Back in action

After a short sabbatical from blogging, I am finally ready to start writing again.  It’s been a rainy and busy winter here.  The weather is finally beginning to change with the promise of many spring/summer days ahead.  Over the last few months, I’ve been trying to decide exactly what to do with my blog and what direction I should take. I’ve been struggling with trying to find a way to blog about technology and still maintain a personal side to the blog.  I’m not sure I’ve figured this out but think I can safely mix the two topics here.

Many of you have been wondering what I’ve been doing during my “free time”.  Well, I’ve been busy working with some Santa Cruz Geeks and a few select others to launch the 12seconds.tv website.  You can read more about 12seconds.tv by going to the website or reading our blog.   It’s been a fun process to see the site go from idea to implementation and will blog more about my experiences working on it.  The framework for this site is the Drupal CMS handling user authentication, friend invites, private beta, and content.  I’ve implemented several Drupal websites before and this process has only added to my Drupal experience.  I know many struggle with the steep learning curve for Drupal, but once you get past that things start to fall in place quite nicely.

My goals for this blog in the near future are:

1. Convert site to Drupal 6.x from WordPress 2.x
2. Update frequently at least 2 or 3 times a week
3. Balance personal commentary with technology information
4. Update the design

To accomplish goal number one, I will most likely be working on upgrading a Drupal 5.x module to import from WordPress 2.x to Drupal 6.x.  This will not be an easy undertaking, but will allow me to contribute back to the Drupal community and gain some experience with upgrading modules. I’m looking forward to writing again and keeping everyone updated on what’s going on.  If you want an invitation to 12seconds.tv, just send me your email.

For those that are curious, here’s an example of a 12second video.  I’m having sound issues on my Mac, but this will give you a general idea.  Once I fix the sound issues, I will post a new 12second video.  Also, you can check out what others are recording by going to http://12seconds.tv/channel. 

How long is 12seconds? take2 on 12seconds.tv

New hosting service

Over the past week, I’ve been working on switching my hosting provider for AlphaGeekBlog.com. Today, I made the final changes and the blog is now up on a the Grid-Service (gs) at Media Temple. I think Media Temple and the grid-service are the future of web hosting. The Plesk control panel is laid out very nicely and their customer service was very responsive. In short here is the process that I took to the move the blog over to Media Temple from Blue Host.

1. Set-up my account at Media Temple.
2. Request technical support to fix a typo in my domain name (oops).
3. Set-Up a MySQL database to support my WordPress Install.
4. Exported the MySQL WordPress database from my Bluehost server to a text file.
5. Imported the MySQL WordPress database to my new MySQL database at Media Temple.
6. Copied down all the files in my Wordpress directory at BlueHost.
7. Modified the wp-config.php with my new database settings.
8. Changed the DNS servers on Bluehost to point to MediaTemple’s database

That was it. It was really easy and I’m very happy with my decision to host with Media Temple. Now, I am recommending that we go with MediaTemple’s Dedicated-Virtual service (dv) for our company websites.

Quiddities New Website…

Coming soon… A brand new look for Quiddities Dev., Inc. This new look will hopefully represent what Quiddities does more clearly. It will demonstrate our use of current and bleeding edge technologies. The collective experience of our team will be seens by our portfolio show case. The best part, however, is that we will be adding a blog and a newsletters so that you can stay updated on current projects and technologies.

Old site:

New site (preview):

What is a Quiddity?

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity:

Quiddity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Quiddity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

In philosophy, quiddity is identity or “whatness,” i.e., something’s “what it is.” The term derives from the Latin word “quidditas,” which was used by the medieval Scholastics to refer to a concept of substance they encountered while translating the works of Aristotle.

The (Greek equivalent) term was used by Aristotle in reference to an entity’s aspects of “matter” and “form.”

It describes properties a particular substance (e.g. a person) shares with others of its kind. The question “what (quid) is it?” asks for a general description by way of commonailty. This is quiddity or “whatness” (i.e., its “what it is”). Quiddity is often contrasted with the haecceity or “thisness” of an item, which, in turn, describes the particular propreties of an object or substance (e.g. a particular person).

Other senses

• In law, the term is used to refer to a quibble or academic point. An example can be seen in Hamlet’s graveside speech found in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. “Where be his
  quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures” says Hamlet referring to a lawyer’s quiddities.

• Quiddity is the name for the mystical dream sea in Clive Barker’s novel The Great and Secret Show that exists as a higher plane of human existence. It is featured as more of a literal sea in the novel’s sequel, Everville.

Oh Apple, why oh why?

I really do love my MacBook Pro and am always looking for an excuse to upgrade as this is my 3rd Mac in less than 2 years (iMac —> iBook —> MacBook Pro. However, this is not exactly what I had in mind when I woke up this morning. I heard a weird noise yesterday and looked around but didn’t see anything. Then last night when I was working a big X appeared on my battery icon. I figured it was just some random thing and once I restarted the laptop it would be OK. I did seem to think the laptop was sitting funny on its holder and figured I just had set it down wrong.

This morning I woke up, went to turn on the laptop and noticed that the battery had expanded itself like a bag of Jiffy Pop. What’s up with that? I’ve known for awhile that my 17″ laptop runs warm, but I don’t think there should ever be a case where the laptop battery expands. I consider myself fortunate that I was home and it didn’t catch on fire. I’m all for squeezing as much technology as you can in a small box, but if it means risking the occasional pop-pop-pop of the battery, then I don’t want to have anything to do with it. Apparently, the Core 2 Duo’s are much better at dealing with overheating issue.

I was going to call Apple today, but decided I would rather go into the Apple Store and have them explain to me the justification for a battery deforming itself like it did.