Website Version 2.1

Once again it has come time to set this blog adrift on the sea of the blogoshpere. I have re-established www.LifeOnAPacificIsland.com and will be updating that instead.

Thanks for visiting here and come see me at the new site.

The Verbalist discovers recording his own voice

Just to prove that not all of my blog is geeky (sort of).....

Last night I brought home two purple Hot Wheels that a co-worker had given to me for the kids. He and received them as a promotional goodies from the Purple Pill People and had no real use for them. The kids loved them.

When they learned where the cars had come from the Verbalist (to borrow a phrase) decided it would be a good idea to send a thank you to my co-worker. His sister chimed in with a big "Ya!" Not wanting to squash a good instinct (especially since I am bad about thank-you notes) I started to reach for the colored construction paper and crayons; the basic tools of the under 10 crowd and especially the Muralist. But that is when it struck me to use a different set of tools better suited to the boy.

I have been playing with Audacity, a free sound recording and editing tool and decided to grab my laptop rather than the Crayolas for this project. I told the kids what I intended, namely to have them record a message saying thanks for the cars and that we would email it to my friend. The Verbalist is getting very computer savvy and understood quickly; his sister took a few more moments to chew on this but understood once we got going.

I hit the record button and told Harry to start talking and away he went, like a fish to water. Helen took a little prompting but followed her brother's lead if not so verbosely.

In the end I was able to edit it down to a neat little package and we emailed it off. This morning as I came in to the office Jim was at his desk while I walked by and said he got a kick out of the message.

Mission accomplished.

As a footnote to this story after recording the thank you message Harris announced that he wanted record a message to my parents who live about 200 miles away. We did, and they too enjoyed the audio greeting but I am afraid I may have opened Pandora's box. Just don't be shocked if you see an announcement for his newest podcast sometime in the near future.

Production vs Development

I was asked on Monday morning by a co-worker "So what have we learned about making changes to a production server?" He was making a joke but he had a point. I should have known better than to start messing around with a server that is up and running.

I took the comment to heart and last night built up a second computer to use as a development server. This will allow me to ask questions like "What happens when I do this?" without destroying several weeks worth of work.

As I mentioned in my previous post I have set PHP-Nuke aside in favor of a different CMS (web serving application). What that means to you is that the new website will have a cleaner and more professional look. It also means that I should have the photo gallery up with less hair pulling than I was experiencing while working on it under the old site.

Stay tuned web surfers; it may be low tide now but the surf will be coming up soon.