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November 19, 2004
If you're a Dilbert fan...
...then surely you must be a geek, just like me. I can't say that I'm insanely into comic strips or anything like that, but a visit to comics.com made me want to have _all_ Dilbert strips really bad.
While I'm not prepared to pony up for their paid service, I did subscribe to the free "Basic" service to see what it looks like. Not being able to wait to start my collection, I decided to fetch the 30 or so strips that are available in the Archive for free.
Obviously I'm not the first person to have such an urge. The guys at comics.com don't use a very common filename scheme for their content, presumably for the exact reason of making mass-fetching harder. A quick search on Google showed that every geek and his grandma has already written a script to fetch these strips. Instead of making my life easier, this simply proved that every minimally proud Dilbert fan _must_ make his/her own script.
And so I proceeded to code my hack, jdilbert. Don't expect much--it's just a hack--but it does work. So much so that my collection now contains exactly 31 strips :)
Posted by jdrowell at 05:51 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2004
"1st World" Oysters
Today is the first business day for willapa-oysters.com, my Dad's pet project and future online seafood behemoth.
Not that I could tell, because the main means of advertisement for the site, Google Ads, does not show up on my search (remember, I live in a 3rd World country :P). But thankfully my Dad told me about it and I was able to see his ads by using a US proxy. If you're not in the US you can't get his oysters/clams/etc. anyway, so I guess it makes sense.
OTOH, if you can get his products, it's most definitively worth a try. I happened to live in Oysterville, WA for a few years and the local seafood is fantastic. Everything that is produced locally is extremely fresh and has excellent taste. That includes oysters and clams (which you can now get next-day from my Dad's site) and also salmon, halibut, sturgeon and other yummy seafood (which you'll actually have to visit the Peninsula to try for yourself--like Bill Clinton did).
When you place an order, remember to mention the keyword "FREECAP" and get a really nice "absolutely fresh" baseball cap for free :) (valid until Xmas '04).
Posted by jdrowell at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2004
Multi-head screenshot
I was talking to my good friend gzp on AIM, bragging about my new (but made from old parts) box, and the fact that it had RAID1, RAID5, three heads, etc. So he asked me for a screenshot. I tried to use xwd to make it--to no avail--so he told me about scrot.
And what can I say, it's just sweet! Here's the result.
Posted by jdrowell at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2004
I'm feeling taller
Yesterday Giovanna ate her first meal on the high chair!
The menu for that meal was something like carrots, beef, potatoes, brocoli and fubá :)
Posted by jdrowell at 02:27 AM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2004
Using the 'Net to help cats and dogs
My wife and I just love pets. We currently have 3 dogs (Thor, Mel & Meg) and 4 cats (Sebastian, Chiquinha, Matilda & Samantha), and they're all mutts (no pedigree). While we couldn't possibly handle any more pets, we would sure like to help others to get a home, and so the idea of creating a website for that purpose was born.
Since we moved to Indaiatuba, SP (Brazil), it became obvious that there were plenty of little animals around that could use some help. After rescuing a few cats and dogs in our neighborhood we started to get more involved with other people who did the same. It turned out that there was already more than one local association specifically setup to help the homeless cats and dogs. Unfortunately, none of them are very organized, and only one gets any help from the local administration.
My wife continued to show up at the pet donation spots on weekends to help out and chat with other animal lovers. From those contacts came our friendship with Eliane, the founder for UPAR ("União Protetora dos Animais de Rua"), a new but thriving association that had already helped hundreds of unfortunate animals. We volunteered to create and host a web site containing relevant information and tools to better manage her association. Not only could we inform people about the problem, but we were going to do something about it!
And so the site was born (content in Brazilian Portuguese only). The official launch was in October, and we're currently working on the animal donation part--photographing the animals, inputing their characteristics, and allowing visitors to browse our database and select their new friend. Check out the photo galleries, I'm sure you'll find some adorable cats and dogs there :).
Posted by jdrowell at 06:09 AM | Comments (1)