The home page and original site for the Famous Grazing Blogs

There are more than a dozen Famous Grazing Blogs residing on the cybersphere. Some are dormant and some very active. They all link back here to the Granddaddy of our blogs, founding in May of 2004.

Friday, September 09, 2005

bloggar editor behind the times? Nope!

w::Bloggar is a little behind the times with the Blogger.com features. Unless my delving into the help files missed something, you cannot upload a file yet to display on the message from the hard drive. Images, such as the Tibetan Eye Chart in this message, need to have already be uploaded.

It is still the best offline editor for most of the online blogging services. Don’t restrict its user for just the blogger.com web site.

I will send an email to w::bloggar’s author to see if that is in the works.
=30=


Good Morning!

Not much to say this morning. I didn’t have to get up early this morning, so my eyes opened at six. I told them to go back to sleep, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Things to do, places to go, people to see.

=30=

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Never follow a kid or animal act.

This afternoon I sent a photo out as a Gmail attachment to people in my contacts list from whom I haven’t heard in a while. So far three people long off the radar responded with a wow as to the changes in the photo of our son.

So, if you’re looking for a response from those who aren’t using email as their primary means of communication with the rest of the world, a photo of a growing child will at least generate a Wow.

It’s better than nothing.

=30=

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Jonathon Strange and Dr. Norrell


Okay, here‘s the strange thing:

Yesterday while waiting at the Braintree T. stop for a guest from Kenya, I happened into a nearby Borders to kill time. There I came across a book . It was called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Upon completion, I intend to review here and in length at Field Grazing.

Then today, as I was aimlessly wandering in the world of Next Blog, I came across the illustration pictured to the left. Unfortunately, the site was in a language foreign to me. It do look as if it was a positive review.


I will continue to read it and let you know when I am done. Don’t hold your breath, it’s a long book.

If you are impatient, you can go to the Amazon.com page about the book and read the professional and personal reviews near the bottom of the page. The only slightly negative review was from someone who only read 127 pages. This was more a reflection of the reader than the book.

=30=

First Day of Middle School

It’s not like the first day of kindergarten, but is almost as emotional. Sixth Grade is a big step for a child. It’s a big step for a parent at well.

=30=

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Back to work

I am not sure why, but three day weekends don’t bring me rest.

Perhaps it is because I know when I return this morning there will be two days worth of work waiting for me on my desk. When you are in a 24/7 business, a day off just puts things on hold. It’s not like a factory where the last thing you did is waiting for the next thing you’ll do.

There is no freeze-frame, no pause button. The film just keeps running - leaving you to rewind and continue from there. You still needing to have seen the entire feature before you go home.

A bit of stretch there, but I am careful not to talk about the particulars of my business due to a blog ban.

Damn Blog Bans!

=30=

Monday, September 05, 2005

This is how nicknames happen:

In this year’s class at school, there will be a boy with the same first name as our son.

Not wanting to confuse the teacher and the rest of the school, our son has decided to give himself a nickname.

He is of the opinion that it is better to give yourself a nickname than have a less than flattering moniker pinned by others.

Our son has decided to call himself Books.


We like it.

=30=

Say Hello to Hurricane Maria:

The National Weather Service says it is moving north and at this time is no threat to land. If you look at the larger image on their web page, you will see that it is well out into the Atlantic. If it keeps going north it will peter out in the colder latitudes. If it takes a left turn, it will come right up the street from the ocean. I will watch this young lady.
=30=

Next Blog Ramblings

Occasionally I like to drift through the bloggersphere, a smaller version of the entire blogsphere, by clicking on the Next Blog box on the upper right corner of most blogger.com created blogs.

Doing this takes you around the world, as well as around philosophical, political and religious circles. There are many asian sites where the text comes up only as ?? marks.

Sad.

I would like to see what they have to say. Most of them are rich in graphics and worthy of hitting the page down.


There are an amazing number of Anime cartoon based blogs, and an unfortunately large number of self pity selections as well.

Thankfully, most of them let you know in the heading how deep the self-pity runs allowing you to hit the Next Blog button quickly. There is one on knitting that comes up several times for some reason.


It certainly is worth a visit to the other bloggers if for nothing else, to see why the hell you’re doing it as well.

=30=

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Brockton ROX

We attended a Brockton ROX minor league baseball game this afternoon- evening. It was a fun time. The baseball seemed to be background noise to all of the other events surrounding us.

Every thing from Face Painting to inflated jumping areas for the children to sausages and funnel cakes for the grown-ups.

Four small servings of chicken tenders and four waters cost $23.00. Considering the price of gas these days, I suppose that was a bargain.

The Rox lost to the Jersey Jacksals 7 - 2 but they still go into the playoffs as Division Champions. In case you were interested.
=30=

Flickr as Yahoo!

When I went into my Flickr account I was given the option of combining it with my Yahoo! account. I could see no reason for doing this, other than that Flickr is now owned by Yahoo! and I am sure they are integrating their data base and will soon require all Flickr members to be members of Yahoo! Like the Google Account, this way all I have to do is open the Yahoo! account and all of the features will be available by menu.

The above is an example of how decisions are made around here.

=30=

Amber Mac

Leo LaPorte‘s Call For Help on G4-Tech TV has a PEI co-host. Her name is Amber McArthur...

On the web she calls her self Amber Mac.

She produces a video pod cast regarding up to the minute tech news and sites on the web. The podcast can be found at Amber’s personal sight and at various other video ventures around the net. Do a tag search for CommandN on YouTube.com

That’s all for now.
=30=
(sent via MS Word)

Saturday, September 03, 2005

This is our first try using MS Word to post

This is our first try at Blogger for MS Word.
I will change the Font on the next line
If the font has been changed from Times Roman to Georgia then there is no
Problem changing fonts.

=30=

Friday, September 02, 2005

Prophetic Song


At Fifi’s Grafitti there is a post entitled

"new o'leans"

It speaks of the river and the Army Corps of Engineers attempts over the years to control it. It mentions that the Army Corps of Engineers is not God. I am glad someone is brave enough to say that.

=30=

Okay, that was a long week, but...

We are off for a 3 day weekend, though, you guessed it, I am on call. It is only on Saturday and Sunday. On Labor Day, I actually have the day off. I might even take a dip in the pool, before it freezes over. Ah, New England!

=30=

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Non Stop Day


This morning I didn’t have time to make any entry into the blog. I worked late at home and then had to go in early to complete the work.

My previous boss would have said it’s bad time management, but this was just end of the month overload. I have one more thing to do and then I will be off all but one day next week.

That much time off may be too much for me because everything I didn’t do for the week off will be sitting on my desk the Monday I return.

Bitch and Moan done.

=30=

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Famous Grazing Portal

We’ve registered grazingporrtal.net as the URL for the Famous Grazing Portal. You will notice the two “r’s”. That was a typo, but a typo worked for Google, so we decided to keep it that way. The URL will be connected to the site later today.

=30=

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Long Monday


Monday is rarely fun.

Yesterday was not only not fun it was tedious. I don’t mind hard work, but when you know a lot of it is being done to justify the existence of others, tedium sets in. Sometimes volunteer work is harder because of that.

When I volunteered to serve on a town commission ten years ago it seemed like a good idea. Now it’s become an obligation not cheerfully fulfilled. This could be because of greater responsibility naturally assumed with experience. It could be because my regular work day is so much fuller as well. I am just tired.
Moan and Groan!
=30=

Monday, August 29, 2005

Is it good news when it’s not as bad?

Is it good news when the news you get is not as bad as it could’ve been? I don’t know. They’re saying up to 100 homes were destroyed but the surge from the lake north of the City of New Orleans did not extensively overtop the levee.

It wasn’t one of the biblical plagues of Egypt, many people didn’t die, not so much because the storm wasn’t as bad as expected but because there was a mass evacuation.

Let’s see what it all looks like in the morning light.

My workday went to ten this evening. I expected it to go as late as eleven. I guess in a very minor way, this is good news because it isn’t as bad as it could have been. Why am I feel all sorts of East European all of a sudden?

=30=

New Habits

Every morning I start up Firefox and open the tabs for email.

I have added the blogger page and the 21Portal page to this tab. This is to inspire me to make at least one blog entry a day. They may not be sophisticated, contain graphics and links, but at least they will hopefully guarantee a time line better than before.

The news this morning is Hurricane Katrina threatening my second favorite city. It’s been downgraded from a category 5 to a 3 but 100 mph winds still scare the hell out of me. We’ll see how the city does. Off to work...


=30=

Sunday, August 28, 2005

This was the first Sunday I have had off


In a long time.

I looked at my calendar last night and saw one blank day, today. I thought it was a mistake at first, but realized no one wanted a piece of me today. Of course, tomorrow I will start work at 7:00 a.m. and will probably work until 10:00 p.m.

There is balance in the world.


I discovered the 21publish site last night so that’s what took up much of my day. The good thing is I didn’t feel guilty at all for playing with it all day. It was like watching cartoons all day.


The whole day wasn’t wasted. The pool was repaired, the door to the dining room was fixed, a spontaneous lunch with the family from the Vineyard, Twelve Hawks’s Traveler was finished, but none of that was on the calendar. It was all spontaneous.

What a gas.

=30=

21Publish About Page



Famous Grazing was started as an attempt to use every available blog publishing tool on the Internet. At the time of start up, the choices were limited to Blogger, Web Page, Live Journal and a few others. Now there are dozens.


This, our first site, Belltowernews.com. was started using Blogger when it was a private company and cost money. We then opened a Web Page site on our own server. Since then we’ve gone from b2Evolution to MSN Blogs. Examples are:

Field Grazing
Sea Grazing
Artistic Grazing
Grazing in Another Field
Butterflies Grazing
Dragons Grazing
Flickr Grazing
Ghosts Grazing
Grazed Bare
Grazing in the Brave Net
Grazing News
Random Space (MSN)
Multi-Grazing
Open Grazing
Other Grazing
Serene Grazing
Grazing at Xanga
Bell Tower News
Home Grazing


Each of the above is free. There are pay sites, and some of the above offer bigger storage and more features, but each of them is perfectly okay without shelling out a dime.

Below is a snapshot of a page created on a trial basis at at the pay site, TypePad:



Enjoy the blog you create here or at any of the above blog creation sites.
=30=

FAMOUS GRAZING PORTAL!

We have opened a “portal” for the Famous Grazing Series.

It is over at 21Publish. We were playing around with a local Apache server when we came upon a comment about 21Publish. We set the portal up and created two personal blogs to fill out the set up.

If you feel like have your own blog affiliated with Famous Grazing, feel free to join. Any obnoxious or dangerous sites will be deleted.
=30=

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Firefox Yahoo Warning

........................................
Click on the Whoops! to see the error message you get when you try to sign up for Yahoo!’s new photomail and use anything except MS Internet Explorer,
=30=

Traveler Twelve Hawks

A reluctant review

Traveler by John Twelve Hawks doesn’t warn you loudly that it is book one of the Fourth Realm Series. That could be because there is no book two, or three. It leaves you dangling.

(Spoiler Alert:)

As you approach ten to fifteen pages from the end, you realize there is no room for a neat ending. It must be either part of a continuing story, or the author is going to use the all too familiar arrival of the U.S. Cavalry. Here it was the former.

In most reviews I don’t give that much away, but I believe a fair warning, not already provided by the publisher, is needed before you buy this book.

By all means buy this book, though the book is short on sand, it certainly is a decent story worth reading. I hope the plot thickens for the second book, if it is coming. I will buy that one as well.

=30=

G4 - Call For Help

G4 - Call For Help: "
Waterproof Your Gadgets Premieres: Monday 08/29, 11am ET / 8am PT
> Full Show Schedule


Sent from Firefox with JustBlogIt
!

Sideblog


Amazing what one letter off can do.

I was going to my sideblog.com page when I left out the letter “b” and was taken to sidelog.com, a Nepalese webhosting service. Watch your step out there.

=30=

If only there was someone on the other end.


The installation of Google Talk was seamless. I have restarted Google Desktop and all seems to be working out well. Now there only needs to be someone on the other end of the line with whom I can communicate to see how Google Talk is any different that Yahoo! Messenger or AOL or MSN or ICQ, etc. Trillian here we come!

=30=

It has only been 85 years?


In this morning’s online NYT there was an On This Day feature imbedded in the story I was reading about Google Talk beta. (More on that later.)

Today’s issue mentioned it was on this date in 1920 the Constitution was amended to allow women the privilege of voting.

Think about that. Women in this country of the brave and the free have only been allowed to vote for 85 years.

This means there are people alive today who were alive when women couldn’t vote nationally. I know Montana and perhaps a few other states allowed women to vote and run for local offices, such as the school board, but they couldn’t vote for congressman, senator or the president.

Only 85 years. To quote myself 40 years ago, “that blows my mind!” It was something I knew in general, but to have it displayed as an aniversary for today brought it the front of the line.
=30=

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Google Sidebar starts off well, but...

It was disappointing to try Google Sidebar and not have as much fun with it as I did with Google Earth. Sidebar looked fine, it was easily configured and, for the most part, did everything it said it would do. Unfortunately, it also did something that wasn’t good. It shut down all of my Internet browsers. The sidebar itself looked things up with abandon, changed the news, checked the weather, popped up photos found in the “My Photos” subdirectory.

But, when I went to SnapfilesPro.com to write a review for it, I couldn’t get in. I checked everything, but the only way to get back online was to take the sidebar out of the startup folder.

I will try it again latter in the week under different configurations to see how it does. If I find a way to coexist with it, I will certainly return here and tell you how. My wide screen eMachines laptop certainly has room on the side for it.

=30=

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Google Earth is FUN!

Okay, this is something made for me. You can download it, use it all you want, as along as you know this was made for me. I love maps. Google Earth Software takes maps.google.com to another level.

This is the review I wrote for Snapfiles.com:
As a person who loves maps and going places, Google Maps is wonderful. The installation was faultless, and the interface is practically spiritual. I went to the small town where I was born on the Atlantic Seaboard and zoomed in on the house where we lived. I could see the milk truck behing the high fence. This program has layer upon layer. Go to San Francisco and click on the Churches box. I didn’t know there were that many churches in town. Need a pharmacy or gas station? This will not only show you where they are but what they look like. Can you tell I played with this one for a while? That’s why I say, have a lot of spare time before you install this.



=30=

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Malika and Chantea


See The Entry Below

Chanty Comes to Vist

This is Chanty. She‘s come up from Virgina with her mother to attend in Cambodian Water Festival being held this weekend in Lowell, MA.  Believe it or not, she‘€™s cuter than this photograph would have you believe.
-30-

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Happy Birthday Ally!

I was afraid I wouldn’t make in time to wish my dear friend Ally a Happy Birthday.

The good news is I got the system back up at 2335 and was able to get the message out before the holiday expired.

Now I am going to bed.
=30=

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Bad weather coming

You probably won’t get any more entries today. There’s bad weather coming and the river is rising.
=30=

Blogger.com In House Photo Update


We haven’t used the blogger.com online editor in a while.

When we went online to correct a problem with Zoto.com and thekey, we noticed an announcement that you can now upload photos using blogger.com’s online editor. We didn’t know that.

Of course, three isn’t any particular photo we would like to upload at the moment, so we’ll just pick one from the bunch: A church side window representing the rose.

=30=

Bigoted News Coverage

A story reported in Yahoo News, which seems to have originated in Boston’s Channel 5 News has a line in it that reads:

"I lost my green card. I lost everything," she said.

Perhaps I am being oversensitive, but this line is telling me the author of the article wants me to know this building was occupied by non-citizen workers. I am sure the poor woman and the 41 other souls who where made homeless by the fire lost more than an easily replaced government document.

Later on in the piece the lines: "It had been termed incendiary. Arson has not been ruled out, but has not been deemed arson as of this time," DiLiddo said.— Officials are offering $5,000 for information that may lead to an arrest.“

Not a crime, but we’ll give you five grand if you can help us arrests someone anyway. Though it’s only a little local fire story, to the 41 people now without a home, it’s a big deal.

A little more care could have gone into the writing, or to put the blame where it belongs, the editing,.
=30=

No More Noisy Box!

Having gone completely laptop, the trick is to learn the keyboard. If I practice enough, that should be no problem. I have XL hands that need to fit on this compressed space. Also, the keys outside of the alpha keys are not all in the same place as they were on my microsoft wireless.

The other thing I want to learn as well is the touch pad. It sits right where my palm normally sits and there fore, while I am typing the mouse arrow flies all over the screen.

Having Spell Catcher loaded is a big help. When I make a spelling error like capitalizing the first two letters, which I do on any keyboard, it automatically corrects it. This is true in all applications where I type, not only in Word.

Then there is that annoying Fn key where the Ctrl key should be. Everytime I hit it, it changes all of the keys on the right side of the keyboard into the number pad. To undo it.

I have to find another key over by the right side of the F-keys. It has replaced the caps lock key as the one I am most likely to tear our of the keyboard.

My hand also still leaves the keyboard to grab for the mouse and squeezes thin air. Once the hands learn the ropes, I hope that will end as well. The heat coming from the keyboard is a minor distraction for now, but if it gets hotter, I could see that being a problem. I bought an underside cooling rack which seems to be helping somewhat.

Okay, it’s time to study for the test. You will know when the test is close, the study will change to the word CRAM!

=30=

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Ann Looking at Martha

Don‘€™t mind me, once I find a new way to blog, I like to play with it for a while.
I know that can get boring to anyone foolish enough to read this blog. I see it like visiting the basement of a man who collects commode plungers, the fascinating thing is not the tool collection, but the fact that such a collection exists.
=30=

Friday, August 12, 2005

Why is Zoto so easy?

It just seems to me that Zoto should be a bit more complicated.  It just does everything I want it to do too easily. That makes me nervous.  There should be more loops to jump through, more frustrations to suffer for this to be real.  I mean, if it keeps up being this easy to  use, than anyone can do it and I won‘€™t feel so special for having figured it out.
=30=

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Zoto button

Sometimes it’s easier to write...

Sometimes it’s easier to write when you think no one is reading what you write. Then you get an email complaining about your erratic postings. Even though you think most of what you’ve written is petty, complaining, or just mindless rambling, it’s a shock to think that people make it part of their daily routine to read it.

Jeneane Sessum mentioned this in her blog. I discovered it when doing one of my NEXT BLOG wanderings in blogger.

Another blogger selection I was reading almost daily was Boogie Street. Then in November of last year he announced he was going cold turkey and though not taking it down, he was no longer making any entries. He came back in January of this year to post a photo of a found child from the tsunami that hit southeast asia.

The author of Boogie Street calls himself Mr. Zip. He and I corresponded over one or two things regarding his art and the display of it on other web sites. He seemed a civilized human being.

Now it‘s time for me to get back to reading the news before going off to work for the man.
=30=

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Zoto GIF Conversion

Divide 1 by Seven, follow the numbers and then connect the numbers dividable by three.

This was a test of the GIF conversion to JPG for uploading by the Zoto uploading program.  It works.
=30=

Second Zoto Test

This is being blogged directly from the Zoto web site.  The one below of Andrew and his Jag was sent using Zoto‘s Gmail settings.  If there is a way to set the size of the photo blog display using the Gmail method, I haven’€™t seen it.  When sending the photo to Blogger using Zoto you have a choice between small, medium and large.  The image here is the small selection.
=30=

Andrew and His Jag


Welcome To Freeport

Forgot to add the photo the last attempt at using Zoto. This should do it. This is the sign you see when you enter Freeport, Maine by boat. Freeport is the home of LL Bean! (As if you didn‘€™t know!) =30=

Testing Zoto Image Upload

This is being uploaded using Zoto instead of Hello!  I have tried Zoto before and it didn‘€™t work.  They are claiming it will work now.  This will be the proof!
=30=

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Old Logo

Obscene Comments on Bravejournal

The Famous Grazing page opened on Bravenet is the constant target of obscene comments. It is not a controversial blog, if anything it’s a blog with very little use. As with most Famous Grazing blogs it was opened to see how blogs are produced there and whether not this would be a recommended method of opening a blog. If you don’t mind all of the advertising, pop ups and constant barrage of sales pitches from Bravenet, it is free and there is a set of loyal fans in the community.

It’s just that because Bravenet is well known for reasons other than blogs, a lot of strange people go there to take advantage of the free services. There is a link to Bravenet on the side bar of this blog if you’re curious.

Off to the Salt Mines.
=30=

Monday, August 08, 2005

Interesting Essay on NPR

Driving home in traffic this afternoon I was listening to NPR’s feature. “This I Believe.” The base line of the story was “Go to the funeral.” It was well thought out and made a good point about doing the right thing. The words that struck me were when she said in everyday life it’s not a conflict between Evil and The Right Thing, but a more mundane The Right Thing or Nothing. Very wise.
=30=

RIP

Rest in Peace Peter.
=30=

So that’s why I don’t listen!

This Report in Yahoo! News tells of why men don’t hear women when their talking. Good Lord! I thought I was just going deaf!
=30=

Sunday, August 07, 2005


As you can see, not only is Bell Tower News back up, but I�ve gotten the Picasa untility Hello! to work again.
You may have noticed a lacking of graphics attached to entries. That was because Hello! wasn‘t working for me.
I downloaded the latest version and now it�s even easier to post photos to the blog.=30=

 Posted by Picasa

This is Admiral Peary‘s house on Eagle Island in Maine. You can only get there by boat. If you are interested in history and like a nice boat ride, it is worth a visit. =30=

 Posted by Picasa

Profile Photo


I am trying to make this picture my profile picture but blogger is insisting it doesn‘t exit on my server. I thought if I uploaded it here, I could find a way to make it my profile image, Posted by Picasa

The Good News!

Okay, we’re back in business. I will probably be tweaking this set up quite a lot when I find the time but it’s good to see Bell Tower News back in action. Though I will probably spend more time at Field Grazing, which resides on a server of my own, this is still the rood Famous Grazing blog so it will be kept up to date. The archives here are worth visiting for the photos alone. Though I haven’t posted many photos here for a while, I intend for that to change as the blogging season grows near.
=30=

First attempt to Bloggar the changed Template.

All of the entries made so far since the change in template have been made through the Blogger web site. This will be the first test run posting using w::bloggar 4.0
=30=

Still Dropping Down?

Just checking to see if Blogger has fixed that top bar problem"=30="

Saturday, July 09, 2005

STILL NOT SURE WHY THIS PAGE IMPLODED

If this message is still at the bottom of the side panel, then Blogger has done nothing to correcr whatever their change in the banner did to the blog settings. I will hold off on this blog for a while and use Field Grazing as the primary blog for the Famous Grazing Series.
=30=

Thursday, June 30, 2005

A new boss at work and the family away

Two things have kept me from the blog, a new boss at work and the family away for the holiday.

With the family away for the holiday, and the new boss at work, I have spent an extraordinary amount of time at work with the understanding there was nothing at home to rush to from work.

Now I will be going away on abbreviated holiday and expect to be back sometime early Tuesday.
See you all then. =30=

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Slipped to the bottom

Something about the previous post shoved it down the page. This is a test to see if this is a problem with the templates or just the unique way the last message was created.=30=

Almost Did It...

At 5:20 this morning I leaped out of bed, threw some clothes into plastic shopping bags
and was out of the driveway by 5:40.

I was on my way to a ceremony in NYC. A late dear friend of mine was having the street upon which she had lived for over 60 years named after her.

The ceremony is scheduled for noon today.

On the way to the highway, I noticed the “E“ on my gas gauge light up. I pulled into the Mobil station for a fill up and was blown away by what used to cost $14.00 now cost 29. That woke me up a bit.

As I drove further along on the local roads, I remembered my personal meds. If I had taken one pill this morning, I probably could have made it through the day, but by not taking it, I had to return.

On the return it dawned on me how many people I was inconveniencing by my truly spontaneous decision to go.

By the time I pulled back into the driveway, I had decided not to go. All of that in three quarters of hour and it wasnt even six thirty yet.

Now its 11:18 a.m. and I have accomplished much.
=30=

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Video Upload at Google

If you are considering the video upload feature at Google, I would read the legal document we never read when installing programs or agreeing to online service. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but that agreement looks to me as if you are signing away your soul.

This is not to say stay away from the Google Video Upload option. Just to read the agreement. It looks like a program that could be very useful to families to share the video of Junior taking his first steps. As long as they know their sharing Junior’s first steps with everyone who is signed onto the program as well as everyone who works at Google and to whomever Google decides it would be a good idea to display Juniors’ First Steps.

Though at the moment I don’t even have a digital video camera, nor do I intend to get one in the near future, it was the 70 percent paragraph that stopped me cold in my registration tracks and for the first time I think EVER did I click on the NO I DO NOT AGREE button. It felt weird, but it felt right.

Other weekend news will follow.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Read the News today, oh boy...

It was the tradition on Sunday mornings to break the Sunday NYT into its various parts, triage the parts and proceed to be informed.

Sunday mornings are now taken up with scanning the headlines of the various RSS and Atom feeds, going online to the NYT, Guardian, Scotsman, Yahoo! News, Google News. This is followed by opening Thingamablog and scanning the Tech News feeds.

The good side of this is my fingers don‘t have the weekly ink smudge, but my brain is certainly assaulted with information.

Reading papers online, papers I would‘ve had to go to the international newsstand in Times Sq. to get before, broadens the reporting on things in the US:

This morning The Scotsman had articles on McCain‘s plans of the 2008 presidential race. It was well written, insightful and from a non-committed point of view. This is refreshing.

Then there was the article on the airline the C`I`A is using to ferry its agents and customers around the world. I would say that article had a slightly paranoid slant, but that is common outside of this country, where they dont understand it really is no more than an extension of a Yale Fraternity.

There was another mocking article about the MoD losing a multi-million dollar unmanned submarine only to have it found by a Scottish lobster fisherman. At first the MoD refused to admit to its ownership of the vessel. This they flipped when it was pointed out to them the hull of the boat had MoD printed all over it.

When the ponied up to owning it, The Scotsman reported, the fisherman wouldn‘t give it back to them until they paid him for the expense of hauling back to port and getting it out of the water. They refused, so the wily Scottish fisherman hid it.

The Tyson Surrender and the Jackson trial were reported with the usual relish papers have for reporting the downfall of American Celebrities and the royal family with its many branches.

Bits and pieces of the tech news found to be interesting will be reported at Home Grazing.
=30=

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Firefox Locked In

If you go back a few months or so in this blog you will see several articles about Opera web browser and how much better it is that Internet Explorer. It still beats IE hands down, but...

There’s Firefox.

As a shareware/freeware junkie, I try everything for a few days and only incorporate the software into my routine when I find it either increases the speed, lessens the typing or increases the fun. Otherwise, I delete it. If you don’t do that you will soon find your hardrive overwhelmed. This is especially so for programs that assume you want them to start everytime you reboot your program.

Ooops, off soapbox, back on topic, Firefox.

With it’s themes and extensions, Firefox is extremely personalizable. (there’s a word SpellCatcherPLUS
didn’t like.) I tried a download manager extension for 15 days, it reminded me of this in fifteen days. I found it didn’t add to the plate in comparison with the default download manager. I when to the Extensions menu choice, deselected it and it was gone. That simple.

For Opera , not so simple. Opera is customizable to a point, but the ease of customization isn’t at all as simple as Firefox.
. As with any software designed to do a similar job, the similarities will always be greater in number than those features that make each program unique. The focus in comparison shouldn’t be on the bells and whistles, it should be on those features they share.

Starting quickly has always been one of Opera selling points. In this it is better than Firefox.
only if you have loaded Firefox down with a heavy theme and a truckload of extensions. Out of the box, it is as quick if not quicker starting up.

Time to go to the beach. Try them both, then choose Firefox.
because there are no adverts attached in the free version, in fact there is only a free version.
=30=

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Gmail is back up!!

It was like a pusher withholding a taste. I told that to the support people at Gmail from my backup Yahoo account. They seemed very understanding and quickly readdicted me to Gmail. It was kind of them and I feel much better.... whew!
=30=

SpellCatcher Plus is the one!

I run a dozen or so blogs in a series called Famous Grazing Blogs. The sole purpose of this series is to set up a blog in everywhich way an end-user may try. Each of the blogs has no other focus than their mere existence.

The blogs were not just created and left hanging. We do our best to keep each as up to date as possible. As you can imagine this take a lot of typing. Though each of is a trained touch-typist, when typing as quickly as possible, mistakes happen. There are spell checkers in some of the media, but not all. This is especially true for the hosted programs, such as Word Press and pLog.

Here is where Spell Catcher PLUS comes into the picture. I have tried several shareware and freeware spell checkers. Each seems to have a glitch in one or two of the various interfaces used. Spell Catcher PLUS was the only one that has proven itself worthy to each of them.

When I registered the software, I included a comment in the bill of sale and received an email form the program’s author allowing me to promote the product on the blogs. This I am doing as I type because this will be the exact copy found in each of them.
=30=

Gmail Shut me Down

They say it was only for 24 hours, but I am not sure why. We had to leave for an appointment and I left a pending message on the screen with Gmail open in another window. If that was all it took to get shut down, I will have to find another online email service because being slightly absent minded, I will probably do that again and again.
I will report here if there is any resolution to this.
=30=

Blogger is Free Service - Back Up, Back Up!

After reading this article at Wired.com, I went to my Blogger page and said I really need to do something to back this up.

There are several years worth of mindless ramblings there that some student of the crazed minds of bloggers may want to examine in latter years. Then I thought, most of this is crap. The only thing I wouldnt want to lose are the graphics. I lost a good deal of them when a server crashed on me last year.

Now I know well enough to store them at GMail, oops, another free service...

Oh well, I guess when we put down our thoughts in a storage media that consists basically of rust glued to plastic and the whims of magnetism, we really cant expect anything close to immortality.

There is always the cuneiform on marble option...
=30=

Saturday, June 04, 2005

A Celebratory Dilemma

It is a dilemma when news arrives that is good news, to a point. There was the distinct possibility that it could have been great news, but doesn’t qualify. On the other side of the stick, it could have equally been bad or even very bad news.

An extreme example would be lottery news. You could have got all seven numbers and won 150 millions of dollars. But you only had six and won $100,000.00. The $100,000.00 is good news, but it wasn’t the very good news it could have been. The opposite side of that stick would be if you lost the ticket. The bad news would be you lost a ticket worth $100,000.00. The very bad news would be you lost the ticket worth the full amount of the prize.

Nothing that extreme has happened here. After initial elation the realization of what could have happened has set in, putting a slight dampening on the celebratory mood.

Don’t ask for the details, they would only bore you.
=30=

Thursday, June 02, 2005

The Day Being the Last Day.

This has been an odd week. Because of the holiday, the week started on Tuesday. Tuesday was also the last day of the month. So the first day of the week was the last day of the month and it wasn’t Monday. Deadlines happened and projects started at the same time.

It was a confusing configuration of a day. Before things could get started other things needed to be finished but because of the juxtaposition of the end of the month and the start of the week, the order in which things needed to be done required less than the normal automatic behavior seen at the workplace.

It all worked out, of course, but it had to be done at a higher plane of consciousness than I normally allow myself to attain in the drone status of workday. It was probably good for me. For clarification of this Google Gurdjieff.
=30=

Monday, May 30, 2005

A Gardening Day at School


This photo is in the Flickr selection, but I wanted to put it directly on the blog. I took this during a gardening day at my son‘s school. For some reason beyond me the photo caused an emotional reaction beyond intellectual definition for me. =30= Posted by Hello

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Darn Dandelions!

There is one day a week I can cut the grass. This weekend there were two.

Last weekend we were in the middle of a nor'easter, not a time to cut grass. What I learned this week is, if you let the grass and accompanying foliage grow over a two week period, in the Spring, in New England, when it has rained a LOT, the dandelion stems take on a woody quality.

This is a quality not very compatible with the manual lawn mower’s method of cutting. You know the dandelions have evolved when they jam up the revolving lawn mower blade. What they don’t know is my neighbor has a tractor, with a military size engine. I will get those suckers next Saturday.

If it isn’t raining again.

Happy Sunday.
=30=

Saturday, May 28, 2005

You Would Think There'd Be More

Most of the blogging software that I have been installing of late does not come with a spellchecker, the way this, Thingamablog and w::bloggar do. In fact, I have been making entries, cutting them and pasting them into either bloggar or Thingamablog for spell checking.

I could have done it in Word, but I ususally have either of the two blog editors up and running and MS programs take almost as long to load as Adobe. Now, even though I am writing this in Thingamablog, the spellchecker I currently am running, Spell Catcher Plus seems to be adopting itself to my typing style.

This is a good thing.

I may keep it, I may not. That is the way with trial software. I also may have already paid for this. I will have to go and check my records but I think I may have evaluated it in a DOS version a long time ago. The interface looks familiar.
-30-

Friday, May 27, 2005

New Famous Grazing Blog

Starting with last Friday's showing of the Revenge of Sith, reviewed by me at Field Grazing,

there were many monumental bits of media this week that crossed my path. NCIS killed off a character. Raymond is no more, Charmed went off like it was leaving but the news on the web was that it was coming back.

Sadly it would seem that Andromeda is no more. It had a Mary Tyler Mo0re style of character exit that I found to be out of character. I thought the blowing up of the entire Earth when they finally get there to be a bit much. It was probably more the frustration of the Writers with WB that caused the explosion than the touted tectonic interactions.

Then there was Enterprise, the "last" of the Star Trek series. I can't see that franchise staying away for too long. SG1 is still on there air, though a new crew is promised for next years with one of the Nelson brothers as the leader. The last thing he led was the TV version of the C~I~A.

That's all for now. This is an inaugural review for the the new Famous Grazing Blog, Serene Grazing, based on the Seridipity Blog software.. There is a SPIP and a Nucleus version in the works. Watch your local Famous Grazing for their opening announcements.
=30=

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Greasemonkey

I have installed Greasemonkey as an extension to Firefox. I am not exactly sure what it does yet and how Platypus! is related to it.

It's just that once or twice a month I go to the extensions page on the Mozilla site and add the extensions I thought might enhance the Firefox experience. Then I sometimes forget they're there until the need for them arise.

Others I have removed for slowing down either the loading of Firefox itself or the slowing of the machine in general. One I even took off because it added money to the writer without adding value to Firefox.

These are Thursday morning thoughts as I get ready to go off to work.
=30=

Sunday, May 22, 2005

DeadJournal

Following Leo LaPorte's recommendation, I went to DeadJournal.com to see what I could see. What I saw was a request for funds to sign up. I am not so profane that I need to pay money to join a blog host who encourages profanity and make you pay for the privilege.

The fact that it's a pay display site probably removes the portal from illegal sanctions based on comment.

=30=

Editors

Flashlights, large mugs, good pens and text editors. These are the four items I seem to have an awful lot of. The latest text editors I have down loaded from Snapfiles pro are called Syn Text Editor and GridinSoft Editor. The first is too busy when it opens and the second was obviously written by someone to whom Engish is not their first language. After quick review, I don' think either of these will become my default Notepad replacement.

For now I'll stick to EditPad Lite.
=30=

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Do you Blog?

In a conversation overheard on the elevatorat work on Friday one
coworker asked another, "I just read Greeenberg's article on Blogging, do you blog?"

Of course I do, but not about this job, I blog about skiing." "Skiing in May?" Came the reply. The rest of the conversation was lost when the doors opened and the skiblogger left the box.

Feeling bold, I asked the original questioner, "Do you blog?" "Huh!"?" Then I realized the ongoing paranoia about blogging that involves your company and let it drop.

The thought I carried away from the semi-encounter was if I blog,
about what do I? If not about anything in general, there must be a
focus. Then it occurred to me, I blog for the sake of blogging . No
more, no less. In this Famous
Grazing
series, I blog mostly about blogging itself.

On some, especially the older ones like Belltowernews.com, I will
wonder off topic and click on the Muse box instead of the Blog box.

In the case of this message, I clicked both.

Do you blog, or just surf?
=30=

WhatWIki?

I mentioned earlier that I was looking into the TidyWiki set up. It's a fun thing with which to play, but I am not sure if it's something I can use at the moment. I have loaded one up on the server and called it GrazingNotebookWiki. Another version is the Grazing Agenda. Kudos to those who have put the hours into this.

The lawn needs mowing, the oil needs to be changed and the rugs need to be vacuumed. WikiStuff is for the rare spare time for now.
=30=

Friday, May 20, 2005

Sith sucith


I Just returned from seeing The Revenge of the Sith. As soon as the
shock of the overwhelming special effects wore off, I realized I had
just sat through a really bad "C" movie with D-Grade dialog. Cut to the
chase - everybody who wasn't in Chapter IV dies. There, I saved you the
price of admission.

It was beyond violent. Children are killed, living bodies are burned,

people are haphazardly decapitated for sport. If there is someone with
the stomach for it, I would like to know the body count of just the
living creatures who are killed, never mind the 'droids.

The space battles in the original series where like a first generation

pacman game compared to the detailed carnage in this movie. I know in
real life, no animals were hurt, but will an eight year old child know
this? There were many of them in costume at the theater. I will not take
my son to see this.

I am a person who has known war and real battles in the street. I have

the scars and nightmares to prove it. People have died in my arms, real people.

From my point of view, Sith really Sucith.

=30=

TechTV Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac

his current volume

Thursday, May 19, 2005

See All Sideblogs

Another Distraction

Don't know how I drifted over to TidyWiki, but once I got there I spent the next hour reading the HOW-TO files on putting one up. It isn't all that cut and dry, but I think it will be worth the effort once I get it up and running. Be careful if you go there, it grabs you if you are a blogger.
=30=

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Manual.

I was cleaning up the pile of books that have gathered in layers by the side of the bed. I found my 2003 copy of Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Manual. Out of curiosity, I went the the chapter on blogging. In he mentions several interesting items; the one about the developer of Grey matter, Noah Grey and the condition that caused him to find Blogging a suitable way with which to communicate with the world.

ON the Monday, November 17, 2003 almanac Leo mentions several links. I wondered, all of a little less than two years later how many of the sites are still active. The first mentioned was glassdog.com. That's still there.

Then he mentions NoahGrey.com. It is a site worth visiting. Read the biography and don't miss this picture of a cat.

There are a few more paragraphs about NoahGrey. This is followed by a TIP OF THE DAY, which involves going to blogdex.media.mit.edu to see the a blog index mapping the entire blog related universe.

That's still there. There's an article on the opening page regarding the "Piano Man" from the BBC. I heard about him on the radio coming home. I hope he is for real, and if so, he is either from another planet or a loving caring family comes forth to support him.

Didn't find the index Leo mentions, but it looks like a fairly full site, I am sure it's in there somewhere.

The last blog related link mentioned on the page has to do with something called: "Cyberian. He is recommending you go to cyberian.tripop.com/blog.htm to download whatever it is found to where this link leads. NOPE, that's not there anymore.

Because that one no longer existed, Ill give you the first one from the next page, still about blogs: evhead.

The point I am trying to make here, is that even though the is the ancient 2004 Technology Almanac, most of the information is still up to date. imagine how way ahead of things are in his current volume
=30=.






Sunday, May 15, 2005

Drupal


Okay, I read the installation instructions in detail, created a new
MYSql database at brdk.net called drupal, loaded the drupal database
instructions on it and finally got what looks like a version of a blog
up at http://www.brdk.net/drupal. Still not sure what I am doing, but
with few more weeks and translation of the user manual, I might get
something up that resembles this Thingamablog set up.



It is only the stubborn part of me that is working on this. The
personal note from Drupal's main developer which said in effect that he
would try to make it so that even an idiot like me could get it up, has
caused me to put more effort into it than I am yet to be convinced it is
worth.



We shall see.
=30=

Good Sunday Morning.

When I sat down and hit the icon for WinAmp Random selection the first choice was "I'll See You in Church on Sunday Morning." by Sonny Osborne. It was followed by Ella Fitzgerald singing "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!" Should I read tea leaves in this?-grin-

Weather people predicted a totally wet weekend. With the exception of a few clouds on Saturday morning, it has been a perfect Spring weekend. I wonder how many plans, like the picnic Birthday party we didn't attend, were called off because of the forecast. Is there such a thing as bad prediction insurance? I am sure there is. See: Betty Grable's Legs...

Ella Fitzgerald's Voice is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

Time for Breakfast!
=30=

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Lost some entries here

While I was off editing Dragons Grazing, it would seem all of the entries between Thursday and today went south.

There is the posibility that I posted some things to Home Grazing and did not cc: them to Bell Tower News, but I don't think so.
=30=

Thursday, May 12, 2005

bBlog

To do things like post this pBlog graphic with the imbedded link to the forum, you need to either speak HTML, or have a decent HTML editor. To quickly put the graphic and its link together, I used w::bloggar. Now I have to figure out how to configure w::bloggar to post to pBlog. It does post to Drupal and Wordpress, so there is a way.
=30=

Using w:bloggar to post to Open Grazing.

I have to come up with a better editor for Open Grazing. Its vanilla editor, with which it is packed, is for the pits. I could use the w::bloggar editor and cut and past, but that takes so much away from the spontaneities of blog posting.
=30=
(I will post this on Bell Tower News just because I should.)

Open Grazing Open


I just figured out the problem with my "mySQL" setup with bBlog, (not to
be confused with pBlog,) it was an arcane setting, but now it's
all up and running as Open
Grazing


=30=

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Exploit code chases two Firefox flaws

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: May 9, 2005, 8:14 AM PT
--
Two vulnerabilities in the popular Firefox browser have been rated "extremely critical" because exploit code is now available to take advantage of them.

=30=

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Saturday Morning Posted in the Afternoon.

We awoke this morning to the sound of an Electrical Transformer exploding down the block.

This, of course, caused all the power to shutdown for ourselves and immediate neighbors.
It is in situations like this having a laptop as your primary conduit, is a good thing. The house
PC was struggling to stay alive on the UPS. It did long enough for me to save everything and shut it down.

What was most amazing was the quite. No motors buzzing, no electronics humming or beeping.
There's a lively windstorm whipping up the neighborhood and it was easier to hear it as it blew
down tree limbs or caused various ventilation functions to kick in or hit back as the wind tried
to come into the house. I was able to sit on the couch in the living room and read a book by daylight.
Normally on a Saturday morning the living room is occupied and the sound of the Disney Channel
permeates the air.

The good news is the water and gas were still operating. I was able to put on the kettle and
have some tea while I read my book with the music of the wind in the background. Following
the advise not to open the refrigerator, I fell back on the Carnation Non-fat Dry milk for the
tea. Non-dairy creamers and tea don't mix. IMHO.

Enough for the Saturday morning notes to be posted when the power returns.

=30=

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Have you ever been to BJ's

Berkley and Johnson, to be exact. It's similar to Costco in a lot of ways and in a lot of ways different. You need to be a member. The fee for membership is made up over the year in savings on things like two tons of catfood, 1,000 pounds of ground turkey, etc. The difference between the two is at BJ's there are more human sized packages available.

Our friend from Ossining calls it the Honey I Shrunk the Kids store. She got that from watching a young girl try to manoeuvre a huge box of Cherios into her mother's cart.

This is a suburban experience. When I lived in the big cities, you bought what you could carry back to your apartment. If you were going for a lot, you took your folding shopping cart and hooked it the front of the stores. I noticed there are no hooks in suburban stores. You take your cart to the car.

When I miss the simplicity of apartment living, usually this is when I am mowing the lawn or shoveling snow, the story of the bum on the park bench comes to mind. If you've heard it before, read it again.

There was a bum who slept each night on park bench across the street from a swanky high rise. A woman who lived in the high rise, who spent more in a week on her poodle than the bum spent in a year on food, walked by the bench each evening when she went out to walk her dog. The dog would always stop by the bum to be pet. The lady and the bum who exchange pleasantries and each would go to their designated corners.

On one very cold winter day, the lady noticed how the bum was shivering, with only crumpled newspapers between his thin cloth coat and his skin. In a sudden and uncharacteristic surge of charity, she invited him to come up to her apartment to spend the night in the guest room. He thanked her and took her up on the invitation.

The next morning when she awoke, the lady looked out on the park and noticed the bum was back on the bench, wrapped in cardboard. She checked her apartment to make sure nothing was stolen. Then she wrapped herself in furs and took the poodle out for a walk.

When the came up to the bum she enquired why he left. He said, "When I sleep on this bench, I dream of living in the lap of luxury and sleep soundly. When I was in you soft and warm bed, all I could dream about was sleeping on a cold hard park bench. I couldn't stay asleep until I came back out here."

Is there a moral here? I suppose the wise saying, as a thing is viewed, so it appears would apply.
=30=

Review redux




--The title of Bill Bryson's "A
Short History of Nearly Everything
" does not sell itself short. It
is exactly that.



Don't be intimidated by either the scope or the size of the book. It is
engaging, entertaining, informative and an all round good read. As a
word of advice, don't say "ooh ooh, listen to this part..." to your
family. Taken out of context many of the tidbits are a tad arcane. The
part about the inventor of the Geiger Counter being a hard core Nazi was
a bit of a surprise...



=30=