Xagronaut

I’ve been reading Douglas Bass’s blog, Apprehension, initially because his blogroll link to my blog showed up on my Technorati list.

It’s been a pleasant surprise. Douglas is “assistant professor in the Graduate Programs in Software at the University of St. Thomas.” I checked out the Certificate programs with some interest, and I found one that I would enjoy having, given the time. A task like that is indeed daunting, especially with my current full-time job and other life responsibilities. Plus, St. Paul is geographically distant (I didn’t check on the distance learning option).

Douglas covers a range of topics, including computing (like the sudoku puzzle - neat!), Christianity, higher education, and combinations of the same. But, above all, the title and theme is “Apprehension,” not the negative emotion, but that kind mentioned by Paul in Philippians 3:12-13:

12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

I will definitely be visiting again. You can check out Douglas’s smooth-sounding voice in his podcast, “Belief Seeking Understanding.” You can subscribe to his podcast here. You can subscribe to Apprehension here.

I searched for Michael Lehman today, after listening to the first Buzz Cast on MSDN’s Channel 9. I found his Radio weblog. After browsing his list of podcasts I came across this one and left a comment about a typo. As I was typing, I decided to throw in this tip (reposted here for the benefit of readers):

I filter podcasts through NewsGator Online Edition. I subscribe to podcast feeds via NG online and review them occasionally. I pick the ones I like and save them to a My Clippings feed for podcasts. I am subscribed to that feed on my home PC via Radio Userland’s news aggregator.

Radio Userland downloads enclosures in the background at a configurable number of hours after midnight. The next day, the podcasts I selected are cached on my PC.

This allows me to selectively download podcasts instead of wholesale downloading anything that comes across in the feed. Of course this technique means that the downloads are a little time-delayed, but I like the control.

Michael Lehman has a pretty cool radio voice. He can read fast too. Just listen to him give the contest information for the PDC event in the Buzz Cast!

Michael’s podcast, the Manic Minute is available on his Radio weblog via this feed.

Steve McConnell is one of my heroes. His book, Code Complete, is one of my favorite programming texts–definitely a classic. Guess what? Code Complete 2 is out!

Steve has a website. That’s pretty cool. Here’s his picture. But Steve doesn’t have weblog. Maybe he should start one at Construx, his current company.

Maybe when you write like he does, you just wait a couple years, put out another classic book, and wait two more years. Blogging, daily or weekly, doesn’t fit into that model. Maybe that’s what he prefers.

But, as I have been on a binge of consuming the blogs of some great industry minds, I would almost expect to see a blog from the great Steve. So far, I’ve found blogs for the following:

I’m also hoping to find a blog from Larry Wall. He has a website too, but not a weblog. Here’s his picture. Based on his website, though, I guess he values time spent on things other than blogging.

Ian’s Messy Desk posts this quote by Casey Stengel:

Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, and some ask what happened.

Ian’s site has a very cool graphical layout–something I miss when I convert to “all RSS, all-the-time” blog reading.

My visual layout here is very basic. It’s one of the pre-packaged themes that comes with Radio Userland. One of the things I that fall very low on my priority list is a custom redesign of this blog. Oh, well, it is what it is.

I found an article that describes several command-line utilities that can automate SQL Server tasks.

These commands include:

We use a couple of these commands at my current client as part of our build/migration process.

Drupal is a versatile open source content
management system. I’m trying to install it for my own use, but I need to
upgrade my PHP version first. My friend suggested that I rebuild the
server with an updated Mandrake or SUSE distribution. I’m currently
running Mandrake 8.2, and I can’t get patches for it anymore.

It just sounds like the task is going to be a major pain. Plus, I don’t
think I have any way to burn an ISO image from Windows XP. Drat! Maybe
I’ll have to dual boot to Win2K to use my CD Creator software that no
longer works under XP. More work.

A friend of mine is considering replacing his entire small business website with Drupal. I think
that’s a smart move. Right now his website is still developing (partially
under construction) and I think now is a good time to make a move like
this. It will support his blog as well as a number of
other features. Good stuff. Jeff K., if your out there, I hope you don’t
mind me referring to your site. As they say, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

I’ve been reading some “alternative” blogs at blogs4God. By alternative, I mean not my usual faire. I’ve been sampling the Journals category and Kathryn Lively’s St. Blog’s. Interesting what you can find when you take the time to try something new.

Phil Younger blogs about shutting down his blog and why he did it. It makes sense. He said that his motives revolved around the need for attention and the craving that it forms. I can relate. When I first started blogging, I was checking my referrer logs every hour to see if I had any hits. I still check my logs regularly, but not in the same way. Plus, any comments that came my way were a big bonus. “Wow, someone real out there knows that I’m alive, and they read my blog!” You get the idea.

Then there was a provocative, well-written, beautifully presented journal called This is not for you… Oddly enough, the thoughts and events recorded were so personal that I was both moved and bothered. Bothered because I was reading something so personal. I hope that Candace, her family, and Matthew weather the storm of illness.

I tried some other blogs, too, only to find that they had fallen prey to link rot or some other form of abandonment, such as tekBlog.net.

But then I was quickly back to my old haunts in the techBlogs category. I must say, even though I’m not a Mac fanatic (don’t love ‘em, don’t hate ‘em), I was totally impressed with northoftheborder’s graphic design, layout, and content. Sweet and kudos! I gave a quick read to his description of an XML-configurable Flash video jukebox. Did I get that right? Curious. His blog archives use PHP. I wonder what system he uses to run his weblog. Is it homegrown?

I had to check in at Boyink to see how things were going. It appears that scoundrels have finally targeted his blogging platform, pMachine, with the bane of bloggers everywhere: comment spam.

On another note, I just discovered that NewsGator now has a free version of their online service. Very cool! I tried the NewsGator for Outlook trial edition, and I plan to buy it when I can. It’s only $29, so not a bad deal.

I’m beginning to loathe my TiVo. Maybe loathe is a strong word. It sucks my time away. I can record an unseemly amount of shows that I have no time to watch. If I try to follow any of them, I have no time for the richer things in life, like blogging for example. Plus it’s been a long while since I wrote any code whatsoever at home. Scary!

Ahh! It feels so good to get back to the keyboard and blog again. I didn’t watch television/TiVo-vision all evening. I left that to my wife. Instead, I spent the evening sorting out my medications for multiple sclerosis and depression. I did say the “richer” things in life, didn’t I? Anyway, I’m not sour about it. I actually felt like I got something accomplished.

You know what, this felt so good, I think won’t wait so long to do it again next time.

Sorry, folks. Long dry spell. I don’t blame anyone for leaving permanently. I don’t even check my referrer log regularly anymore. I mean, who cares if someone from Google accidentally stumbled across looking for something that you know they didn’t find on your page. Just look at the query and you can tell.

I get the “disadvantage of email” one a lot. I wrote a post about the disadvantage of posting via Radio’s email-to-weblog feature. I don’t even remember what I said about it, but that one gets a lot of hits.

I’ve been consolidating my blogs, well, mentally at least. All of that has been cooking around in my brain for some months, but I’ve been unable or even unmotivated to bother with it. I’m letting several of my domain registrations lapse. Just too many good intentions. That’s what I can say about my life in general. I need to really reflect and find a way to focus on living a richer life, not a “fuller” one. Yes, I mean “fuller” in the way you feel after Thanksgiving dinner–too full–stuffed. And I’ve been one stuffed turkey!

I appreciate those who bothered to blogroll or link me so many moons ago when I was prolific (but not profound). Here are a few that I can name:

• King’s Kid
• Upward Way Press
• Under the Sun
• Tim Samoff
• Kingdom Come
• Theoblogical

That’s all for now. Shouldn’t I feel better?

Blog Replacement: Update. My blog replacement is coming alongabout 3800 lines so far. The database layer has been stable for the last two weeks, and I have all my current MT blog entries imported. Im currently working on the web layer…

[Nu Cardboard]

Fun, fun, fun! I think it’s great that so many tech-heads are writing their own blogging tools. I know the old addage about not reinventing the wheel, but when you reinvent the wheel, you get to keep, control, and distribute your wheel as you please. Let’s just hope that Nu Cardboard’s new wheel doesn’t turn out to be a Firestone tire.