Some spam comments are just gibberish, others attempt to flatter me with generic praise. On Sunday, I received a unique comment via the church blog begging me not to ignore it.
HELP! I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia xyzrxyz [deleted] enlargement xyzrxyz and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. xyzrxyz [deleted] enlargement xyzrxyz They’re coming back now. xyzrxyz [deleted] xyzrxyz Please send help!
Nice try. Still didn’t get past the spam filter though. When the Russians do show up this is the song you should sing as your being dragged away.
In the course of Life the Sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. Flowers bloom in Spring and they die in the Autumn. So it must be also for WordPress themes…
ummm, yeah we don’t need anymore of that. My previous theme has been in use for over a year. At that time, a commenter promised that maintainership was being transferred so that new releases would continue in the future. A year later there are still no signs of life to be found. I then started to seriously look at new themes for the church website and the BrakeBlog.
Blog.txt rendered to be unmaintained.
When I started browsing the directory on wordpress.org for ideas I had two goals in mind.
The church website and BrakeBlog would be dramatically different from each other after I make these changes. To be clear that the BrakeBlog and the church website are not the same.
I wanted at least one theme to have a customizable image in the header.
The new theme for the church is very different from Blog.txt. Zenlite is a single column blog with no sidebar. The header is easily changeable to keep the website looking fresh. Several of the items that were in the sidebar had to be moved, unfortunately.
On this site, Simplish is very close in style to blog.txt. So close that it was a drop-in replacement. I may consider changing the fonts to those used by blog.txt. I like the look of Sans Serif-based fonts over Serif fonts.
However, Energynet will suffer from the same faults of a crowded 2.4 Ghz band that includes routers, wireless phone handsets, and microwave ovens.
This is definitely true for microwave ovens. The wireless is completely unusable while the microwave is running. Recently, the room where all of the computer equipment is, was re-arranged with two major changes related to the networking setup. The first being the removal of two big CRT monitors from the room and the second is that the EnergyNet box is now plugged into an uninterruptible power supply. I noticed over the next several days that Internet speeds were dramatically better. Before the re-organization data transfers averaged ~400 kilobits/second. Which is far less than the advertised 3 megabits. After seeing the difference in speed after making these changes I got curious and plugged the Energynet box directly into the wall like it was before. Internet speeds worsened at the same time.
Based on this anecdotal evidence, I would recommend using a battery backup to power the EnergyNet router. The UPS serves to isolate connected devices from fluctuations in mains power. At least in this instance it does an excellent job.
HES EnergyNet Bridge
I would be interested to know whether other customers have experienced the same symptoms. Overall, I like the service from EnergyNet but other people considering buying it should realize the equipment is very sensitive to interference. Another thing about my setup is that I use a wireless router of my own to re-transmit the signal to my laptop. So if there is any interference in the air I get it both coming and going.
I was there Monday night at the product demonstration for AT&T’s U-verse service. I think the Archos 5 performed fairly well to record the meeting. What I have is the full length U-verse demonstration given by Brian Claimer and the question/answer session that happened afterward.
In my opinion, the lawsuits flying between the city/New Wave and AT&T are retrograde in their reasoning. The city seems to be more concerned in protecting New Wave’s interests than the interests of the citizens. Using any decent Internet connection it’s already possible to watch full-length cable network content. The plan that AT&T laid out is not very much different than what other companies have already introduced. The Roku Set top box is meant to deliver video from a variety of Internet sources. Both of these examples are completely unregulated. Would the city council have me believe that watching TV on Syfy.com is now illegal because they haven’t bought a franchise? AT&T should be allowed to offer it’s new video service because technology is advancing to quickly make the dispute irrelevant.
Happy New Year! Let’s hope 2010 sucks less than 2009 did.
Archos 5
I said last week I would be posting an mp3 of that week’s sermon if I could get my Archos 5 device working correctly. The result surpassed my best expectations of what I thought the FM radio accessory was capable of. The microphone is so good that it was able to pick up Pastor Latham’s preaching even though he walked several feet away from the pulpit. The only fault in the recording was when the pastor stood directly behind the pulpit with the mic turned up too hot. In parts, at the beginning and the end there is a lot of distortion.
I’ve been terribly busy at work dealing with Christmas. Today was the first time I have come home before nightfall for the past two weeks. Looking forward two days from now, I eagerly anticipate opening my Christmas presents.
I’m old enough that Christmas is not a surprise anymore. In November, I decided what I wanted and ordered it. The object in question is an Archos 5 60GB tablet. The device is comparable to an iPod Touch. I’m really excited about the Archos because I have watched the new touch devices come on the market. I think the technology has developed enough that I won’t get buyer’s remorse when they release next year’s model. The device I bought is actually last year’s model. The current model is much more expensive and it runs Google’s Android operating system. In addition to the device itself I also bought an attachment that includes a microphone to record speech with. If it works like I want it to I’ll be posting mp3′s of sermons from church.
Last week, my Internet service was switched from New Wave Communications to HES Energynet. Even though New Wave promised 1.5 megabits for our tier of service it only rarely met that level. Many times downloads would stall for no apparent reason. It is possible that some fault lies with my wireless router. Like I will explain later, using wireless means the user is subject to every form interference possible. However, I keep a close watch on the strength of my wireless signal and my connection was steady each time a download stalled while using New Wave. I do believe New Wave is making a sincere effort to improve their service. Larry Hoyle is the local manager for Hopkinsville and he appears regularly in commercials begging for customer feedback.
However, the power of Mr. Hoyle’s persuasion wasn’t enough to keep us from switching. Energynet promises 3 Megabits for their service which was enough to convince us to try it. Some basics to understand about the Energynet service is that it uses standard 802.11G technology. Any home router at OfficeMax, etc will support the G standard. Retail routers however have to be plugged into the wireless bridge provided by HES. The encryption used by Energynet prevents casual unauthorized access but it will not prevent knowledgable individuals from capturing private data. As wireless home routers become more common interference from your neighbor will become more difficult to avoid.
DD-WRT screenshot
The Wifi standard allows a total of 14 channels but only 11 of these are legal to use in the United States (Ch. 1-11). When setting up a new router it is helpful to change the channel to something other than the default. It is especially important to set the channel different from what Energynet uses or else both routers will step on each other during high traffic periods.
Picking a clear channel is made easier if your able to use software like Kismet that will show all the active wireless networks in the area, ncluding ones that are hidden from normal view.
In these early days of my experience with Energynet, so far I am very satisfied with the speed I get. However, Energynet will suffer from the same faults of a crowded 2.4 Ghz band that includes routers, wireless phone handsets, and microwave ovens.
Recently the Hopkinsville Police Department started publishing crime data for the city through CrimeReports.com. Among the positives for this service is the data itself which seems to be posted on a timely basis. CrimeReports.com provides two different views of the data; one is google map-based, the other uses a bar chart, pie chart, and line graph. I’d like to thank the HPD for publishing this information. If there was anything worthy of spending taxpayer dollars it would be this. I think the data is displayed in multiple formats allowing some very interesting analysis.
CrimeReports Popup
If this website is so wonderful is there anything wrong with it? Well, I think it falls down in two areas that could be easily fixed. The first and most annoying mistake is that the programmers have written a pop-up to appear the first time the user attempts to drag the map around. Pop-ups of any kind are flat out stupid. There is a reason why pop-up killer functionality is built-in to both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Any programmer that implements such a thing should be sent to a desolate SovietRussian prison in Siberia.
The second defect is with the crime alerts that the website wishes for everyone to sign-up for. I registered with the website soon after seeing it in the Kentucky New Era. Then a couple of days later a crime did occur within the area I specified but I received no email about it. Last night I created another crime alert in the center of the city then I did get email from both locations.
I think CrimeReports.com is an excellent service to have for the city of Hopkinsville. The police Department seems to post new crime reliably and the website provides a variety of ways to view that data. The usefulness of the website is harmed greatly though by that blasted pop-up. I’d also wonder why the email alerts don’t work reliably but that is only a mild problem. 3 of 5 stars
