The Tao of Walking Ridge

I FTPed a jpg file up to the server, typed the link into my post and it could not find the picture. Strange. I double checked the path and file name. Correct. Hmmm. I open cPanel file manager on the server direct and then see the problem. It thinks it is a text file.  I also notice that the other jpg files are lower case, and this file has an upper case JPG extension.  I change it to lower case and now it thinks it is an image.

This was a new one to learn, but I continue to be very very happy with the ability to diagnose and fix issues with the Linux server. There is probably a screen somewhere where I can change the defaults, but now that I now to make it lower case, it is just too easy to keep doing that.

It’s not really clay and it’s not really my best friend. But it sure is a great medium for the creative spirit.

One of polymer clay’s biggest advantages: It can look like anything, including metal or leather. It’s quite inexpensive and can be used at home, cured at low temperatures in regular ovens (no microwaves!). All of this makes it perfect for small items - especially jewelry.

Like earth clay or ceramics, designs and textures can be impressed into the surface and other materials can be imbedded in polymer clay. Unlike those materials, polymer clay is not water soluble; it does not mix with water. That characteristic allows artists to use water as a release for molds or textured sheets. In addition to the colors of the clay and the combinations that can be mixed, polymer clay can be carved, dyed, painted, and stained. Mica in metallic clay colors can be “shifted” to create patterns. Sprinkling mica powders in clay adds sparkle.

Many of the techniques used by polymer clay artists are adaptations from other mediums. Makume gane is a 17^th century Japanese metal working technique but polymer clay fans have adapted it to their medium. Instead of layers of different metals, different colors of polymer clay are layered and carved. A similar story for millefiori which means “a thousand flowers” in Italian. Millefiori is a 19^th century term for a glass working technique much older than it’s name. In polymer clay “canes” or “snakes” of clay replace rods of glass to form and imbed designs in the final creation.

Polymer clay is full of surprises. Scratch the surface.

I like sidewalk cafes with their bistro tables. The style must have evolved over time, triggering some deep sense of a cafe. Calm. Contemplative. Intimate, yet in the midst of people. I am drawn to paint them, and I am working on the idea for my next painting which is likely to use this theme.

The bistro style table is small. You sit and sip espresso, or coffee, or tea. I had this very small wasted area outside my back door. I became inspired to put two chairs and a bistro table there. There was just barely enough room, but it has been incredibly inspiring. Just outside my back door, I often pop out to finish my coffee and watch the wind blow the trees and the birds walk about. If it is chilly, the little nook is calm. And if it is raining I can stay dry (though perhaps my company would get a bit wet). It so happens that neither neighbor can be seen, only my back yard and trees. The investment under $200, and it has become one of my favorite places to be at home.

My subtitle for this article is “The Linux Chronicles”.

I became so impressed by the Linux server software, that I decided to try and go totally open source. I have an IBM Thinkpad 600X and I decided to put Linux on it and see if I could get it to fire up. There is the potential advantage of getting it to run faster. Especially if I can tweak the operating system to do exactly what I want to do. And I have a pretty specific and finite number of things I want to do with my laptop.
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For someone used to actually seeing the static files in their website, the idea of dynamic links and relying on a database made me uneasy. The features of WordPress have outweighed those concerns. However, there still must be a plan. The plan is backing up. I know my host provider backs up periodically, but I also back up.

WordPress has great step by step instructions for backing up with phpmyadmin. I was able to export the necessary data and save it. However, in order to restore the database I needed the assistance of the hosting technician with my Windows server. On Linux, I now find a backup wizard in my cPanel. What would you like to backup? The whole website? Just the databases? And I see a restore button! I have not tried it yet, but being self suffient is a good feeling. As is backing up often.

I’m using Karailiev’s sitemap plugin. It works great. But it writes the sitemap into the /blog directory where I have all the wordpress stuff. My robots.txt file keeps bots from Google and Yahoo from this directory. So every day or so I copy the file into the root. Before this meant getting in with an FTP client, downloading, copying on the local machine, then uploading. Not bad. But with my Linux server and the cPanel that came with it, I just go into the server file manager and I can copy the file to the root. If I am travelling, I no longer need an FTP client!

One of the differences I see between my Windows hosting package and Linux is, I think, a reflection of the basic difference in philosophies between open source software and the alternative. The alternative thought “we are afraid that you, the user, will goof this up so just hit this automatic button”. Of course, I know marketing, so the marketing version is something like “automatic setup, nothing to worry about”.
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I did a fair amount of research before I selected my webhost for my first website. I have since learned a great deal more. What I have learned has convinced me more and more that I made a great choice.

During my search, I discovered several host providers that had great rates, but charged extra for stuff that was really useful. At the time I wanted FrontPage extensions, these were often extra. I did not know what MySQL was all about or why I would want it. PHP, CGI, Perl, ASP, eieio. I didn’t know what most of this stuff was, but knew that as I learned some of it might be useful. My webhost indichosts.net included just about everything you might want to try out in a super low priced introductory package. Great to play with and learn, with enough bandwidth to do anything you might want. If you ran out of bandwidth, then chances are your website was so successful it was worth an upgrade.
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I just learned something new. There is a misonception that if you have Windows on your PC that you should get Windows web hosting. I thought that. But it turns out that Windows gives the advantage of running the MS database, ASP, and some other Microsoft specific applications. However, scripts, especially open source scripts (WordPress) run very well on Linux. I just switched my server over. A bit nerve wracking, and some extra work for my other websites uploading them again. But wow, was it worth it.
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A beginner’s guide to playing blues harp effortlessly

© 2008, Brian Kelly

Act without doing. Work without effort.

- Tao Te Ching

When I was a teenager, I tried very hard to play blues harmonica. I tried to play music exactly as I heard it. I tried very hard, but I was unable to produce anything musical. I failed because my effort was misplaced. Like paddling upstream. More effort did not translate into better music. In fact, a closer analogy might be that my canoe was on dry land and thus my paddling was ineffective.

Then one night, after a bit of tequila, a friend in another band challenged me “if I find a harmonica, would you play it.” Thinking to myself, where would he “find” a harmonica, I thought it would be safe to answer yes and so I did. He then reached into his pocket, handed me a harmonica and we went up on stage.

While on stage, he put his guitar down and returned to the table to finish his beer. The drummer and bass player continued playing the Doors’ Roadhouse Blues. It was at this moment that I realized that I was supposed to solo.

But I didn’t know where the notes were on a harmonica! That’s when it happened. Zen. Music. Spontaneous, improvisational, full of energy. Instantaneous enlightenment. I literally learned how to play harmonica at that moment by discovering the Tao of the harp (way of the harp). Zen. As the guitar player returned to the stage surprised, he reached out his hand and said “No offense, but that is your best instrument.”
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