Installed two new toilets this week. I'm turing into a pro. I replaced the older toilets in the house with new Kohler 1.6 toilets. They are basically paid for with a rebate from the water company and we save on our water bill with each flush. They are also part of a SmokeBreakTV bit.

Last post before the month is up and I have to get at least one post in November. We've had Janet here this last week. The project continues. This week was lighting. We also recycled the top cap blocks from the old wall. They are much thicker than the modern cap blocks - about 4x4x8. We painted them three colors - a dark lavender, a light lavender & a cream color. We've stacked them around the flower garden and Jen is filling in dirt to raise up the bed. I bought some stucco, but have not gotten around to testing yet.

Last pos before the month is up and I have to get at least one post in November. We've had Janet here this last week. The project continues. This week was lighting. We also recycled the top cap blocks from the old wall. They are much thicker than the modern cap blocks - about 4x4x8. We painted them three colors - a dark lavender, a light lavender & a cream color. We've stacked them around the flower garden and Jen is filling in dirt to raise up the bed. I bought some stucco, but have not gotten around to testing yet.

Took our introduction to Access Tucson last night. www.accesstucson.org.

It's started. Not for the faint of heart. Watch at your own risk. This should be fun. Smoke Break TV at www.smokebreaktv.com

I've been doing some more work on the backyard project. We're making great progress. I built a retaining wall on the inside of the circle to allow a planter bed next to the sand stone patio. This was also necessary due to the slope of the yard. The wall is built, but not capped yet. I also dug (by hand) trenches for the irrigation. Yesterday morning I installed the irrigation sprinklers and hooked everything up. As usually, I got to the last connection and was short one 3/4" tee. Off to Home Depot and back, then hooked up the final connection and turned on the water.

YEA! Sprinklers. I covered up most of the pipe, but I still need to do another rack through to remove rocks. We should be able to order grass this week.

I've been doing some more work on the backyard project. We're making great progress. I built a retaining wall on the inside of the circle to allow a planter bed next to the sand stone patio. This was also necessary due to the slope of the yard. The wall is built, but not capped yet. I also dug (by hand) trenchs for the irrigation. Yesterday morning I installed the irrigation sprinklers and hooked everything up. As usually, I got to the last connection and was short one 3/4" tee. Off to Home Depot and back, then hooked up the final connection and turned on the water.

YEA! Sprinklers. I covered up most of the pipe, but I still need to do another rack through to remove rocks. We should be able to order grass this week.

JDC Tech Tips: October 21, 1999. Another example of Java code to create thumbnails.

Web Album. Yet another program doing something very similar to FamousFamily.com archives.

Thumbnail.java - Load an image, scale it to thumbnail size and save it as JPEG Some source code to create a thumbnail using plain java. I might use this to replace the Fireworks scripting I use now if the quality is still there. We'll see.

Apache Tutorial: Introduction to Server Side Includes Some stuff I need to figure out for the Archive. I'd like to have the picture and info as an include for both the photo hierarchy and the calendar pages.

Worked hard on the yard project this past week. My neighbor and I also chopped down a lot of desert broom to clear out the space along the side fence. I'm also hard at work on the Friends of Music brochure. As usual, we're late, and I'm doing all the work. It is giving me a chance to learn PageMaker so I can get a new job as a documentation specialist.

Leaking Sprinklers

Repairing Solenoid Valves. One of my new irrigation valves is already leaking. UGH!

Printing to Windows from MAC OSX 10.2 Printing to a Windows printer is not as easy as it could be on the iMac, but this web site sure did help.

Best tips:

Net View on the Windows box to check the share.
smbclient -L servername -U username on the iMac
smb://username:password@servername/printershare

Note that under Windows XP - the username "Mark Famous" is seen as "MarkFamous" under the iMac. Spaces are removed.

MIT OpenCourseWare |
OCW Home
This web site was featured in wired last month. It's a very interesting site with full coursware from MIT on-line.

Froogle Search: bar faucet We're trying to find a 1-hole faucet to replace our faucet in the bar. Froogle is doing a nice job. We'll see if we can find a reasonably priced faucet.

I worked on the Archive programming last night. There were some tricky things to deal with deletes. I had seen a bug where someone disconnected early and ended up deleting their pictures. I fixed that, but I also made the delete smarter. The delete does not delete the file on the server but just renames it to start with an underscore. The new version is smart enough to find the "deleted" photo that starts with an underscore and rename it back to normal if the person undeletes the photo.

I've also been working on Java Servlet's to support the development of the feature that allows the archive viewers to add comments. I'm thinking of a blog style comment support for archive photos.

We had some boring meetings yesterday at work. Most of the topics discussed were discussed at least 3 years ago in other conversations. My boss also has the tendency to invite people to the meetings who should not be there. These are people who need to know about the topic, but not this early in the discussion. I makes the whole thing rather boring because we're discussing things I have already thought about and already understand. The fact that I had meetings at least 3 years ago discussing the same things is also frustrating. So...

I made the best of it and read through the Apache Tomcat documentation. I had not had a clear understanding about deployment, configuration, and the integration with Apache HTTP server. I still have some confusion, but I think I have enough information to do some more exploring. Automatic Deployment

I wrote my first Java Servlet last night. Instead of "Hello World" it displayed "Mark, you're the man!"

I'm working on setting up some ways to edit the comments on the pages of the picture server.

This morning Jen found a leak in the irrigation system. It is near all of the valves in the back yard. It's going to be a mess to fix. Yuck!

Works sucks.

We had much fun in Boston and Connecticut at Tod and Holly's Wedding. See Emma's Take on the trip. We all wish them many happy years and send out love.