010808 Update

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my little scam-baiting escapade.  It wasn’t very good, really, but I like Herr Professor and plan to bring him back.  One of the main things is to try to waste as much of their time as possible, which I might have done a little.  Getting advice from a veteran scam-scammer like Skunkfeathers http://skunkfeathers57.blogspot.com/ is always helpful.

A bit of an update/progress report/hodge-podge of news for you all, I have started using Stat Counter http://www.statcounter.com/ again, a program I really liked before and like it more now.  It’s interesting to me to find out where people go and where they come from.  One of the biggest things that interested me was that one of the areas that gets hits is not the main page but some of my Louis L’Amour Pages.  If you have checked out the original website http://herbthiel.com/original/  I wrote a few years ago with just notepad and a book about HTML, then you know that I have three Louis L’Amour fan pages, Cool quotes http://herbthiel.com/original/louisqte.htm, His Chronology http://herbthiel.com/original/louischron.htm and my own chronology http://herbthiel.com/original/louischron02.htm which I put together for people who aren’t familiar with the characters.  I knew that I was missing one of the titles, but couldn’t remember which one.  I received an e-mail from Steve and several others telling me that the book I was missing in my chronology was “Over on the Dry Side” which stars Owen Chantry, Borden’s brother.  I think I have only read it once and seem to remember that the story occurs well after Borden’s death but before “North to the Rails” with Tom Chantry, Borden’s son, so I am thinking it would go between “The Sky-Liners” and “The Man from the Broken Hills.”  I have to fix that and add a couple of new quotes I have had suggested.  It was exciting to me that someone found the pages on a search by themselves.

I am also thinking of making my own Shakespeare quote page.  I mean I love the BBC’s http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/shakespeare/onenightofshakespeare/onenightofshakespeare_insults.shtml “Shakespearian Insult Generator” with its explanations of what everything means and I realize there are bazillions of sites that specialize in quotes and Shakespeare and quotes from Shakespeare, but I just can’t resist reading or writing things like; “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!  O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!”  Or how about, “I do defy him, and spit at him; Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;” “God and good men hate so foul a liar.” “Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!”(And he never even met Bill Klinton).  Although, as Don Marquis observed, “Coarse jocosity catches the crowd/Shakespeare and I are often low browed…” such as the jokes the gravediggers make in Hamlet or remarks by The Two Gentlemen of Verona about a milkmaid.  Anyway, it is something I will do when I have a chance.  I think that instead of using HTML and tables I will consider using the Nucleus software to add pages.

I finished the scam-baiting story and while it was being automatically published I went to work on fixing the “Captcha” code for the little shoutbox thingy I have.  “Captcha” is the program that generates the picture with numbers and letters that you have to type in that prevents spammers and spambots from hitting you.  It works really well and I have not seen it beaten yet.  Well, besides for the comments I like using it for the shoutbox because that was where I got spammed a lot before.  I had a bad experience with pop-ups using an off-site chatbox so I was glad to come upon the plug-in program that I did, since it can utilize this code.  The problem was that the size of the image it generated was skewing the format of my page and I had to move it to the footer to make it fit.

This was really a challenge because first of all I don’t really know PHP I just have a general idea of how programming languages work and how HTML and CSS output is supposed to work and second, when I went to the Nucleus support forum I found out the guy who wrote the code wasn’t around any more and I would just have to figure it out.  This was a real 4-r “Arrrrgh” for me.  Normally the programs and plug-ins are so well-written and so well-documented that a person who knows how to read and has a modicum of common sense can solve the majority of problems.  To be fair, this one was the same, but I wanted it to do something the author hadn’t foreseen someone wanting to do.  Make the 219 pixel wide image come out as under 120.  That’s where I’ve been for the last few days.  I am planning to re-skin the blog eventually and one of the things I wanted to accomplish with it was put the shoutbox in a sidebar.

A possible new beginning is on the horizon, but it will mean parting with my beloved ’76 Chevy pickup truck.  It hasn’t run since I threw a rod threw the oil-pan several years ago and has just been sitting on the sideyard all this time, so it should be easy…but…well, it’s my truck.  *heavy sigh*  On the upside of it though, if the fellers that came and checked it out are willing to pay me enough money, I might be able to start the web-hosting business I mentioned in a previous post.  I really would like to do that because I think I can provide better service than some places I’ve been, or at any rate I think I can at least be nicer to people when they do have a problem.  All at a fairly competitive price.  We’ll see.  I will miss my truck, but who knows, if I do well and continue working on reviving my other business I may get another truck after all.

Speaking of web-things I am also working on getting a website back up and running for our church.  It has been without one for a while, but I think I can take it on.

Then there is the writing, of course.  My friend Nancze over at I’m An Okie Gal’s Weblog http://imanokiegal.wordpress.com/ asked if she could print a couple of copies of the “Joseph” series http://herbthiel.com/index.php?catid=15&blogid=1 for her friends to read.  I really appreciated that along with all the high praise I received, not only from her but Terri http://territerri.com/ and Skunk and others.  I was so encouraged that I have decided to write some more parts of it.  I can think of 4 or 5 more possible scenarios to add, although a couple would have to be even more fictionalized.

That’s all for now, remember, the good book says, “I hold the world but as the world…A stage where every man must play a part.”