I am on a Mac (OSX) so I installed it via brew:

➜  ~  brew install imagemagick
Warning: imagemagick-6.9.2-4 already installed
➜  ~

As you can see, I had already installed it. It was obvious, but here’s the command I eventually came up with:

convert filename.png -fuzz 25% -fill "#000000" -opaque "#4e9db3" filename_new.png

The infile is obvious. The “-fuzz 25%” seemed to make the entire replacement more thorough. If I went above 25% I found all the colors were replaced. The “-fill” tells imagemagick what you want to use as the replacement color. The “-opaque” is what you are replacing. To make it easier for me, I also outputted my altered file into a sub folder. Here’s how I looped through all the files:

for i in *.png : do
convert $i -fuzz 25% -fill "#000000" -opaque "#4e9db3" done/$i
done

And off it went. I was very happy with this result. You can read more about it here: Replacing Colors in an Image

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This year, I’ve been fortunate to be involved with a non-profit organization here in Atlanta, called Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia.  My wife is a member of their staff and I have volunteered to help with promote their upcoming fundraising event via SEO and Social Media.  It’s been a great learning experience and I am proud of the results that have been produced so far.

Thankfully, my wife is often my sounding board and she will be the first person to remind me I am talking over people’s heads.  I love technology and all things internet related. Once I get excited about something, I tend to take off or (incorrectly) assume everyone knows what I’m talking about.

consider your audience

Alas, such is not the case.  The good people at VRS are not technical in nature and I’ve done everything from explaining what Twitter is to how to edit the title of a page in HTML.  They certainly haven’t had much exposure to SEO and Social Media. This, I have found, is great since it helps me stay grounded, slow down, take a breath, and really make a difference in helping achieve results.

I have found that I learn best when I have a goal in hand and the can put whatever I’m doing to practice.  This is how I learn and improve.

I’m no stranger to Social Media and I consider myself more of a rabid enthusiast as opposed to an expert. I was already somewhat familiar with SEO and the over all concepts, but putting it all together for a good cause really helped me grow and be effective.

I’ve bought books, signed up for mailing lists, practiced and experimented.

(If you read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, you know about opportunity and experience so I think that’s very apropos in this case.)

finishing touches

I’ve been using an example to illustrate how I feel. The example I’ve been using is that the Internet is a car; I know how to work on the engine, transmission and brakes, and with what I’m learning now I’m learning how to put on the custom, hand-painted pin striping.

I’m not going to go into specifically into SEO or Social Media tips for non-profits because that stuff is already plastered all over the web and can be found in books, but I have really enjoyed my experience and am glad I’m helping a great cause.

But is has become clear to me that you have to use both, or that is to say, you should use both.  The sum is greater than the parts and with the various tools available, you can see the results, (whether positive or negative) pretty quickly.

goals

I guess the one piece of advice I can give, is to have a goal.  Whether it is something like “getting people to sign up for the fundraiser,” or “move up in search engine results,” or simply create awareness, you got to have identified what you are trying to do.   SEO and Social Media just for the heck of it, will not work.

Oh, and if you are interested in helping our cause and seeing how SEO and Social Media can help a non-profit, check out the Spooktacular Chase, 5k Race in Symrna GA.

I’d love to hear any suggestions or questions you have.

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CHARLES KOCH, VITAL TO CREATION OF BOSTON BEER, DIES
Charles Joseph Koch Jr., father of Boston Beer Company co-founder Jim Koch, has died. He was 89 years old. A press release from Boston Beer explains, “The elder Mr. Koch was a guiding light for his oldest son, Jim, in the creation of The Boston Beer Company. He contributed his immense knowledge of brewing, as well as his sound business advice. But his greatest gift lay in an old trunk stored in his attic. That trunk contained family brewing memorabilia and beer recipes dating back to the 1800s. Indeed, he handed over to his son what he considered the best of the family beer recipes. That beer was first brewed in 1984 and soon appeared in taverns and restaurants in Boston under the name Samuel Adams Boston Lager. The success of Samuel Adams Boston Lager is widely credited as a catalyst for the American Craft Beer Revolution.” Charles Koch was born in Cincinnati on Nov. 14, 1922, and after majoring in chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati he became the fifth generation of eldest Koch sons to become a brewer.

The loss of a family member is very sad.

You can sign up for the RBP here: http://www.realbeer.com/shared/subscribe/

This was the very first Internet email list I have subscribed to back in the day.

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I wasn’t sure when it happened, but I was getting a pop-up whenever I plugged my USB devices in that said, “This Device may be able to perform faster…” and then it said I had no USB 2.0 or Hi-Speed USB connections installed on my system.

It was driving me nuts since I had a combo USB/Firewire PCI-E card installed and my Kindle, iPod, HTC phone, all complained and I was getting slow(er) USB transfer speeds.

I didn’t know what it could be!  I took out the card, blew the dust out, resat the card, etc, re-installed drivers, but nothing made a difference.

Then I read a forum post that said it might be related to the recent Service Pack for Windows 7.

In my device manager, I had three yellow exclamation points next to my USB devices.  The forum post said to delete them from your device manager, reboot, and then Windows 7 would reinstall the right driver.

Sure enough, it worked!

In looking back through my Google Search History, I see that I saw an interesting thing in my Event Log:

The driver Driverusbehci failed to load for the device PCI

I work with a real sharp Microsoft Engineer and the first place he always looks is the Event Log.

Here’s the forum post that helped me solve this all:

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/139441-standard-enhanced-pci-usb-host-controller-not-running.html

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This was the first time we actually spent time on their property.  That’s how you got to do it.  I drove our van once over the entire week for a beer run. Everything else has been taken care of.

I have some observations that I’d like to share.

Tattoos

Now, I have a tattoo.  I got it when I was 18. I can hide it easily.  At Disney world, tattoos are the new goatee.  You ain’t cool unless you have a tattoo. At Disney World, one will get to see a lot of tattoos.  I saw plenty of arm sleeves, leg tattoos, and heck, I even thought about getting another one on my leg, (in college I had picked out the most awesome Japanese Shadow puppet for my calf), but there were zero neck tattoos.  That is, until we returned to Georgia. It still boggles my mind why anyone would get a neck tattoo.

Shoes

If you know anything about me, then you will know I have a thing for shoes. Specifically, wearing the proper shoes for the specific occasion; don’t wear running shoes for playing tennis or soccer, don’t run in cross trainers, etc. For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised to see that most people did wear proper shoes for the Bataan Death March that is walking for 13 hours on pavement around the Magic Kingdom.  There were a few people wearing Crocs and flip-flops, but there was one lady wearing super-sexy high heeled shows, (let me state that by saying “super-sexy” I didn’t find her super sexy, but something led me to believe she thought she was super sexy), who was pushing a baby stroller.

Honestly, I’m not sure if that is vanity or just plain ol’ poor planning but if she walked just half of the distance we walked, she’s going to need surgery by the time she’s 40.

relaxin’

The place we stayed had an awesome pool. It was awesome for many reasons, but the best reason, I think, is that we met a ton of cool people at the pool. Heck, we met a ton of cool people everywhere but at the pool we had the time to sit and talk and get to know people. We met their kids, learned about their lives, etc. It was awesome. I wish I had the foresight to bring my calling cards to hand out so we could keep in touch with these folks.

At the parks, we ran into neighbors from our subdivision, kids from school, and our son heard someone in the crowd say my and my wife’s name. So there is no telling who else we (could have) bumped into. Update: Courtney Cox and David Arquette were there the same time we were.

food

We ate like pigs.  I kept calling myself, “7000 Calorie Man!” since everywhere we ate, it was tons o’ food.  But we certainly walked it off.  Every place we ate at was better than the last place. No one in our family was particularly taken by the Disney Characters, but our kids, (surprisingly), chowed down on the salmon at the buffets.

One night, we hit the German Beer Garden in Epcot. It was really fun and I overate big time. It was more about the experience than it was about the food, but it still was pretty good. I could not get my daughter to do the Chicken Dance with me.

mobility

We take it for granted. We’re healthy, we can get around pretty easy. We aren’t confined to a wheel chair or walker. This time, there were 100’s of people in those motorized scooters or chairs. It was hard to tell if they were handicapped or just fat but they were everywhere.

awesome time

At the time, I was thinking I have had enough Disney to last until the kids are teenagers. But looking back, it was a great vacation and a lot of fun. I’d consider going back before too long. If you have questions, suggestions, or comments, I’d love to hear them!

The post welcome back to the real world appeared first on Eat Your Vegetables.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

And that’s taken right from their website.

I honestly don’t watch enough of them.  Some of videos I seen are “knock-yer-socks-off” type of good.  Most everything I’ve seen so far has been really inspiration.

So, my friend shared with me, TED Curator Chris Anderson on Crowd Accelerated Innovation, which was featured in Wired. I’ll embed the accompanying video here. I think both the article and the video have profound impact. Anderson’s video focuses on videos, but I feel the same sentiment can be applied towards Twitter and Facebook, and other social media outlets.

What I find interesting, is the concept of people who have passion and are self-taught, can raise the bar on those classically trained.

Innovation is hard work; it based on 100’s of hours of research, practice… abscense of desire… it’s not going to happen…

– Chris Anderson

One of the more remarkable things in his talk, is the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.  Why is this remarkable? Well, I freaking hate dance… and contemporary dance at that. Watching So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars is like taking a shower in prison; I don’t like it.  So when I saw this video, I was amazed.  It got to me… I had never seen a dance performance like that. Here’s the LXD video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDmjLeqQwsM

I love “Slow Motion Man” at the 1:00 minute mark. Call me silly.

Here’s why I find all of this terribly exciting. Imagine how this sort of access can apply to your life, your kids, your work… there are no limits!  I see what is available to my kids today, and if I filter out the seedier side of the Internet and focus on the exposure and the opportunities they will have that I didn’t have… they can be capable of anything! Granted, I hope to instill in them a good moral compass before they leave the nest, but stop a moment and consider the potential they have before them! It… is… limitless.

Here’s a great example.  One of the things we like to do as a family is watch America’s Funniest Videos on Sunday night. I am a Cat Guy, so I like the funny cat videos.  We found Maru on YouTube, a box-loving, inquisitive cat from Japan.  Maru’s owner seems to have a ton of time on his hands since he has so many videos of Maru. We enjoy watching his videos and I love watching my kids laugh at Maru’s silly antics.  After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, my kids were actually worried about Maru, (his family is in Tokyo). We found out through his Youtube channel he was okay. My youngest son started getting the idea (he’s six) to make videos to let the rest of our nationally dispersed family, we were okay, too. He’s six! YouTube is as much as part of his life as anything else he watches on TV.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-iIbotFkzQ

In my next related post, I’ll reference the book, “Crossing the Chasm” and how I think this is all related.

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The anthropologist in me really appreciates this article. I can see this sort of social evolution happening within a corporation.

NYTimes: Supremacy of a Social Network
http://nyti.ms/epqleF

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boo-hoo’ing

So, my precious VMWare node, running on an old Dell 1850 died a couple weeks ago. I lost a drive. I had it set up with RAID0.  Yes, I’ll admit I was over confident. I was surprised how quickly that drive died, but I lost everything. I lost years of work: my SVN repositories, my Asterisk configs, my DNS records, the list goes on.

A good friend of mine said, “It’s time to go to the Cloud; It’s awesome.”

He was right. In recent months, I’ve relied heavily on DropBox and more recently on Box.net, and even more recently on Microsoft’s Skydrive, but what was I going to do with my other services?

… back in my day…

It’s been so many years since I’ve run a server in my basement. Even before my kids were born.  I was one of the first people to get aDSL in Atlanta: this was when the phone company still did a truck roll to their customer’s house.  I ran a FreeBSD box, (I think 4.5), that did PPPoE with a really old 10Mbit switch.  Ever since then, I had a box in the basement doing things.  I used to run mail servers, web servers, media servers, network drive, internal DNS, and even an Asterisk PBX.

So when this box died this year, (2011), I felt naked. So here’s what I did and I am pretty happy.  Ultimately, this forced me to evolve and I’m better off for it.  I remember reading a post somewhere, might have been /., but during something like Hurricane Katrina, you can zip up and encrypt you bank account information, and send it to yourself at Gmail, and have it available if you could get to a computer.  Things have changed since then so this is easier than every, so apply the same base idea and you can recover from any crisis in minimal time.

evolution

So where was I… oh yeah… here’s what I did:

• Moved my internal DNS to http://www.dyndns.com/.  I use it to get to my home network so now I have both my external IP and my internal IP’s.
• Moved my PBX for my company’s cloud PBX server.  Very nice!
• I lost my Confluence installation, so for now… I am using PBWiki
• Set up a small Dell Optiplex 745 with Proxmox, which uses OpenVZ as the underlying virtualization technology.

This is working really nice, in my opinion.  I really like my linux containers on my Proxmox box.  This is way ligher than running VMWare on a 1U server. I am sure my power bill will decrease immensely.

This is what I am running on my Dell Optiplex.  It’s only got 2GB of RAM and I have to say, I think my containers are running better than they did on my Dell 1850. I did have to enable “VT” in the Optiplex’s bios to get full KVM support. Go figure:

• One container set up for web development, Apache + PHP
• One container running MySQL
• One container running Confluence
• One container running a development WordPress blog
• One KVM virtual image running AlienVault

The AlienVault VM was more of an experiment to run a completely virtualized image.  It’s pretty cool but I’m not really relying on it.

behind the curtain

I wanted to do something slicker than doing port redirection on my gateway/router for the various images behind the firewall.  So I enabled mod_proxy on the webdev  box and after some trial and error, it works.  So I set up CNAMES in DynDNS that are public names and the mod_proxy works great.  This is what I have in my vhost_name.conf for Apache. I have one .conf for each web site behind my router:

<VirtualHost 192.168.0.71:80>
        ServerName host.public.domain.tld
        ProxyRequests Off
        <Proxy *>
                Order deny,allow
                Allow from all
        </Proxy>

        ProxyPass / http://host.internal.domain.tld/
        ProxyPassReverse / http://host.internal.domain.tld/

        <Location />
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Location>
        ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/blogs-error_log
        CustomLog /var/log/httpd/blogs-access_log common

</VirtualHost>

It works great!  I love it! No more crazy port redirects! I got conf files for my Tivo’s, too! I was doing some remote work, and I think I might need a tiny VZ container to use as an SSH jump host.

lessons learned

This time, I am going to be more rigorous around my backups.  Proxmox has a backup utility built into it, and I am uploading those tar files up to box.net for now.  It’s manual, but I will script here shortly.

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Amazing Pakistani lunch… now with pictures!!!

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