For instance I’ve been attempting to use Windows Live Mesh to sync up data on my various computers.  This has been a nightmare.  It is a memory hog and currently has a poor file conflict resolution interface.  I’m switching back to Windows Live Sync (formerly known as Foldershare).

Also, I’ve successfully moved all of my old Outlook e-mail from old workplaces and old Thunderbird e-mail (personal e-mail) into Gmail via their IMAP protocols.   This was a major pain in the butt because of a number of factors.  I had attempted to import Outlook e-mail into Thunderbird first which resulted in missing e-mail headers in Google.  So I had to use Outlook to  move the Outlook e-mail (follow Google’s setup exactly or be frustrated for both Outlook and Thunderbird).

Thunderbird 2.0 failed to move large numbers of my saved e-mails at one time and dying with batches less than 50, so I loaded the Thunderbird 3.0 beta to load batches.  This worked well until I discovered 3.0 beta fails to transfer to Google when it encounters empty subjects lines.  Eventually with this figured out I returned to 2.0 to transfer the remaining couple of hundred e-mail there were empty subject line transfers worked.

Add to that I have a digital archive of thousand of photos from Hawaii that I’ve yet to sort through and albumize the roots of my internet paralysis should be somewhat clearer.  That said I truly hope to post my photo albums from the last year or so on Flickr over the Christmas holiday.

What’s changed:

The monkeyproject.com, raveller.com and halfclosedeye.com entries have been imported and merged from Blogger into WordPress.  All 3 domain names will take you here.  I did this to utilize the ComicPress written specifically for WordPress comic archives.  This transition was also less than seamless as many of my older posts were ported directly from HTML I maintained and the easy Blogger import missed a few entries I had to manually import.  Also ComicPress gets confused when the Comic category is a subcategory so my desired to be able to click the “all” link on the right and have all my posts and comics inter-weaved when viewing a category has been thwarted.  All of these things may go away with later versions, but the overall software is still pretty fantastic.  The amount of time I’ve spent writing my own code to run websites for last 10 years has been fairly substantial and to have software that does what I “manually” did for so long take the burden off of me is a great relief.

If a link to the old monkeyproject forums isn’t up when you read this it soon will be.   There are mechanisms to integrate WordPress and phpBB but I’m not sure I want to do that.  There may be dead links in the old articles and that’s due to the mercurial nature of the Internet.  I tried to eliminate them as much as I could when cleaning up formatting but you can’t save them all.

I have also integrated my old Opinions by James humor pieces into the blog format so there’s that as well.  I’d like to save as many of old pages as I can by integrating them as older articles.  I’d also like to title the monkeyproject comics as much as possible.  But that’s another project.

Personally

Sandi and I have been married for 8 months now and it’s great!  We’re still sorting out the office and the garage after working on lots of the other stuff.  I may have pictures up of that eventually, but anyone who hasn’t seen the house would be surprised at the makeover.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

]]> http://www.jameshuckaby.com/?feed=rss2&p=128 0 http://www.jameshuckaby.com/?p=127 http://www.jameshuckaby.com/?p=127#comments Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:29:00 +0000 james http://wordpress.raveller.com/?p=127 I haven’t told anyone anything in awhile in a permanent internet front page sort of way. That all changed today due to a little Firefox plug-in called ScribeFire (see raveller.com for details). But then again the updates to this thing are at an Annual pace now. I push most of my pictures to Flickr which may be one of the greatest things since sliced bread. I avoid the myspace and other assorted outlets. I mean I started this darn thing 10 years ago. This page in particular. 10 years of having stuff blinking under the The Half Closed Eye. It’s weird to think about.

Anyway on to news!
I am dating someone awesome. I have changed jobs. I’ve seen Jeff Tweedy and Son Volt live this year. I am going to Hawaii. I am learning to Scuba dive. I teach Judo about 3 nights of the week. I am going to Austin City Limits Music Festival again this year. I have two dogs. My sister now lives in Lawton. I’m over a third of century old. I like desserts and pizza and beer.

I’m getting out to the ACL Music Fest again in September with my sister and Jon and Jennifer Jacks and perhaps Steve and Dana Arric and possibly other people as well. It should be a good time. I’m torn about getting Built to Spill tickets for the Cain’s the week before or after. I’m almost contractually obligated to go see them though after pushing them on so many people.

Wilco played the Bricktown Event Center. My sister, the girl I was talking about, Cory (Ubermench from the Forum) and I caught that show and it was freakin’ awesome.

Billy Idol played the Brady (here in Tulsa). Brian passed out from working hard so I stole his ticket and went with Stewart and his sister. It was rock-tastic. And I just got back from Wakarusa with Renee. You can read the festival report here.

So overall a Rockin’ Spring! More music news later relating to music releases and so on. I’ve probably already posted most of this to the Board.

Isaac Brock and crew (Eric Judy, Jeremiah Green, at al.) simply put on the tightest, most powerful music show of any band I’ve seen, time and time again. The music is beautiful and the lyrics insightful but the primal aggression the band exudes takes it to another level. This is not a rock show for the faint of heart. The kiddies who caught the singles on the radio were wholly unprepared for the relentless wave of rock that surged outward from the stage at the Cain’s Ballroom, unprepared for the intensity of Brock‘s vocals, unprepared for what they will come to know as the greatest rock experience of their lives: The Mouse in a what most consider the greatest rock music venue in Oklahoma playing to a packed, sold-out house. It was phenomenal.

There were two opening acts, the first a crappy garage Cure knock-off (music stylings, not hair stylings) called Cass McCombs, the second a dude named Mason Jennings and his bassist and drummer. Jennings had a good solid rock show, great vocals and awesome rock when the band cut loose. I get the feeling he’s more of a singer-songwriter than a straight rocker, but he’s definitely worth
a look-see and listen. I’d like to see what he’d do with a full two hour set.

Reverend Horton Heat was pretty killer at the Cain’s a couple of weeks or two ago with the washboard-punk novelty act of Throw Rag opening up for them. One time live will probably be enough for those guys and me. Sweaty bare blubbered fat guys should be reserved for the Sumo mat. Tonight Starlights Mints are playing at the Venue. I don’t know if I’m going to make it. But I’ve got tickets for the following: Ben Folds next Thursday, Feb. 10 at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Modest Mouse Monday, Feb 21 at the Cain’s Ballroom (SOLD OUT) and Wilco Monday, April 25 at the Bricktown Event Center in OKC.

With all respect to Dick Clark, it should be a rocking New Year.

Pelts and I made a Friday night roadie up to KC to catch the Pixies (again for me, first time for him) two weeks after the ACL Fest. The Thrills opened. They were solid enough musically, but the front man was annoying between songs and the band didn’t convey that much energy. But then the Pixies came out and rocked in what I would call a Top-Ten if not a Top-Five concert experience ever for me. Pictures are forth-coming for that as well.

Oh yeah, at the beginning of the September I saw Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. Willie was good, Bob was incomprehensible. The Hot Club of Cowtown opened.

Along that vein Wilco has released A Ghost Is Born on their website following the massive leak of the album to file-sharing networks. Instead of railing against the so-called “evils” of file-sharing, Wilco had some fansites open up Paypal donations to Doctors Without Borders as a symbolical payment for the download. I think that’s just damn cool. Also the album is good stuff, if not great. I’m not putting it in YHF territory yet, but it may get there.

The Ben Folds concert last night in Tulsa rawked my sawks off and I don’t even know what Rawk and Sawk mean. I assume they are the Coy and Vance to Rock and Sock’s Bo and Luke. The allusions to Rock’em Sock’em robots can now be thrown in at will. Anyway, the Foldsy one has released 3 EPs prior to his LP release later this year. I recommend the Sunny 16. It is excellent.

And also, I got my Modest Mouse goods. Good News… is undeniably great and I’ll put word on the Forums when I finish listening to the Baron Von Bullshit live album a couple of times. Oh look: Forums have returned. There should be a link on the sidebar to them soon. If you can’t see it you are the first to read this besides me or near to it.

All these will arrive at my door sometime today or in the following days. I’m resisting the urge to go buy an extra copy of “Good News” after work today.

You can check out the video for their infectious new single “Float on” at:

Modest Mouse Bootlegs

You can check out the band at:

Modest Mouse “Epic” label site

and:

Modest Mouse band site

You can check out a vicious interview with the lead man Isaac Brock by the Onion AV Club

I backed my car into a cop-car the other day…