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Preparations

It was a good day today.  Late last night when I went to check on the horses they were both laying down on the fresh bedding.  The previous owner said that Rio never laid down as he was too skiddish.  I read some advice columns that said it is a sign that the horse is comfortable in their surroundings.

The horses and dog spent some quality time together while I tried out the new snow scoop, like a shovel but you just push, no lifting required.  I figured out what was wrong with one exterior light and one interior light.  Unpacked the first load of tools into the basement.

Ran out to the local hardware store where I was greeted by some friendly local faces and they filled me in on the best music venues in the area.  Picked up some bird feed and sewet cakes, extra gloves and a new hat.

Pictures Pictures Pictures!

I apologize for the delay in uploading pics.  I’m not used to the laptop yet and had to install some software to get it to work.  So without further ado:

Meet Rio!

And Laser!

He was being a little camera shy this morning.

Then There’s Jasper!

Kossaks helped me name him.

The House!

The Barn!

More pics of the land to come later in the week.

Be good and do it yourself!

Memo from “God’s Country”

An old salty Irishman, half Pagan, half Catholic, a bootlegger by night and a blue collar man by day…he’d take me for drives in his K-Car or Escort wreaking of stale cigarettes and Old Spice.  The car would round a special bend that reminded him of his homeland and he’d give me wink and say “This here is God’s Country”.  That phrase meant a lot to me because I knew my grandfather was very serious about his religion…he crossed himself every time he drove by a Church…so I figured he had a special in with The Lord for doing all of that heavy lifting down here on Earth.  Well grandpa…I finally finished the chain that you started when setting foot aboard that ship so many years ago.  I have me a piece of God’s Country and I’m bound and determined to make it work.  My life is half gone, the first half wasn’t special by anyone’s measuring stick, but maybe this last half was what I was meant for.

The horses are fed and bedded down for the night the dishes are done, the barn cats and birds are fed as well.  The dog has been walked he’s passed out at my side.  He loves the horses, gave them both kisses on their first meeting.  It’s snowing just a bit, making the light reflect off the snow.  The house is small but cozy, needs some work but don’t we all.  Hey they got intertubez in God’s Country by the way, just gotta use some of that satellite love to do it.  I’m sure the Holy Rollers will be pleased to hear that.  Found some tapes left behind from the previous owner…now I know who buys soundtrack recordings of pop movies…and yes Celine Dion was in the mix.  

I’m fading fast,  g’night Grandpa.

Tech Talk – Old – Uploading your first web page!

So you’ve made your first web page based on the last tutorial and now you want to know how to change it and upload it.  The most important thing to remember when working with web sites, web hosts and servers is that everything is based on files and folders just like your computer.  On most hosts you’ll be allowed to access the folder “www” or “public-html” in your account.  This is where you’ll be doing 99% of your work.  Inside that folder you can create unlimited new folders for various parts of your website.

Editing Your Page

You already know the basics of HTML if you are posting on blogs.  You know how to create links and most know how to add images.  How the page looks now, however, is up to you.  There are a number of free web design programs but I think it is important that you know how to do coding by hand.  This way you’ll be able to locate and fix mistakes later on.

Open up your “myfirstpage.html” page which you stored on your desktop last time.  Right click or double click anywhere on the page to and select “View Source” or “View Page Source”.  You will see the coding you cut and pasted last time.

Now let’s personalize it:  

While I’m Gone

Hi everyone,

While I’m busy setting up the farm I was hoping that one or two volunteers could step up to do some basic things for Docudharma.  They are very easy to do. I’ll be gone for about a month with only quick visits to see how traffic is doing and catch up with events.

1. Ping Technorati when a new story appears on the front page.  Just go to http://technorati.com/ping/ and enter https://www.docudharma.com exactly as you see it here w/ no www or trailing slash.  That will let technorati know we’ve updated the site and they’ll share our headlines with the other bloggers.  Just do it when you can as long as we are getting a few fresh pings a day we’ll be fine.

We are registered with most active blog indexes so if you see another place to ping us go ahead and do it.

Sphere and Blogburst work automatically so there is no need to ping them.

2. Search for smaller search engines and political directories and add Docudharma to the list.  Just check to make sure we aren’t already listed and only apply to places that are free and do not require a reciprocal link or link back to their site.  We won’t gain much direct traffic from these links but they help our rankings on Google and other search engines.

3. The following tags have their own feeds, consider using them in your essays:

impeachment, how to, politics, women’s issues, healthcare, sports, activism, dharmazine, Iraq, solar, GLBT, science, immigration and literature.  I’ll be doing more development with the feeds when I get back.

That’s about it, otherwise keep doing what you are doing and thanks for helping.

Learn How to Ski

1. Wear tight fitting jeans and a free Jacket from Marlboro Country.

2. Stand in middle of parking lot and take pictures of the mountains.

3. Get pissy with the Ticket Agent for not honoring your photocopied coupon.

4. Walk into Rental Shop and say every pair of boots hurts your feet.

5. Drag rental skis and poles across parking lot.

6. Lessons are for wimps…head immediately for the double black diamond slopes.

7. Leave all the buckles on your boots nice and loose.

8. Bend over at the hip, stick your poles through your arm pits, lean back and ask for a push from another skier.

9. If you see a tree or boulder aim for it, gravity is tricky, anything you aim for you’ll probably miss.

10. Big Air, you’ll probably catch some big air on the way down so now is a good time to try all of those tricks you’ve seen on the X Games.

11. Ignore all Ski Patrol signs, they are just the man tryin’ to keep you down.

12. Lift Line Etiquette – most people who have been standing in line for 20 minutes just love having you and your friends cut ahead of them by scooting under the rope.

13. Never look up the hill when traversing across a slope, it’s more fun to live dangerously.

14. Lodge Etiquette – take over two or three tables by covering them with crumpled napkins and spraying ketchup (preferably Heinz) all over.

15. At the end of the day it is considered good form to cry and throw your skis at the rental person.

16. On your way home be sure to stop at the local gas station and brag about the things you did.

 

Tech Talk – Uploading your first web page!

So you’ve made your first web page based on the last tutorial and now you want to know how to change it and upload it.  The most important thing to remember when working with web sites, web hosts and servers is that everything is based on files and folders just like your computer.  On most hosts you’ll be allowed to access the folder “www” or “public-html” in your account.  This is where you’ll be doing 99% of your work.  Inside that folder you can create unlimited new folders for various parts of your website.

Editing Your Page

You already know the basics of HTML if you are posting on blogs.  You know how to create links and most know how to add images.  How the page looks now, however, is up to you.  There are a number of free web design programs but I think it is important that you know how to do coding by hand.  This way you’ll be able to locate and fix mistakes later on.

Open up your “myfirstpage.html” page which you stored on your desktop last time.  Right click or double click anywhere on the page to and select “View Source” or “View Page Source”.  You will see the coding you cut and pasted last time.

Now let’s personalize it:  

How To – Alternative Energy

Solar Powered George Bush Chariot Ride:

🙂 🙂 🙂

Wind and Solar Energy How-To

A down home guy giving some down home tips:

2 More below the fold

Tech Talk – Building your first web page!

Many of you have noted that you perceive web design as voodoo magic or something completely outside your realm.  I get the same reaction when I bring up Art or people watch me draw.  Well I’m here to demystify things for you.  If you follow the simple steps outlined you’ll create your very own web page.  In the following essay I will tell you how to put it on the web.

There are many reasons that a netroots person may want to create a web page or HTML document.  Single pages can be used as billboards for various topics you are interested in.  They are static, which means they will be easily indexed by most search engines and will help to build interest in long-term issues like the environment, health care etc.

So what makes a web page a web page?   Some very simple coding.  Below the fold you’ll find the bare minimum coding you’ll need to make your first web page along with an example.

Hi Judy this is Bridget from Curves

rinnnggg….ringggg…[machine answers]…[beep]

“Hi Judy this is Bridget from Curves!  I just wanted to let you know that your membership expired and I know you were on a really excellent program and were doing very well so I….”

[answer in male voice]

“Hi Bridget this is Judy!  Sign me up for a lifetime membership cuz I’m so out of shape I think it would take a whole team of Bridgets to fix me up!  Ha ha ha ha ha.  You have my information already just go ahead and charge it.  Now is there anything you can do about this hair on my lip?  And Bridget, we’ve known each other a long time, why you even call me at home to discuss the gym now right?!  So let me ask you…do you think I’m attractive?”

[click]

Web Stats of Presidential Candidates and Why They Shouldn’t Be Ignored

I noticed a very interesting thing while doing promotions tonight, namely, the web site statistics for Presidential Candidates.  There is a correlation between current standings in the voting booth and current rankings on the internet.  It is not a perfect correlation but I think it is important enough to mention to the group.

See Hillary vs Barack vs Edwards here  on Alexa.

See Huckabee vs Rudy vs Romney here on Alexa.

Google stats below the fold:

 

Tech Talk – Building a News Aggregator

Problem: How do I take a bunch of feeds* and put them all through one system so that they will appear in chronological order and display the source and time of the post?

Solution: gAjax RSS Feeds Displayer (hosted) found on DynamicDrive.com

The speed of this aggregator** is incredibly fast and I can control the output in any number of ways.  All of the steps are outlined on the page linked above.  Basically you insert some code into the header of a new HTML*** page, add the code snippet to the body of the new page, save it, upload it to your server and in the same folder upload an image and a javascript****.

So with 10 minutes of work I can now display any news headlines I like.  And If I want to build new pages with different sources all I have to do is make a new page and plug in the new feeds, the script doesn’t change, which means it can be referenced repeatedly for different queries.

(examples below the fold)

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