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Month: September 2004

Occupied

Published by Will Chatham on 9/30/2004

I have been spending a lot of time doing these things lately (in no particular order):

  • Working. We are setting up four Dell 6650 servers for our new J2EE-compliant web application platform at the AFCCC. This is exciting stuff. We installed RedHat Enterprise 3 AS on two of them today, and will finish up the others tomorrow. We have also spent a lot of time in meetings to plan the new web site
  • Playing Magic: The Gathering. Yes, I am a geek and proud of it. Magic is the game to end all games.
  • Being with the family. Since the new job started, I get home shortly after 4 every day, which has allowed me to spend much more time with Gray and Alicia.
  • Side Work. Still helping out with Puckett web stuff and Ingles web stuff. Also working on some web design for other clients, and just finished setting up my new dedicated web server for hosting them.
  • Planning the addition. The contractors started on our house addition yesterday, and things are moving along quickly. I can’t wait to have a bigger kitchen, a bathroom downstairs, and a new study with a bay window. If all goes well, it will be done by Thanksgiving.

One Week

Published by Will Chatham on 9/25/2004

It has been one week since I started my new job as a contracted web developer working with the Air Force. So far I like it a lot, and I don’t forsee that changing any time soon. I went in a little intimidated by the military aspect of it, not having spent any time in that environment before, but I quickly realized that it’s nothing to worry about, and that the people there are very nice.

Working downtown is great, being surrounded by all the good restaurants, and being about 1.5 miles from home. The money I am saving on gas will be amazing. I was putting over 30 miles a day on my car; now it’s barely 3. I looked at used bikes the other day, but I think I will save that adventure until spring rolls around.

Nothing too exciting to report otherwise. I’ll post some more interesting stuff here soon.

Linkitude

Published by Will Chatham on 9/16/2004

Here are some nifty links I have come across the last few weeks.

IP Chicken is a quick and easy way to tell you what IP address you are broadcasting. It’s similar to WhatsMyIP.net, but it has a chicken, which makes it easier to remember, mnemonicly speaking.

A short list of email addresses it would be annoying to give out over the phone. (link via waxy.org).

All about the Order of the Skull and Bones, the secret society both John Kerry and George W. Bush are members of.

Ever since Whois.sc started charging for reverse IP lookups, I have longed for a free service that would allow me to see all the domains a server hosts. I found one at Webhosting.info. If anyone knows of a script that I can use to provide this on my own pages, please let me know.

Don’t like the latest version of your favorite program because they added too many features? Does the new version not work on your system for some reason? Check out OldVersion.com. They keep a library of older versions of popular programs you can download.

Tunes

Published by Will Chatham on 9/13/2004

As you already know, I am a big fan of iTunes, the legal online music service where you can buy songs for $0.99 each.

Thanks to their free 30 second sound clips of all the songs they offer, I have found some songs that I have been into a lot lately. Check em out:

  • Rilo Kiley – Portions for Foxes
  • Eliades Ochoa – Chan Chan
  • Rufus Wainwright – Oh What A World
  • Norah Jones & Dolloy Parton – Creepin’ In
  • Los Lobos – Corazon

What have you been listening to?

Crain

Published by Will Chatham on 9/8/2004

I received an email today from a guy that had been downloading MP3’s from my online library of tunes by bands I have played in here. I posted these tunes a while back because on rare occasions, people would email and ask if I had any material. Mind you, some of these were recorded in 1988 and 1989, and people are still wanting to hear them.

Not to toot my own horn, but the fellow that wrote me today said he had found me by a recent discussion of Crain at the Electrical Audio site. I felt kinda honored that this even happened. Maybe I should move all these tunes to a better location and remake the site.

An Internet Anomoly

Published by Will Chatham on 9/7/2004

This is why I love the internet.

Something I have had in the back of my head for a long time, but always forgot to do, was to look up the origin of [sic]. That is, the editorial comment you see used in writing when the author is quoting someone who has mispelled a word or not used proper grammar.

For example, if I was quoting George W. Bush on this web site, I would say:

“This has been tough weeks in that country[sic].”

-George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2004

The [sic] implies that it was the person quoted that made the grammatical mistake, not me. Consider it a grammatical passing of the buck.

Today I finally remembered to look up [sic] and see if I could find out what its origins were. I searched Google for “what does sic mean?”, and the first result I found was quite a suprise. The page I was lead to told me that SIC stands for “Standard Industrial Classification”, and relates to barcode technology.

However, if you go on to read the comments from other people that follow, you find a rare gem of internet culture, where people have all found each other under the wrong pretenses (searching for the meaning of [sic], not SIC), and have established a dialogue that spans a couple of years. There are some rude comments, but it’s pretty interesting to follow along and see what happens.

It is also impressive that the owners of the site have realized what they have inadvertently created, and have decided to let this go on for so long.