Home again, home again

Home again, home again

Now the work starts!

We got home Friday evening - it's great to be in your own bed in your own home, even if everything is upside down outside. How much have things changed? Well, as I already said we really suffered no significant damage from the hurricane to our home, but we awful damage to our property - take a look at these before and after images taken just a few weeks apart ...





It's not totally clear there, but we lost 5 or 6 large pecan trees, as well as one old oak tree and probably scores of younger oak and pine trees. The pecan's could have been a couple of hundred years old http://www.floridata.com/ref/C/cary_ill.cfm. But look in the background of both pictures and you can see that what was once full of dense undergrowth and a rich mixture of trees has now been flattened. It is like this everywhere around where we live and for tens of miles around. We live around 20 miles from the sea shore at Gulfport, and the damage caused there is even worse. It is not difficult to imagine the damage done by strong winds in a storm - I am sure you have all seen what can be the result of heavy winds. But it is hard to comprehend the kind of storm that can inflict that sort of damage not just on a few houses here and there, but on almost every house and business along the coast of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of Florida, and for hundreds of miles inland.

I'll be posting some more images over the next few days. I'll probably put up a more detailed before/after album when I have the time.

Meantime I have had to buy a more powerful chainsaw to cope with cutting up the pecan trees (hardwood) and scores of oak and pine that litter our property. If anyone really wants to help us now we know our home is OK, we can offer you food, lodging and a week of chainsawing and clearance work for anyone who wants to enjoy a break in the Mississippi sun ;-)

All is fine

Relax, everythuing is fine

We still have a home!!!

So I have been down to Gulfport. All of our property is fine, but we have loads and loads of trees down. I took some photos and was going to post them here with before/after images, but I lost my camera.

I lost the camera when I had to run away from a crowd of angry bees! I suffer an allergic reaction to their stings, so when I got a dozen or so stings I panicked and ran through the woods. No doubt I will find the camera one day, but right now I don't want to go back to where I was stung.

I am annoyed at the current news coverage here in Mississippi, and nationally. It is full of heavy criticism of how badly the government handled the aftermath of the storm. Newspaper and tv coverage is full of images of the defvastation. There is nothing positivre being written or depicted anywhere so far as I can see!

So let's set the record straight - when I drove down to Gulfport there were literally thousands of people heading to the coast tohelp. They had fule, generators, food, water ... the effort to help is outstanding! The work already done to clear trees - all major highways are clear of trees, and most minor too. And the electric is coming back on. Water and sewerage is coming back on ... the repairs still have a long way to go, but no-one should be in any doubt that there is not a huge assistance effort going on.

-

I'm heading south

I'm heading south

Time to drive down and see if we have something or nothing

The power came on last night here in the area of Jackson, Mississippi, that we evacuated to. Yaaaaay for air conditioning!

So today I am going to make the epic 200 mile journey south to see if we have a home to return to, and to take food, drinks and wet wipes to our 80-year-old neighbour who stayed throughout the storm. I'm going to stay overnight and probably bring back clothes for Amy and me - and our two poor little goats that have been stuck down there with no fresh food or water since Sunday ...

I'll finish my daily notes when I get back - probably starting Monday. I'll have lots to say about what I see thre, and maybe I will post a couple of pictures too ...

-

--

No power, but we are fine

Tuesday

No power, but everything is fine ...

We still have no power. So we bring out the battery-operated radios. News reports tell us 99% of Jackson has no electricity. Later reports confirm the same for almost the entire state!

Then we hear that the coastal towns have been virtually destroyed! Everything South of the railtracks in Gulfport and Biloxi has "just gone, it's not there". We have a little house less than half a mile north of the railtracks in Gulfport ... is it still there?

Around lunchtime we head out to try to get some orange juice, batteries some other odds and ends. Had to travel about 20 miles to find somewhere open. Later in the day Walmart, about 3 miles away, and a couple of gas stations open. Oh almost back to normal ... We'll have power by morning says Amy :-) Power company say it could be weeks.

As a Brit I am shocked by this state of affairs - It is amazing how much America still relies on overhead powerlines even in the big cities. And there are trees next to most of them just waiting for an excuse to fall on the lines ...

New Orleans Spared

Monday

Wow. New Orleans spared

... but a direct hit between Bay St Lewis and Biloxi if we are seeing the news reports correctly.

At the time we thought Gulfport (which is between Bay St Lewis and Biloxi) was getting the worst of the storm at around 9 or 10 am. We later heard that the storm surge - the rise in sea water that wiped out everything south of the railroad tracks - actually began to hit around 3 am. By 8am or so it was at its highest.

200 miles North in Jackson, we started to suffer around 5 pm when we lost electric power. I hardly slept that night since we had no air conditioning. We had NO idea what was going on, but did not think it was near as bad as things turned out ... we saw on tv that New Orleans had a bad storm, but it looked like they were relatively unscathed.

No news from Gulfport - but then there wouldn't be would there ...

Now it's looking a bit scary

Sunday

Now it is looking a bit scary.

Recent storms have consistently come ashore sa little to the east of the projected path ... which puts Gulfport, and us, right in it's path.

As usual, Amy and I were indecisive about whether we would evacuate. We have had a couple of near-misses - Ivan, Dennis - where we evacuated for nothing more than some strong winds and a little rain.

Amy's mum called "are you goiung to evacuate? It looks bad!". Amy wanted to finish a little work, then we drove into Gulfport to pick up some dogfood so we had plenty for the dogs if we had to evacuate.

Gulfport was already closed up. Nowhere was open - not Walmart, not MacDonalds, not even Waffle House!!!

We know a hint when we see one. We drove home, had lunch and Amy looked up recommended evacuation routes on the internet. We picked a seemingly obscure route that took us about 30 miles round our normal route - straight up 49 to Jackson - but it seemed like it was a wise move as we travelled. The roads were mostly empty.

Somewhat worryingly there seemed to be few people on the route we took that had or was evacuating. There was evidence of scores of hurricane parties though ...

Should we stay or should we go?

Saturday

Should we stay or should we go now?

Weather forecast says the hurricane is getting stronger ... will Katrina come to visit? Looks like it is heading for New Orleans.

I worked really late on a project, so I could get it finished just in case we decide to evacuate on Sunday. Mailed the files off to my cient at about 11PM.

First comment about Hurricane Katrina

Friday - "that's not a real hurricane!"

The first post in my breif retrospective about hurricane Katrina

Today we heard about a 'hurricane' in Florida. "It was not a 'real' hurricane", said the guy in our Pilates class "it was just a CAT 1, but we better watch it ..."

You know, if he hadn't said that, we might not have known about the hurricane at all. If anyone reading this knows Amy and I, you will know we don't watch t.v ... so we would not have seen a weather forecast for instance. As it was, with Lee's forewarning (thanks!) we were thinking about being prepared.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

We got out safe!

I'll be posting more later today, or maybe tomorrow, but this is to let you know Amy and I got out safe and sound on Sunday. We could see it was going to be a bad storm!

We are in Jackson, Mississippi, staying with Amy's mum. No electric as yet ... I write this Friday afternoon, we've had no power since about 5 PM Monday. No idea when we will have power, bt it could be weeks. No real hassle, Walmart is open down the street :-)


More later ... I have been keeping a simple journal while we had no power. I want to post my thoughts and our experiences here.

Just one thing before I go.

Why are there not more overt attempts to evacuate teh coastal area? Sure there are *finally* busses taking people out of New Orleans .... but what about Gulfport, Biloxi and the rest of the Mississippi coast that has been devastated? Surely the railways could be used to take peop[le north???

Find and Fix updated

Find & Fix updated

Ron Lubensky continues to update his great Authorware command

Here's the information he posted recently to the Aware List


I've updated my Find & Fix Command to version 2.43.

For those of you who don't know, this is a big swiss-army knife for your Authorware development.

In addition to squashing a couple of bugs, I've added another sample script called MoveObjects which shifts the location of multiple display objects and interaction responses (ie buttons, hotspots) en mass. It is especially useful for shifting display and motion icon paths!

Find & Fix is one of the most useful add-ons you can buy for Authorware. It is way more than a search and replace on steroids!! You cannot afford not to have it in your toolkit.

Update or get a trial version of Find & Fix at http://www.clickcraft.com

Adobe to buy Macromedia

Adobe to buy Macromedia

I turn my back for three weeks and look what happens!

I am not going to even try to make comment about all I have read, but suffice to say this is interesting and exciting news.

Apparently nothing is certain about the takeover until there is legal permission for the purchase to go ahead. Everything should be Work As Normal in both the Macromedia and the Adobe camps until then. I look forward to some fascinating new tools when Adobe get to grips with stitching Flash and Acrobat together. Then there is Photoshop and Fireworks, Director and Premier, Dreamweaver and GoLive ... Authorware and new heights perhaps?

Given that Authorware is the most consistently profitable application Macromedia has (allegedly) those of us with a vested interest in the product are hopeful that Adobe will elect to keep it alive and develop it for the 21st century.

Watch this space!

testing

Pocketblogger works!

Here I sit in the garden

OK maybe I fibbed, l am actually lying on the couch - but I am blogging from my PDA!.

I'll be trying this again in Blackpool!

Sorry for the silence ...

Sorry for the silence ...

We just moved house and communication has been difficult, d@mn Bellsouth

Plus I have had a busy patch with work.


The dry patch will continue next week as I fly back to Britain - for the first time since May last year - for this year's EuroTAAC conference. Have you booked your ticket yet? There's still time if you are quick, although international travel could be a bit of a pain to organise this late in the day.


We should have wireless internet connection available in all the conference rooms so I hope to be able to sneakily post the occasional blog message, but no promises!!! I am going to see if I can get something working with my PDA so I can post things using that, then I can leave my laptop out of the way most of the time. First try will be Pocketblogger.




Normal blogging service should resume when I return from Britain.

Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise - Symantec

Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise -Symantec

Apparently hackers are starting to take ai interest in the minority interest platfor.

Maybe it's because they noticed Macs run a version of Unix?

Check out this story from Reuters

New PDA comments

I got a new PDA this week

A Toshiba E830

Since we cannot officially get this machine in my mother coutry or here in America, I thought it might be useful for some to read my impressions of this machine after a full week of use. So here's some thoughts, randomly dropped in as bullet points.

• The screen is wonderful!


• MS Reader works fine in VGA mode (SE_VGA) and the amazingly tiny text is clear as could be, easy to read. I am nearly 40 and don't need reading glasses ...


• Some dialoges don't like VGA


• When I first tried to use Transcriber in VGA (first I tried to use it at all in fact) it wanted to get me to read some help. It came up on a huge dialogue that I could not move to find the text. I used Wisebar Advanced to kill the process.


• Transcriber ROCKS in VGA mode. Suddenly it can read my spidery writing


• Seem to get lots of "MS Reader can no longer find this file" errors. Not sure if this means my SD card is dodgy, or if there is something inherent with this machine.


• Need to try a different card to store my books on.


• Virtual Pool Mobile does not support VGA


• I was able to install (virtually) ALL of the software I had on my old E755 simply by hooking up the 830 and going to Add/Remove Programs in ActiveSync. This is a great 'feature' of AS ... not sure if it is meant to do this or not, but I love it.


• Pocket Artist is way better in VGA mode.


• The various Outlook programs do not like VGA ... the dialoges don't scale.


• Did I mention how great the sceen is?


• Screen is bright even at lowest setting. I'd love to be able to set it dimmer for reading in bed. Suggestions anyone?


• I was even able to install ArcSoft Photobase that came on my E755 support disc.


• Graphic performance seems poor compared to E755 - probably coz I am running in VGA mode?


• Flash files play great using the Macromedia Standalone Player, but if set to run full screen, what they do is play full screen, with a 240x360 movie in the middle of the screen. Right-click and select "Show All" then it fills the screen nicely.


• Performace slower than E755 when played as "Show All" but the same if left at default 100%.


• Advanced Explorer takes its time to catalogue each folder - a lot slower than E755 - VGA setting makes this a much more usable program though.


• Pocket Streets seems to support VGA!!


• Wi-Fi works flawlessly and connects in about half the time E755 did.


• Web browsing is SOOOO much better, but default QVGA settig has HUGE scroll bars, even though the browser window seems to run VGA. SE_VGA fixes this.


• I seem to get more crashes in Internet Explorer than ever ... machine? SE_VGA? Dodgy OS?


• Built-in IPphone software (Gphone) is great for peer-to-peer as a local walkie-talkie. Wife and I can communicate in house and garden.


• Have tried to register with Gphine but their registrstion page is goosed - the buttons you have to press to register are disabled!!!


• Battery life not too good - could be bright screen + SE_VGA setting ...


• I want a Mugen extended battery.


• Wisebar Advanced works really well! But I still have not found a decent VGA theme.


• Ulti-Planner seems to work really well in VGA - especially the calendar view.


• What's with the teeny 2002 keyboard that pops up in VGA mode. Can that be fixed?


• The speaker is a lot louder than E755 - not that that would be hard!!!


• The Toshiba voice recorder software looks cool. Not tried it yet.


• Windows Media Player is disappointing in VGA, the old tiny video problem Need to try Beta Player.


• RealPlayer dialogues don't support VGA but movies seem to fill screen as expected.


• Calculator looks funny in VGA (it stretches to fit, without scaling buttons) but seems to work.
  
• My favourite card game suite Pocket Solitaire works fine - just rescales to fill screen - unlike Microsoft's version ... which seems to have some nice new card decks.

OK that's it for now.

Dazzletech announces JavaScript in Authorware book

Dazzletech announces JavaScript in Authorware book

At last a book that should help users trying to use JavaScript in Authorware

This week, Dazzletech announced the completion of their JavaScript in Authorware book, entitled JavaScript For Macromedia® Authorware®. The published a link to the Table of Contents of the book, and you can pre-order the book here.

You should read the full thread that followed the announcement of the book on the Aware List.

The discussion included pros and cons of JavaScript in Authorware, and extended into more general discussion of the features and evolution of Authorware.

And for once there was no blood :-)

By the way - JavaScript is a great addition to Authorware, finally adding OOP code to the long-in-the-tooth development tool. My personal opinion is that this iteration of JavaScript inside Authorware 7 is too much a bolt-on with too little integration (you cannot really embed JS expressions or variables in display icons or in response properties for instance). Macromedia has idicated that they intend to extend the features and functionality of JavaScript in future versions of Authorware so I am looking forward to something special in the future.

For now, for me, JavaScript is not important in Authorware, but I know that many 'code head' sorts are using it extensively and with glee. If/when it becomes easier to employ JavaScript in Authorware (like when the Help files reflect JavaScript syntax too ...) then I am sure I will happily drop the old AW Script for JavaScript and all the OOP goodness it brings.

No Laptop? How do you cope?

No Laptop? How do you cope?

Occasionally I mention my PDA obsession. This week it saved my sanity.

With no working laptop to let me surf the web, check eMail and genarally amuse myself, I was forced to resort to my PocketPC PDA to fill in the blanks.

Fortunately mine has Wi-Fi so I can use our home wireless LAN to connect to the internet to surf and to check email. I also have a cool little Belkin foldaway keyboard that I can use if I have a lot to type, otherwise the in-built entry methods work fine.

Surfing the web on a 240x320 screen should be a terrible thing, but with the aid of PocketIE Plus from Reensoft it becomes bareable. PIE adds full-screen mode, a clever reflow mode and the ability to open multiple IE windows, as well as the ability to map your hardware buttons to things like toggle full screen, page back, page forward etc.

Pretty soon I'll have a VGA PDA (Toshiba E830 480x640 screen) and I am looking forward to seeing how that performs on the internet. Soon the only thing I will need my laptop for will be work :-)

Sick Laptop

Sick Laptop

After over 3 years of abuse, the power socket on my Dell Inspiron 8100 broke

It is a great machine, still fast and easily capable of running all the software that I use day-to-day for work. So I needed to find a quick and cheap way to fix it.

Off to eBay I went to see what I could do.

I was amazed to see that I could find a similar machine to mine for about $600. Of course it would be 3 years or so old too, so no telling what wear and tear it had suffered, although I doubt your average laptop gets the same 8 - 16 hours use 7 days a week that mine has been through for 3.5 years.

Or I could pick up a mother board for about $300. That would be fine, but most of the mother boards seem to have been pulled from dismantled laptops, so the same wear and tear issues remained, plus I would have had to contend with things like could I upgrade that 800MHz processor with my 1.2 GHz one? Would I be able to dismantle and rebuild my machine without breaking anything?

I also had a look about to see if someone local could fix the socket. I figured I could get someone to solder it or whatever, but I could not find anyone who wanted to touch it without threatening me with a long sucking inhale first ...

Then I saw the solution! A second-hand Advanced Port Replicator (APR). I found several companies selling these through eBay, and a few promising to swap any faulty devices. $81 secured me the APR, including postage. 2 (working) days later here it is and it works fine.

The downside is that my laptop footprint has now grown by about 25%, but the good news is I can stretch it's useful working life out for another year or two. Dell's reputation for support has suffered over the last couple of years since it started to outsource to India, and USA support certainly seems less than what I was used to in the UK, although they are still OK if a little slow to reach a resolution.

There is nothing wrong with the machines they build though, so I'll be on their web site regularly, building that Dream Machine until the momemt is right - either I can afford the $3000 or so that gets the top of the line machine or this laptop finally pops its little clogs.

Road Trip

Road Trip

Random thoughts of a pink-eyed road warrior

I had to drive to Texas and back this week. All part of moving home, it's a long story that I won't bore you with. But I had to drive 1300 miles in a couple of days, and my mind got to wandering a time or two ...

• Why do you never see a police speed trap when it is raining?


• Texas road kill - skunk, armadillo, hound dawg.


• There are way too many Country radio stations in Texas to be considered healthy.


• What's whith that Mexican music? It sounds like a mixture between Spanish and Bavarian ... Flamenco meets lederhosen, Spanish guitar meets oompah!


• Ohh that Cajun stuff in Louisiana is just as odd.


• So what do American road builders have against corners?


• ... and why do they make the roads out of concrete and Teflon?


• I hate cruise-control-induced synchronised driving. There is absolutely no sense in 'overtaking' another car ar the rate of 1 inch per fortnight!


• Fountain drinks in gas stations. Amazing. A 3 pint 'cup' of Coke costs about $1.20. That's less than 75p in real money. I wish they would learn how cheap these drinks are in Britain, and then install them in service stations everywhere - and stop charging £3 (about $5.40) for one pint of the stuff in the pubs!!!!


• What's with the temperature here??? 80 farenheit in February!


• Is there really any need for those heeeeeeeeuuuuuuuge trucks just to go to Walmart?


• Looks like CB radio technology here has not moved on 20 years ... they're still using Firesticks and k40s. Wow.


• Why don't the police cars get a proper paint job over here?
  
  
  
  
  
  


• MacDonald's burgers really do taste the same everywhere.


• Waffle House is the perfect on-the-road junk food!


• There may be 12000 radio stations between Mississippi and Texas, but the ones that do not play Country seem to have only 12 songs that they share between them.


• ... and about 237 adverts.


• Armadillos really are ugly - but it sure seems hard to crush them.


• You can smell a squashed skunk from about a mile away!


• The trees are budding everywhere.


• There seem to be little clumps of miniature Daffodils wherever I look.


• The City of Martindale, Polulation 691. That's not a city, it's a friggin' hamlet!


• But it has its own police force of 2 and they are hot on speeders! ... nothing else to do, and they need to earn their own pay somehow.


• If you are ever in the region of San Marcos in Texas you must try Mamacita's
  mexican restaurant. They have a machine there in the restaurant that churns out fresh tortillas all day. Yummmmm. Fresh-baked tortillas. Oh heaven.


• And the HEB store around the corner has the same. You can buy fresh hot tortillas all day.

Cold Fusion user group conference

Scotch on the Rocks

Cold Fusion user group conference, May 2005

I just got this notification about a Cold Fusion User Group in Edinburgh holding a conference in May 2005 ...

Scotch on the Rocks, May 26/27 Edinburgh University

The Scottish ColdFusion User Group is both proud and excited to announce a two day conference covering Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7.

Taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 26th and 27th May, you are invited to join speakers, including representatives from Macromedia, Firstserv and InterAKT, as they present on why ColdFusion MX 7 is the fastest and easiest way to build and deploy Internet applications.

There will be a number of big prizes up for grabs, including a copy of ColdFusion MX 7 Standard, as well as an iPod. To top this off, each event attendee will go home with a gift, which will be included in their goodie bag.

As well as all the fun during the day, the Scottish ColdFusion User Group will take you on a pub crawl on both the Thursday and Friday nights, so prepare yourself for an almighty hangover.

Tickets for the event are 25(GBP), which covers both days attendance. Registration for the event will open soon.

More details including confirmed speakers, sponsors, as well as promotional documents including how to sponsor the event, can all be found at http://www.scottishcfug.com


Edinburgh is an absolutely gorgeous city. If you have not been there before you should use this conference as an excuse to go. Here's some photographs of Edinburgh that I took a couple or three years ago to help publicise EuroTAAC.