Why do people have personal websites now? If you have code to share, put it on github or wherever. I guess there’s the about page, but static content is boring. I enjoyed maintaining my own webserver, but what’s the point? For that matter, why have a blog? Most of my posts, not that there are many, lately are just rants or screeds, and that gets old after maybe two.

So I’m honestly asking any friends still stopping by here or random passers-by — what are the reasons? What is interesting to read about? What content rises above just ego stroking?

Generalized, the formula is =MOD(INT((ROW()-1)/N),2) = 1, where N is the number of rows in each group. Standard graybar is strictly alternating, so the group size is one, but division by one is boring/pointless, so you can leave that out. The -1 assumes you are starting with Row 1 and want N non-formatted rows first, then N formatted rows, etc. If your range is in the middle of the spreadsheet, fiddle with this number, though anything outside the range -N to +N is the same as something in that range (-N and +N are always the same configuration).  To format the “base” rows use <formula> = 0.

I had remembered reading an article on ALA regarding zebra striping and the observed effectiveness for tables on the web. It may not be that useful according the article, but sometimes it feels right.

Bonus – the article mentioned two color single striping, so I deduced a formula for that. This probably isn’t the best way, but it works nicely… What I came up with is =MOD(ROW()-1,4) = 1 and =MOD(ROW()-1,4) = 3. For the base row formatting here, use =MOD(ROW()-1,2) = 0. Conditional Formatting is pretty powerful, so play around with it if the format you want doesn’t fit into these examples. Also, these formulas without the comparison at the end can be pasted directly into a spreadsheet to see how they evaluate. Enjoy.

Now, I’m sure I’m crazy, but my thought is that a battery backup could certainly degrade into a simple power strip in the event of “battery no chargey”.  I mean, it gets power from the wall, it has six (or eight?) outlets… figure it out.  Oops, battery is out, let’s bypass that circuit and just send the juice through the line filter and to the plugs.  Nope, try as I might, I couldn’t get it to be any more or less than a hefty and super annoying outlet tester.  My guess is the battery is shot.  My guess is the battery is the single most expensive component there… power strip – $5, UPS – $60, and UPS = power strip + battery.  My guess is I won’t be that interested in fixing a low-end UPS.  Found a simple, unassuming power strip and all is well.

So, if anyone reads this and cares… is it odd that a UPS sans battery can’t function as a power strip?  I suppose if you had servers attached to it you wouldn’t want it NOT complaining if the battery were shot.  It’s not like this is something a huge operations center would (should) use, though.  At least give me a “y’know what, I’m gonna chance it” switch to bypass the “without a battery I’m nothing” circuitry.  Anyone looking for an Interruptible Power Supply?  An Uninterruptible Lack-of-Power Supply?  A paperweight?  A flail?  A good time?  Wait, what?

Throng of people lined up along Hanley doesn’t really know what’s going on.  I heard everything from having to do with Barack Obama (who will be in town on Saturday) to an explosion or bomb of some sort.  After about an hour standing around, we hear it would be at least 4 hours to get back into our building, so we should just go home.  I park in the lot under the building where all this is happening, so, I have no car.  By this time, word on the street is that it was a bomb, also heard a description of a pretty badly-injured person.  Several people felt it and heard it, but I did not.  Figuring there was not a chance I’d see my car anytime soon, I hitched a ride with someone that parks in our building.

Turns out, word on the street was pretty much right.  A packaged incendiary device in the parking garage exploded and severely injured one man, though the press release said “non life threatening”.  So, at some point today, I was parking my car in the garage, and someone could have been planting a bomb then.  That is really pretty terrifying!  I parked way down on the lowest level and this all took place on the highest level that I believe is only for tenants of the adjacent condo high-rise, but still.  I’ve heard that anyone parked in that garage can now be escorted to their car, and I would imagine they will still be fairly tight about security tomorrow – I suppose I’ll find out.

I hope I don’t see another day that eventful for quite some time.

And you know what, I think I do see more motorcycles.  Maybe I’m crazy (Nikki can help you with that one), but I didn’t think we had a motorcycle in our living room before.  Try it yourself.  Next time you are driving, or eating, or counting your fingers and toes for the 80th time just to make sure they are all still there (hey, you’re the one doing it, and yes, it makes you weird), I implore you to start seeing motorcycles (as if you weren’t already… but yes, more).

It’s called Meine Lieblingsmusik (roughly “my-nuh lee-blings-moo-zick”) which means My Favorite Music.  You can find it at meinelieblingsmusik.wordpress.com.

That is all, thank you.

Get that all set up (replacing a motherboard is tantamount to building a new computer from scratch) and it won’t boot.  Well, it does POST and I can configure the BIOS, so the parts are all working.  And it does boot to the Windows boot menu, but will never get any further (not even safe mode).  So, I pray that the hard drive didn’t get hosed.  Start up the recovery console and I can see that things are still there where they should be, which was a relief.  Of course, I’ve never actually used the recovery console before, so I have no idea what to do to recover from an error that I can’t really describe.

So, I let it sit for a few weeks.  I figure I’ll find another hard drive to toss in, install windows on that and not lose data from the old drive.  When I got time, I slapped an old 30 gigger in, and nothing.  So, I grabbed the 80 GB drive from a computer that was marked for the dumpster (thanks Shawn!) and slightly more than nothing.  BIOS can read the manufacturer information from the drive, but Windows Setup can’t use it to install Windows.  So, I talked to a few people and arranged a couple loaners once they got cleaned off.

In the meantime, I was pleading with Google to tell me how to fix this and the great and powerful Google offered me a soupcon of hope.  I don’t really install Windows that often, but I had remembered something to recover or repair an installation.  I just assumed it was the recovery console, and forgot about it.  I forgot that Windows Setup could actually repair an installation.  I never had a drive or partition I even thought about sacraficing, so I never took that leap into “setup Windows XP now”.  Per the repair guide above, I did a repair installation, and boom, it’s all good.  Got XP Service Pack 3 set up and few other updates, and all seems to be well.  Windows Setup repair, gasp, just worked.  I don’t know what the problem was (I did try rebuilding the MBR before the repair), but it wasn’t beyond repair.  Total pricetag, $221.92 with all the shipping and thermal paste and whatnot.  My father-in-law just bought an eMachines system, dual core, 2gb, decent hard drive space, 19″ widescreen monitor, new printer… $500.  Why do I build computers again?

At first, knowing that we alone were providing for him was scary.  I was pretty nervous-I had no idea what I was doing.  But, I found that it really didn’t matter.  You learn because you have to, it’s not a choice.  Too tired to take care of him?  Apparently not, we always managed to muster enough strength between the two of us to keep going.  And looking back, we must have done alright… he’s just such a happy baby.  I feel very blessed.  I feel almost guilty because we’ve heard of difficult babies, and that just never was Sam.  We’re planning to ride this roller coaster again, so maybe we’ll get that, but I now know we’ll do just fine.

One year old seemed so far off, even just a month or a few weeks ago.  This morning we went out for breakfast, he still doesn’t seem like a one-year-old.  He’s the same Sam we’ve loved all along.  Of course, when I see him pulling up with ease and eating chicken nuggets, I do wonder how we got here so quickly!  Now that we’re at one year, I’ll just go ahead and say that two years old sounds insane.  He’ll be talking and running around, he’ll look different, he’ll probably be excited about his birthday.  What will this next year hold in store?  Let’s find out!