refried.org

One of the things I won't get to see first-hand since we moved back to Maine is the reconstruction of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. I found a nice high resolution webcam overlooking the construction site.

I'm a big fan of the podcast FLOSS Weekly. I think that the most recent edition, FLOSS 19 should be noted as the best explanation of git to date. git is the distributed version control system designed and built by Linus Torvalds to manage the Linux source code. There has been a lot of buzz about it but it also has a reputation of being hard to use. This interview does a great job of explaining how git works and what it enables users to do over other version control systems like CVS and Subversion.

I'm a big fan of Subversion. I use it at work and to maintain my web site. After listening to this podcast, I might have to give git a closer look.

We had a nice Easter. We went to a neighbor's house for dinner and had some great food. I love to bake, but have not attempted bread much. I think I've made bread from scratch less than a dozen times - ever, and never Yeast bread. When I was growing up, my mom made wonderful bread and so I'm familiar with how much work goes into it. I was searching my favorite website for cooking www.allrecipes.com a few weeks before Easter looking for something new to try. I found a great looking bread that I wanted to try, but it was a yeast bread, and I was afraid it wouldn't come out well. So, I made a 'practice' loaf on Thursday and it came out well. So, I made another one on Sunday to take for Easter dinner. Here is a picture of it.

I just sorted through all our blog entries to assign tags. Please let us know if an entry seems to be filed incorrectly. Thanks!

I was looking at my web server statistics today when I noticed that the top referrer was an automotive review bulletin board in the Czech Republic. It seems that a post directly linked to the picture of Baxter's tire. I tried to get a translation from one of the free services on the net, but I didn't have much luck. Does anyone read Czech?

I noticed after the switch last night that Planet COSI was already pulling the new feed. Looks like the permanent redirect works. Unforunately it appears that Planet COSI is choking on the new rss. It got the date right for the most recent entry, but it didn't get the dates right for any of the old entries in the feed. It placed them all 20 minutes after the newest entry. I don't think there is anything I can do on this end to fix that.

The other day I was checking the Kennebec Journal online. For those of you who aren't familiare with it, its the newspaper from my hometown area. There is a blog there that I like to check often. Its called 'A Dog's life'. I found a link to pictures of pets on vacation in Maine. I remembered a picture that we took of Baxter last summer and uploaded it to the site. Click here to check it out. We took this picture while on a hike on the Maine coast with Mom and Dad Straz.

Since Nate's Honey-Do list is so long he can't find the time to make a map for refried users, I decided to try to do it. Turns out it was very easy! Check it out and add yourself at http://www.frappr.com/refriedreaders .

Unlike most people, I usually go to directly to the National Weather Service for my forecasts and weather maps. I was pleasantly surprised this week when I noticed their new radar images. They take advantage of overlays and a little bit of JavaScript to make a great looking and customizable image. Bravo!

Mike,

Yes, that's the part I'm referring to. It used to include the author if the RSS feed included it.

Also, all of the XML buttons in the sidebar point to Planet COSI instead of the XML feeds for respective person.

Nate

Our blog has been picked up by Planet COSI for a while now. COSI is the Clarkson Open Source Institute, a group that was started shortly after I graduated from Clarkson in 2000. I read the site often to see what other alums are up to. They did an upgrade a little while back and I noticed that entries are no longer attributed to the different authors on the blogs. Could you guys add that back? While you're at it, could you provide some contact information too?

Thanks,

Nate

I was searching the net the other day and found this page that was all pictures of Dogs in Cars . I thought it was cute and remembered a cute picture of Baxter from our road trip. I submitted the picture and now its up on the site. If you want to check it out, its in gallery 8, picture #80.

Today I found my first pass of comment spammers. In all 5 entries got spammed with a total of 29 spam comments. Only a few of the comments were actually links and they didn't go anywhere. Most of them just looked like bogus email addresses at refried.org. Clean up was pretty easy. We'll see if they come back for more.

Hey Eric, saw your entry on film processing. You might want to find a Ritz Camera store in your area. I use them for all of my digital prints and Heather started using them for film developing. They don't use the old chemical process. They digitially scan your film and print them out on high quality paper. Stop by one and talk to the manager sometime.

I found the Python Challenge web site via Lambda the Ultimate yesterday. It's a set of riddles that you solve using Python. I found it was a great way to try out different Python modules that I usually wouldn't use. I learned about the zip built-in function and how to use the Python Imaging Library.

Ever have one of those moments when you're watching TV and you think, "wasn't so-in-so in something-or-other?" When I have one of those moments I always head over to the Internet Movie Database. This week I was watching E.R. when I thought I saw the actress that played Kai Winn on Deep Space 9. I started looking around the guest appearences and started reading about Jeffrey Combs who played a lot of roles besides Weyoun in the Star Trek universe. I think I'm going to need to rewatch some episodes to see if I can recognize him.

JibJab has a new cartoon up called "Second Term." I don't think it's quite as good as the previous cartoons but it's cute none-the-less.