RichC | September 16, 2023
It’s interesting to see the changes in how people access Internet content over the years … or at least access information on MyDesultoryBlog.com. Microsoft Windows was once dominate, but Mac, Linux and Chrome OS computers are gaining ground. Perhaps the biggest change since starting the blog in 2005 is just how dominate iOS and Android […]
RichC | August 11, 2023
As My Desultory Blog approaches 8000 posts, it has become increasingly clear that tags and categories are becoming worthless. Besides having too many, they are all too full and do little for me to find anything (or anyone else). The search feature has always been a problem and makes it difficult for even me to […]
RichC | June 30, 2023
Such a simple fix; why did it take me so long to add a bit of code to the “non-supported” WordPress theme that My Desultory Blog has been using since nearly the beginning in 2005? Ugh, well it is finally good to have a “DATE” listed when using the search box. Also while checking my […]
RichC | June 29, 2023
While updating a few blog titles that had mis-coded characters on My Desultory Blog, my eye was drawn to an old favorite smartphone post from 2006 — the Palm Treo 700p. See 2006 CAK photo post The photos started me thinking about this making an interesting artificial intelligence assisted ChatGPT Throwback Thursday #TBT post? The […]
RichC | March 21, 2023
When working with Bing‘s webmaster tools, I noticed that some search results for MyDesultory Blog.com were missing. After a bit of reading, it looks as if I may have crammed too much into the index HTML page? According to their guidelines (it doesn’t impact other search engines), a heavy index page (+125KB) removes a website […]
RichC | March 8, 2023
After a bit of time away from my aging Apple iMac and time to ponder using the MarsEdit blogging app from RedSweater as a replacement for OpenLiveWriter on Windows, I bit the bullet and purchased the software. The final push to purchase was the responsive emails from the developer Daniel Jalkut and how to set […]
RichC | January 20, 2023
This is a test only post from a new to me Mac app called MarsEdit. It is similar to my much loved Open Live Writer on Windows, but without a few of the features or ablity to preview the blog format while typing. Still I’m going to give it a try and see if I can […]
RichC | May 25, 2022
Generally I don’t rush to updated software or computer operating systems, but noting that WordPress 6.0 has “400 bug fixes” had me deciding to backup the current MDB install and updating. So far, all good. WordPress 6.0 includes more than 500 enhancements and 400 bug fixes. This page highlights several key advancements aimed at making […]
RichC | January 28, 2022
In an attempt to start 2022 off right, I’ve updated MyDesultoryBlog.com‘s WordPress to the current 5.9 … along with the interface that I’ve never learned to use or appreciate. Someday perhaps? Since this was a pretty short Tech Friday blog entry, I’ll include a JAMA guest link from my daughter that reminded her (and me) […]
RichC | January 16, 2022
It has been a little over a year since the syndicated Truth For Life page was added to my blog … and although I’ve not been “daily-diligent” in reading the Spurgeon Devotionals … I’m hoping having Alistair Begg’s devotionals in place of them might help? The new Truth For Life feed has recently been approved […]
RichC | December 10, 2021
The surprise increase in blog traffic corresponded to my taking a few more security measures such as locking down more of the personal content to only logged in readers … but I’m not sure that had anything to do with increasing earnings? Still, I noticed upward change (more than doubling) of Google Adsense earnings and […]
RichC | October 5, 2021
I received an email from a regular blog reader questioning the new Sign-In feature that I implemented last month; it hinders anonymous viewing on My Desultory Blog for some posts. Yes it is a restrictive change, but it is not all that cumbersome once you are “Sign-In.” The WordPress security is minimal and the only […]
RichC | August 12, 2021
Today is my wife’s birthday and I do my best to remember and marked the day on MyDesultoryBlog.com. This year I remembered one of my favorite photos of Brenda from one of our cruises (actually an ani gif … wait for it) – this one is west of Gibraltar back in 2009. Since it’s from […]
RichC | August 5, 2021
In making this a Throwback Thursday #TBT post, it is interesting to look at a blog post from 2007 when we added our backporch and stamped concrete and as it is now while contemplating how to cut back our landscaping and trees. At one point we were thinking it was taking so long to mature […]
RichC | May 14, 2021
MyDesultoryBlog.com was overdue for a backup and since I stepped away early from my desk on Thursday, I figured the end of the day was a good time to sync online and offline storage (the backups make for a sluggish computer and data connection). Besides backing up data, it also seemed like a good time […]
RichC | April 11, 2021
Last week my sister-in-law shared an update on her Facebook page of some well-known Hollywood celebrities that I thought would be interesting to at to MyDesultoryBlog. I downloaded the 30+ different-sized photos, resized a few and decided it might work as an automated slide show (if you want my resized originals, download this .zip archive). […]
RichC | March 20, 2021
A technology friend of mine, Scott Bilik (who was considered my Twitter “Godfather in 2007), has recently wiped some of the mud from his hypothetical digital footprints and is systematically freeing himself from Big Tech’s shackles. This current Silicon Valley monopoly has increased its political clout and has enticed or entrapped most of us in […]
RichC | February 28, 2021
Just marking server and blog updates to end the month of February 2021. I’ve put this WordPress 5.6.2 update off a few weeks in order to be sure I had a full backup, etc. Note to self, check on the Seagate hard drive attached to the iMac as Time Machine backups have been regularly failing […]
RichC | February 18, 2021
Almost 1 year ago, I started to use the Chromium-based Brave Browser and an Uphold account to receive the BAT (Basic Attention Token). I convert to Bitcoin along with the income generated on MyDesultoryBlog.com … which currently seems to be the digital currency of choice; I really did it just for the fun of it […]
RichC | January 8, 2021
A simple blog upgrade project that I’ve been contemplating for a while now was one of my 2021 New Year’s resolutions … so I’m worked on it this past week’s Music Monday post. I’m not sure how long the new button and player will remain unchanged since I seem to keep testing and tweaking it; […]
RichC | December 23, 2020
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RichC | November 28, 2020
Although I’ve worked with my friend Pastor Keith Thomas on his GroupBibleStudy.com site for years, I’ve been happy for him that his daughter has taken on the volunteer job of webmaster. As I warned him, be careful when it comes to maintaining the day to day site management … as once the new design ambition […]
RichC | November 8, 2020
The menu “navigational links” just under the header of My Desultory Blog are primarily there for my own short-cuts … and I haven’t changed them for years. A few aren’t really used much anymore, with improved browser bookmarks – one click bookmarks are just much more convenient. This past week I made a change. I […]
RichC | August 14, 2020
Friday afternoon was a day of server housekeeping, along with the week’s usual billing and accounting. It was also time to update this blog’s WordPress plugins and to the current version called “Eckstine” 5.5. In WordPress 5.5, your site gets new power in three major areas: speed, search, and security. Thankfully after the move to […]
RichC | July 21, 2020
After updating a few security features on this server, there is/was a problem (?) in posting to MyDesultoryBlog.com. So as an update test, I’ll add a couple photos. The subject line question is really a trick question since the photo on the right was taken a day before the one on the left a couple […]
RichC | June 20, 2020
A couple weeks ago I shared an old automotive link from MyDesultoryBlog.com on Twitter and one of my automotive buddies sent me a private message asking about the name of my blog (now nearly 7000 posts). The conversation had me contemplate the early decisions and thoughts .. or lack of thought .. when all of […]
RichC | June 19, 2020
Way too often those who maintain their own web servers and computers grit their teeth and cringe when it is time to update and upgrade. A month or so ago I replaced one of my servers (the one this blog is on) and suffered through the anxiety of getting everything working again. I generally follow […]
RichC | May 12, 2020
After mentioning problems last week, the new webserver is up and running with a fresh install of Linux Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver,” MySQL database and PHP 7.2 … well I actually decided to upgrade that to PHP 7.4 for a little better speed (who knows?) I’ve abandoned MongoDB for the time being for the Quickdex.net […]
RichC | May 6, 2020
Today’s post serves as a test … since I’m having a few webserver and database problems. If you are a regular reader, this will also be a notice that this blog will likely be sporadic until it is fixed. Once my business sites are updated, then I’ll address my long-in-the-tooth (see below) Quickdex project site and […]
RichC | April 16, 2020
For those automotive enthusiasts who are spending A LOT more time at home due to the Coronavirus stay-at-home orders and interested in ways to entertain our minds, try the ConsumerGuide.com Automotive blog’s Engine Parts word search. Tom Appel and crew always find something interesting for their blog (and car stuff podcast). Click image larger or […]
RichC | March 20, 2020
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RichC | March 19, 2020
Every once in a while MyDesultoryBlog’s “Year(s) Ago On This Day" script pops up something that shocks me. It is hard to believe we donated Brenda‘s 1998 Toyota Rav4 back in 2016? It does not seem that long … but "life moves pretty fast …" as the Ferris Bueller line goes. So I’ll repost one […]
RichC | February 27, 2020
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RichC | February 19, 2020
Although I have not sought Katelyn’s approval to include her rounded “personal coffee table” or her pregnancy photo (cough, cough – one in the same) to MyDesultoryBlog, but I’m boldly going out on a limb by posting it. The longer I post daily, the more I find myself wanting to archive family milestones … as […]
RichC | February 17, 2020
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RichC | August 13, 2019
Great energy use tip for those of use who heavily rely on ceiling fans: The direction a ceiling fan should turn can be confusing. Modern fans have a switch that enables them to blow the air either up or down. During the summer you want the fan to blow air straight down, so your ceiling […]
RichC | March 22, 2019
This is project for work as I wanted to demonstrate to a customer what I was referring to when I encouraged them to add a simple “read a script” podcast channel or simple YouTube video component to their marketing. It is a way to capture audiences who have moved away from reading articles and blogs […]
RichC | February 2, 2019
One never knows who you will offend and who you will connect with when posting on an open social network, but Friday I had an enjoyable back and forth with Troy from Missouri. He is a like-minded political conservative, a patriot (a Navy veteran who served on the USS Stonewall Jackson) and seemed to also enjoy […]
RichC | December 7, 2018
A couple years ago I added Simple Slideshow Manager to MyDesultoryBlog as a way to include a series of photos in a single post. Having “attempted” different approaches that fail in one OS, Browser or device before the above plugin seemed to work … that is, until it didn’t. Having posted to the forums, trying […]
RichC | July 15, 2018
Like most who spend their days using smartphones, tablets and computer devices, I’m prone to making typos along with various written communication mistakes. If you’ve read my blog a few times, you will undoubtedly notice mistakes, even if you have an untrained eye — that is because I rarely proofread. I’ve been criticized by everyone […]
RichC | March 23, 2018
Here’s some advice from someone who as blogged daily since 2005 — AVOID using data, photos, video, etc archived on other services. Over the years, I have been frustrated by “what seemed great at the time” using services offered by companies who specialize in hosting data for users. A little history: It started for me […]
RichC | February 5, 2018
Although there are quite a few reservation holders starting to doubt whether we’ll ever see production (last update was 2019 deliveries), the marketing team continues to tease (update) on this small commuter car. The original low price has been inched up, but it still will be a bargain if Elio Motors can afford to put […]
RichC | January 5, 2018
In order to improve efficiency on WordPress sites (my customer installs) I often experiment with updates on my personal MyDesultoryBlog first since very little on this site really matters for paying customers. So over the Christmas and New Years holidays I fiddled with a few highly recommended updates to the LAMP server and WordPress installs. […]
RichC | December 31, 2017
After installing Cloudflare in hope of adding another layer of security to WordPress blogs, I noticed a couple issues with sluggishness compared to my own DNS. I wish it were quicker, but something isn’t right since instead all aspects seems slower after switching. Even after bypassing the caching feature things continued to run slow. Once […]
RichC | December 29, 2017
In the world of community supported software and Internet applications, there are few better than those associated with the Linux Foundation Collaborative Projects … like Let’s Encrypt. The latter provides HTTPS certificates that are perfect for lightweight Linux OS webservers and it operates on a "donate" for certs services basis. This month Let’s Encrypt plans […]
RichC | November 8, 2017
It might not seem like a monumental decision, but Twitter upped their 140 character limit to 280 yesterday … so it was kind of a big deal. One of the core attributes for those of us using the popular social networking tool is the brevity and discipline required to communicate with a limited number of […]
RichC | June 11, 2017
It was one short year ago (6/11/2016) that the the news shocked me that one of my college roommates collapsed and died while cycling near Columbus Ohio. My college orientation roommate and one of three 4th year roommates, Bill Gordon was an avid cyclist and was probably in far better physical shape than most, but […]
RichC | May 21, 2017
For those of you who are regular visitors to MyDesultoryBlog and are not running an ad blocker plugin on your browser, you may have noticed a small snippet of new ad content in the sidebar. Last month, GoogleAdsense offered an upgrade to this blog’s minimal advertising experiment. The new ad content promotes “matched” internal content from similar previous posts […]
RichC | April 28, 2017
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RichC | April 20, 2017
My apology for ignoring the blog these last couple of days, but duty calls when servers and networks go down for my clients … yes, for MyDesultoryBlog too. I’m red-eyed and frazzled, but hopefully by the end of the weekend all will return to normal on new hardware, but we’ll see as the tweaks continue.
RichC | January 21, 2017
Those who have been blogging for a while learn to monitor their viewership. We’d like to know what kind of traffic is hitting the servers and often looking at the breakdown as to what generates interest and ad clicks. In the early days, a "hit counter" was sufficient, but as country music artist Loretta Lynn […]
RichC | January 13, 2017
Twice now I’ve found myself unable to post to my WordPress blog. Once a few years ago using the windows based Microsoft Live Writer (now defunct) and recently using the open-sourced Open Live Writer. The “Invalid Server Response – The response to the blogger.getUsersBlogs method received from the blog server was invalid:” error pops up. […]
RichC | January 1, 2017
Much has been made of the death of diesel after the VW cheating scandal … but there is still room for debate and a need for diesel vehicles – innovation benefits diesel as well as EVs. Electricity has potential in passenger vehicles, but in its current state of innovation, it falls short to the Diesel […]
RichC | November 11, 2016
A lot has changed in the 11 years that have passed since I posted on “First Man” Neil Armstrong … but after re-watching the 60 Minutes clip and pondering going “back to the moon and to Mars by 2018,” Armstrong would have been disappointed as a lot hasn’t changed. Click for post from 11/11/2005 WHY […]
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 […]