My next 30 day challenge will be to sit and meditate everyday for at least 20 minutes. I’ve done 14 consecutive days before, but never 30. My meditation practices in the past have always been spotty, a day here and a day there, but I really want to make it a daily practice. (see below)

While I’m here, I also want to post some of my New Years resolutions, goals, and to-dos in this post. Better late than never, right? Here goes.

1. I’ll begin with my reading list. Some of these authors / philosophers I’ve already read, but I’d like to delve deeper into their works and worlds. My list includes Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Emerson, D.T. Suzuki, and a dash of Plato (specifically The Last Days of Socrates). On the tech side of things, I have a few networking security books I’d like you have a look at as well.

2. Speaking of tech, 2011 will be the year that I become proficient in Linux. I’ve always run dual boot systems (Windows and some flavor of Linux), but I’ve never really committed to learning the OS. Over the last week I’ve installed Arch Linux on four of my computers, each with its very own desktop environment –but it’s the command line that will get most of my attention. On a related topic, I also decided to learn the Vi(m) editor.

3. I’d like to compete in another triathlon. I’d also like to run some 10K races this year (Meg?). (Quick note on my Vibrams: I’m loving them and I don’t think I could ever go back.)

4. I’d like to go camping more. A lot more. I’d like to go to Acadia again.

5. Study Buddhism. (see D.T. Suzuki above). Meditate on a daily basis.

6. Write, write, write! Poetry, fiction, blog posts, whatever. My goal is at least 500 words a day.

7. Code, code, code! Python, C++, Lua, whatever. I have an ever growing list a projects (Arduino). I plan on tackling some of them this year.

8. I’d like to be able to hold a conversation in Russian. I’m pretty close, but I’m not quite there yet. I need to push myself to that next level.

9. I have a few personal traits I’d like to work on this year too. The first is to master empathy, the second is to finish what I start, and the third is to get out of my comfort zone, often. I think those are all pretty self-explanatory.

10. AND FINALLY, I’d like to be a little more hands on this year –a more practice, less theory kind of approach. Whether it be carpentry, electronics, metalwork, cooking, fly fishing, etc…, it’s time to put the books down and get busy. I just finished building my new workbench (well, one just like that), so I’m ready to get my hands dirty.

Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.

Did they say this project was started by someone named Russ Bespin? Who is this guy? Either that is a fake name to help fend off George Lucas’s copyright lawyers, or this guy was destined to work in cloud computing. Regardless, I can’t wait to see what the crew at Mozilla can do with a project like this. I played around with it a bit and even in its Alpha stage it’s pretty functional. It’s also the first time I’ve seen the <canvas> tag used for anything useful. Check it out here.

I also changed the name of the site from :skyecade online to simply robertsinclaire.com. It’s been something I’ve been toying with for a while now. All the original URLs will still work, however, so feel free to keep plugging in skyecade.net if that’s what you prefer.

Lastly, I added a “Subscribe Via Email” section to the side bar for people who would like all my wonderful posts sent directly to their inbox. Never again will you miss out on the pure awesomeness which is :skyecade online robertsinclaire.com. Just pop in your email address, hit “Subscribe”, and wait by your inbox. Oh yeah!

Okay, off to jury duty……again.

I’m still not 100% convinced that paying for an online education is a good idea, but the fact that it’s O’Reilly makes me much more curious.

Course List:

For the complete I.T. beginner:

* Introduction to HTML and CSS
* Learn Object-Oriented Programming Using Java
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin I: The Basics of System Administration
* Learn C Programming, Part 1

For the beginner/intermediate student:

* Introduction to PHP
* JavaScript 1: Client-Side Programming
* Learn Perl for CGI Programming
* PHP/SQL 1: Introduction to Database Programming
* Learn SQL for Database Programming
* Learn C Programming, Part 2
* Learn VB-Script
* Learn Unix for Web Programming
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin II: Networking and DNS
* Learn XML

For the intermediate/advanced student:

* JavaScript 2: AJAX
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin III: Unix Services (including email and web servers)
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin IV: Scripting for Administrators, Sed, Awk, and Perl
* Learn Visual Basic .NET
* Learn C#.NET

Cut and paste the following text into Google:

{-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "DIGG"}

Replace the word “DIGG” with the name of your favorite band and voila, a listing of open indexes containing downloadable music files. Of course you could just go here and let them do the dirty work for you, but where’s the fun n that?

I needed to edit my .htaccess file from my web server, but when I downloaded it to my desktop (OS X), the file magically disappeared. So I downloaded it again. This time it asked me if I wanted to overwrite the existing .htaccess file on my desktop. That’s when it hit me, .htaccess is a hidden file. Duh!

I did a quick scan in Finder for a “Show Hidden Files” option, but I had no luck. Google here we come. And this is what I found.

In a terminal, type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

To revert back to the way it was, repeat the above step, but this time replace the TRUE value with a FALSE value. Voila! Nice and easy.

So a few of us have been working on a new community site geared specifically towards geeks. The site is still being developed, but the forums are up and running and the official blog is only days away.

Check it out at zengeeks.com. A bit of a warning though, this community is not for everyone. It’s for the geekiest of geeks, e.g., TWiT fans, digg fans, gamers, coders, technology enthusiasts, sci-fi fans, movie buffs, web 2.0 geeks, cyberculturists, Mac heads, hardware freaks, modders, podcasters, bloggers, internet junkies….

If you don’t have an interest in at least one of the above topics, then save yourself a trip. You would most likely die of severe geek shock. In fact, just to be safe, I set up a little geek test for you below. See how you do. Don’t cheat!

You must know one or more of the following people (and if they’re fictional or real):

• Joss Whedon
• Steve Wozniak
• Leo Laporte
• Kara Thrace
• Kevin Rose
• Boba Fett
• John Carmack
• Gordon Freeman
• Linus Torvalds
• Kevin Mitnick

You must know what two or more of the following stand for:

• LotR
• IBM
• BF1942
• HTML
• USB
• RSS
• WoW
• 1337
• HTTP
• BIOS

You must understand and accept the following:

• The internet is not a series of tubes.
• Web 2.0 is not the next version of the web.
• When someone tells you they’re in a clan, don’t assume they’re racist.
• Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, & 3 suck!!
• A hacker is a programmer, not a pimply faced kid in his basement trying to break into your computer.
• Never use the term “l33t haX0r” in a sentence, written or verbal, unless to tell people never to use the term “l33t haX0r” in a sentence, written or verbal.

Was that so bad? If you think you did half way decent then head on over, register a user name, create a profile, and start geeking out. The more the merrier. The more the geekier. Sorry, I had to say it.


<!--[if IE 7]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../wp-content/themes/skyecade/ie7_hacks.css" />
< ![endif]-->


It sucks that I had to do it this way. I was warned by multiple web developers that this is not the preferred method and I completely to agree with them. For now though, the site works in IE7 and it will buy me some time until I can really look over the code and see what, if anything, is causing this stupid, annoying, pain in my ass behavior. It should be fun.

This site uses a lot of CSS and is written in xhtml (transitional), both of which comply with w3c standards. Validate them yourselves if you wish. BUT WAIT! Before you do, I should mention that though the site code complies with w3c standards, some of the content may not always validate properly, e.g., when embedding videos from Youtube. So to validate this site, click on this to leave the front page and then click on the two buttons below.

   &   

Needless to say, the site renders perfectly when using Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Safari, Konqueror, and even older versions of Internet Explorer. Grrrr. I’m so disappointed. I was really looking forward to this release.

So what now? I could block all IE7 users from my site. That’s just mean. Not to mention that in about one months time IE7 is going to be included in Microsoft’s automatic updates – which in turn, means that the majority of Window’s user’s will be upgrading to IE7. That’s a little under 50% of my visitors. Yeah, I thought that was a crazy statistic too. That obviously means that about half of the people that visit this site are using something other than Internet Explorer. Although, I’ve always assumed that people who read and/or write blogs were more likely to use an alternative browser to Internet Explorer, but I never would have guessed 50%. My faith in humanity has just doubled.

Maybe I should just wait for Microsoft to fix this problem for me. (you may now take a moment to laugh). Done?

No, I think my only viable option here is to find a CSS expert who can write me an IE7 hack of some type. If it’s even possible. I really don’t want to do a complete site redesign just because of one stupid company that can’t play nice with the rest of the kids in the yard.

To help clarify my last statement:

• kids = web standards
• yard = the internet
• stupid = Microsoft

Alright, I don’t think Microsoft is stupid. In fact, I think they can be down right brilliant at times. So why, then, can’t they get something as simple as this correct? Why, oh why.

Anyways, I don’t plan on doing anything drastic for a while. Maybe Bill Gates is a frequent reader of my site and will be appalled with what he sees and go back to Redmond and personally fix the problem himself. Thanks Bill! I owe you one.

Enough blabbering. What is the moral of this story ladies and gentlemen? For the love of god, download Firefox.

<!- - end IE7 hack - ->