Back in March 2004 I was approached by Reading A-Z, a producer of online educational materials to assist those learning to read, about the use of a picture taken by my friend Erik Patten and featured on Mount Sutro. Turns out they wanted to use this photo in an upcoming publication. After talking with the company about the specific project, we eagerly gave permission. All I asked in exchange was a free copy of the book and the right to display select content from the book.

The book was completed and released in September 2004 and although I am a little late in writing about this, I am happy to do so now. In the Level V Benchmark title Robots by Lisa Ing, readers of Mount Sutro will see a familiar image: the Tallahassee Bomb Squad robot holding an industrial magnet. Featuring Erik's photograph, page eight discusses how robots are used instead of humans in possibly dangerous situations, such as bomb investigations.

Contrary to published caption, the questionable object was in fact an industrial magnet left at the curb for the trash by our friend, Rick. When joggers running through the neighborhood on 03 December 2002 saw the box filled with the bright blue objects and a piece of paper with Hebrew text written on it, they automatically assumed it must be a terrorist's explosive.

Rick had already began his trip back home to Orlando when the Tallahassee Police and Fire Department plus the Bomb Squad came knocking at Erik's door. He talked with the police and with the cooperation of Rick via telephone, the police found it unnecessary to press any charges and whatnot, but they did insist on allowing their Bomb Squad robot access to the devices to verify and ensure their benign nature. Erik took this opportunity to take several pictures and thus our story concludes.

Everyone enjoys seeing their name (or website address) in print, even if it is only an electronic book.

I have been trying to decide how I wanted to proceed with a non-article link post. In the past I would put such entries in the Public Square forum, but since the redesign I have been toying with including them in the main content area, a la Jason Kottke and Tom Coates.

My first experiment with this came in the previous entry, "Super Bowl Sunday," wherein a linkage box followed the article. In that case a majority of the links were related to the article but a few were not. I may continue this practice or eventually just start posting "Linkage" articles that contain nothing else. I did decide I did not want to put them separately, say in a side window of their own a la Ernie Hsiung. Time will tell and ultimately my preference will simply win out after trial.

So, with that said…

Data Recovery From a Failed Hard Drive – Freezing Method
This one is for you, Mr. Hart.

Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator
An amusing diversion for Windows woes. [ via ] [ view mine ]

Alternate Lyrics for Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic"
Some better than others, but overall amusing.

NASA plans to bring down Hubble
"We have decided that the risks associated with the Hubble servicing at this time don't merit going forward."

Cuba's smoking ban takes effect
"The inspiration for the ban is said to have come from President Fidel Castro, who has given up smoking cigars."

Welcome to the new and improved Mount Sutro. I am excited to be posting this notice that the upgrades to the site are nearly complete. Before I get into the list of changes and new features, I would like to ask that if you discover anything out of order you pass it along to me. Your cooperation is appreciated.

Here is a selection of the changes you will notice (and some you will not):

• Instead of syndicating posts for the "One Last Breath" blog from a phpBB-powered forum, WordPress now controls that feature. Due to the flexible nature of WordPress, an open source content management system, "One Last Breath" posts are now available from anywhere on the site. A new category, archive and search system is also in place. These new features are located in the "Article Archive" window. Finally, RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3 are now supported.
• My ongoing displeasure with phpBB in general has prompted me to move the forum (now called "Public Square") to a new platform. The excellent open source software package Simple Machines is now in charge of all forum functions. Since I am only basically familiar with this program, many changes are still to come and a few things are to be fixed.
• Some new items can be found in the "Miscellanea" window. RSS feeds will be enabled shortly, should you choose to syndicate or batch read websites. The translation features have also been enhanced. Computer translations by InterTran are available in twenty-eight (28) languages by a simple click. In addition to adding many new languages, since the "Miscellanea" window appears on every page (except "Public Square" and "Gallery"), translation can be done seamlessly from any page. Finally, my Amazon.com wish list is now publicly available and linked to in the "Miscellanea" window.
• The entire site has been recoded from the ground up. I had originally planned on taking the approach of developing the site using only the newest standards (XML and such) but was not willing to spend the time upgrading my own skill set. Regardless, the underlying code does what it needs to do visually and is now in a better position for further refinement.
• All the graphics have been redrawn or converted from their original to PNG. The main logo, date and time clock, sectional titles, icons and other graphical elements have all been recreated to fit with the fresh update on the original retro operating system theme.
• Overall site width has been re-calibrated to a default setting of 1024 x 768. Visitors with smaller screen resolutions will be required to scroll horizontally to view the primary content (left window) and feature windows (right column of windows).

There are so many more changes that are unnecessary to go into now. Please let me know what you think of the redesign and if you encounter any problems or errors, please let me know.

I have been displeased with the back-end operation of Mount Sutro for some time now. I had made plans a while back to overhaul the software I use and to rewrite my custom code. It never happened. Well, I have decided that I am sufficiently displeased enough to assign some time to this task. The last major code change was done in September 2002, one year after I started publishing the site. Though the purpose and direction of the site have changed over the course of the past three years, the underlying way it operated has not.

Starting this week, I will be redeveloping Mount Sutro from the ground up. Instead of posting the blog (currently sub-titled "One Last Breath") to the phpBB-powered Forum and syndicating it on the main page via PHP script, I am going to install and customize a more suitable publishing application. WordPress and Textpattern are my top two candidates for this task. A retool of the Forum is planned. I continue to be happy with the performance of Coppermine, the software driving the Gallery, so aside from a fresh install (new version) and tidying up of my custom code, no changes are planned there.

I have no plan to entirely redesign the visual look and feel, but some changes will be made. Invalid links will automatically be redirected to their new destinations or to a 404 page containing a search feature and site map.

I welcome any comments and suggestions.

Do you shop at Amazon.com? I would really love it if instead of going to their website directly you use mountsutro.org/amazon. You receive the same shopping experience but I receive a small amount of money per purchase via their affiliates program. It is fun and free! Help me out financially and have fun thinking about Muppet chefs at the same time.

Bookmark this for Amazon.com shopping:
» http://www.mountsutro.org/amazon

Thank you in advance!

UPDATED: The data centre where the Mount Sutro server lives is going to be conducting some network maintenance that may very well make the site inaccessible for a time. The two windows are currently scheduled for Tuesday, 09 November 2004 from 0100 to 0200 EST and 0400 to 0500 EST Friday, 12 November 2004 from 0000 to 0100 EST and 0300 to 0400 EST. It is expected that any inaccessibility should last only 15 to 30 minutes.