Mind the Gap


Ramblings on random topics, and maybe something new.

Rethinking Workflow Using Cloud

MacBook, unsplash.com

Do you find yourself fighting your editor? The common text editors of today work quite well as long you work they way they want you to. Yet, when you stray from their paradigm, even when they seem to offer infinite flexibility, it can be a chore to get even simple things done. What is a developer to do?


360voice Is Gone

Mind the Gap

While working on a new theme for my Reid’s for Fun site, I flipped over to my 3v sub-domain to check something. While there, I noticed that all the user bars were failing with an API error. I quickly jumping over to the 360voice site and found it dead. Only the “Safari Can’t Connect to Server” error stared back at me.


Subtle Updates and Other Historical Back Steps

Mind the Gap

I spent the last two days watching football and fixing up a few odds & ins around my sites. Probably the biggest change is the top menu. I’ve tried to match the style across each major site, including font and minor format changes. I also added my 360voice Dynamic Usersbars as a top-level site.



Dish PPV Highlights Userbar

Mind the Gap

Sometime back I created an animated userbar that showed the current PPV movies on Dish. Sadly, soon afterwards Dish changed their support pages to require a login, breaking my script. Sure, I could log in to get the information, but that kind of defeats the purpose. I decided to try to at least get the UB working again, even if not the full movie list.


My Mac Wanna Be

My Mac Wanna Be

I geeked out a bit today by loading Ubuntu onto an old laptop that I’d been having problems running Windows on. Seems the issue was a bad hard drive as it started to slam the drive head against the stop during the first installation. I pulled a drive from another broken laptop to fix that problem and started over.


MGC Shuttered

Mind the Gap

It came to light that another Xbox 360 site is shuttering their doors: MyGamerCard.net. I was using an MGC gamer card on this site for years due to oddities with the official one from Xbox. I dropped it recently as I didn’t feel it was as important to my site anymore, but I really enjoyed the stats MGC provided and I stilled used my MGC userbar as a forum signature. Sad times indeed.


Watching the Guild

Mind the Gap

I recently stumbled across The Guild. Yes, I'm a few years behind, but I got hooked and am now on Season 4. Although I don't play MMO's, I can still relate from my RPG roots. The production value is excellent and writing is spot on. Worth a watch, even if you aren't a gaming nerd.



Reliving Childhood: Macross

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Much to my surprise, I finally figured out one of the other cartoons I used to watch when I was Italy. Along with Daitarn 3 I remembered watching another show with a ship that accidentally pulled a city with them. Sadly, searching for such a broad term was a bit harder than I thought.


Having a Few Words with Wordle

Wordle of Reid's for Fun by Steven Reid

I ran across Wordle while pursuing other Flickr photos. I was intrigued and decided to give it a whirl. I’d been avoiding installing Java on my machine due to my distaste for the poorly coded apps that tend to use it, but my desire to give Wordle a try overcame my desire to remain Java free. I ran it against my site with interesting results.



Fun with Z-Code (aka Inform)

Mind the Gap

Okay, I’ve been a fan of adventure games, and specifically Infocom games, for most of my life. I have fond memories of playing great games such as “Planet Fall” and “Zork” when I was in high school on my C64. However, even before playing those games, I was playing and writing games on my ZX81 using a very simple adventure engine.


Fun with iOS 4

Mind the Gap

I’ve been waiting patiently to upgrade my iPod Touch to iOS4 today. Now, as a long time network engineer, IOS has always been Cisco’s CLI. So, it was a bit weird installing iOS on an Apple product. But in the end, it was worth the wait and the install. Some common issues I had with the previous


Making My Blog CO2 Neutral, and You Can Too

Making My Blog CO2 Neutral, and You Can Too

]Here’s an interesting idea, plant a tree and offset the carbon emissions produced by your blog. And, even better, you can make it happen for free! That is the premise behind Mach's grün's Carbon Neutral campaign. Just blog about their initiative and the “Arbor Day Foundation,” their partner in the US, will plant a tree in the Plumas National Forest on your behalf.


Are You a Nerd or a Geek?

Are You a Nerd or a Geek?

This funny article was tweeted by Major Nelson and it was too rich not to pass on. FINALLY: The Difference between Nerd, Dork, and Geek Explained by a Venn Diagram provides a visually comprehensive way to determine the correct usage of those oft hard to pick social epitaphs you are bound to throw my way.


All Is Well In 64bit Land

Mind the Gap

Well, I’m finding the 64bit version of Windows 7 works pretty well. I have most of my applications running again, using the 64bit versions if I could find them. The SSD drive is working great and I'm just using an external drive enclosure to get around the space limitations.


64bit and SSD Fun!

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I was honored with a 128GB SSD drive today and I just had to give it a try. Since I can only have one drive in my laptop, I decided I’d swap out the old one and, while I was at it, spin up a 64bit version of Windows 7 on it as well. I’m curious to see how things will work.


So Long GeoCities, Thanks For The Memories

Mind the Gap

Well, as of today my GeoCities site of the last 12 years is no more. I’m a bit saddened as it has been a place of comfort, seeing me through different ISP’s and such. It is because of GeoCities that I use Yahoo! mail, even if Yahoo! then turned around and removed the best features of GeoCities. I still feel that GeoCities was killed many years ago by Yahoo! and that it was only kept around due to its legacy. I’m not surprised by its shuttering in these times of Web 2.0 and the emergence of the Social Internet site.


LEGO and ZX81 Geocities Content Moved

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Yahoo! will be shutting down Geocities tomorrow, 10/26/09, which means an end to my old LEGO and ZX81 website. Although I hadn’t updated those sites much since Yahoo! turned off ftp access, Geocities had remained my presence on the web for almost 12 years. Sad to say, it will be sad to see it go.


Spammers Unwanted Again

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Well, seems a few resourceful folks are still getting by my spam filter. Not sure if they are real people solving the Captcha or something automated. My guess is that it is real people. I'm seeing only a couple of posts on random articles causing me to go hunt down and delete the offending stuff.


Fun In The Rain?

Fun In The Rain?

Well, seems my vacation has run into a tiny bit of a wet spree? While where I left roasts in 100+ degree weather, I’m enjoying a balmy high 60ish rainy day. I can take comfort in knowing that at least I’m not at work.


Road Trip!

Road Trip!

Well, it is summer and the family decided to “take it on the road” so to speak. Our day started late as I still had to work, but we were able to get on the road around 1PM. I thought I’d snap a picture while driving through Utah and share it with everyone.


Nearing the End of an Era

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Needless to say, one of the many reasons I started Reid’s For Fun was because of Yahoo!’s neutering of GeoCities: removal of ftp and a paltry 4.2MB hourly limit. It was, however, my friend in the hey day of Internet growth and I am saddened at its (un)timely demise.


Almost DTV Time

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Well, less than a day left and the old NTSC-M broadcast signal will almost be gone. I say almost because a few low power stations can still broadcast and I’m sure a few places will get by. But, by and large, it’s all over for our old analog receivers.