Home web hosting

Now that I am now longer in the web hosting business I run my own Linux server in the house. I use it mainly to provide me access from wherever I am to my personal wiki.

Having a personal wiki is great. It provides me a place to store all those little bits of info that I know I will need but don't want to carry around with me. For example it stores my how-to lists for online functions that I rarely use (and therefore don't come easily to mind). It is great when I travel as I don't have to worry about what machine I use or where that machine is located. I can log in and find out the mailing address for friends that I need to send a post card to, how to reboot a troubled server or get that airline membership number so I can get points for side trips that I take on the spur of the moment.

While that sounds rather techy it really isn't. For those that have a cable or dsl connection setting up a server isn't that hard. I have even found a great little reference online for those that are running a windows machine.

For those running a Mac, I found step by step instructions for replacing your .mac account with a local solution. Gives you all the functionality of .mac without the annual fees.

VOIP Phone Service

As most of you know, I ditched Bell Canada with a passion last year and got rid of my DSL line and my phone as well. I went with Vonage Canada for my phone and haven't regretted it.

Now VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) isn't really that new, I was using it when I was in Belgium back in 1996. Granted it wasn't very good and one person could talk at a time but it did the trick. Now I have all the bell's and whistles on my phone line and unlike good old Ma Bell I don't get charged for them, they are all included. I pay a total of $19.95 a month for my phone with 500 long distance minutes anywhere in Canada or the US, call forwarding, voice mail. call display, three way calling etc included.

I did call the service people today and asked about traveling with my phone. I understood that I could take my VOIP router and plug it in when I arrived at my new destination but they told me about a new service they have where the rather large VOIP router is replaced with a little USB key that has the software re-installed. Now I could walk into any internet cafe and plug in the key and call back home to Canada for free! For an added advantage friends could call me at my Canadian number and it would ring wherever the key was installed at no additional cost to the calling party!

It is not often that I write about a service here in a positive light but if you are planning to do any traveling or just want to save a bundle on your monthly phone bill check out Vonage - it is worth a look.

Trying to hit a little white ball

Yesterday was the 1st annual Velvet Rope Golf Invitational Golf Series hosted by the Point Edward Casino. As with the previous 5 years, the event has held at the Huron Oaks Golf Course in Brights Grove, Ontario with a breakfast at the casino.

This year's event was much better than the previous events that I have attended. The dinner was excellent - prime rib with baked potatoes and vegetables and throughout the dinner door prizes were awarded. I think everyone won something. The were also prizes for the most honest team, the team with the best, the golfer with the longest drive and the golfer that was closest to pin on specific holes. The format was a shotgun start (which means that all teams start at the same time from different holes) which was the same as previous years but the weather was better and the team that I was on was great. There are 4 people to a team (3 guests and one staff member). Luckily the other three knew what they were doing and we finished at 5 under par. We felt good about the score but at the dinner afterwards the top team actually finished at 11 under!

At the start of this post I mentioned that this was the 1st annual event but I had been to the previous 5 years events. This amazing feat is accomplished by renaming the event each year.

Geocaching Report

Ok, so I finally got out of the house today by 3 PM. I had selected two different caches that were in the same area down by the Sarnia Bay Marina and Centennial Park (the same place that they hold BayFest every year). Well, in short, it wasn't a very good day. I easily found the areas that the caches were in but I couldn't find them. The gps said that I was within a few meters but no luck. Will have to try another day.

The day wasn't a total waste however, as I took some photos when I was there which you can now see in my photo site located here. I did manage to find a stashed bottle of liquor however.

For those that are interested in trying it out or learning more there is a really good book on Amazon called "Geocaching For Dummies". A good deal at just $16.05.

GeoCaching

One of my goals for this year was to get back into geocaching. Ok so most of you are now asking "What is GeoCaching?" Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps (Global Positioning System) users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

Obviously the first thing that one needs is a gps unit. I got mine online at GPSCity located in Calgary. Ordered it online and it was shipped overnight. The nice thing about buying from a store located outside of Ontario is that I didn't have to pay the PST (a good 7% savings). True I had to pay shipping but there is very little selection in Sarnia for this type of unit so at the very least I would have had to gone to London. I could have ordered it from TigerDirect but then I would have paid the PST.

Ok so I now have my gps unit but how do I find out about a cache to go and find? Easy - just go to the GeoCachng website! It is the 'offical' web site for geocaching around the world and there are literally thousands of cached listed. Each cache has the location, hints to find it, a list of who has found it (or not), a little Yahoo or Google map of the general area etc.

I have found 4 so far and am normally out each weekend looking for more. I will post a little update for each new cache that I find. If you would like to join me or learn more about geocaching, please drop me an email or give me a call.

More Kiva Payments

This week I received repayments for four more Kiva loans that I have made to businesses in Nicaragua.

Granted there is still a lot of money outstanding on these loans but all have made the required monthly re-payments so I am very pleased.

I would recommend this site to anyone who wants to help out hard working people in third world countries.

Losing my Blog - Never Again!

As most of you know I lost my blog earlier this year due to a hacker and me not keeping regular backups.

Now there is nothing that I can do about hackers - they are out there and working to destroy the hard work of others for their twisted sense of accomplishment. What I can control is my back up procedures.

I am the first one to admit that I don't have the discipline back up my blog every day. Too much trouble and I am busy doing other things. Well I found a solution. BlogBackupOnline provides an effortless way to backup, restore, and export your blog.

They currently support the following platforms • Blogger • WordPress • Friendster • LiveJournal • TypePad • Serendipity • Windows Live Spaces • Movable Type • Terapad • Vox • Multiply.

I will post about my experiences with this new system but the signup process is simple and painless and the control panel looks good.

Junk, Junk and More Junk

Ok, maybe not really junk but stuff that I don't need or want anymore.

As the continuing process of divesting myself of non-essential items in preparation for the eventful move south I have spent most of the day today sorting, cleaning and organizing. There is so much stuff that is in great shape and fully functional that I just don't want or need anymore. For example, an office chair, VCR, computers and computer monitors. All of this stuff still works and doesn't make sense to throw it in the garbage.

So I joined FreeCycle.org. Their mission statement reads "Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community." While they state worldwide there is a 'chapter' in just about any place you can think of in the 1st world. Hey if Sarnia has one then everyone is going to have one ;)

A couple of quick emails stating what I have to give away and (hopefully) in the next day or so the stuff will be gone and put to use. I get rid of the junk and someone gets fully usable items for free.

Now as one would imagine there is a lot of strange stuff offered on FreeCycle and Neil Dixon has started a blog documenting just that. Go have a look and be amazed.

House Work

Well we just had some work finished off in the house. It was decided that the original wood base board that was put in when the extension was built many years ago had to go and be replaced by tile.

Personally I didn't think that it would make that much of a difference but I was wrong. The improvement is huge. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the original base board but I did get a couple of the new tile.



The hardest part of getting any work done here in Sarnia is finding a contractor to do the work. I have heard stories that people having wait for months just to get an estimate never mind the actual work.

We were lucky. We knew someone that was a very handy with their hands and did the work for us. The interesting part of this for me was that he had just come back from spending time in Columbia teaching English as a second language. It was fun to trade stories about Central and South American and see the differences and the similarities between the two regions.