April 2008

CC&R's that are bad for the environment

Having looked at houses over the years I've seen some really bad CC&R's. But some go beyond being annoying to being downright harmful to the planet. Take for example this except from the Shamrock West website pointing out the most commonly violated CC&R's:

SECTION 9 – LIGHT POLE
“Each home is REQUIRED to have a photo-sensitive pole light installed in the front yard within (10) feet of the property line, designed to switch on automatically at sunset and off at sunrise with a minimum bulb power of 40 watts.”

So not only does this contribute to unnecessary light pollution, but it wastes energy. Living in the next neighborhood over we don't have this silly rule. And the neighborhood is much nicer for it. Sadly most new development CC&R's I've looked at lately have these same clauses requiring residents to waste energy.

Earth day home improvements for free

Earth day is coming up this week. Here's one simple tip that just about anybody can do that will save money and help the planet at the same time. Search your house and find light fixtures with more than one bulb. Simply remove half of the bulbs. Most likely you won't notice the reduction in light and now you're using half as much energy every time you flip the switch.

Previous experience in web design is also required

Had this ad been posted on April 1st it would have been a really funny joke. Posted late in the month it is more funny sad than funny ha ha. Sadly this is not made up but a real ad posted by a real law school. This could turn into the right opportunity for someone with a solid Drupal developer. Unfortunately for the law school in question it does not bode well.

As is the case in many shops this will be a one-person web shop. By itself this is not a bad deal. The challenge will be getting a good person. Unfortunately the advertisement suggests the organization understands very little about what to expect from this position. What is best about this advertisement is the line "[K]nowledge of a web programming language is required
(ColdFusion or Dreamweaver)."
Sigh. If the school is really lucky they'll get a good Drupaler to apply and come explain in easy to understand terms what the school needs.

Senior Web Developer - Law School

This position will design, test, and implement websites, including
designing databases, web-interfaces, and reports for the Law School. While the
Director will be kept abreast of all activities (for purpose of approval,
particularly informational and/or content issues) related to Web resources,
most of the technological and operational aspects of the sites will be the full
responsibility of this position.

Requirements: Bachelor's degree in Information Technology,
Information Systems, Computer Science, Computer Engineering or a closely

The Drupal shop

aten Design Group has a great article on why they chose Drupal. I would be hard pressed to tell you the number of high quality shops who have made the same choice. Many of us have set about building a better content management system. One better suited to our particular needs or our view of how to do content management. As someone who has used content management systems dating back to Clay Basket and NetObjects Fusion as well as rolling my own, Drupal simply makes it possible to focus on doing the things we want with a content management system (and yes it's more than just a CMS) instead of spending weeks and years building one.

Cutting the cable

Tom wrote recently about ditching cable TV. Over the last couple of years we've been watching not much TV. With our move last winter we ended up in a house that for various reasons isn't suited to cable or satellite.

This situation brought out the rabbit ears and there is an amazing revelation that free TV is still available via plain old rabbit ears. The coming conversion to digital TV won't even render them useless though an old TV set will need a converter box. But there is the lack of TiVo. That all powerful system for time-shifting shows. Fortunately there is a reasonable solution there too.

Admittedly the Eye TV Hybrid takes some cash up front. However, it pays off in the long run. There are no TiVo fees, no requirement to use anything but a computer and some rabbit ears. Though I don't yet have even the latest software, it does a great job of turning a 20-inch iMac into a great media center. Hook it up with an AppleTV and it's even better than TiVo in many ways.

Time Capsule time out

It is now somewhat ironic that I made a quick post about Time Capsule on Friday. It seems mine is deciding to be a Time Capsule working poorly. I don't have the heat issue mentioned in that and other posts, but the device that worked for a month now merely spins it's wheels "preparing" to backup but never quite getting it done. Hopefully something will be done soon.

Trading Time Capsules

Here's a quick random thought. As has been pointed out on some other blogs one of the shortcomings of the Time Capsule is that it only protects against some kinds of needs for data recovery. One could add a little bit more protection without sacrificing the convenience by swapping time capsule's with one's neighbor and having your backups live at their house and vice versa. This only works for people in houses close enough for it to happen and doesn't protect against all ills like a flood wiping out the neighborhood but would likely provide some protection against a house fire... of course the resulting physical insecurity of all your data means you have to really trust your neighbor.

Goodbye my friend

More than a dozen years ago it was clear this day would come. But in the knowing it would arrive does little to dam the torrent of tears it brings. Between there and here is was so easy to forget. Even in the last weeks, reminded by Sam's passing, and knowing that the time was near doesn't really prepare one for what will be. The deep sadness that comes with the passing of a friend. A couple of decades back Linda Rondstat sang:

So goodbye, my friend
I know I'll never see you again
But the love you gave me through all the years
Will take away these tears
It's okay now...
Goodbye my friend

Life's so fragile and love's so pure
We can't hold on but we try
We watch how quickly it disappears
And we never know why

But I'm okay now
Goodbye my friend.
I can go now
Goodbye my friend.

Indeed goodbye my dear friend. The memories are so plentiful that it's hard to know where to begin in telling the story.

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