blindsquirrel.org

I think I need to learn to to sleep all over again. My sleeping pattern is so far out of whack that I’m not sure how to bring it back. You know it’s bad when you find yourself glued to the hotel TV for a couple of hours watching Urban Cowboy at midnight.

Where’s that Lunesta butterfly when you need it?

Gotta go. Looks like a really bad movie about 1970′s roller disco called Roll Bounce is on.

Ran across this while trying to find anyone that may have the same problem. I like to have the Desktop Alert display the Subject and From when I get a new email. I lost that functionality when I got my new MacBook Pro. Thankfully Microsoft has written a support tip on how to get it back.

You can find it here. Thanks Microsoft. Now let’s get Office 2008 for the Mac out the door (or at least let me know if you need a beta tester). I’d still rather have a real Outlook client, and now the Calendar Items in Outlook2007 look like they were done by the MacBU, but entourage has worked out pretty well so far.

Here’s how I finally got the comment notification working.

I deactivated the wp-PHPMailer plugin that I installed to help with email issues. Ends up I no longer needed it. What I did need was the realization that WordPress will not send the Author comments to his/herself! It only sends comments from people that did not write the post, so I went to another browser and commented as someone other than me (the author) and I received email notification of the comment immediately.

I can’t believe I spent so much time searching every forum I could find and it ended up being something this simple. Hope this helps someone fighting this in the future.

Here’s the Support Post that made the little light bulb go off over my head.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/100849

Federal Court barres Vonage from using technology that infringes on Verizon’s patents. Vonage will learn in two weeks if this becomes permanent, but they state that this will not hurt their customers. Does anyone know exactly what patents we’re talking about here? I’ve read that it was the technology to allow VoIP calls to talk to people with regular land line service. If that is true how can this not hurt the customers?

As a customer, I’m still pulling for you Vonage, but I’ve got other phone providers on speed dial at this point.

I have searched the WordPress.org site, the forums, the WordPress.com forums, Google, and the forums and knowledgebase of my new host, BlueHost.com. I cannot find the answer to my last remaining issue with hosting my own WordPress blog – how the heck to you get comment notification email to work?!

I tried everything I could think of. I even did a live chat with a BlueHost support person and we couldn’t find anything wrong. Installed the wp-PHPMailer plugin and that didn’t work either.  I must have configured that thing a dozen different ways but I was never able to receive an email when someone would post a comment to the blog.

I’m going to post a question on the BlueHost support forums next, but for now I have subscribed to the Comments RSS feed until I get this figured out.  It’s better than nothing.  One step away from perfection.  If anyone has a suggestion please leave it in the comments, I’ll eventually see it in my feed reader.

I’ve been wanting to host my own site for a while now so I finally got off my butt and moved to a web host that supports WordPress for blogging.  I was a Simplehost customer for a  year and a half.  They did a decent job, but I wanted to host my own blog again using WordPress software.  Although Simplehost provides WordPress for blogging, they are way behind on the versions and would not commit to a time when they would upgrade.

Enter BlueHost.com, my new web site host.  I think their pricing is fair and they are running much newer versions of all the software, including the Control Panel that you use to manage your site.  Hosting my own WordPress blog was pretty simple, and I made sure to keep the look as close to what I used on WordPress.com as I could.  One nice thing is that I now have an almost unlimited supply of different Themes and Plugins that I can use, so I doubt the site will look like this for long.

I tried to make sure that all feeds and links redirected correctly,  so if you find a  broken link or feed somewhere, please let me know by leaving a Comment.

Welcome to the new site.

I’ve been moving all of my web content to a new host so you may end up with a few page not found messages until I get all of the content moved. The nice thing is I am hosting my own blog again. Still using WordPress, but just moving from WordPress.com to my own host.

The first year with Vonage was a pretty good Honeymoon; not too many issues, good call quality, and the price was excellent. However, 2007 has not been a good year for Vonage and me; numerous outages, terrible call quality, and times when I could only receive calls, not make them. Very frustrating.

Before you jump on the “it’s because your Internet connection sucks” bandwagon, let me say that I have Verizon Fios at 15Mb downstream and 2Mb upstream bandwidth. Lots of pipe. “But it’s not just about bandwidth” you say. You’re correct, it is not just about bandwidth. Latency is the real name of the game, and I have very little of it. I’ve done all the speed tests anywhere I could find them and my connection is fast and fat.

Now that Verizon has lost the patent infringement lawsuit that Verizon filed, it puts another giant hole in my confidence that they can move forward without some kind of interruption in their business. 58M is not a lot of money to a larger company, but to Vonage it is probably going to hurt a lot. Sprint has a lawsuit coming up later this year that could hammer another nail in their coffin.

One of the attractions to Vonage was their flat rate all you can eat plan for $25. If they have to pay Verizon a little over 5% for every customer you just know where they are going to make that up – they will have to raise their prices. Verizon’s plan for similar service is still too much money. It’s twice as much as Vonage. If Verizon really wanted to compete with Vonage they could very easily just by pricing their VoiceWing VoIP service around the same price, or a little less, than Vonage.

But I expect Verizon to go the opposite direction. I believe they are really not interested in competing with Vonage at all. It makes more sense to just destroy them. I think Verizon has just taken the first step of that very plan.

I have never had any issue recommending Vonage to people over the years, but for now I can no longer do that until they prove that they have their act together. For me, I plan on sticking with them a while longer to see what happens, but Verizon could easily pull me away from Vonage if the price was right. Phone service is a commodity. It took a long time for that to happen, but it finally did. The cheapest flat rate price with the best call quality will win.

http://news.com.com/2061-10785_3-6169346.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic18947.html

We have one of the greatest beds ever made.  I couldn’t tell you what brand it is or who makes the mattress, etc. but I can tell you that it is just a phenomenal piece of furniture.  You can’t help but fall asleep in this bed.  It’s one of my favorite places to be.

At least it was until six nights ago when I finally broke down and brought home the breathing apparatus to address the sleep apnea problem I hear I have.  In one night my favorite place to be became my least favorite place to be.  There was a time when I couldn’t wait to get to bed.  Now I actually dread it because it means I have to wear this ridiculous mask that covers my nose and mouth.  To make sure it stays put through the night it has two straps around the back of your head and one that goes over the top of your head.  Think Hannibal Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs.

Everyone keeps telling me how “it’s not that bad” or how I’ll get used to it.  I call bullshit.  It’s a miserable experience and it has ruined one of my favorite times of the day in one of my favorite places to be.  I used to go to bed when I was getting tired.  Now I hold out as long as I can until I just about pass out so that I get to sleep as fast as possible so I don’t have to think about this mask strapped to my head.  It’s not comfortable.  It is not completely quiet.  It pumps air in to me at a ridiculous pressure.  This is supposed to make me feel so much more well rested?  I don’t think so.

I once thought I could never be more uncomfortable than the time I had a kidney stone.  I’d take that experience back in a heartbeat if it meant I could throw this breathing apparatus in the trash.  I’m looking forward to business trips because there is no way I’m taking this thing to a hotel, or on vacation, or anywhere.  It stays home.