mindplunge

First real post-C25K run!

It took me 23 days to finally clock some miles after finishing the C25K. I though my muscle strain wasn’t that severe but it kept me from running for a straight 3 weeks. This morning I had a good feeling. Walking wasn’t a problem anymore the last couple days and when I was walking the dog I tried a few sprints in between. No problem.

So this morning I hit the track again along the creek and ran for a 5K. My first K was way too fast since I just got of the injury. I slowed my pace down to a 10′45″ /mi. I was amazed I actually could run a 5K! Haven’t run for 23 days and being a couch potato just 3 Months ago I was pretty happy with the result.

I finished the 5K in 32′27″ which was faster I was aiming for. Anything close to 35 minutes was my goal. Maybe a short run tomorrow?

Personal Branding

Finally! After several years I now own the domain richardlemon.com. When I tried to register this domain 3 years ago it already was taken by a realtor in Florida sharing both my first and last name. The most annoying part was that he didn’t use this domain for years.

Two months ago I noticed his renewal was coming up and I was praying he didn’t have the auto-renewal turned on. He didn’t! After the domain expired it went into a grace period and I was able to bid on the domain. His last opportunity to renew the domain past as well and here we are. My brand new domain name.

I tried to transfer the domain to my current host Media Temple but since the domain has a new registrar I have to wait 60 days before I can transfer it. Currently it’s parked at GoDaddy and I could sign up for a hosting service. I rather have all my domains under 1 roof so Media Temple is the clear choice. Other then this Media Temple is also one heck of a host! I’ve been with them for over 5 years and their service is just outstanding. Great costumer service and there tools are phenomenal.

I’m using their Grid Server (gs):

• 100GB premium storage
• 1TB network transfer
• Host up to 100 domains
• 1000 email accounts
• Clustered architecture
• Rails & Django Containers
• MySQL SmartPool v.2
• FREE Urchin Analytics

More about Media Temple’s Grid Server

I guess I have to get started on designing my personal site pretty soon! Can’t wait to show it to you all.

Obama and dynamic in-game advertising

A groundbreaking ad campaign by the Barack Obama campaign appears to be targeting the couch vote: online gamers.

The new ads appear on signs and billboards inside 18 online video games – from Madden NFL ‘09 to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock – and target games in 10 battleground states with a picture of Mr. Obama and directions to the campaign’s early-voting site, VoteForChange.com.

It’s the first time, industry officials say, that a political candidate has taken advantage of a new technology that allows “dynamic in-game advertising” on games that are updated through the Internet on game units such as XBOX 360.

I wouldn’t be surprised if McCain buys ads on Solitaire, Freecell and Minesweeper…

Automator + iCal + Transmit = score!

Scheduled tasks on a PC are easy. With a Mac it’s easy and fun! I needed to make daily backups for a client to our local server. Leopard comes with Automator, a cool app to , you’ve guessed it, automate tasks. Since I’m using Transmit as my dedicated ftp client it gets only better!

Automator has Transmit defaults build in. As stated on Transmits website it’s not in the library anymore but you can find it under the ‘Internet’ submenu of your library. Another place to look is ‘Most Relevant’ and ‘Most Used’.

setting up an workflow in Automator is pretty intuitive and you should be able to crank out a workflow within minutes. Now comes the sweet part. Rather then saving it as a workflow you can save your task as an application. To set up a scheduled task open iCal and create a new event. In the ‘alarm’ section select ‘open file’ and pick your newly created application. You can manually set the time when to launch this, in my case 3X a week at midnight.

When waking up my files are downloaded to the folder I told it to, zipped up and renamed with a date stamp. Life is sweet…

Seriously…

Christmas decoration? Already? …