Category Archives: Uncategorized

Notes: adding and using a self-signed s/MIME email certificate to OSX Mail in Mountain Lion

This is just a scratchpad post to remind myself what I did to get a self-signed cert into Mail under OSX Mountain Lion.

This first post is all about using a self-generated cert — which will work fine unless you ALSO want to use it on an iOS device.  In which case, skip to the NEXT post, where I cracked the code of getting a Comodo cert installed on my Mac and my iPhone.  Sheesh, this is harder than it needs to be. Continue reading

Paul O'Connor bead double weave

Test shots from my new camera (Sony HX30V)

Hi all.  This is partly a test of the new photo-uploader in WordPress 3.5 — along with a chance to show off pictures from the new camera.  Click through the photos if you want to pixel-peep the ginormous originals.

This first one is a test of the panorama feature…  This shot is looking from the point behind the house down Pat’s Prairie towards Highway 88 (south).  The nice thing is how it’s picking up the two valleys that form the point I’m standing on.

Indian Grass Panorama

Indian Grass Panorama

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Logic Pro runs lots better on my new MacBook Pro

This is mostly a post that only Logic Pro music-software users will like.  But hey.

I just went through an agonized decision-making process to upgrade my MBP.  I knew that the cool new CPUs were coming this summer, but then Apple threw the “Retina” curve-ball at me.  I chewed and chewed on that and finally went with the old-style machine because:

  • It’s cheaper (I saved enough to buy a Thunderbolt display)
  • It’s just as fast (how fast?  see below)
  • It’s got lotsa ports (btw, my Axiom Pro keyboard works fine on the USB 3.0 port)
  • My aging eyes don’t benefit from the Retina display
  • It’s easier to upgrade and repair

Continue reading

Frac sand mining

Pore old Haven2.  ‘lil old blog’s being neglected.  I was going to blog about frac sand mining here but the issue kinda exploded into such a big deal that it needed a URL all its own and I forgot to cross-post a link to the new site back here at the ranch.

So here’s a link for those of you that follow me on this blog.  Sorry about that.  Things got a little crazy there for a while and I’m just now circling back to do the housekeeping.

www.FracSandFrisbee.com Continue reading

omni

Omnisphere and Omni TR in Logic Pro 9 — notes to myself

To introduce Omnisphere into a project — just instantiate it the regular way (forget all the Environment stuff, not required).  So 1) create a software track, 2) select Omnisphere (way down at the bottom of the list of software instruments is “all instruments”, Omnisphere is in there).  I’ve been using the “stereo” version rather than “multi output” because I like to freeze the tracks, can’t do that with multi-output version. Continue reading

Fold-out circular table

This is a series of pictures of our dining-room table.  The cool thing about it is how it folds out — so most of the time it’s a modest little table that four people can sit around.  But folded out, we’ve crammed twelve people around it.  Also great for poker.  This series of pictures shows how it’s put together.

Here’s the table, in it’s 4-person folded-up configuration.

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Broadband connection improvements — avoiding DNS-interception and “buffer bloat”

This whole saga started when I read an Ars-Technica article called “Small ISPs use “malicious” DNS servers to watch web searches, earn cash.”  Here’s the lede that got my attention:

Nearly 2 percent of all US Internet users suffer from “malicious” domain name system (DNS) servers that don’t properly turn website names like google.com into the IP addresses computers need to communicate on the ‘Net. And, to make matters worse, the problem isn’t caused by hackers or malware, but by the local ISPs people pay for access to the Internet.

Continue reading

WordPress gallery can’t save or link to external URLs

UPDATE:  Several years have passed and this problem still exists.  However now there is a nice simple plugin that fixes it.  It’s called WP Gallery Custom Links.  It’s working for me.  Hopefully it will for you too.  I updated the first of the three images in my broken example gallery to an external URL as a test.

Sorry about this lame-o post right in the middle of my blog, but this is a bug that’s best documented with a post so’s the WordPress folks can see what’s going on.

I’m running the current version of WordPress here (3.1.3 as of this writing) Continue reading

Panorama shots of the farm

Here’s a series of Morning Walk panorama shots — a nice perspective on the farm.  I have a new camera that has this cool setting where it takes 100 pictures as you swish it across a wide scene and then immediately stitches them together for you.   Not technically-better pictures.  But really neat pictures…  Click on the thumbnails so you can see the big versions.

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Broadband Taskforce — Our bill passed, signed by the Governor!

UPDATE

Ooops.  The law hasn’t passed yet — I misunderstood Rick’s letter…  Here’s the salient quote (down near the bottom)

pass the law (well, getting closer anyway ““ should be next week!)

Sorry about that.  I’ll leave the original stupid/mistaken post here, but you can ignore it.  On the bright side, I’m hoping for the opportunity to write another “Woohoo” post if the bill does pass.

Sorry about that…

Mikey

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Woohoo!  We did it! Continue reading

Wood glue — the way to really clean old vinyl records

ah…  The taxes are done, with hardly any damage to the checkbook.  This is the goody I found when I took a little tour of teh Internets as a reward for a job well done…

Click HERE to read a great post (and discover a great blog) about getting rid of surface noise using wood glue of all things.  And then click HERE to get the latest and greatest — ‘turns out that thread generated a LOT of discussion.

The key deal — the kind of wood glue makes a big difference.  The gang on that blog tend to think that Titebond Extend is the bees knees.  I may have to try this out.  The results are pretty darn spectacular.