A Day Late

We had an interesting discussion in my Software Design class on Friday. We were discussing the role and necessity of “politics” in the workplace. I have to admit, politics really has a negative connotation for me, and I think it does for most people. Before class I’d have probably defined it something like “attempting to make yourself look better than others, often at their expense.” However, we were discussing it under more positive terms (some might disagree if there is such a thing).

Basically my instructor wanted us to realize that “politics” is essential in everything you do, particularly in business. He said anytime you adapt, or change the way you interact, with one person you’re essentially participating in politics. If you had asked me before class what I thought of “office politics” I probably would have become pretty emphatic in my disgust. However, I’d never thought of it in the terms we were discussing.
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I was browsing for some SmartMedia cards to add to my iPaq today. I’d like to get at least a 128mb or 256mb card so I can load a bunch of MP3’s on my iPaq and use it like a “walkman” when I go to the gym. I found a 256mb card for around $66.00 which isn’t too bad. As I was looking, the thought occurred to me how much things have changed since I got my first computer. Our first family computer was a CompuAd 286 12mhz system with a 40MB hard drive. I remember at the time we got it, 20MB hard drives were the standard but we splurged for the larger drive. It’s hard to believe that the iPaq I tuck in my day planner not only has significant more computing power, but almost double the storage capacity of that first computer. Aren’t we all grateful for Moore’s Law? I know I am!

Rich Finlinson mentioned an entry he came across about how trackback works. It’s good to know. I searched for something like this for a while one day but didn’t come up with much. It’s good to be reassured I actually knew what trackback was and how it worked. Now I just need to start using it more often.

March is almost over and that means it’s time to register my car again. Fortunately, Utah has come a long way at providing online services for the residents. One of which is RenewalExpress, which I’m convinced was made for procrastinators like myself who wait till the very last day of the month to renew their registration. It’s a pretty slick system. I still have to go get my emissions and, every other year, a safety inspection but the rest can be done online. You simply enter the “Pin” from your registration notice and the certificate # from the emissions certificate, type in your credit card information and print out the PDF registration form, tape it in your window and you’re done! Although I almost cursed when I noticed they tacked on a $3.00 “convenience fee,” but figured it was worth it. Having the government take my money has NEVER been so easy!

Even better than this was renewing my drivers license online (although I can’t remember the link for that). I honestly remember thinking, when I renewed my license when I was 19, “only 5 more years and I’ll be standing in these damn slow moving lines again.” Well, fortunately for me, I didn’t need to get a new picture taken so I was able to renew it online. By the way, the whole not needing a new drivers license picture thing is a matter of opinion (my picture at 19 looks NOTHING like me now, I get double takes from people everytime they ask to see some ID). Maybe I should post my “before” and “after” pictures sometime.

I’ve noticed on a few blogs, using movabletype, that have added a “Permalink” link at the end of their entry to link to the actual entry itself. This comes in handy when you want to link to an entry. In the past when I’ve done this, I’ve had a little trouble finding out what the link to a particular entry is. So, I figured I’d spend a few minutes today and try and figure out how to create a permalink for each entry on the index page and the category pages. Well…turns out they were already there to begin with. Apparently the default Movabletype template uses the time of the entry as a link to the permanent entry. I decided this wasn’t as intuitive as I’d like (since I never found it before), so I modified the following in my index template and category archive template:

<div class=”posted”>Posted by <$MTEntryAuthor$> at <a href=”<$MTEntryPermalink$>”><$MTEntryDate format=”%X”$></a>

to be:

<div class=”posted”>Posted by <$MTEntryAuthor$> at <$MTEntryDate format=”%X”$>
<a href=”<$MTEntryPermalink$>”>Permalink</a>

As you can see, I now have a nice “Permalink” at the bottom of each entry. Go ahead, try it out!

I was walking to my Computer Graphics class on friday afternoon and noticed both my shoelaces were untied. Rather than risk the extra 50 feet to the classroom I decided to sit down on a bench and tie them. Not too exciting, right? Class was alright, but as I was getting up to leave I grabbed my book bag and reached for my day planner, only to realize it wasn’t there. I know what you’re thinking, so you lost your day planner replacing that would cost $50 or so (my schedule isn’t that valuable). Well…the fact my iPaq was inside my day planner was what caused a little distress on my part. I quickly realized I probably left it sitting on the bench where I tied my shoelaces but returned to find it no where in sight. As a last hope I stopped by the Lost and Found to see if it had been turned in, which it hadn’t.
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The system I use to monitor my apache server allows me to see what search strings people type in, which lead them to my site. Now that I’ve been up and running for a few months, they’re starting to get interesting. By far, the most popular search string is “blinddatetv” in regards to the entry I posted on my friends creating a blinddatetv.com account for me. I’m getting so many referrers, that I decided to go do a google search just to see how high I was ranked. Turns out I’m ranked 2nd, right behind a link to the actual blinddatetv.com site. Not bad. Unfortunately I noticed that it referenced my blog index page and not the actual entry. Since the entry was removed from the index page long ago, it no longer shows up when people click on the link. I’m not exactly sure how to solve this problem. Actually, there’s probably no way to solve it. It’s a little frustrating, when people type in the search string it would be nice if they were directed to the specific entry.

A few of the search strings are technically related. For instance I’ve got quite a few about the error message I was getting in my error logs back in January, that I resolved by recrimping the cable. This and similar search strings are good to see. It’s nice to know my blog is becoming somewhat of a technical resource. I remember when I was trying to find information on that error message my searches were basically coming up empty. I could find a few that described the error but didn’t come across many that provided causes or solutions. I’m glad I could help feel the void.

Yes, my blog is suffering from neglect. This is my first entry in a week and it’s a blog entry about not writing blog entries (which obviously doesn’t count). It’s not that I’ve lost interest in blogging, I’ve just been busy and I also came down with a nasty chest cold that’s been spreading through Utah Valley. Fortunately I think the worst is behind me. Anyway…hopefully there should be more entries coming SOON!