At Home On Piety Hill

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and it was deceptively simple. Now, I can use the Visual Rich Editor, which was not supported in earlier versions of Safari and WordPress! I actually liked coding the posts manually, but truth be told… I’m kinda sloppy and I’d have to go back and edit my posts about a million times.

Second, I can try out the latest plugins, including Akismet. That should save me even more time, not having to deal with SPAM.

Finally, I like the new look and feel… it’s almost like beginning all over again. So far, I highly recommend WordPress 2.5. Now, I just need to determine if my old WordPress spell check is finally working or if this is the Safari spell checker… yup, it’s Safari. What a great time to be alive!

Now, here’s a blog I get. Jonah travels the length and breadth of America, sampling the fare from taquerias of all sizes, posting his reviews on the Burrito Blog. As of this writing, he hasn’t sampled the best yet, which can only be found at El Tepeyac. ¿Es verdad, mi familia?

Now, if you’re ever in the Los Angeles area, you want to head over to East LA and find 812 N Evergreen Ave., between Brooklyn and Wabash. El Tepayac is across the street from a large Catholic church, in a neutral zone, and there’s usually a real long line outside. But, don’t get discouraged and leave or you’ll miss the experience of a lifetime.

That’s right. I’m talking about the Hollenbeck burrito, which is half the size of a Manuel’s Special and pictured here. I stuck a fork in it for scale. It’s about a foot long and filled with rice, beans, guacamole and a very unique version of chile verde — Manuel’s own homestyle recipe. That’s really about all that’s in it, but it defies description and has been bringing Denise and I back for almost 40 years.

I think this is a first for me… I’m blogging while watching a film — Schindler’s List. I’ve already seen it once, but that was years ago. Anyway, I was thinking about getting iListen for dictation and transcription. I do most of my best thinking in the morning, while I’m commuting and doing production/deadline work. I’ve tried a cassette dictation machine ten years ago, but that just didn’t work. I started looking into iListen to use with my computer at home, comparing it to other dictation/transcription software and hardware solutions. Then, it occurred to me… I have a video iPod. I would want to get a microphone for it and use it away from home. Then I got a better idea… I’ll just get the Belkin TuneTalk and use my iPod for dictation. I will transcribe the file myself. I’m fairly proficient at typing and it’s mindless work — I can do it when I’m exhausted at the end of the day. If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll go ahead and spend the extra $130 for iListen. Any tips from you seasoned dictation/transcription-ists out there?

That’s the vista or view of Julio Ojeda-Zapata in his review, Vista’s pretty, but it’s a shameless Mac OS X imitator Bottom line. He sums up Windows Vista this way:

Get a Mac with OS X unless your home-computer needs are Windows-specific, or if the fine Media Center is a must for you. You likely won’t regret a Vista-PC purchase, but I’m betting you’ll enjoy a Mac much more.

An amusing tongue-in-cheek video by David Pogue covers the same ground in a more creative fashion. I have to say that I use Windows XP at work and I really don’t mind it that much. It does some things pretty well and I just recently began using my Dock like I use the Taskbar… it works for me. On the other hand, Explorer really bugs me and, if I were to advocate a boycott or some action to pressure Microsoft, it would be to advise everyone to use some other browser like Firefox or, for Mac users, Camino or Safari at home. At work, where they are forced to use Explorer, they can access their .asp stuff on the intranet, which usually looks pretty crappy anyways. But, on their own time they would be using a standards compliant browser to visit commercial and recreational sites on the web, sending the stats for competing, standards-friendly browsers off the charts. That should get their attention.

Young People Flock To Second-Tier Sites Amid Shifting Tastes

This is welcome news, as far as I’m concerned. I just signed up on Facebook and the interface was noticeably less cluttered and usable. I’m not a huge fan of these new-fangled social networking sites, but from a design perspective things are starting to look up. As I pointed out when Ditty Talk rolled out, the MySpace design is just plain ugly and whenever someone adds a photo or video to their page, it gets pushed all out of shape and the user ends up scrolling in all directions.

These new contenders have some neat features that MySpace lacks:

Among the new social-networking sites is one called XuQa.com, run by San Francisco start-up business iVentster Inc., which lets users play games against their online friends and offers awards to the top scorers. Hi5.com, operated by San Francisco company Hi5 Networks Inc., comes with a built-in music player. Piczo, meanwhile, is similar to MySpace and Facebook Inc. in that it lets its mostly teenage users create personal Web pages filled with photos, video and lists of their online friends.

Best of all, they just look a lot better and seem to conform to web standards.

I found a bloggers home away from home at Panera Bread and it’s habit forming. Denise likes to do her shopping in Rocklin and I like to spend time with Denise, so we drive down, she drops me off at Panera and she does her thing, while I do mine. Then, we usually get a bite to eat at a taqueria or barbecue joint.

Denise and I learned to love Panera when we visited Emma in Chapel Hill. Because it was overcast or raining the entire time we were there and Emma worked all day, Denise and I spent a considerable amount of time in the comfortable environs that are Panera, catching up on email, eBaying, blogging or just chatting over a hot, caffeinated beverage.

Panera’s baked goods are way better than our local fare at Flour Garden, the coffee is almost as good as Java John’s (still the reigning king) and the WiFi is free. Our local Starbucks is a bit cramped and they only offer TMobile. The music is usually good, but Panera is always playing my kind of jazz, the termperature indoors is just right and, if it’s a beautiful day, I can get reception out on the patio. Well, that’s about it… I have to get up to refill my mug.

This just in… it’s cooled down to about 85º, so I’ve moved outside and getting 5bars… this place is awesome. I’ll try after hours sometime to see if I can log on.

This weekend, I’m cleaning up all of my eMail SPAM and webforms on my sites. So far, success! The highlight is this anti-SPAM plugin for WordPress that really works. It’s called Did You Pass Math? and requires the commenter to solve a simple arithmetic problem before the comment is submitted. Fortunately, robots aren’t smart enough to know that 2 + 2 equals 4… yet.

Next, I’ll be checking out some spell checkers… The last one I tried didn’t work.

I found a professional writer (or, he found me), who loves John Wayne more than I do (T-Bone Burnett and C.S. Lewis, too) and he’s got a new blog. Check out Write Fink! and then follow his profile to his pro-site. Great stuff!

Today I checked out the statistics on my sites for the first time since moving to GoDaddy ten months ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my Overcoming Necrotizing Fasciitis site had over 1.5 million server requests and 213,000 page hits in less than a year. When the flesh-eating bacteria is in the news, traffic picks up and we average a couple prayer requests a week for someone in the hospital suffering from the disease. Students of all ages contact me for interviews or permission to use the materials on the site for assignments, papers and other class projects at least a couple of times a month.

PietyHill Design had 150,000 page hits, but I wasn’t really able to tell how many unique visitors I had. I host a number of sites on that domain, including this blog, and the top site is The Quotable Christian, with about half as many people visiting the Richard Baxter biography. The Quotable Christian was fun to put together, because it is almost pure CSS. The Baxter site was the final project for my HTML class, so it has a little of everything — frames, tables, CSS, JavaScript, image maps, sliced images, rollovers… you name it.

All the sites I’ve created are now listed in the sidebar. I added some more quotes to The Quotable Christian and I’m in the middle of a redesign of the Necrotizing Fasciitis site. It should load faster, navigate easier, be more readable and much richer in content. I’ll let you know when it’s finished.

It’s not like I’m a big fan of myspace or anything, but the service has been in the news so much it’s hard to ignore. So, I found this Christian version, Ditty Talk, that seems to sport all the same features with three important differences. 1) Visually, it looks much nicer and cleaner… much more sophisticated and adult, therefore I doubt it will supplant myspace with the younger crowd. 2) The pages load very quickly and don’t seem to get pushed out of shape so easily. Everything works without a hitch. 3) Super-responsible moderation for inappropriate content.

Perhaps the difference is Ditty Talk’s PHP/MySQL solution versus the myspace ColdFusion and JavaScript choice. The site was birthed by Brian Bozarth, a web designer from Maui, who promises no banners and a listening ear as far as content and features users are looking for. The site only lacks one feature I would add right now; QuestionPark on the FAQs page. Memo to Levi and Joe: Contact Mr. Bozarth now and put the hard sell on him.

Well, today I got my old blog completely rolled over into PietyHill Press and have all the posts categorized in the navigation column. I’ll spruce up the blog roll and then track down all my old images and upload them. The next project will be to re-skin this blog… what do you think of a fall colors theme?

Now, this is blogging! No more long posts. I simply let others more qualified raise an issue, then I get to come in with am emotional, unedited, spontaneous comment or two revealing what I really think. The Zombieslayer is one of the most rational and winsome bloggers on the scene and he had a great post about whiners. So, if you would like to know why I think Democrats don’t win any longer and Rush Limbaugh is on top, check out the post and comments. By the way, I still maintain that if the hardcore wing of the Democrat Party had held their noses and nominated Joe Lieberman for President in 2004, he would have beaten Bush by about 8 points.

Today I got my Revelation Roundtable blog shaped up. We are going through the Book of Revelation in our Tuesday night Bible study. When you study Revelation in a group, you have to choose one of a number of approaches and follow it through. There simply isn’t enough time to discuss all the different options and questions which pop up, so I hope we will be able to engage in further discussion through the blog. Feel free to drop by and participate or just follow the converstion.

I have a plan. PietyHill Press, hosted on my own domain, will be my main blog; the hub from which all spokes will emanate from. I will be reworking and tweaking this blog before the watching world. Well, actually, before myself and the one or two folks who may wander in here from time to time. This will be the vehicle I will use to learn PHP/MySQL, WordPress and related issues. The goal is to become an accomplished, sought after designer in about four years, when I will retire from the Postal Service.

I also hope to get a few dedicated blogs going on Blogger, which I will link to from this blog. I want to learn everything there is to know about Blogger.
So, let’s try a few of the WordPress editing features, which by the way, do not work on Safari.

Okay, so I’ve installed the ajax spell checker, which doesn’t seem to be workdibngbso ye.etig. Hmmm. Let’s save teh pots, restrat and trye thiss aagin. Hmmm. Not working… I suppose this is what it’s all about. It looks like the ajax spellchecker is out.

Well, it seems to be easier to write and edit than Blogger. We’ll see how easy it is to upload images and then I’ll have to get into the CSS to work on formatting them.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Well, it starts here… Thanks to Levi for explaining Mac file structure, while passing along PHP/MySQL installation and configuration secrets. To show my appreciation, I am in the process of bidding on some obscure CDs on eBay.

Kudos to GoDaddy. After reading all the horror stories in preparation for installation, I can honestly say your MySQL activation and configuration instructions were absolutely simple. I can close the 40 tabs I have open to various GoDaddy/WordPress discussions and installation nightmares. The big problem it seems is hosting on a Windows server vs Linux. Hooray for Linux! I’m glad I made that decision, when I transferred to GoDaddy.

Back in February of this year, I began this blog in a fit of pragmatism. With youthful exuberence I set out to set the blogging world on fire about a year ago:

That brings me to this blog. It was supposed to be designed in WordPress and I intended to learn PHP/MySQL to exercise full control. But, I found that I am not prepared for that level of commitment yet. The dream of designing and implementing a beautiful, functional blog continues to live on and it will be realized, as time permits. But, I cannot bear to put off blogging and publishing a moment longer. So, the blog begins here… now.

I have to admit that rash decision was a huge error and I am back to square one — installing WordPress and learning how to build a blog from the ground up. No progress was made toward my original goal, while I churned out hurried, mediocre posts and neglected other more profitable ventures… so, PietyHill Press is suspending daily operations for now. Infrequent announcements and stuff will continue to be posted for friends / family and I will comment on other blogs with my Blogger account, when time allows.

In closing, I want to give one final Shoutout! to what I thought was a great post and a great idea. Mishegas Master is a pro writer, who comes from, shall we say, a different perspective than I do. He had a post that really resonated with me:

It’s so incredibly easy to criticize America these days and the top five ways to do so are: (1)-Blog (like The MishegasMaster); (2)-Air your grievances on a radio talk-show call-in program; (3)-Go into an Internet chat-room and complain; get together with a group of friends either at coffeehouse or over a meal and collective discuss the troubles and of course, writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper or opinion page.

Why is America such an easy to target for criticism by its own citizens? Perhaps it’s because the criticisms and freedoms we enjoy have been twisted, tweaked and taken advantage of, eroded and exploited so much, that there’s no approachable point to dig in, claim a territory and stop the insanity/madness! So, it got me to thinking about the entire situation at hand and wondered what it would take the wagging tongues, the pointing fingers, the Nay-Sayers and all of the other self-appointed United States citizens critics mixed in between to come together? Why a new national anthem lyric-writing contest, that’s how!

Check out the rules and prizes and, by all means, point your pen down a positive path and write a new national anthem! Sure, you probably won’t become the next Francis Scott Key, but you may win a real cool prize. Good-bye, God bless and good luck on your national anthem entry!

I just got home and my head feels pressurized… like it’s about to explode. So, I don’t have anything too profound except that in my meanderings this morning when my head felt like it was imploding, I came across these funny jpegs. The first one was found at Nacional sos el Decano del Futbol Uruguayo, which appears to be some sort of soccer fansite. The Salisbury’s always felt a certain kinship with the Simpson’s… perhaps that was all in my head.
Next, I found this jpeg titled “We found Nemo!” at Middle Age Madness. It made me hungry… a Philadelphia Roll, perhaps?

Anyway, that’s all I’m capable of today… I’m listening to Humble Pie Performance — Rockin’ The Filmore full blast. This, I think, is Peter Frampton at his shreddin’ best and Steve Marriott is soulful and intense. Steve will go down in history with Terry Reid as two of the most underappreciated rock vocalists of all time… They got so close.

Good night.

I’ve had a few new visitors to the site, so I thought I’d give y’all a big welcome and point you to a few items of interest. First, I got iPhoto working and uploaded my first slideshow. It happens to cover our trip to North Carolina and may be found at:

http://homepage.mac.com/bosalisbury/PhotoAlbum1.html

In the left column, you’ll find a number of goodies. First, we have the bloglings. There are four of us who started blogging at roughly the same time, although I think Levi was first. These pals are bloggeriffic:

• Sadico Junction This is my favorite kind of blog… a day in the life of a mom… a true web journal or log. She’s got a huge readership… much larger that Arianna Huffinpuff, dahling.
• culturezoo It’s hip, it’s funny, it’s downright Levitical.
• average joe Well written and a killer strategy to keep you going back… Joe’s posts are strategically doled out to keep his readers hanging on.

Next you will find some sites I created and maintain. Check out pygmies.net and the wonderful work our friends, the Kellermanns, are doing in Uganda.

Then there’s the stock Blogger stuff… previous posts and archives followed by the blogs I like. I’ll mention a few, but don’t get huffy if you’re left out… you made the left column and that’s pretty prestigious around Piety Hill.

• My favorite has to be the zombieslayer. Now, here’s a guy who writes some wondeful prose, while being alternately hilarious and thought provoking. He’s also one of the most devoted bloggers with a real job on the side. He’s so dang committed…
• Next is a new entry and he’s only got a couple of posts up. Peanut, Jelly and Butter is the blog of Patrick James Brennan… get it? If not, check it out. Pat is way smart and a way good writer… he’s also one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
• Finally, there’s PyroManiac. This guy’s got it all… solid theology, solid sense of humor and solid design principles… He’s actually an amateur designer, but he’s done something pretty shrewd here. He’s taken the no-gamble, safe color combination of black and red on white and turned it into some pretty compelling compositions. He’s done a good job of teaching himself Photoshop.

Finally, here are some of my favorite older posts, buried deep within the archives. Hope you enjoy / hate / love / agree with / reject / embrace them!

• It’s All About Oil
• John Cipollina: Electric Guitarslinger
• Accidental Providence Installment #4
• Christians Are Guilty Gainsayers
• It Really Matters What You Believe
• Irritation of the Sith
• Week In Review July 10 – 16
• Fantastic Voyage
• 29 Years Of Marital Bliss
• Blog Break
• One More Day
• Cheney ‘08

I have this new friend, Patrick, who I met outside the Mine Shaft in Nevada City. They have a hot spot there and we were both working up some blog entries. I’ve checked out his new creative outlet, Peanut Jelly and Butter, and I have to say I approve. His prose is subtle, yet he is able to awaken some deeply emotional currents within my soul. In the words of Derek Smalls, enjoying coffee with Pat on Tuesdays in Nevada City is like hanging out with “a Shelley or Byron.” Let’s raise a mug of French Roast and give a big bottoms up to my brother and wish him well in this new artistic endeavor! Oh, and perhaps a shave and a haircut will be in order, too!

It looks as if blogging will have to take a back seat to more pressing, but uninteresting, endeavors this week. For example, Denise and I are shopping for two newer old vehicles, to replace our really old old vehicles. I forgot how much time, energy and heartache is involved in buying cars.

Then, there is the replacement of our older Compaq laptop with a new iMac G5; I know, this should be exciting, but these computers are becoming more like tools and less like toys to us. The only consolation is that I will be finished with Windows XP, except for my computer at work where I am at least remunerated somewhat for my frustrations. I can only describe wireless networking with Windows XP on a really old Compaq Presario as metaphysical… sometimes we’re connected and, if we’re not, we can restart it a few times, kick it around, let it sit for five hours, restart it again, hibernate it, coax it a little and then, eventually, it will work again.

These fairly straightforward tasks have been compounded by a lot of frustration over the past week or so. Perhaps you have had times like this, when no matter what you do, there is always something, someone or some situation to arise out of nowhere and steal all of your time. It’s as if all my plans were frustrated at every step. I probably got about 10 hours of actual work done all week. Depressing…

Well, if I can just put one foot ahead of the next, I may be able to triumph over the flood of futility I feel I’m drowning in, to get to some fun topics. Here are a few drafts I have in queue:

• I Don’t Read Fiction
• Serendipity and Richard L. Press Fine Books
• Monasticism
• Hieronymus Bosch
• Planned Parenthood Continues To Exploit Hurricane Victims
• The kenosis or self-limitation of Jesus Christ in His incarnation
• US Envoy Warns Syria
• Take Your Pick: Empire or Lifestyle Change