August 31st, 2005 
One of the topics I have talked about a lot on this site (and regarding this site) is the gallery and the software that powers it. Not just in regards to the current software that is being used, which is Coppermine, but also the many, many, many other software alternatives that I have tried and tested. Prior to using Coppermine, though, I had found a little-known solution called Plogger. Even though it was still in beta (being developed), I was extremely impressed with it, but ended up having to move away from it when I began having problems with the database because my hosting provider does not offer support for the InnoDB database type, which Plogger uses. I had communicated with the lead developer, Mike Johnson, on several occassions, mainly to provide feature suggestions or bug fixes, so I regrettably sent an email to let him know that I had to make a switch because of the database problem. Therefore, I was on the hunt again, looking for another gallery alternative. That’s when I stumbled upon Coppermine, and decided to give it a shot, to see if I could integrate it easily with my site. I was also pretty happy with the features that Coppermine offered, and very happy with the ease of uploading large groups of files into the albums (a huge plus for someone that is starting from scratch with putting a large amount of images online).
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» Surprise, surprise. I’ve heard many an individual comment on how difficult it is to cancel their internet service with AOL. After numerous complaints were filed in New York, the state has stepped up and fined AOL $1.25 million dollars, and directed them to reform their customer service policies so that it’s not as difficult for customers to call in and cancel. One of the policies that is being reformed is an incentive plan that was giving “bonuses in the tens of thousands of dollars if representatives were able to retain half the customers who called to cancel their service”. It’s shocking that there would be so many problems with such a policy in place… Comments Off (601)
» A study by Bert Sperling has been released, revealing the 10 best places to live in the United States. The #1 place on the list: Charlottesville, VA. Interesting, also, is that 3 of the top 15 cities are from Virginia (Charlottesville, Roanoke, and Lynchburg). Comments Off (795)
August 10th, 2005 
Meg and I had another checkup today with our obstetrician, and we were able to hear the baby’s heartbeat! The doctor let me record the heartbeat using my cell phone, and I transferred the audio to my laptop. Here’s an .mp3 and a .wav file of our baby’s beating heart:
.mp3 file (1oo KB)
.wav file (464 KB)
NOTE: You may have to right-click and Save the file to your computer. Otherwise, most browsers will allow you to “stream” the file over the internet to play it.
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August 5th, 2005
The gallery is back up. I’ll go into the details at a later time as to what happened, but for now I was able to use the installation of the Coppermine Photo Gallery that I still had available from earlier testing. I’m actually quite impressed with it now, and will most likely leave it in place. There’s one other option I’m considering, but that’s going to have to wait a few weeks anyway.
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» A catalyst for change? Or further evidence of the freefall that appears to have no end? The Orioles have fired manager Lee Mazilli, replacing him with Sam Perlozzo in the interim. Comments Off (1078)
Things have been quite hectic as of late, so I haven’t had time to finish up on some of the posts I’ve had in “draft” mode for a while. I do have some things I’d like to do to the site (still), and more discussions regarding the gallery and some fantastic looking alternatives out there, but no real timeline on when I’ll get that done. Stay tuned…
