Tech Debug

I wonder…. what will the new year bring? Well besides tomorrow being the same as every other day, will I finish reading all those books I started? Will I finish learning postgreSQL, php, css, xhtml, xml, shell scripting, do my w2k3 exams, finish reading my science book, my coding book, my DB book, my novel, reading the bible? Will I do more geocaching, spend more time with kids, do more exercise, lose weight, be a better husband/father/brother/son, find my inner self, understand the universe, etc.

So I decided to make sure the blog was valid XHTML (version 1.0 transitional) and CSS. It meant turning off a plugin or two, and also removing the badly mangled flickr badge which uses inline CSS and some funky but not valid scripting.

The Circle Six blog has some good info on wordpress theme design on a mac: “Having spit out several WordPress custom sites in the last few days, I thought I’d detail my current workflow on my Macintosh OSX platform for posterity … A brief summary to begin with … This post will confine itself to the tools required to create a custom theme for WordPress without hacking the core code. However, all of the tools that are mentioned are powerful enough to handle such tasks and I don’t use any additional tools to do my core hacking.

Merry Christmas all. Hope you enjoy time with family, friends, etc.

Someone in my family signed up with Telstra NextG wireless broadband today. This is a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) wireless network. Now this person is not an IT person. They use the internet for email, chat, web, etc., and due to the fact that they are working and traveling where there are no other decent wireless broadband carriers in Australia (i.e. outside a Capital City), then this was their only real option.

This is an article by Fortune’s Owen Thomas on Vista not being compatible with SQL Server. An excerpt: ‘But now Microsoft has a problem. Vista, its long-awaited update to the Windows operating system, can’t run the current version of SQL Server. The company is working on a SQL upgrade that is compatible with Vista – called SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 2 – but it’s in beta and can be licensed only for testing purposes.

A 1983 Dungeons & Dragons commercial has found its way to YouTube. Those were the days when games like this used your imagination, and parents where worried about kids taking up real swords! I remember my mother taking me out of a D&D game, and that was the last time I ever played it. Now where is my 1d20? (Via Workbench Blog.)

Did I say I’m using Marsedit to post to this blog? Well now I did. I’m liking my mac on a whole new level.

Jamie Oliver: Podcast: “The amazing Gennaro Contaldo demonstrates his incredible one-minute tomato sauce.” I tried the one minute tomato sauce for dinner tonight, and it was a hit. Cook some orrechiete, put the sauce over it on a plate and sprinkle with your favorite cheese. Dinner in under 10 minutes.

Potent Spice Works to Block Growth of Melanoma in Lab Test: “Curcumin, the pungent yellow spice found in both turmeric and curry powders, blocks a key biological pathway needed for development of melanoma and other cancers, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.” So after a discussion with a friend yesterday, I’ll take the curry over the KFC if I’m eating out (Calorie count aside)!

For you mac addicts out there, the people at macappaday.com are giving away a Mac App free at Midnight PST each day. Thats 1900hrs EDST in AU. Get in quick while you can. I already got some great DVD burning software!

I’ve just bought a copy of Delicious Library for my mac via MacHeist. Its a great app. I have started scanned all my barcodes of DVDs/Books/CDs via my iSight camera. Awesome. I can then track who I lend them to, etc. Also great for Insurance. You get a view like a bookshelf of all the items with coverart. I also found an Easter egg. When I added all my Star Wars Trilogy DVDs the voice that talks the disc name says “Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes IV-VI) [1977]” then it Whispers “I am your Father”.

About 3 years ago all the doctors in our area stopped bulk billing (except for children). This appeared to be a combination of the Howard government trying to change medicare, the Howard government trying to get people to take out private health insurance and the medical indemnity insurance crisis for doctors. Any time you visited the doctor you either paid the gap, and stuffed around with receiving cheques in the mail and gettting them back to the doctor, or you paid the full consultation fee at consultation time getting a rebate later from medicare.

Looks like I’m some sort of techie as I managed to get my DB and Blog all online ok…. Look out world. Aaahh. Yes I had to dabble with mySQL to get this beast online. I’ll stick to PostgreSQL for all my real DB work.