Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

Entirely unsponsored endorsement for DreamHost

DreamHost is a pretty good hosting company. They aren’t super easy to use, but they offer a lot of configuration power and good value for money. I get some glitches and downtime, but they have mostly been very solid.

If you are thinking of setting up a website on a server you largely control yourself, they are a good place to start (though you will have to do some reading to figure it out).

DreamHost is better than GoDaddy, I think, though some of my complaints about GoDaddy were a bit unfair at the time. I didn’t know enough about caching, database lookups, and the technical side of building sites.

Note: It is much easier to START ON DreamHost than it is to MOVE TO DreamHost. You would think requiring the use of a command line interface to shift over a WordPress installation would be something that you wouldn’t see anymore now that better hosting tools are available.

Ottawa Fringe: All My Children

At the Ottawa Fringe Festival yesterday I saw All My Children: a ninety minute one-man show in which a slightly Christopher Walken-esque man recounts his rather mischievous dealings with the children of his former girlfriends. Matt Smith, the man putting it on, is easily able to hold the attention of the audience for the duration, and the show is filled with an indirect but rather effective sort of humour. I enjoyed the show a lot and would recommend it.

It is on five more times:

  • Monday, June 20th 9:00pm
  • Tuesday, June 21st 7:00pm
  • Wednesday, June 22nd 5:30pm
  • Thursday, June 23rd 10:30pm
  • Friday, June 24th 9:00pm

[Update: 5:09pm] My friend Evey wrote a review of this play for Fully Fringed.

Fixed expenses

Given job uncertainty, I have been trying to save and create a buffer for any troublesome periods in the future. That has had me looking at my expenses, particularly at the recurrent ones that arise every month.

Some of those expenses I took on knowing what their extent would be. Others, like my cell phone and web hosting charges, have been steadily creeping up with time.

It is quite possible that whatever job I end up in long-term will pay dramatically less than my current one, and be less secure to boot. With that in mind, I should remain aware of opportunities to squeeze down these expenses. Moving somewhere cheaper is the obvious option, and almost probably something I will do if moving to Toronto.

Beaver Barracks roof ideas

In the last few weeks, as the weather has become pleasant, the roof of the Beaver Barracks has become an appealing place to spend time. Right now, the roof of 160 Argyle is just bare wooden planks. I know they are eventually planning to have planters and things up there. That will be pleasant, and may provide a welcome pretext for neighbours to get to know one another a bit more.

I hope they put a couple of benches up there. It could also be a nice place to play some evening chess games.

One year with the 5D Mk II

A year ago today, I got the Canon 5D Mark II digital single lens reflex (dSLR) camera.

I have been very happy with it. The image quality is great, especially in low light, and it is a lot more robust than the Rebel XS I had before. Everything about the camera is what you would expect from a machine intended for serious and intense use.

I feel like I have done a lot with the camera already, and that it has a lot of life and potential in it yet.

Theft

Over the course of my life, very few things have been physically stolen from me.

When I was in high school, I had a bunch of stuff stolen when we got burgled. I lost all my CDs, a CD player, and so on. It was all covered by insurance. In university, I was burgled again and lost a camera, a PlayStation (with a near-perfect Final Fantasy VII savegame on the memory card), and some miscellaneous stuff that was not insured.

I was unsuccessfully mugged a couple of times in Vancouver. In each case, the people involved were not very determined and accepted “I don’t have any money” as an answer. I had some cash relatively subtly threatened out of me in Morocco once, also. Finally, I recall having a fairly small amount of cash stolen from me at a summer camp once.

I don’t think I have ever been defrauded or pick-pocketed. I have never had a vehicle stolen (not even a bike).

What about others? Has any physical thing been taken from you against your will using force, the threat of force, or trickery?