Wordpress Again

So I spent two more days fiddling with my attempt at Word Press and I'm getting better. I got a PHP and MYSQL book out of the library and it's making quite a bit more sense. (I'm a little annoyed I could have tested this without actually putting the site up, but oh well, too late now.) I'm finally getting somewhere with altering the PHP templates, without blowing them up. I finally have the pages setting their links the way I want, and I've mostly fixed my gallery setup for IE. You would think centering wouldn't be this much trouble. Now I just have to figure out the actual design I want to use, now that the navigation and display issues seem to have worked themselves out. I also went through my pet resources site and got the species profiles to have h1 tags. That would be the site that I'm reading the book to redesign.

CSS Evil

I really have to figure out how to write blogger from scratch. This fiddling with other people's code is getting obnoxious. I finally got the post text, widget text, and all the linking colors to do what I want. Switching the posts to a black background really pissed off the presets, so I had to add tons of my own code so things like the search on the right wouldn't display in dark colors since the presets only declared one text color... Now if only I can get the tabs to stop displaying oddly in IE.

Fiddling with CSS

I used blogger's new template editing thing for the new site look. If you run it through the W3C CSS Validator 131 errors come up. Gee I kind of wonder how well someone tested this before setting it up. I guess I'll be fiddling with CSS tomorrow. It does explain why IE hates my page tabs though.

Redesign

At the moment this is what I'm going to be sticking with. I'm not completely happy yet, and I have to dig through fiddly bits of code to change a few things, but I do like it overall.

Daily Photo - I Beat It

I finally figured out what line of code was eating my Spry menus and adding 2 pixels of space along the top of every one. I'm not completely sure why it was doing it, but it's fixed and over finally. As for today's photo I finally spotted a female of those nasty winter moths that have been out the last few days. The females can't fly. They normally climb tree trunks and try to entice the winged males to them.

Daily Photo - Harlequin Rasbora

I'm kind of wishing I still had 15 tanks full of fish. Only two doesn't have as much variety as I would like. BTW this is me avoiding trying to puzzle out why Dream Weaver CSS makes my SPRY menu weird in IE.

So Far So Good

A completely unrelated image.

I bought a graphics card to solve my computer's screen flickering issue. While I expect the motherboard may still have issues it isn't as visible now. Installing the graphics card led to vacuuming out the box as there was an enormous amount of dog fur and dust in there. It had actually coated the cooling fins on the processor. Since then the computer has been running much better, no file issues and the screen has stopped flickering. Maybe it was just the massive amount of dust. I had to vacuum out all the air intakes which had clogged as well. The computer had 3 fans in it, and the graphics card came with its own, aside from is sounding a little like a jet engine when I start it up I'm liking the new card. Too bad replacing the graphics card didn't give me a bigger monitor. And since it isn't broken I can't convince myself that I need to replace it with a small HDTV either.

Daily Photo - Kitty

Turns out the likely culprit of my continued computer problems is a dying motherboard... at least that is the idea that fits the best, as my monitor works fine hooked up to the laptop, and I keep getting errors when it would be accessing the motherboard rather than the hard drive. Then there is the whole not wanting to turn on thing, so I haven't been turning it off. My backup hard drive replacement is on its way so I'll be copying everything yet again then figuring out what to do about it. If I didn't know it will be picking the least opportune time to die I'd just wait until it does so and put in a new one.

Still don't know what's broken...

I managed to back everything up that was vital, though it seems my old backup hard drive has now died. I fixed my anti-virus so no more complaining messages from Windows saying I need to have an anti-virus running. It seems to be working now, but restarting is a chore and sometimes it hangs for no apparent reason. I've also got a part-time retail job lined up, so I can spend less time obsessing over work.

Seeming Lazy

My desktop computer has been making me nervous for a few weeks now. I keep not taking photos and not wanting to post as whenever I access files it starts acting like it might not be able to find them. I'm spending today backing up to a secondary hard drive, (since my standard one has also been giving me issues since June) and then running some diagnostics to see if I can figure out what it's problem is, hopefully not the hard driv3e itself. The monitor has been acting up too, it's 6-7 years old, but since it's doing it at the same time as the computer I'm not happy. This computer is only a few years old. It took me a while to figure out the root of my unease with photographing. If I can take photos, but can't be completely sure they aren't going to disappear it just makes me nervous and unhappy. Of course I use Carbonite too, but it's still recovering from my June trip to Utah, auto upload backups just can't keep up with me I suppose. It still has 10 gb to go... I've been polurethaning the scratched up patches of my hardwood floors. Talkabout a pain. It is ending up looking a little odd, but I hope the poly will yellow the bare patches to the amber of the rest of the floor. If nothing else the bare spots can't absorb water anymore, though it does look a bit like parts of the floor melted in some places.

I have to stop getting new toys

As I posted previously my faithful dell desktop died over the weekend. It died maybe a half hour after I ordered a net book. Since I had already ordered it I kept the order open, and went and bought a new Desktop too. The net book came today. The timing was almost perfect, as I just finished finagling the desktop's settings to my preferences. I had some new free time to play with my new 10.1 in Acer Aspire one. Yes, it has plenty of negative feedback on Amazon. Oddly enough most of the complaints were about featured that are vital to the machine staying tiny. The keyboard is as you might expect small. It doesn't have an optical drive, and heaven forbid the horribly cheap net book have a shiny cover that attracts fingerprints. I've been playing for a few hours, and overall I like. The keyboard is tiny, but that is to be expected. It's not as fast as my new desktop. I wouldn't expect a computer with a tiny processor and 1 GB or RAM to keep up with a dual core 6 GB RAM desktop, and comparing them is ridiculous anyway. This thing is faster than my old Dell desktop was, so what is every one's problem. The whole point of this machine is tiny dimensions, light weight, and battery life. The goal is being able to stay connected and obsessively check your e-mail. I bought it to bring on vacation to backup pictures i might take, read and write text documents, search the web, and I guess blog. I consider it an improvement over a kindle. it doesn't have nifty electronic paper, but it has a closer to full size keyboard, plenty of storage space, and isn't useless for anything but reading books. I bought in because including the 6 cell (7-8 hrs projected) battery it still weights less than 3 lbs. It weighs less than my camera bag with three lenses in it. So far it's silent, the battery has lasted about 3 hrs, the keyboard isn't messing me up any more than my normal keyboard does, and the stupid mouse pad thing mostly works. If only I could get the CAPS LOCK to play that tone when it's clicked, so far that's my only complaint. it connected to my network within 3 minutes of being turned on the first time, my new Vista box took 2 hours to install a piece of crap (ie cheapest one available) wireless card. It even looks like the keyboard is inset enough that it won't touch the screen at all when it's closed, avoiding the marking problem my mother's 7 lb laptop has. Of course after my spending spree on computers I'm back to buying food for me, food for the critters and gas for a few months. At least the computers work though, and it's not like I have any other expensive hobbies. Next reptile show is in two weeks, here's hoping I don't come home with another $50 lizard. p.s. I went to Moose hill this morning, and might have some moss and snowdrop pictures posted later.

Sucked into Vista

Though my desktop computer isn't dead yet, it wasn't acting healthy again. (It waited about 1/2 an hour after I ordered a net book to crap out.) I've already replaced the hard drive 3 times. As much as I like XP I really didn't want to install it again. It also technically has less memory and ram than the current standard for new net book laptops, so it is I'll admit a bit outdated. So I gave in. Since my computer was acting up I'd just copied everything to discs and my backup drive. Within minutes of finishing my copying XP stopped loading correctly. I gave up and got a Dell box from Best Buy. 6 GB of RAM, and a 750GB hard drive, and almost the only one in the store with no Wireless Card included. Windows Vista 64 bit, and so far only one of my programs doesn't work. It looks like my scanner, and maybe printer won't work either. (Both of those should work on my net book, so it isn't a big deal.) If I have to I'll update to the newest Windows OS when it comes out provided it isn't worse than Vista. WOO HOO scanner works. Yeah, I'm still installing and tweaking. I have to install some kind of backup program that can backup everything including hidden files. The free program that came with my backup drive isn't able to do that, so everything ends up on DVD too. Amazingly enough I got all my Outlook Express e-mails imported into that Window's Mail program, and Firefox works quite well. I'm letting it run the Windows firewall until further notice. After I got rid of all the trays and crap running on the sides of the desktop it isn't that hard to deal with. I don't really like the All programs setup, but I don't use it that much anyway, so it isn't too bad. I didn't like the new Music and Pictures locations, but iTunes didn't have any issues, and seems to function quite well, so I can deal. Even my old Office 97 stuff worked. Overall it seems I waited long enough for the most annoying bugs to be worked out. If nothing else I now have a box that used newer more standard parts at least for a while. As you can see above though I lost some fonts.

Stupid Evil Computers

For future reference it takes about 4 hours to reinstall the basics of Windows XP, at least two more hours to install it the way I want it. I should never start reinstalling at 10 pm, because I won't be willing to stop until it's at least functional, which meant 2 am last night. I also lost a number of songs from iTunes, thankfully not any I paid for, but still. Over two hundred songs gone, I'll probably only replace a few of them though, I might be able to copy them off my ipod, but it gets so messy. At least iTunes had eaten my play lists recently, so I hadn't remade them yet. And I lost all those stupid cover art things, which only got downloaded the last time iTunes died, and some of my e-mail accounts still won't work anyway. grumble... At least I didn't lose any pics this time. --------------------------------------- Woo Hoo, fixed the Album Artwork thing, but still missing the Batman Forever Soundtrack...

Space Issues

As of tonight I have a new working 500 GB hard drive, to supplement my full 120 GB one. Of course, I have to copy everything off the old badly partitioned drive, reformat it and reinstall my operating system again, but whatever. At least the old drive still works, I just didn't leave enough space for my programs and Windows. I should manage to keep everything but my pictures on the old 120. I decided that since I obviously wasn't going to stop taking pictures I might as well get the biggest drive I could afford that would work in my getting elderly dell. I bought a backup external 500 GB one last week sometime, so at least I have lots of copies of everything. Sometimes I imagine how irritating this would be if it was my first time doing it and laugh. Always buy the biggest fastest computer you can afford, they last a bit longer...And yes, flawed as it is I'm reinstalling XP again...

Why Computers Suck

Apparently I've filled an 80 GB partition with over 65 GB of pictures (and music I guess.) I knew I took a lot when the camera ran out of numbers and restarted at 1 earlier this year, but I didn't think it had gotten this bad. I looked yesterday while deciding on a backup drive and discovered I need a new primary, as 80 just isn't cutting it. I have 3 GB free... No wonder the scanner was whining. I'm also quite annoyed with finding an external drive that people agree on working. I ended up getting one that half of the users love, and the other half had it die within a month, so here's hoping. Thankfully I know of at least one that is nearing a year old with no problems. I needed it now, so hopefully it will last until I make up my mind about 350GB or 500GB for my new internal...and I was hoping to get a cheapish backup pocket camera. Sigh.