Reinke Faces Life

I have developed a mental process to minimize the opportunity for losing data when using MICROSOFT PUBLISHER2006.

Assuming that one wants to have local copy and an inet copy of the website developed, I have four steps to avoid it.

(1) Create a directory where ever your local data store is. Make sure that this gets backed up and moved off site.

(2) Create a website somewhere on the inet.

MICROSOFT PUBLISHER2006 allows one to pubish and “pack2go”.

(A) Publishing creates the website.

(B) PACK2GO creates the input to PUBLISHER that can be edited.

SO I am doing !A, 1B, 2A, and 2B.

Belt and suspenders for me. Not having a method cost me rework time of the past uses.

Your comments and opinions would be welcome.

http://tinyurl.com/lxu93

FWIW

I had to rebuild the navigation bar from scratch. Arghhh! But, at least now it’s working. Argh! Arghhhh!

(Always doing over. Not creating new stuff!)

It is apparent after many struggles that the navigation bar index on a website is not recreated after one updates the website.

I found the following on MICROSOFT:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP062535831033.aspx

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* You may have a slow Internet connection, or you may be experiencing problems with your Internet connection. Check your connection speed or try to log on to your Internet Service Provider again.
* If your Web site loads slowly when you publish updates, check to see whether you selected the Enable incremental publish to the Web option. This option allows you to publish updates to a previously published Web site quickly by uploading only the files that contain the changes you have made.

ShowHow?
1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Web tab.
2. Under Saving, select Enable incremental publish to the Web.

HideAfter I published my Web site, some features did not work.

You may have published to a Web server (Web server: A computer that hosts Web pages and responds to requests from browsers. Also known as an HTTP server, a Web server stores files whose URLs begin with http://.) that does not have the most recent version of the FrontPage Server Extensions from Microsoft. Without these server extensions, certain features will not work, such as Web forms.

Contact your Internet Service Provider or network administrator to find out if the Web server or network server that you are publishing to has the necessary server extensions.

HideI published my updated Web site to the Web, but I don’t see the changes I made.

If you try to publish an updated version of your Web site to the Web, and your changes do not appear, it may be because you made previous changes to your Web site files directly on the Web server (Web server: A computer that hosts Web pages and responds to requests from browsers. Also known as an HTTP server, a Web server stores files whose URLs begin with http://.) or the network server. If you made changes to your Web site directly on the server, you will not be able to publish later updates to the site from the original .pub file by using the Publish to the Web command. This is because the files that you changed on the server will no longer match up with the files that Publisher exports.

To update your Web site by using the Publish to the Web command, you will need to ensure that Publisher publishes your entire Web site, and not just the updates to the .pub file.

HideHow?

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Web tab.
2. Under Saving, clear the Enable incremental publish to the Web check box.

***End Quote***

This advice has no impact.

I’ll have to figure out how to force that update. Or each time one changes the site (no matter how small), it appears that it generates all new names for the subpages. That makes the pig point to the old page names in the navigation bar. This will make the product useless for it intended purpose. Or, one can go thru and manually rename the new files back to the navigation bar’s old names.

Arghhh!

Using Microsoft Publisher2003 to build websites is “good”. I’ve been using it ever since I misplaced my copy of Front Office. Tonight, I had the interesting experience of rebuilding a site.

(Don’t ask. A previously built sight apparently “went bad” when the service provider mucked up some required files.)

SO, I rebuilt it. But not until I had to recreate 9 pages virtually from scratch. It was entertaining. (More entertaining than watching the Yankees choke.)

I have the site mostly all rebuilt, I shipped it up to the website. Filezilla objected that two of the site’s files were “in use”. So I exited out of publisher to free them up. All well and good.

I looked at the refurbished site and saw a couple of minor glitches. No big deal. Trivial to fix.

I fire up publisher and I can’t get the site back in publisher format. I can see each of the ten or so pages individually, but I can get the site-wide view needed to fix them.

Arghhh.

Now I have to either redo them again or figure it out.

At least I have a working site. Wonder if anyone will notice the mistakes.

I blame what happened on publisher.

Arghhh!

Recently my GOTOMYPC installation at home developed dementia. It refused to acknowledge me remotely or in person. It kept sending me to time out asserting that I got the password wrong.

(I use ROBOFORM so I never forget passwords! And, every password is unique and complex and long. There are only a few online baking passwords that are true passwords. That is a shared secret. Not even ROBOFORM knows them. I’m a programmer. I know what can be done. I trust NO ONE that completely. Note to Pete: The online baking passwords, the ROBOFORM password, and other key passwords are in my safe. And, I told you where I have hidden the combination to that. See I trust NOBODY. Not even Pete, completely. Hope he can clean up my mess when I die. I’ll just have to be extra nice to him while I’m alive. Maybe he won’t say those special Irish prayers [aka bad words] after I’m dead.)

Any way, I asked for supprt and after a half a day I got a canned answer. I sent them a snotty gram in reply. (It was late and I was tired.) And, they responded saying “call them”. (Yeah, right. Like I am up for a good session of “please listen carefully because our menus have recently changed”. Running a restaurant? call ’em what?) So I “pressed 1” and went to bed.

This morning it magically works.

Hmmm, I am sure that the support folks did something. This doesn’t inspire confidence in its security, its availability, or its usefulness.

http://www.aimphoneline.com/index.adp?promo=778972&page=welcomeAIM PHONELINE

A personal, local free phone number you can give out to anyone — complete with always-on voicemail!

**Begin Quote***

Why Do I Need Another Phone Number?

Everyone worries about giving out their home or mobile number. Now you can give out your AIM Digits instead.
How Does It Work?

AIM Digits are part of the FREE AIM® Phoneline service. AIM Phoneline gives you a free, local telephone number that comes with always-on voicemail, delivered right to your e-mail box. On top of that, when you’re online, it lets you screen and answer calls, using your PC microphone and speakers.* It’s a completely free Internet Phone Service.
How Do I Get My AIM Digits?

It’s easy. Just register for the free AIM Phoneline service.

**End Quote***

Huh. Free! Local! Hmmm?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/32293870/social_networking_silver_bullet.php

Social Networking: Time For A Silver Bullet

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Today, social networks are enormously popular. The benefits can be seen at the multiplier level – people mentor each other through the formation of communities; and they network and inspire each other by example and input. Social networks protect people from the vastness of cyberspace and offer tools to find each other, organize and share information, or just keep in touch with friends.

Social networking sites have proliferated in the span of the past year. While I don’t have actual numbers, Wiikipedia tells us that there are at least two hundred social networks, with scores of new ones appearing each day. While some of these services focus on teens, others target individual professionals and some aim at organizations like businesses and graduate schools.

***End Quote***

Interesting summary.

I’m not sure what the values are. To me, the value is very very murky. I’m just not sure  there is ANY value. Other than a yellow pages type place to befound.

I understand that the old w95 bug is back in vista. A forged packet basically asking the new stack about itself with its own address causes the meltdown of the ip stack. I love it. It was a problem in w95 and fixed. Vista brags it has a completely rewritten ip stack and “recoded” the old error.

IMHO to rewrite an ip stack from scratch and make the exact same error has a zero probability. SO being the old skeptic I am, I don’t believe that it’s been rewritten!

… they are as hard to cancel as AOL!!

Please once they start billing your credit card you can’t get rid of them.

http://www.evernote.com

***Begin Quote***

easily capture, store and quickly access typed and handwritten memos, webpage excerpts, emails, phone messages, addresses, passwords, brainstorms, sketches, documents and more!

***End Quote***

Can’t beat the price and works neatly.

http://www.i-neighbors.org/index.php

***Begin Quote***

The FREE service that connects you with your neighbors and government officials. Click here to join.

Discover I-Neighbors communities near you.
Enter a Postal or ZIP Code:
Or Browse:
U.S.A and Canada

Over 6200 neighborhoods use I-Neighbors to:
# Meet and communicate with neighbors
# Contact elected officials
# Vocalize local concerns
# Organize events

***End Quote***

The answer is not much! It just languishes. A potential good idea that went no where. Who’s paying for it?

http://www.masternewmedia.org/new_media/new_media_tools/best_new_media_tools_of_the_week_20061001.htm

October 1, 2006

New Media Tools Of The Week: Sharewood Picnic 72

1. Rebtel http://www.rebtel.com/ is a VoIP service that allows you to call international numbers at $1.00 per week.

Nah, don’t call international!

2. iBloks http://www.ibloks.com/ is a service that enables you to edit your digital photos and mix music, videos, and games in 2D and 3D environments.

Nah, don’t do that.

3. Approver http://www.approver.com/ is a web-based service that allows you to share documents and ideas with friends and colleagues.

Maybe, That’s probably useful!

4. ZYB https://zyb.com/ is a online service that creates a backup of your mobile contacts and calendar and allows you to share them with whomever you want and manage your mobile.

Nah, doesn’t work with my phones.

5. iPrioritize http://www.iprioritize.com/ is a web-based service that lets you set up simple to-do lists to organize your tasks.

Nah, not free enough.

6. ImageSquash http://www.imagesquash.com/ is a web-based tool that allows you to upload images, resize them, and change their format.

Maybe, might be useful.

7. YouRep http://www.yourep.com/ is a site that allows upload, store and organize your photos.

Nah, too many photo sites already. And, now Kodak is saying you have to but one photo a year from them. Argh. Rules change.

8. SnipShot http://snipshot.com/ is a browser-based tool that enables you to edit big pictures (up to 10 MB, or 5000×5000 pixels).

Nah, no need.

9. PixSense http://beta.pixsense.com/main.ps is a web-based service that lets you share your photos and videos with your friends and family directly from your camera phone, from the web, via email or SMS.

Nah, no need.

10. Bloginfluence http://www.bloginfluence.net/en/ is a web service that enables you to check the popularity status of your website by providing traffic details and sites linking to it.

Maybe, Hmmm. I’d like to know some of that stuff. But, it might require more understanding than I have.

I love the weekly thought provoking from the Sharewood Picnic.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/09/google_unveils_.html

Thursday, September 28, 2006
Google Unveils Big RSS Reader Upgrade

***Begin Quote***

Google today dropped a big update to its feed reader. They’re characterizing their RSS reader as “your inbox for the Web,” which I kinda like. One of the big new features is that each user now gets their own public page where they can share feed items. It’s similar to Bloglines’ clip blogs. Another feature is feed discovery tool.

***End Quote***

Now I’m not a bonafide guru with a big following, just a plodding injineer. I tried the google reader that everyone seems so hopped up about. I found two things that seem to need some fixin.

(1) It doesn’t suck up the entire blog. I pointed it at mine that has about 800 entries. [Nothing as erudite as yours, which I enjoy reading. I ramble about anything that piques my interest.] And the new Google Reader, as well as the old one, knocks off at about 564. Seems like an “interesting feature” fmpov. [I’m an old mainframe guy and I like to see control total balance.] If it doesn’t read it all, then how do we know it didn’t drop one in the middle. Smarter people than I may find this behavior explainable. I bet not many people checked.

(2) I have about 12 categories defined in WordPress for the various topics I ramble on about. It’s interesting that the new Google Reader things all posting belong to category #1. Now one would think that it would know about those things. Doesn’t matter much to me because I put the category in the beginning of every title. It would seem that a shiny new reader would know all about categories and translate them into tags automagically.

Just from a quick look, I’m not overly impressed with Google Reader 2.0.

(What’s wrong with giving things version numbers? It’s seems so “orderly” to me.)

BTW what do you do when there is not inet connectivity? I’m of mixed emotion about web based stuff. If you don’t have the net, all you have is a glorified game boy. I sort of like FEEDBLITZing RSS feeds into my email box so I have them offline to read. imho!

But thanks for an interesting blog.

I’ve been doing my alumni ezine in Microsoft Word for several years. I write it in WORD. Then save it as a web page that I post on my site.

All of a sudden, in the last week or two, long urls in a table cell are no longer wrapping. They are shoving the table right edge to infinity.

Arghhh!

Manually going thru, putting a line break in the url, allows the page to resume the expected boundries.

Now the question is how did this change happen?

I don’t do automagic updates? So, did Microsoft slide a change in unbeknownst to me. I’m getting suspicious of the whole platform.

FEEDBLITZ allows you to turn an RSS feed into emails. Neat. One email per day. It’s a perfect way for me to capture my rantings. AND! My one Luddite friend using it can read all my meanderings from my blog in one email. Perfect.

Then, I explored what else can I do with it. I read two other blogs of people I know personally. They focus on quality; some stuff is quite profound. (I OTOH focus on stream of consciousness rambling; that is no focus at all; quality you can determine; certainly quantity; DIKW all jumbled together!) SO I feedbliz them. And, today, for the first time, I saw the flaw in my logic. The both produced something on the same day and FEEDBLITZ put them in the same email. ARGHHH!

I think I have a fix. GMail help me! I can use the + feature of a gmail address. FEEDBLITZ if it takes it will think they are unique addresses giving me one email per author per day. I’ll lose the complete look at my subscription list. But I could keep two addresses active and throw the merged one away. Hmmm?

Technoratti came up with a new way to claim your blog , as you might deduce from the last post, you have to put a message to them in it. Well that’s better than the old method that required some javascript. Since this is a free blog, WORDPRESS doesn’t allow javascript. So when I heard about the TECHNORATTI change I went and completed my change.

GRIPES:

(1) It thinks it was last updated 148 days ago. Not that I much care; I’m doing this for fun and to learn. But if this is the gold standard of technology, it has a long way to go. If my data is wrong, then which other sites are wrong.

(2) It takes an OPML file and then you can’t scroll down thru ones favorite. Clearly not a well thought out “feature”.

OK now I am bored with that. Let’s move on to something more interesting.

<a href=”http://www.technorati.com/claim/v3br36nwn7” rel=”me”>Technorati Profile</a>

I just “threw it up” and it seems to work nicely. I would have liked the install to easily put my working files where I wanted them, without a hassle. And, it would be nice if it would have sucked down my entire blog. And, it would be nice if it queued offline stuff. I understand it is the best one in this category.

It’s interesting. I kvetched that why should one trust an unknown third party to handle my data in route. I’m not sure that they solved my concern. It very nicely looks to windoze as a printer. It fools windoze into thinking its a printer. That seems to work correctly. On the other end, it does allow a printer to be defined.  And, it works nicely. Encryption does require the entry of a key value (password?) at the printing end. Man-in-the-middle is still possible. I’m not sure how you overcome that. Thinking about symmetric and asymmetric methods, I can’t think of how they over come it. But, they did do something.

Vol. 6, #39 – Sep 26, 2006 – Issue #246
WXPnews
Sunbelt Software
Clearwater, Florida USA 33755

***Begin Quote***

Do you use accessibility programs, or know someone who does? What additional accessibility options would you like to see built into Windows, or made available as freeware/shareware? Do you have favorite accessibility programs you’d like to recommend? Let us know at feedback@wxpnews.com.

***End Quote***

Arghhh. I’m not visually impaired … yet. But, I, and all the optometrists I’ve ever spoken to about the topic have agreed, the visual geometry and and capabilities of the personal computer stink.

Web browsers and email clients and most software don’t allow one to adjust the display as needed.

Don’t give me a machine capable of lots of resolutions from 800×600, to my current 1280×800, and up to a 1900×1200, that either requires the use a of a magnifying glass or won’t fit a normal group of icons.

It stinks!

Tuning all this is an art form. Change one setting or run certain programs and you’re either blind or down in the weeds.

Every program has it’s own settings and does displays differently.

For example, LookOut does it’s own things (sometimes) and shares some settings with Windoze. It’s very frustrating; has been; and I expect will be in the future.

Arghhh!

TECH: WORDPRESS appears to have lost my morning’s posts

Argh!

I wrote a few pearls this morning. As is my usual practice, I looked to see then in the routine display. Once I saw them in the main page, I moved along to other things.

When I looked at the site this evening, they were AWOL. I don’t know what happened, but I have to move on. I thought they were pretty good, but there’s no copy I can find.

Argh!

I’ll be kvetching, and looking, and trying to recover. But I’m moving on. I’ll have to figure out a better process to avoid it on my side of the glass!

Argh!

http://www.masternewmedia.org/new_media/new_media_tools/best_new_media_tools_of_the_week_20060924.htm

September 24, 2006
New Media Tools Of The Week: Sharewood Picnic 71

1. Voxlib http://www.voxlib.com/ enables you to use Skype from your mobile phone

>>>> Nah, I don’t “do” skype.

2. Flixn http://www.flixn.com you can record from your webcam and post on blogs

>>>> Maybe, but I’m one ugly dude. For the “beautiful people”?

3. CrazyEgg http://crazyegg.com/ enhance your site performances

>>>> Nah, my site’s a monologue.

4. Zoho Projects http://www.zohoprojects.com/ web-based service; teams organize

>>>> Nah! Put my delays and overruns on display?

5. Crickee http://www.crickee.com/ send free SMS from your mobile

>>>> Nah! Don’t “do” sms.

6. FeedShow http://www.feedshow.com/ remunerate publishers

>>>> Nah! Don’t publisher anything much.

7. Tinypic http://tinypic.com/ video and image hosting service

>>>> Maybe, I do create pictures from time to time.

8. ResizR http://resizr.lord-lance.com/ resize your pictures

>>>> Maybe, if I remember it, for the next time I need something like that.

9. Photoblog http://www.photoblog.com/ photo sharing service

>>>> Nah, nothing to be gained by another one.

10. TrendyFriendy http://www.trendyfriendy.com/ publishers sharing Google AdSense

>>>> Nah, see #6, no one cares what I write!

Thanks, Luigi Canali De Rossi, for challenging me to think about what I can use.

http://langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-09-25.htm

The LangaList
Standard Edition
Another Expanded Issue!
2006-09-25

***Begin Quote***

Outlook is designed to open attachments only after copying the file to disk (for security, stability and recovery). Opening attachments prompts Outlook to create a “super hidden” folder (which Microsoft calls an “Outlook Secure Temporary File folder”) with a filename that begins with OLK (apparently an abbreviation for “Outlook”) and ends with a randomly generated string of characters. This is where the copy will be made and stored temporarily. At least that’s the design— these files are not deleted by Outlook right away if the attachment file is still open when you close Outlook.***End Quote***

Argh. A directory structure hidden away and unfindable. Wonder how muck space this crud is occupying?

It’s no secret that I think LookOut, my pet name for Microsoft Outlook, … sucks … it really does. Sorry but I couldn’t think of a polite way to say it. Not only does it lock up from time to time, it’s a hog, does unpredictable things, and puts a obstacles in the way of getting things done. Not only that, BUT, it tends to make one THINK in terms of what it can do; NOT in terms of the things that should be done; or the way things ought to be done; or even the way things should be organized to get things done.

FEEDBLITZ has opened up my thinking to perhaps the best way to “do” rss is not with an aggregator or a reader, but with our old friend email. Hmmm?

Now if we just had a good email client!!!