unbound @ seema.org

Saturday, March 13, 2010

 
Uh oh...

Blogger will be cutting off FTP access to blogs not hosted on their custom domains or blogspot on May 1 (or thereabouts). I don't want to move to their custom domain because it would mean splitting up this website and that doesn't make any sense. I'm not planning to give up the blog because while I'm inconsistent and infrequent these days, I do still enjoy having this forum. So I'm looking for a new solution. WordPress is one I'm investigating but if anyone knows of an FTP access blogging software similar to Blogger, please let me know; I'd prefer to make the transition as painlessly as possible.

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3 comments | 12:11 PM |

Monday, October 05, 2009

 
LotD

You know that effect in black and white pictures when one element, such as a rose, is the only thing in color? In the example I suggest, it would be a black and white picture with a red rose in it. I've been wondering how to do that effect for years in Photoshop (I have version 7.0) and had tried a couple of different tutorials to no effect. And then I found this one, and it's super easy. Try it if you have the software (not sure if it works in stripped down versions of Photoshop) for really cool effects.

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0 comments | 12:08 AM |

Saturday, September 19, 2009

 
For fangirls/fanboys

FYI -- Yahoo! is shutting down its Geocities service on Oct. 26. Read more here. If you have files etc on a Geocities site, you may want to consider moving them. I started my online adventure on Geocities so I still have minimal files there, mostly of the non-fangirl nature. Feels like the end of an era. I wouldn't be surprised if other free hosting services started closing down as well.

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0 comments | 10:14 AM |

Thursday, July 16, 2009

 
LotD

I had a severe headache and vomiting on Tuesday. I knew it was most probably a migraine brought on by heat and stress, but I just wanted to double check. So I turned to Dr. Google and found this site --- FreeMD(r). Basically, you can be seen by a "virtual doctor". It's an interesting concept. The virtual program interviews you, and then after getting enough information, gives you a possible diagnosis, tells you if and how quickly you should see a doctor, and presents it all in an easy to print out form just in case you need it as a reference. I checked my headache (I was right -- migraine) and also just for fun, my lower back pain.

My lower back pain, incidentally, was caused from poor posture in an abs class some time ago and can be relieved with a good yoga class. So I was pretty sure the issue is a tight back muscle, given that yoga pretty much fixes the problem. So after the migraine diagnosis, I ran the lower back. And lo and behold, it diagnosed me with "acute back strain or sprain."

Anyway, I thought it was a neat tool. What I like about it is that they give you an idea of how serious your problem is. For instance, for the lower back pain, they recommended seeing a doctor within the next two weeks; for the migraine headache, they recommended I see a doctor within 8 hours. Luckily my headache was gone in that time!

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0 comments | 8:20 PM |

Monday, May 11, 2009

 
Tech note

I didn't want to enable comment moderation, but the first comment spam showed up in the previous post. I'm still not requiring login, but I am requiring the letter code picture thingy to deter further spammage. I apologize for the inconvenience. The offending comment has been removed from this blog.

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0 comments | 10:16 PM |

Saturday, January 10, 2009

 
New comments

I've replaced the YACCS commenting functionality with blogger's commenting system. It should work the same as YACCS, although the template isn't as pretty as the one I used for YACCS. It will ask you for a login -- you can sign in with a google account, Open ID, or anonymously. For now, I've turned off word verification because I find that highly annoying but if spamming becomes a problem on this blog, I will enable it. Let me know if you have any problems using the new commenting system. Note -- If you sign in anonymously, please sign your name. Thanks!

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0 comments | 4:36 PM |

Tech

It looks like my longtime comments provider, YACCS, isn't around. I'll wait a couple more days to see what the situation is before I go in and tinker/tamper with the commenting function on the template.

ETA: Looks like after seven years of service, YACCS discontinued its commenting service on Dec. 23, 2008. Wah! It was fun while it lasted. I will see about adding blogger's commenting function here.

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0 comments | 3:46 PM |

Friday, July 18, 2008

 
Things that make you go hmmm

Anyone else notice AT&T's DSL connection slowing down right around the time they raised the prices another $5? I'm a little aggravated because when I started out, the connection was much faster at $14.99 and then they raised it to $19.99 and now it's $24.99 -- just six months after the $5 raise to $19.99. I'm paying $10 more for slower service! I am *so* an undelighted customer.

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0 comments | 5:11 PM |

Sunday, April 06, 2008

 
Techity

I've been aggravated with SeaMonkey ever since I upgraded from the last legit version of Mozilla. First, there was the minor issue of it erasing/losing all of my email (5-6 years worth!) and since then, it's been slow as rocks and just not as stable a client as Mozilla. I miss Mozilla :-(.

My latest problem concerns email -- namely email sent via SMTP. The email downloads from my web server just fine, but when I respond and go to click "send", I get two error messages. Eventually I'm able to send the email by jumping through a couple of hoops, namely going back into account settings, switching between "Default" and "AT&T" SMTP servers (which is stupid, because in this case, they are one and the same) and then making sure no other email window is open. Once this is done, I can sometimes hit send and actually have the email go.

I've been checking all of my settings and passwords and ports, and I still haven't figured out what the issue is. I don't know whether the culprit is AT&T -- though they eventually let me send the email -- or SeaMonkey, or some combination of both. I'd like to like the blame for the whole mess on SeaMonkey's doorstep though. The fact if I shut down all email except the one I want to send tells me that it is most probably a software issue rather than AT&T being difficult. I'm trying to test another SMTP server, but that's causing me another load of problems.

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0 comments | 8:14 AM |

Sunday, March 23, 2008

 
LotD

Weboggle. Totally addicting.

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0 comments | 11:09 AM |

Friday, February 29, 2008

 
Hmmm, shiny tech

Apparently you can put a "call me" button on your weblog now, courtesy of google. If I do such a thing, it means you all can call me -- without knowing my phone number -- and leave messages on my voicemail. The more techy me of a decade ago would have been all over it. The new me is just overwhelmed by the myriad ways people can get in touch with me and somehow, even with two cell phones, three email address, one land line, three AIM name and on one Y!messenger name* it's not enough ways to keep in contact. I can't even imagine what life on Myspace has got to be like. Isn't that one long contact fest?

* BTW, I'm not counting the three ways you can contact me at work.

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0 comments | 9:46 PM |

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