Great Program!

This might sound kind of technical to some of you but I just found a great program for web development….

One of the big issues I have with developing in php is that in order to preview my work, I need to be constantly connected to the internet. Sometimes that is just not possible. (a la sitting at the car repair shop, at the starbucks that has as of yet to get their wifi….. grrr..)

Tonight I found a program online that runs apache, mysql, phpmyadmin and an ftp server all at the click of a button with little or no mucking around within the setup. It is absolutely sweet!

It is not secured for release on the internet but I only want it for testing web pages and design and being able to show clients on site what pages should do.

Voila… XAMMP
Sometimes that just browsing the net really does benefit me:)

Oh, heaven help us!

So I went ahead with the camera.
When I told Jack what we had gotten, he was SO pumped!
He could hardly wait for the battery to be charge so he could snap, snap snap away.
The kid is just too darn funny…

Oi vey. Teenage years ought to be interesting….

Camera?

Now that I am back into the world of blogging, I have been considering a small camera that I can carry with me. We have a big honker of a camera at home that is wonderful but my shoulders are not strong enough to carry the thing around constantly not to mention the fact that I would not enjoy being asked where the photo-shoot is all time….

So I am considering an SD600 by Canon.

Any thoughts?
Do you blog with camera? Or do you find it cumbersome?
I would love to hear your thoughts.

Dogfish

Ah Spring….

It was absolutely lovely out yesterday. Last night after dinner, the boys got their scooters out and Nan and I put on our running shoes and we went for a nice walk. It was a little treacherous at times on the sidewalk because of the melting snow and ice but it was just a wonderful night to do it.

This morning after breakfast we did it again. The boys took their bikes this time. Good stuff, because we can walk at a more brisk pace that way

Anyhow, this morning, I would say that there was only a quarter of the snow left that was there last night. Glorious…

And they are calling for rain today! Yippee! Melt all the snow!!!

Can you tell I am ready for spring?

Great dinner out.

Nan and I had the opportunity to go out for dinner tonight with friends. What a great time we had. John and Christine come to our church and Will and Justin (their boy) are best buds.

We really enjoy spending time with this couple. They are really down to earth and fun to be with.
We went to Moxies Bar and Grill.

I highly recommend it. Fabulous food and good portions too. We have gone there once before but Nan was not feeling well that night and we ended our evening early then. Tonight, it was relatively quiet, the atmosphere nice, the company great, the food delicious….

Good times.

New website released

I just re-released a website this weekend.
www.grytechitgroup.com
Some of the code is not pretty underneath (sorry Toph, I really am trying…) but we are pleased with the overall look.

The client needs to get some fresh data in there, but the backend of the site absolutely rocks! We were able to find code and implement it so the client’s clients (???) can log in securely, look at all of their information and work orders and email it to themselves in pdf form!

I never thought I would be doing something like this 3 years ago. Funny how things turn out.

Further to Vonage and my thoughts

A while back we went to Vonage VOIP phone. I said I would post my thoughts.

We have had the service for approximately 3 months now and I thought I would give you my opinion. The service is sometimes not all that great. The voice quality on outgoing calls seems to be the issue. We tend to get some feeback and echo. I went to the vonage site and looked through their troubleshooting area and there are a couple of things I could try. I have yet to try that. I need to do some re-wiring and the such. It is not a job that I really look forward to doing. I will however do it shortly I think as I want to ensure that we get the best quality calls we can before I call the company with any complaints.

In terms of downtimes and the such, we have had very little issue there. There have been a couple of times when we have had a power outage at night and the phone was not working in the morning. A simple power down and up of the vonage router took care of that.

I have a couple of acquaintances that have tried Vonage with DSL and have not been very impressed. A while back we flipped to Rogers cable internet and I have been thrilled with that. The service seems to be more stable than the DSL I was on before and it has been able to handle the Vonage line no problem.

What to watch.

Sitting at home this afternoon, being the first Sunday of March Break, we thought it might be nice to watch a movie as a family tonight.
It is really a big process now to figure out what we want to watch as a family. The boys are all about Star Wars, Nan is not. I am ok with with Star Wars but definitely not in the ga ga stage about it anymore.

In the end, we decided that Nan and I will probably play a game of cribbage, the boys will have showers, Jacks will go on Club Penguin on the net and Will has decided to watch Clone Wars dvd.

Talk about a family that wants to spend time together. Oh how I long for the days when we simply told the kids what we were going to do and they lovingly looked in our eyes and said Yay! Now we get the “are you kidding me?” or the “These adults are absolute morons if they think I am going to enjoy that…” faces. Nice.

I love growing up.

You know you are getting old when…

Last night, Nan and I, Eric and Lindsay travelled to Cambridge to Phil and Heather’s for the first annual Games Night Mega Challenge! We had a great time. In the end, Lindsay won the coveted Bunny Cup. Score!

So, last night was the night that the timechange was happening. And we lost an hour of sleep right? During the evening I had a pop and a half. Dr. Pepper and half of a Pepsi. We arrived home around 12:30 (new time) and promptly fell into bed exhausted.

Do you think I could sleep? NO stinkin’ way! I am relatively sure that I saw every half hour increment on the clock last night. Ridiculous. I can drink coffee and it does not seem to bother me much at all, but one and a half sodas and I am done?

Oi vey! I really am not liking getting old. If I have pizza after 8 pm I can’t sleep well.
I soon will be relegated to having bowls full of porridge and a nightcap of Ovaltine…

Really growing up

Jackson has been growing up a lot lately. We have had some trouble with stubbornness (sp?) and attitude. The kid is only turning 8 this June!! Oi vey! I recently called my mom and was telling her about one of our struggles with the little man. Her response was quite amusing.

Oh yes, I remember someone else who was like that!

Oh boy.
But this morning, he had his door closed and to our delight was reading from a couple of library books he brought home from school. When he came down to the livingroom he brought the books and I asked him to read to me. To my absolute delight, he is progressing well. He read a whole chapter to me quite easily. Wonderful. That is a big change from 6 months ago when it was like pulling teeth to get him to read 2 pages. His teacher is amazing.
Gonna have to send her flowers.