"Murphy was an optimist!"
My Twitter followers have left! July 23, 2008 5:43 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Communications, TechnologyI just looked at the number of people following me on Twitter. I used to have many more following me than I was following. Now 60 people less than the number I follow are following me. My friends abandoned me! (or the spammers went away) I can only assume that in allowing Twhirl to stay in a visual part of my second monitor today, which encouraged Twitter to act as a chatroom instead of notification board, that the number of Tweets I made drove a large group of people away! I am sure that all the localized Knoxville tweets, family tweets, non-topic specific jokes, and overwhelming lack of technical or political relevance had nothing to do with it. I’m a Twitter abuser!
Update: It’s a Twitter bug!
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Afternoon Torment – A glimpse into my day July 23, 2008 5:35 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Family, Of Being DadI spent the morning banging on the keys on my keyboard taking stress breaks to jot a few words here and abuse Twitter (Twhirl makes it a bit too easy to use Twitter as a chatroom). I had a couple of posts I wrote several days ago scheduled for today so it probably looks like I blogged all day. I made great progress before the crack of dawn and through early morning. About lunch time I had to address the monkeys on my back. See, they’ve been getting fat and are weighing heavy without my permission.
One of the monkeys and I are fighting over whether or not the food was deserved, and, in the meantime, he’s cramming it down like the crops will run out tomorrow! I call him Chubs along with some words I won’t print here. He wants me to spend a couple of hours documenting the food to prove ownership. I cannot take that time from my clients so I delay the documentation until tomorrow and start pounding keys.
Another monkey taps me on the shoulder and explains that the commitment he made to me cannot be honored because he is changing the rules. That tune plays out to eight grand a year so it’s painful tap on the shoulder. There is an opportunity to get that monkey to stick to his commitment but it will require phone calls, emails, online chats, and, you guessed it, paperwork and documentation.
I am back to pounding keys to make my clients happy. They happen to be the ones who provide food for my monkeys. At 3:40pm, one of my monkeys decides that I should take action by 4:00pm or else I’d receive a hefty food penalty. I feed that monkey! And decide to make good use of my time. On the same trip, I drop 90 gallons of clothing and toy donations at Goodwill. (three 30 gallon trash bags of stuff = 90 gallons) I also drop by the grocery to make sure my family has dinner. And PetSmart since the dog food ran out. One of the monkeys burp. No! He belches!
I make it home by 5pm to return to coding at a panic’d rate. May I code until my fingers fall off!
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From the mouths of babes July 23, 2008 12:55 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Amy, Daily Life, Family, From the mouths of babesDad:"Who put the roll of toilet paper on the bathroom floor?"
Amy, 6 years old:"Not me."
Dad:"Didn’t you just use the bathroom?"
Amy:"Yes."
Dad:"Then you put the toilet paper on the floor."
Amy, the wordsmith:"No. I didn’t put the toilet paper on the floor. I dropped it on the floor!"
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Seeking Miracles – Mythical Babysitter July 23, 2008 12:39 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Amy, Daily Life, Evan, Family, Of Being DadFriday Tommy has Freshman orientation. We have a ton of paperwork to get done before and during orientation. I have yet to see the campus. If I can arrange a babysitter for 12 hours on Friday for a 3 year old, 6 year old and two German Shepherds, I can accompany Tommy and Cathy on the orientation. We have never used a babysitter other than relatives. Exactly how does one go about getting someone to come to your house and deal with your screaming children for twelve hours?
In other miracles, I kindly request the Tennessee Lottery Corporation to select my numbers. Yes, after hearing about Russ’s doorman, I bought a ticket for tonight’s Powerball but I purchased it with ad revenue from TNLotteryResults.com.
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Heroes text message July 23, 2008 12:33 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : UncategorizedThe Kill Squad is as sneaky as they come; they better not jeopardize my mission. See them here: www.nbc.com/
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This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T
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Your AJAX book recommendations please July 23, 2008 11:38 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : AJAX, ColdFusion, Programming, TechnologyIf I was going to buy ONE AJAX reference book to add to my library of dust collecting, quickly antiquated computer references, which AJAX book would you suggest? And by the way, does anyone need a copy of Ben Forta’s ColdFusion Application Construction Kit for version 3 of CF?
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Spam Karma open source or die die die July 23, 2008 10:06 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Programming, Software, Technology, WordPressIn case you missed the announcement, Dave who developed Spam Karma is no longer going to make changes or update the code. Instead he has released it as GPL v.2 and created a Google Code repository in hopes that some talented people will pickup where we he leaving off. I wonder if we Spam Karma users had actually donated money toward his efforts if he would have continued.
Spam Karma puts Akismet and other spam fighting tools to shame. I think in all the time I have been using Spam Karma, I have had only one false positive. I get false negatives on trackbacks but that is because it was only recently that I realized I could change the settings for how Spam Karma handles trackbacks so I’m still making adjustments.
I also found Dave’s comments on a WordPress replacement very interesting. Specifically he notes, "If you look at it, blog systems are over 10 year old now. Their UI have barely evolved since the first versions. … There is a bad need for a groundbreaking platform that would get rid of ten years of accumulated UI habits."
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I want one of these! July 23, 2008 8:59 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Transportation, TravelMost Environmentally Friendly Sport Utility Vehicle Pedal 4 WD
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