Tarraguña's Blog

If you have not already heard of SquareSpace, it is a publishing/ CMS (content management system) tool that you can use for your website.  It is like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.  Like the other three as similar inthe same genus etc etc.  I have been using wordpress for a while.  Before that I used only CSS, HTML and PHP hand coded stuff, which I still love to do.  For someone who does not know any web programming langauges SquareSpace is great.  It is very user / WISIWIG friendly.  For someone like me who knows CSS, HTML and PHP sometimes I got frusterated because looking for how to do something in SquareSpace took longer than acuatlly hand coding it.  I will try it out for the full two weeks and hold my judgement until the end.  But I think I may be entering with some bias as I a) already have a very reasonable awsome hosting plan and b) the price seems high as compared to other hosting options.  That is squarespace’s selling point though, that you don’t have to know anything or tweak andy geeky computer code in order to get a cool looking website up.  I may not be the person they are catering too.  Below are screenshots of what I have done so far.

and the current view can be seen at www.tarraguna.squarespace.com.

I took a short trip to Chicago this past weekend and I was able to meet Dooce and have her sign my book.

• http://twitpic.com/1ze04 – T #
• http://twitpic.com/1zegf – near the house in Mexico #
• http://twitpic.com/1zexe – near the house in Mexico 2nd pic #
• still testing about 10 different twitter clients for the G1 and I just can’t decide which one are ones are best. #
• Kyl3 english Blog– 25 Random Things http://ping.fm/OX6l3 #

Inspired by facebook, Veronica Belmont and Sarah Lane I decided to do the 25 Random Things posting.  I have joined the other 5 million or so people who have done this meme.  Great.

**List is “to date”.  I fully reserve the right to change my mind, attitudes, like, dislikes, and the past as I see fit according to my self given poetic license. 

• 1. I love chap stick but rarely wear make-up.
• 2. I can not spell worth anything in the English language but make up for it in German and Spanish. I even seem to remember the accent marks. Scary.
• 3. Dyslexia manifests in me as I can never tell the difference between right and left if those words are spoken in English. Say “right” and I will consciously have to think about which way is right. Say “rechts” or “derecha” and it is on.
• 4. I would have been a spy but I realized that as I hate being cold (not snow, just cold) I would have totally caved in the interrogation room if they exposed me to cold for a long period of time. Pull my fingernails out, electric shock, water board me, whatever. It would be the cold that would have me singing like a canary.
• 5. I always misspell the word tomarrow.. I mean tomorrow.
• 6. I studied at the Universidad de la Habana and I loved living in Cuba. But then again I could leave whenever I wanted or needed to as opposed to the Cuban citizens who are not allowed to legally travel. This restriction is placed up them by their own government. Other governments do this and want to say to them “hey if you have to keep people in your country, you must be doing something wrong”.
• 7. I play bass guitar in my band.
• 8. I have a small home recording studio that I love.
• 9. I have owned 3 different motorcycles: Honda Rebel, Kawasaki Ninja and Suzuki Boulevard.
• 10. I love to Scuba dive and will one day probably become a Master Scuba Diver.
• 11. I love to travel, and I am really proud of my gypsy lifestyle. I have lived in Sevilla, Spain; Galway, Ireland; Graz, Austria; Oldenburg, Germany; Havanna, Cuba; Calca, Peru; and various cities in the USA. Please stop me now or I will talk about all the neat differences in living in different countries…..
• 12. I am slightly more introverted when living in the USA. It feels so foreign to me sometimes like I don’t recognize it nor am I sure how to interact in corporate america. I feel like a foreigner.
• 13. I write a lot. Blogs, Websites, Journals, Songs, Lyrics, Snippets to expand later. I hope to write a novel or whatever those books are the are about 250-300 pages. I would like to write one that opens peoples minds, blows their minds in a good way.
• 14. I feel really lucky to have met my husband. We get along great. I hope nothing changes that. I at least will do everything in my power to protect it.
• 15. I am getting bored with this and only want to do 15 random things. Maybe I will update this post later…..

• Kyl3 english Blog– Decluttering the Recording Studio/ Office http://ping.fm/ENTyo #

I have connected twitterfeed.com to my ping.fm account so that when I update my blogs it will send out an update to my various social media sites like twitter. Let’s see if it works….

So I am thinking of changing my template.  The first picture below is how my site looks now and the second picture is another template that I also really like.  I am mulling over the idea of changing the template so feel free to let me know which you like better.

mental note: gotta try out escaloop.com

How to think like a computer scientist: Learning Python
Convert Flash (.flv) to AVI (.avi) or MPEG (.mpg)
The True Cost of Ownership of any Car
How to stream music or audio from your website
for this one I even set up a test of some music I just made up quickly.
Storm Pulse.com hurricane tracker

I have some sad news. Upon downloading Boxee and being all excited about using it in the Alpha development cycle my PowerBook G4 running OS X Leopard is not an Intel Mac so Boxee will not run on my Mac. It is a PPC Mac. I am looking into trying XBMC but I won’t have time to test it until this weekend.

I have just received my email confirming my approval as an alpha tester for Boxee.tv. I can’t wait to get home, download it, and start testing it out. I will keep you posted on how I like it. So expect an update in about a week on this.

If you don’t already know what boxee is let me explain it as I understand it. It is free, open source media center. Now it is available for Mac and Linux and I hear it will be available for Windows soon. It is written in C++ programming language. Ideally it is how you can easily access and play all of your media on your harddrives along with things you have on the web like your flickr photos for example. It is like the ultimate interface for your videos, picutes, music and other media. At least that is how I understand it now before testing it.

I will keep you posted.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday went by without writing. I am finally back. I realized I have a lot to share. First I have to share what I saw today on PostSecret.
Now I am not 36 nor would I say my mother hates me, more like dosen’t like me because she does not understand and she doesn’t understand because I do not live my life by the template. Right so I can totaly identify with the person who sent the pic to PostSecret.

Second thing that I have to share is we bought a new Bass Guitar. I LOVE IT. I have been playing so much that my fingertips are numb all of the time now.

One of our friends is leaving for Iraq next week so we all got together and had wings night at BW3s. It was fun to see everyone again. I wish it did not take someone leaving for war or someone getting married for us all to get together. But that is how it is these days. We are all so busy. I guess it is just good we are all still friends.

One of these friends got herself a Kawasaki Ninja 250. She is just starting to ride and I am so excieted for her. I used to have one myself and they are so fun to ride. I now have a Suzuki S40 Boulevard. Sometimes I miss my Ninja.

I also found a great website that will resize your pictures for you online. Shrinkpictures.com allows you to upload; choose a size; resolution; add features and then download your picutre.

I am not sure if I agree with the essential-ness of breaking and entering but I do see where it could be handy. This skill made it to the number one spot on Lifehacker’s top 10 modern life survival skills list. I did thouroughly enjoy the wikis for picking a lock, cracking a master-lock combination lock, and opening a door with a credit card. I love the internet.

I was wondering yesterday if there was a way to search for something nation wide or within a 100 mile radius on Craigslist. For those of you who have used Craigslist before you know how frustrating it can be if you are looking for something rare and want to broaden your search radius. With Craigslist there is no way to do that. It is all local. This is a wonderful aspect of Craigslist along with the fact that wholesalers and spammers are kept off of the site with remarkable success. It is kind of like ebay only how ebay was in the “good old days”. Ebay as a place to get a good deal is dead. Ebay as another market place to get the same stuff for the same price is alive and well.

If you have not tried Craigslist and there is something you are looking to buy, try it. There are not auctions. A seller places an ad and they you answer if you want it. From then on Craigslist is out of the picture and you negociate with the seller. It is free to post an ad and answer an add. The whole site is free and we love free.

Returning to my original pondering of how to search Craigslist beyond just my city, I was listening to Twit Live today and John C Devorak mentioned that his son had built a website to do just this thing. I just tested it and it is amazing. You can check it out here at CraigsFindr.com.

wouldn’t you love to publish a constant stream of counsciousness, well thanks to some of the various micro blogging websites that exist you sort of are able to.  I found some of the top 35 websites here.

I use a few of these.  I just recently started a friend feed you can see it here.