Blogging via phone.

In a size- and cost-cutting measure, I'm using a not very smart phone, and pushing the text capabilities as far as I can. You can expect short, badly spelled entries if I decide to do much blogging by phone. Usually I just send notes for a blog entry to my email and then flesh them out and fix the spelling when I'm at a full-size computer. The other very useful text message option is to text to the to-do list site I use, remember the milk.

For example, here's something I emailed to myself via text message from my family reunion. My middle name, Conley, used to be spelled in the more common Irish manner, Connolly, until there were two men with the same name in a county in rural Maryland. My ancestor renamed himself in the mid 1800s.

Another good story from the reunion: our geneologist cousin kept noting the men who had big ideas but not much money and their habit of marrying rich women. I was more intrigued by the idea that I come from a line of women who marry outsiders.

Deep Gym Thoughts

1. "Tainted Love" has perfect tempo for my pace. "I must not think bad thoughts" (by X) is pretty good too.
   
2. Based on my years-long observations, I suggest that individuals with severe, uncontrolled, persistent flatulence might want to look, at the very least, for an uncrowded gym. Am I being fascistic here? I'm talking about a pretty extreme case.
   

Sync contacts and calendar - Verizon K1m, and (sigh) Windows

First install Motorola drivers from here:

http://mark.cdmaforums.com/1-USBDriver.htm

Then follow directions here (which tell you how to run bit pim and convince it you have a v3cm phone):

http://www.howardforums.com/showpost.php?p=8925092&postcount=230

That post says you can sync the phone book. For me it also worked for calendar, although I had to remove all punctuation from my calendar events (which I downloaded from google).
Also, by copying "wallpaper" to my local computer, I downloaded pictures and was then able to export them to a folder. I didn't try copying ringtones. I did try copying sms but had no luck, and no error in the log.

Now all I need to do is get it to work under linux and I'll be all set. Actually, In a perfect world, when I connect my phone to the computer to charge at night, it would automatically (with the aid of scripting) bidirectionally sync with google calendar and a local contact information source AND my google email address book. i'm loath to put anything on the internet (even in my gmail account) that doesn't really need to be there.

The dog who wasn't one

How weird is it for a dog to like to ride backward in the car? I think it's extremely weird. I've never seen it before. He sits calmly, LOOKING OUT THE BACK WINDOW, watching the world recede from him. But then, he also watches me in the mirror when I'm brushing my teeth, so we're just going to have to agree that he's got lots of mutations.

marstons restaurant

marstons restaurant
Originally uploaded by _buttercup

i finally ate at marston's. it was all that. we had omelets, oatmeal, bread pudding and cobbler, which is featured in this picture. the cobbler was peach and berry. the wait was long, and i was so hungry that i ate too much of my early orders. by the food was as good as reputed.

Frog!

0620071159b-1
Originally uploaded by _buttercup

I took this with my camera phone, which means I was quite close. What's wrong with frogs these days! They shouldn't let strangers just approach like that.

You've got to stop with the cute thing...

...because it's kind of freakish.

The dog is the subject of abusive love-talk. He doesn't seem to mind.

Weather alerts

7-DAY FORECAST

Pasadena, CA

Date		Forecast	Hi	Lo	POP
Tue Jun 19		Partly Cloudy	82°F	60°F	0%
Wed Jun 20		Partly Cloudy	85°F	61°F	0%
Thu Jun 21		Sunny	87°F	65°F	10%
Fri Jun 22		Sunny	88°F	65°F	10%
Sat Jun 23		Sunny	88°F	65°F	10%
Sun Jun 24		Sunny	86°F	66°F	10%
Mon Jun 25		Sunny	87°F	66°F	0%

1) i really like the new format of the weather channel's news alerts - i hate having to wade through junk to get the simple info i want
2) the weather is going to be hot this week. ick.

Speaking of backing up before editing...

This is my favorite new shell script. I wrote it myself, but after reading many people's suggestions and documentation. I use it when I am going to edit configuration files. I have a directory called "setting-backup" that I store the copies in. Each file is given its original name plus the date and time, all the way down to the second. That way, if you can make several changes in a minute, you can save a copy between each change. For most people this would probably be more useful for documents. The script:

#!/bin/bash
# script=bk
#parameter $1 is the existing file name
#dt=`date +%y%m%d`
#mv $1 $1$dt
cp $1 ~/computer/setting-backup/

`basename $1`-`date +%Y-%m-%d_%H.%M.%S`

#usage: bk.sh myfile
#must be run from directory of original file
#produces myfile070602

Open Firefox downloads

With Kubuntu Feisty and Firefox 2.0, if I asked Firefox to open the containing folder of the download, it would use some wonky and unusual file manager. Thanks to the "Firefox + KDE" entry on this blog, I got it fixed. Before I share the solution, remember to backup any files you edit! The solution:

$ cp /usr/share/applications/kde/kfmclient_dir.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop

Then, open nautilus-folder-handler.desktop and edit the mime-types line to read:

MimeType=x-directory/gnome-default-handler;inode/directory

Sweet!

wrong location, dog

wrong location, dog
Originally uploaded by _buttercup

i love this picture. he actually happily gets in his crate, but in this instance he decided to billy-goat around the car. doof.