geestreet.net

Finally, Another Update…

g$ — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:55:38 +0000

And thank god its a music-related update. Having spent some time this weekend setting up Ampache (3.6 Alpha), a swift 2nd attempt but this time on a Windows server instead of Linux, I was introduced to a service I’ve overheard music lovers rant about. Last.FM, as implemented if you scroll below, delivers what I’ve unconsciously would dream about every time I’ve entered musical zones during my commutes… dating back to my adolescence where there was always an urge to broadcast & (literally with paper & pencil) record every track I’ve “felt,” thinking the “sharing” would benefit the world to take notice of quality music never aired over the AM and FM dial. This “sharing” word had taken its meaning to another level today, its crazy, and we could save the subject for another post. As private and shy I was (and still am), this probably explains why I performed w/ bands and DJ’d numerous events (94-01). Requests were always denied, and would rather spread noise from everything in my crate to the rattle of my drumsticks.. and this here probably explains why I never made a career in music! Last.FM does provide nice streaming options and good information from what was tested so far, but the glaring ads that swarm their site could definitely take a hike. One more note… because I refuse to upgrade until my phone is physically doomed, all of this music is streaming from a Blackberry (OS 5.0) if not from a desktop… yes… a Blackberry.

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In Memory of the Phil Jackson Era, Thanks.

g$ — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:15:43 +0000

If the Lakers offense had bored you from time to time on TV, trying studying the triangle offense to make things interesting.

Courtesy of NBAPlaybook.com

You guys probably already know the scheme, but thought this article was a nice breakdown on the basics… given we think our guys like to stand around, they’re actually running a play potentially resulting in multiple plays!

From NBAPlaybook.com: http://nbaplaybook.com/2010/10/25/lakers-triangle-offense/

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Hostmonster over Hostway, StartLogic & GoDaddy

g$ — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:10:47 +0000

I’m sure the veteran web developers may disagree, but after my experience developing websites on Hostway, Startlogic, and GoDaddy, I would say Hostmonster is probably more catered to the business environment offering nice unlimited features. The other 3 competitors don’t compare in terms of overall value for individuals, mom & pop shops, and even for small to medium-sized businesses. Before I get lost excessively comparing and contrasting each feature or lack thereof, just keep in mind the essentials in hosting are “unlimited” at Hostmonster. For example, add-on domains or sub-domains are all “unlimited,” and email quota size is unlimited for the unlimited POP accounts provided as well.

But now the important part, Service. It only takes one bonehead techie answer from support to turn me away. Hostway claimed there was something wrong in my SQL syntax when I was performing a simple search thru phpMyAdmin. Startlogic, is just flat out slow and limited, not to mention I think their servers are based in Canada. And GoDaddy, lets just say its every techie’s and web developer’s worst nightmare, the bulk of their money seems to be spent on mass marketing. Danica won’t cut it for us and she probably has no clue what she’s marketing.

Now to the good stuff. Here’s a breakdown of what I’ve valued most with Hostmonster:
* Fairly affordable in price.
* SSH is an upfront $2
* Standard (user friendly) control panel known as CPanel
* Unlimited – Space / Bandwidth / Email Accounts
* Unlimited – Sub-Domains with dedicated URLS <-- My deal-breaker.
* Above average customer support - they've helped me troubleshoot internal files, permissions, and seamlessly processed a rename of my primary domain. A bit automated because they're pretty big and that can't always be a good thing. But because they provide the essentials in value hosting, some of the automated responses I've received via chat support were tolerable. I would not be an affiliate of Hostmonster if I did not believe in their product.

By tracking my earlier posts that started geestreet.net, you'll know I'm picky when it comes to the $ signs. If you for some reason came across this post while surfing for recommended hosting, I strongly suggest using Hostmonster.com whether for yourself or your business. Please drop me an email or leave a comment if you are interested. If you sign up through my link, I'll kick you back a total $1 per month during your first year of service*, I'll also include a stack of geestreet.net stickers* to stick all over your workstation. What's there to lose versus directly typing in the url then signing up... you might as well save an additional $1 per month and get yourself a free pack of stickers!

*Discount is acknowledged after the sign-up process and stays active for 90 days.

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Category Fix for Branford Magazine Theme (WordPress)

g$ — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:30:58 +0000

Late 2010, I was test driving the Branford Theme for WordPress for our company’s website, an enhanced version of the popular Mimbo 3.0 Theme. I’m a personal fan of this theme: aesthetics are there for boatloads of organized information and topics by bloggers or news writers. The troops I spend the bulk of my daily wake time however expected something different, they’re abit more old fashioned, and got the impression they wanted a splash and big images. After troubleshooting minor nuisances here and there, I can finally say I successfully resolved something on my own without any help from google… well.. lets just say there weren’t any google results.

@ sitesthatsoar.com, was happy to help someone with an issue I was experiencing myself on this Branford Theme. According to the kind author, apparently thousands of people using Branford had been searching for a resolution. Something as simple as having the category title appear correctly on the home page, and was happy that some experimenting and poking around brought us some fortune. So happened, the troops here moved me away from the Branford Theme onto something else with that would make a “splash” instead (Boldy Theme developed by Site5.)

For you developers and freelancers, here’s the step-by-step quick fix posted through sitesthatsoar.com.

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Golf for Dummies – Lesson 1 of 5

g$ — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:33:45 +0000

Yep, I did it. After hitting the driving ranges once every 2 years… for the past 10 years, with zero dedication to improve, and after receiving countless invitations to play golf whether it be with family or corporate related… I am proud to announce I’ve finally began a serious hunt to improve, a goal to gain any confidence in my swing, to not only take on these invites, but with an ultimate goal in mind to participate in my company’s upcoming annual golf event. Craziness I tell you.

Contrary to golf class back in college where we began at the driving range, primary focus of Lesson 1 was “putting,” paired with a productive introduction going over basic etiquette. Little did I know how to properly place that mark or quarter on the floor, and little did I know how accessible putting greens were at the public courses surrounding the community.

Putting Green - Whispering Lakes - Ontario, CA

By far the best putting session I’ve ever been thru. I love the thought of basic mechanics and comfort. Line up the eye, start head flat, keep abc perpendicualr, observe the ground and consider any breaking point, arms n shoulders only, don’t bend the wrists, maintain the “triangle”, and think of a pendulum while pulling and following thru. Quite a joy to learn? Yes I’m late.. so what.

That’s basically it from lesson one, definitely a priceless lesson, and am already looking forward to next Saturday morning.

For some background where this is going down; thanks to the city of Rancho Cucamonga for offering discounted rates to residents. Class is held at Whispering Lakes Municipal Golf Course in Ontario CA, and my instructor seems to be big time, part of the “PGA Class,” and once a dominant local champ… I think I’m getting my money’s worth here.

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Good Luck to 2010-11 SDSU Men’s Hoops – Forgetting the Dog Days

g$ — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:45:08 +0000

Good luck SDSU hoops, I’m really vouching for them to make it to (and THRU) anaheim. 2010-2011 was a phenomenal year to be an SDSU hoops fan, more importantly a rewarding year for Aztecs fans supportive of the budding program back in the grueling days of the 80s and 90s, where later in 98-99 the SDSU Athletic program invested to make a big splash in Division I sports, well at least that’s what we thought.

Photo courtesy of goaztecs.com

That was the first year of the Steve Fisher era in full effect, I was part of SDSU’s frosh class living in Tenochca Hall, also at the receiving end of tickets given away first hand by our nationally known head coach desperate for attendance, to watch his underachieving men’s basketball program later completing the season without a single conference W. News continued to get better throughout my years there, in which I’ll never forget the recruitment of swingman guard Tony Bland, who coach seemed to have convinced to transfer from the almighty Syracuse Orange to commuter school ST-DSU, to later become part of the 2001-2002 program that won the MWC title and advanced to the tourney for the first time since 1985… lets just say that was their first and last time. Deron William’s Illinois squad ran the Aztec’s out of the gym, a game that made me aware this point guard was due to make some noise in the NBA.

Anyway, this post was meant to wish the SDSU Aztecs the best of luck in this year’s NCAA Tournament, they are in a great position to advance pretty deep. The big prize may seem far fetched, they do have a generous location schedule, and we’ve seen some wild things happen every year. Also wishing the best of luck to the city of San Diego. Although its been more than 6 years living away from San Diego, the city’s excitement can be felt here in the Inland Empire. Ironically, Santa Monica (UCLA) and LA (USC) could feel the heat too: as neither was the best hoops team in Southern Cal.

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Notables for the Short Month of February..

g$ — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:33:36 +0000

Looking forward to a weekend of love and family. My cousin Gina G, the closest thing to a sister in my life, is getting married this weekend. Halle is a flower girl, my 2 goddaughters are flower girls, and my son will have a new necktie to sport. Before getting into the love-filled event, on the Thursday evening of the wedding rehearsal, Paul’s talent show is also set to take place. My wife and I will not attend the rehearsal with Halle,

Photo of the Month: In this junior grappling session, the kids were advised to go for the legs and body, and not to bite… Halle ends up getting into a “mercy” session instead.

but I’ve asked my brother and mom to look after her (she’s done this flower girl thing a couple of times already, we’re confident in her ability to trail the wedding party down the aisle). I can see this talent show being the world to Paul, and would mean everything to him for any support he can get. He will perform some martial arts learned from PMAC Rancho Cucamonga, the training facility Paul attends for Tae Kwon Do. He’s been working on a routine with his nun-chucks and bow staff with a backdrop of Mortal Kombat’s theme song. How in the world? He’s becoming a brave young man, slowly, quickly, whatever it is… its surely.

Halle finished her introductory season of basketball, a hoops camp provided by the city turned out to be a semi-success. Happy Halle even wanted to practice after season was over. She played through the season with a pair of comfortable Payless shoes (pretty happy that worked out). But I finally picked up a nice pair of everyday shoes (which I’m sure could have helped her during camp) –> a pair of white Nike Air Max 97 for $20. Come up?

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All Over The Place 2010 – Well Not Really

g$ — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:25:43 +0000

Quickly recapping 2010 on my current short-term memory, the year was definitely a Mammoth-thinking, Taekwondo-attending, Christmas-shopping, Hoops-camp-assisting, Linux-testing, Laundry-crazing, Mommy-thanking, Children-checking, Goobers-bathing, Dinner-making, House-cleaning, Continuously-organizing, Garage & Backyard-neglecting, Project-accumulating, Employment-thanking, Ohana HCS -stalling, Debt-preventing, Movie-accumulating, Homework-signing, Lakers-back-to-backing, Parent-participating, Mad-commuting… and best of all… from Fathers Day 2010, a newborn-smiling – type of year.

Now that 2010 is off my chest and moving onto 2011, , I have a few personal goals to accomplish:

First and foremost, hit up the SLOPES. ($$) – Update 1/30/11, Brought Paul to the local mountains for a teaching session. Lots of fun, just super tiring!
Fix our sad BBQ grill. ($$$)
Create a better backup solution ($$$)
Restore the garage, build more storage ($$$)
Replace keyboard on my Asus Z71V notebook. ($$)
Add more RAM to Halle’s PC, and potentially the projected music server ($)
Continue setting up the studio, away from the garage and into the master room for a change ($)
Clean out the Koi pond filter (Mad Labor!)
Setup a dedicated Web / Ampache Server (No Cost!)

Seems pretty obvious what will get accomplished first!

Late post considering we’re into February tomorrow. Hopefully I could post another update very soon!

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Not Hating, Just Commenting…

g$ — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:31:02 +0000

The modern snowboarding era reminds me of the modern DJ’ing era… where everybody had suddenly become one or the other, or even both – with sick gear and evolving skill (dont mean to disrespect). Was fortunate to grow up in both worlds, extremely fortunate for big brothers that covered me financially. Couldn’t help but comment as I prepare my family for the boarding season, that I continue to literally sit my ass in front of my workstation dreaming to leave off where I stopped in ‘99. Well, I’m actually joking, sitting my ass is prohibited at our household: If my wife and I aren’t standing, we’re probably lying down asleep. So the moral of the post? Nothing really, just happened to be immersed in both worlds at the moment.

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Cereal Monster

g$ — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:00:26 +0000

Aside from our profession, Fish and I do share something in common… yes, I’ve found an LA Laker addicted to cereal like me and my children. Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Fruity Pebbles? Come on Fish, where are the Cocoa Krispies!? The Apple Jacks!? Forget the coffee shop, instead wouldn’t it be neat to hold a late night conversation with Fisher at the breakfast table munching on CTC?

Check it… http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/lakers/post/_/id/6483/derek-fishers-secret-breakfast-cereal-vice-exposed

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