Category Archives: geekspeak

site-related techspeak, computer crap, other technical garble not of interest to the general populace.

geekspeak

Weekend of Techie Goodness

It was Saturday evening, after a scrumptious dinner of Vietnamese deliciousness. We had come home from dinner and Starbucks, and had been snuggling on the couch, having a quiet evening together, talking.

I was looking at the packages under the tree; one smallish box in particular was wrapped in this year’s signature “From Diana To Aaron” wrapping paper. And this present was mocking me. I couldn’t let it sit there for another three weeks. I had to give it to him TONIGHT.

So I did. I gave Aaron his new 8GB iPhone as an early Christmas present — partly because I wanted him to have it sooner rather than later, and partly because it would be wasteful to be paying for this month’s voice and data plans while it was just sitting there under the tree.

He loves the shit out of his new toy, and he’s already texted his BFF several times (OK, guys don’t have BFFs, but you know what I mean). Hell, he even went and signed up on Twitter. He might even get a Facebook account next! Who the hell knows.

I don’t think it lessens his joy one bit that I went out and bought an 8GB iPhone for myself after lunch today, and signed us up for the Family Plan. If anything, shared joy is doubled. Right?

We spent the weekend setting up our new toys, learning how to make ringtones, downloading apps, texting (that was mostly him), using the wifi at Starbucks, and generally making the leap to “real” cellphones from our old prepaid jobbies. We even have camera phones now! Holy shit.

This is going to be fun.

site-related 3 Comments

Website Unb0rked

Hey! How about that? A simple suggestion (go back to static publishing instead of trying dynamic) proved to be the answer. I really should have thought of it myself, but I was so intent on making it work the one way I wanted.

So, you can now access my blog at http://www.dianaschnuth.net or https://blog.dianaschnuth.com — they both point to the exact same place. Comments work again, feeds should no longer do funky things, and all is well.

I can now go back to posting normal blog entries and waiting with bated breath for my regulars to post comments. Oh, yes, and I can also go back to finishing my website redesign.

site-related

Website Still Broken

For the sake of my RSS / LJ subscribers, I’m going to leave my website broken for now. Individual entries are broken, categories are broken, and basically the only things that work right are the main page and the RSS feed. (Well, except those extra 15 duplicate entries that came down the pike tonight.)

So, until the nice gentleman from the MT forums comes through with another idea for me, or until I come across the answer elsewhere on teh intarwebs, I’ll just leave it like this. Anyone who would really want to comment on anything can either e-mail me or hit me on Twitter. Or Facebook. Or MySpace. I’m not hard to reach.

Come to think of it, maybe you should hit me up on one of those places even if you weren’t going to comment. The beauty of social networking isn’t so much that you make fake friends, or that you pretend to be closer to the friends and acquaintances you have, but that it’s that much easier to get in contact with people. Think about that.

site-related 2 Comments

Success!

If you can see this entry, that means my domain has successfully propagated to point to my new server. Yay!

I’m sure there will be some broken things on the site. Files missing, homegrown databases yet to be restored, other indignities of that nature. Just shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment somewhere, and I’ll address the problem as time permits.

Once things are back to how they used to be, I plan to do a major overhaul of the site. You folks who subscribe via RSS probably won’t notice much, but anyone who visits the page will see the first big blog redesign in the past three years.

I just saved myself over $100 per year by moving servers. How about that shit?

Update, just before midnight: Well, almost success, anyway. I have some troubleshooting to do regarding my fancy new add-on domain and Movable Type. If I use the add-on domain or its corresponding subdomain (dianaschnuth.net or blog.dianaschnuth.com), MT gives me a 500 Internal Server Error. If I don’t use one of those, and I use dianaschnuth.com/blog instead, I break all the links in my archive pages. Most notably, my stylesheets.

Argh!

otaku 1 Comment

Providence Anime Conference: Artists Alley

Since I don’t have a great track record of finishing giant long entries about my travels in general, I’m planning to write several shorter entries about PAC instead of doing one giant con report. (If you’d like one long con report, feel free to listen to Aaron and me on his podcast, “live” from our hotel room.)

The Artists Alley is a staple at anime conventions. For those readers who haven’t had the privilege of attending a con, the Artists Alley generally consists of talented (and not-so-talented) anime fans, selling either fan art or original art, in almost any media you can imagine. In the past, Aaron and I have bought prints, figurines, hats, boxes, t-shirts, and probably other things, too. Usually, though, we skip past much of the original art and the fan-art bookmarks and buttons.

TotoroWe were pleasantly surprised to find several artists at PAC with unique and skilled reinterpretations of some of our favorite characters, as well as some really compelling original works. Shelli Paroline was the artist behind the official conference graphics (as far as I know), and was selling and displaying some great ink drawings of Totoro, Star Wars, One Piece, and original creations. I really wanted to buy a print of her interpretation of Luke and R2-D2, but she didn’t have any more on hand to sell. Neither did she have any more copies of her great Ewok print. So, I satisfied myself with the Totoro print.

I also highly enjoyed Stephanie Yue‘s prints; most of the ones that caught my eye were super-cute original drawings of martial arts as done by mice. I bought an 11×17 poster of 24 Posture Mouse Tai Chi Chuan — I haven’t done the 24-form in years, but watching the mousie do it reminded me of how it goes. There was also a great print of two mousies sparring, and one doing a hip-throw on the other. (Poor mousie — I’ve been on the receiving end of a hip-throw myself, and it’s a little scary, IMO.)

Sharing a table with Stephanie was Zack Giallongo, from whom Aaron bought a Megaman poster. It has a great cel-painted look about it, and has an intricate background full of Megaman villains, bosses, and bad guys.

Also in the Artist Alley was Alison Wilgus. Alison is a friend of the Ninja Consultants, and we met her through them at Otakon two years ago. Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything we were interested in buying at the time, but we did enjoy shooting the shit about the con and the panels we attended. Interestingly enough, we seemed to have attended completely opposite panels, but enjoyed the panels we attended equally.

All in all, the Artists Alley at the Providence Anime Conference was small but awesome, from my point of view. I don’t usually buy anything from Artists Alley (excepting the massive Artists Alley at Otakon), so buying two prints (and wishing I could have bought more) is a pretty big deal.

Still to cover: panels, accommodations, and the overall “feel” of the con. Stay tuned…