the-richmonds.net

I have probably been noticably absent from Facebook for a while now.... although I have Internet access at most bookfairs I've been running, I don't feel that it is very professional to have it running while at an event.  And with the latest change that Facebook has made to the way it "networks" (I was forced to make some profile setting changes when i logged on last week to put up a status update), I have pretty much decided that less is more as far as Facebook goes.  I don't care to have my every interest, past places of employment and schools turned into additional ways for people that I don't know in real life to find me.  Facebook used to be great for keeping up with people that I wanted to keep up with (that was back before those quizzes and games clogged up the homepage).  I'm not on Facebook to meet new people, even if they have mutual interests, they are friends of friends, or we happened to attend the same school years apart.  I prefer to meet new people in person first, virtually network later.

So going forward, I'm going to be using the-richmonds.net for what I had originally intended it to be used for.  I'm sorry that it won't update to your homepage on Facebook, but you can always subscribe to the RSS to get updates without having to check back here often.

I'll be keeping my Facebook account, but there won't be much in the way of updates or anything on the "info" page (I chose to unlist my interests rather than being linked up).  I will still get any messages sent to me or posted on the wall forwarded to my email.  Speaking of social networking sites that I won't be keeping updated, you can also find me on LinkedIn, which I have always kind of preferred for networking over Facebook (geared more for professionals, and no games!).

I'm done with my rant now. :)

Upon checking my email this morning, I noticed about 200 messages that came to my inbox as "undeliverable".  Apparently, an email titled "Report" was sent with an attachment with various spoofed email addresses "@the-richmonds.net" marked as the sender.  Kinda ticks me off, that someone is using my domain to send spam from, and I'm not sure what to do about it.  My apologies to anyone who received any such message.

I added a link to our Xanga website to the menu.  I created the Xanga account many months ago so that Heather could keep up-to-date with all of her friends that were on Xanga.  She has been updating the site occassionaly, so I figured I'd put a link over there and give you one more place to check for happenings.

Welcome to the new Drupal powered the-richmonds.net! There are still some changes to take place, and lots of little things to fine-tune. But I wanted to switch everything over so I wouldn't have to keep updating the database each time a new post went up to the existing website!

the-richmonds.net is now running on a dreamhost server. Our transition to the new server is complete, and the name servers should be updated within a day or two, so everyone should be able to log on as normal!

There will be more changes coming down the line for the-richmonds.net as I prepare to move the content management system from Postnuke to Drupal (following the lead of demeusy.com). There will be lots of features that will make the website much more user-friendly.

This will be the last update on the old host. Everything will be moved over to the new server and should continue normally from there. Any comments, etc. posted from now until the move is complete will not be saved, as I am about to archive the website to move it over to Dreamhost.

Everything always tries to happen at once!

The laptop got to the point where I needed to erase the hard drive and start from scratch the other day. Got to the point where it kept locking up every time I tried to do anything with it. Now I've got the fun of trying to remember where all of the drivers discs are for it. At least enough so I can get online and download drivers for everything else...

The power cord on the laptop is doing the same thing that I had to get a replacement plug for a couple of years ago. I think that I have gotten about all I can get out of this machine, as far as the useful life of laptops go. I got it for my senior year in college, which is coming up on six years now. I think most people try to replace their laptops before they get to be two years old. I know that Steven's still got his Dell going though - and he bought his a few months before I got mine. I wonder if they have a club for old-computer users. You know, like some car clubs have the half-million mile clubs?

I just signed up with Dreamhost, which is the hosting company that Matthew has chosen for demeusy.com. Cedant has been staying at the same price since I signed up with them almost a decade ago, and I've only received one upgrade to my service with them since then. Right now I'm paying $15/mo for a whopping 500MB of webspace. With Dreamhost, I'll be paying $8/mo for 200GB of space! I have no idea what I will do with all of that space, but it's nice to know it's there!

So there may be some changes over the next few weeks. I'll try to transition in such a way that the-richmonds.net is not down at all, but if it does "go away" for any reason, don't worry! It will be back, on a new host!

In order to register for an account at the-richmonds.net, you will now need to wait for my approval. I just deleted 16 accounts that belonged to spam-bots. In an effort to keep inappropriate material off of our website, new accounts will not be automatically approved. I will approve any legitimate request, but if it appears to be a spam-bot, the request will not be approved. I apologize for the inconvenience, but this is a measure that I have to take to keep the site free of unwanted comment spam.

If you have already signed up for an account on this site but have forgotten your password, you can reset your password here. If you don't remember what email address you used to sign up with, you can contact me and I will be glad to help you regain access.

User accounts are not required to view the-richmonds.net, but you will be unable to post comments without an account.

If you haven't noticed the new background, colors, etc, you may have to do a forced-refresh of our page with your browser (usually Ctrl+F5 if just hitting the "refresh" button does not work).

That is actually our Christmas tree in the background!

Over the weekend, I had some fun with PaintShop and Postnuke. I go too long between website revamps, and I almost have to learn how to do it from scratch each time.

I stumbled across this cool effect when I was looking for the code for a certain type of background for this website. I was really close to implementing the effect when I decided to try viewing the same page with Internet Explorer instead of Firefox. Just what I thought... yeck. Right now, just under half of the people visiting the-richmonds.net are using IE, and I don't want it to come across like that. So, until IE supports the effect, I'll hold off and think of other things that I can do to the site!

Feedback about the site is always welcome, either though the Contact Us page or through commenting on a post! We love to hear from visitors to our site!