Considered Normal?

Sorry for the site being down.  Tumblr was missing a “.” in its explanation of how to set up a custom domain so it created a non existing domain on my DNS server.  If you are setting up a custom domain, when setting up the www portion, put a “.” after the uri they tell you to put in.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 3 weeks ago

For anyone who has a smart phone (specifically a Blackberry or an iPhone) you may be able to relate to this.

Today I updated one application on my smartphone, and for what ever reason it caused my phone to go into an endless reboot loop. I would get the Blackberry start up screen, it would load to about the point where it would do its security scan, and then back to the boot up screen. Now those of you with Blackberrys know how long it takes for the phone to reboot.

So I checked online and it gave a few possible options: safemode or update. The safemode option didn’t work at all, and the update crashed partway through, meaning the only option now is a complete re-install/reformat of the phone, which in turn means you lose everything, contacts, apps, settings, email, etc. So I just spent the day reinstalling my phone and trying to figure out what half my logins are.

The worse is my Gmail app, which I use for dual authentication to prevent hackers from accessing my account. The problem is to get into the emails I need the app which verifies the code, but to get the app to work I need access to the emails. Catch 22. Thankfully I can access a few backup methods of accessing my accounts (one of codes).

A similar thing happened to a friend after an update to his iPhone, he lost all his contacts and had to go through all his sms messages to find out who people were.

Now luckily I have a little app called Blackberry Protect which does a nightly backup of all contacts and sms messages. But its still kinda shitty that I need to use it.

Why can’t smartphone makers make the phones smart enough to remember their settings after an update? Obviously they aren’t that smart.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 1 month ago

A few things of note thus far.  On my trip last weekend back to Ontario, I got to weigh myself for the first time since I moved to Quebec.  When I moved here in January of this year I weighed myself in at 315lbs, last weekend I weighed in at 300lbs with cloths on (which means I prolly weight ~298lbs) so I am extremely happy I have been losing weight, all be it about 5lbs a month, a little slower than I would hope, but still a good number.

Another thing to mention is that I took the Train back to Dorval, my first train ride ever, and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t exactly the most scenic tour, it was in the evening so the sun was setting, but it was over cast and the scenery was nothing but farm land.  But other than that it was a good first experience.

Now back on the island here I am noticing something I find a bit odd.  Spring is in full effect here, however the trees are not budding.  I take it the nice little warm stretch we had, then a deep freeze snap in late march prolly stunted the budding process.  I hope this is not permanent as the trees look a lot better with leaves on them.

My next trip to Ontario, this time to O-Town will be in early June to celebrate my B-Day.  One night only for a select few folks whom I have my B-Day dinner with every year.  Unfortunately the rest of my friends will have to wait till a later date to see me as I will be leaving O-Town right after dinner.

So far things are good on the island, not quite where I would like to be, but its a slow process and I am sticking with it, at least for another 6 months.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 1 month ago

Well its about time.  I had to work this weekend and things were slow at the store, so I figured I would try and find a template I liked. The problem is, I didn’t like any of them.  So I found one with things I liked in it, and then proceeded to modify the hell out of it till I got something that was pleasing.  Now this current theme will hold till I manage to hve my own time to code myself a 100% original, but till then at least its partially original LOL.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 1 month ago

Well, Easter Weekend will be coming up next weekend and it will be the first time in three months that I will be off “The Island”.  I haven’t seen my best friends in about four months so I am really excited to be spending a few days with them back in Ontario.  My buddy will be picking my up after he is finished his work in Ottawa and driving 2 hours to come pick me up, than another hour to get back to his place. 

I will be taking off Thursday night and won’t be back till late Monday night.  Its gonna be a lot of fun.  Will post some pics if I get a chance.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 1 month ago

Well, almost 3 months here.  I cannot get over how beautiful it is here on Montreal Island, especially where I am in Dorval.  Now mind you Mother nature is pulling her yearly trick… Making us thing winter is over with 25C weather and then BAMB! -2C…  Its like she is laughing at us… “Phych!”.  But none the less, Its beautiful here.  Still trying to get my feet on the ground, miss my close friends and family but I would not move back any time soon, I love it here too much.

Will post more later, just saw it had been a while since I posted that i would do a quick update.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 2 months ago

Well, as mentioned in the title I have now been on “The Island” for 48 days.  Just finished catching up with my Brother and his girlfriend Jen.  It was nice to go out to dinner with them and sit down and chat with Family.  Being so far away from my friends and family can be hard at times, sure I chat with them all on the phone, via txt msg, or facebook, but I miss the real life interactions.  Seeing my Bro and Jen was a nice end to Saturday.

My social life here in Montreal needs a bit of work, once cash flow starts I will prolly head out to the bars with a few people I know here and hopefully make more friends.

Its been an interesting transition, learning how different Quebec is compared to Ontario.  Having lived the bulk of my life (32 years) in Ontario, 31 of which I spent in Ottawa, 6 months in Alexandria, and another year in Cornwall, the decision to change provinces was one I didn’t take lightly.  Yes I was excited to move, but I also knew it wouldn’t be easy and a lot of adjusting would need to happen.  For instance this is my first time renting a room in a house where I didn’t know the owner really well (Alexandria is a bit different, I rented a room from my best friend for 6 months) and is the first time I don’t really have a safety net (In Ottawa if I had an issue I could always stay at my moms).

So adjusting to life on my own, away from everything I know, has been a challenge.  I think I am doing alright though.  Once I get my mother’s car in a few months I think I will be a bit better, because then I can travel back home (to any of the 3, be it Ottawa, Alexandria or Cornwall) to see friends and Family.  Till then though I cope with what I have.  Which at this point is work and sleep.  If I am not at home resting, I am at the office working all hours of the day (and some times night). 

So what are my impressions thus far?  Well the people of Dorval are quite friendly, down to earth, and although you run into the odd person who doesn’t speak English, they at least accept the fact that you are trying (as my French is seriously degraded).  Some, will even try and speak English even if its as degraded as my French.  The area or Dorval gives off the same feeling as Cornwall, although it is a part of the Montreal Area, it doesn’t have the big city feel to it, it feels like a nice little community.

The best part about Dorval, is its right on the water, I can walk to the water side park in about 5 minutes.  Its gonna be amazing come summer time.

One of the things I have to figure out is how much I weight… I know I have lost weight by the fact that my belt is now needed to keep my pants up instead of just being a show piece, but I want to know how much… According to my tracker (on my blackberry) on September 25th, 2011 I hit my all time high of 330lbs, by January 5th, 2012 I was down to 315lbs, so I haping that walking th 2km walk to work in the mornings and eating less often has decreased my weight some more (hopefully to below 300lbs).  I seriously need to find/buy a scale to keep better track.  I am also thinking of taking photos in a mirror every day and create and animation after a year and see how I gradually lose weight.  Might start that tomorrow morning.

Well, thats it to report for day 48…

♥ Comments, 0 notes 3 months ago

I was creating a site for a client of mine that required both English and French pages, and while trying to figure out how to make language files work with the template I had, I got frustrated.  Its not an easy thing to deal with when you have to work with a pre-made template (which only allows one contact page) and the plugins don’t really give you much documentation (the free one’s anyways).

So I had this idea, create 2 sites, one located at www.domain.com/en (English) and one at www.domain.com/fr (French) with a index page at www.domain.com to chose your language.  The downside to this was 2 installs of wordpress and having to log into both to make changes…

Then it occurred to me, my friend Eric a while back came across creating a network with Wordpress.  He didn’t go that path because it didn’t suit his needs, but after a bit of research I found it was exactly what I needed.

Basically you set up one wordpress install at the root (www.domain.com) and then turn on the network capability (built in to recent versions) by editing the wp-config file, then log in and set up your network (you have to do 2 more files edits and create a folder).  After that I created a site under /en and /fr without having to create sub directories or install any more versions of wordpress.

The best part is, as a “Super Admin” you have access to all sites, one login.  I am still figuring it all out, but its absolutly amazing to be able to administer multiple sites via one interface.  If I ever go back to using wordpress for my blog, I might use this feature to administer a bunch of my sites in one place.

Wordpress just got another +1 form me in its awesomeness score.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 3 months ago

I went to the Couche Tard to grab a snack before leaving work, (For those of you who are in Ontario, Couche Tard is the same chain of convenience stores as Macs) and I proceeded to the back to the drink fridges to grab some chocolate milk as its been ages since I have had any dairy products (not since before leaving Cornwall).  As I got to the back I noticed something different… Beer… in a corner store… rows and rows of BEER!.  I gotta get used to Quebec, you can buy Beer and Wine in the corner stores and grocery stores… Hard Liqueurs you still need to visit the SAQ (Ontario Equivalent is the LCBO), but it just caught me off guard, my first 32 years of my life were spent in Ontario where you need to visit the Beer store for beer.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not new to Quebec selling Alcoholic beverages in the corners stores, I mean when I lived in Alexandria every so often I would drive to Hawksbery, cross the river and buy beer at the gas station when the local Beer store was closed… But its not something I grew accustomed to as I really wouldn’t wanna drive 45 minutes to get beer every time… But to have it such a convenient location rocks.  There’s a lot of things I need to get used to about Quebec… More Specifically ”the Island”.  For instance several years ago you were not able to make a right on a red in Quebec, that changed, but not on “The Island” here it is still illegal.  It crossed my mind several times on my walks home, seeing cars waiting at the lights to make a right turn… I had to ask my buddy about it and he filled me in on the law.  Still lots to learn about this place… 

♥ Comments, 1 note 3 months ago

This has to be the most addictive brain puzzle ever.  Here is the basic concept, there are 240 possible combinations, you get there by adding one thing to another to make a valid combo.  It all starts with the 4 base elements: Water, Fire, Earth, and Air.

Here is an example to get your started, fire and water make steam, now you have 5 out of 240… keep going to you have figures it all out, presently I am at about 90 combos and its getting harder and harder.  Hours of fun for sure.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 3 months ago

I finally got around to watching the last few episodes of Chuck.  I can’t believe its over.  At first I found the show kinda goofy and funny, but I must admit the story lines were quite intriguing.  Now its not as serious as some of my other favourites like NCIS or Burn Notice (although the later can be quite entertaining as well) but I got into it quite quickly.  I am sad to see it go. The last 3 shows blew me away, Sarah getting her memory wiped and Chuck helplessly trying to get her to remember.  In the last episode I actually drew a tear at the end. 

I would have to compare Chuck to a page turner book… you think at first its gonna be just another novel, but once you get into it, it keeps drawing you in to a point where you can’t put it down.  That’s what this show was like… a moving picture equivalent of a page turner novel.  You will be missed Chuck.  Hoping that in 3 or 4 years there will be a reunion special.   

♥ Comments, 0 notes 3 months ago

Spent the last few hours at work copying all files from the old drive to the new one. But before I got that far I ran into a snag. When I went to plug in my old drive, when I powered up the system, it didn’t see either drive. This perplexed me, how could the system not see either drive, sata drives (unless using WinXP) don’t need jumper, was there some sort of conflict? Did I fry my mobo? What was going wrong. Without checking further I fif the only thing I could think of when I can’t figure out a computer issue on my own, Call Eric (my best friend and fellow tech).

I explain my situation as I saw it, and we tried everything in the book. We removed the bios battery to reset bios to defaults, we switch around the sata ports, we tried one drive at a time, no results at all. Then I realized the issue, and it struck me, before I called Eric, Dukins (a co worker) and I were working on my system, and when I was putting in the second drive, something gave, and I remarked about the poiwer cable and said “I hope that didn’t plug into anything”. Well apparently it did, the mail power line, neither drive had power. I felt like such a moron. So I filled Eric in on the problem and thanked him for his help.

So now my system is running and everything is back the way it should be, I am missing only one app (topstyle) for my CSS coding, but other than that all is good. Glad to finally be able to work again.

♥ Comments, 0 notes 3 months ago

An oldie, but a goodie

♥ Comments, 0 notes 4 months ago