A Holy Mess
Chronicles of a growing Christian, a humbled husband, a loving father, an obsessive hobbyist, and die-hard do-it-yourselfer.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Paywhirl Tips
Basically, they write the APIs for you so you don't need to have that skill in order to do subscriptions through Stripe (for example). They seem to be the only ones out there who make subscription billing available to the average Joe building a site through Squarespace or Weebly.
I am going periodically update this post with stuff I have learned.
The first things that I have discovered (and that I do not see advertised anywhere) is that you can add HTML to the features of any widget item. Because their widgets are pretty rigid, this added freedom allows you to accentuate certain things and can help provide a lot of clarity.
Notice the widget on this page. The features include bolding of text, as well as hyperlinks. Note, for hyperlinks you will want to add a "target="_blank" or else it will open up within the frame that the widget is in.
Monday, February 27, 2017
HTPC Build
Background: I have an 8 year old Dell that I added a Radeon HD 3600 graphics card, and a Bluray burner to back when I bought it. It has always been hooked up to an Insignia 1080p LCD television bought at Best Buy circa 2008. DVI output converted to HDMI for the TV. I never understood it, but it always defaulted to 59 Hz and that made the picture small on the TC (1 inch black borders all around). Changing it to 60 Hz gave me a perfect 1:1 pixel display.
It looked great for many years. I had consistent problems over the years with Corel's WinDVD 11. Problem after problem. I eventually quit even trying to play Blurays and I just ripped them with Make MKV. Then the MKV files quit playing. I had promised the kids we would watch the Hobbit and I was desperate, so I plunked down $50 for PowerDVD. It kind of worked but was super blotchy. Tax returns came and I decided to upgrade.
Goal: I just want another media PC that I can watch blurays on, and eventually connect to a 4k TV. I am not gamer, so I don't need much, I just want to be able to surf the web in 4k. The goal then is to enable 4k on a budget. Using integrated graphics is where I try to save my money. The new Kaby Lake processors have HDCP 2.2 capabilities and can handle 4k.
New Build:MB: GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 (one of few motherboards I found that supports HDMI 2.0)
Processor: Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)
SSD: Samsung: MZ-75E250B/AMRAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz (PC4-25600) C16 Memory Kit - Black
Issues:
1. Put it all together. Will not boot. Thankfully, the error code on the motherboard (62) led me to the right forums where I learned that my old BIOS can't handle my brand new processor. Simple. Flash the BIOS, except you need a processor for that. Micro Center took care of that for me--flashed my BIOS for $30. Money well spent. Now it boots! Installed Windows 10. Basic functionality successful.
2. Overscan. The bane of so many people's HTPCs. The image spills far beyond the edges of the TV. There is a scaling option in the Intel control panel, that in essence solves the problem, but everything looks blurry. a 1 pixel line looks a bit blurred, and text is kind of fuzzy too. It makes sense, because the comp is sending a less than 1920x1080 picture and the TV is then scaling it up to 1920x1080. But I swear my OLD computer looked better. So I hook it back up. Things look great. I put that old graphics card in my new computer. Also looks great. (I tried playing a bluray while the old GPU was in there. Failed miserably. It was the problem with blurays. Blue rays play great with integrated graphics) What's the difference. Much searching leads me to an answer I am confident in. My TV (Insignia circa 2008) recognizes my old computer signal as DVI despite it coming through the HDMI input. It announces DVI on the screen when it is plugged in. The firmware on the TV, recognizing DVI as a computer signal does NOT overscan. Hence it works with the old comp. The new build is HDMI - HDMI and my old TV does not allow me to turn off overscan (even through the factory menu (input 2 5 8 0)). I imagine a dedicated graphics card may be able to handle this better. I ended up just buying a $250 Scepter 4k tv on Walmart.com. Research says that I will probably be satisfied. I shall post a review...
3. My ripped blurays (mkv) still don't play. HD tune reveals my HDD (moved from old comp to new) has a read speed of 1 MB/sec. Bummer. I don't remember how old it is, but was used very little and always as a secondary drive.
Future: I will post reviews once I have the 4k TV setup. There was a lack of resources for me looking to build a non-gamine 4k setup. Hopefully this will all work well and someone will benefit from this first blog post in like 8 years.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Apart from Jesus Christ, there is no hope for mankind.
Thor celebrated his second birthday today. The whole ordeal reminded me how great of a mother Stephanie is. Time sure does fly.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
My Succeeding diet
Anyway, I thought this might encourage some of you. Peace.
P.S. Do you know why I am blogging again? It is because I have a million other things to do.
Monday, February 1, 2010
As I go off to school.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wounded
About this time, and before I was aware of what had happened, Stephanie looked at the knife and this is what she saw.
There is no dollar bill in this picture to give you a sense of scale, but from the tip of the knife to where the blood stops is two inches. I used a tape measure. Suddenly, Stephanie was quite concerned. She quickly came to examine me. I must say, as a medical professional, I was not too impressed. I was as calm as a cucumber, but she could hardly looking at the wound. It was two inches deep, and only about an inch long. I have concluded that the only reason it did not go further is that it dead-ended into my pelvic bone. After consulting everyone, we figured I best go to the emergency room. Stephanie and I took off while Bobby and Charles stayed back for Thor.
It was while driving that I realized how lucky I am. If it had been two inches lower, we would be stopping at two children, and if it was 2 inches higher, I would have been urinating in a bag for the rest of my life (apparently they can't fix ruptured bladders). Praise the Lord for letting me get away with only a minor flesh wound!
We went to Mount Carmel East and had a great experience. The wait was short, and I enjoyed trying to eavesdrop on the Spanish speakers behind me. The doctor was quick, reassuring, and pleasant. He used a whopping 3 stitches, and I am glad that was it. They hurt. We were remarkably home by 1:40 and I was on time for school today!
So, there it is--my adventure for the week. Thanks for reading and pray that I blog about all the other beautiful things in my life soon.