RichC | October 5, 2016
Google calendar has automatically added a few important annual events to my calendar (my settings), but unfortunately it is not artificially intelligent enough to remove or delete. Today I was sent a reminder that we normally celebrate our late dog Tootie’s birthday on October 5th. She is missed and I often catch what I thought […]
RichC | May 1, 2016
I recall thinking a bit more about the barbarism of the Empire of Japan during (and prior) to World War II when I read the book Flyboys by James Bradley a few years back. When it came out in 2003, I remembered thinking about just how tainted public secondary and higher had become in regards […]
RichC | February 25, 2016
The American Pi blog was due for an update (including on MyDesultoryBlog.com too!) and thought escaping for a minute to gaze into water and sky of the right color for this dreary February afternoon was a good idea. Why am I still in Cincinnati again?
RichC | December 30, 2015
Digital Ocean’s cloud based servers have me debating which is best for the MyDesultoryBlog.com in a worse case scenario? Do I continue with the $1/mo automated backups 4 times per month or go with the no-charge manual “Snapshops?” The $12/yr charge in the short term is probably reasonable but would have preferred a daily image […]
RichC | June 29, 2015
I’m bummed to see that total views on MyDesultoryBlog are down about 10% this past year. The drop-off may have to do with more users looking at things on their mobile devices? Blogs, mine in particular, are difficult to read on a small screen phone and longer copy (like the previous two posts) are not […]
RichC | June 19, 2015
Plugins for CMS like WordPress are a dime a dozen and many improve the look and use of a WordPress.org blog, but usually at a sacrifice of speed. Recommending them is not usually something I would do … believing that a lean and fast site is better than bulky and slow sites. Unfortunately I’ve fallen […]
RichC | March 23, 2015
I spent a few minutes updating and cleaning up some of the tags on MyDesultoryBlog this past weekend … more of a maintenance thing than anything essential. Part of the reason was that I am still learning about Blogsy as a blog writing and editing tool, but also just to clean things up. I realized […]
RichC | January 1, 2015
The year 2014 ended on a rather positive note thanks to lower oil prices, low inflation and higher stock prices. Considering the economic malaise most Americans have endured most of the past 7 years, a little optimism feels good. Consumer confidence climbed to 92.6 in December as measured by The Conference Board’s private survey and […]
RichC | November 25, 2014
Twitter has been my preferred social networking connection since February 2007 as @richc (and as a blog announcement @mydesultoryblog) and tweets are nearly 10,000. Hmm, I wonder what it should be … maybe this post? As for social networking, I prefer Twitter for immediate news, customer service issues and a quick exchange of ideas or […]
RichC | October 12, 2014
Somewhat an excuse to slip in a Hank Williams song, but the Dome Homes article was intriguing because we explored this area with my college buddies in the late 1970s every Christmas break. I’d still like to get back there by sailboat and anchor for a few days …weeks … or maybe months … and […]
RichC | August 12, 2014
A long time client and now retired friend, Clyde Witt, is publishing his first novel. He has always written stories in a style appeals to me … although his politics still needs some work (a personal joke). I’m anxious to pre-ordered a copy of his book to read and review. One of the advantages of […]
RichC | April 9, 2014
I’ve hit a milestone on My Desultory Blog – 4000 posts since I started in April 2005. Amazing to have been blogging daily for that many posts; it doesn’t seem possible? Obviously those who regularly check in know there is very little of earthshattering significance (ok, nothing of significance), but since it is purely a […]
RichC | February 28, 2014
Once upon a time it seemed smart to host only light content on my own blog. In the early days it was easy to store larger files like video, audio and photos “for free” with content hosts like YouTube, Flickr and Posterous (among others). The plus was that I didn’t fill the “out of pocket” […]
RichC | February 20, 2014
Those who are regular readers of My Desultory Blog realize that besides posting commentary on newsy items, be it tech, cars, aviation, politics or whatever, that I also include personal entries and photos relating to my family. This blog, now 4000 posts, is a continuation of a journal that I started in 1977 as a […]
RichC | February 12, 2014
It has been 7 years since I (@RichC)first started using the social network known as Twitter and in that time I’ve tweeted over 8000 times from my personal account and almost 2900 from @MyDesultoryBlog (RSS feed style blog updates). I’ve added 1600 to my stream (many news feeds) and am closing in on 1000 followers. […]
RichC | January 22, 2014
This past weekend was “blog cleanup” as I am in the process of optimizing WordPress on my site and updating the plugin that manages Google’s Adsense — at one time I thought they were non-intrusive, but recently have become obnoxious. Unfortunately after tweaking the size and types of ads they seem even worse that before. […]
RichC | October 19, 2013
After offering a little tech help to a computer novice setting up email and an a few bookmarks, my friend asked me why some web pages are so “busy and confusing.” He was refering to the columns and underlined words in of all places … MY BLOG. Hmm … is it that confusing I wondered? Maybe because […]
RichC | August 4, 2013
It has been a few years since the automatic update from WordPress.org failed on my server … and only after the fact did I regret not doing a full backup prior to attempting the update (really, I’m posting just to see that all is working after the upgrade). After downloading the new install files and […]
RichC | June 21, 2013
Are you frustrated with the basic search feature available in WordPress? If so, join the club. I’ve been back and forth with several different search plugins and have even tried customizing my own using a Google API. Unfortunately none of them worked well for me when I was searching my own site for items that […]
RichC | April 26, 2013
The part, which police believe came from one of the two commercial airliners destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the rear of 51 Park Pl., several blocks from ground zero. The surveyors called 911 to report the debris with a “clearly visible Boeing identification number,” the New York Police Department […]
RichC | February 16, 2013
Shared per Emily Stewart of Online MBA blog … Thanks. Global economists are keeping their eyes glued to the Asia-Pacific region, where a bitter feud is brewing between two of the world’s most powerful nations over a small collectivity of islands in the East China Sea. The Chinese government argues that a treaty signed […]
RichC | January 13, 2013
Hmm, did the content I post to the blog get less interesting or are Internet users getting their fill of personal blogs? Maybe there is just too much content available? After years of increasing blog readership, at least in pageviews, 2012 was the first year My Desultory Blog saw a decline in the numbers across […]
RichC | June 11, 2012
How challenging has it really been for families these past few years? Well if you’re in college or just starting out and able to pay the bills, finding work or able to keep borrowing for school … then you might not notice much (can you tell I’m talking with my college age son while he […]
RichC | May 28, 2012
I would be remise not to mention Memorial Day and our nation’s honoring and remembering those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. It is a day that many of our citizens tend to blend with honoring all veterans … not a bad thing … but in some respect causes confusion over the purpose […]
RichC | December 21, 2011
I’ve been happily using Avast! as my virus scanner for the last couple years … and have been off and on satisfied for over a decade. The company updates always get me concerned knowing that the free version could become as bloated as are many others (paid versions aren’t immune either). Thankfully the most recent […]
RichC | September 17, 2011
After a few days off after arguing with my “previous” web hosting company in serving up my blog, I’ve moved the 12 gigabytes of files and content over to a new server. The task was not made any easier by my 6 years of linking photo, video and embedded content from a variety of places. […]
RichC | September 13, 2011
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RichC | May 25, 2011
After 6 years and over 2600 posts to My Desultory Blog, I’ve finally decided to use a few dollars from my Google’s Adsense earnings (small as it is) to register the domain name mydesultoryblog.com. For the time being I’ll still post under my originally richc.myarchive.us (and probably will continue); this myarchive.us site was intended to […]
RichC | October 24, 2010
Five years? Has it been that long? Every once in a while I check in with my blog’s Way Back Machine (links to the right) and noticed that “Years ago on this day” 5 years ago hurricane Wilma crossed the southern part of Florida. Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005
RichC | October 1, 2010
It’s been on the list of things to do, but since my personal blog isn’t necessarily a ‘must read’ for people, I’ve been slow to adopt a better commenting methods or in this case “discussion” method — Disqus = dis·cuss • d?-sk?s’. After reviewing and listening to the opinions of tech savvy friends, I’ve opted […]
RichC | July 8, 2010
I’m struggling once again to keep my blog’s shared database running — hassling with tech support on and off today. Hopefully my low cost host will sorting things out. Yes I’ve threatened to leave once before and magically I was moved to a more efficiently running server. We’ll see how long my patience holds out […]
RichC | March 24, 2010
The topics posted here are far from the recommended ‘single subject focused’ blogs written to purposely attract readers, yet despite this lack of professional focus, the site still gets read. My Desultory Blog manages to generate close to 10,000 unique IP accesses each month and 10 GB of data transferred. One of the most surprising […]
RichC | April 25, 2009
Occasionally I enjoy looking at archived posts from the previous year, or even several years ago by clicking on links in the right hand side bar’s “Years ago on this day“ list. It is surprising how fast 4 years have gone by? It was in April 2005 that I moved my paper journal to a […]
RichC | March 6, 2009
Since I haven’t been traveling this week, I’ve had a few minutes to do a full database backup and reinstall on a new server. One of the primary reason I’ve been anxious to do was because of some significant slowing in access. Thankfully the upgrade was painless and looks to have corrected my primary speed […]
RichC | February 19, 2009
Thought I would test a simple “web widgets” building site at Widgetbox.com that helps users create simple scripts for blogs, websites or social networking sites. So far so good although I’m not sure I need anymore content sardined onto my computer desktop, homepage or blog? Here are a couple, one widget which helps to find […]
RichC | October 16, 2008
For those of you familiar with the book “Born on a Blue Day” by Daniel Tammet, you’ll enjoy his blog post on John McCain’s age. As a ‘numbers guy,’ he takes a look at both actuarial tables of a 72 year old man in the U.S., the McCain family history and lifespan of past U.S. […]
RichC | October 6, 2008
Hopefully all the old posts and comments have been updated to this new 2.6.2 install of WordPress. It was not an easy task, but finally this update should correct many long standing problems associated with the old installation. Categories and tagging have been changed considerably and will require a significant database rebuild; this is something […]