Don't Back Down

It's times like this that I wished that I had some better way of displaying headlines. I don't know what, exactly. Maybe a big flashing sign. Or perhaps a rotating banner. Just something, because a story like this just begs for something more than text. I could always go retro and bring in the good old blink element, but that would just be annoying. So I suppose that means I'll just tell the story.

For those of you who don't live in Charlotte, or in the general area, we're low on gas. Really low. It's not because of the weather - at least not the weather that we have here. When Hurricane Ike hit what seems like months ago, apparently they shut off our gas pipelines or something. Because for the last week or so, stations all around town have gradually been shuttering their pumps, and now we're down to almost nothing. Gas-wise, I mean. Lots of lines, and plenty of horns. Even one arrest (maybe more, that's just all I've heard about).

Read All of "The Great Charlotte Gas Shortage of 2008" »

Posted by Chad Everett in In Our World
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: To Update (Firmware) or Not to Update in Gadgeteria

Over the last few weeks, I've had the distinct (dis)pleasure of working on not one, not two, but three NAS (networked attached storage) devices. One of these is my own Infrant ReadyNAS NV+, one is a similar device from a client and the third is a smaller device, a ReadyNAS Duo, for another client.

While there were certainly a variety of issues to be had, in the end the problems all arose from one factor: The firmware hadn't been updated since installation of the devices. And when I say issues, I really just mean that what we were trying to do was made much easier once the firmware was installed. It's not like the devices stopped working or anything.

Read All of "To Update (Firmware) or Not to Update" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Gadgeteria
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: Pick a Feed and Stick to It in About a Blog
Next Entry: The Great Charlotte Gas Shortage of 2008 in In Our World

If you're like most people, your blog has an RSS feed. Chances are, you don't even know what RSS stands for, but you likely have one (if you're wondering, it most often stands for really simple syndication, but that isn't important).

Unfortunately, you may have more than one, which means if you want to know how many subscribers you have to your feed, you have a problem. At best, you have to add up each of the subscriber counts and get a total. At worst, you have potential eyeballs who want to see your latest and greatest, but they're looking at outdated content. Isn't it time you fixed this?

Read All of "Pick a Feed and Stick to It" »

Posted by Chad Everett in About a Blog
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: Update Your Movable Type Spam Filters (Please) in Movable Type
Next Entry: To Update (Firmware) or Not to Update in Gadgeteria

Movable Type version 3.2, released in April of 2007, included a plugin known as SpamLookup. This plugin was able to submit comments to a lookup service (hence the name of the plugin) to one of a number of blacklist services, which in turn would determine if the IP address used for the comment submission is suspicious, allowing you to better judge if you had encountered a spam comment.

However, way back in May of 2007, Six Apart released a guide on updating your spam filters for the plugin. Without the change, your comment-posting process will be horribly slow, because the process has to timeout before it will continue. Also, the default for the other service probably isn't the best (though that isn't mentioned). Want to know more? Read on!

Read All of "Update Your Movable Type Spam Filters (Please)" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Movable Type
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: All the Slow-Turners are in the South in In Our World
Next Entry: Pick a Feed and Stick to It in About a Blog

Maybe I'm just getting old. If I am, I hope that it doesn't involve the need to signal that I'm going to turn a mile down the road - and then come to a complete stop before starting up again to actually make the turn.

I'll admit that it's been a while since I've lived anywhere other than the South (approaching twenty years now), and when I did it was - gasp - California. But the people in North and South Carolina are really bad at turning.

Read All of "All the Slow-Turners are in the South" »

Posted by Chad Everett in In Our World
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: How is the Lynx Blue Line Doing? in Our Town
Next Entry: Update Your Movable Type Spam Filters (Please) in Movable Type

Something like nine months ago (in November of 2007), the Lynx Blue Line opened to great fanfare - and not a few Bronx Cheers. Those who thought that the entire mass transit system of Charlotte would be paid for - not to mention built - by that time had a few shocks in store, as the budget kept going up and up ,while the delivered goods kept going down and down.

The sleek cars were definitely nice and all, but ultimately there was a certain disappointment. Original plans had called for trains that could handle three cars. Scaled-back plans had many trains running with two cars, and some sporting only a single. Parking lots along the farthest reaches had been trimmed as well, because with citizens screaming for another referendum, it seemed like the only way to make ends meet was to trim the fat. That was done, and now things have been up and running for the better part of a year. To make things even more interesting, gas has gone up with no apparent end in sight. What does it all mean?

Read All of "How is the Lynx Blue Line Doing?" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Our Town
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: Displaying Related Entries on your Movable Type Site in Movable Type
Next Entry: All the Slow-Turners are in the South in In Our World

From time to time, I am asked how to display related entries on a Movable Type-powered site (and I frequently have to look it up myself), so I figured that I'd document it here.

While there are plugins that do the work, they typically depend on another value (usually categories, keywords or tags - sometimes a combination of those), and the problem with those is that they depend on humans to first enter that value. If you forget to do so, then it means the related entries won't work until you go back and enter it. If you enter the wrong value, you get the wrong results. There has to be a better way. Luckily, there is.

Read All of "Displaying Related Entries on your Movable Type Site" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Movable Type
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (2)
Previous Entry: Windjammer Dumped Us in Costa Rica in Travelogue
Next Entry: How is the Lynx Blue Line Doing? in Our Town

For just about as long as I can remember, I wanted to take a Windjammer cruise, which was odd because I really don't care for cruises in general. I think the thing that I dislike about cruises - that they are on these big, impersonal boats - was what I liked about the Windjammer.

You are on smaller, more interesting boats, you get to have a more personal experience with whatever country (or countries) you are in, it just makes for more of an adventure. And now that I put it that way, I guess really can't argue with it. So if you're after adventure, you may want to go Windjammer. But if you're interested in a cruise with Windjammer, you might want to stay away.

Read All of "Windjammer Dumped Us in Costa Rica" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Travelogue
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: Charlotte, City of the Bus Stop in Our Town
Next Entry: Displaying Related Entries on your Movable Type Site in Movable Type

There are people who will try to tell you that Charlotte is the Queen City. Don't believe them. Charlotte is Bus Stop City.

I've never been a huge rider of the bus. Even when I was in school I didn't ride the bus that much. I won't say that there weren't school buses back then, I just don't recall them being all over like they are now. But whenever I did ride the bus, I remember having to walk a good bit to get on the bus. Not the case in Charlotte. For whatever reason, Charlotte has to have the closest bus stops I have ever seen. There are some places in Charlotte (Idlewild Road North and Milton Road being two of them, but I'm sure that there are others) where the bus stops are perhaps a hundred feet apart.

Read All of "Charlotte, City of the Bus Stop" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Our Town
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: A Disney Rewards Card (With Free Bambi DVD)! in Hall of Shame
Next Entry: Windjammer Dumped Us in Costa Rica in Travelogue

I don't get a lot of junk mail. I have the warning message on my credit report, I've used as many pre-screenings as possible, and I'll opt out as often as I can. I've even tried to get out of the Valassis list (they are the ones who put the newspaper-like ads in your mailbox). I'm stll working on that one. Though they say that it will take 6-8 weeks to get off their list, and it will last for five years, I've yet to get out.

Anyway, because of all this, I get very little junk mail, and even fewer of those pre-approved credit offers. So I was a little surprised when I received a Disney Rewards card (Visa, I think). It might have been from when we went to Disney a few years ago - as long as you've done business with them, they can send you something, and they might consider staying in their hotel "doing business". But what really gets me is that if you sign up for it, you get a free Bambi DVD!

Read All of "A Disney Rewards Card (With Free Bambi DVD)!" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Hall of Shame
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (1)
Previous Entry: What's Up With the Department of Motor Vehicles? in In Our World
Next Entry: Charlotte, City of the Bus Stop in Our Town

The laughingstock of nearly every state, the DMV is the place where just about everything goes to die. Your morning is wasted. Don't even think about a lunch hour. Try and go in the afternoon and you'll be lucky to get home before the evening news.

Reports in North Carolina have recently said that our DMV lines could be expected to double in the Charlotte area - from 45 minutes to as long as 90 - because of increased federal requirements. This makes no sense. While most things are faster in the computer age, this relic of antiquity languishes.

It is true that you can at least renew your vehicle tags online, and that's a good thing. But if you need to get a new tag or tag a test, beware of the great black hole.

Read All of "What's Up With the Department of Motor Vehicles?" »

Posted by Chad Everett in In Our World
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (0)
Previous Entry: Windows was Unable to Save All the Data for the File in Microsoft
Next Entry: A Disney Rewards Card (With Free Bambi DVD)! in Hall of Shame

Anyone who has been reading for any length of time knows that I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to keeping track of data, so a message like The Data has Been Lost is a killer. Some people might even call this behavior anal, but it is what it is. So when the message comes up - repeatedly - telling me that the Delayed Write Failed and that the data has been lost, it ate at me. Really. I didn't know what to do. I think most people might take issue with it, but hey. What can I do?

Now it's not as if I'm talking government secrets here. I'm just doing a typical backup of data across a pretty simple home network (and a wired one at that). If it was on the wireless portion of the network, I could perhaps consider that maybe the neighbor's signal got in the way. But why it decided to start happening - and happening all the time - was driving me absolutely nuts.

Read All of "Windows was Unable to Save All the Data for the File" »

Posted by Chad Everett in Microsoft
Permalink | Related Entries | Comments (2)
Previous Entry: My Quest for the Perfect Mouse in Gadgeteria
Next Entry: What's Up With the Department of Motor Vehicles? in In Our World