Monday, November 24, 2014

Opit : Retrospective to a beginning blogger



My first year blogging I had 600 hits - yet when the blog was archived  Dec 2007 at end of year 2 it was banging on the door for top 10% at Technorati. Go figure. 
When I tried to repost Oldephartte from My Opera to WordPress ( Dec 2007 - Feb 2014 ) it was bounced too...so I have to figure WP does not like old fashioned link farms. Much of the content from My Opera's first year is back at the start of this blog...starting with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in what was  compared to a mob style hit - where security was absent in the style of the JFK shooting in Dallas one fateful day.


https://web.archive.org/web/20060425191951/http://opit.wordpress.com/

Quickpost

April 25th, 2006 by opit
I see Amy Alkon (columnist) linking here from comments : I’ve more than one on her thread
Ill let the curious check it out at
Advice Goddess blog April 22 2006
Why You Should Take Religion Seriously ( site warnoff for the sexually prurient ).
For those who don’t know, Amy is not a fan of religion.
Further bad press for Bush. April 21 Rolling Stone The Worst President in History
Watch the breaks ; it’s done in segments. Just WOW
Anyone interested in agile browsers should check out http://sob.apotheon.org / especially ?p=33 for specs re: Gecko development ( Found on Tech Republic - a very active member )

Driving

April 23rd, 2006 by opit
On-line life is taking a back seat to making money the last while.
Sorry I didn’t save the cites, but I saw a German report questioning the translation of the Iranian presidents remarks : specifically allegations he advocated the destruction of Israel and questioned the historical accuracy of the Holocaust.
I surfed into this lovely
http:www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/04/21/1145344276318.html
Tide turns on Dubya’s Wreck by Mike Carlton

Reprieve

April 14th, 2006 by opit
Hah ! Reinstalled Firefox ( no Google toolbar ) and the file of bookmarks, add-ons, etc. reloaded. It’s a beautiful day ( windy, though )

Disappointments

April 14th, 2006 by opit
!^%$3###***
Et cetera. I must have messed up the export to del.ici.ous function after all. Lots of bookmarks : not the lost Firefox, however.
Opera 8.54 didn’t keep its bookmarks either. Another set were lost when I changed from 8.53 a week or so ago. And I deleted Enigma browser without saving any. Now I’ve reinstalled Opera 8.53 and it’s saving O.K.
I think StumbleUpon worked the best for finding neat stuff that I wouldn’t have come across otherwise. Now to decide if I’m going to wait for a stable Firefox 2.0* or go to another version.
I had a VM ware with browser ( Firefox 1.5 - separate download ) but likely won’t use that. Another problem is that Mozilla warns against using multiple instances of the same program, so I’d best think about what I want. The Fox is definitely a wish-list item. I’ve installed it repeatedly, but the last three times or so it’s kept running in the background doing who-knows-what, so I can only use it for fun, not as backup primary.
My Mozilla was still in Beta when I put it in, but has been good enough to be a keeper ( 1.7.11 ). Otherwise I think I’d try Seamonkey but don’t want to lose what’s working well. And Flock was neat but has developed some conflicts with my playing around ( it’s a Firefox spin-off ). Thank goodness Wordpress hasn’t been a problem ( on the other hand, give me time. I’ll find some way to put it out of commission : just based on experience with my general computer “skills” ).
Hey, if you need to test a program against someone who can creatively find ways to put it wrong, sing out. Intuition is not my middle name.

Incomprehendable Arrogance

April 12th, 2006 by opit
  I was over at Washington Monthly, which I often frequent, when the tactical talk went into really weird territory.  c m dicely and osama _been_forgotten in particular did not seem to have any idea that they were exhibiting all the sensitivity of the crowds at the Roman colisium in its heyday.
Kevin Drum's leader wasn't even original : an idea someone else had that he threw out as bait.  It seems that the idea of citizenship as a result of military service had become a political football because of  the xenophobia that currently passes for wisdom among the "politically aware".  Resentment and distrust of foreigners/immigrants has risen to the point that fighting in U.S. forces is no longer adequate assurance of worthiness to be a U.S. citizen.  Sentiments from "Starship Troopers" - which is over the top - were mocked as part of a "taking apart" of the presumption that service qualified one for citizenship.
When I was a kid, the resulting comment would have been along the lines of : " Man. Someone sure thinks his shit don't stink !"
Right. I'm sure an accident of birth is a much more reliable indicator of inherent virtue ( not ).
The right wing would "get it" instantly. Nobody is more deserving of your solicitude than the chap who saves your worthless ass.  If that service is not worthy of everything reasonably possible then the cause is not worth anything either.  Is that a result of valuing life so little that sending their own into the maw of war is not remarkable : no wonder participation by outsiders is so little valued.  Pearls before swine.
All over an idea to choke off foreign resupply of U.S. forces - which is happening already - by making it even less desirable for foreigners to participate in their unjust wars.
With that off my chest, I had some good luck the other day.
Panda had sent a solicitation to renew, which I accepted and downloaded.  Trend Micro had been on the machine when I bought it ( trial version ) and hadn't been a problem when I had Platinum 2005 installed. After taking off 2005 Trend showed up on the program list and wouldn't respond to Add/Delete Programs.  I nailed it with Lavalys Everest , Windows software remover and Copernic Desktop Search.
Panda 2006 bounced - repeatedly.  The antivirus wasn't compatible with PC-cillin, which it was detecting.  The long and short of it was a massive purge of files that could be hiding it.  Finally, Panda installed. ( It was suggested I let the shop do that next time.)
The good news. The day before I was at del.ici.ous and noticed they would store bookmarks.  Firefox didn't survive the chopping of extraneous software but 440  URLs were saved by downloading them online.  Wahoo ! 

Dr. Strangelove’s Acolytes

April 10th, 2006 by opit
The European Tribune has a piece on American repudiation of nuclear disarmament http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/4/9/85222/23557

New tool - bookmarks

April 6th, 2006 by opit
I forgot to mention http://www.sync2it.com/help/default.htm, which syncs bookmarks across browsers and computers - free up to 100.
I installed the new Opera yesterday and immediately ran into a negative review ( not mine ) while setting up mail and looking around .
That's opit@operamail.com if you're too shy to post to the site.
And I just installed a statcounter widget - after that last post ! More traffic than I suspected but starting into 3 figures  - short end of the tail.

back at it ?

April 6th, 2006 by opit
The blue bale truck has finally been operable for a few days now. The third time I tried to pick it up I only made it halfway to the corner from the shop before identifying more to be fixed ! And two days into operations a fuel injector flooded the oil pan and spilled oil all over. I drove for miles before realizing why oil pressure was so poor. After that fuel filters had to be changed because of fuel starvation - it had been a while so maybe that was co-incidence.
It snowed shortly before pickup and has now rained. Contrast that with over two months of clear and dry I could have been working . Life is perverse.  There's no shortage of work to do but breakup has happened and now road bans ( restricted loads ) are in effect. And I'm to do more mail runs per week.
Global Citizen ( bluegalinaredstate) has been waiting on lab cancer tests - there's a history of it in her immediate family. Here's hoping that works out o.k. We can't have too many sparkplugs with a generous nature.
The health care debate is in full hue and cry south of the border. I expect the Democrats will have to add single payer to their platform. At least polling reveals a majority will support it.
I was at TPM Cafe yesterday and responded to an article where the author obviously wasn't expecting feedback ; we'll have to see if earnest commentary is too scary to endure.
I know there are a few people rolling through here but footprints are scarce. Conversations take two or more. Feedback is important and that's why the high-traffic sites' comment lines are like chat rooms. 

Open Secrets

March 25th, 2006 by opit
Check out Lance Gay’s article at Scripps Howard News Service 13 March 2006
“Reclassify documents…” visits the classification schmozzle.
This one knocked me on my ass.   How did we miss the significance of pure evil for so long ?  http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/depleteduranium081804.shtml   Hey, I can’t be a short-lifer as I’ve been hanging around too long.  But the “end times” crew look to have pulled off a self-fulfilled prophecy of doom.

March 22nd, 2006 by opit
Mar. 21 Washington Post had an interesting viewpoint on life in Iraq : violence is the most notable effect of  ongoing change.
I notice it seems hard to put in the time to explore  the options available on the net : Bloglines, Newsburst and Pageflakes all have suffered from diversion of exploration into  Stumbleupon, etc.
My favourites/bookmarks lists have blossomed to the point of being cumbersome. Opera seems the easest to deal with as links open in pages instead of scrolling. Then again, rendering is often a problem in Opera.  Firefox has so many options available a person could get tied up just exploring them.  I love it but have a peeve with scrolling ( eyestrain, like Picasa 2 on a large file) and difficulty figuring out how to alphabeticize the index  ( easier on Mozilla Suite ; go figure ). I’m running 6 browsers (!) and don’t have all the same entries.
Quit Lynx  because I wasn’t finding it intuitive and have enough going on without banging my head against the wall. Then again, running around without a support group sucks. I haven’t figured out how to activate the Firefox packed  in VM Ware ( as a way to deal with safety concerns).
Much of the time I’m frustrated by video support ( Yahoo ) because Active-X is routinely disabled : then again, I don’t need the grief of opening up systems to the hacker fiends : had enough of that stupidity not to be interested.  Real isn’t getting their update to the player  found on the BBC because I don’t trust them not to spam the devil out of me and play other silly games.  Also I’m using a built-in emulator ( XP ) instead of a video card and find older programs  won’t run : finding workarounds is a pain. Translation ; mostly I don’t.
Trillian is typical. My password for MSN Messenger gets bounced as wrong although the machine knows it for the actual program. And AOL doesn’t want their service to be interoperable with others : jerks.
I do have password blues but finally figured out my Typekey login under one name (alias) isn’t what shows on verification. Now to decide about Blogger.
It’s been a while since I used Skype but I cut it because of spam ( 1 !) ; looking at my e-mail inbox I think that was pretty silly. Read Amy Alkron’s column sometime for a person who has real problems with junk ( Advice Goddess blog ). For all that I still have 100+ e-mails a day of which 3/4 are bounced on the way in.
Some people really protect their inbox. My youngest brother hasn’t given me his home address and he’s 2500+ miles away ! It takes all kinds to make a world.
The Trekkies have come out with a nice new episode that takes the original crew - new faces - into a downloadable file as of  Mar. 17. ” In Harm’s Way” is free ! http://startreknewvoyages.com/1024/home
I’ve been viewing it in Picasa/Winamp and found  less confusion in  refiling each segment under its own label. I did have to redo one segment as it came in corrupted, so that was just as well.
Centre Seat is dumb. Supposedly other episodes are/were planned but I haven’t found a feed.
I do have this mental image of browsing in a VW Enigma  install through Pageflakes/Bloglines.  Somehow I don’t think I have the patience for something like that to load. Maybe I need to play more in Javanet.
Open Office is  terra incognita. I really don’t feel like taking courses. A  lazybones. Maybe someday but there is so much else to fiddle with.
Bale trucks are still hors de combat. I really don’t know what it will take to get action. Supposedly ready in a couple of days - I’ll believe that when I’m driving it.  Thank goodness for the mail route.

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