WillShattuck.com

Maintaining any business requires some way to track expenses, income, etc.  A while ago I found Cite CRM on Sourceforge.net.  I first encountered it at v.0.1.0 I believe.  A few weeks ago I found it was at v.0.2.0 so I figured I would try it out.

The interface is pretty well laid out and easy to understand.  Add a customer, create a work order, close and invoice.  I did find one problem though.  I couldn’t create a schedule in connection with a work order.  The scheduling allows you to plan when you will be either on-site for work, or scheduling future jobs.  However, I kept getting an error saying "Start and End time can’t be the same".  I posted on the forum at the Sourceforge site, but the project apparently has been abandoned.

A few weeks later I posted just in case someone knew how to fix it.  I hadn’t made the time to debug the PHP code yet.  Someone did post the fix (add quotes around a variable assignment) and sure enough it worked.  I wanted to submit my changes, but the owner of the project has apparently abandoned it.  The code and documentation are superb.  I can clearly understand the author’s intentions and the code comments provide direction on existing code and future enhancements.

I decided to spend some time working on the few grammar and spelling errors in the install program.  I also rewrote the README file as well as adding a changelog.txt file.  So now I’m offering these modifications to anyone who wants to try them out.  Please use the email address in the README file or these comments to point out bugs.

Download Links:
- citecrm.v.0.2.001.zip
- citecrm.v.0.2.001.tar.gz

So if you want to be a writer you need to write.

I tried doing one short story a week, but found I didn’t have enough time.  Planning, writing, and editing didn’t fit in well with my busy family, work, and church schedule.  I did end up writing two short stories that I felt were well written.  Of course they could be better, but couldn’t everything we do be done better?

Since "a story a week" didn’t work for me I wanted to try a story every two weeks.  Hence, "Fortnight Fiction".  In one year of writing a short story every two weeks I will have written twenty-six stories.

Will there be themes?  Will there be serialization?  I have no idea. 

So, if you would like to join in this endeavor please Categorize / Tag your "Fortnight Fiction" posts with the tag FortnightFiction (all one word with capitals).  I can easily then find other who are doing the same thing and post links to their stories here.

Enjoy, and good writing.

Hello Shelfari,

I’m sure your service is a good one, but I have recently had a bad experience as an unknowing recipient of three pieces of Shelfari spam.

Apparently a friend recently joined Shelfari and Shelfari must have gone through his address book and emailed everyone in his address book this "Hey Look At This" message.  I’m sure the idea was to let people know about Shelfari, but when one of the addresses in this person’s list was a mailing list of seven people, well… let’s just say a couple of the people wanted me to mark it as spam in our corporate environment.

I would like to suggest that you discontinue this "service" you offer new Shelfari users.  It appears to be more disruptive than helpful.  I myself happen to be in this person’s address book under three different email addresses.  Guess what happened?  I received the same email three times.  That constitutes Spam in my opinion.

So, would you please refrain from enabling the function that scans a person’s email address book and send out mass emails purporting to be the actual sender (which we know was actually Shelfari’s server)?  Technically, Shelfari has just spoofed the from email address and *is* technically spamming the recipients since they did not ask for any information from Shelfari.

If I happen to receive any more Shelfari messages to either my personal or corporate accounts, I will not no other option, but to mark Shelfari as a known spammer in our database, which will then, unfortunately, be shared with other people as well.

Anyway, I believe I have made my point.  Thank you for your attention to this matter. 

Sincerely,
Will Shattuck

Yes, it is Christmas Evening and I’m writing a blog post from the airport.  Last night we attempted to leave Fresno Yosemite International Airport, but were met with extremely dense fog.

Yes, it is Christmas Evening and I’m writing a blog post from the airport.  Last night we attempted to leave Fresno Yosemite International Airport, but were met with extremely dense fog.

Read the rest of this entry »

12 Days of Christmas with Style sung by Straight No Chaser

Yes, I’m talking about knitting.  Yarn, needles, nice warm blankets, throws, socks, etc. 

I relearned knitting back my my daughter had her lip revision surgery from her cleft lip (pallet not affected).  I needed something that was offline and not electronic to do.  So I started knitting.  So far I have knitted two scarves, two dish cloths (one is a pot holder for dutch ovens) and I’m knitting a drop-stitch shawl for my wife (and then my daughter).  I may start a new blog for this since it is rather specialized compared to what I normally talk about.

Anyway, I came across a new community website for knitters and crocheters:  Ravelry (currently in beta).  It seems like a great idea and implementation.  I can’t get in yet (but I did sign up to be added to the list).  I’ll report back when I actually get in.

Link: http://www.ravelry.com

Today I needed to delete some temp files that I had made some changes to for a user.  I received the error "Some files are in use.  Cannot delete folder".  This has plagued Windows users for as long as I can remember.

A while ago I came across this utility called Unlocker by Cedrick Nitch Collomb.  I didn’t have any use for it at the time so I just added it to my Del.icio.us account.  Well it found use today, and worked as advertised.  It gives the option to actually kill the process, but I just wanted to unlock the file so I clicked "Unlock All" and I was then able to delete the folder. 

TIP:  After installing, right click the System Tray Icon and uncheck "Autostart".  Since the installer adds a right-click context selection you don’t really need the program to autostart.

LINK: Unlocker by Cedrick Nitch Collomb

Ok, so you will have noticed, by now, that I haven’t posted any meal tracking or other weight loss updates.  Last  Saturday I "couldn’t" stop eating.  That has turned into a whole week (5 days) of "grazing".  I seem to be continually hungry, or "need" something to eat.

I’m sure it is more psychological than anything, but it’s frustrating.  From Oct 21 - 27 I went from 287 pounds down to 284.4.  I lost almost three pounds.  Then on Saturday I gained it all back plus one pound.  I was at 288.  I guess that hurt me more than I thought as I haven’t done anything but eat, and NOT eat well.

So, here I am confessing it all.  I asked friends and relatives to pray and encourage. I promised I would post meals, eating, progress, etc., but I haven’t.  Tomorrow (Thursday) I start anew.  That reminds me of a poem I wrote in college"

A sunset
    Is a poem
        Written anew
Each day.

God bless all and take care.  See you tomorrow.

Breakfast:

• 2 glazed donuts
• 1 20oz Med Dr. Pepper.

Snack:

• 18 Salt and Vinegar Chips

Lunch:

• Hamburger and Fries from the deli
• 16 oz Mug Rootbeer

So, in using the Hacker’s Diet, I’m finding that I have cut my caloric intake by about 23 calories.  It’s less I need.  The Hacker’s Diet suggests that you cut it by 500 calories a day on a 2200 daily caloric intake so you would actually be ingesting only 1700 calories.  It looks like I need to cut waay back.

I’m not really calorie counting yet.  I’ve just been going by if I am hungry or not.  This is a good way to get started, but I’m not getting the results I want.  So, now I get to plan healthier meals and eat less calories.

EDIT: It looks like I am actually eating about 200 less calories now that I go back and look at the log.  Good, but I know I can still do better.  Exercise starts next week.

Dinner: (Chinese Food)

• Sizzling Steak Ha Cube (steak, shrimp, onions, garlic, sauce)
• Fried rice
• 1 egg roll
• 1 cup wor won ton soup (wonton, slice of port, veggies, and really good broth today)
• Pan fried noodles
• 3 large glasses of iced tea

Again I was really hungry when we ordered.  I need to remember to drink one full glass of water before actually ordering.  This trick does work for me.

So tomorrow is a leadership meeting at Church.  I’ll post my eating choices at the brunch and lunch later tomorrow afternoon.

So here is a picture of the graph that is generated on The Hacker’s Diet tracking system.

The first point on the red line was my first weigh in at 287 pounds.  The green lines represent my weight loss.  As you can see I’m going down.  It’s not as fast as this graph would indicate, but I’m progressing.