For this date with Rachel, we went for a walk in the woods at Veteran Acres Park. Rachel is doing very well in her stamina as we walked almost the entire perimeter of the park. We were afraid that the wolves might attack us so we laid a string of cheese over a branch. Now the wolves are our friends. The squirrels will get a snack if the wolves don’t get the cheese first.
Author Archives: Rob
Cantiny Panoramic Photo
Here’s a fun panoramic view of a garden at Cantiny. Heather took the photos while the twins and I positioned ourselves in each shot. The effect is that there are several of me and Rachel in one photo.
Sitemap Generator
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relies on many factors including having an up to date sitemap. XML-Sitmaps.com has a free generator that crawls up to 500 pages. It spits out a sitemap file that you can upload to your web server AND add to your Google webmaster account. Google and other search engines will read the site map. This aids in their crawling plus ranks your website higher in search results.
Lost a Netflix DVD
We lost Monsters Inc, a rented DVD from Netflix. The website has a spot where you can report a shipping or DVD problem. The choices are:
- I haven’t received the DVD yet
- I received a mailer without a DVD in it
- I received the wrong DVD
- The DVD is damaged, scratched or unplayable
- I don’t have the white sleeve or red envelope to return the DVD
- I returned this DVD, but Netflix hasn’t received it
- I have lost or damaged this DVD and would like to pay for it
So I called Netflix about the matter. By the way, they have an great feature on the website where a code is generated next to the telephone number. By entering the code, the customer service rep has my account information ready without a million questions to verify my identify. The lady said that a lost DVD would cost $14 charged to my account. I was hoping she would have mercy and waive the fee altogether. Here’s the good part, Netflix will refund the fee if the movie is found and returned at a later date. So, I charged the $14 and hoped for the best.
**Before I could finish this blog, Heather found the missing DVD buried under bills on our desk upstairs. We’re not paying the bills – just moving them.
Google’s Sesame Street Doodle – please stop
Google has been celebrating Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary for about a week now. Their doodle is one of the Sesame characters. Although they are quite cute, I was tired of it on day two. When will they stop? Probably Nov 10, which is Sesame Street’s anniversary.
It doesn’t matter the browser of course, as long as Google is loaded, you will get Sesame Street. Firefox, Google chrome, and Internet Explorer has the doodle graphics. There’s no escaping Google’s reach here. Fortunately, I turned on my iGoogle theme to escape the Cookie Monster. Hopefully the monster will run out of cookies soon so we can get back to a more sophisticated web environment.
Date with the twins – Autumn Leaves
Alexis went first on this date with the twins. The family made squirrel toys to place in the woods on a walk at Veteran Acres Park. It was a beautiful weekend with fall colors and sunshine. Alexis enjoyed running down the hills at the park.
Displaying HTML code on a webpage
A nice way to display HTML code on a webpage is to use a program called SyntaxHighlighter.
Vacation at Kalahari
The family went on vacation and took a trip to Kalahari water resort in Sandusky, Ohio. My mother met us there and we had a great time. We got a room for under $100 which included access to the water parks for 24 hours. We got the deal through the Linked In Christian Travel and Tourism group. The park had lots of water slides for all ages, a wave pool, a surfing “ride,” and two hot tubs (one for kids the other for adults). It was an excellent experience.
HelioHost.com – Free Web Hosting Account
Edit 10/30/09 – I’m changing my mind. This review of Heliohost.com is being changed because Heliohost requires that you login to the CPanel periodically. This is definitely a maintenance problem for people who like to post a site and leave it untouched. The account will be suspended if there’s no activity.
Here’s a better free web hosting account than X10hosting.com has to offer. It’s Helio Host. This company offers pretty much everything a paid host would except puts limits on bandwidth.
- Subdomains of “www.mysite.heliohost.org” or “www.mysite.cc.co”
- There are minimum requirements to have a pre-existing domain name registered to Helio Host.
My example free site is “www.mediasolutions.heliohost.org.”
The control panel login is “http://mediasolutions.heliohost.org/cpanel”
X10Hosting.com – Free Webhosting Accounts
There are dozens if not hundreds of free web hosting accounts each with their own set of features from which to choose. Thus far, the one that I find best is X10hosting. Here’s why:
- Sub-domain URL = “mysite.x10hosting.com”
- Up to 2.5GB of Disk Space
- Up to 45 GB of Bandwidth
- cPanel
- FTP
- Free Subdomains
- No Advertisements
The terms are a bit strict with this account. Only one person is allowed to use the account. For example, if a web designer sets up the account for a client, the client is not supposed to edit files or upload files in addition to the web designer’s work. Proxy, file hosting, and image hosting sites are not allowed to be hosted.
There’s one significant disadvantage with x10hosting with the Inactivity policy.
Accounts found to be inactive are suspended for a 10-day period and then terminated. All data including any type of backup or stored information is removed with the account. To prevent an account from being suspended for inactivity it is required users visit the x10Hosting forums located at http://forums.x10hosting.com at least ONCE every TWO WEEKS. Accounts must also have a working website within one week.