Yesterday I started coming down with something. My throat was kind of sore and there seemed to be something in the middle of my chest with the added bonus of some coughing. My Mom had just gone through something similar, so I gave her a call to see what she recommended to combat it. She gave me a long list of stuff to take including NyQuil, DayQuil, Vicks VapoRub, Robitussin CF Syrup, and Mucinex.
Author / Michael Ashby
Comments Should Be Fixed
It was brought to my attention that some of you may have been having difficulty posting comments to the site. It seems the culprit was a plugin I installed to help throttle comment spammers called MT-DBSL. If you tried to post a comment you may have gotten a message something like the following: Your comment […]
You Can’t Get There From Here
Working in the technology industry can be very frustrating. Every day it seems that I’m wading through a quagmire of information to find the “needle in the haystack” that will solve the problem at hand. If it’s an obscure glitch, or a quirky solution, I expect that there will be some pain and suffering in trying to find a solution. However, often times it seems that I do nothing more than beat my head against a wall for even the most basic of needs. My current “pain du jour” is e-mail. You’d think that given it’s popularity that anything you’d like to do with e-mail could be done with a number of software applications, but unfortunately I’m finding that it’s not. I feel like after asking for directions, I’m being told, “you can’t get there from here.” >(
I’ve been using Thunderbird for well over a year now and have been quite happy for the most part. All of my e-mail accounts are IMAP based, as discussed here, and Thunderbird is one of the best IMAP e-mail clients I’ve found. The SPAM filters are top-notch, the program runs quickly and handles large amounts of e-mail with aplomb, yet there are two features that I’m looking for that simply don’t exist. These two features have sent me on a quest to find a new e-mail client and I simply can’t find a proper solution.
The Wing Basket
The other night Holly and I were feeling like “being bad” and getting something not on our South Beach diet. As we sat there on the couch, I threw out the idea of going to a new place that opened up near us called “The Wing Basket”. Much to my surprise, Holly took me up on my suggestion and we headed off in hopes of finding a place that “does wings right.” Although buffalo wings are now fairly common, most places don’t prepare them “right” in my book. Sure I can order wings from Dominos, but that doesn’t mean that they are any good and in Domino’s case, they aren’t. Usually there’s something wrong with the sauce, or they’ve prepared the chicken itself poorly – this is especially true when the wings are breaded. I’m sure there are others who prefer their wings breaded, and to each his own, but when I go out for wings I want a nice spicy experience with nothing between me and my chicken. 😛
As Holly and I walked into the restaurant, I could instantly tell that Wing Basket was a chain. Growing up in Louisiana, I’ve been spoiled by family owned restaurants and I try and steer away from chains whenever possible. Having someone local cook up a nice dinner will always be head and shoulders above what a restaurant chain can offer 9 times out of 10. Preferences aside, Holly and I stepped up to the counter to see what was on the menu. Other than a couple of side dishes, the only item on the menu were buffalo wings. That was fine by me and I was rather pleased to see that they were so specialized. Yet wings aren’t the focus on the menu. According to their slogan, “It’s all about the sauce”.
The Sauces
With a slogan like that, I figured it’d be best to sample as many of them as I could. Typically the wings are served coated with sauce, but we asked them to put it on the side so that we could try the whole range of the menu. We started with just two sauces, but we kept going back for more to try different ones. Here’s a run down on the ones that we tried:
Gmail Anyone?
This morning, I was checking my Gmail account, archiving old threads, responding to friends and what not. I looked to see how many Gmail accounts I have to giveaway when I was shocked to see that I have 50 invitations to give away. So if you’ve always wanted a Gmail account and have yet to get one, post a reply to this entry with your full name (first and last) and an e-mail address and I’ll send you an invite. Doesn’t get any easier than that does it?
What The Heck Is Gmail?
If you haven’t heard about Gmail some people may claim that you’ve been living under a rock, but I have plenty of friends and family that aren’t as plugged into the Web as others, so for their benefit, I thought I’d share a few details.
Gmail is a free web based e-mail service that was launched in April 2004 by Google. It’s a little different type of e-mail system in that it’s database driven. Gone are inboxes, outboxes and deleting of e-mails. Instead you “archive” your e-mail, which means that you don’t delete. To quote from a C|Net article:
“The idea is that your mail can stay in there forever,” said Wayne Rosing, vice president of engineering at Google. “You can always index it, always search it, and always find things from the past.”
With never having to delete an e-mail, it might appear that you’d fill up the measly 2MB that are typical of web based e-mail, but with Gmail, you have 2GB of storage! Originally Gmail came with 1GB, but they recently bumped it up to 2GB and may push it to larger and larger capacities as needed. So you never have to worry about running out of space, or that someone sending you a bunch of photos is going to overload your inbox.
The Computer Outlook Radio Show
I was in Baton Rouge a few months ago and my friends and I were at the City Cafe enjoying dinner and catching up on things. I was elbows deep into a tray of boiled crawfish when I thought of a story that I wanted to share. As a lead in, I said, “You know that radio show I’m doing…” I wasn’t even looking up when said it. My focus was on the tails in front of me, but instead of “Uh huhs and “Yeahs”, there was complete silence. Looking up from my platter, I was met with nothing but puzzled and confused faces. Duffy was the first to respond by saying, “Um… no? WHAT radio show?” Now I was the one that was confused.
“I told you guys about this didn’t I?”, I said in a somewhat pleading manner. I mean these were some of my closest friends and I would have shared something like this with them right? In a half-laugh, Ken Harelson said, “No, I think I would have remembered that!” No one was mad or anything, but it made me feel a little bit silly. You’d think I’d share something like this with my friends. I searched this weblog and I did find that I made a small mention of it here and here, but I’ve never really shared the whole story, so here it is.
Making FTP Easy – FTPDropper
I don’t know about you, but using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) can sometimes be a bit of a pain in the butt. Don’t use FTP? Well you probably do without realizing it, but spend time with the web long enough and you’re bound to run into this protocol at one point or another. Start a weblog like this one, or be required to update a web site and you’ll be sure to use it.
Take this weblog as an example. I made the decision that I would include an image with every post. As innocent as that decision sounded at the time, it meant that I would always have to create an image. It also meant that after that image was created, I would have to upload that image to my web server. MovableType has an upload feature, but since I typically use Zempt to post my articles, I don’t use the web based interface. Instead, I would fire up my FTP program WS FTP, log into the server, browse to the directory and then upload the file. Not a huge deal, but it’s a series of steps that I would like to avoid if at all possible.
I found a cool widget called FTPDrop that works in AveDesk. I use AveDesk for other widgets, so this was a no brainer, but what I really wanted was a stand alone program. Why? Because I have clients that need to FTP stuff and trying to explain what FTP is and how the interface works, yada yada yada. Additionally, I didn’t want the solution to require installing a widget program like AveDesk, or Konfabulator just so that they could use one widget. I just wanted a simple program. Luckily, I found it. 🙂
My 10-Mile Ride
With Spring in full bloom here in Nashville, my passion for cycling can finally flourish. After doing a mini-tune up and finding all my gear, it was time to fine tune my body and knock off some of the cobwebs after a winter of being sedentary. So for my first few rides, I’ve turned to my default route – the 10-mile loop. With the past few routes that I’ve posted, such as the Duck River Rendezvous, I thought it might be fun to document some of everyday rides. The 10-Mile loop is a ride a discovered after moving into our home a few years ago. I was looking for a loop that could give me a decent mileage and also provide a little challenge along the way. After riding and driving around one week, I stumbled upon this route and it’s been my go to route ever since. Being just at 10 miles, it’s easy to accomplish in an hour, but you’ll definitely get a workout along the way. There are several steep hills along the route which offer a challenge for those looking for hills. The first climb is a fairly small, low grade that’s a little deceptive. It starts just after the school and continues around the corner of Blue Hole onto Pettus. It’s not a hard hill per se, but when your legs haven’t had a chance to warm up, it can be a bit of a bear. There’s also a couple of friendly dogs that sometimes give chase to help crank up your adrenaline at this point too. Once you turn left onto Old Hickory, there’s a nice downhill to provide a pay off for your climb, but once at the bottom, there’s a slight grade all the way to a nice “pop” of a hill after the turn onto Clubertson. You definitely come out of the saddle for this small climb, but once on top, you’re greeted with a nice twisty descent that snakes down to Mill Creek. This is one of the best parts of the route. The road hugs Mill Creek and in the mornings it’s not uncommon to find ducks and other small birds welcoming the morning with a brisk bath. There’s only one small “pop” of a hill on this road, so it makes for a nice leisurely ride all the way till you get to Nolensville road. Continue Reading
Look For Me On The CMT!
On Friday I had to meet Holly for a late lunch at 3:00pm so that we could go through the “security process” for the CMT Awards. Yes, you read that correctly, Holly and I are going to be part of the Country Music Television Awards tonight. Ok, it’s a small part – a very small part, but for a couple of kids from Baton Rouge, it’s pretty cool to us. We are going to be on the floor right in front of the stage. We have to stand there from 5pm – 10pm, with no chance of sitting (hence the apt nickname “the mosh pit” ), but we’ll probably be on camera throughout the broadcast. How cool is that?
So how did we get this opportunity? Well, Holly’s a member of the “Women in Music Business Association (WMBA)” organization. This group is a fairly connected group and because they work in the industry, and they come across unique opportunities and often pass them along to the group as a whole. This was one of those times. Holly received an e-mail and quickly submitted our names for consideration. We were selected and received an e-mail telling us what we needed to do, where and what the rules are (no cameras, cell phones, etc.).
The first order of business was to show up on Friday to go through “security.” I’m using quotes because it consisted of nothing more than showing your ID to prove you were who you said you were. After that 5 second process, our names were checked off a list and a plastic wristband was attached. We were then told that this wristband was all that we needed to gain admittance on Monday. However, we were not to remove it and if we did we would not be allowed on the floor.