General Archive

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Comment Registration

Okay, it's come to this. Users now have to register through Type Key to comment on this blog. I didn't want to do it, because I wasn't getting many legitimate comments as it was, and I didn't want to make it any more difficult for people to leave feedback, but the spam was just getting to be too much. But at least Type Key is pretty painless. It's free, it gives you the option to stay signed in for up to two weeks so you won't be having to type in your user name and password very often, and it only requires a one time sign up for any of the thousands of blogs that use it. In other words, if you've already signed up for Type Key to comment on a popular site like Pharyngula, that same account will work to allow you to comment on my not so popular site. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Taking Stock

Time to take stock of what I've done so far with this blog, and decide where it's going to go from here.

My first entry was back on Dec 7th of last year. I did fairly good for a while, putting up new, original posts about once a week, and copying my old Soapbox entries every Monday. Then, the new posts started tapering off, and I'd copied all of my old Soapbox entries. My last original post was on March 2nd, and the last substantive one before that was on Feb. 17th.

It's tough trying to blog on a regular basis. It's given me greater respect for all of those bloggers that do manage it. Where do they find the free time? My lunchbreak is when I try to do most of my website work, but I've also got other things to do then, like reading the News @ Nature site and other science news sites, keeping up with other blogs that I follow, and actually eating my lunch. Trying to do anything on this site any other time during the day is out since my boss wouldn't be too happy about me doing that on company time. By the time I get home, I want to spend time with my family, not to mention eating supper, and then it's late at night and I just want to relax. I've read other bloggers who mention that they write their posts late at night while watching T.V., but I just don't have that type of committment to this blog (I'd rather watch The Daily Show.)

Still, I like having a blog. I especially like the spot for user feedback, even if I've only had a handful of comments. So, I'm going to keep it. I think I'll really try hard to make a good, substantive post at least once a month. But, I still think my main website is more important than this blog, and my goal is to add something to that site at least once a month, too, so it will take priority over making posts here. So, the end of the month is this Friday, and I need to do something for my main page. I have a few ideas in mind, I'll just have to see how much I can get done. Since I posted a blog entry in March already, I may or may not get something done to this blog before then. But I already have several ideas for new entries to this blog if I could just find the time to write them.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Happy Fastnacht Day

Depending on where you are in the world, you may call today something else, like Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. But from where I'm from in Pennsylvania, today's called Fastnacht Day. Traditionally, you make potato based donuts, called fastnachts, supposedly as a way to empty your larder of all the fatty, sugary foods in preparation for the Lenten fast. My elementary school even used to give out donuts with the lunches on this day. So, in celebration of today, here's a recipe on my main site on how to make fastnachts. (I know it's a little late, since you should have made them either last night or early this morning, so that you could eat them throughout the day, but better late than never.)

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Retroactive Soapbox Entry- Ode to Computers

Note: This is a post of an essay that first appeared on my website November 7th, 2005. The original essay can be found here. This is the last entry of an ongoing effort to put all of my soapbox entries onto this blog, to give a space for user feedback.

7 November 2005

I spend enough time complaining on my soapbox, so I figured it was about time that I write something positive. I was originally just going to write about my new laptop, but figured I'd extend it to computers in general.

I was born in 1978. That puts me at the age where I got to witness personal computers becoming common place, initially being little more than souped up Ataris, blossoming into what we have today. My family's first computer was a Commodore 64. Originally, we used a T.V. set for the display, and it wasn't until we'd had it for several years that we finally got a dedicated monitor. I was pretty young when we had it. I remember being completely mystified by how it worked, but having fun playing games on it. We did have a few useful programs, like the word processor, Easy Script, which I hardly ever used, and the graphics program, Print Shop, which I used a bit, but for me that computer was mainly a game machine.

Continue reading "Retroactive Soapbox Entry- Ode to Computers" »

Friday, December 23, 2005

Merry Christmas

I thought about saying "Happy Holidays," just to tick off those people that get so worked up over it (like at my wife's work, one guy caught a bunch of flak from his coworkers for having Christmas cards that said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," even though the cards had a Bible verse on them), but it's the last work day before Christmas, and I didn't feel like being cantankerous. If you don't celebrate Christmas, well than enjoy whatever holiday it is that you celebrate around this time, and if you don't celebrate anything, then just enjoy yourself.

Archives

Selling Out