home, picked everyone up and went to our dentists office. He quickly told us to go to the IWK Childrens Hospital.
They took care of us pretty quickly at the hospital. First they had a doctor check him out, both physically and mentally — until then Michael had no idea where he was or what happened to him. He checked out okay, although they were a bit concerned about him.
When the dental sergeon came, he didn’t have good news. He said they could not put in the front tooth that got knocked out. In addition to that, they had to pull three other teeth because they were so loose. To make matters worse five other teeth had to be wired in place or he would lose those too.
Even though those teeth are now wired in place, Michael will have to go through five root canals in order to save them. The doctor said those teeth are already dead.
Michael spent two or three hours in surgery this afternoon. We left for the hospital at 1:30 pm and arrived home at 8:30 pm.
At least he is alive and has all his limbs, eyes and was wearing a helmet or it could have been much worse.
Talking to Apple about Podcasting, iPods
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s a Big news day for Apple. The release of iTunes 4.9 brings podcasting to the mainstream, as Apple puts it. They have 3,000 podcasts available to preview download from a new directory within iTunes. I sat down this morning and chatted with two Apple executives, Greg Joswiak and Eddy Cue about iTunes and the iPod.
Apple rolled it’s iPod into one line of color iPods today, which is a good thing, I think. I’ve had one of their 60GB photos since it first came out and love it — not as much as my Shuffle though.
Anyway you can read what Apple said about the iPod and iTunes in separate stories I did earlier today at MacCentral.
Online gambling IPO earns billions
Posted by: | CommentsWow, if you thought there was no money in online gambling, you would be wrong. An ex-porn business owner, her husband and two others will cash in $1.4 billion and have shares worth an additional $6 billion.
According to the Reuters story, Ruth Parasol and her husband Russell de Leon, both lawyers, are each set to cash in around $370 million and still own a combined stake worth about $2.7 billion.
Anurag Dikshit, group operations director, is the biggest shareholder. He will cash in shares worth about $720 million and still own a 30 percent stake worth over $2.6 billion.
Marketing director Vikrant Bhargava’s remaining 9 percent stake and cash from the IPO should be worth almost $1 billion.
The downside — and there always seems to be a downside — the group could face jail time if the U.S. decides to clamp down on online gambling.
It’s our Wedding Anniversary
Posted by: | CommentsThirteen years ago today, Monique and I got married. At that point in our lives it was really a formality — we already bought a house, had joint checking accounts and had lived together in an apartment for a couple of years.
That many years certainly brings with it a few trials and tribulations, but all in all it’s been quite a journey. I can’t imagine life without Monique and luckily, I don’t have to.
Smartest thing I’ve ever done.
Adobe talks: the rest of the series
Posted by: | CommentsEarlier in the week I pointed to the first article in the “Adobe Talks” series we did on Macworld, but I neglected to point out the others. I figured I might as well do that now.
The series included interviews with the product managers for each application, as well as a detailed review. I was handling the interview and the “newsy” portion of the package.
So here they are if you want to read about Creative Suite 2:
Hot, hot and a dog show
Posted by: | CommentsOur heat-wave hit yesterday as promised. The highs certainly didn’t disappoint as it went over 110º at times in the afternoon heat and humidity — unfortunately the promised respite didn’t materialize today.
Despite wide predictions of thunderstorms overnight a return to livable temperatures on Sunday, we are still sweltering in the heat and humidity. We went up to Monique’s parents house today to help her father with a printer problem and to hook up a stereo component for him. The kids took the time to go for a swim in their pool and cool off a bit, but their has been no relief for Monique and I.
After we left there, we stopped off at the local park to see a dog show. Actually it was more of an exhibition, all intended for fun, no real competition. Lots of cool dogs, although not a Border Collie in the mix at all — kind of strange considering how smart they are.
The dogs did relay races and agility competitions, darting in and out of obstacles. Some of course, did better than others, but it was a lot of fun watching. Unfortunately, we were in the heat for the hour or so we watched — I was just cooked by the time I got home, but it was worth it.
Everyone is doing there own thing right now, trying to cool down. I have another feature due tomorrow, so I’ve been working this weekend, but the break this afternoon was nice.
Weather warning tomorrow – almost 115 degrees
Posted by: | CommentsNo, that’s not a minus temperature for the blustery northern Canadians. They issued a weather warning in Halifax tomorrow telling us to stay inside for the majority of the day as temperatures are expected to hit between 30-35 degrees Celsius or 85-95 degrees Fahrenheit.
The temperature itself isn’t the big problem. We get incredible muggy weather here and that’s where the problem comes in. With everything else factored in including the haze and other crap, they expect the temperatures to get up to 40-45 degrees Celsius or 104-113 degrees Fahrenheit.
To make the day even worse they expect a cold front to move in tomorrow evening causing severe thunderstorms.
Sunday is supposed to be back to normal.
