A Year in the Making

I bought a pair of 31×38 501xx’s from Langstons and started wearing them on 1/29/09. I knew they would shrink vertically 2-3 inches — ending at 35-36″ — which would give me an about an inch or two for a cuff at the bottom. Here’s a picture of them before soaking with light wear, you can see that the cuff is quite long before the shrinking:

I decided I wanted to soak them on my honeymoon in Jamaica; my wife actually bought a pair as well and shrunk them with me. I got about two months of wear in them before the day of soaking 3/4/2009. Since I can’t wear jeans at work everyday, this was under 300 hours of wear. Here they are right before soaking, you can see they already look much more fitted and comfortable then the first picture:

Here they are right after soaking. We soaked for about 20 minutes in a private hot tub (which was really nice, btw):

I let them dry on me which didn’t take very long since we were outside in warm weather with the hot sun (maybe 5 hours max).

After that there hasn’t been much excitement in these jeans life for the last eleven months or so. I wore them on nights and weekends and DIDN’T wash them ever. For those keeping track, that means for over a year the only water that has touched my jeans has been the soak in Jamaica.

If this sounds gross to you, I really do understand. My original plan was to wear them without washing for maybe a month or two figuring that after that the smell would drive me to wash them. Carrying out this experiment really challenged my perceptions of this.

As long as you don’t get dirt on them, don’t do a lot of strenuous activity in them and — sorry if this is a bit vulgar — be sure to always wear underwear you can really go a very long time between washing. Even towards the end they were not offensive unless you held them close to your nose. If you have a partner, be sure to listen to them if they tell you enough is enough!

But more on washing later. Here are some progress photos taken at random intervals over the last year. First, about a month after soaking:

6/20/09 – about four months after soaking:

11/7/09 – About 8 months after initial soaking:

Like I said earlier since I’m just a nights and weekends jeans wearer we’re only talking like 230 hours per month. You can do your own quick calculation to get an idea of how to compare apples to apples with my pictures. Thirteen months is about 3000 hours which us to the pictures below which were taken before washing them for the first time (click for full size):

Wear and Tear

Since Levi’s switched to lighter weight denim the most common complaint I hear is the wear in the crotch. Without washing your clothes will wear quicker as well because of the grit you’re carrying around and rubbing into the fibers. Between the two you’re likely going to see some wear and tear and my pair was no exception but I have to say it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

Cuffs have the disadvantage of a weak “hem” at the end of the pant leg. The hem the jeans come with is double or triple thickness makes it stronger and less prone to wear. The cuff doesn’t give you that kind of protection so I did see a couple holes right on the crease of the cuff.

I did also have a couple points of noticeable wear in the crotch, one of which will likely need to be repaired within a few months of more wear. The top layer of jean on the inseam wore off in two places and there is one crease that looks like it will become a hole pretty soon. From my experience and reading about other’s, I think this is to be expected and is just an unfortunate reality of the decrease in workmanship and quality of materials we’ve seen across the entire brand. Here’s a detail of some of the damage, as you can see i got lucky and it will be relatively easy to repair:

Washing

Why wash ever? If you’ve gone this long why not continue wearing and getting a deeper fade and higher contrasts. First, as mentioned earlier, there is a balance between wearing out your clothes by washing too much, and having them wear out faster due to neglect. Also by this point, they were bagging in the seat and knees to a point where they were no longer looking that great — it was getting difficult to justify wearing them to casual Friday at work. There was also the smell and the general dingy appearance that comes with long wear. I held out but also knew when it was time.

Here was my approach to washing:

• Inside out
• Cold water (not extremely cold but not warm)
• Hand wash in the bathtub
• 1/4 Cup Dr. Bronners Classic Liquid Castile soap (peppermint)
• 1 Cup white vinegar
• 1 hour soak agitating every 20 minutes or so
• Rinse cold (not too much!)
• Air dry flat (remember to flip every now and then)

Finn watches:

The theory behind this approach was to minimize fading (cold water, vinegar, minimum of mild soap, hand wash) while getting full benefits of washing (removing dirt, reshaping the clothes). There are many many different approaches that also work well, here are some additional tips that have been reported to me:

• You can also substitute WOOLITE Dark as the soap
• If you use the washing machine, wash them alone, inside out, on cold and remove before the spin cycle for air drying
• Water, vinegar, and salt is another combination that will get good effects
• Washing in the (clean) ocean and rinsing with clear water will get the job done as well

For a review of jean care and achieving different fades see the Levi’s 501XX Shrink to Fit FAQ.

The End Results

After wash and thorough air dry, here were my results (click for full size):

Here they are on (with my new Fred Perry Kingston Mid Prince of Wales sneakers):

Honestly I couldn’t be more pleased with how they are coming along.

The critical steps are done so from here on out my plan is:

• Repair the damage by getting a tailor to close the holes with thick stitching (probably in light grey)
• I’m going to put them in the regular rotation of jeans, so they will get less regular wear and last longer
• I will not wash often but also not wait another year for washing. Once they start sagging a lot in the knees and seat it will be time for a wash

I hope this was helpful experience. Going through this process and documenting it has only reinforced that this m is the choice for achieving the best fit and best fade possible. Please respond in the comments and on the forums with your own experiences so we can all learn and improve.

The WSB Theme has just been upgraded to version 0.2. It comes with some interesting changes including:

• Tags Updated
• Documentation Updated
• Recompiled using Blueprint v.0.9.1
• Fixed Vertical rhythm
• Added Sandbox’ Gallery CSS

Click to download the zip file directly or visit the theme’s page. All feedback is appreciated!

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WSB is a Sandbox child theme that provides tight integration with the Blueprint CSS. This is the conclusion of the method of integration discussed here. Using Wordpress functions file, Sandbox template files, and Blueprint CSS files creates a excellent minimalist theme that is a very strong starting point for further theme development and customization. For more information and download, please see the WSB theme post.

Based on my last tutorial on setting up a Wordpress Sandbox and Blueprint environment, I decided to package a usable theme based on this method.

NB: the tutorial was based on a method that takes advantage of the very powerful compress.rb script to generate your stylesheets. This theme contains pre-generated stylesheets and does not take advantage of that method. If you are interested, I’d recommend installing blueprint and learning how to use compress.rb rather than starting with this theme.

Features

• Tight integration of Wordpress, Sandbox, and Blueprint CSS
• Child theme for easy upgrades and customization
• Integration of Blueprint plugins
• Minimalist theme when used as is
• Baseline starting point for additional development

Download

• 09/12/2009 – v0.2 – Download .zip File
• 08/10/2009 – v0.0.1 – Initial Release
  

Changelog

v0.2 – 2009-09-12

• Tags Updated
• Documentation Updated
• Recompiled using Blueprint v.0.9.1
• Fixed Vertical rhythm
• Added Sandbox’ Gallery CSS

v0.0.1 – 2009-08-10

• Initial Release

Demo

• Demo v0.2
• Demo v0.0.1

Screenshot

Installation:

1. Download WSB Theme
2. unzip the file
3. Upload the WSB folder to /wp-content/themes folder in your wordpress install
4. Activate the theme in the admin section of your site: /wp-admin/themes.php
5. Install the sandbox theme — as you installed the WSB Theme above
6. In bp/print.css, uncomment the last line and change the domain name to take advantage of internal link printing.
7. In bp/screen.css, change the url where you see:

   /* CHANGE URL BELOW FOR CORRECT LINK ICONS */
   body a[href^="http://sub.domain.com"] {background:transparent none !important;padding:0 !important;margin:0 !important;}

   
   LINK ICONS WILL NOT WORK UNTIL YOU DO THIS

8. (optional)This theme comes with a robots.txt file for additional SEO improvements. Move this to the root of your wordpress install to take advantage of the SEO benefits (in conjuction with the function in functions.php).

Licensing

WSB Theme for Sandbox is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Support

Support is available in the comments below or on the forums.

Donation

If you have gained value from this theme, please donate $5 to go towards adding more value to this theme.

When my wife and I decided to both change our names we knew it would be a hassle but I was expecting to find helpful information about how to do it — it isn’t that unusual after all. However, there seems to be lack of shared personal experience on the web at the moment for this daunting task. I hope this article will fill some of the gaps if you are interested in or in the middle of this process as well. This article will be from a Illinois perspective but hopefully it will be general enough to help others as well. There are of course many services you can pay to help you with each step of this process, but what’s the fun in that :-)

Name changes occur at the state level. The best general reference and guide I found online was at New Last Name. A name change starts with a name change document. This is most often a marriage certificate but can also be a court order or (I think) a divorce judgment. Obtaining our marriage certificate by mail was by far the fastest process of this whole experience. Look for your county clerk’s website vital records section for instructions on obtaining a certified copy of your marriage certificate. Certified copies of your marriage certificate will cost about $10 each and I would recommend ordering a few for your personal records as well as those you will need for your name change.

Using a marriage certificate limits your name choice to those names appearing on the certificate itself. In Illinois, this would be your husband’s or wife’s name. I understand that in other states you can write in a new name when applying for a marriage license but not in Illinois. This means if you want to choose your own name you will need a court order.

Allow at least 8 weeks to obtain a court order for a name change. This will be in addition to the time it will take to change your name with other agencies after you obtain the order. A court order for name change is basically a judgment on a civil suit your old name files against your new name. You will need to prepare legal documents, file them with the court clerk, publish an advertisement in a newspaper for 3 weeks stating your intention to change your name and stand before a judge to receive judgement on your new name. Luckily, there is a website Illinois Legal Aid that can really help with this process. Filing your paperwork and standing before a judge will cost you about $400 but expect other miscellaneous expenses as well.

One of the nice things about the court order is that you only need to file one order to change the names of everyone in your family. You can list your spouse and dependents on the same order which saves time and money. Also, If you file at a major courthouse (like the one in downtown Chicago), there will be an agency with a desk there that will handle your newspaper advertisement needs as well. This sort of one stop shopping will help take the burn out of the whole process.

After you’ve obtained your name change document (marriage certificate or court order) it is time to update various agencies and institutions you have personal and business relationships with. Allow yourself 4 to 6 weeks to complete all these updates. Your list will differ from mine, but hopefully this will help you develop your own list.

There are a few that most everyone will have to update including Social Security, Passport, and the DMV. These should take a high priority for you as soon as you receive your name change document. We updated Social Security and DMV the day of our court hearing but I chose to hold off on Passport until near the end of the whole process thinking that having a photo ID with our new name (driver’s license) and one with our old name (passport) may come in handy if we needed to prove our identity. For example, some businesses need to see a photo id to accept your credit card as payment. If your credit card is not yet updated but your driver’s license is then you would be out of luck. While this helped with piece of mind, it was never an issue we actually experienced.

Social Security is free and easy to update. You’ll need a filled out application, your name change doc, and photo id. We brought these to our local office and 2 weeks later got our new cards in the mail. Same number, new names. DMV was similar for driver’s licenses: bring your name change document, your old driver’s license, and five dollars.

I returned to the DMV to update my car’s registration and title with my new name. I am still making payments on my car so I had to get my title released from the bank (lien holder) for name change at the DMV. In order to release my title, my bank required me to refinance my loan under my new name (I faxed them my name change doc for proof). After, that I received my title in the mail and brought it and my name change doc to the DMV. There were two confusing forms to fill out once I got there. Registration was about $5 and the title was about $65.

With Social Security (they automatically update the IRS (fed and state) which is nice) and the DMV completely done, I turned my attention to some easy ones: I changed my name on our mailbox, and wrote a note to our landlord to let him know about the change. We also updated our cell phone voice mail messages and facebook accounts. But more on the online/social networking updates later…

I next went to my HR department at work. They were really good about taking care of many of the changes with business cards, payroll, medical and dental insurance, 401k plan, Time and Billing/Expenses program, and the name plate on my cubicle. A couple of other changes I made were my voice mail message, email signature, and since I’m in IT I made some changes to AD and Exchange (login and email) as well. An email sent to all the employees should be enough to let everyone know about the change; expect some questions but I found after a week or two the questions die down.

Banks, brokers, credit cards, loans, insurance, and investment banks were next for me. They ranged from very easy to moderately annoying. They mostly wanted a copy (one needed an original) of the court document and an updated photo id. I spent a lot of time on the phone and faxing documents. One thing I did learn from this process is to call the bank back three days after faxing them anything. In one case I waited for two weeks before calling to find out they had lost the fax. Make sure to get new copies of all your debit and credit cards as well as ordering new checks.

Utilities, PayPal, Netflix, Web Hosting, Audible, IPass (highway tolls), CTA Card (Public Transportation), and parking rental are mostly interested in making sure your payments are still coming in. They will make the changes to your name on the account but also make sure you update your automatic payment information if bank accounts or credit card name and number have changed. Changing your username for web access to your accounts will be covered below.

Doctors, dentist, and specialists are an easy one but should probably make your list at some point. In my experience they required little proof (a photo id at most) and a photo copy of your new insurance card.

Professional organizations (e.g. State Bar Association for attorneys, Nursing Association for nurses etc.), memberships (AAA, clubs, etc.), professional service providers (attorney, accountant, etc.), wills, health care directives, power of attorney, etc. are all important updates as well but ones I didn’t need to make. Let us know in the comments of any wrinkles you experience with getting these changed.

Passport is a big one but a relatively easy one to complete. This site has the official explanation but unofficially you are in either of two categories: you are replacing a passport that is under a year old or you are replacing a passport that is over a year old. And the difference is primarily monetary. In both cases you need to send in an originals of your old passport, name change document, an application for a new passport and some recent photos, but in the case of an passport over 12 months old it will cost you $65. Young passport replacement is free. The process took a few weeks and we received our new passports and our original documents in separate envelopes a day apart.

Updating your birth certificates is really more of a personal choice. Basically you find the address of for the office of vital records in the state you were born and send them your court document. They will add an addendum to your birth certificate and send you a new one. Basically that means they won’t replace your old name, they’ll cross it out and write the new one in below it. I haven’t yet figured out why you would want to do this unless you are changing gender so I leave this one as optional.

Logins, usernames, online updates/social networking as well as the large subtopic of Google services and accounts may be an topic best suited for another article. This can be a pain in the neck and will vary widely from site to site. Some sites have an option in your account settings to change your username, others you can email your request, and some it’s just not possible. Google unfortunately is on the harder end of this spectrum which is why I have been putting off both writing about it and actually doing it. For these kinds of tasks I’d highly recommend staying organized in a spreadsheet since your list of online accounts to change is likely quite long.

Here’s the summary list of places to notify of your name change. This list will hopefully jog your memory to think of other places that are applicable to your life (like gym membership for example), listed in the order they were mentioned:

• Name Change Document
• Social Security
• Passport
• DMV
  • License
  • Registration
  • Title
• Mailbox
• Landlord
• Voice Mail Messages
• Facebook
• HR Department
  • Business Cards
  • Office Nameplate
  • Payroll
  • Medical/Dental Insurance
  • 401k
  • Email Address
  • Email Signature
  • Time and Billing
• Banks
• Brokers
• Credit Cards
• Loans
• Insurance
• Investment Banks
• Home Utilities/Bills
• PayPal
• Netflix
• Web Hosting
• Audible
• IPass (highway tolls)
• CTA Card (Public Transportation)
• Parking
• Doctors
• Dentists
• Medical Specialists
• Professional Organizations
• Memberships
• Professional Service Providers
• Wills
• Health Care Directives
• Power of Attorney
• Birth Certificate
• Logins/Usernames
• Social Networking
• Google Services/Accounts

I hope this relatively comprehensive article on my experience with name change is helpful for you. For more information on applying for a marriage license, see your county clerk. There is a nice feeling after completing all of this that you know where all your accounts are and their status. It was also a good time for us to consolidate accounts, close unused accounts, and generally blow the dust out of the infrastructure that runs under our lives. That and I’m really good at using a fax machine now…

I may release an article soon about how I made this magic happen, but for now I ask that if you are subscribed to this blog that you update your feed. If you aren’t subscribed this is a great chance to! The new blog feed is:

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I have been very excited by the seamless integration of three of my favorite development tools: Wordpress, Sandbox and Blueprint CSS. I know there’s a lot of interest these days in Wordpress “frameworks” for child theme development and projects like Thematic and others are certainly exciting. For me though there is a definite cool factor in a rapid development and deployment stack like WSB.

Blueprint is the piece of this puzzle that is newest to me but that I’m almost most excited about. I have been using Wordpress and Sandbox for theme development for a few years and have run up against all the common issues: lack of rapid complex layouts, lack of baseline typography, lack of baseline forms styling, and of course IE compatibility. What Blueprint provides is a baseline, common hooks, class generating plugins, and browser compatibility hacks to give you a consistent starting point for your design project. Getting it to integrate with Wordpress and Sandbox is a must.

What we’ll set up here is a solid baseline for theme design: a complete, non-invasive integration of all three projects. Once set up, redeploying this stack for other projects and development environments on your server is very quick and easy. Blueprint provides nice tools for customizing your different installations from an organized central management script.

The Summary Workflow:

1. Install Wordpress and Sandbox
2. Create a Sandbox Child Theme
3. Install Blueprint centrally and use compress.rb to generate stylesheets for the child theme
4. Import Blueprint screen.css into child theme style.css
5. Use functions.php to inject Blueprint stylesheet declarations into the header
6. Work with settings.yml to generate a layout and plugins for Blueprint stylesheets

The Detailed Workflow:

1. Either create a new domain or subdomain on your server or decide which wordpress installation you want to use for this project.
2. Install Wordpress if it isn’t already, and make sure the Sandbox theme is installed as well. For this example, I’ll use

   /var/www/wordpress/

3. Next we’ll create a new theme called WSB in

   /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB

   . Create the WSB folder and upload a style.css file with a header similar to the following:

   /*
   THEME NAME: WSB
   THEME URI: http://domain.com
   DESCRIPTION: Theme using WSB stack
   VERSION: 0.0.1
   AUTHOR: <a href="http://nedsferatu.com/">Nedsferatu</a>
   AUTHOR URI:
   TAGS: sandbox, blueprint
   TEMPLATE: sandbox
   */

   The important line here is TEMPLATE:sandbox. This basically makes your new theme a child theme of sandbox. What this means is wordpress will use the style and function files in our WSB theme first but will go to the sandbox theme for the template files. Be sure the check out the documentation for more info. This basically keeps the sandbox theme untouched and easily upgradable while we make all our customizations in this child theme.

4. In the Appearance menu, select our new WSB theme as your default theme. Your site shouldn’t look like much yet so keep going with the steps! :-)
5. At this point we have have our wordpress and sandbox integration with our new child theme so let’s add blueprint into the mix. The best way to use blueprint for developing is to have a central installation of it that feeds style files to your projects. Upload the blueprint files to another directory on your server such as

   /var/www/usr/blueprint-css

   or

   ~/blueprint-css

   . We will want to make a folder in our new theme to accept the files we generate:

   /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp

6. Let’s generate some basic Blueprint stylesheets for our new theme. In the shell, create a settings file for Blueprint:

   /blueprint-css/lib/settings.yml

   that contains the following:

   WSB:
    path: /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp
    semantic_classes:
     "body": "container"

   The key thing to know about this file is that indentation is meaningful. Be sure to only use a single space to differentiate sections of this settings.yml file. Be sure to read this guide for more, especially the Advanced Usage section. Also the comments in the blueprint files and the readme files throughout blueprint are a very good source of information about usage.

7. After you save the settings file, use the compress.rb script to generate the stylesheets and save them to our theme folder:

   ruby compress.rb -p WSB

   using the -h option will give you a help file on compress.rb usage.

8. Now if you look at your /WSB/bp directory you’ll see blueprint generate stylesheets. To make changes to these we will be updating our settings.yml file and rerunning the compress.rb script. (Incidentally to have blueprint generate stylesheets for another project, just add a new project name and path below the existing one in your settings.yml file. Hopefully you’ll begin to see the advantages of this approach although the real power comes with additional information we can put in the settings.yml file.)
9. Let’s integrate Blueprint into our new theme to run with sandbox and wordpress. First import the blueprint screen.css file into our new style.css:

   /*
   THEME NAME: WSB
   THEME URI: http://domain.com
   DESCRIPTION: Theme using WSB stack
   VERSION: 0.0.1
   AUTHOR: <a href="http://nedsferatu.com/">Nedsferatu</a>
   AUTHOR URI:
   TAGS: sandbox, blueprint
   TEMPLATE: sandbox
   */
   @import url('bp/screen.css');

   At this point you could also import the default styles from sandbox but I prefer to keep the style separated to Blueprint and my own customizations.

10. Now we need to add Blueprint’s print.css and ie.css to the header of our template. To do this without touching the sandbox header.php file we will write a functions.php file in our theme directory:

    <?php
    function header_blueprint() { // PUTS BLUEPRINT STUFF IN THE HEADER ?>
            <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo("wpurl"); ?>/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp/print.css" type="text/css" media="print" />
            <!--[if IE]><link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo("wpurl"); ?>/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp/ie.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" /><![endif]-->
    <?php } // END header_blueprint
    
    function header_ie8() { // PUTS STUFF IN THE HEADER ?>
            <!--[if lt IE 8]>
    <script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/2.0(beta3)/IE8.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <![endif]-->
    <?php } // END header_ie8
    
    function footer_webmaster() { // PUTS STUFF IN THE FOOTER ?>
    <div id="designer-link">
    <span class="meta-sep">|</span>
    <span id="designer-link"><a href="http://nedsferatu.com/" title="<?php _e( 'Nedsferatu.com', 'sandbox' ) ?>" rel="designer"><?php _e( 'Nedsferatu.com', 'sandbox' ) ?></a></span>
            </div>
    <?php } // END footer_webmaster
    
    add_action('wp_head', 'header_ie8');
    add_action('wp_head', wp_enqueue_script('jquery')); // ADDS JQUERY TO THE HEADER
    add_action('wp_head', 'header_blueprint');
    add_action('wp_footer', 'footer_webmaster');

    OK this script does a lot so let’s take a look at it. There are three functions: header_blueprint, header_ie8, and footer_webmaster. Header_blueprint takes the two stylesheet declarations and puts them into the header of all our pages using the add_action at the bottom. Header_ie8 calls the very helpful ie8.js (ie7.js) file that will help us maintain browser independent pages. Read more about it on their google code page. The last function can help you insert your own links or copyright information into the footer of the page. There is a fourth add_action at the bottom that adds the jquery call to your pages so that you can use jquery in your theme. Functions.php is a very powerful tool for child themes.

11. So now we have sandbox and blueprint integrated into our child theme so let’s go ahead and apply some basic layouts for the site using the settings.yml file. At this point I would recommend a few additions to the settings.yml file:

    WSB:
     path: /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp
     namespace: wsb-
     semantic_classes:
      "body": "container"
      "div#wrapper": "column clearfix prepend-top append-bottom"
      "div#header": "span-24 column clearfix"
      "h1#blog-title": "span-18 column"
      "div#blog-description": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
      "div#access": "span-24 clear"
      "div#container": "clearfix div.border column"
      "div#content": "span-18"
      "div#primary": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
      "div#secondary": "span-6 column last"
      "div#footer": "span-24 column"
    

    The namespace will put a wsb- in front of all classes that blueprint generates. This will help alleviate any clashes with already existing classes in sandbox. Semantic classes basically take an existing class or id in your theme (#header for example) and assigns blueprint classes to it in the css (such as span-24 column and clearfix). This means that you can get the benefit of all the blueprint classes for layouts or other actions but you still only see your semantic classes in your markup provided by sandbox. Also, you can take advantage of the grid background to check your themes alignment at anytime by adding the showgrid class to div#wrapper. As always, whenever you make changes to settings.yml don’t forget to run:

    ruby compress.rb -p WSB

12. Using the menu from sandbox and a couple other css tweaks at this point should leave us with a very respectable looking site:

    /*
    THEME NAME: WSB
    THEME URI: http://domain.com
    DESCRIPTION: Theme using WSB stack
    VERSION: 0.0.1
    AUTHOR: <a href="http://nedsferatu.com/">Nedsferatu</a>
    AUTHOR URI:
    TAGS: sandbox, blueprint
    TEMPLATE: sandbox
    */
    
    @import url('blueprint/screen.css');
    
    div#wrapper {text-align:left;}
    div.skip-link {display:none;}
    div#secondary {float:right;}
    
    /* Navigation (from Sandbox) */
    div#menu {background:#EEE;height:1.5em;margin:1.5em 0;width:100%;}
    div#menu ul,div#menu ul ul {line-height:1em;list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0;}
    div#menu ul a {display:block;margin-right:1em;padding:0.2em 0.5em !important;text-decoration:none;}
    div#menu ul ul ul a {font-style:italic;}
    div#menu ul li ul {left:-999em;position:absolute;}
    div#menu ul li:hover ul {left:auto;}
    div#menu ul li,div.gallery dl,div.navigation div.nav-previous {float:left;}
    form#searchform input.text {width:120px;} /*overrides blueprint's large input for sidebar*/
    div#comments {clear: both;}

13. Adding custom css files to your blueprint generate stylesheets is an easy way to make changes to blueprint that you don’t want to make in your style.css file. All you have to do is save your custom css files in a folder such as:

    /wp-content/themes/WSB/bp/custom

    and then add them into your settings.yml file like so:

    WSB:
     path: /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp
     namespace: wsb-
     custom_css:
      screen.css:
       - custom/custom-css-file.css
     semantic_classes:
      "body": "container"
      "div#wrapper": "column clearfix prepend-top append-bottom"
      "div#header": "span-24 column clearfix"
      "h1#blog-title": "span-18 column"
      "div#blog-description": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
      "div#access": "span-24 clear"
      "div#container": "clearfix div.border column"
      "div#content": "span-18"
      "div#primary": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
      "div#secondary": "span-6 column last"
      "div#footer": "span-24 column"
    

    As you can see, you can save all of your customized css files with your project and manage them from your central settings.yml file for added convenience and organization. Specifying screen.css simply lets compress.rb know which blueprint css file to include the custom style in. You could also use print.css, etc. This will all come in handy below when working with plugins. As always, whenever you make changes to settings.yml don’t forget to run:

    ruby compress.rb -p WSB

Here’s a quick screenshot example of what can be done using almost exactly this method without any additional styling:

I think this is quite nice and usable without any really design work yet.

Other Tips:

Plugins:

• If you want to use the Fancy Type Plugin with Blueprint and Sandbox, you will have to write a custom css file and include it in your settings.yml file. This is because both Blueprint Fancy Type and Sandbox use the .alt class for different things and as of this writing the namespace is applied to classes generated before plugins are included by the compress.rb script. A solution to this is including a custom css file when you call the plugin. The css file:

  /wp-content/themes/WSB/bp/custom/fancy-cust.css

  would look like this

  /* --------------------------------------------------------------
     fancy-cust.css
     * resets .alt generated by fancy-type and sets a class with a non
       clashing name.
  
  -------------------------------------------------------------- */
  
  .alt {
    font-style: inherit !important;
    font-weight: normal;
    color:#222 !important;
    font-family:"Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif !important;
  }
  
  .wsb-alt {
    color: #666;
    font-family: "Warnock Pro", "Goudy Old Style","Palatino","Book Antiqua", Georgia, serif;
    font-style: italic;
    font-weight: normal;
  }

  This will reset the offending class and set a new class with a non-clashing name. To add this to your settings.yml file:

  WSB:
   path: /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp
   namespace: wsb-
   custom_css:
    screen.css:
     - custom/fancy-cust.css
   semantic_classes:
    "body": "container"
    "div#wrapper": "column clearfix prepend-top append-bottom"
    "div#header": "span-24 column clearfix"
    "h1#blog-title": "span-18 column"
    "div#blog-description": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
    "div#access": "span-24 clear"
    "div#container": "clearfix div.border column"
    "div#content": "span-18"
    "div#primary": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
    "div#secondary": "span-6 column last"
    "div#footer": "span-24 column"
   plugins:
    - fancy-type
  

  This change calls the custom css file, adds it to the screen.css file and calls the fancy-type plugin. As always, whenever you make changes to settings.yml don’t forget to run:

  ruby compress.rb -p WSB

• If you want to use the Link Icon Plugin with Sandbox you’ll have to make a few modifications in a custom plugin file and include it in your settings.yml file. This is because the links plugin will be expecting relative links for internal links and Sandbox provides absolute links for all internal links. If you don’t modify it, you’ll see the external link image next to every link on the page. We take a similar approach to fixing this plugin to work with sandbox. The css file:

  /wp-content/themes/WSB/bp/custom/links-cust.css

  would look like this

  /* --------------------------------------------------------------
     links-cust.css
     * Icons for links based on protocol or file type fixed for sandbox.
  
  -------------------------------------------------------------- */
  
  /* Uses this class if a link is internal */
  body a[href^="http://sub.domain.com"] {
  background:transparent none !important;
  padding:0 !important;
  margin:0 !important; }

  This will apply no image to links that begin with http://sub.domain.com so you’ll want to change that to your domain. To add this to your settings.yml file:

  WSB:
   path: /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp
   namespace: wsb-
   custom_css:
    screen.css:
     - custom/fancy-cust.css
     - custom/links-cust.css
   semantic_classes:
    "body": "container"
    "div#wrapper": "column clearfix prepend-top append-bottom"
    "div#header": "span-24 column clearfix"
    "h1#blog-title": "span-18 column"
    "div#blog-description": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
    "div#access": "span-24 clear"
    "div#container": "clearfix div.border column"
    "div#content": "span-18"
    "div#primary": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
    "div#secondary": "span-6 column last"
    "div#footer": "span-24 column"
   plugins:
    - fancy-type
    - link-icons
  

  As always, whenever you make changes to settings.yml don’t forget to run:

  ruby compress.rb -p WSB

Printing:

• I would recommend a custom css file for printing as well with the following changes…the css file:

  /wp-content/themes/WSB/bp/custom/print-cust.css

  would look like this

  /* --------------------------------------------------------------
     print-cust.css
     * Gives you some custom sensible styles for printing pages.
  
  -------------------------------------------------------------- */
  
  #header, #footer, #access, .navigation { display:none; }
  
  /* If you're having trouble printing relative links, uncomment and customize this:
     (note: This is valid CSS3, but it still won't go through the W3C CSS Validator) */
  
  a[href^="/"]:after {
    content: " (http://sub.domain.com" attr(href) ") ";
  }

  This hide some page element when printing a post or page from your blog. It also adds http://sub.domain.com to help when resolving internal links during printing. Be sure to test your printing styles by using the print preview function in your browser. To add this to your settings.yml file:

  WSB:
   path: /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/themes/WSB/bp
   namespace: wsb-
   custom_css:
    screen.css:
     - custom/fancy-cust.css
     - custom/links-cust.css
    print.css
     - custom/print-cust.css
   semantic_classes:
    "body": "container"
    "div#wrapper": "column clearfix prepend-top append-bottom"
    "div#header": "span-24 column clearfix"
    "h1#blog-title": "span-18 column"
    "div#blog-description": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
    "div#access": "span-24 clear"
    "div#container": "clearfix div.border column"
    "div#content": "span-18"
    "div#primary": "span-6 prepend-top column last"
    "div#secondary": "span-6 column last"
    "div#footer": "span-24 column"
   plugins:
    - fancy-type
    - link-icons
  

  As always, whenever you make changes to settings.yml don’t forget to run:

  ruby compress.rb -p WSB

Conclusions

This should give you a really solid start in developing and designing themes using Wordpress, Sandbox, and Blueprint CSS. I feel there are many more areas for tight integration among the programs so maybe there will be followup articles as well. I will be looking into integrating visual elements like typography, and using Sandbox’ available filters for added flexibility. I would love to hear from others who are working on this and similar projects.

What most excites me about this set up as it stands here is how portable it is. This can be replicated in minutes allowing a designer to get into customizing faster with a more solid and proven foundation. Also, all of the customizations and tweaks we’ve made so far are completely non-invasive; this means that when Wordpress, Sandbox, or Blueprint publish an update, we can upgrade quickly without anything breaking.

Download all the files mentioned in this article: WSB-stack-demo.zip
Please see the individual project sites to download the installation files and for more information: Wordpress, Sandbox and Blueprint CSS

• Install WP
  • Create a config file
  • Set collation type in config file to utf8_general_ci
  • Run installer
  • Login / change your pw / logout
• Set up the keys and salts in the config file and login again to make sure you still can
• Install BBPress
  • Create a config file
    • Include the collation
    • Leave the keys blank for now
  • During the integration step of the installer include the keys
• Logout of BBPress then login as admin from wp installation
  • Go to wordpress settings
  • Skip BBPress speed up techniques for now
• Login to the Wordpress installation
  • Install the new plugin BBPress Integration and activate
  • Fill out settings for the plugin
  • add the cookie settings to config file

I’d recommend watching the screencast if you haven’t before but hopefully this will be helpful if you are just looking for a reminder of the non-intuitive parts of the install. Enjoy your integrated sites!

I run mostly Wordpress installations with some other apps and some custom apps. The suggestions I found are wordpress specific but some will help any site you want to speed up. The results from applying these have been very good so I hope you consider implementing some or all of them yourself.

Assuming you have all the obvious stuff set up (Akismet for spam and Super Cache for caching) this article also doesn’t have to do with getting people to your site either (SEO, Sitemap, robots.txt, feedburner) or making money once they are there (Adsense, social networking, referals). These are all valuable topics but this article is about showing as many pages to as many visitors as fast as possible.

My favorite hacks so far are:

• Creating Expire headers using htaccess. This will allow browsers to cache most of the media on your page leading to great improvements in load times. Here’s what you need to add to your .htaccess file:

  Header unset Pragma
  FileETag None
  Header unset ETag
  
  # 1 YEAR
  
  Header set Cache-Control "public"
  Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT"
  Header unset Last-Modified
  
  # 2 HOURS
  
  Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate"
  
  # CACHED FOREVER
  # MOD_REWRITE TO RENAME EVERY CHANGE
  
  Header set Cache-Control "public"
  Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT"
  Header unset Last-Modified

• Set up a subdomain to store commonly used images on your site — such as theme images and sidebar images. Browsers will load media in parrallel from subdomains giving you performance increases. Try saving widget images from your sidebar in that subdomain as well rather than making requests to other webservers (feedburner or facebook for example). Be sure to remember to apply the above .htaccess hack to you subdomain as well for additional browser caching.
• PHP bloat is any php call that a theme makes for what is not, for the most part, dynamic content. For example, look in your theme header.php doc and compare it to the source of your redendered page. My guess is there is a series of php calls (which likely call sql queries as well) for information such as the name of your blog, the location of the .css files, the content type, and others. If you replace this php with the resulting html you will save significant load time on every requested page on your site. Check out the footer and sidebar as well. This is more helpful with a blog that is not changing rapidly and I wouldn’t recommend it for a new install you are still tweaking, but the savings here are significant.

I’m still testing some additional plugins but here is what I’ve liked so far:

• Javascript to footer will give the appearance that your site is loading faster than it is by loading the content first then parsing the javascript. Easy to implement with instant results
• Revision Control will help with load on your server while posting. The revisioning feature with wordpress is cool but I’ve found that it leads to more database bloat than it is worth. I turn it off and clear out the stored revisions using a sql query.
• WP-DBManager is a must have plugin for all wordpress blogs…period. Set it up to run regular backups and optimizations and forget about it. Optimizations will help reverse fragmenting in your database which will improve your performance as well.

These are some excellent resources with many interesting ideas for you to consider:

• http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Fine_Tuning_Your_WordPress_Install
• http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Wordpress_performance
• http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/the-3-easiest-ways-to-speed-up-wordpress/
• http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-optimization-guide

So for now, I have been able to optimize my sites so significantly that I think a hardware upgrade is pushed off at least for now — sorry Dreamhost maybe next time :-) . As a side note, these tips are essential for preparing for a slashdotting or digging. So if you are creating great content out there on the web — and i know you are — you may want to make site optimization a priority especially if you’ve never considered it seriously before.

My most recent tussle was for the sake of my wife who was looking for more consistant branding not only on her blog but across her social networking sites. The only three I believe worth spending time on today is twitter, myspace and facebook (youtube is a subject for another post). Her twitter was easily done and there’s not much you can do with facebook so that left Big Ugly to contend with. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pass along some tips in case you are interested in putting lipstick on this pig.

First of all, I am very impressed with what we were able to achieve. This is mostly because the crowd who uses and develops themes and hacks for myspace seem to have about as much good sense as the core developers themselves.  Second, if you care about semantic markup and elegant coding, working with myspace might give you a heart attack. You have to be willing to compromise with the site and write some nasty CSS to get it to display a decent looking page.

Luckily, Mike Davidson wrote a very helpful and tremendously funny post with source on a pretty in depth look at the available CSS hooks and hacks necessary to wrangle a good looking page. Please let his work be a starting point for your own efforts; it will likely be good for your health.

Besides tweaking his CSS doc for our own branding purposes (and creating the requisite images of course), there was a big of tweaking around hiding certain page elements that my wife didn’t want displayed: page url, blog, comments, and top friends. Here’s what was necessary:

1. Page url is in a table with class .userProfileURL so a simple display: none did the trick
2. The blog section is located entirely in .latestBlogEntry so the same display:none works there as well
3. Same goes for comments which are entirely in .friendsComments
4. Finally, top friends but not the display all friends links or the heading displaying total number of friends. The necessary code is: .friendSpace tr td.text table tr td table tr td { display: none; }

The results I think you’ll agree is a very presentable and professional myspace page…or at least the closest you’re likely to get on MySpace. I think the take away here is that it is possible to brand myspace if you feel there is a good reason to have a presence there. With limited amount of effort you can right many of the wrongs that come with your account by default. Good luck and feel free to share your successes (and questions) in the comments.

I made a page template for this tool that at the top had my logic for the utility then at the bottom displayed the page content as added through the wp-admin page editor. Admittedly, this is not great php work but for a quick example it gets the point across. Basically it goes a little something like this: (warning, this is not the actual code for the page and will likely not work if you copy and paste it directly)

<?php
/*
Template Name: Sizing
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id=”content_box”>
<div id=”content” class=”pages”>
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<div id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>” <?php post_class(); ?>>
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
<div id=”sizing-form” class=”entry”>
<?php
$sizeForm = “<form method=\”post\” action=\”\”>W:<input type=\”text\” size=\”3\” maxlength=\”2\” name=\”Wsize\”>  x L:<input type=\”text\” size=\”3\” maxlength=\”2\” name=\”Lsize\”><input type=\”submit\” value=\”submit\” name=\”submit\”></form>”;
$Wsize = $_POST["Wsize"];
$Lsize = $_POST["Lsize"];
if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) { // if page is not submitted to itself echo the form
echo $sizeForm.”<br /><br />”;
}

else { // display form again with results
echo $sizeForm.”<br /><br />”;
echo “<p>Your measured pant size is, “.$Wsize.”x”.$Lsize.”.</p>”;

//special logic here on the input variables from the form, creating new variables referenced below

echo “<ul><li>The Official Levi’s Recommendation is: “.$Leviw.”x”.$Levil.”.</li>”;
echo “<li>My Recommendation is: <strong>”.$Nedw.”x”.$Nedl.”</strong>.</li>”;
echo “<li>My Recommendation if you want a cuff is: “.$Cuffw.”x”.$Cuffl.”.</li></ul>”;
}
?>
</div>
<div class=”entry”>
<?php the_content(‘<p>Read the rest of this page &rarr;</p>’); ?>
<?php link_pages(‘<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ‘, ‘</p>’, ‘number’); ?>
</div>
<?php if (‘open’ == $post-> comment_status) { ?>
<p class=”tagged”><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>#comments”><?php comments_number(‘No Comments’, ‘1 Comment’, ‘% Comments’); ?></a></p>
<div class=”clear”></div>
<?php } else { ?>
<div class=”clear rule”></div>
<?php } ?>
<?php if (‘open’ == $post-> comment_status) { comments_template(); } ?>
</div>

</div>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/sidebar.php’); ?>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/r_sidebar.php’); ?>
</div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

So here is the basic structure:

Declare the template name (used in the page editor to assign the template to the page)

Include Header

Start Page and include title

Insert custom code for the form you want to use

Continue to display the page content from the editor (div class “entry”)

Include sidebars and footer

The key learning for me was to return the values on the same page, you need to declare a blank action:

<form method=”post” action=”">

I have read that people have luck with a GET method as well so that is also worth trying if you are having difficulty.

I hope this is helpful for people looking to do something similar. For me, it was a simple enough form that I didn’t need a huge plugin with ajax and database storage to achieve it, but I did want something more interactive than a chart or static table. Let me know if this has been helpful!

There are plugins that will do this for you including Google Custom Search, and Easy Adsenser the latter I use for displaying adsense on this blog and I would certainly recommend. However, when it came to the custom search I found them both lacking so I decided to roll my own. It is not the most elegant solution; I would rather this functionality be in a plugin form so as to separate it from my theme files making it easier to upgrade my theme.

After a bit of experimentation and a key discovery, it was pretty easy for me to DIY the custom google search directly into my theme files. Here’s how I did it:

Implementing the Google Custom Search

First, go to Adsense and get your Custom Search code for the initial search box and the code for the results page. Yours will be different than the examples I use here so get your own if you want it to work right.

Wordpress generally uses 2 theme template files to perform searches: searchform.php and search.php. Search Form basically is the search box and submit button that you can put in a widget in your sidebar or include directly on a page. When you use searchform.php to submit a search, the results are automatically displayed on a results page using search.php as the template. The key step to note is how this automagically happens. Here’s my searchform.php:

<form method=”get” id=”search_form” action=”<?php bloginfo(‘home’); ?>/”>

<form action=”http://blog.nedsferatu.com/index.php?” id=”cse-search-box”>
<div>
<input type=”hidden” name=”cx” value=”partner-pub-2104946415586713:eq89vrj188e” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”cof” value=”FORID:11″ />
<input type=”hidden” name=”ie” value=”ISO-8859-1″ />
<input type=”text” name=”q” size=”20″ />
<input type=”submit” name=”sa” value=”Search” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”s” value=”Search” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”submit” value=”" />
</div>
</form>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&amp;lang=en”></script>

</form>

The basic structure here to look at is:

Wordpress Form

Google Custom Search Code

End Wordpress Form

The key is there are two additional lines (in bold above) that are added to the Google Custom Search Code that don’t affect the code working correctly but do allow wordpress to automatically display the results on search.php.

<input type=”hidden” name=”s” value=”Search” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”submit” value=”" />

You can also change the size of the search box itself by adjusting the number in the line: <input type=”text” name=”q” size=”20″ />

Next is creating your search.php file. Here’s mine:

<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id=”cse-search-div”>
<div id=”cse-search-results”></div>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var googleSearchIframeName = “cse-search-results”;
var googleSearchFormName = “cse-search-box”;
var googleSearchFrameWidth = 500;
var googleSearchDomain = “www.google.com”;
var googleSearchPath = “/cse”;
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/afsonline/show_afs_search.js”></script>
</div>

<div id=”search-sidebar”>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/sidebar.php’); ?>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/r_sidebar.php’); ?>
</div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

The basic structure here to look at is:

Include your Header

Wrap your Google Results code in a div (for styling purposes only, optional step)

paste you Google Custom Search Results code

Include your Sidebars

Include you Footer

The only thing I changed in the google code was: var googleSearchFrameWidth = 500; I changed the width to 500px to better match my theme. I also wrapped the Custom Google Search Results code in a div so that I can more easily style the Google results. I believe I floated it left and floated my sidebars right but you can check the css if you have questions about it.

Remember to backup your old searchform.php and search.php before replacing them with the new files. Make it easy on yourself to roll these changes back if you don’t like them.

Conclusion

The major learning for me was the two lines in the searchform that allowed wordpress to automatically use my search.php. After that the rest was pretty straight forward. Check it out by using the search box at the top of the sidebars on the right. Let me know how it goes for you!

Admittedly, buying the right size of 501xx Shrink to Fit jeans is not the easiest task since they change so drastically when they shrink. However, with a bit of practice and help a lot of the mystery and variability can be eliminated. Of course, like in many things, experience is king; luckily a pair of 501’s won’t break the bank if you mess up (usually about $35) so experimentation is always recommended. Getting the exact right size can make the difference between a pair that is ok and a pair that you love.

Personally, I haven’t found the official Levi’s recommendations (printed on the back pocket tag on a new pair) to be very helpful. Even after extended wear they never quite get to the right proportions for me. To make things more confusing, denim is fluid and changes slowly with age almost as dramatically as the first quick change. Continued wear and wash not only fades the jeans but inperceptively changes how they fit and change to shape your body.

So how can you possibly know what size to buy to get the perfect jean? Well, thanks to the experiences that people have shared here (and my own personal experience with 501’s), there are some guidelines that can be given. I’ve even written a tool to help you find the perfect firt before you purchase: check it out!

First, I recommend using your true waist size when you size a new pair of shrink to fits. Yes they will shrink a bit in the waist but they also stretch easily with very little wear. They may feel a bit tight when they first come out of the dryer after a wash but in just a couple hours will feel comfortable again. If you add inches to the waist, when they stretch they will get quite baggy.

Second with the length, I recommend +3 inches. They will seem quite long when you first buy them and try them on, but most of the shrinking occurs in the length. Three inches will ensure that they will be the correct length after shrinking them and you won’t have to tug on the inseam while they are wet to get the right length.

Another thing to remember is that 501 Shrink to Fits notoriously look slimmer than they feel. Keep this in mind, and try using a mirror or a trusted friend to judge how they look rather than just going on how they feel. They will also get slimmer with age so don’t give up on them too soon. Initial reports suggest that the new cut of the jean (since about summer 2008) is quite a bit slimmer even at the start; so if you haven’t tried the 501’s for a couple years, now may be a good time to try them again.

So check out the 501xx Sizing Tool and enjoy a new pair of perfectly fitted jeans!

Also, there is a new page that serves as a roundup of all the Levi’s related articles. There are also more minor tweaks to the site so poke around and see what’s new.

Let’s all admit it, soaking and drying your 501’s is a huge part of the appeal of these pants. It’s the personal touch and the messiness and the smell of wet denim and the looks your significant other or friends give you when you tell them of bathing in your new blue jeans. What seems to be always true though, is if someone asks — and sometimes even if they don’t — you are eager to share the story of your shrink to fits starting with that initial soak.

So why not make it an interesting story? Here are some great ideas — some mine, some from the readers — of ways to start your jeans off with an adventure and a good story to boot.

These kids have got it right? or wrong?

Apparently, back in the early days of the 501, indoor plumbing was not nearly as common as it was today so folks would put on their new pants and hop in a horse trough, or a creek, or a water tower (ew). Later, counter culture youths would wear their jeans into the ocean or have shrink parties together in the bath tub. One of the common threads however, which I would hazard as a recommendation, is that one would shrink their jeans according to their lifestyle. (thanks for the info Steve!)

As a review the recommended steps to take is 30 minutes wearing them in a warm bath and then letting them dry on your body (approx. 6 hours). However, don’t let that stop you from experimenting; it would be awful boring if there were only one way to do it — and these jeans are anything but boring! Remember, while you are planning your soaking, try wearing your stiff new jeans with cuffs (turn ups) for a few weeks or months. This will only make them better after they are soaked and fitted to your body.

Many people have pointed out that both cold and warm baths work (warm shrinks more) as well as showers. Hot tubs, swimming pools, oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, even gross horse troughs are all viable options. Outside is best for drying weather permitting, and moving around a little in your jeans while they dry is probably a good idea as well.

In the good weather your options are greatly increased: shrink them and go out for a walk, or to a bar, or the beach, or shrink them before going out on a saturday night (by the time you get home they’ll probably be dry). Maybe go to the mall or to a restaurant, although I would not recommend soaking in fountain unless you want to have a chat with security. It’s a good idea to get your friends involved and make a day of it. If you are in Chicago, maybe that means swimming in Lake Michigan and riding bikes around downtown.

Joe from Austin, TX left this comment:

I have always worn mine in a spa, hot tub or pool brand new and let them dry on. I’m a lifeguard and scuba diver so water is always near. You can adjust the fit of your Levis by doing a couple of deep knee bends, and also by providing lift in the crucial areas for good athletic support. Levis and Wranglers are the only brands that provide good support. Divers and open water guards wear Levis for protection from stings, abrasion and cuts [under water]. I live in Texas so the hot summer sun allows you to swim in Levis every day if you want and have them dry on. Some people will say that ‘jeans are heavy wet’. Not for intrepid swimmers. And, if you want to swim and free dive just add good dive boots and fins and you’ll become a fish [under water]. I do this all the time. In fact, dive shops carried Levis 512 Slimfit Jeans modified for aquatics and embroidered and labeled them ‘Levis Diveskins’.

The Ocean Approach

Take Jesse’s experience for example: “I recently shrunk my first pair of jeans in a local lake and dried myself/them on the sun drenched dock. No bath tub cleaning for me!”

In the cold weather at home I tend to sit on a towel and watch and movie then do chores around the house. I you could also try taking a nap.

This year during the coldest month, I am going to be on a beach in Jamaica. I’m looking forward to soaking a new pair in the ocean and drying on the sand. That will be a great story to tell and to remember every time I wear those jeans.

Remember, be creative and be true to your lifestyle. Please share your experiences below, it’s fun to hear about people’s relationship to their Levi’s.

The FAQ

Boy oh boy, I’ll tell you I really had no idea. When I wrote the first Howto on shrinking Levi’s 501xx Shrink to Fit (STF) blue jeans I had no clue what a huge and fun topic it really was! I still feel like the 501xx is the best value in jeans out there today and certainly the most personal experience when compared to the pre-washed variety. Plus — and I don’t care how much you pay for them — new jeans that are manufactured with a “already worn” look will never look as good as a pair of well loved 501’s.

On just the two articles I have gotten close to 200 comments and questions from really insightful, curious, and knowledgeable people. Together I think we have all learned a lot about jeans based on our own experience and the research that everyone has put into it. I felt like it was about time to post another article with the highlights from these discussions. Keep commenting and keep breaking in those jeans!

• Can you quickly describe the best way to shrink your 501 Shrink to Fit jeans?
  As a review, the generally accepted best way to shrink you 501xx’s is to:
  1. Buy a new pair at your regular waist size and about 3 inches longer than you usually buy pants.
  2. Wear the stiff jeans until they become a bit softer.
  3. Draw a normal temperature bath and wear the jeans in the tub for about 30 minutes.
  4. Get out of the tub and continue to wear your jeans until they are dry.
  5. Wear your newly shrunk jeans for a while before washing them for the first time.

  There are many more tweaks and aspects to understand about this process which I will hopefully answer in further detail below.

• Can I get my 501’s any slimmer?
  501’s are a classic cut which is slightly straighter leg then is currently in syle for men’s jeans (skinny jeans for the most part). I have a few answers when people ask me this question:
  1. Be sure to buy your STF’s at or below your waist size for a snug fit
  2. After your first soak before you wash your jeans, you can do a second tub soak which will shrink them further but not nearly as dramatically as the first soak.
  3. 501xx’s actually feel roomier than they look. Be sure to get some feedback from people you trust about how they look rather than just going by how they feel.
  4. As you wear and wash the jeans they will continue to change and mold to your body. Try wearing them for a while before giving up entirely on them.
  5. Hot water and hot dryers shrink jeans (and almost everything else). Boiling will also shrink them. Be warned though, you will lose a lot of indigo dye by treating them this severely. If you want a fadded look this will help the process along. If not be sure to turn them inside out or use colder water. Less dye means less contrast. see below for more on color.
• What size 501xx should I buy?
  This is quite a common question. My advice is to get your regular waist size and your length +3 inches. I’m about 6 feet tall 155 lb and I get 31×36 for a perfect length. If you want to cuff or want really tight in the butt and thighs adjust length and waist an inch or two in the direction you want.
• How can I get a certain color or fade in my STF’s?
  All STF’s may start out the same, but it’s entirely up to you on how they turn out. Basically, you can buy STF new in Indigo and Black, the former being the most common choice. How color and fade goes is simply: the more dye in the pant the darker it is. Contrast is when you purposely try to keep dark colors in some areas of the pant (inseam for example) and wear away color in other areas (thighs, whiskers, wallet outlines, etc). Basic rules of thumb are:
  1. The first wash is the most important wash (after initial soaking)
  2. Washing the jeans will remove dye
  3. Soap removes more dye than just water
  4. The hotter the water is, the more dye it will remove
  5. Turning your pants inside out when washing will keep more dye than right-side out
  6. Dry cleaning will remove dye but not as dramatically as soap and water

  People will go for 6 to 12 months wearing their jeans daily without washing. The longer you go between washings the greater the contrast you will have between the faded and non-faded areas of your jeans. The longer you can go the more character they will have. If the smell is too great for you, soaking them in cold water (with a bit of salt and vinegar, always inside out!) or dry cleaning may be an option if you want to keep the dry denim look (will remove dirt without removing much dye). If you go that long hot water will give the most contrast but will shrink more and will make them lighter than if you use warm water.

• What is the difference between Raw, Rigid, Dry, and Washed denim?
  Let’s take them one at a time:
  • Raw denim is what you buy when you buy your new 501xx Shrink to Fits. This cotton denim has been completely untreated and unwashed which is why it will shrink so much during the first soak. It has a lighter hue than after the soak.
  • Rigid and Dry denim are the same as far as I can tell. They are similar to the soaked STFs. Basically they are still quite stiff and will continue to shrink and change over time with washing but are much closer to the size they will remain. They may be stiff but in no time they will feel quite comfortable. Many jeans companies sell rigid jeans including wrangler for a similar price point and other for considerably more.
  • Washed and Pre-washed 501’s have essentially been machine washed before you bought them. They feel like most jeans you have bought and worn in the past. The pre-washed 501’s it should be noted are different from the STF’s additionally because their inseam is sewn with a single stitch rather than the double stitch used for the STF’s. More on this later.
• I’m confused by this jean terminology! What is double/single stitching, double/single felled, selvedge, hidden rivets, denim weight, etc?
  No sweat, I was confused too at first! Let’s take them one at a time:
  • Stitched and felled are terms used to describe the actual construction of the jeans. Levi’s Guidehas a great pictoral guide which I will try to recreate here. A single felled versus a double felled inseam would look like this:
    

    Single Felled

    

    Double Felled

    For example the inseam (seam that runs down the inner thigh) on the 501xx STF is double felled whereas on the 501 Pre-Wash it is single. Single and Double stitching can either mean the same thing as fel or can be used to describe stitching that has been gone over more than once with thread.

  • Selvedge describes how the denim fabric itself was made. On regular 501xx’s if you look inside the pant leg, the outseam will have stitching in place to keep the edge of the fabric from fraying. Jeans that use selvedge fabric instead have a solid white edge which is the actual edge of the fabic on the loom where it was woven. Here’s a picture of selvedge edging to give you an idea:
    
    This is red line selvedge on vintage 501’s. The purpose of selvedge is mainly for looks and to denote a jean that is perhaps higher quality and of finer craftsmanship (although there is a slight strength advantage over non-selvedge jeans). There are new and vintage Levi’s jeans that have selvedge which are described below and are much more expensive than the standard 501xx STF.
  • Hidden rivets are rivets that cannot be seen from the outside of the jean because they are covered with denim. You can check on the inside of the jean to see the hidden rivets. The current 501xx STF do not have any hidden rivets though in the past Levi’s have used them from time to time. Hidden rivets main purpose is to denote a vintage pair of Levi’s or Levi’s of finer craftsmanship.
  • Denim weight is a characteristic of the thickness and heavy-dutiness of the denim fabric (thread count, density, etc). 501xx STF jeans currently use a denim of 12.5 oz. Denim weight and cotton origin and quality are often used to separate quality of jeans. 12.5 oz is pretty average and 501xx STF for the price are by far the best value for this quality of raw denim.
• Do 501xx have selvedge/hidden rivets/heavy wieght denim/etc?
  Standard $30 501 STF’s current are a pretty basic jean and do not come with some of the bells and whistles that people look for in more expensive raw/rigid denim pants. Levi’s does however have a line called Levi’s Vintage Clothing (LVC) that sells very high quality replicas of vintage 501’s for about the $300 price range. Besides ebay for — mostly already shrunk — genuine vintage Levi’s, LVC’s are a great choice for someone looking for a particular style or a high quality selvedge/heavy weight demin jean. LVC 501’s are usually named by the year they are replicating (for example a popular choice is 1966 501 or the 1947 501).
• Where can I buy STF’s?
  I really enjoy going to the brick and morter Levi’s Stores and trying on the pants before buying. Here are some other great options:
  • The Online Levi’s Store is of course an option but is usually more expensive and may not have the selection of raw sizes you are looking for
  • Sheplers is the choice of many of the people here because of their great size selection, discounts, and coupons
  • Langston is another great choice for the standard 501xx
  • Bargains Avenue
  • Cultizm is a fantastic resource for expensive and high quality denim
  • Ebay Store for Jeans (thanks Klaus!)
  • Denim Express (thanks Klaus!)
  • Jeans Direct (thanks Steve!) for the heavier weight (~14oz), pre-shrunk, european made 501’s
• What about vintage Levi’s?
  Vintage Levi’s is an absolutely huge topic that I only have a cursory knowledge of. There is a fantastic site: Levi’s Guide that should certainly get you started if you are interested. Let us know what you find out!

That’s all I have for now. Keep the comments and questions coming and keep loving your jeans!

• Doom Generation (1995)
  The first Gregg Araki film I saw this year and it is disturbing on many levels. The over the top violence, the sexual violence and predation, and enough imagery to perpetuate any fears of homelessness or the random violence of strangers that you may have. The acting, scenery, and costuming is very well done, and the direction is very engaging. There is no doubt that Araki is a brilliant story teller who also gets off on the gross outs.
• Mysterious Skin (2004)
  My theory on seeing this second Araki film is that 10 years after Doom Generation he realized that reality is much more disturbing than over the top violence. This is a hyper realistic film about the long term affects of extreme sexual abuse of two children. It is a truly powerful and disturbing film that I will never forget. Definitely no holds barred and I still feel like i need to take a shower just thinking about it.
• The Wall (1982)
  A film that I know a lot of people here will be familiar with. On the one hand I think it is an artistic masterpiece and on the other I found it to be highly disturbing and uncomfortable to watch. If you aren’t familiar with the film, it, again, deals with long term effects of child abuse in adulthood. There is also connections between childhood and the state, childhood and religion, and childhood and war although those loops are never cinched in a way that was cathartic for me. Very disturbing scenes are fired at the view in a shotgun fashion that left me emotionally exhausted by the end of it.
• Pans Labyrinth (2006)
  I know there are at least two long posts in this forum about this film so I don’t want to start anything new here about it. That being said, I found this film to be highly beautiful and highly disturbing. Maybe I’m crazy, but my expectations going into it was that it was going to be a children’s film. Did I totally misunderstand the marketing for this? The film is basically about the hallucinating dissociation of a little girl caught in a war living with her dying mother and psychopathic father. There are graphic scenes of torture, execution, disturbing monsters, and other disgusting scenes as well (ranging from an enormous toad puking all over the little girl, to the father (graphically) sewing his own cheek back together).
• Children of Men (2006)
  Now to the one I saw this weekend. I think i got this because I love all the actors in it; I was not disappointed by the acting: great performances by Clive Owen, Michael Caine, and Jullianne Moore. However, what started as an apocalyptic sci-fi set 20 years in the future with fascinating imagery, technology, and direction quickly turned into an all out war film with horrifying scenes of war, execution, and torture. Add to the mix high levels of stress surrounding a new born baby being brought into the hottest levels of war hell and this was an incredibly powerful, disturbing, and artistically genius film.

I hate these movies cause they are so good, but also so bad. I mourn the fact that I will never be able to go to the beautiful places they introduced me to ever again because of the horror that lives there.

These films I don’t feel like I can in all honestly actually recommend to anyone. I guess the point is that the fact that I can’t, is a real shame. The connections made in these films are very disturbing because they are so empty. There is no resolution or even growth within them, and the film inevitably ends with the viewer feeling vulnerable and hopeless. These movies are highly rated because they are engaging and beautiful but are definitely soul suckers.

Needless to say that is way over the number of films of this variety that I was interested in watching this year. I think i’m going to turn our Netflix queue over to my fiance for a complete makeover. :-)

The first article I wrote on this topic was after a few tries with Levi’s Shrink to Fit Jeans. I achieved the best pants I had ever owned and wore them exclusively for almost a year (the picture shows newly shrunk ones with my old faithfuls. No one believes me when I tell them that they were once the same color). 501’s by design feel roomier then they look which is the reason they are so comfortable and stylish. A button fly and $40 a pair seals the deal. If you haven’t tried them I’d highly recommend it. It is fun to do and you get jeans in the end that feel like they were made just for you. I recently did another pair and just love the results. This is what I did:

• Buy your new raw jeans at your normal waist size but with long length
  I am a tall skinny guy and I like jeans that fit comfortably with minimum bagginess. I bought the new un-shrunk jeans at my waist size and the longest leg length they had; this left me with 31-36 (told you I was tall and thin). The final fit is snug and probably perfect length although I would have preferred a bit longer (if they sold 31-38’s it would be perfect in my mind they do make 38’s! here’s a link to where you can buy them depending on availability). I buy my jeans at the Levi’s store so that if I don’t like how they come out after shrinking I can return them for my money back. Pretty sweet.
• Wear your new un-shrunk jeans for a few days before shrinking them
  I don’t think I could quantify the benefits of doing this, but wearing them with that deep navy color and cuffs is just darned cool. They are a bit stiff at this point but you’ll be surprised how quickly they adjust to being worn (or you adjust to them?).
• When you are ready to shrink them, draw a hot bath and get in wearing your jeans
  One time when I was shrinking my jeans I made the bath too hot an scalded my legs. Not fun! It’s not necessary to make the water that hot. In fact I hear you can also shrink them by going swimming (something I’d love to try in Lake Michigan this summer) Just draw a comfortable bath and sit in it wearing your jeans for about a half an hour. You can also shower with them if you prefer but I haven’t tried it.
• Keep them on for the rest of the day while they dry
  Before I actually tried it I thought this step was full of problems. It was actually quite painless.The key learning was that they dry much faster on your body then they do hanging up in the bathroom. I sat in the tub with no water in it for another hour or so then walked around the house and went about my business. They had stopped dripping constantly by then. If you want to sit down and feel like they are still wet enough to leave marks on your furniture, try putting down a dark towel first. If it is warm weather, take a walk outside or sit in the park! More practically you can use these few hours to clean your tub which will certainly be blue after soaking in it with your jeans. Try to keep them on for four or five hours, you’ll be surprised how dry they are by then. If you can’t stand the dampness anymore at that point go ahead and hang them up. If I could do it in the winter so can you.
• Keep wearing them for a week or two
  Don’t do anything else to them until you’ve worn them for a week or two straight out of the shrink tub. This will help them mold to your body even more. If they get too baggy to stand move to the next step.
• Back to the shrink tub
  I choose to do the shrinking again at this stage. I’m not sure how much it helped but it certainly didn’t hurt. In fact you can repeat these last few steps as many times as you like. Your jeans will get lighter every time which is good if you are going for a lighter look quicker. If you just love that deep deep navy and they are fitting well, I recommend skipping the subsequent shrinking after the first one.
• Wear them until they need to be washed then hand wash them
  Wear them a lot which won’t be hard cause you’ll probably be in love with them by now (does that blue dye go to your brain? maybe…). Since I like to keep the color dark at first, I hand wash them in the tub inside out with warm water and just enough detergent to get them clean (surprisingly little…that stuff is potent). I hang them up to dry which takes at least over night for me sometimes longer. Using a dryer at this stage is ok if you are in a rush. If you are going for a lighter look, make the water hot, wash them right side out, use more detergent and rinse them in hot water a bunch of times. Drying them outside in the sun also helps to fade them quicker.

I love the results I got with the above steps. Thanks to all the commenters for helping me perfect the process. There are a few things I’d like to try in the future:

• I’d like to try a size 30 waist to see if I can get a nice tight look. 501’s tend to feel roomier than they look and they tend to stretch comfortably in the waist so I think this will be a good plan to skinnier legged jeans. I think I’ll also really research to see if I can get longer legs with these small waist sizes. Anyone have info on custom sizing or getting out of production sizes?
• I’d like to try shrinking some 501’s by swimming in Lake Michigan and lying on the beach and biking around Chicago afterwards. Sounds like a perfect summer day!
• I’d like to see if I can get a hold of the different color and weight 501 XX jeans that are now available. Please comment with information about good online or brick and motor vendors for Shrink to Fits.

I hope I’ve inspired you to go and buy a new pair of Shrink to Fits. Have fun with your custom jeans and report back in the comments on any experiments or tips you come up with.

They are very much like a PayPal because their whole mission is to make transferring money from person to person easy. So if you and your friends and roommates are on the site, you can exchange money easily among each other for things like utilities, or meals out, or picking something up at the store for you. The web interface is very web 2.0 and easy to use; the site’s attitude is friendly and has a more appealing feel than PayPal.

Honestly I don’t know how much use I’m going to get out of the site. It is a good idea and it would be cool if it caught on but I think the $25 is the big draw at the moment. Here’s what I did:

1. Follow the link to the sight
2. Fill out the required personal information (does ask for social security number)
3. Confirm email address and activate the account
4. Click on accept to accept your $25 signing bonus
5. Decide whether you will link a bank account or have them mail you a check ($2.25 charge). I decided to link my bank account and it was very easy and safe.

The whole process took maybe 5 minutes. Two days later I checked my bank account and saw the verification deposits had been made so I logged back in and transfered my $25 to my bank account. It was very easy money.

I honestly hope the best for this site but if I were you I wouldn’t pass up the chance to get your free money now. Click the button below to sign up for an account.

Interesting….found somewhere:

The year is 1907.
One hundred years ago.
Here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1907 :

************************************
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. , and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U.S. Worker made between $200 and $400 per year .

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist made $2,500 per year, a veterinarian $1,500 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
(Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and the government as “substandard.”)

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.
(Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.)

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada , was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind
regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

Just try to imagine….. What it may be like ….In another 100 years.
IT STAGGERS THE MIND.

90 Day Jane

Her webstats

Tomorrow she will have been up for 7 days and by that time she will have close to (or more than – who knows) 200,000 hits. She found something to write about that the whole internet will latch onto and not let go of. She hasn’t been slashdotted or digged or boingboing’d that I know of; just content, folks. Thats the power of the internet.

1. I called my bank to reduce my loan rate and credit card rate.
   This was really easy. I Called the number on the back of my credit card and asked them to lower my interest rate. I did the same for my auto loan interest rate. If they gave me a hard time I was planning on telling them that I was getting very competitive offers elsewhere but didn’t want to move my money and wanted to continue doing business with them. Luckily I didn’t have to use that story.
   I also learned when I was on the phone with them that I can call back every 6 months to reduce my rates. Now I’m keeping track of that and plan on calling back regularly. Why? Because according to a loan calculator that quick call saved me over $200 on my car loan, plus what I saved on my credit car interest payments (sadly I’m still paying it down).
2. I set up a net worth calculator
   I’ve never been a big fan of budgets. They never seem to work for me because I have trouble guessing what the correct amount for each category should be. Money is a bit more fluid than that. So I never really got started with one. The net worth calculator is my stepping stone into tracking my money. The simple dollar has a great tutorial on how to set one up. Now I can see twice a month that my assets are growing and my debt is shrinking…and at exactly what rate. It is a very motivating tool for saving.
   Indirectly this also helped me in two ways. One of the assets that I listed on the net worth calculator is my car. Even though it is not paid for entirely yet, it has a blue book value that can be claimed as an asset because that is approximately what it can be sold for tomorrow if needed. That’s a number I’d never considered before when thinking about my net worth.
   The second way it helped me was to start a single spreadsheet where I can track my money. A lot of people use quicken or other software to track their money, but like budgets they just never fit my needs and thus I never stuck to using them — big waste of time. Now that my net worth is being tracked in a spreadsheet I’ve been tracking other things on worksheets in that spreadsheet as well: my monthly bills, my monthly investing, my quarterly credit reports, when I’ve reduced my interest rates (see 1 above), even my day to day spending. It’s really helped me get a handle on my money and has given me a lot of comfort and confidence in what’s going on with my money.
3. I keep track of every dollar I spend on my car.
   I keep a notebook in my glove box with a pen and make a note of every dollar I spend on my car. Mostly it’s a summary of gas receipts and car washes. I thought of this because today I was getting my regular maintenance on my car and updating and reviewing this book while I waited (and later keeping a copy of the receipt in there). So why do this? A book like this will increase the resale value of the vehicle because it is a history of how well you took care of the car. It also gives you a quick check on your fuel millage. If you see your mpg going down you can catch a problem early on before it does significant damage to your vehicle. I also used the time to review expiration dates on my registration and insurance policy as well as my maintenance history to make sure everything is in order. I guess it is similar for me to the spreadsheet in 2 above in that it provides comfort and confidence in the fact that my car is on track to a long life.

At the end of the day I really had a sense that I was in a better place financially than the day before. I was amazed at how easy it was and recommend these simple hacks if you are looking for ways to start getting control of your money.

Used Rainbows

3D Graffiti

Art by Kent Rogowski

Anatomy Shirt

Fantastic indoor swimming pool

Fantastic Roof Pool

Traffic on Indian Road

Inverse Pool

Bowling Robot

Public Ice Installation

Art by Juan Francisco Casas

Art by Felipe Cretella

Photography by Felipe Cretella

Green Roof in Sinapore

Amazing Lego Machine

Love

Pictures of Sharks

Attic Design

Wire Sculpture

Jimi Hendricks at Woodstock

Robots inspired by animals

Screen Cleaner

Photography by Christopher Becks

Photography by Geert Goiris

Photography by Giorgio Barrera

Photobooth

Devil Girl

Matches

Pee

Snail Trails

Liquid Love

Fujiya Ginzan Tokyo

Music Tree Sculpture

Luminous Sky 1

Luminous Sky 2

Luminous Sky 3

Actual Googie Motel

Time Stop Performance Art

Sunset Sky

Recommended Reading

Fantastic Sculpture (about)

Florence Foster Jenkins

Fox Porn (sfw, maybe)

Horrifying Playground Art 1

Horrifying Playground Art 2

Ice Photo

Sculptures by Mauirizo Savini

Sculptures by Jennifer Maestre

Kitchen Tools Design

Russian Winter Trucking Photography

Light Tree Photo

Photography by Alan Jaras

Creative Hotel Rooms

Art of Richard Ehlrich

Photo by Helga Kohl

Chinese poster

Amazing Gymnast

Retro-Future Transportation

Shipping crate architecture design

Photography by Kurt & Walters Photographies

“The Future of Science is Art” by Johan Lehrer

South Pole Time Lapse (via)

Milky Way Time Lapse

Lunar Eclipse Time Lapse

Cross Country Time Lapse

Cloud Time Lapse

Balloon Time Lapse

Chocolate Death

Controversial Boardgames

Dolphins Playing

Great Ad 1

Great Ad 2

Great Ad 3

Seen Live:
Camel Lick

Paula Scher

Tsunami by Paula Scher (Detail)

Art by Maurizio Cattelan

Art by Maurizio Cattelan 2

Photo of Smelting Furnace

Photography by Trent Parke

Recommended Reading

• Howto Shrink Levi’s 501 Shrink to Fit Jeans
  This article filled a void on the web of jean-shrinking knowledge. I think we all rest better knowing now that this topic has been addressed. While I still love the 501 shrink to fits, I’ve currently been wearing the grey wash 511’s (skinny) constantly now and recommend you try them.
• Rockbox on the IPod
  I still use my Rockbox IPod and love it. There is a learning curve but it is well worth it. If you are into this kind of thing, give it a shot!
• Smoking Ban and Aesthetic Fanaticism
  A few thoughts on the smoking bans sweeping the country, thoughts you may not read else where. Some food for thought.
• Motorola RAZR V3: Linux Accessable
  There is a product you can buy from Motorola to connect your RAZR to your PC with all the necessary drivers and gui to interface it. I think it’s like 40 bucks. With a USB to mini USB cable (a couple bucks at radioshack) all the drivers and gui are available for free (and Free) on Linux. Fun!
• No Sew Window Drapes
  A personal favorite of mine. I still have these up in my living room and have gotten lots of comments on them. Highly recommended.
• $250 1Tb Raid 5 NAS Appliance
  A story of a failed hardware hack and a happy alternative. The finished product still works and has been stable and awesome. Lesson learned.
• MythTV throughout the House
  One of the coolest things that MythTV can do. Check it out!

Amazing weather photograph

Lady in the water

Bent Objects

Electric Birdcage

Anti-riot Police Vehicles

Urban Hotel Shanghai

Beetle Spider

I want to do this:
Flat Pack Furniture

White Ninja Causes a Disturbance

Knitted Farrari

Safety Gear for Small Animals

Building demolished from the Ground Up

Underwater Photography

Cutest Video Ever

Incredible Decent

Shopdropping

Propaganda Mickey

Grass Ice

Maths

Private Ryan Beach Scene remake

Recommended Reading

Light Art 1

Light Art 2

Light Art 3

Light Art 4

Horse

Bears

A Selection of Perfect Ads

Worlds Greatest Graffiti

Swiss Landscapes

Recommended Reading

Artist Chu Enoki

Dancing Store Clerk

Antarctic Lenin

Incredible Building in Paris

seen live:

Love Matress

Stacking Math

Packing Tape Art

Pygathoraswitch

Recommended Reading

• Optical Illusions and Architecture
• Painting Photorealism
• Spiders on Drugs
• Marina Towers Chicago Chase Scene in the Hunter
• Sandy Smith Installations
• Massage Video Game
• House I, Roy Lichtenstein
• Artwork of Laurie Lipton
• Church decorated in human bones

Curses! My walling has boomeranged!! Great article by my great friend STEVE. It got me here and here (points to head and chest).

This is the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen. I’m flabbergasted. Amazing work. (via make)

Love this guy’s outfit. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about trying to find adult sizes of my favorite t-shirts as a child. I know this is probably an impossible goal but I feel the need to follow my dreams.

New space pictures. I love space pictures especially those of astronauts and these are some of the best I’ve seen.

Just a very well executed joke. be sure to read the comments. try to find the one from a grain of salt. what can i say, i’m easily amused.

MORE badass space photos (BSP’s ?)

Gorgeous. Just in case you were wondering, no I’m not whipping out that word for a woman — DIY electronics obviously

I think I may do this. It’s so obvious, it may just work.

• DIY Carbonation
  From Instructables, how to make your own carbonated beverages without buying an expensive machine. Fascinating.
• World’s Smallest Pong game
  From Make, a step by step on how it was achieved. There seems to be a lot of effort put into creating and recreating pong in interesting ways. Pong is a good game and certainly a good place to start, but wouldn’t it be more practical to make tetris games? I mean there’s a game you could play all day.
• Toga for Women
  Well done, toga-for-women inventing lady. Not only is this a helpful instructable and a good distraction during the workday, but also kudos on Toga Tequilla Tuesday. I’d go so far as to equate the combining of togas, tequlla, and tuesdays with genius.
• Keith’s Electronics Blog
  Via Make. I approve…well done Keith. If you are at all like me, this site will turn into the rest of your day.
• Tablet from a Touchpad
  Now THIS (from Instructables) is cool…and useful. I think this is a great start and I’m thinking about developing the idea further. This could just be me again avoiding just buying a wacom already.
• Small Cars
  LOVE it. Hundreds of images of some of the smallest cars ever made. The other articles on this site are awesome too: like the heavy seas series.
• Drinking Glasses from Wine Bottles
  Not sure why I like this so much, but I do. The end results are awesome.

Other things I’ve been thinking about recently are stenciling and Wordpress-mu. Stenciling for whatever reason has become popular recently and I wish Wordpress-mu would become popular so that there were more than like 100 people working on it worldwide. Enjoy your Friday.

I really hate backing up systems; especially after I started to have multiple machines with their own specific backup needs. The solution I came up with was having a network attached storage (NAS) appliance at Raid 5 on my network which through using NFS and an fstab entry can be mounted at boot in all my machines. This not only allows all of my data to be available at any machine I happen to be using, but I also have the stability of Raid 5 which means if I have a disk die, I can just replace it — no restoring, no lost data.

The Plan

A NAS device is just a computer (or embedded system) that is optimized for disk capacity and network connectivity. There are some great operating systems out there that can serve as dedicated NAS or you can modify a barebones linux install to achieve the same results in a more roll-your-own fashion.

I decided to keep it easy on myself and choose to use FreeNAS which is built on the FreeBSD and m0n0wall platforms. The advantages are an easy to use web interface for all configuration, small foot print, and great documentation. I recommend looking into it for your own NAS project.

As the title of this article suggests, I wanted to build this NAS on a shoestring. This meant putting the hardware budget on a diet. Basically I was going to only spend money on new disks for the Raid 5 array, the rest of the setup would be atticware, and as close to free as possible. This made for some interesting results…

The Results

What I ended up with was fondly known as Godzillab0x by my friends. I called it Grace. It was built around a salvaged K6-2 box at something like 500MHz. I put some extra SDRAM I had laying around into it to bring it up to 256Mb. Not a bad box all things considered, taking into account that it’s whole job would be filesystem management and networking. I used an old 2Gb HD for the controller (where FreeNAS would be installed, as opposed to the storage disks in the Raid array) and a CDROM that I found laying around. Everything booted and was stable: so far so good.

One note, the pictures don’t quite do it justice because I have been slowly disassembling the box and some of it’s “features” are thus not in the pictures. I knew I needed to write this article before the whole thing was repurposed.

Now for the big discs. At the time I was making it, 250Gb disks were the cheapest at about $50 a disk (that’s $0.20 per Gb). While this was good for the budget it also meant I had to find space, IDE buses, power, and cooling for 5 additional drives in the minitower. So let’s look at the issues one at a time:

• Physical Space
  The case has 2 external five inch bays and two internal three inch bays. The fives where used for the controller and CDROM, so I was still missing 3 hard drive bays. So what I did was salvage a cage from another old case and fit it into my case below the existing bays. This solution seemed to work pretty well.
• IDE Buses
  The board that came with the computer had two IDE buses. One was used for the CDROM and controller, so again I was missing a bus and a half. This time a PCI IDE card came to the rescue. I knew I would be doing raid in software so I only used the card to give me the additional buses I needed.
• Power
  This was one of the bigger problems since no atticware was ever shipped with a power supply larger than 350W. In a delirious fever I decided the solution to this was to use two power supplies in the case. I didn’t even pretend to be able to fit the second supply inside the case, opting instead to leave it on the top. Power supplies generally will not run if they are not plugged into a mother board. Most can however be tricked by jumping a couple pins together on the motherboard plug (this took some experimenting for this supply. I think it was from a very old computer). The second problem I was running into was if the two supplies did not start simultaneously it would cause instability in hard drives (no i don’t know why). This was solved by plugging the two power cables into a surge protector and using the power-strip’s power switch as the switch for the computer.
• Cooling
  Small case + 6 HD’s + 2 power supplies = some significant heat. How I fixed this was a little bit of case mod. The case originally did not have any case fans…not even a CPU fan. So in a situation like this when you are faced with a very elegant design, you must cut huge holes, and mount loud 120mm fans into the case. This will help with the Godzillabox identity and it also dropped 10 degrees off my drive temperatures.

So the results of all this work? I could get the computer to run at 500Gb in Raid 5 but could never get it stable at the full 1Tb. It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that a system this completely hacked should not be stable. The total I spent on the project was between $250 and $300.

The Revised Plan

After months of work with no joy, I was feeling like a failure. However, something magical occurred: I got a job. More importantly, with a real pay check I was able to put some actual money into this project. It is amazing what a little bit of money can do for hardware stability issues.

First of all, I needed a computer that could actually handle large disks. I bought a bare bones system from my favorite components pusher Tiger Direct (oh yeah, give daddy his fix….oh baby). I think I got a steal for about $150: Pentium D dual core, 1Gb DDR2, 4 SATA buses, 600W power supply and a slick looking case with plenty of drive bays. I spent a few more dollars on some super quite 120mm fans (two for the case, one for the CPU) and we were cooking with gas. I used the same setup of a CDROM and small controller hard drive on an IDE bus. If I were to do it again however I think I would use a fast flash card and a flash to IDE converter.

Now for disk: since I now had 4 SATA ports, I figured I should probably use them. I went with 3×500Gb Seagate barracudas. This was more expensive but I think a better investment. If I need to ever upgrade, I can easily go to 1.5Tb before looking into PCI to SATA cards.

The Revised Results

I am very happy with the results (This “Grace 2.0″ is called Pearl). The machine purrs like a kitten and easily saturates my network transfer capability. Infact I could upgrade my network to gigE and still saturate it. I use it with NFS, and a line added to the fstab of all my machines. This approach is so seamless and easy it makes me cry a single tear of joy. This approach to the NAS was slightly more expensive with a final total of close to $500. However, I must point out that while Grace the Godzilla may have been half as expensive, it took me probably ten times the amount of time as Pearl to set up and ultimately failed. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, I’m just asking if it’s worth it.

Conclusion

I’ll answer my own question, Yes they both were worth it. I learned equal amounts working on both Grace and Pearl. The conclusion I would like to make is that hardware hacking is a lot of fun and often a good first step in a project: it is cheap which means you won’t ruin your expensive equipment. It give you more excuse to play and experiment. However, when it comes to stability and everyday use, put some money into your hardware forpeetsakes. Use what you’ve learned and put together a piece of equipment that will last and that you can trust.

• The product would probably be easy to make out of a 2 liter soda bottle. Why not have instructions for people to make this product (or a similar one) in addition to selling the pre-made version.
• The Design does not account for re-evaporation (re-distilling) of the gathered clean water. Instead of a cap on the top of the cone a hose may be able to remove some of the distilled water and increase the output of the cone.

Another thought is that this cone can be used anywhere. The website states that you should fill a black tray with salt water for purifying. The truth is that this cone can be set in a puddle (watch out for mosquitos), or on damp dirt (say in a forest, just push away the leaves until you get to the ground, it is surprisingly damp). Lot’s of great uses for this product because it takes minimal setup time.

Engineering Requirements

My living room has a long wall of three windows facing east. In the morning, the sun can be very intense. My drapes needed to be ten to eleven feet long and not let through even the most intense direct sunlight. Oh, and no sewing. Since I don’t have a sewing machine, I’m certainly not hand sewing eleven feet of drapes. Oh and it has to be cheap; what’s the point of DIY if it’s not cheaper than the commercial alternatives. Wait…don’t answer that question.

The Solution

The basic design is painter’s drop cloths hung from a long curtain rod. They are already hemmed and the connection to the curtain rod can be achieved by grommets hammered into the cloth.

The Curtain Rod

First, the long curtain rod: actually two shorter ones connected together. If you remove the plastic end from one rod and screw it to the one in the other rod. Then end result is one long rod that spans the whole length of the windows. Be sure to put a support bracket right under the connection.

As far as choosing the rods, just choose something you like. There’s no real advantage to one over the other. Just be sure the diameter is reasonable: no more than 5/8″.

The Drapes

Why do I always think Cry-Baby when talking about the drapes? Painter’s drop cloths come in 9′ x 12′ and 12′ by 12′ and I needed a double layer to block the light. Two 9′ x 12′ cloths folded in half to make 9′ x 6′. The idea was to have the extra 10″ or so drape luxuriously on the floor. However, because of stiffness of the raw cotton and the radiator in the middle of those windows I ended up pinning up the excess with safety pins.

About 2.5″ from the top I hammered in 5 grommets spaced evenly across each cloth. Then I just used an S hook to connect the grommet to the rod. Voila, no sew window drapes…with a rough industrial sort of look.

Disadvantages

The only disadvantage to this technique is that the S hooks will not pass over the brackets that hold up the rod. This makes it difficult to fully open and fully close the drapes (though not impossible).

Price Breakdown

curtain rods $15 each
drop cloths $17 each
grommet kit $13
S hooks $1.25 each
Total $90

next time I do it on a regular size window: $38

Summary

I think this is a pretty cool (and manly) way to do window drapes. You can also dye the drop cloths to match the other colors in your room. While this may not be quite as manly, it is a pretty good idea. I think I’d use this technique again.

For me, the apple firmware was not an option because a lot of my music is formatted in OGG or FLAC. However, I wanted the video iPod so bad. The solution: Rockbox, an open source firmware replacement for many different mp3 players including the Apple iPod. In this article I’ll highlight some of the reasons why I use Rockbox and some of the cool and often overlooked features.

Rockbox

I’m not into feature bleed. I like my mp3 player to play my music (and video), but i’m not too interested in the fact that it can display images or be an address book; so I will be avoiding those features and concentrating on the audio ones. While Rockbox is remarkably easy to install, it is so feature rich that it has a steep learning curve with operation. Also, the Rockbox website is not well laid out, so I will try and provide some guidance starting where the developers leave off.

I won’t lie to you, you are going to have to put some time into learning how to use Rockbox. Fortunately, the more time you put in, the more you will get out of it. The manual is the official documentation and it is a great place to start. It is built daily, just like the software, and will get you started. Also, now that you know someone who uses Rockbox, you can always ask me.

Installation

The installation is remarkably easy and is very clearly explained in the manual. When you look at a brand new iPod, it is hard to bring yourself to modify it at all. However, Rockbox is very non-invasive and easy to reverse if something goes wrong (very unlikely). Also, after it is installed, your iPod is dual bootable (!) so you can use both Rockbox and the Apple firmware.

Before you decide to install, there is a simulator available for demo on your pc. It is fun to play with for me after using Rockbox on the iPod, but I’m not sure how useful it would have been to deciding whether to install or not. First, it is ugly because it only has the default themes. Second, since you can’t play music with the demo (well I couldn’t), you don’t get to see the majority of the cool features. The simulator is pretty cool, but my recommendation is to just go for it!

After you get the base software installed there is the fun of customizing it with themes and fonts and adding extras such as movie playing, or Doom. Adding all of this functionality and eye candy is as easy as installing the software itself: just copy the files over to the appropriate directories. Personally, I like Theme X (I have used the Aardvark themes in the past as well and like them) and fonts, and movie player for extras.

Accessibility

Speaking of extras (pun is so intended), there are some that add major functionality for some people. Specifically the voice extra and some specific large text themes. The voice extra enables the reading of directory names as you navigate through the menus. This means that Rockbox can turn any (supported) mp3 player into a accessible device for the blind. I think that’s pretty cool.

An upcoming project of mine is to install the voice extra and a large print theme so that I can use my iPod in a safe manner while driving. Like a handicap ramp, accessibility helps everyone: wheelchairs, pregnant women, movers, even kids with skate shoes. I’ll let you know how much safer I feel behind the wheel with these modifications.

Using Rockbox

Now I want to get into the meat of using Rockbox. Be patient. At first it will seem like feature overload (because it is) especially if you are used to using something as simple as the iPod firmware. I kept coming back to the manual every now and then to brush up and learn more…I’m still doing this and don’t anticipate stopping soon. It does get easier and it is totally worth it.

As you would expect with any self-respecting open source project, everything is configurable. Everything. Almost everything can be done on the iPod itself as well; for the stuff that can’t, the configuration files are easy to read and easy to edit. As an example of what I mean when I say everything: Rockbox will build a database of the audio files (based on their tags) much as iTunes does (then imports it to the iPod when syncing) but on the fly. There is an option for this database to keep it in the RAM (faster searching) or to keep it on the disk (longer battery life). You can decide how your iPod behaves with this level of granularity (if you choose) all from the iPod interface.

Here are some other features I enjoy:

• Queue vs. Insert vs. Select vs. Play
  Rockbox makes a distinction between these four options when play music. It treats all music played as being added to a dynamic playlist (which you have the option to save if you like) and makes a distinction based on how you add it:
  • Queue means it will add it to the dynamic playlist and then remove it from the playlist as soon as it is finished playing
  • Insert means it will add the track or tracks to the dynamic playlist and keep them in the playlist after they are done playing
  • If you just select a file or song to play, it will clear the dynamic playlist and add all the songs in the directory you choose the file from. It will begin playback with the song you selected.
  • The play option is much like select except it will completely clear the dynamic playlist except the currently playing song, which it will allow to finish before beginning playback from the new directory starting with the song you selected play on.
• Rockbox is great for listening to books on as well. I was recently hipped to Podiobooks which is a cool concept and I’m trying it out to see how I like it. There is a built in bookmarking system for your longer files that makes it easy to resume a book if you’ve taken a break to listen to something else. (Maybe something you bought on Magnitude?)
• Rockbox will allow you to continue to listen to music while plugging in the usb cable to give the battery some extra juice. Just hold down menu when you insert the usb cable.
• Crossfeed is a playback option that makes listening to music on headphones just a bit nicer. See, when you listen to music in front of your HIFI system, you hear sound in both ears from both channels (your left ear hears music from the right speaker, and your right ear hears music from the left speaker). You still get a stereo experience because it takes longer for the far ear get the music than the near ear. On headphones you get a physical separation and a harsh stereo experience. Crossfeed is an option that helps you recreate the stereo experience of two monitors (that’s how the music was mixed and mastered, btw). There are also awesome EQ options as well, but the official manual handles that discussion quite well.
• Do you use last.fm? I do. Thanks to Rockbox, all the music I play on my iPod get’s formatted and saved in a text file called .scrobble that I can upload to my last.fm account. I have lots of issues with last.fm but I still use it. I like this feature of my iPod a lot.
• There is a playback mode called Karaoke that does a pretty good job of removing the vocals from your music. I don’t have much experience with this but from what I’ve heard, I think I will plan an entire party around it.
• Party Mode turns your iPod into a jukebox: add songs, but don’t change the order, pause, or stop the music…on and on till the break of dawn.

Summary

So this barely scratches the surface. I hope these cool features encourage you to try Rockbox and get more out of your hardware. It’s fast and easy to get started and there’s no limit to what you can do from there…I haven’t found it yet at least.

Resources

• Rockbox Official Site
• Wikipedia: Rockbox

The way to get the computer to talk with the phone is with the package moto4lin which is available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories. It does make you jump through a few hoops to gain connectivity, which is outlined nicely here. Basically what you want to do is connect the phone and run the program. Then externally run this command: sudo echo AT+MODE=8 > /dev/ttyACM0. Then in preferences, update the device list and add the phone as a p2k device. Exit the program and unplug the phone. This time connect the phone, run the command, then start moto4lin. Your phone should connect and you can click update list to get a listing of the contents on your phone.

Areas of interest are probably the Audio directory, where you can add mp3’s to be used as ring tones (or for playback if you have usb headphones), and the picture directory where you can access all the pictures you have taken with your phone and add some others from your computer. Other things I’d like to find out is where the contacts are stored and whether they can be backed up or sync’d. Let me know how you own investigations turn out.

There is lots of talk about the next generation of Motorola phones running Linux natively, so I am sure there will be many more interesting ways to interact with the phones in the future.

In the general section of mythtv-setup on your backend computer, be sure you specific the IP address of that computer so that other computers on the LAN can find it. Next, go to your new mythfrontend box (say in your bedroom…mmm tv from bed) and see if your distribution already has the mythtv packages in the repository. If not, hit up google to find out how to add them. After you’ve got them, install mythfrontend.

Next add users to the mythtv group. You need to add all users that will configure or use the mythtv frontend to the mythtv group. In gnome you can do this by going to Administration->Users & Groups->Groups and adding the users to the mythtv group using that interface. Next you need to log out and log back into your session to be sure the permissions take effect.

Next start up mythfrontend and replace “localhost” with the IP address of your backend when you come to that screen. At this point you should be cooking with gas. Lay back and enjoy your television.

An obvious point that bares repeating is that this is now a new frontend, completely different from the one you set up with your backend. That means you can fully customize it with themes, plugins, and features dependent on your local hardware.

When you add IMDB information to the videos, it adds rows in two tables: videometadatacountry, and videometadatagenre. All I did to fix the crashing problem was empty these two tables using phpmyadmin. Seems  like this should be a pretty easy bug to take care of….and yet you don’t see me trying to fix it do you.

System Specs:

• Ubuntu Feisty Fawn with a 2.6.20-16-generic kernel
• MythTV .20
• pcHDTV 3000
• Celeron D 2.93 GHz on an Intel brand motherboard

If any developers have further questions, please email me.

Cool architecture in Poland! Wow, why does this fascinate me so much. The interior shots are my favorites. (via Make:Blog)

A bicycle riding robot! I’m not exactly sure how to stress to you people how hard this is to achieve. If I could hold out my arms all the way to indicate the magnitude of this achievement I fear it may still be insufficient. want! (via Make:Blog)

I have heard people describe their reaction to someone near them lighting up as a fury, shouting inside in outrage that anyone could do that. I don’t think this is an uncommon reaction and this upsets me. These kinds of laws are not made to protect people from themselves, but are made on the pretense of public health.

For the sake of this argument, let’s say that smoking causes pollution and really does hurt the people around the smoker as well as the smokers themselves. If this is the case, then shouldn’t it follow that for the sake of public health a law should be passed to protect everyone from second hand smoke? Well, no.

My argument is that it is less safe or equally less safe for someone near you to have a drink of alcohol as it is for them to light a cigarette.  I am making a hand waving argument that the number of secondary people injured or killed as a result of drink is higher than the number of people hurt or killed by second hand smoke. This certainly seems to be the case, so shouldn’t people be more furious if someone cracks open a beer than if they light a cigarette?

The reason why I don’t think there should be a ban on smoking is that it does not seem to be a public health law but a law based on aesthetics. All the positive things I’ve heard about the law taking effect sound like the following: I’m happy about it because now I won’t smell like cigarettes after I go out. The aesthetics of smoking are certainly out of fashion, and the frenzy around second hand smoke is a sign of this.

So should there be laws based on aesthetic tastes of the law makers or their constituents? What if their aesthetic tastes sway to other things a bit more sinister in the name of public health or the public good in general?

The reaction to second hand smoke certainly seems irrational when you compare it with a complementary activity such as drinking. Both are potentially dangerous yet one is in vogue and the other is not. By feeding the irrationality around one of them, law makers are helping to create divides between people that don’t need to exist. They are feeding or at least sanctioning the feeling of fury that some non-smokers feel towards smokers. This is because they feel more in danger than they actually are and it goes against their aesthetic sensibility.

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“Have you ever wondered if there is a more environmentally friendly way to make plastic with OUT using foreign oil? Currently, it is estimated that the worldwide production of petroleum based plastic is around 100 million tons annually, and that seven million barrels of petroleum are required PER DAY to produce that plastic ( info source ). What if we could take that number and cut it down to zero! This is all possible with the eco-friendly plastic of the future, and you can make some right now- OUT OF A POTATO!…I will describe how to make plastic from scratch, by extracting starch from a potato, and processing it into a resin with household items. If you don’t feel like taking the time to extract the starch from a potato, you can just use corn starch instead.”

UPDATE

Also, plastic made from milk: Here and Here

Apparently it is the same stuff that’s in cottage cheese, which sounds kind of gross, but I think it’s worth looking into.

The Setup

Since that update I have moved to a larger apartment which really allows me to put my network to work and I think finally starts to show the point of doing all this. It was also fun to unplug the whole tangled mess of wires and start fresh. My new place has five rooms as opposed to the two maybe three in my studio. I’m still in the process of building up the network again but here’s a summary of what I have in place so far:

• DSL line from the wall goes to a Speedstream 5260 ADSL Modem/Bridge
• The Modem connects to Lucy, the PII running IPCop
• Lucy controls two subnet’s from two physically separate NIC’s
  • The blue subnet goes to a lightweight DLink Wireless Access Point
  • The green subnet goes to the wired LAN
• On the green LAN there are currently 3 computers
  • Pearl, a Pentium D dual core 1 Tb Raid 5 running FreeNAS
  • Anne, iMac G5 running Debian Etch
  • Cate, Celeron D running Debian Etch

This is the basic network setup. There are obviously plans to expand which I will touch on later. Since I started “from scratch” recently here is why I did what I did.

ISP

I decided to stick with DSL…at least for now. Honestly, I’m not too happy with the available choices in general. I like DSL because it is a direct line which makes it safer as opposed to an open LAN which is the Cable model. If I could (maybe I’ll look into this again), I would go with a static IP on the DSL rather than connecting with PPPoE. I think there is some speed to be gained by doing this — the unadvertised kind of speed that businesses get and individuals don’t. Basically, I’m looking forward to fiber, or a local DIY ISP or something besides the two ubiquitous choices.

Routing

The differences here is the change from a LAN + DMZ setup to a LAN + WiFi setup. I don’t particularly like or trust WiFi so I’ve kept it separate from my trusted network; the only way the two could interact with with a vpn (which I do not have set up currently). It is nice to have it set up this way because it allows friends to come over and use the internet (or even neighbors) without opening myself up to intrusion on my private network.

Hosting is fun to experiment with but is impractical for any serious applications. I lost the DMZ and moved all of my domains to Dreamhost. I’m very happy with the service there. They are professionals, I am not. Anything that I want to seriously share with the world I do on Dreamhost now. I still have a DynDNS name or two pointed at my network for convenience sake.

If I were to set up my routing again from scratch, I think I would go with Monowall instead of IPCop. This comes from my experience so far with FreeNAS, which is built on Monowall. I can’t think of anything I’d rather have running my data storage, or firewall than BSD. These atticware “embedded” appliances are an excellent and cheap way to add functionality to your network.

NAS

Speaking of FreeNAS, The new box in the house is my dual core NAS appliance. The computer was a barebones steal of a deal on Tiger Direct — where I do most of my computer and electronics shopping. My new apartment is also near a Micro Center which I have have been very impressed with as well. Anyways, the barebones box was a steal, and for me it was worth doing it right. This was my second attempt at a NAS and I will write a whole article about what I’ve learned from that project alone.

Switch to Debian

I have made a significant switch from Ubuntu to Debian on most of my machines. The article, “Debian redefines itself with new release” by Bruce Byfield on Linux.com really got me interested in trying it out. I found much of the article to be spot on, and describing exactly what I want in a distro. The added stability that comes with the care that Debian puts into it’s releases really makes the difference for me. The breakneck pace of Ubuntu development was fun at first but rebuilding your kernel ever two weeks became a hassle…especially when you multiply that by the number of computers on your network. I believe there is new blood at Debian and it is worth taking another look if it has been a while since you last touched the distro.

Future Developments

I am currently working on getting MythTV set up correctly on Cate. I am very close…oh so very close…and am looking forward to that accomplishment. In the mean time I am having fun watching free HD television pulled off of my rabbit ears with a pcHDTV 3000 card. Xine makes a great front end, but most movie players will allow you to play a DVB channel. After MythTV, Cate will get all the tweaks needed to play all sorts of media. LIRC is a long term dream as well, but is way down the list. Also, I will setup the MythTV frontend on all my other machines so I can use it in all rooms of the house (especially Anne, in the bedroom).

I am building a work bench for all future electronics, woodworking, robotics, and bicycle projects. I’ll set up Penney (a Dell PIV running Debian as well) to run as the desktop on the bench. This will have more of a development box feel to it. There will likely also be an additional switch on the bench for embedded projects (and watch out little Roomba!).

I am feeling more and more the lack of a printer and scanner so they will be added soon I’m sure. I will make sure they are as network attached as possible, especially the printer.

An Asterisk box is another network appliance I would like to experiment with. It hasn’t been a high priority because I don’t use my land line telephone very much. The software and hardware seem like a lot of fun though so I will likely be putting one of my atticware boxes to work on that in the future.

Summary

Before I was into computer networking, I used to love playing with audio gear. I would set up all sorts of configurations with amp’s, pre-amps, effects, media, instruments…basically anything I could get my hands on. Every once in a while my signal would loose it’s way, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t fix the problem. My solution was to unplug everything, make a pile off all the wires, and start again. Whenever I’d do this it would lead to a better set up, and I would learn something new in the process.

I had almost forgotten this lesson until this move reminded me. Every now and then it’s good to unplug everything, make a neat pile of the wires, and start over. Rethink your previous assumptions and remind yourself why you did what you did in the first place. It’s a very rewarding process and feels like you’ve grown and developed after you have finished it. If you feel like you’ve reached a plateau give it a shot and see what happens.

From the Article:

“The Quiff is a hairstyle that combines the ’50s pompadourflattop, and sometimes a mohawk. The hairstyle was a staple in the British ‘Teddy Boy’ movement, but became popular again in Europe in the early 1980s with early psychobilly acts including The Meteors, Demented Are Go, and others. For a while, DJ and TV presenter Mark Lamarr was a famous proponent of the quiff.”

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Alternate URL pays for clicks via PayPal and costs nothing to use. So far I can see that I’m getting page impressions when I would have otherwise had a blank spot on my blog. This is an easy way to make money you should be making anyways.

• Yelp
  I feel like I’m a little late to the party on this one but at least in Chicago it seems like it is just catching on. I recently moved into the city, and not only that I moved into a section I knew nothing about: Avondale. I didn’t even know that was a neighborhood until after I signed the lease. (!) Anyways, I needed to find information about it: what’s cool, what to stay away from, where people go out, where people like to get gas, get their dry cleaning done, get their hair cut…you get the idea. Yelp has been a great tool in this regard. It is a social networking site built around reviewing businesses. This is like have a hundred helpful neighbors…who are indexed and searchable. I’ve been learning a lot and having a lot of fun based on their suggestions. I like it as a social network as well because it is based around providing valuable content rather than just being seen (like Facebook). For at home dining Yelp + Grubhub is a winning combo.

• DreamHost Blog
  Before you stop reading let me explain. I know I pimp Dreamhost a lot (I like them what can I say), but I would be reading this blog even if I wasn’t a customer. It is hilarious, and barely has anything to do with the company anyways. The author is so funny and original I find myself laughing aloud when I’m reading it. Give it a shot, I think you’ll enjoy it.

• Go Fug Yourself
  I feel a little late to the party on this one too…but that’s when the cool kids show up anyways so whatever. This blog is also seriously funny. I’m not sure it is for people who are not into fashion but my guess is it would be. Don’t let the girliness put you off, this writing is seriously funny stuff. For a real treat go into the archive and read the Britany Spears letters. You can thank me later.

These Sites and a few more now appear in the Blogroll for 1 is A | 2 is B. Any hot feeds that you just know I should add to my feed reader, please let me know!

I love Levi’s 501 Shrink to Fit jeans and have done the shrinking thing a bunch of times. Some ways work, others are not so good; here’s the best way:

• Fill your bathtub (or kitchen sink if you don’t have one) with the hottest water that will come out of the tap.
• Put the pants in there and let them marinate for 15-20 minutes
• Drain the water and hang the pants over the tub (they’ll drip. They’ll also make a mess so be prepared to give the tub a scrub down after you are done).
• Optional Step A few hours into drying (when they are no longer actively dripping), put them on and let them dry on your body for a bit.
• After they are dry (overnight) they will be so stiff you may be able to stand them upright. Even so, Try them on and see if they are close to the right size. You can repeat the above steps many times to shrink them down further. I find that after the initial shrinking, the length is less likely to change than the tightness.
• When you think you have the right size, wash them in the washer machine BY THEMSELVES or else they will bleed all over everything. I’ve tried to wear them in without washing first but it doesn’t work as well. After the first wash is when you can go long times between washes to get them really sculpted.

I’d recommend buying them 1″ too big in the waist and 2-3″ too big in the inseam. This will give you a skinny but relaxed fit (classic). Adjust from there if you want a tighter or shorter look.

Mistakes I’ve made that you should not repeat:

• Getting in the tub full of scalding hot water wearing the pants: I thought that they would “mold to my body”, instead all the skin peeled of my legs.
• Washing the pants before the hot water marinating: they shrunk but it took a lot longer for them to start looking good. If you need to take some serious inches off them, this will not work as well as the marinating.
• Buying the wrong size: if you buy the wrong size and they just don’t shrink correctly you are usually just plain out of luck (SOL). I buy my pants at the Levi’s Store and they guarantee my satisfaction. This means even after I shrink them, if I don’t like them, I can still return them.

“One key factor that led to the attrition of the LOD’s resources in the war was that the MOD (and allied groups) had usurped control of all telephone, X.25, and TCP/IP entry points in Texas, where most LOD members were located. Using these monitoring techniques, the MOD slowly took away all access to systems under LOD control and made them their own.”

Previous Articles of the day:

• Greg Packer
• Jonathan James

So I was “lucky” enough to get the keys to my new apartment two weeks before I was forced out of my old one. This gave me the time to really make the place look great before all my junk got thrown into to and made it look bad again. I had the chance to do a little touch up painting, clean the fridge, mop the kitchen floor and all the usual cleaning things you may do on a 4-6 month basis (seriously, let’s be realistic here). What I’m talking about here is the UNUSUAL cleaning…the 1 to 2 year cleaning job…the kind of cleaning that reveals dirt from when the building was built:

Painting
This is the panacea for problem areas: just paint over it! You get a fresh new feeling that really brightens up rooms. There are times when this is absolutly necessary but it isn’t always (see below). If you do have your heart set on painting a tip is to clean the walls first with ammonia water to take the dirt and grease off that will cause your paint job to peel, crack, or wear off. This is especially necessary in kitchens and bathrooms. Also, when choosing colors, always choose the lightest color on the swatch. The second to lightest should only be used if you want a real bright/vibrant color on a wall. Anything darker than that is used for accents only. Even with the lightest color, expect to do two coats.

Walls You Don’t Paint
The good news is you don’t need to paint most walls. If you have a grungy looking wall, especially in the kitchen, the ammonia water trick works really well. If the wall just has scuff marks or dirt streaks use a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. That thing is awesome. It will take almost any mark right off. Another trick to give a fresher feeling to a room: Swiffer the walls. This may sound neurotic but it takes like two minutes and it gets all the dust stuck to the wall behind doors and furniture (plus any spiderwebs in the corners). Between the Magic Eraser and the Swiffer you may find that you don’t have to paint after all.

Windows
Clean as much of the windows as you can reach. If you can clean both sides of the glass even better. Clean windows do wonders for brightening up rooms. In fact this should be in the 4-6 month category, not the 12-24.

Light Fixtures
If you don’t clean light fixtures every time you change the bulb, give them a good wash down. Now with the energy efficient bulbs this may be a forgotten area so make sure you get all the dead bugs and dust collected in them. It makes a big difference.

Spackle
Get a small pot of spackle and using your thumb, press it into any holes in your walls. Then wipe the excess away with your hand or a damp towel. Most spackle now-a-days goes in pink and dries white. If you apply it this way there is no need for sanding and if it’s in a white wall anyways there’s no need for repainting.

These can be really quick fixes that keep your place looking clean and new, or helps you get the full deposit back on a place that you are moving out of.

I love exquisite corpses so here are a couple that I’ve been a part of:

• Exquisite Corpse 1
• Exquisite Corpse 3

Well AGLOCO is trying to shake that up a bit. I wrote about it a few weeks ago here, and today is some clarification and updates on how it’s going.

Here is why I would like you to help build the AGLOCO network.

• It is free.
• It is quick and easy to join.
• AGLOCO’s purpose is to get its members their share of the money generated on the Internet (i.e. you make money).
• Best of all, if you help build the AGLOCO network you can make much more.

Here is a link to sign up (it automatically records me as referring you with my ID BBFJ4165). AGLOCO works with a toolbar type software called a Viewbar. Privacy is very strict so NO spyware, popups or spam. Once you accumulate you time for the month (currently 5 hours of surfing), just turn the bar off till next month. It’s incredibly unobtrusive.

As to how much money you can make, there is a study which says the average user should get $5 to $15 a month. (But less at the beginning.) Click here to read the report. http://simmonsreport.spaces.live.com

How much can you make helping to build the network? The Simmons Report predicts $30 per referral. Referals add up quickly because you also get credit for indirect referals as well.

AGLOCO is in their beta phase which is the best time to help them build out the network. So please join now and help build the network. Have questions? Their website has all the details so go there or ask me.

It’s a no lose opportunity that has the chance to transform the Internet — and let us share in the value creation.

Previous Wiki Articles of the Day:

• Jonathan James

Nothing. I did this for almost five months. Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting different results. I kept blaming other things for the lack of response, such as: poor grades, bad job market, not being well connected. I never thought that it was my approach to the process or the document that gave employers their first impression of me before we even met.

The truth is, smart people want to hire smart people. If you present yourself as such you will get hired. Too simple, I know, but think of it from the employer’s perspective: hiring a new employee is risky for them. They spend money on hiring you, your training, etc. The more you can do to lower the risk they feel in hiring you the more likely you are to be hired.

The same thing works with promotions: if you are already acting and working like a manager, the risk is low that you won’t be a great manager if given the position. Write and interview like an employee and you will become an employee.

Back to the story: I was obviously feeling discouraged and frustrated. A friend of mine who has been around this barbeque before felt like her past experiences were similar to mine and that she had some advice for my resume. We worked on it over dinner and by the end of it I had confidence to go and write a new resume for myself. I think what had bogged me down before was all this job search advice out there in magazines and the internet. Much of it is contradictory and confusing – ok you tell me this technique works but why does it work? I’m not trying to game a computer system I’m trying to communicate with a person in HR. Talking with my friend cleared up some of this and empowered me to try ideas of my own.

So let’s say that dinner was a Monday night in mid-February. By Tuesday night I had my new resume written up and had replace all my old ones on various job hunt sites. Wednesday I had a phone interview with company 1 (let’s call them), and a request for a phone interview and a request for a face to face interview for Thursday. On thursday company 1 called and scheduled a face to face interview with me for friday. On my way to Thursday’s face to face interview I had a phone interview with a company that had flat out rejected me not a month earlier. On Thursday I also got five email responses from other companies. Friday I had a very long interview with company 1. On the way to that interview I also had another phone interview. The following Wednesday I was offered the job with company 1 and accepted shortly thereafter.

So what did I do specifically to my resume already!? Everyone asks me this. What I tell people is that I created a more focused story about myself and that I formatted it in a more professional way. Here are links to the two files (old resume, winning resume) so that you can compare for yourself. FYI none of the information on either is current, they are for illustration purposes only; email me if you would like a copy of my current resume.

My recommendations for those who are in the job hunt process:

• Don’t use the same resume for over a month if it is not getting theresponse you expect.
• Talk with someone who knows what they are talking about. This will give you confidence in your own writing.
• Keep sending updated versions of your resume to companies you are interested in.
• Do your important correspondance in snail mail: thank yous, acceptance letters, rejection letters, etc.
• Know what is important for you in a job and stick to it. Do you want a desk job or a job outdoors; do you want a fat paycheck more than satisfying work (if it came down to a choice between the two). Make sure you know not what job you want, but what kind of job you want and make sure you get it!

I’m sure I have more advice which I may write about later (or just email me for it). I am also thinking of writing about interviewing because I’m good at it…and enjoy it (if you can believe it).

The way you make money with AGLOCO is after you sign up, you download a small “viewbar” that sits on your computer and shows you text ads. I thought originally that this was going to be really anoying but it turned out to be quite unobtrusive. Once your viewbar is in place you continue to surf the web as usual and the viewbar keeps track of the time you spend online (the assumption being that you’ll be comming into contact with ads naturally when surfing). You get paid by the amount of time recorded.

Currently you are allowed a maximum of 5 recorded hours a month of surf time. This is really low; most people can do this in the morning of the first of the month. So it seems like this is really a piecemal way of earning money and why bother. Well, the way to increase your earnings every month is to refer people to join AGLOCO. When you refer someone to join, you get money based on how much time they are online a month too. Ok so you refer a few friends, it is still looking pretty piecemal. Well, this goes three levels deep, meaning you get paid for the time that the referals of the referals of your referals spend online as well. Remember though, even if you just join and don’t refer anyone else you still make money.

The bottom is that the more members that use and own AGLOCO, the more money the company can make. The more money the company makes, the more money you make because you are a shareholder of the company. The company pays you to refer people to the company because of the potential to make more money that those referals bring. So the business model is sound (they have fixed some of the problems that caused AllAdvantage to go under) and you can read more about it on their Learn More page.

So that’s an explanation of what AGLOCO is and how it can make its members some additional monthly income. I think the concept is interesting and I am giving it a try. I’m still a little skeptical but after reading a lot about it and researching the company I feel like it poses little risk to me and has the potential for significant gain. There is no spyware, spam, phishing, selling your information or other shady things involved at all. I will post updates as I gain more experience with it and I see if it is working or not.

If you are also interested in giving it a try, please use my referral link to sign up so that I can get credit for refering you and helping to build the AGLOCO network: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBFJ4165

I know I talked about being a shareholder but the sign up process is really easy (they take care of all that behind the scenes). So use my referral link and sign up now so you can start clocking time and if you feel like it start referring others and building your network.

In my case I really enjoyed making one, so I made another. After some experimenting this was my final product (I ran out of old business cards…and so did my buddy Dave).

(Click the tumbnails for larger images)

You may not be able to tell from the pictures, but these boxes are fully connected and the whole object is strong enough to be thrown around, dropped, etc. without breaking apart.

I felt like I needed to share this creation because I just threw it away (it will not be coming with me to my new apartment). So long, strange business card sculpture!

Dreamhost is a web-hosting service that is excellent in my opinion. No matter what your hosting needs are, Dreamhost offers a comprehensive feature set including: multiple domain and registration support, a free domain registration, subversion/cvs, webDAV, unlimited mysql databases, php 4 and 5, perl, ruby, ruby on rails pre-installed, jabber, and many one click preconfigured applications such as wordpress, media wiki, phpBB, and more. A comprehensive feature set for an extremely competitive price (starting at under $10/month) makes for an attractive deal.Dreamhost is also very community spirited. They are big supporters of FOSS; they host
helpful community wiki’s and forums for support (in addition to more traditional support);
they keep their status blog up to date…which basically is telling you all the problems and interruptions to service that effect you specifically, plus they recently went completely green which you can read about here if you are interested. It is a young, fun and dynamic company to be a part of and because of their community spirit you really do feel like a part of the gang.

Personally, I like having all my services under one account rather than spread out across the internet. I have four domains and domain registrations in my Dreamhost account currently and I know that as my needs grow, my account can grow to meet them. Plus they make it easy…and fun.

They also offer interesting referrer benefits and donation options. For everyone –say you
– a member — for example me — refers to Dreamhost, I can get a one time referrer’s bonus of $97 or I can choose to receive 10% of your services fees forever (and 5% of all secondary referrals). You can read more about the program here.

So if you feel like this page has helped you find a useful service, please consider using this link to sign up which will send a referrer’s bonus my way. Alternatively, you can help me pay for my hosting fees and services by donating here (or using the donation button below). The money you donate through this link can only be used toward my hosting fees and service. Be confident in the knowledge that your donations are helping make this website a reality in a much more direct way than beer does.

Sign up for Dreamhost today and get $50 off! Use the promotional code blog.nedsferatu and get your setup fees waived on any hosting package; a $50 value!

• Automattic Stats
  This basically gives you exactly the same statistics functionality as the hosted account
• WP-ContactForm
  An easy way to add to your blog a contact form for people to send you emails while you remain anonymous (More details can be found at their Homepage) UPDATE: Use the Homepage to download the most recent version of the plug-in. The WP site is out of date.
• Random Redirect
  Because….well why not?

Luckily, since I am hosting this blog on Dreamhost they already provided me with wp-cache, Akismet, podPress, WP-FLV, and a ton of great themes to choose from with widgets already enabled.

It was pretty easy and quick to get my WordPress install looking professional and feeling usable.

UPDATE:

•  Open Web Analytics
  This is an analytics program that is native to your site rather than using the wordpress.com api. It is really a slick app and has many configurable options such as using the Google Maps API for geolocation of your visitors.

1. Go to http://blogname.wordpress.com/wp-links-opml.php using your url bar
2. Use your browser’s Save page as… function and change the files extension from .php to .xml
3. In the administrative page of your new blog go to Blogroll -> Import Links and select the .xml file you just saved

If you want to do this from non-wordpress-hosted blogs, check out this forum post about how to do it.

UPDATE:

If you export your links this way they will no longer be associated with any categories so you will still need to go through and update that….along with their descriptions and XFN information.

TIP:

Before you export your content (which includes your categories) make sure none of your categories have a & in them. If they do, there will be an identical category created with that name for every post that is associated with the category. Take a second now to change any & to and or - so that you won’t have to deal with the hassle later.

•  Contact Me page
  I have added a new page called Contact Me that allows you to send me a personal email and allows me to maintain my privacy.
• Blogroll Update
  There is a new section in the Blogroll called: What’s on my Aggragator? Where I have links to the blogs I read everyday. For the posts I like the best:
• External Navigation links
  Two new things:
  • First, “what I’ve been reading” is a link to my shared page powered by Google Reader. What this means is that I get to share with you the blog posts I thought were awesome without cluttering up my blog. I’ll try and create original content here and check out that link for more awesomeness.
  • Second, if you are into chaos and suprises there is a link called “random post” which will bring you an article from this site at random.
• No more Comments
  I have disabled comments on pages and posts. Pingbacks and trackbacks will still be shown/allowed. The best way to get in touch with me is to send me an email on my contact page or write a post on your blog which links to a post on mine.

Those are the most interesting changes…or are they? *sting music*

• My own pictures of Chicago from the top of the Sears Tower. A quick trip through your own photo album can provide some interesting desktops you may not of thought of before.
• Banksy Shop. Some excellent free images from him.
  • I think This One would work particularly well
• Shorpy Blog of pictures from a hundred years ago is a lot of fun. Excellent images often very large.
  • This image of Ford’s Theater from the time of Lincoln I am planning on using as a desktop myself
  • Hotel Astor 1916

I’m sure there will be more to come in the future.

Big Screen Desktop Background Images, Part I

UPDATE:

Over at Slashdot I found this post about huge images of mars that have been released to the public. Maybe some digging will reveal life…i mean good desktop images.

• 日本 and ブレ-ドラナ by Pascal_ over at flickr (some get up to 2048×1536px). I particularly like these (to name just a few):
  • Genji
  • 静
  • Wood and Bells
  • Mini Shrine
  • ひかり
  • Bladerunner DayLight
  • Gaff
  • Rachael
• a Rachel Domm desktop
• A fun one of new york city,  I remember seeing these on Boing Boing so if you search I bet you’ll find a lot more out there by eboy!
• A large gallery of techno desktops. Hit and miss…but if it’s your thing the images are quite large.
• NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day (of varying sizes)
  • Reflections on a planet earth
  • The crown of the sun
• The Hadron Collider

The more I get into this the more I think it’s going to have to be a two parter. Send recommendations my way.

• apt-get install konqueror
• From the Applications -> Internet menu right click on Konqueror and Add this launcher to panel
• On the panel right click on Konqueror and open Properties
• The default is to launch Konqueror as a web browser. To have it open as a file manager change the Command: field to read kfmclient openProfile filemanagement
• Now use the panel launcher to open Konqueror. It defaults to an icon view. Go to View->View Mode->Tree View
• To make sure Konqueror launches with this view every time: Go to Settings->Save View Profile “File Management”… and click Save.

Now every time you click on Konqueror in the launcher panel you will quickly have all the features and benefits of managing your files and everything else on your computer that comes with Konqueror.

Other killer KDE apps I have integrated into my Gnome Desktop:

• Amarok – Music, iPod, Podcast Management (iTunes killer)
• k3b – CD/DVD burning
• kTorrent – torrent downloading, searching, and management

…to name a few. A desktop environment is a facilitator, don’t feel constrained by it.

An article

I know 64bit PowerPC architecture is practically legacy but is that really any reason to not develop for it? Ubuntu’s Feisty release did not have support for ppc and honestly I haven’t been impressed by how it was running on my machine anyways.

The multi-architecture net-install iso is what i recommend: 1 disk to install debian on any system in my house and the mirrors are quite fast (as opposed to my experience with SUSE 10.2).

When you boot into the install cd be sure to type expert64 at boot prompt. I prefer the expert install even though I’m not an expert because of options and what I’ve learned simply from the installer.

If you decide to encrypt your disk, be prepared for the installation to take much longer as it has to thoroughly erase the disk and then encrypt it. During normal boot up of the system it will prompt you for the password you encrypted the disk which is not idea if you plan to run the machine headless.


I also decided to run the system with sudo instead of allowing root to log in (su). I did this for security and also because I’m used to it with Ubuntu. I did find that I had trouble in Gnome until I ran visudo and added my account to the list.

The two things I’m most happy with when comparing the Debian install with the Ubuntu install it replace is the speed of the computer and the display. Etch boots and runs noticeably faster than Dapper and correctly configured the screen resolution and all hardware for that matter right out of the box. This gave me great joy and pleesure.

Debian is rock solid and well supported even with PPC 64 architecture; I’d be surprised if they dropped support for the architecture so you won’t get stuck in the past when everyone else is dist-upgrading. Debian is feature rich, full of supported software, and you won’t be upgrading your kernel every week — for me that is a good thing as it shows a more thorough approach to Q/A.

Update:

So I thought this would just be a lighthearted post but it is actually quite popular; now i feel like an ass for not explaining and just sticking out my tongue saying: i got it you don’t shut up.

What it is is a x window tunneled over ssh using putty and cygwin. It works fine and is pretty fast, but most definitely not native.

Update:

and now i’ve lost the image.

EVANSTON, Ill. — Imagine a car windshield that displays a map to your destination, military goggles with targets and instructions displayed right before a soldier’s eyes or a billboard that doubles as a window.

Only in science fiction you say? Northwestern University researchers report that by combining organic and inorganic materials they have produced transparent, high-performance transistors that can be assembled inexpensively on both glass and plastics.

Read more here.

To recap:

1. Ayn is the iMac G5 running Kubuntu Edgy Eft
2. Cate is the computer I built around a CeleronD 2.96Ghz running Kubuntu Edgy Eft and MythTV
3. Laurie is the PII 200Mhz running Dapper Server Edition and acting as a webserver
4. Cherry Coke IBM Thinkpad 760XD. I’ve finally cried uncle on this one. I’ve done everything I can think of to rescue it and am now selling it for a dollar on craigslist.

Since last update I’ve added the following machines:

1. Penn: a PIV running Xubuntu and not doing much at the moment
2. IPCop: a PII runing IPCop
3. Unnamed PI, DEC circa 95/96

Many people at this point ask: why? First, systems administration really interests me. No I don’t know why. Second, each machine serves a purpose. Yes it is more than most home networks support but bare with me: IPCop acts as a router (more on this later), Cate is my home theater, Ayn is my development box and desktop machine, Penn will become a fileserver, Laurie is a webserver and the unnamed PI will most likely become a email server. So yeah i’m essentially running a home office but in light of the first rationale that makes sense.


So the big changes so far have been with routing. My original router was a 2wire 1000HW that came with my SBC (now AT&T) ADSL server. I’ve never liked it and recently switch to an IPCop setup. Long story short, the 2wire 1000HW never could be configured to a true bridge mode so I bought a used Speedstream 5260 ADSL Modem/Bridge which works great. Even though the modem is only rated to 10 base T LAN my internet is markedly faster. Leave it to Linux to be this awesome.

Now that that set up is complete, my network includes a subdomain of workstations (Ayn, Cate, and Penn) and a DMZ of servers (Laurie, and the PI) on a separate subdomain. My plan is to use Open Filer and a few hard drives at raid 5 on Penn as a file server for the LAN, and use Laurie as a webserver and the PI as an email server (maybe using the Citadel exchange server) in the DMZ. Adding a printer on LAN using CUPS would be another easy addition with this set up plus a computer or stack for mechatronics projects would also be a simple thing to implement. My network now allows me the flexibility to work on projects both hardware and software related with relative ease. Expect big updates to follow.

What can calm a screaming baby, keep a two-year-old busy for hours, and break the awkwardness felt between preteens and teens? Truly the most powerful liquid in the world: bubbles.

Bubbles are appealing to everyone. Cheap, easily made and easily destroyed, beautiful, they are clear but very colorful, floating gently and peacefully. Blowing bubbles calms breathing and is very relaxing. The little gravity-defying balls can carry away breath and trouble, leaving one simply in awe of nature and science. Simply blowing the delicate spheres provides incredible effects. When I need to demonstrate my skills with children, I draw with my breath Giotto’s perfect circle.

I learned the power of bubbles in the playroom at the New England Medical Center, where I volunteered for five weeks this past summer. A hospital is a very scary place for children, who soon learn that they cannot trust every smiling adult. Since I was physically larger than the children, I also posed as a threat despite that at times I was only a few years older. Even though my job was to play and interact with the children, gaining trust and building friendship soon became my more important jobs. I found that talking, asking questions, and other doctor-like behavior is not the best way to gain trust. A similar interest or a simple yet entertaining activity was called for in all situations. In these crystal balls, I could find incredible connections with children. A small bottle of bubbles soon found a permanent home in my pocket.

The discovery of bubbles may seem trivial to some, but for me this liquid was a godsend. They became a tool for connecting with children who I thought I never could connect with. There is a universal reaction to bubbles. Even as the first stream comes off the tip of the wand, babies stop crying, children are captivated by trying to catch and pop them, and adults always remark on how pretty they are. They center one and give the opportunity to lose oneself. In a hospital, activities are valued by how long they can distract a child. Bubbles are solid gold. What is even more wonderful about bubbles, however, is they are more than just a distraction. They can be a tool for opening connections to people.

Bubbles represent two of my strengths: leadership and people skills. I learned leadership in the Boy Scouts, where I had plenty of opportunity to refine the skill. Many choices are taken away from children in hospitals; the playroom becomes the only place that they can control. Consequently I had to adapt my skills as a leader. The two significant aspects of leadership that I used the most at the hospital were creativity and organization. In order to always keep a couple of steps ahead of the children, I was concentrating constantly. It is exhausting to play all day, but very rewarding.

Little Bobby is a five year old ball of energy with wheels. I think they labeled him hyperactive; I related to him, though. He came up to my hip, was not fat, and had red hair that must have followed the light source because it did not follow anything else. There was no stopping Bobby, he would have missions that were to be completed ASAP. Known to the nurses as Dr. Bob, he was first on the scene to help any stuffed animal or lucky volunteer — usually me. His medical procedures always involved a large quantity of tape and Band-Aids. He was not a typical child in the hospital. Most of the children I interacted with were hesitant to talk or even touch objects which were foreign to them, such as some toys. Instead, Bobby, at first, saw me as just another volunteer and another potential patient. The first time he saw me as something more was when I accompanied him to his first procedure. This procedure could not have been worse for Bobby; it required him to remain still for almost three hours. Before hand we talked and he asked me many questions because he was nervous. Again bubbles proved the solution. Breathing out the steady stream and watching them float away, helped his nerves. Gradually, the bubbles became larger as his breathing calmed. By the time of the procedure he was calm for him or what others would probably call “excited”. Even though he did not thank me, I think he was grateful for my friendship, and I am sure the nurse who preformed the procedure was as well.

The playroom is piled high with an large quantity of toys and games. Sophisticated toys flash lights, talk to you, and move on their own. I found that however impressive these toys are, the toys that brought the most joy were the simple, time-honored ones. The “new and improved” toys are used by people who want to distract children for a short period of time. A leader recognizes the simple toys, like bubbles, as a way to build trust and understanding over the gap of physical size, age, background, and even language. Blowing bubbles is a simple skill, but a skill that can make all the difference to a sick child.

First, the Opera site is a joy is deal with. Even if you want the support from a repository, I recommend downloading it from the site as well just for the experience. One way to add it to your repository is to add the following lines to the bottom of your /etc/apt/sources.list file USE AT YOUR OWN RISK:

# The Opera browser (packages)
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera etch non-free

There are also other repositories available that have the opera packages and others in them.

I know everyone says that Konqueror is the fastest browser out there — and i love Konqueror don’t get me wrong — but I have always found it to be rather slow. Opera 9, on my system, is the fastest browser I’ve tried and it’s full functional. Well, full functional is more than an understatement. The feature list is not only an impressive read but it really lives up to it. There are also a lot of subtile features that aren’t mentioned that really make it quite a productive browser to use.

I’ve been a die hard FireFox supporter for years and I had tried Opera before and found nothing special. Whatever you’re preconceived notions are about it put them in the back of your mind and just try it. I think you’ll be surprised.

During the installation setup stage it asked me a few times if i’d like to keep current config files or use the new ones. I choose defaults on everything but the exports.conf file because i wasn’t thrilled with my nfs export configurations to begin with and there were some interesting comments in there about new versions of NFS.

Edgy is noticably faster Dapper in every way that i’ve tried so far. I haven’t done extensive testing yet, but everything that did work still works. In my opinion, it’s ready for the big times.


A couple things i’ve been trying now that I have Edgy on my media machine:

1. 3ddesktop
   I’ve had a couple successful and a couple failed attempts at compiz/xgl and maybe i’ll pursue that further. I did grab the 3ddesktop package and play around with it a bit. I didn’t notice any system drain and it looks pretty great. There is a good howto in the ubuntu wiki that supplements the README file. The only problem I have been having is with keybindings. It kind of takes some of the fun out of the program if you have to go to the command line first to run it.
2. MythTV 0.20
   The original purpose of this machine was to run MythTV, and it’s taken me almost eleven months to realize that goal. With the new 0.20 packages I finally got MythTV to play broadcast HD content on my computer. I am still having trouble with getting all the stations (a atsc/ntsc conflict I think) and I haven’t tried recording yet, but I was very pleased to finally put that HD card to work. Up until now i have been watching SD content with KdeTV. Oh happy day!

UPDATE:

I’m not sure what I did (if anything) but now all video and audio file types work in all players.

Northwestern Researchers Develop Bistable Nanoswitch, From Small Times

I group I did research with for a short time at Northwestern University, under Horacio Espinosa, recently demonstrated a bistable nanoswitch.

But what does this mean?

The device represents a major breakthrough in nanotechnology (meaning the practical application of nano-scale science). Carbon nanotubes look like hollow hot dogs. The nanotube used in this experiment is multiwalled meaning one hollow hotdog within a larger hollow hotdog. You would have to bundle many of these together to get something recognizable as a human hair. The tube was mounted on the end of a probe and maneuvered over a small electrode. Having not read the original paper, my best guess is that by manipulating the voltage in probe, the nanotube becomes more or less able to tunnel electons (see quantum mechanics) and complete the circuit.

Additionally, in electronics, diodes are used as switches (or gates). For high tolerance applications they become problematic because they are not in fact a clean on or off (like a light switch). Their two states are modeled by a regression curve that goes from pretty close to fully on to pretty close to fully off over a period of time. While this is also the case with MEMS and NEMS switches, the curve is more clearly defined and on and off come much closer to their theoretical values (because the switch is a mechanical connection). A nano switch, such as the one demonstrated is on a length-scale appropriate for integrated circuitry with the potential benefits mentioned in the article.

(via /.)

1. win32codecs

   The video support is still lacking.  I’m waiting on the win32codecs and better firefox support for video in general.

2. Automatix

   The Automatix folks have been making headway with Edgy Eft however no sign of a PPC version yet. I have the repo set up for when it is.

3. Ruby Gems

   I have run into a snag with getting rails and mysql to talk to each other. The only solution I can find involves a .so file to be installed through gems. I’m impatient to get rails and continue developing in Rails.

4. Widescreen Support

   I have a 17″ widescreen display built into the iMac. I’ve messed with the xorg.conf file a bit but can’t get a stable solution to widescreen resolution. It’s running on 1024×768 which besides being less than optimal, makes everything a little fat.

Everything else is going very well. I’ve got a LAMP server up and running, and i’ve forced Eclipse to play nice (but can’t wait for a ppc RadRails version to come out either).

http://mail.google.com/mail/?nocheckbrowser

yeah, it’s buggy, but it’s fun to play with.

Also try out gmail in lynx. it’s like a web bases console email client. well…no…that’s exactly what it is.

UPDATE 2007.03.06:

Another way to get full functioning gmail in Konqueror is to change Konqueror’s browser identification for that page:

Tools > Change Browser Identification > Other > Firefox X.XX

According to the Kubuntu website, the new version of Kubuntu (Feisty Fawn, final release April 19th) will automatically do this for you in Konqueror.

Still no luck with bluetooth. Codecs are still a bit of problem (big surprise, right?) since there are no win32codecs in the repos. As Edgy Eft becomes less and less beta, I have a feeling the repositories will become more extensive. Based on the dapper release schedule I’d expect the official release on November 1st.

Also, Automatix is being rolled out for Edgy Eft but is not yet available for ppc. I will post when it becomes available.

Using PPC 64 is, i’m sure, part of the reason for the skimpy repos. Considering Apple went to x86, the G5 chip and support for it are not top on everyone’s list to say the least. The beauty of Linux is that it is likely it will still be supported for a while, but I have a feeling I will be trying out the latest and greatest applications on the intel machine.

First I tried an install of Suse 10.1 (open). I was a little disapointed to see it was 5 disks — I admire a distro that gets it done in one — and since I was just trying it out on my system I opted for net install. How this works is you download a boot disk, then find a mirror serving the distro, find it’s IP address, and input the IP and the directory path on the server when you boot off the small boot disk. I got it working, but it took many hours to download what amounted to disk one of the installation so I decided to abort.

Aborting the install threw the computer into fits. For a while things were at a stand still where I couldn’t even get the computer to boot from a cd or log into the partially installed os. Yaboot would load before I could get the computer to boot from CD. Going back and using the wireless keyboard for some reason allowed a boot from CD.

Thanks to a helpful comment on my last post, I tried the Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft live CD with great success. The live cd worked brilliantly, the install took a half hour, and so far everything is working fine. The only abnormality is ubuntu boot screen (not the gnome boot screen) is a little funky looking. For now I don’t think I will try to install KDE; I have a kubuntu machine already and wouldn’t mind learning more about GNOME.

I will continue to post updates as I try to get my bluetooth keyboard to work, and learn more about the new features Edgy Eft has to offer.

I burned the live DVD of Kubuntu 6.0.6.1 PPC and gave it a try. To boot from cd (before yaboot is installed) hold down the c key during boot-up. That did the trick on my configuration. The DVD did well until the KDE starting progress dialog when it hung on “Initializing Peripherals”. I had read elsewhere that the live cd had problems and you really had to install it to know if it works.

The install went fine and took less than a half hour. After reboot I found that my wireless keyboard (bluetooth) was not recognized. Not having a USB keyboard handy I made a quick trip Radioshack for a PS/2 to USB converter for the everyday rip-off price of $15.

I found that when i logged in using KDM the system would hang during “Initializing Peripherals” suprise suprise. From my understanding, this problem arrises with KDE on 64bit machines that use Hyperthreading. Fortunatly the computer still worked so I logged into the terminal and thrashed around for a bit. I was unable to find a way to turn off hyperthreading on the iMac and was unable to find a fix for KDE so I installed ubuntu-desktop.

GNOME was the same song second verse. I am going to try a clean install of Ubuntu (without KDE at all) and I’m going to try a few other distros (OpenSUSE, and Slackware most likely). I look forward to posting the follow up to this from my new linux desktop.

I was recently given a PI that was put together by Digital (DEC) many moons ago. It has a blazing 32Mb of RAM, and a lot of soul. I’ve been getting better at booting from a non-bootable CD-ROM (sbootmgr) but I think this one is going to be a challenge. The construction of the box is awesome; if nothing else DEC could put together a computer.
The big plan is to put another NIC card in it and set it up as a router. I’d be interested in a mini-distro that just functions as a router/firewall and would run the system headless. My modem router combo now can’t do DNS to save its life. Updates and possible pictures to follow.

damn

Several (maybe 2) versions of Amarok have been released since I wrote about the patch that fixes FLAC playback. This got me thinking that I should mention that it is always a good idea to check the date on information you find online. I get a lot of my linux support from blog posts and have found it necessary to make sure i’m getting current information. The older the post is, it gets more and more likely that bugs have already been fixed (and yours is unrelated to what they are talking about), or their hardware is older than yours, and so on.

FLAC still works for me in Amarok.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-7392714813681917173&hl=en]

What’s in a name (pt2) | And all that Malarkey

I have been using this philosophy for years and think it is a great approach.

IETab is a lot more helpful that I first thought it would be. I use it when a site isn’t resolving well in firefox or a web app isn’t accepting data from me very well. All the extension is, is a small icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen that when clicked will reload you current tab as if it were an IE browser tab (ha).

I have come to enjoy SessionSaver the more I use it. It basically functions by caching all your open tabs (just the urls, not the actual pages) and will reload your current tab configuration if your browser crashes or you quit with the tabs open. This is a very handy feature but until recently I thought it was all the extension was capable of.

In the Tools menu, there are two items that have until now escaped my notice: SessionSaver Menu and SnapBack Tab menus. The SessionSaver drop down menu allows a high level of control over the automatic functions of the extension, enabling you to import and export individual sessions as well as archiving favorite sessions. The SnapBack Tab menu is by far my favorite: it keeps track of recently closed tabs so if you accidently close a tab you can open it again quickly using that menu. When the tab snaps back, it retains all the history associated with the surfing in that tab.

There are also interesting expert settings in: Tools>Extensions click on SessionSaver>Options>Simple. There are some interesting features in here as well that allow for syncing sessions through an iDisk or FTP/DAV server. I’m going to give this a try.

The one extension I’m still searching for is a good bookmarking solution. There are many things wrong with current bookmarking schema and it’s been an ongoing project of mine to find a good solution.

French art site (NSFW)

click to turn the model around

Blogged with Flock

amaroK and FLAC – Page 2 – Ubuntu Forums

I have been having problems with AmaroK and FLAC playback for a little while now. The above link holds the solution. It is a patch that a community member put together and AmaroK works great now.

Also, I’ve been playing around with Last.fm using AmaroK. If you are a user too look me up! my username is nedsferatu of course.

Awesome Northwestern related news.

When I first began the PostAnarchism Wiki, I opened it up to the community for development shortly after it was installed. I realized that I could not generate interest by presenting an entirely blank canvas and started to think about the responsibilities a wiki administrator (or SysOp) has to the community.

It was hard for me to find examples of wiki’s that were similar to my project. I trust the community that will be working on it, because it is small and mostly my friends. The bigger projects have much too much beaurocracy and rules than is needed for a small wiki. Often, however, smaller wiki’s are used as websites rather than traditional wiki applications (centralized documentation development). They have highly customized themes, and it’s hard to even recognized the underlying software. These do not have much community moderation policies because they are so locked down and are meant for many more people to be reading than editing (sometimes just a few editors).

A good example that I did end up taking a lot of ideas from is the Urban Dead Wiki. Urban Dead is a MMPORPG about zombies and survivors in a city that I used to play a lot. It is a lot of fun and the community is great, espcially the wiki community. I learned a lot about how a healthy wiki functions and the steps that can be taken to ensure ease of scalability.

I developed a help section, with some templates and policy documents on how the wiki should run. all of this is encouraged to be enhanced and changed by the community as they see fit and as it grows. I then came up with a list of categories, ideas, articles that should be included and organized them into a simple hierarchy. I stubbed a lot of pages and created the basic category structures and what they should include. Then I broke for lunch…just kidding this took a while.

I also added a few features of my own. I created a pseudo-namespace called Blog: which a user can carve out a piece of the wiki for developing personal projects. Blog:Username is differs from User: Username in that it’s purpose is for development of articles that will seek publication rather than just information about yourself or internal-wiki project development. So the idea is to post a draft of an article and seek community feedback and corrections; when the user feels satisfied he/she can seek publication of that article or publish it in the “full articles” section of the wiki.

Wiki’s are only as good as the people who develop them. As the administrator of this wiki, I realized my job was a lot bigger than installing the software and setting up a database. I hope these steps I took in developing this wiki will inspire the community to develop content for it. MediaWiki is a very interesting application, and is almost limitless in what you can learn about it.

Laurie (the server) is starting to get some real use. As I mentioned in the Collaboration posts, I installed and configured wordpress as a development blog for David and my project. I have a virtual server running that is ready to have a domain name of it’s own assigned to it, but for now I have ZoneEdit pointing production.blog.nedsferatu.com at it.

I have also decided to use wordpress as the “framework” for 1 is A, 2 is B. As I was mentioning last time, this project is an organization tool for interfacing with all of my online projects. It is a central personal site. I have installed wordpress and begun learning about how to develop templates and css for it. I’m planning on doing some neat things with it, plus it will be the new home for this blog eventually (sorry readers from the future).

I have moved the domain postanarchism.com to the server as well. I began developing a wiki, using MediaWiki, on some GoDaddy server space I had. I decided to host the wiki locally because it doesn’t get much traffic and I wanted more flexability and control of the configurations/modifications I could make to it. Moving the wiki went fairly smoothly. I moved it into a subdirectory which I made a subdomain with the virtual host: wiki.postanarchism.com. PHPMyAdmin makes database relocating easy, reconfiguring the main configuration file for the new server and database was pretty straight forward. Some directories needed some permissions changed, but I had the whole thing moved and back up in under an hour. Some of the image functionality MediaWiki provides required that I install ImageMagick, which is available through apt-get and the install cd.

Future Plans

I need to figure out a backup scheme for the server. My initial plan was to tar the whole box (max disk space is only 10Gb anyways) and use nfs to back it up on Cate (the media machine…it has more than 150Gb available). This requires writing a lot of cron jobs so i’ve been looking into other options but may end up going this route in the end.
I still want to set up a streaming music server and I’ve also been looking into security measures to protect the server.