Uncategorized – Page 2

October 7, 2008October 7, 2008

Twitter: Let’s save some bandwidth.

One of the unique things about twitter is that you only get 140 characters to do so. Even with that limitation, there is still much redundant twittering.

I know there are already some standard internet shortcuts; LOL, ROFLMA, OMG, WTH, etc.

I think there’s room for a whole new suite of Twitter shortcuts that could save time and bandwidth. I’d like to suggest a few that will cover about 80% of the tweets out there:

Shortcut	Meaning	Usage
IJA	I Just Ate	IJA McDonalds or IJA Wendy’s and it was good.
IJ1 or IJ2	I Just went number 1, or I Just went number 2	IJ1 and it burned is that normal?
IAM	In A Meeting	IAM and it’s boring.
GTM	Going To Meeting	GTM, again.
GTE	Going To Eat	GTE McDonalds
JWU	Just Woke Up.	JWO, what time is it?
GTB	Going To Bed	GTB it’s late.
AUPC	Another Unsolicited Phone Call	AUPC from Amway.
CTL	Click This Link	CTL www.somelink.com
SFATL	Something Funny at this Link	SFATL www.somelink.com
SSATL	Something Stupid at this Link	SSATL www.somelink.com
AIWF	And It Was Fun/Funny	IJA McDonalds AIWF
OS	Obama Sucks	OS!
MS	McCain Sucks	MS but not as much as OS
TMU	The market is up	TMU -400
TMD	The market is down	TMD 400
SIAIS	Saw it and it sucked	<insert movie, or something visual> SIAIS
SIAIR	Saw it and it rocked	<insert movie, or something visual> SIAIR
GI	Google it	@someperson who asked a stupid question GI
IWTL	I was too lazy	I would have Googled it but IWTL

This is just a start but if we all try real hard, I’m sure we can save some serious internet bandwidth by implementing these.

I’m sure there is probably a list somewhere already. Maybe even

Technorati Tags: twitter

something official somewhere but I didn’t Google it. IWTL

June 12, 2007

Mo betta server hardware.

www.dishers.com has moved. The hardware that www.dishers.com was hosted on was an old 1ghz, AMD Athlon. It was the ‘stuff’ back in the day almost 10 years ago? It was originally my hot machine for playing Tribes!, (there’s 2 years of my life I’ll never get back).

But as we’ve gotten to the world of Internet 2.0 with graphically rich web sites, and more .php processing required for things like the gallery. It was time to move this site to something a little better. The box it’s on now is 3 years old, but it’s still about 4x the power (if not more) than the box that replaced it.

Things should be mo betta, and mo faster.

DNS’s around the world are updating as we speak. Life is good.

April 25, 2007April 25, 2007

And the Cirrus Lives on…

About 4 years ago we purchased this 1999 Chrysler Cirrus:

It had roughly 40k miles on it. It was a direct replacement for the Honda Wagon that we had, which was stolen. For some reason we didn’t want another wagon, which, in hind sight was a bad idea.

We were a tad hesitant to buy a Dodge/Chrysler product, especially after coming from Honda’s, but it was newer than what was stolen, had far fewer miles, and was in some ways an upgrade, leather seats, CD player, v6, cute gauges, etc, etc. It also fit nicely with-in the budget from the insurance check.

It now has 117k miles and still runs pretty good for what it is.

The only real repairs it’s needed to date were brakes, and tires (both consumables).

We did go through one episode where the speed sensor died (apparently common on these). The speedo quit, and it shifted down into first and stayed there. This repair was $20 and about an hour and a half of my time. Locating the dang thing was the hardest part, this sensor isn’t easy to get too.

We had the regular transmission flush and fill around 75k because it wasn’t shifting as smooth as it should. Shortly there after it started acting as though the transmission was going to die. Really rough shifting, etc. But that simply passed and, well, it’s chugged along for another 30k miles.

The check engine light came on around 100k miles. But the car still ran perfectly fine, so no rush to fix that.

Last week however, it hiccupped and went into limp mode. It would start up, shift up through the gears one time then back down into 2nd gear when you came to a stop and then stayed there. Ugh…

Transmission problems just suck. The fluid was still red and clean, not burnt. So I was fairly certain it was something electronic. Of course the Chiltons manual in this regard was no help.

After a trip to the dealer, the results are in. $180 for a different speed sensor (apparently there are two). $250 for the EVG valve replacement, and it’s as good as new. Or as good as it was 60k miles ago.

It needs a tune up. No doubt about that, but the dealer cost for that is a whopping $450 dollars. I think we’ll wait a bit. It can’t be _that_ hard, or can it.

We’ll see if we get through this summer with this car and a young driver before we put another $450 in it.

The bottom line though is that this car has been very, very good for us. Will we rush out and buy another Chrysler? Probably not, but it has served us well.