One of the wonderful benefits from living in these interesting times is the new green revolution. Saving this, conserving that and protecting the other - these are the watch words of our time. And such a refreshing change from the get-rich-quick schemes of a few years ago. Nevertheless, there is a real danger in any of these mass movements, that we loose sight of the ultimate goal - of treading more lightly on the Earth and leaving more for those to follow.
(starting again) It’s so easy to become preachy about this. More to the point - what can I do that makes sense.
I have a few luxuries to help here - time and know-how. The internet is a great tool for this - just about anything we might need professional help on is explained in excruciating detail on the web. When ever something seems to be out of my league, I remember the previous projects that seemed that way too, and after some hours study on the net - I just right in. Well, maybe not everything - I’m tempted to have a go with minor surgery on my family members - it really doesn’t look that difficult and would save a bomb over regular hospitals etc. But I just can’t seem to get anyone ready to give it a try.
These days, I’m interested in finding ways to reduce our consumption of water and power. And If I can grow a larger portion of our food - then so much the better. More on these topics coming up…
Posted in Going green.
By Michael
– 2009/05/15
It must be in the blood.
Salt water runs through the veins of all Englishmen (not intending to be sexist here - I’m sure some dribbles through the gals too…). It’s no accident that having travelled thousands and thousands of miles from my homeland to live in the Americas, I chose to park myself in fabulous Los Angeles - as close as I can afford to the great Pacific. It was either that or the Atlantic seaboard for me. Now the rest of the country - full no doubt with a million wonders and all - might as well not be there. I think the same goes for Australia. All life, it seems, is driven to the wet/dry boundary. This is as it should be, even though it means too many others have the same idea resulting in traffic jams to beat the band. Ah - Los Angeles.
My good wife though, heralding as she does from Switzerland, sees nothing in the sea - only an void without any decent mountains.
For me, the water is everything. Every minute spent on dry land should be in preparation for getting back in. And nothing with engines and noise either. To that end, and in no particular order we have:
- Kayaking
- Sailing
- Scuba diving
- everything else (swimming - too much like real work, snorkeling and boogie-boarding). Surfing (and wind-surfing) should be on the list too, but these require some skill. Oh well….
True, there are plenty of other worthwhile things to do here - but these could be done anywhere. Leave the dry stuff for the poor souls who can’t get to the sea.
Posted in Water Sports.
By Michael
– 2009/05/14
Still new at all this blogging lark and some things seem more intuative than others. Right now, I’ve been dealing with WordPress - the engine that drives this blog. OK, the thing is, my first post generated a congrats comment from a friend, who pointed out the need to install “Askimet” to protect myself from comment-spam. (Comment-spam - something I’ve never even thought of before, but I now know it has to be resisted like nothing else!).
So, how to install this beauty then… First off, I logged into the blog page (this one) and picked the admin link - way easier than trying to remember the URL - whatever that was. Suprisingly, it didn’t ask for a password. Maybe one of the dozen or so password caches are doing their magic for me, which is great while they work - then one day I will be asked for a password and I’ll have no idea which one I used.
(Side note - what’s up with all these passwords. Every site seems to have a different set of rules about what constitutes an acceptable password. Some demand one or more “special characters” while others refuse them. Aghhhhhhhhh!)
Nevertheless (good word - that), my local WordPress admin screen pops up and Voila - there among the suggested plug-ins is the formentioned Askimet. Click-click and the install is done - but wait. Now it says it needs my WordPress API code to enable it. What??? OK then, I run off to the www.wordpress.com where I’m invited to create a log-in (another damn login) with yet another set of password rules (I don’t get it - the page says my everyday password is strong - yet apparently not strong enough for the form). Time to call out a more secure password - one I keep in reserve for more sensitive things, like ordering things). All goes well and it says “wait for a verification email” to continue. Well, at least one good thing resulted from this change of web host - my email is lightning-fast - at least compared with my previous host where incoming mail regularly took 30 minutes to an hour to show up. Goodness knows what they were doing all that time. Even internal mail like resetting the control panel password (yes - I forget these things so easily) which sends email to me ON THE SAME SERVER! - takes a good 30 minues. sigh. That’s all in the past now 
OK, so mail received and - click - verified. Logging back into my wordpress.com account and clicking on the profile side-link showed the new API-key. Hooray. a quick copy and past into the still-waiting Askinet activation dialog on my own wordpress site and everything seems happy. I’m at last protected from something I didn’t even know was a threat.
Now to check out craigslist and dream about sailboats etc…
Posted in web hosting.
By Michael
– 2009/05/14
This is my first post - I don’t expect too much just yet, but hang in there. Things can only get better.
I just signed up for a new web-hosting package through http://justhost.com and it seems to very straightforward. I picked this web hosting site based on a number of factors, most importantly the unlimited settings (storage, bandwidth, databases, domains etc.) and of course, the price. At $3.95 a month for a 2 year commitment, with free domain registration thrown-in - this is pretty hard to beat.
One thing bugged me though - as soon as my credit card info was entered and submitted - they display a page of “upgrades” - things like SSH (unix shell access) and statistics packages - which I was convinced were already included. So much for the “no hidden charges” claim.
Nevertheless, here am I trying to figure out how to use the web-based control panel and file manager do what I need. It seems pretty straightforward but rather clunky and slow - shell access would have been much easier.
I’m setting this blog up using WordPress which was a matter of 3 or 4 clicks thanks to “Fantastico” - the install script manager. I only had to delete the original index.php due to a naming conflict. Three minutes after submitting my credit card and here I am - publishing away like a pro!
Oh, one more thing. I chose to move my old domain from another web host rather than create a new domain. So far, I just used the original registrar’s management console to re-point the name servers to the servers used by JustHost.com. Despite the warning that this might take 72 hours to propogate through the worlds network of DNS servers - it seems to work immediately. The first refresh of my old web page brought me over to the new site. Now I have to figure out how to retrieve the old content - I wish I’d thought of that before pressing the button…
Posted in web hosting.
By Michael
– 2009/05/14
