Category — K9JY Site Updates

Those nice FedEx people delivered this to my door today:

Scot, K9JY

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Always fun — this year: Gmail Custom Time:

Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything — if only it hadn’t slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities.

See the full spoof at the Gmail product site.

Or Virgle Pioneer:

Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

And here’s one just for readers who work in cubicles — a job in the Google Copernicus Center:

The Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.) is a fully integrated research, development and technology facility at which Google will be conducting experiments in entropized information filtering, high-density high-delivery hosting (HiDeHiDeHo) and de-oxygenated cubicle dwelling. This center will provide a unique platform from which Google will leapfrog current terrestrial-based technologies and bring information access to new heights of utility.

Yes, airless cubes for you on the moon…

Apparently, there are more. Have fun!

Scot, K9JY

(Cross Posted at Cube Rules — nothing yet for ham radio operators…)

One of the more interesting things about this site is that hams e-mail me more about my articles instead of commenting on them here on the site. While I don’t mind the e-mails, I’d rather you share your comments about the articles in the comment section.

Comments are an invaluable resource on a blog. Comments allow you to extend the conversation, add additional information about the subject of the article, and ask questions that you want answered that myself or others could answer for you. I will often learn more from the comments on the article than from the article itself. Comments rock!

How do you find the comment section?

Right down at the bottom of each article is the date the article was posted and then to the right of it is a link to the comments. It will either say “No comments” or the number of comments on the article such as “3 comments.”

Click on that link and you will be taken to a page where you can enter in your comments at the bottom of the article. The comment form looks like this:

I usually put in my name in as Scot, K9JY, or just K9JY.

The e-mail is required and I use it so I can get a hold of you if something is weird about the comment. The e-mail address does not show on the comment form when completed. I perfectly respect your e-mail address; I hate spam. The e-mail address is also used if you choose to have further comments sent to you; but, regardless, the e-mail address is not shown.

If you don’t have a web site, no need to enter one. Otherwise you enter it in full, such as: http://k9jy.com

The big box is where you type your comment about the article. For those who love HTML (not me), you can imbed HTML in the comment.

Checking the box by the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” gives you the opportunity to have further comments on the article e-mailed to your same e-mail address you provided so you don’t have to return to the site. This is on a per article basis and you can opt out any time for that article using the link at the bottom of the e-mail you will get. It allows you to effortlessly stay in the conversation.

Finally, clicking on “Submit” will send your comment on its way.

Now, I moderate your first comment, but only your first. After that, your comment will go straight to the article. The reason I moderate your first comment is I get thousands of spam comments from machines and the software I use doesn’t get them all. So I review all first comments before they go on the site. Once I figure out that you are a trusted user and not some machine, we’re golden.

Comments help build the conversation around the subject of the article. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from the comments done on other blogs — sometimes more than the article itself. So extend the conversation and information by submitting a comment. Your fellow hams will appreciate it.

Scot, K9JY

Over the weekend, I did a lot of updates to the K9JY WriteLog User Site, though not much to the content.

Essentially:

1. I replaced the theme with the one you see here on this site. It’s tough to maintain different themes — too many places where things are hidden that are in the documentation…somewhere.
2. Updated all of the "plugins" that are used to help the content for the site.
3. Updated the version of WordPress being used on the site.

The theme uses a smaller, non-expanding central column for information. Consequently, some of the pictures can be too large for the column. I spent a good amount of time getting the pictures into the column — but I have more to do in this area.

In addition, I fooled with the code a bit to get the columns right. I thought things were fine — looking at it with the Firefox browser — but then looked at it using Internet Explorer 7.0 and saw the whole thing totally screwed up. So if you came in on Saturday with IE, you probably had an interesting reading experience…

More work to do.

Scot, K9JY

Posting has been a bit bare here recently, though I have continued to work on the WriteLog site. The reasoning was that on Monday both myself and my wife were laid off from our company. We’re doing fine, but we’ve also recognized that taking some time for ourselves is an important thing to do, so blogging has been way more than secondary to making sure we are fine and start to work our plans.

More contesting to come, of course. Perspective is a great thing. You can check out the details over on my business blog, Cube Rules, and the article Laid Off — A new journey begins.

Scot, K9JY