Archive for March, 2009

Inbox 0!

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

I made it to Inbox 0 in GMail. Okay, so, it is kind of lazy. I mean, I was just thinking about what the 500+ emails in my inbox were doing? Not much. It was just a pile of read email. As new email came in, I would read it. But I just left it in the inbox. So moments ago I thought, hmm, so what is the “Archive” button in GMail for? Why, it is for this pile of read email in my inbox. The vast majority, in fact all of it at the time, had already been “processed”. Why was I keeping them? Some of them were there “just in case” I needed to refer back to them. But, then what is the “All Mail” archive for? It is there for the times, “just in case”, that I need to refer back to an old email. So, then, why not get the email out of the “Inbox”. So I did. I don’t lose anything by archiving the email. It is still there. (Thanks to Google’s vast storage. I am using 4% of 7.3 GB.)

Authenticate via OpenID

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

You can now use OpenID to authenticate at this blog! w00t!

I have just installed the WordPress plugin OpenID (version 3.2.1). Installation was very simple: just upload the “openid” directory to the “plugin” directory and then active the plugin. The plugin allows you to assign multiple OpenIDs to your account to log in to your blog account.

Remote desktop connection tip

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Today I am working from home because Sydney is sick. I therefore connect via the VPN to my work computer. I use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection to connect to my work computer. But periodically I have problems typing into the remote computer: whenever I type a ‘u’ character, the Microsoft Utility Manager pops up.

After doing a bit of searching on Google, I came upon this post “Windows key “stuck” in Remote Desktop…“. This seemed to accurately describe my problem. But, the first comment in the post was able to work around my particular problem:

The best workaround that always works for me is:

1. Close the RD window
2. Open new RD but make sure the “Apply Windows key Combinations” is set to “On the remote computer”
3. Now press the Ctrl+Alt+End and lock the computer
4. Log in again and it should work.

amirhp
/’L’\mir

I put this here so that I can remember it for the next time. (Yeah, I pretty much expect that this condition will happen again.)

Adelaide is 3!

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Yesterday was Adelaide’s third birthday. We had a party for her and this morning I was looking through the pictures. Kids are pretty amazing and grow up so fast. Here she is, three years ago, one day old, on March 1, 2006.

Adelaide in NICU

She is in the Mercy NICU in Cedar Rapids, IA. (Side note: This is the hospital where Nancy works.) (Side, side note: yesterday, 2/28/09, Mercy imploded one of their building that was damaged in the flood of 2008. It was a big deal for Cedar Rapids: the first known demolishion by implosion.) She was born at 32 weeks, 8 weeks early. She stayed just 2 weeks in the NICU and then was strong enough to come home.

Here she is, three years later, at her third birthday party yesterday.

Addy is a pirate and three

She wanted a pirate themed party. (She can see just fine with both eyes. But pirates need an eye patch, of course. And they have a scowl and say, “Argh!”) You wouldn’t be able to tell that she was a preemie.

Addy’s Pirate Cupcakes

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Addy’s Pirate CupcakesYesterday was Adelaide’s third birthday. The theme of her party was “Pirates”. We had the party at Happy Joe’s on the NE side of Cedar Rapids. Nancy purchased some pirate party supplies from Oriental Trading Company. Included were 12 pirate themed candles. You can see them in the upper left of the picture. There were pirate flags, treasure chests, and skull and cross bone candles. I made 48 cupcakes, so on the other 36, I piped black tinted frosting to make the flag and white frosting to make the skull and cross bones. (Lower right of picture) The cake mix was from a box, but I made the frosting from the Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition – 2006: “Quick White Icing”. We only had about 8 cupcakes left over from yesterday. They were still good today. 🙂