August 08, 2006
Man Bashing at Why Homeschool
The reality is that many men, if given the opportunity and right circumstances, would sexually assault a women.
According to RAINN, the current rape rate is less than 1 women in a thousand. That is still 1 in a 1000 too many, but to imply that the average girl / women is in mortal danger of being raped just from everyday life activities is plain loony.
Honestly, I may just have to kill all my homeschool search feeds. Reading this crap is just too depressing.
Permalink | Comments (8)July 18, 2006
Hell hath No Fury...
This ought to do wonders for her dating life when the divorce is finalized.
Revenge is a dish best served cold also applies here.
Feel free to add your own overused phrases in the comments.
Update: After reading through a few entries I'm not sure I believe it. It might all be fiction. The story seems to flow a little to nicely for real life, but who knows?
Update 2: Definately fake, although I do wonder now what this will turn out to be selling.
Permalink | Comments (4)July 17, 2006
Insta-launch
My marriage post below generated an Instalink from the Godfather himself. It was a Sunday afternoon update to the original post, so it did not cripple my server, or even cause it to break a sweat. However, after 4 years of not trying, it is sort of cool to write something he noticed, even it was snark.
Make that particularly because it was snark :)
Permalink | Comments (1)June 30, 2006
When life imitates Dooce
Yesterday Michelle says to me, "Do you like the sign on the front door?"
I replied, "What sign?"
She then explains that she was tired of the solicitors ringing the doorbell, so she put up a no soliciting sign.
I look at her and say, "You read that on Dooce didn't you?"
Her reply was about a 5 second blank stare and then I hear "Oh my God, I did read that on Dooce."
I expect my wife to start drinking tequila and swearing like a drunken sailor any day now.
Permalink | Comments (6)June 24, 2006
New Web site by ODonnellWeb Studios
Check it out at Dark Horse Fencing
Permalink | Comments (0)April 27, 2006
Michelle's first blog post
Woo Hoo! My better half finally stepped out of the comments and actually made her very own blog post!.
Permalink | Comments (0)March 06, 2006
Don't feed the trollblogs
I've been advising against feeding the trollblogs for a while, even as I link to them in the link dumps. However, young Wil has written on trollblogs now, and since about 10,000 people read his blog, and 10 read mine, he will probably have a wee bit bigger impact :)
The really interesting thing that he brings up, that I had not really thought of, is trollblogging for profit. It's not really just losers that want attention anymore - it's losers that want money by getting attention.
Don't feed the trollblogs. In fact, effective immediately, I won't even point them out anymore.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 06, 2006
I've been memed
This is usually a meme free zone ®, however since it was Ryan that tagged me, and I got nothing else to write about tonight, I'll play along.
Four jobs I've had:
- Convenience store cashier (twice)
- Dorm kitchen grunt
- Burger King (for about 2 weeks)
- Tech Sales (most of my adult life)
Four movies I can watch over and over again:
- Casablanca
- Raiders of The Lost Ark
- Better Off Dead
- Top Gun
Four places I've lived:
- Torrejon Spain
- Rammstein Germany
- Kwajalein, Marshall Islands
- Leesburg, VA
Four TV Shows love:
- Battlestar Galactica
- 24
- Lost
- Good Eats
Four Places I've vacationed:
- Panama Ciy, FL
- Jekyll Island, GA
- Corolla, NC
- Honolulu, HI
Four of my favorite dishes
- Lasagna
- Steak, grilled
- Fish, grilled
- PB&J - my lunch almost every day
Four sites [that are not really blogs] that I visit daily:
- The Bleat
- Soxaholix
- Boortz
- Fredericksburg.com
Four places I would rather be right now:
- Laying on a beach with my wife
- In a pub, in Dublin. Ireland, not Ohio.
- On my horse farm, if I owned a horse farm
- Australia
Four bloggers I am tagging:
- Daryl
- Andrea
- Doc
- Natalie
November 22, 2005
Homeschool Blog Awards
Spunky was home sick today, and apparently decided the way to get better was to think up a huge project and then volunteer to execute on it.
I was that way once. I grew out of it though ;)
If you are interested in a Homeschool Blog Awards thingee, let Spunky know. The discussion here will be what she should offer up for awards.
Denim Jumpers?
Nickels from Tim's collection?
Fossil fragments that (prove/disprove) (evolution/ID)?
Autographed pictures from Scott Somerville?
Any other ideas?
October 09, 2005
I'll accept any offer over $200,000
This guy did the math on AOL's acquisition of blogs.com and determined that AOL paid $564 per inbound link.
Technorati says I have 434 inbound links.
$564 X 434 = $244,776
I'd prefer a certified check.
Permalink | Comments (0)August 15, 2005
Splogs
Mark Cuban addresses to problem of spam blogs - splogs. Personally, I'm tired of 95% of my saved technorati keyword searches being links to splog entries. I get really pissed when the are links to my content being repurposed by somebody else to generate hits and ad revenue.
He floats the idea of requiring email conformation on new post pings. In theory that would ensure that the poster is a real live human posting to a real blog - similar to the way many Wordpress posts require email confirmation today.
That might work - if they can centralize somehow. I don't want to be clicking links from 6 different aggregators everytime I post something.
Permalink | Comments (2)July 26, 2005
Did a blog solve a murder?
Permalink | Comments (0)July 11, 2005
New Homeschooler blog
I'm a liberal Pagan classical homeschooling mother living in small-town Mississippi.
Homeschooler...check
Owns silversmithing business...check.
And how cool is that?
Member of HSLDA?
Probably not :)
Permalink | Comments (2)July 06, 2005
There's a new blog in town...
The Tux Communications blog is live.
Permalink | Comments (1)June 24, 2005
3 Priests Walk Into A Bar...
No, it's not the setup for a joke. It is a rather good blog post from a former Catholic seminary student turned waiter.
Permalink | Comments (0)June 15, 2005
Competition in the homeschooler on a horse market
Delaney isn't the only home educated daughter of a blogger studying the equestrian arts.
I love this quote too. I think it was John Taylor Gatto who remarked that of course rich Englishmen felt up to conquering the world - they'd been taught to make very large mammals jump and run when they were boys. Anyone who can make a horse do their will feels a certain confidence in life.
I can't find a similar statement by Gatto or anybody else via Google. Anybody recognize it?
Permalink | Comments (3)June 12, 2005
Homeschoolzine.com
Is anybody else getting irritated with Homeschoolzine.com? (I'm not giving them a link.) Every damn day about 25% of the posts in my Bloglines homeschool related searches are this damn site reposting from other sites. I've seen my posts there, Daryl, Spunky, etc.
There is absolutely no value-add and no commentary. The whole thing looks like a poorly conceived play to make money on Google ads.
The IP address of their web server is not showing up in my logs - the search agent must be hosted somewhere else.
Permalink | Comments (2)May 22, 2005
I hate memes
I hate memes, but since Daryl tagged me...
The idea is to complete 5 of these phrases...
f I could be a scientist...If I could be a farmer...If I could be a musician...If I could be a doctor...If I could be a painter...If I could be a gardener...If I could be a missionary...If I could be a chef...If I could be an architect...If I could be a linguist...If I could be a psychologist...If I could be a librarian...If I could be an athlete...If I could be a lawyer...If I could be an inn-keeper...If I could be a professor...If I could be a writer...If I could be a llama-rider...If I could be a bonnie pirate...If I could be an astronaut...If I could be a world famous blogger...If I could be a justice on any one court in the world...If I could be married to any current famous political figure..
- If I could be an athlete...I'd be the starting catcher for the Boston Red Sox.
- If I could be a world famous blogger...I'd voluntarily demote myself. This end of the blogosphere is way more interesting.
- If I could be a musician...I'd release all my songs free on the Internet and make my living playing live.
- If I could be a librarian,,I'd kick the noisy disrespectful kids, (and their parents) out, and not allow them back in.
- If I could be a professor, I'd build a raft and escape with Mary Ann.
Ogre, Ryan, and Hart, you are it.
Permalink | Comments (0)March 30, 2005
MT Blacklist hates me
I am so tired of my blog comments in other corners of the blogosphere being rejected for "objectionable content" that turns out to be my URL in the URL field. Since it doesn't happen everywhere, I'm guessing it's more of a user error issue than a software problem.
Either that, or this is what I get for criticizing Six Apart in the past ;)
Todays irritant is Baseball Musings
Update: This is just beautiful...from my MT logs.
Ping 'http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/6149' failed: Your ping was denied for questionable content.Permalink | Comments (4)
March 18, 2005
63 days of hell
You absolutely must read this.
As a teenager I was kidnapped out of my bed and taken into the wilderness desert of Utah where I was to stay for 63 days. It was actually longer, as fate would decide. I'm just now starting to recover memories, copy entries of my journals from that time and to talk about this strange and painful adventure I endured. This is my story, this is my life.Permalink | Comments (5)
March 11, 2005
1 link away from Lileks
It's like the six degrees game, only much, much lamer. In today's Bleat, Lileks linked to 43 Folders. Merlin, the proprieter of 43 Folders, left a comment here yesterday.
Since Lileks writes The Bleat a day in advance, he linked to a site on the same day that said site owner left a comment here.
This is probably as close as I'll ever get to a link from Lileks!
Even more Lileks weirdness. Also in todays Bleat, he links to this ridiculously lame review on Amazon.com. The writer of the review is from Fredericksburg, VA.
Permalink | Comments (0)March 10, 2005
An A List Set Up?
Yesterday, Metafilter founder Matt Haughey blogged about how the new Kelly Clarkson song (yeah, the American Idol winner) was stuck in his head. I couldn't imagine her putting out a good song, so I checked it out. It's standard formula pop for the masses, been done a bazillion times already.
This morning Kottke blogged the same thing.
What are the odds the two A-List, left wing hipster, cooler than thou, bloggers would both be obsessed with a bland pop song from Kelly Clarkson? Even if they are friends and "discovered the song" together.
I put those odds somewhere very close to zero.
It's got to be a joke, maybe to see how many Kelly Clarkson fans they can bring out of the closet. The alternative, that Kelly Clarkson has that kind of power, is just too scary to contemplate ;)
February 28, 2005
Slow site?
Several readers have reported that ODonnellWeb has been slow, and I too have noticed time outs when loading the site. My web host doesn't see anything that should be causing a problem right now. They were the victim of several denial of service attacks over the weekend though.
If anybody notices it and has the technical ability to run a traceroute, please do so and email me the result. It will help us pinpoint what is happening.
Thank you.
The Management
Update: I checked my CSS, it validates without a single error or warning. I was actually surprised by that! I think we can rule out the CSS file as causing the problem. It has seemed much better to me so far this week.
Permalink | Comments (4)February 22, 2005
Kottke Goes Full Time
Uber blogger / personal publisher Jason Kottke has quit his job and will be blogging full time. He is hoping to pay the rent and buy cat food (hopefully for the cat and not himself!) via reader donations.
Brilliant? Gutsy? Stupid? All of the above?
Should I be mean and start the When will Jason go back to work pool?
I'm kidding...I hope he does fantastically well.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 15, 2005
Tulsa World doesn't get it.
Tulsa World, the sole daily newspaper in Tulsa, OK, is threatening legal action against Bates Online.
The alleged crime? Excerpting and, if you can believe it, linking to stories on the Tulsa World web site. Can you just imagine the audacity of this guy? Writing criticism of the local fish wrapper, and then linking to the source material so his readers can decide for themselves. We just can't have that kind of open communication in America. It's bad. We need media conglomerates to tell us every thing we need to know.
Let's shine a light on this cockroach. The more people that know about Tulsa World's despicable behavior, the better.
via Ogre
Permalink | Comments (1)February 08, 2005
Wil Wheaton is going to be on CSI
Permalink | Comments (0)February 06, 2005
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
The J-Walk blog started a fun meme, pick 9 bloggers that you'd like to have over for dinner. People you know are excluded. I'm defining know as anybody who'd recognize my email address. I also limited the list to people on my blogroll.
This list is not in any particular order.
- James Lileks
- Does this need any explanation? It will be his job to supply the after dinner cigars though.
- Glenn Reynolds
- He is the Godfather of blogging. It would sort of like having Michael Corleone over for dinner, without the implicit death threat if the pasta isn't perfect.
- Heather Armstrong
- Every dinner party needs somebody to drink too much and start cursing like a sailor. Heather would be perfect for that.
- Rob Malda
- He is the founder of Slashdot and really one of the original bloggers, although nobody called it that back then.
- Gordon Atkinson (Real Live Preacher)
- A great writer and a disc golf aficionado too. He could come into town early so we have time to get in a round or two of disc golf before dinner.
- Beth
- Beth is a hardcore Red Sox / Patriots fan and I'll need somebody to talk sports with at dinner.
- Bernie DeKoven
- If I get the urge to play with my food Bernie will know 30 different games to play with green peas. He will be in charge of the after dinner festivities for sure.
- Megan McArdle aka Jane Galt
- We need another woman at the table, and Jane is smart and funny. Always a good combination.
- Scott Ott
- Scrappleface is consistently the funniest satire on the Web. He'd be a riot.
February 01, 2005
24 and Horseshues
New post up at Horseshues.com. If you want to help jump start traffic to the new blog by posting a link I'd really appreciate it.
Anybody else watching 24 this year? Is there a finer hour of entertainment available on the idiot box?
Permalink | Comments (1)January 29, 2005
Parent bloggers in The New York Times
Jay Allen (The Zero Boss) gets a prominent mention in this NYT article on parent bloggers. The article also features Heather Armstrong (Dooce), a few other bloggers, and a fabulous picture of Heather's elbow.
Permalink | Comments (0)Horseshues 2.0
Horseshues 2.0 is live on the web! It features real blog content as well as a totally redesigned "Shue Closet" where Delaney sells her wares.
Check it out, leave a comment, or better yet, buy a Horseshue!
Permalink | Comments (0)January 19, 2005
The only blog devoted to bow tie crafts
Back in the olden days, this was what the web was all about. One person sharing a quirky hobby with the world. This is great.
Permalink | Comments (0)January 18, 2005
Score one for the good guys
Six Apart, Yahoo, MSN, and Google just released some serious firepower in the comment spam war. Effective more or less now, links left by site visitors will automatically get a special ref="nofollow" tag which tells Google, Yahoo, and MSN to ignore the link. Bottom line, comment spam will no longer push up a site in the search engines.
Of course, it will take a while for spammers to realize comment spam no longer works, and there are millions of blogs that won't get the necessary upgrade. But it's a start. It's a great start.
If you blog on Typepad you don't have to do anything, the upgrade will happen automatically in the next 24 hours. If you use Movable Type, download the plug in.
Permalink | Comments (4)January 14, 2005
ODonnellWeb Sells Out
Take a look to your left, I'm a sell out. However, Google's ad targeting needs some work. The first time I loaded the page with ads, I got an ad for NY Yankee products. Maybe they were aiming at Ogre or Daryl.
Permalink | Comments (1)January 09, 2005
Hair No More
Famous James, the King of 80's metal, has shorn his 80s hair and donated the locks to Locks Of Love. The before and after pics are on his website.
It would take me 3 years to grow enough hair to donate.
Well done FJ!
Permalink | Comments (0)January 01, 2005
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
You should be seeing two columns - with the ads now moved to the left column. You also should be seeing 15 links in the left column. Those are the last 15 sites I've bookmarked at Del.icio.us. If you are not seeing that please leave a comment with you browser / OS included.
Geek note - I'm not hitting the del.icio.us server with each page load. I'm pulling the links into a static page on my server. This pages pulls the links from the static page.
Update: This is for the main page only. Archives and the other pages are all unchanged.
Permalink | Comments (6)December 30, 2004
Happy Web Anniversary
Ryan notes that this month marks his 10th year on the Web. Tomorrow (12/31/2004) marks the beginning of the 9th year online for O'DonnellWeb.
It was a cold and windy one, that night of Dec 31, 1995. OK, actually I have no idea if it was cold or windy. What I do remember is that my wife was 7+ months pregnant with out daughter, so we weren't going anywhere to celebrate the passing of the year. She retired to bed well before midnight, leaving me alone with a computer and a lot of beer. That is never a safe thing to do.
Being the geek that I am, building a web page seemed to be a great way to spend the night. In fact, I decided that I wanted a page online that year. Obviously, I foresaw that I would be writing this missive 9 years later ;) Armed with nothing more than Notepad and Netscape 1.0 on a Windows 95 machine, I set off the figure out how to build a web page. It really wasn't that difficult. The number of HTML tags back then was very limited, and I was able to look at the code on IBM.com and a few other sites to figure out how it all worked. Several hours later it was nearing midnight and I was ready to launch my first site. I read the scarce documentation available and deduced where exactly on the server I needed to FTP my file.
It didn't work. The file was there, but I got a You are not authorized error where trying to access the page on my 14.4 modem. It was about 3 AM when I finally figured out the arcane syntax of the Unix CHMOD command and made the site available to the world. However, technically I was online by midnight. This would not be the last time I spent 3+ hours figuring out one silly computer command.
The URL for that site was http://www.america.net/~greenegg. That page has been lost to the mists of time, or something. However, it did look a lot like this.
I bought the ODonnellWeb domain in 1998. I'm not the digital pack rat that Ryan appears to be. I don't have copies of all the old sites.If you are interested, Archive.org seems to have me covered from early 1999.
Here is my very first blog post.
That first silly web page is directly connected to my decision to find a job in technology. In many ways, that night sitting up alone drinking homebrew and learning HTML has had a very significant impact on my life. If it wasn't for the Internet, I never would have met my wife moved to Virginia. I'd probably still be in GA in the printing trade.
December 29, 2004
She's a flight risk
Is she even real? Fascinating blog from a uber rich heiress who went into hiding to avoid an arranged marriage.
Either that , or it's very well done fiction. My original take was that it is a hoax, but after reading the Esquire article I'm not so sure.
Actually, I'm not sure it really matters. A good story is a good story.
Permalink | Comments (2)December 13, 2004
"The Beg Post" - how not to do it
It's that time of year where bloggers across the world try to figure out how to make a buck from their blogs. I'm a free enterprise kind of guy, so that doesn't bothers me. However, the guilt trip approach is unseemly, especially on a blog that is somewhat professional, or at least connected directly to the blogger's line of work.
There is one little fact of blogging that all of us need to understand.
YOUR READERS OWE YOU NOTHING.
We have provided fresh posts every single day since we started the blog.
The fact that you have provided fresh content daily means nothing. You chose to do it, we didn't ask.
No one pays us to blog.
Very few us are getting paid to blog. Why should that make you special?
Blogging does not count toward academic pay raises.
Even Scoble doesn't get job credit for blogging (not officially anyway). Again, that doesn't make you special.
We incur expenses of numerous magazine and newspaper subscriptions and book purchases. Review copies of books are few and far between.
Ah, so you actually get the occasional review copy? That already puts you way ahead of 99% of the blogging community who will never see a review copy. Of course, most of us (economists included), are reviewing books and reading periodicals that we'd read even if our blogs didn't exist. Heck, I'd probably read more if I didn't spend time writing here!
We do not expect to make money off the blog, but we would prefer that it does not cost us either.
You're looking for a free lunch? Shouldn't economists know that TANSTAAFL?
The currency of the blogosphere is not cash, it's reputation. The Bloglines feed I subscribe to shows 735 subscriptions for Marginal Revolution. I have 10 Bloglines subscribers for ODonnellWeb and I had 50,000 visitors last month. If their ratio is anywhere in that same neighborhood that is a lot of people. I wonder how many readers bought one of their books after discovering the blog? I wonder what kind of effect all those readers have on the academic and professional reputation of the authors? If they can get more speaking engagements from the increased visibility is that not making money on the blog? Hell, I suspect one extra speaking engagement a year easily makes the blog profitable on a cash accounting basis.
They then go on to offer up a few rewards for generous donations. This should have been the focus of the post. They should have laid out their expertise for us, summarized by links to previous posts where they were right about issues of economic importance, and then offered their readers the opportunity to buy that expertise for their personal or business needs.
For donations of $100 or more: an autographed copy of one of our books, your choice.
For donations of $1000 or more: A two-hour conference call with the two of us, on issues of your choice, including consulting problems if you so choose.
For donations of $5000 or more: A day of time from either of us, in the continental United States.
Those aren't outrageous consulting rates for top quality advice. If a blog can enhance your professional or academic career, by all means take advantage of it. But please don't try and make us feel guilty about reading free content you chose to put on the Internet.
Permalink | Comments (8)December 09, 2004
Best of The Blogs - Personal Edition
It's an award for those of us that can't actually make a living at this.
Note that this is not a beg to nominate me. I've had a website since 12/31/1995 and haven't won an award yet. No reason to break that streak now!
Permalink | Comments (6)December 02, 2004
Nov traffic Roundup
169,445 page views from 50,510 visitors. Wow.
Wow again, and thank you, whoever you are.
Just think - for only $10, all those people could have seen your ad!
Interestingly, the Ken Jennings posts continue to generate a lot of traffic. Funny how those Internets work. Also interesting, the Robert Scoble post got 761 page views, no comments, and only 9 of those page views came via a click on Robert's link to the post.
I would have expected him to generate more traffic than that. So who was reading that post? Odd...very odd.
I use a freeware offline log analyzer. I download the log file each month (40 MB this month!) and run the app locally. Kind of hard to screw that up - so I don't think I have a software issue.
I also had some significant referrer log spam this month. First time I've ever noticed that. Side benefit of the jump in traffic I guess.
Permalink | Comments (6)November 28, 2004
More from the echo chamber
I want to respond to Scoble's response to my comments.
My point was that RSS is not the next big thing. It's a thing certainly, but it's not going to change the world. Scoble disagrees, and to make his case he cites computer history, listing BBS, AOL, Prodigy, the Mac, mouse, and menu driven interface, email, the Web, IM, blogging, and for the future, Podcasting.
Podcasting? Is he kidding? Podcasting will never grow beyond niche status because it isn't solving a problem that many people have. As far as I can tell, it isn't solving a problem at all. Give me one good reason why tens of millions of people will start podcasting. "Adam Curry is doing it" is not going to cut it.
Email solved a problem, it enabled asynchronous communication. IM solved a problem, it enabled synchronous communication via text. The web enabled cheap one to many publishing, blog software made it easier to do, personal computers made all kinds of things possible that weren't possible before.
Even within his examples though, there are degrees. Email was revolutionary, IM less so. Has anybody built a profitable business on IM? It's a feature of other services like AOL, MSN, or the Zultys VoIP server. The web made it possible for private people and businesses to publish cheaply. Many wanted to do that. A subset needed a way to make it easier, thus Blogger solved a problem, and expanded the market for web sites in the process, as easier to do brought more people in.
RSS solves a minor problem for a smallish subset of people. Anybody remember Pointcast? Wired magazine proclaimed the Web was dead and push technology would rule, way back in 1997. The only thing Pointcast killed was corporate LANS, and the credibility of Wired. Fast forward to 2004. RSS sort of looks like Pointcast, eh? Relevant content when you want it, versus going out and searching the web for it. In 1997, nobody had a problem with too much info yet, that plus bad technology doomed Pointcast. Today, some people do have a need for an easier way to track web data. Heck, Scoble is trying to keep up with over 1000 RSS feeds. RSS clearly solves a problem, but it's not a problem 80% of the Internet using population has. It's probably more like 20%, which is why I say RSS is not some huge earth shattering revolution.
It's evolutionary, not revolutionary.
To take a more recent example, how about Social Networking? Remember all the hype in the press about Friendster and all the social networking apps. When is the last time you heard one mentioned? Are they interesting? Somewhat. Are they useful to some people? I'm sure they are. Are they revolutionizing how we do business? Uh, no.
The geeks are predictive sometimes, and sometimes they aren't. RSS solves a problem for tech geeks and maybe for information geeks. Podcasting solves a problem for....maybe sight impaired geeks? It's simple Sales 101. It the world is going to use your mousetrap, it has to do a better job of catching mice, and a lot of people have to want to catch mice. I don't see that degree of need in any problem that RSS solves today.
Of course, there is always the possibility that somebody will come up with something new that does hit that threshold....that is what makes this business so much fun.
Permalink | Comments (1)November 26, 2004
Living in the echo chamber
Robert Scoble, MS geek blogger, gives us a great example of life in the echo chamber.
By the way, I really don't understand why the press thinks there's a browser war underway. The real war is between RSS and HTML. At the recent Gnomedex conference about 80% of the attendees said they were using a news aggregator. That's a HUGE shift in behavior and has far deeper consequences than a browser choice does.
Huh? There were about 250 people at Gnomedex - all of them hardcore geeks. Yet, to Scoble, a change in behavior amongst them represents a seismic shift in the overall market. Of course, he might just be trying to distract us from the fact that his employer makes a browser that sucks.
He's wrong. Very wrong. The vast majority of the Internet using public has no clue what RSS is. When we first launched Horseshues.com I had a Subscribe link and Michelle got several emails and IM's from friends that were totally confused by it. I changed the label to RSS feed - in the hopes they would just ignore it if they didn't know what RSS was. My example is just an anecdote - not unlike Scoble's Gnomedex example. However, I'm very certain my example is much more representative of the public comfort level with RSS.
The only surprising thing about Scoble's Gnomedex story is that 20% of the hardcore geeks aren't using a newsreader of some sort.
We are not in the majority. We are not even close. I'm not convinced blogs have even hit the mainstream yet. They might be close - the flurry of news articles related to the election coverage raised awareness greatly.
There is a tendency among some bloggers to try and make this stuff way more important than it really is. It's publishing, personal publishing. Thomas Paine was doing it 250 years ago. It's faster, cheaper, and more convenient than older forms of publishing, but it's still just publishing. It's just an incremental improvement. Bloggers are not doing anything unique or new.
Some people point to Dan Rather as some sort of watershed moment. I don't think so. Publishers have had to deal with detractors and competition since Gutenberg built his second press. Back in the old days, major cities had 8 or 10 daily newspapers. Anybody with an opinion on the news, and access to a press, could put out a daily to refute something in another daily. Again, faster, cheaper and more convenient today? No argument from me. But it's hardly revolutionary.
Permalink | Comments (0)November 21, 2004
First Christmas Post
My first Christmas post of the year, and it's a plug for Horseshues.com. Delaney has been hard at work creating Christmas themed horseshues for a young entrepreneurs show she is doing next week. For those of you that aren't local, you can buy them online.
October 13, 2004
ODonnellAds®
If you are not seeing text ads at the top of the page - please let me know in the comments. I think everything is working properly.
ODonnellAds® are totally self sufficient. I'm hosting the server, and I'm keeping all the proceeds, less Paypal's cut. So start buying! With ad packages starting at $3 it's almost as good as free.
Permalink | Comments (4)October 10, 2004
Is anybody paying attention at Blogger?
I know Ev is quitting, but somebody needs to pay attention there. Blogspot is being spammed hard. I'm getting hundreds of hits in my Bloglines "homeschool" search on Blogspot sites with the exact same verbiage trying to sell just about everything under the sun. It's damn annoying.
Permalink | Comments (3)September 14, 2004
Comments Run Amok
The comments on my Ken Jennings post have taken on a life of their own. 28 and counting...
Update: This was posted today - it's way to whacked to stay hidden in the comments.
whatever the date, the sooner he looses the better... all the dough he's amassing, a tenth of it is going to the mormons. do you really want the mormons adding to their computer database that tracks everyone in the USA? and probably now the world? i tell you, the jennings streak is a mormon conspiracy! jennings the software engineer? what kind of software do you think he engineers? probably mormon "geneology" software. translation- they're watching... the mormons are watching us all. heed my words.Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted by: phony_holden at September 15, 2004 11:08 AM
August 30, 2004
DC Weather Blog
A blog microfocused on the weather in Washington DC. Of course, I subscribed.
Permalink | Comments (0)August 18, 2004
PSA: Blog Etiquette
If you are the author of this article and you write me to complain about my post on your article, it would be very helpful for you to first ensure that I did indeed actually write something about said article.
Further, upon receiving my reply asking for a link to my comments, because I honestly don't remember writing anything about Scholastic Books taking money from the American Petroleum Institute, it would be especially helpful if you didn't respond by sending me the full text of Daryl's post commenting on your article.
Because, if you do all the above, it's very likely that I will publicly mock you on ODonnellWeb.
Permalink | Comments (4)July 24, 2004
DC Blogger Poker
I had a great time. I may have played a little too tight early on, but with the cards I was getting last night it was definitely a night to just enjoy the company and have a good time. And that I did. I am looking forward to doing it again next month.
Although it does suck to have pockets kings and watch the community cards come up 6-7-8-9-10.
Permalink | Comments (2)May 16, 2004
Stopping Comment Spam
For a while now I've thought that simply renaming the comment script in MT would stop comment spam. Since the bots are searching for a certain file, if it's not there they can't spam your site.
Sounds good in theory, but the problem never got bad enough for me to bother researching if it would work.
I stumbled into this today, specific instructions on how to change the filename of the comment script in MT. I'm probably going off of MT in the very near future, so I won't be bothering with it.
Permalink | Comments (0)May 15, 2004
More on the Movable Type fiasco
Here, and in the comments at several other blogs, I have been trying (and mostly failing) to explain the my issues surrounding the sudden change from Six Apart.
Mark Pilgram has very elequently said what I was tryng to say.
It's not about money; it's about freedom.
That is the point I was trying to make.
Permalink | Comments (0)May 13, 2004
Movable Type Upgrade Alert
News from MT HQ is not good. The new licensing scheme for MT will be very bad for many power users. The free edition of MT 3 will be limited to 3 blogs from 1 install, and only 1 author. All multi-author blogs will need to buy a license. The free license also is limited to single CPU machines. This is a particularly stupid requirement as most of us out source hosting and have no idea how many CPU's our web host may have in the box. However, if like me, you are paying only a few bucks a month for hosting, odds are good that you are on dual CPU Linux box. Technically, you can't upgrade to MT 3.0 free. I have no idea how they can actually enforce that provision though.
I have no personal experience, but Wordpress seems to be a viable alternative, and it is real open source software. I may go the Blosxom route - after I see how all this really plays out.
Thinking out loud for a minute... if I set up a little side business moving blogs from MT to Wordpress or Blosxom, how much (if anything) would you pay for that service?
Update: Jason Kottke has an intelligent idea on what MT could do. I think his price point is too high though. People living in NYC tend to forget that $60 is not pocket change in flyover country. I think $30 is the magic number for personal use - but that is just as much a random ass guess at Kottke's $60 number.
Permalink | Comments (3)April 02, 2004
Coolest.Name.Ever.
Ryan has Exploding Head Syndrome. I guess if you are going to have a disease you might as well go for one with a great name.
Permalink | Comments (1)March 26, 2004
The boring post meme
I normally avoid participating in memes, but I just can't pass up the chance to hang out (virtually speaking) with the cool kids while at the same time ripping on a A-list blogger.
I planted three weeping willow trees in my back yard a couple of weeks ago. Willows are really good for my yard, since willows soak up copious amounts of water, and I just happen to have copious amounts of water in my back yard. I was pleasantly surprised that the entire project, including planting supplies, cost only about $100. That's really a good price for high quality trees.
The evening after I planted we got hit by a terrible wind storm. I was really worried about my new trees. They came though the storm just fine and they are now greening up, and I think they are even visibly larger already.
Permalink | Comments (0)March 21, 2004
Carnival of the Cats
Weblogs have definitely, 100% without a doubt, jumped the shark.
Permalink | Comments (8)February 23, 2004
He dreams of bloggers
Should I be worried that I made an appearance in Ryan's subconscious?
Permalink | Comments (0)February 18, 2004
New Web Design Blog
I've started a new blog to focus more on job related stuff. For now it's all me, although I hope to roll it under the company domain at some point.
Check it out and leave a comment here if anything seems broken. I haven't installed the comments module yet on the new blog. I built it on Blosxom, which is an open source blogging script. It's quite cool, but definately required more of my geeky powers to get the site functioning properly.
Permalink | Comments (2)February 10, 2004
I'm Back
Disaster averted. Turns out my dB wasn't corrupted, it wasn't even there! My host restored just the dB directory again and all is fine now. All the HTML pages were here, so it would not have been a complete disaster in any case. But still, I was stressed.
The lesson here is
backup backup backup!
From now on I will export my blog weekly and save it to my PC. In fact, I did it before I made this post. However, in goggling around I learned that I am likely starting to push the limits of the default Berkely dB system in MT. So it looks like I'll need to convert to the mySQL backend soon. Anybody have any experience with that?
Practice safe blogging folks.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 08, 2004
Double Vision
This afternoon I started working on my taxes. As I was waiting for TaxCut to install, I noticed that front of the one of the flyers enclosed with the program looked familiar. But at the time I couldn't place where I had seen that image before.
Fast forward a few hours. I'm taking a break from trying to rationalize that veterinarian expenses are legally deductible, by checking Bloglines.
Ah ha! I remembered where I had seen this image before. I'm guessing it's stock art, and that it is not Dana in the picture. If it is Dana, I want a piece of the action when you sue HR Block!
Permalink | Comments (0)January 25, 2004
Be a better writer
I plead guilty on all 10 counts.
Permalink | Comments (2)January 09, 2004
Plagiarizer or Stalker?
Local DC blogger Julia is being victimized by some bozo in Saint Louis who apparently wants a blog, but isn't smart enough to actually write original content. So he cut and paste large chunks of Julia's content and passed it off as his writing.
Either that, or he some sort of weird blog stalker who is obsessed with her. He did actually self submit himself to her blogroll. Sort of seems like he wanted her to catch him.
Or maybe he is just really frigging stupid.
I'm not linking to the plagiarizer / stalker. I don't want to contribute to his traffic. Details are on Julia's page.
Permalink | Comments (0)December 29, 2003
O'DonnellWeb 9.0 goes live!
Do you like? Please say something in the comments. My wife hates it - but she never liked the brain design either.
The changes:
- New color scheme - very clean front page with minimal extra stuff.
- All new content on the About page.
- The blogroll has been moved to the links page. All links are annotated!
- The archives are all grouped on the archived page, instead of being spread all over the right column as in the previous design.
- New contact form.
If you see any major errors please let me know.
Permalink | Comments (3)December 23, 2003
Big Changes Coming...
A major redesign is in the works here at ODonnellWeb. I'm tired of my blog, and I'm tired of certain elements of the content. Debuting (I hope!) on 1/1/2004 will be a whole new blog, or actually 3 or maybe 4 blogs rolled up into one.
12/25 Update: I'm going to keep it as one blog. After thinking about it a bit I realized I must have been smoking crack when I had the idea the maintain to 3 or 4 blogs. I mean, I've never actually smoked cracked (as far as a know) - but it would explain that ridiculous decision. One blog - slight redirection in content, totally new design. Coming soon. Maybe not by 1/1 - but soon.
December 12, 2003
The Christmas Story
Real Live Preacher is retelling The Christmas Story in his own special way, filling in the blanks between the Immaculate Conception and birth of Jesus. It's powerful and entertaining storytelling - regardless of your religious affiliation (of lack of the same).
Permalink | Comments (1)December 05, 2003
New Blogroll Additions
I added a few sites to the blogroll. Instead of letting them fester in obscurity in the list to the right, I'll highlight them here.
Which is probably no less obscure. But at least I tried.
Jeremy Zawodny - MySQL developer for Yahoo - mostly techie / blog related
Corsair The Rational Pirate - Libertarian in the NOVA burbs. I'm violating my rule about never linking to blogspot - maybe he'll move soon.
Straight White Guy- and very funny too.
Mighty Lambchop Gospel - Not sure where she is - good taste in music though.
Blog O' Fun - A new game, or online game, reviewed just about every day.
Also, I added a few links in the newly revised "In Heavy Rotation" section.
November 30, 2003
Making the rounds...
I got a mention over at FamousJames.com
It's not quite an Instalaunch. It's better. The Instadude probably has no idea who Keel is.
Permalink | Comments (1)November 25, 2003
Disturbing Comments in today's email
I'm not sure which is more disturbing, the fact that the commenter below was searching on Marshmellow Fluff and ended up here, or the fact that said commenter thinks Chris "the actor" O'Donnell is posting on the Internet about Marshmellow Fluff.
I am doing a presentaton on Marshmellow Fluff. I searched for Marshmellow Fluff and I got this site out of one of the searches. I thought you were good in Batman and Robin so keep it up. By the by, I'm going to tell my class you do not enjoy Marshmellow Fluf...but it's cool man, I don't know that I'm super fond of it either..... Posted by Chris at November 25, 2003 12:10 PM
Or this one...in response to a two year old post about some loony web site that claims the military is plotting to take over the country, and in preperation are planting secret messages in common road signs and in WalMarts.
Although this topic maybe a couple of years old, I stumbled upon the Free Indeed Research website a few days ago. The aesthetics and layout of the site are very unpleasing, but I looked it over anyway. I thought this mans rantings to be at the height of insanity, until I looked for myself. An associate and I decided it would be good for a laugh to locate and follow the tactical markers. What we noticed was amazing. Never once were we lead to a dead-end. When followed, the tacmars led to schools, dry-storage facilties, airfields, hospitals, and most importantly, a Wal*Mart. I must admit that I already am an opponent of Wal*Mart, as they are draining the economies of many a small town in middle America, but we did notice something different in this particular Wal*Mart. The signs in the aisles had arrows on them...Needless arrows that I've never seen in other Wal*Marts. This was mentioned on the website, and there they were, arbitrary arrows pointing us to seemingly nowhere. After doing some research on the "secret" detention centers in the US that we've heard John Ashcroft speak of, along with the railroad projects in conjunction with these internment camps, I have come to realize something. This is all too real. We are on the verge of something very important, and annyone who chooses to ridicule it is incapable of rational human thought. I laughed at first, but it was intriguing, so I looked into it. Having a functional brain, I was forced to admit that I had been wrong. The signs are all there, quite literally. - Dr. Detlev Bronck Posted by Detlev Bronck at November 25, 2003 01:17 AM
And yet, yet another person that thinks I have personal contact info for Ozzy Osbourne.
Permalink | Comments (0)November 04, 2003
Kim Du Toit on "Real Men"
I agree with a lot of this, certainly with the overall premise that the Western male is an endangered species. The one place where I think he is way off base is blaming the civilizing influence of women on men. Women civilizing us is a good thing.(Read his essay - its too long to excerpt here)
We need women. Most of us spend our lives prior to meeting our wives stumbling from one stupid mistake to another. Whether it is bad choices with girlfriends, what we choose to consume (both legal and illegal), how we spend our money, our careers, etc. Most guys make really shitty choices when they are young and single. And when we get older and wiser we look back and wonder how we didn't end up a felon, dead, or worse.
The delimiting point seems to be meeting the one you will marry. Suddenly, shit matters. Somewhere between saying "I do" and hearing her say "I'm expecting" we get responsible. It happens to almost all of us. Granted, some men bail at that point, but we aren't talking about them because they are not Real Men." A Real Man would never bail on a women in need, especially his wife. They are fucking losers not worthy of our time. Actually, given how screwed up most of us are before we get married, its a wonder our wives ever agreed to marry us in the first place. They must see the potential that will come out later, long before we have a clue it is there, lurking in our DNA waiting for the stimulus to activate.
That stimulus is the woman that we love. I wouldn't want to live in a world without that change, it would be a jungle. Scientists go on a lot about the similarity between man and monkey, with us sharing about 97% of our DNA. I think that 3 % difference is summed up in the fact that when men get married we quit flinging our feces around, the monkeys never quit.
And that my friends, is a good thing.
Permalink | Comments (2)October 24, 2003
More proof that the blogosphere is really a junior high school lunchroom
Christian (and I think homeschooled) blogger Pieter took offense to gay blogger Michael linking to him. He didn't want to be "associated" with gays. I have no idea how a random hyperlink associates you to anything - but that is beside the point.
That set off conversation and the usual name calling in several places.
You can guess where this is going. Within a week, Pieter will have hundreds of in bound links from sites that he finds objectionable.
The Web works in mysterious ways ;) Somehow, I expect the lesson will be lost on him though.
Really, doesn't this sound just like the arguments in junior high about who could sit at the cool kids table and who couldn't?
Note: This is not a commentary on the validity of Pieter's, Micheal's, or anybody elses lifestyle or beliefs. It is a commentary on stirring up hornets nests, not letting sleeping dogs lie, etc. Knowing when to stay quiet is one of the great lessons of age and experience.
Permalink | Comments (2)October 23, 2003
Robots Gone Wild
Ryan's Roomba (robot vacuum cleaner) has developed intelligence and is trying to escape it's master. Next week we'll probably hear that the Roomba is taking a break while Ryan cleans for it!
Permalink | Comments (1)August 28, 2003
Site Updates
If you look around, you should notice....
- New drop down box for monthly archives
- Category archives now show list of entries linked to the individual entry page, instead of the entire post. Some of the category pages were getting too large.
- Several new additions to the blogroll.
Coming Soon
- A search engine
- All site pages (even the static pages) manageable by MT.
June 24, 2003
New Comic Blog
Michele, of A Small Victory fame, has started a new blog devoted to comics. Check it out if four color literature is your thing.
Permalink | Comments (0)May 14, 2003
Trading Spaces Web Style
One designer - me.
One budget - $0.00
Time allotted - 2 hours
I found some MRI brain scans I had done back in 2000 when I was cleaning the garage. Inspiration struck, and we have a redesign.
Good? Bad? Ugly?
Any and all feedback appreciated.
Permalink | Comments (6)April 28, 2003
Zeldman on RSS
I've tried just about every RSS newsreader out there - and I keep coming away unsatisfied with the experience. I was writing it off to the software, and my desire to not have another software application to deal with. But I think Zeldman may have nailed it. The design of a web page is part of the reading experience, a big part of it in many cases. You lose that with a text RSS feed. If you use it as a notify system, almost like an opt in "tell me when you update" email, it works. But actually reading content within an RSS reader, for me anyway, doesn't work.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 20, 2003
Are people really this stupid?
Wait, don't answer that question. I know the answer!
Last night, somebody posted a comment on an old blog post about The Osbornes's TV show.
The commenter is asking for somebody to provide them with an email or snail mail address for The Osbornes.
They are not exactly low profile people. I have to think a mailing address is very easy to find. Also, if you really want this info, is a 13 month old blog post that has never received a comment until today really to place to be looking? I just did a quick google search and found links to countless sites that claim to catalog stars addresses. I don't know credible the info is, but then this site has never claimed credibility as one of its hallmarks either.
Some people just should not be allowed on the Internet.
Permalink | Comments (1)April 01, 2003
Best Celebrity Blogger
Forbes is running a poll to choose the best celebrity blogger. The participants are Wil Wheaton, Moby, William Gibson, Dave Barry, and Barbara Streisand. Babs has a blog? I wonder if she has ever personally seen it. Unfortunately, nobody at Forbes got confused and thought this was the blog of Boy Wonder.
From the group provided, I think Wheaton has to be the clear winner. Are you aware of any other celebrity bloggers?
When do they run the best blog by a guy sharing a name with a celebrity poll? I think I'd win that easily :)
Permalink | Comments (3)March 21, 2003
Dreaming of Bloggers
I swear, if any of you people start showing up in my dreams I'll shut this place down pronto.
Permalink | Comments (0)March 11, 2003
Famous James takes on MTV
Famous James, the King of 80's metal, has posted a delightful rant aimed at MTV in which he notes that you can't find music on MTV anymore, but Emeril has a live band on his Food Network show. If you grew up on MTV you'll definitely appreciate his sentiments.
Also from Famous James (he is on a roll this week)...do you buy those "Promo only" CD copies from the cutout bin, Ebay, or used record stores? Did you know that the band gets charged the full retail value of the promos? Not only is the band out whatever the record company charges for the promo, and we know it's probably way inflated, they are also out the royalty on the retail version of the CD you didn't buy.
I didn't know this, and from now on I will make an effort to not buy the promo CD's of anything I would otherwise not mind paying retail for. I might still do it if it is something marginal that I would never buy for more than a buck or two though.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 24, 2003
Weird Blog Posts
I've gotten this as the the email address on 4 comments to this blog recently - all on very old posts.
"? echo("viRtz") ?> ? echo(system($cmd)) ?"
I'm not a programmer...but if I had to guess.
The echo command just repeats back what you typed, if I remember correctly.
$cmd sounds like it might be an effort to get a command prompt.
Is somebody trying to hack moveable type blogs?
Update: Its script kiddies trying to use a PHP exploit. I don't allow HTML comments so it doesn't work here anyway. MT 2.6 has a fix for this. I guess I should upgrade soon.
Permalink | Comments (2)February 16, 2003
The Blog as BBS
This article at Slashdot crystallized why blogs have re-energized the Web for me. Before the general public had access to the Internet, I was a BBS nerd. I never ran my own, but I spent a lot of time dialing in to BBS' in Atlanta. I was a paid member of The Index System. The guy had I think 32 phone lines coming in to his BBS. It was cool because when you dialed in you usually knew the other people online at the same time. If the Internet is the great public meeting house of the world, the BBS was the corner pub where everybody knew your name.
Blogs evoke that feeling for me. I don't know how many readers Bambino's Curse has, but I know about how many regular commenters Ed has. It's really only a handful, but a small, vibrant and interesting community has sprung up in the comments section there. The comments section here has never quite done that, however that is mostly my fault. Ed stays very on target at Bambino's Curse, its Boston Red Sox 24 x7. You have no frigging idea what you are going to get when you come here! I often think about focusing this blog more, but I decided it would be less fun for me if I did it.
I have however, met (virtually speaking) a lot of interesting people because of blogs. I'll refrain from listing anybody, only because I don't want to rack my brain to make sure I'm not forgetting somebody. You know who you are anyway ;)
So, to all of you interesting people that visit here and write your own blogs, keep it up!
Permalink | Comments (1)December 27, 2002
I win!!!!!
After months of trying, I have finally managed to win Dodd's weekly caption contest. The fact that it is a holiday week, and the number of entires was unusually low, had absolutely nothing to do with it!
Permalink | Comments (0)December 23, 2002
Secret Preacher Man
Amazing blog from an anonymous Protestant minister in Texas who doubts, among other things, the very existence of God.
An excerpt:
Likewise, we think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them.
Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.
I learned that it doesn’t matter in the least that I be convinced of God’s existence. Whether or not God exists is none of my business, really. What do I know of existence? I don’t even know how the VCR works.
What does matter is whether or not I am faithful. I think faithful is a hell of a good word. It still has some of its original shine. It still calls us to action.
Emphasis is the original authors. I found this at Boing Boing
Permalink | Comments (1)November 14, 2002
Site Updates
I did some long overdue link updating this evening. Take a look to your right, some new links in all categories, and a few that had not updated in months were removed.
Permalink | Comments (1)October 02, 2002
31 Days of ghouls, ghosts,and other assorted creepy things
Ryan is celebrating October by posting a horror movie review each day. His collection is uh, er, lets say eclectic, so you are sure to discover a bunch of movies you have never heard of before.
Permalink | Comments (0)September 30, 2002
Cool Parenting 'Zine back online
Raising Hell is back with a spiffy new look, and more yummy content.
Permalink | Comments (0)September 12, 2002
ODonnellWeb available in China
The contents of my Web site are available to web surfers in China.
I guess the communist hierarchy in China does not see me as a threat.
I'm going to have to work on that ;)
Permalink | Comments (0)August 19, 2002
British Academia & ODonnellWeb
Way back in early 1999 somebody with Loughborough University in England wrote a paper on Web portals. They used ODonnellWeb as an example of a "humorous antidote to the web portal."
So, I guess this can now be "The internationally acclaimed ODonnellWeb ;)
Permalink | Comments (0)July 29, 2002
#631,314 with a bullet
Famous James was playing around with Alexa and for reasons known only to him, he included this site in his comparison. I've improved quite a bit since my last look, when I was at about 3,000,000 in April.
I have no idea why - I've done nothing to increase the appeal of this site.
Permalink | Comments (2)July 27, 2002
Blogathon 2002
Several of the sites linked on the right are blogging for 24 consecutive hours to raise money for worthwhile causes. Drop in and say hello to:
Permalink | Comments (0)July 11, 2002
News Flash: ODonnellWeb reader donates to worthy cause
This is very cool. Somebody who linked over to Why We Homeschool from here sent them $25 to support their efforts. Whoever you are, let me my add my thanks to accolades you've already received from Laura at Why We Homeschool.
(No permalinks, and the archives don't seem to be working. The letter is about 1/3 of the way down the page.)
Permalink | Comments (0)June 29, 2002
Redesign in process
As you hopefully noticed, I'm in the process of redesigning the site. So, if anything looks weird, please leave a comment and let me know. You can also leave a comment just to tell me how great it looks ;)
Some of the back pages may be screwed up as I convert them to the new style sheet, hopefully I'll have it all cleaned up in a few days.
Update: The new and improved About page is up.
Permalink | Comments (3)April 02, 2002
Straight from Jerusalem
A blogger in Jersusalem is blogging first hand accounts of the situation in the Middle East. Very interesting, and not surprisingly, quite different from what you hear on CNN.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 18, 2002
"More than Words"
Michele has written a fantastic little blog that you must read. Feel free to sing along as you read...
Permalink | Comments (2)February 13, 2002
The Real Olympics
Bryan is blogging the Olympics from the inside. He is working security there. God knows how many people, speaking 100 different languages, at the largest sporting event in the world, under insanely tight security, offers up all kinds of opportunities for humor.
Permalink | Comments (0)December 23, 2001
VHEA blog is live
The Virginia Home Education Association blog is live. Please post here if you see anything that needs correcting.
Permalink | Comments (0)December 12, 2001
Think Small, Act Big
Yet another link re-blogged from Davezilla. Shel is leading the charge for all of us to empty our change jars and clean under the couch cushions. The resulting pile of coins should be donated to the small charity of your choice, preferably one that has been somewhat forgotten since 9/11.
I have two sandwhich bags full of coins that have been sitting in a drawer for months. I'll report back how much is there, and who I'm donating to. Suggestions are welcome.
Permalink | Comments (1)December 01, 2001
Movable Type Rocks!
My Friday night: Implement Movable Type and do minor update of site. Exciting huh? Movable Type is sweet though. It installed flawlessly and imported all my Greymatter content too.
Permalink | Comments (3)November 02, 2001
Smallworld.com
Last week I got a friendly email from Ryan. He had searched on Leesburg bloggers or something similar and had ended up here. After trading a few emails we have realized that not only do we live in the same neighborhood, our houses are about 200 yards apart (if that far).
This is either very cool, or a very sad comment on my neighborhood. I am looking forward to meeting Ryan in person real soon...
Permalink | Comments (0)October 26, 2001
Blog Spam
I don't who this bozo is, but he entered this reply to "The Ghosts of Websites Past" post:
"thank you SOOO much for this link. I used to have a website and it happens to be archived. I thought I had lost it. check it out: ww.ihatestarwars.com
Posted by Jonathan W. @ 10/25/2001 01:06 PM EST
I took out a "w" in the link - its a porn site. Add it back in manually if you need to take a peek. What really pisses me off is that I clicked on the link. Its kind of like opening a piece of non-anthrax infected mail only to discover after the fact that it is junk mail. On one hand you have to admire the company that fooled you into opening the mail, on the other hand...grrrrrrr
I deleted his post too. My web site, I'll post the porn links around here ;)
Update 10/27 9 AM
Jim has let me know that Jonathan W is a good guy who used to own ihatestars.com and it is since been picked up by a porn operator. I did try to look it up in the archive but the archive was not functioning properly so I just assumed the worst of Jonathan. My bad...and my apologies to Jonathan for smearing his good name. I can't imagine how any reasonable person could hate Star Wars, but we'll save that discussion for later...
Permalink | Comments (2)September 30, 2001
Talking Moose's Weblog Manifesto
Talking Moose : The weblog manifesto -Interesting take on weblogs, where they are going, and some simple common sense ideas for making your weblog a better place to be!
Permalink | Comments (0)August 06, 2001
( blogdex )
This is cool - a blog ranking system under development at MIT. I went to add ODonnellWeb - but it was already in the dB, meaning somebody they index is linking to me.
Permalink | Comments (0)July 16, 2001
The Blog is back
Well, I'm trying the weblog thing again. This time I'm using Greymatter, which I spent a good deal of time this weekend configuring. It's server software running on my server so I'm not dependent on Blogger being up all the time. I just have this thing about software..I like to have total control. I needed to hack some of the Perl code to get this work, which is really interesting sinced I don't write Perl! It worked though. It's past midnight and tomorrow is Monday...technically it is Monday now but you know what I mean, so I'm outta here. Maybe tomorrow I'll post something of deep insight and relevance. Those of you that know me can stop laughing now :)
Permalink | Comments (3)