Upgrading a Target Moneybelt

I’ll be the first to admit it. I hate moneybelts. I hate neck pouches. But if you are traveling, they are really a necessity. Given, I know there has been a good amount of debate of their usefulness on some sites. But when you are carrying your passport and credit cards and sometimes sizable amounts of cash, they are definitely something I feel is worthwhile.

Now, I’ve tried to use them several time in Central America, and the inconvenience just plain outweighed the extra security, but I think I have a solution and I though I would share it with you all.

First I started with a basic neck pouch. The unmodified pouch hung to about my solar plexus and looked like I was wearing one of Flavor Flav’s clocks, underneath my shirt.

The points where the loop attached the pouch were plastic as well as the clasps, and I was pretty sure that they would not survive a brisk walk, let alone a snatch and run or pickpocket.

What I did was removed the loop altogether, and replaced it with some paracord. I ran the paracord through the belt loops  instead of the plastic loops for extra strength.  You want to give it a good amount of length, so it can be comfortable (I like sideways) and sit inside your pants or shorts. You also need to make sure that the knots are ABOVE the pouch so they don’t rub too much. Lastly, before you tie the knots, you will want to slip the pad on so it does not scrape you on your shoulder while you walk..

A couple tips:

• I like the bowline knot for tying the pouch. The knot will not come untied, and the loose end will point away from you if tied correctly.
• Make sure to size it up before you tie the knots. I like it so it hangs front pocket level with my pants.
• Paracord is STRONG. Most types can easily hold several hundred pounds, so if it gets hung up on something, it is a definite hazard for choking. Be aware of this!
• Melt the cut ends of the paracord with a match or lighter to keep from fraying and unraveling.
• The best money belt in the world is useless if every pickpocket and mugger knows it is there. Do not take things (money, passports, etc) out of it in plain view. Keep the day’s money somewhere more easily accessible.

Getting ready for India

I’m leaving for India on Friday. I’m going to Bangalore for work, and am really excited about it. I’ve never been to India, Asia, or any farther east then London. I’ll be spending a week training some of the other security folks in our Bangalore office.

This will be alot of firsts for me, aside from India. The first time I’ll fly first class domestically, first time I’ll fly first class internationally (we got bumped up!), the first time I have traveled internationally for business. Also looks like I’ll be staying at the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at. I also will be getting a 10 year multiple entry business visa, so hopefully this will not be the only time I travel there for business.

I’m gonna have internet at both the hotel and the job, so I should be able to blog about it as well as post some pictures while I am there. PHIR MI-LAN-GAE

Getting Things Done with MonkeyGTD

I’ve recently started using MonkeyGTD with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system.  While it is not as fluid as paper lists, it has a really slick interface, it’s available on and off line, and it forces you to be a little more formal with the system then a bunch of paper lists.

It is available as one  of the default choices at TiddlySpot, a great site that will host several different types of Wikis.  One of the really cool things is that it resides in the browser, so you can work online or off.  You do need to remember to save it to the server when you are done.

If you are looking for a pretty cool tool for GTD, I would definitely take some time to checkout Monkey GTD which you can host on your own server if you want, or you can use at TiddlySpot.

Final Blog Setup

I think that I’ve finally gotten my blog setup how I want it and i thought I would share it.

For the theme I am using WP-Multiflex3. It has a good clean look, plus it is very customizable. And I like blue.

Here are the Wordpress plugins that I run:

• Akismet 2.0.2 Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” By Matt Mullenweg.
• FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.2 Originally authored by Steve Smith, this plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. By FeedBurner.
• Google Analytics 2.4 Adds Google analytics to your blog, with all sorts of advanced tracking toys enabled. By Denis de Bernardy.
• Google Sitemaps 2.7.1 This generator will create a Google compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. By Arne Brachhold. (I generated a sitemap with Google for Webmasters, but I think this will map the pages that are generate by Wordpress . I’ll have to keep my eye on it and see if I need both.)
• Sociable 2.0 Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites. By Peter Harkins.
• WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition 1.1 WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition is a spam-resistant drop-in contact form. It is derived from Ryan Duff’s WP-ContactForm 1.4.3 with the addition of code from the Akismet plugin. Debugging and improvements graciously contributed by DD32. By Blogging Expertise.

As for hosting, I’ve been really happy with so far. Hopefully there is something that can help you out with your blogging.

Starting over with the search rankings

Since I moved my blog over to seanelavelle.com from Wordpress.com, I’ve had to deal with an unfortunate reality.  All my great google links  as well as the stats that came with it went away.  Basically, I get to start over from scratch and it kinda hurts.  Not so much as if I was getting thousands of visitors a day, but I had build up a decent readership.

Now the whole thing has been a good learning experience (and a crazy amount of work), but it has given me some good ideas for topics.  I am pretty sure that posting more regularly will get things back to where I need (which I promise to start doing).

As for Google rankings, My new site is the top of the second page on a search for Sean Lavelle.  The real problem is that there are links on the first page that point back to to the old Wordpress Sean’s Blog.  I’ve locked that blog down and made a static “I’ve Moved” page, as well as ported all the old content over to the new site.   I guess, thinking about it, that I should probably just delete the site.

Updates on the website

I’ve been really busy trying to get the website in order. It seems to be coming along. Aside from the homepage, I’ve gotten both blogs ported over as well as installed Coppermine photo gallery software and gotten that up and running. I’ve also put up the photography page as well as set up Google Analytics. All and all I think I am making pretty decent progress.

Hopefully in the next couple days I should be able to crank out some more content and get back to actually blogging.

Sean’s Blog Has a new home!

I have finally gone and made the switch.  Earlier this week I setup a hosting service with Bluehost.com for a domain of my own.  Yesterday I installed Wordpress and have started making the switch.  I have already moved this blog and will be moving Digital Pincushion in the next couple of days.

I am going to cross post this on the old wordpress blog.  Things will look a bit rough while I get all this new fangled technology to work correctly on the interwebs.

The new url for this blog will be http://seanelavelle.com/blog/

-Sean