Bare-Bones WordPress: Starting Your Theme With Starkers, HTML5 Boilerplate, and 960 Grid System
by Tom Black on April 25, 2011
This is my proposal for the HighEdWeb Arkansas conference in Little Rock, AR July 21 & 22, 2011. I’ve been putting together a bare-bones WordPress theme recently that combines Aaron T. Grogg’s Boilerplate WordPress Theme and the 960 Grid System. The Boilerplate theme already combines HTML5 Boilerplate, the Starkers theme, and Eric Meyer’s Reset stylesheet while the 960 grid system remains independent. I have merged the 960 Grid System into the Boilerplate theme to make a new WordPress bare-bones theme that leaves the designer with one task: applying the design to the stylesheet.
My presentation will explain the approach to developing a child-theme from my bare-bone WordPress theme and will also explain the benefits of using the system.
Prog Pick – Koenjihyakkei – Grembo Zavia
by Tom Black on April 7, 2011
Koenjihyakkei about to blow some tops I'm sure.
I don’t know much about Koenjihyakkei because I was recently introduced to them by an acquaintance so I’ll let Wikipedia give you a little background.
But these folks rock some prog. Have a listen to the first track of their 2 (ni), AKA Viva Koenji! album called Grembo Zavia.
Prog Pick – Bacamarte – UFO
by Tom Black on March 22, 2011
Bacamarte - Brazilian Prog Rock Band
What’s the greatest thing to come from Brazil? Ronaldinho? No. It’s BACAMARTE! This South American prog rock band, formed in 1974, is one of the highlights of it’s genre. With the release of Depois Do Fim in 1983, they put their heavy Latin influence on the prog rock map.
Have a listen to their opening track: UFO.
Watchping Modified: Daemon to Ping Servers, Take Action if Down
by Tom Black on March 2, 2011
There are a ton of paid services that will watch your servers and notify you when something is down, but I don’t ever sign up for those services because I’m always certain I’ll either code a program myself or find one already written using the GNU license.
I finally found one called Watchping, written by Brendan Greg, from way back in 2003. It’s protected by the GNU General Public License and copyright 2003 by Mr. Greg. It’s a fantastic script but it needed some updating in order to run on a modern day RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.6 server and to accommodate my need for SMS text alerts as well as the already coded email alerts.
Warner Skoch and I added a second email function in order to use an SMS email address. You can find out what your cell provider’s SMS email address is at Email Text Messages big ass list of SMS email addresses.
Watchping will need a hosts.txt file containing a list of IP addresses you want monitored. Execute Watchping as daemon:
Make Watchping executable
chmod +x watchping-sms-email.sh
Run Watchping as a daemon
./watchping-sms-email.sh &
Check to see if it’s running and get the PID
ps aux | grep watchping-sms-email.sh
Installing CrashPlan Pro in openSuSE 11.3
by Tom Black on February 28, 2011
CrashPlan Pro is my employer’s backup software of choice for our 80+ desktops and laptops our IT department manages. The backups all use a fantastic de-duplication method backing up to either the CrashPlan Dedicated Server, CrashPlan’s storage service, an external hard drive, or another computer on your CrashPlan network. The client runs in Windows, MacOSX, and Linux. The Linux client is built to install flawlessly on RedHat and Ubuntu – not on my favorite workhorse distribution, openSuSE. But it’s still easy!
Prog Pick: Goblin – Profondo Rosso
by Tom Black on December 18, 2010
We’ve all heard the famous jingle that send shivers up our spines and creates creepy visions of Michael Myers and his William Shatner mask. You know, the piano thing we all hear when the Halloween title pops up on the screen? Goblin‘s “Profondo Rosso” is where it all started…really. Halloween director, John Carpenter, has admitted he got his musical inspiration for the Halloween theme song from Goblin’s “Profondo Rosso” – the theme song to the 1975 Dario Argento film, Profondo Rosso (AKA Deep Red).
Not only was Goblin a forerunner for the horror film shock soundtracks from the 1970′s and 80′s, but they were also one of thre originators of the ROCK PROGRESSIVO ITALIANO sub-genre.
And they ROCK too.
Prog Pick: Camel – Lunar Sea
by Tom Black on December 9, 2010
Camel has been a band that’s made short appearances in my Pandora and Last.fm radio stations, but not until recently have I given them a serious listen.
These guys rock. Have a listen to Camel’s Lunar Sea off their Moonmadness album from 1976.
Zoneminder Installation on Fedora 13
by Tom Black on December 5, 2010
Zoneminder is a great open source tool that will monitor and record video directly connected to your server via a capture card, via web cam using Video4Linux, or via network-based security cameras. Our particular setup at the School of Law has five ethernet-based Cisco security cameras. I was using the Cisco-provided Windows-based DVR software for about 8 months, but was constantly running into recording problems, DirectDraw crashes, and support/licensing issues since Cisco bought out Linksys.
Feeling more comfortable in a Linux environment, I sought out open source DVR software that would work with out existing setup. I found Zoneminder and set it up on my Fedora 13 server.
New Cool Animated Wallpaper for Ubuntu
by Tom Black on October 17, 2010
OMG! Ubuntu user, Ilap, set out to create an Android-like animated wallpaper for Ubuntu. He succeeded and it’s reallycool.
I tried it on my Gateway P4 with an Nvidia 6600 and it was smooth, but a little glitchy when changing desktops. Check it out!
Good Lookin’, but not mine…
by Tom Black on July 26, 2010
I finally got myself together…sort of. I’m getting closer to the look and feel of the whole design and brand of “me”. This WP theme you’re looking at is pretty sweet, and I’m going to do something inspired by this theme at some point. Sooner than later I hope. In the meantime, check out my resume update on the right menu and enjoy this. Cheers.
