mtefft: August 2007 Archives

I have been wanting an iRiver Clix 2 ever since I first read a review of it. It is an mp3 and video player, with built-in FM tuner and all the other features of a video iPod. I currently have an iPod mini 4 GB which I primarily use to play podcasts and Audible audio books. It does a great job for what I use it for but I wanted a color display and something that could play videos. The Clix 2 fits the bill perfectly. I am really excited about receiving the Clix 2. It is almost like when I used to order Estes model rockets when I was a kid. Anyway, here is a quick picture of the iRiver Clix 2 and some specifications copied from the iRiver web site. I will write a full report about it on my Wordpress blog once I have had a chance to fondle, I mean evaluate, it.

FEATURES

• Plays music, video, photos and more
• 4GB internal storage†
• Supports subscription music services*
• Ultra-bright, 2.2" AMOLED color display
• Built-in digital FM tuner
• Integrated voice recorder
• Up to 24 hours of battery life***
• Skip-free listening
• Fast USB 2.0 transfers
• 1 year limited warranty

Well, I am back from Ft. Lauderdale and LandWarNet. I had a good time there and I think I brought back some useful information to share with my fellow workers at TRADOC G-6. The last couple of days I have been busy taming my back yard. We have gotten a lot of rain and the grass and weeds are out of control. I have managed to break the weed whacker twice so I have resorted to my grass hog to chop down the weeds. I will be glad when Fall arrives and I can stop cutting the grass and pulling weeds. I am looking forward to my trip in October to Gulfport Mississippi with my church. I know it will be a lot of hard work and sleeping on a cot or on the floor in a sleeping bag is not going to be easy. But I think the rewards from doing something like this will be beyond measure. I am hoping it will be a trip to remember for a lifetime. I am always plotting my next vacation and I am still thinking of Alaska although I just finished watching a Globe Trekker show about Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. I think if I ever managed to go to the Galapagos Islands that that would be the vacation of a lifetime. It would be like going back into time and the wildlife there is unique and facscinating. But I have to keep in mind that that is not Teresa's kind of vacation. From my experience with her travel tastes I don't think the Galapagos Islands would be high on her vacation list. Maybe all she needs is a little convincing, after all I did get her to go to Belize and St. Lucia.

I just finished my last track here. The only event left is the keynote luncheon with LTG Metz of TRADOC (my boss) giving the keynote address. That is an hour away and I think I will stay to see that and get a free meal. After that it is on the bus and back to the hotel and some pool time. I fly home tomorrow so I will have some spare time on my hands to hit the beach and maybe do a little shopping. I am anxious to be home and see Teresa, Kirk, and Max. This will probably be the last conference I attend for the Army before I retire. I don't think I will miss attending them anymore. It is time for my career to come to an end soon. I am looking forward to retirement.

I am attending the Army LandWarNet conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. I found a connected pc in the cyber cafe in the exhibition hall so I couldn't pass up the chance to make an entry. The conference has been very informative and eye opening and I am enjoying the Ft. Lauderdale scene and the beaches. I will be home this Friday and I will post more about my trip. I have another track to attend before I can go back to my hotel and the pool. More later.

In about an hour or so Teresa will take me to the airport to catch my flight to Ft. Lauderdale. After that she will drive down to North Carolina to drop Kirk off at his grandparents house for a few days. I have a love hate relationship with travel and flying. I am not really afraid to fly but it has become such a hassle that I do not look forward to it. I also do not like staying in hotels unless they are really nice and in an exotic locale and I am on vacation. None of those conditions apply to this trip. But despite all the hassles the trip will be worth it. I will hopefully bring back some useful knowledge and information from the two conferences I will be attending. And if I get the chance to do a little exploring around Ft. Lauderdale and take a few photos that will be nice. It just seems that when I go on trips like this alone, I get homesick almost as soon as I get to where I am going. I guess that is a good thing. It means I have something worth coming home to, and I do. Lucky me.

I will be leaving for the LandWarNet conference in Ft. Lauderdale this coming Sunday. I am looking forward to the trip as it will get me away from the daily grind of work and the hotel I will be staying at is right on the beach. I plan on spending most of my off hours on the beach and swimming in the beautiful waters. My only concern is that Tropical Storm Dean is slowly heading in the general direction of Florida. Dean is expected to become a hurricane in the next few days and it is very possible that Hurricane Dean may chase us all out of Ft. Lauderdale early. Hurricanes have interrupted the LandWarNet conference twice before in recent years. Let's just hope it is Ft. Lauderdale and not Chesapeake, Virginia that will be visited by Dean. I have a second chance of coming face-to-face with a hurricane in October when I travel to Gulfport, Mississippi with members of my church. We will be staying in a church there while we help with the recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina. I sure hope there are no hurricanes along the Gulf coast this season. My fingers are crossed...

The night before last I installed a much newer version of the software I use for my online photo album. I have been using Gallery 1.5.x and I upraded to Gallery 2.2.2. Instead of actually upgrading my old installation, I installed the newer version by itself. This required that I create a new MySQL database on my ISP's server. I have done this before so it was no problem. The new photo album software worked great, everything is cool. Not !! The next morning I discovered that my Wordpress software as well as my MovableType software both could not connect to their databases. So I initiated a support ticket online with my ISP to see if they could fix the problem. I will leave out the details but the next day, after many more emails and two online chat sessions with customer support, my applications were still not working.

Exasperated, I called their 800 support number and talked to a real person. My problem was fixed within hours. It seems that if I use the same username for all my MySQL databases, they all need to have the same password. What happened was that when I installed the new MySQL database I used a different password than I had used for the other two databases. The new password was automatically replicated to the two existing databases, causing the applications to not be able to connect any longer as their config files had the old passwords in them. I should have know better because I received an error message when creating the new database about using the same username. If I had used a different username there would have never been a problem. I guess the older I get the dumber I get.

But I have to hand it to the guys at Bluedomino who finally fixed the problem. They were very gracious and refrained from calling me a dumb user. My hat's off to the customer support staff at Bluedomino for putting up with this old dummy.

This is my first entry in my new blog. This blog will be a continuation of my old blog: Speaking My Mind. I am using the latest version of Movable Type beta which I hope will be easier to manage and use. Tonight I have been asked by my church to run the computer for Movie Night. I guess the word got around that I am somewhat of a computer expert. Tomorrow night I will be attending our church's board meeting for the first time. I have been asked to give a status report on the Behavioral Covenant which the Interim Team committe is working on. So I have a busy couple of days ahead of me. But that will not stop me from jumping in our pool for a couple hours this evening as the high for today has already hit a sultry southern Virgnia 97 degrees. To view my old blog click here.