Let’s talk about Gastroenteritis.
This is only day four.
Oh joy.

Congratulations to Randy and Rachel on the birth of their beautiful baby boy.

If only I could be like this guy!

I’ve had to shut down my online store :-(. It seems I was in violation of NSAOnline’s user agreement. I understand where they are coming from though we do disagree. If I pay $15.00 a month, I can have my NSAOnline-hosted ‘site’ where, to quote the nice lady at NSAOnline, “all business goes directly to me”. My $15.00 a month would also afford me a banner ad on my site which would lead directly to their servers. ‘Hmmm,’ I thought. When a user clicks on the banners on my site, I get a percentage of any generated sales. In other words, iTunes and LinkShare are paying me to host their banners! By creating my own store, I was able to have all business go directly to me without having to pay NSAOnline for the privilege (except for the fee I paid to become a ‘distributor’). I mentioned this the above to the nice lady and was met with silence. While I feel good about JuicePlus+® the product, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to feel good about multi-level marketing.
And this is why I’m poor. I just don’t ‘get it’. I don’t host JuicePlus+® parties, I don’t foist tapes and videos on people. I simply offered folks a way to save a few bucks by getting JuicePlus from me.
*End of whine*

Well, there’s finally some malware for the Mac. Apparently, it targets users like myself; those who frequent rumors sites and those who are constantly tugging at the curtain to see the great and powerful Woz, I mean Oz. Though this malware is difficult to classify, it basically takes advantage of human curiosity to insinuate itself into a user’s Library folder where it uses several Mac services to spread itself. In order to get it to work, the user has to download and open the file. I download tons of stuff every day. Usually, I’m confident of the source of the information; but, I can easily imagine myself falling victim to this particular ploy.
So what to do about it?

1. Use Software Update to make sure you have all of the latest security updates from Apple.
2. Never open email attachments unless you are expecting it.
3. Know your source. If you are downloading a program from someone, make sure you know what you’re getting!
4. If you think there might be a problem; there probably is. Look around and see what others are saying.
5. *Optional as of this writing…* Invest in Anti-Virus Software for the Mac.

This malware, whatever classification should be the cause of some celebration as we Mac users are finally worth the time of the clever, if nefarious, hacker community. Mac users cannot hide behind marketshare for safety, we do, however, have evidence that Apple is usually most proactive in providing security updates. We’ll see if Apple has anything to say about this particular problem since it involves user participation and allegedly gives people a preview of unreleased software (something of which Apple do not approve).
Onward!

The Good:
I’ve just discovered the reverse prime keyboard shortcut in OS X. Here it is: Command + ′ (Its under the Tilde at the top left of your keyboard.) This may not seem to be a big deal, but using Expos&#233 to toggle between multiple windows in an application is a pain in the butt. Yay!
The Bad:
I’m still not making enough money here. I have some options, but they mostly involve being away from Tammy and the baby.
How am I supposed to stay away from this?!

Continue reading →

 
Well, Jake scratched Tess Sunday night. He was sleeping facing the door. Tess grabbed his back and he whipped around and caught her face. He didn’t bite her, thank goodness. Still, Tess has a nasty scrape on the right side of her face; a little more to the left and Jake probably would have reached Tess’ eye. Pretty scary. While both Tam and I thought such an incident inevitable, we weren’t really prepared with a strategy. So, he’s down in Augusta with his doggie aunts and uncles. Meanwhile, Tam and I have taken Tess to the Doc, talked to Jake’s Vet and we’re seeing what we have to do. The Vet says Jake’s reaction was normal for a dog his age and that we shouldn’t worry; but definitely should keep the dog separated from Tess when he’s sleeping or eating. Apparently, he’s just a big scardey cat. Tam and I are working with James’ kids this weekend, and I’m going to participate in the GHP auditions, so we’ll have time to come up with a plan.

So I’m a little stuck. I’ve figured out that Gallery 2 uses Smarty. Great. I’m sure that’s wonderful, but I barely know what Smarty is. I did discover this, though:

{literal}{/literal}

escapes Smarty parsing. So if you want to have your own header with Gallery 2, you need to alter your header file so that it’s wrapped in the {literal}{/literal} tags. I haven’t tried nesting content inside the tpl. That might be interesting; but it doesn’t work. It seems I’ll have to be a little more clever to make it so I only have to have one header file. If it’s not one thing its the other.

Well, it looks like I’m getting close to finishing my move to MT 3.2. It’s been a little bit of a hassle, but overall, I just haven’t had enough time to devote to the task.
Tam and I have started working on Beauty and the Beast for my friend James Wagoner. We’re off to a great start. The kids are most enthusiastic and talented bunch. We&38217;ll work on their dancing. They have plenty of time and I know they’re going to rock.
In other, most sad news, Pamela Malave-Jones passed away over the weekend. I’m working on a more fitting memorial for her on the site. Her death is a great loss to me, her students, and our state.