The Wandering Minstrel

Last month, I changed my subscription to American Rifleman to receive issues on the Internet. I just got the email notifying me that the March Issue was ready to be viewed. All I had to do was click on a link in the email, input my member ID and name plus entering an authorization code which was printed graphically on the authorization web page.                 Clickable image: User Interface.

After using the interface they provide and browsing the magazine, I am glad that I converted to electronic issues for several reasons. First and foremost, I have no magazines stacking up in the garage that have to be sanitized (i.e. shredding personal information printed on the address block) before recycling. Next, All the text can be brought up in a window where I can cut and paste items such as “Armed Citizen Reports” or other text that I would like to share with others via email or on this site. Not the last of a list of nice features is the absence of the binding crease in two-page graphics - you see the whole image sans creases and staples.

I am also a life member in the American Radio Relay League (Amateur “HAM” Radio). I sent an email to them earlier today asking if my monthly copy of QST could be delivered electronically. I am waiting for a reply, but I suspect they do not have the means yet. I cruised their member services website and could not find anything about electronic publication.

Actually, I’ve had the SwishMax 3 Flash creation software installed on my computer for quite some time now, probably several months. I just started using it today, having overcome the phobia associated with upgrading from the old package. You get used to using something and since it’s comfortable, you avoid the change - like breaking in a new pair of boots.

I dug up the source from my “Glock around the clock” project from last November and invested a little time learning the new tool set. I figured that I should rework an old package rather than starting something from scratch. I got it going a while ago using the Flash creator.

Another thing I wanted to mention is the on-line tool that I developed for embedding Flash objects on our websites. I upload the object to the server and then specify the URL of the object to my on-line tool, which then generates a JavaScript Embedded in PHP script, plus the JavaScript that I use to invoke the object instance in the web page. All I have to do is input the required parameters, hit ‘generate script’ and copy/paste the code it generates to the server and the embed tags in the post. Flash, produced this way, seems to work with most of the browsers out there, although if it works with IE and Firefox/Mozilla then that’s 95% of the users that come to this site. If you DON’T have JavaScript enabled, you won’t see the animation.

Since our first post back in November of 2007, we have enjoyed a steadily increasing number of hits. The steepest increase came in the first half of this year. Then, in August, something strange happened. There was a major leap from less than 3k visits per month to over 4k, but then the hits per month leveled out.

Analysis of the logs reveals that the readership has been increasing from direct requests or referrals from other Gun Bloggers, but the preponderance of referrals suddenly came from Google and other image searches. I guess that’s good, since our stuff is being seen by those outside the pro-gun community.

Thanks and Happy New Year to the readers of The Wandering Minstrel. Special thanks to Anthony at The Liberty Sphere and David at The War on Guns, for sending some of their readers this direction. Also, thanks to the regulars and the Gun Bloggers - you know who you are - for stopping by from time to time and for the blogroll links.

Best wishes for a happy 2010!

For several years, I have handled most of my financial stuff on-line. A lot of people do these days.

I have several sites I go to, including three banks, an investment site, my company’s retirements benefits site and the Social Security Administration.

Image - SSA splash page - click on it to see that you can’t log in on the Login page

The user interfaces for those sites are all different, but generally well organized and easy to use - all, that is, except the SSA. All the sites listed other than the SSA have a system of tabs or menus that make navigation fairly straight forward. Not the clunky old SSA, though - I guess you get what you pay for when going to the lowest bidder - the interface is counter intuitive, confusing to navigate through and often takes you in circles trying to find what you’re looking for.

For example, clicking the Login link (which is hard to find until you do it once) from the main SSA page takes you to the Login page - except you can’t log in there. You first have to decide from a list of things you can do if you have a password. Once you click on a link, you get to a page where you have to agree or disagree with the nonsensical rules listed there - still no login available. If you ‘agree,’ then you get to a page where you MUST enter your Social Security Number and a password. None of the other sites I visit allow this because they consider it a security risk. usually a user name and password and sometimes security questions like ‘What was your first dog’s name.’

After you log in, you arrive at a page and a half of stuff that tells you all about the page you selected. This is not a one time thing - every time you log in you have to land there and select a ‘continue’ button hidden at the bottom of the page. When you finally get to the page you chose, you get some funky stock browser form buttons, radio selection buttons, check boxes and such. It looks like shit compared to the commercial bank sites.

I went to the site today to try and change the tax withholding amount for my benefit. After several frustrating tries, I finally decided ‘you can’t get there from here’ and I gave up in disgust. Now riddle me this - how can we expect the morons in congress to do any kind of a decent job with healthcare or any other gubmint run programs when the Social Security and Medicare website is so fucked up?

This week the weather has been less than optimum in our part of the planet. There are lots of things that I need to do around here, but many of those activities require better weather for working outside. So, with a little time on my hands, I have been doing some nerdy scripting stuff that involves content on the web pages here and on the family website. It’s formally called Dynamic HyperText Markup Language programming (DHTML), but includes a host of content engines such as Java, JavaScript, AJAX, Flash™, PHP (hypertext preprocessor) and a number of other DHTML content enablers.

The clock widget above shows the date and time according to your computer. It also appears near the bottom of the left sidebar.

The fruits of all the recent nerdiness can be seen in recent content here:

• Countdown to Election Day, a post with a dynamic NASA-style countdown to next election day
• Sidebar widget showing the number of days left for the Obamination (look left)
• A detailed years/months/days/hours/minutes/seconds Obamination countdown

All of the above are adaptations from Flash™ animations and scripts I have used in the past, both professionally and for personal web content.

Here’s an example. I wrote a script to randomly display some quotes from one of my favorite movies, “Blazing Saddles.” Refresh your browser to get the next random quote.

By the way, if you’re viewing this site with an RSS reader, some of the DHTML may not appear.

Time flies - when you’re having fun. And the last couple of years have been just that - punctuated with some consternation, some disillusionment, some anger and plenty of outright joy and satisfaction.

I have been looking at the on-line archives over the last few days. When I pulled up the first entry to this journal, I noticed that it was posted two years and two days ago. I signed on with a post about the motto I use here: “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” which means “If you seek peace, prepare for war.”

I called the Blog “Wandering Minstrel” after an old laptop computer I had. I gave it that name because it went with us on our travels. In the old days, the home network devices were named after medieval characters: Draco, the dragon of St. George, Lancelot, Minerva and Minstrel. Just a nerdy notion, I suppose.

We set this site up primarily to address our concerns about the Second Amendment and to post about anything else that interested us - all with the intent to leave it open to express ourselves in a non-politically correct and R-Rated manner. We think that we have met that objective and thank our readers for a great two years.

Image: “Cooper’s Hawk,” captured by the Better Half in our back yard.

Never mind the man behind the curtain . . .

Dear Customer:

On Saturday October 17, 2009 at 10:00 am PDT we will be migrating all MySQL databases to a new server. The new server is to alleviate recent issues caused by high load on the current server as well as to upgrade to MySQL version 5.1.

The procedure we will use to migrate will ensure the least amount of downtime per database.

The window for this maintenance is 2 hours. During this time there will be periods of intermittent connectivity errors to MySQL.

Thank you,
Omnis Network, LLC

We got a lot of stuff done today. We got the Better Half’s Car “smogged,” did the on-line auto registration, took some of our usable junk to Goodwill, recycled some of our hazmat items and did some shopping at target. Still, I had enough time to consolidate my laptop ans external monitor on the workstation with the other (slower) computer. The latter is now a file server and the laptop is the primary system.

Pardon the mess, but this is where I wound up after futzing with it for a while (clickable image).