Wow it's been almost a year since I last posted!

TWIDI (4) How I make ground coffee

Coffee ground from beans

We have one of those nice little grinders. I put three teaspoons of beans (not necessary to be heaping) into the grinder, then grind it fine. Put it into the coffee pot with three cups of coffee by the carafe markings.

Nice, I like it.

Oh, and keep your coffee beans and ground coffee in the freezer.

Funverse #12: Ides of March Poetry

There once was a Roman named Julius
Who acted the part of a foolius.
When they warned, “Ides! Beware!”
He refused to take care,
And he promptly got poked by one Brutius.

--By Me

2/27/07

INWHGI (1): (I Never Would Have Guessed It)

OK so on the side I run a little hosting company. I'm migrating to another server. That means my customers have to change their email settings. So with this one customer, they have about 15 email addresses, and the Outlook settings had to be changed on all the computers.

No problem.

Except that two people discovered that when they send email, it appeared to send (went into sent mail folder) but in fact never arrived. They could check email but not send.

Thought at first that Port 25 was blocked, so we changed their SMTP server to use their local ISP. Nope.

Checked passwords. Nope.

Recreated accounts on the server. Nope.

Stared at the screen. Didn't help.

Wait! What's this? Something funny about that signature? Delete signature. Email goes through. Go to other problem computer, delete signature. Email goes through.

Go figure. Who'd a thunk that the signature would have anything to do with successfully sending email?

To my brother Jon: way to go, dude, for figuring this one out. I owe you BIG-time.

Part II:

We figured out what was going on. Both secretaries had the word "specialist" in their signature. What the big deal with "specialist"? Well, it contains the word "cialis."

And the hosting company was surreptitiously blocking, in fact, deep-sixing, in fact, completely swallowing without trace, any email containing the word "cialis." No matter where it occurred.

They changed the filter after I protested.

GoLive 6.0 Manual typo

GoLive 6.0.

OK so it's a piece of software that's one version at least behind, but it's incredibly useful for creating dynamic content websites with PHP/MySQL or ASP/SQL Server. I've done both. The newer versions of the software stripped out this functionality, more's the pity.

The manual has a bug in it and it took me a while to figure it out.

**On the page entitled "Understanding block navigation"
**Under the heading "To add block navigation to a search results page:"
**Under point number 9 where it says "In the Dynamic Bindings palette, bind the link destination to the block navigation content source and Link_URL field."

The correction:
This should say, "In the Dynamic Bindings palette, bind the link destination to the block navigation content source and Link_URL field." If you bind the link to the block navigation content source, the "Link-URL" option does not show up under field. If you bind the link to the block navigation source itself, "Link-URL" shows up.

Took me a while to figure it out. Maybe this will show up in some searches and help someone save some time.

{update--still not quite getting things to work--sometimes it does, sometimes not....}

DYJHI (Don't you just hate it...)

Don't you just hate it...

• ...when the last walnut in your handful is bitter?
• ...when you take your pen from your pocket and discover it was open when you put it in there?
• ...when you just sit down with the paper and the dog barks to be let in?
• ...to be continued

To the tune of "I Saw Three Ships"

“I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In” is pretty much a nonsense hymn as far as Bible-believing Christians go, but it is a catchy tune and easy to sing. I decided to change the words to a more strict re-telling of the Shepherds/Angels story. I also changed the format a bit, by varying lines 1 and 3 in each stanza instead of repeating lines 1 & 3 as in the original. I made no real attempt to make lines 1 & 3 rhyme, but a few of the couplets do rhyme, more by accident than by intent.

I Talked With Shepherds

I talked with shepherds in the fields
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day.
They told me news, such glorious news,
On Christmas Day in the morning.

And so on, with the following lines substituted into lines 1 & 3:

The shepherds spoke of tending flocks,
When suddenly an angel came.

A glorious light shone all around,
The sight struck fear into their hearts.

The angel said, “No need to fear,”
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring.”

“These tidings are to all mankind,”
“In David’s city, joy this day.”

“To you is born this bless-ed day,”
“A Saviour who is Christ, the Lord.”

The angel said, “Here is a sign,”
“A sign to guide you to the child.”

“He’s in a most unlikely place,”
“You’ll find Him in a cattle stall.”

“You’ll find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes,”
“You’ll find Him in a manger laid.”

The angel paused a moment then,
And as he paused, the sky grew bright.

They saw a host of angels white,
And heard the sound of angels’ praise.

The host was shouting praise to God,
“All glory be to God on high.”

“And peace on earth, and peace to men,”
“And peace to all, good will toward men.”

And as the angels left their view,
The shepherds went to find the babe.

They found Him as the angel said,
A-cradled in the lowly bed.

They told the news of Jesus’ birth,
Told all they met, told all they knew.

And they told me of peace, good will,
Now I must go and find Him, too.

Original lyrics by Steve Stratford, 12/28/06