Sean’s Blog

Better Marriage Planning Through Technology

I’m getting married on August 16th.  And while I’m running around like a crazy person, I’ve found some tools that make things a lot easier for us to keep somewhat organized.  I’m not talking about marriage websites like theknot.com or similar.

What has been saving my skin time and time again is Remember the Milk and Google Docs.

Remember the Milk should be a no brainer.  I’ve created a task list called wedding and added things as I think of them and then check them off as they get completed.  Adding payment dates has been really helpful as well since I can see them coming up and take care of them as well as get reminders when they are due.  Looking back, I probably should have had Jess get an account so we could share and assign tasks to each other.

Google Docs has been the other big life saver.  First I shared the invite list with Jess so that we could both add the people and addresses we were going to invite.  I could then share this file with my parents so they could give it the once over and see if i missed anyone.  We wrote up all our invite wording collaboratively on Google Docs.

We’ve also put together a budget with the Spreadsheet and have been trying to track our spending with another spreadsheet.

Making sure your communicating about what needs to get done is by far the most important thing and Google Docs makes this painless and easy.  Or at least as easy as I can be

Hardcore Tips For Home Security

I though I was good about keeping my house in order when I went away for vacation.  Apparently I’ve been slacking.  ISECOM has published a Home Security Methodologies paper that is not for the faint of heart.

Some of the tips are common sense, some seem to me to be a little much, and some seem to be just insane.

Some of my favorites:

#5    If you have a safe, make sure it’s out of sight and bolted into concrete. Thieves can and will take it with them otherwise. If you don’t have one and want to buy one, get one from a hardware store far away, pay cash,carry it out yourself, and install it yourself. If there are potential thieves working there then they shouldn’t have your address. If you are really paranoid you could rent a van to pick it up so they don’t get your plate numbers. Remember that every person you involve in the process makes more people who know you have a safe.

#57    If you have a house-sitter or babysitter remove all phones in your house except the corded, main one in the central house location usable only at a standing location. This way if you need to say something in private to your child on the phone, you can be sure the sitter is not likely listening on another line. Furthermore it will make it more likely the sitter will not have a comfortable location for chatting long periods on the phone.

#65    Clean up the house, and wash down the doors, frames, and windows. Put small rip stickers (like stores use for price tags) at the base of doors that even your trusted people should not be entering. If you are snooped or robbed you want to be able to notice that something is changed or out of place.

All these and 67 more can be found here (pdf)

thanks to Brian Krebs at Security Focus for spotting this one.

The First Choice Scares Me

… especially when “meat” does not seem to include beef…

I guess there is a reason I only buy kosher hotdogs…

I Love This Picture

Not sure why, but it makes me smile…

from Pharyngula

Wordpress Upgrades

I’ve gone and updated this blog to the latest version of Wordpress.  If you run a wordpress blog, you should really check out the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin.  Wordpress upgrading is a pretty straight forward process, but why not just set it up so you can click through an upgrade.

The plugin will backup your installation and database, download the files, put the site into maintenance mode, and then fetch and install the upgrade all within the administration console.  It really doesn’t get much easier.

My one gripe is that it seems that it does not automatically re-enable your plugins after the installation (even though it says it does).  This is a little bit of a pain, but plugins are what can really hose up the installation sometimes so re-enabling them one by one is usually the best course of action anyways.

Here’s the link for the plugin. (from TechieBuzz)

New Site Launched

I’ve started a new Linux specific blog over at MadBuntu.com.  I’m going to be posting linux related posts over there so I can focus on making this a more personal blog.

Taking a Break

I’m taking a break for a little while.  I’m working like crazy on getting the new blog up.  Shooting for Monday.  I hope to have a couple of good things to post here in the next week or so, but I will probably be scaling back to weekly or biweekly postings coming up.

Besides the blog, I am getting into the home stretch on wedding preparations.  So new blog, plus getting married, plus work is taking it’s toll.

If you are looking for me I still use twitter @seanelavelle and you can find my in other places that I have listed on The Social.

Antarctic Photography

The Australian Antarctic Divisision has a great and somewhat otherworldly gallery of photos of icebergs and other ice formations. Just one more of the places I would love to go…

Here’s the link

Goals Update - July

It’s been a while sine I updated my goals and thought it might be kind of instructive to look back through them.  I didn’t put down one of the biggies that is affecting a whole bunch of other goals which is Get Married (hopefully I will be come August, unless she kills me first).

But I’ve gotten pretty far along and thought I would just update them

List after the jump:
More »

Recovering…

I spent a lovely Fourth of July weekend sick as a dog.  Luckily, I am all better now but for some reason last Wednesday I cam down with something and I wasn’t feeling fully recovered until yesterday.

I did get a bit of reading done which I was happy about.  I finished Vernor Vinge’s A Fire On The Deep and am almost finished with Charlie Stross’s The Atrocity Archives.

Other then that I’ve managed to get almost nothing else done other then updating the Wordpress plugins on my blog.  If you are not yet running Wordpress 2.5 the automatic plugin upgrade functionality is just fantastic and reason enough to make the switch.  Just a punch of the button and you have the latest version.

Anyways, I hope to get back to regular posting this week.