JK’s Journal

We’re back online at home. Whew. We lost our cable modem (RIP RCA DCM315R) and DVR to lightning almost two weeks ago. We were already scheduled to get FiOS, so we held out getting the old Cox Cable service restored in lieu of the FiOS. Okay, that’s not completely true, but the initial service call by Cox indicated bigger problems and would have taken more appointments to resolve, so it just made sense to wait for FiOS.

We got the standard triple threat package from Verizon. So far, the DVR and TV have been impressive, and the data is running strong (Download Speed: 5016 kbps / Upload Speed: 2023 kbps per speakeasy).

Instead of succumbing to my inner desire and trying to blog about the last two weeks, I’ll close with this:

• the home network is back up, fully patched, and running- woot
• I made a few backend upgrades for JK’s Journal
• I’ll be updating my fitness profiles at Traineo and TweetWhatYouEat later tonight

Let’s see, what new info can I blog about tonight? I’m still tweaking my traineo profile to reflect my weight changes over the last 4 months. I’d settle for a general approximation, but I’m having a hard time understanding if my “starting weight” is connected with my “traineo start date” of June 9th, 2008. I backdated some previous weights but to date there is very little grokking to report. I’m not sure if it’s my problem or theirs, which is why I mention that I’m still tweaking. Much like Hillary has recently tweaked her campaign.

I’m also working on QT’s XP PC, which is throwing MMC errors when I try to defrag:
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I’ve also been working on her PlanetJK mailbox- she’s approaching her disk space quota despite my attempts to delete her extraneous e-mail.

In website news, I’m hoping to reorganize my online ToDo list, after repairing my database last week. Catching up with my ToDo’s should bring about new Journal themes, repaired contact forms, and new mobile browsing options, to say the least.

On a more personal note, I’ve recently become determined to catch up with old friends and do better at staying in touch with current friends. A few weeks ago, in a mini-epiphany, I realized that my occasional, internal grousing about not having many casual friends is utterly and deservedly trounced by my possession of quite a few decent, solid, still-cool-after-three-years kind of friends. Go me.

Oh, and I posted the few pics that I took at Jmax’s birthday, just as I promised I would; I posted them in the Jmax Photo Album.

Eureka! One of the database guys at work graciously lent his expertise, resulting in all instances of the Runaway Recurring Task being excised from the database. So, now my Tasks™ software is running at full speed again, along with everything else that utilizes the database (like the Journal, the Photo Albums, etc).

Last night I installed and partially tweaked a new Journal theme, as you can see. It’s less graphic- and CSS-intensive and should load quicker. So far I’ve edited the header image (here’s how it used to look) and added the necessary widgets. I still need edit the footer, add a plugin for mobile browsing, and finish tweaking the layout. I might even add a few graphics to the header, who knows.

Migrating from a non-widget layout was more challenging than I anticipated. I tried using plugins designed for testing themes, but they didn’t let me configure as much as I needed to, so I resorted to testing on the live site. Good thing I don’t really have readers, eh?

Anyway, the purpose of this post was to formally announce the new theme but caveat it with Beta status. I hope to have it 100% tweaked and configured by this time next month. Yes, I said a whole month; it’s obvious I don’t meet website deadlines as quick as I think I can.