Pictures
- Duane
Leinninger.com
From the field...
For What It's Worth...
January 3rd, 2010:
Gina and I cover a U2 song… download it here.
About a year ago, our church band held a benefit concert for a friend and member of the band. I’ve been working on cleaning up the recording and preparing a CD for church. From the recording, I’ve grabbed a track of Gina and I playing "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" by U2. Feel free to download it and have a listen.
December 16th, 2009:
American Auto Makers, Build A Car That I Want!
What the hell, Ford? (Same goes for you GM and Chrysler…) What do you have against people that know how to drive a car? Seriously! I don’t need auto assist lane change backup sensor stability control heated bum wiping! It’s quite simple: a touring car (sport sedan or coupe) with all-wheel drive, taut suspension, peppy performance and A MANUAL TRANSMISSION!!! I spied a car that I was truly interested in: a Ford Fusion Sport AWD. Ford doesn’t offer a manual transmission on any of the more powerful engine options for the Fusion. Step up to the new Taurus and you get a bloated car with soft suspension and poor fuel economy… still without a real transmission.
GM, what do you have? Crossovers and luxury cars. Chrysler? The same. Sure, there are plenty of rear-wheel drive offerings that I would love to own. However, I live off of a county dirt road and even if I didn’t most of the options cost more than I could justify spending.
I drive a Subaru daily. I love it. The recent economic climate has made me think twice about driving a foreign car. (Though the entire Legacy and Tribeca lines are built right here in the USA at a “green” facility that is officially a protected natural asset.) I can get any Impreza or Legacy with All-Wheel Drive (of course) and a manual transmission, including the potent GT, WRX, and STi variants. I could buy a Mitsubishi Evolution or Lancer. I could even step it up a notch (into the Taurus and LaCrosse price ranges) and get a well-equipped BMW 338xi or Infiniti G series.
It’s not that the “Big 2 1/2” aren’t capable of building a sporty AWD car. They’ve done it in the past and offer several in Europe (Ford Focus RS, anyone?). America just doesn’t want to buy them. For most drivers on the expressway, it’s too much work to check one’s blindspot before changing lanes. Why would they want to have to row through gears as they enter and exit the highway? Come on America! Wake up! Pay attention! Put down that cellphone and cheeseburger and learn to drive! That’s the only way we’re going to get cars worth driving in the showrooms.
- Duane
December 7th, 2009:
Finally! A Link To Kidbits on You Tube!
Somebody has finally posted a link to some video from Kidbits on my nostalgia blog: Brat-Patrol.com. After a few years of searching for Kidbits and Gary Ed Mach, there’s finally a video. Thanks to those who posted the info!
- Duane
November 27th, 2009:
Universal Remote Hack
I found that the most often used buttons on my universal remote (up, down, left, and right directional buttons) were the hardest to press. Every time I tried to use them, I would inadvertently rotate the dial surrounding them, causing the remote to switch functions (from controlling the media center extender to controlling the TV). I came up with a neat little idea to make it a little more usable.
I stuck some of the clear rubber bumpers that you put between a piece of glass and a table top (among other uses) on each of the directional buttons, and another in the center (for the “ok”) button.
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- Remote before adding the bumpers
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- Remote with bumpers in place
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- Backlit remote with mod
- Duane
November 21st, 2009:
First Major Framework Change Since 2000
Well… I’ve finally gone and done it. I’ve been using a homebrewed framework of some sort for my personal site since 1998 (maybe earlier… my memory isn’t that great any more). First, I used SHTML. Then I started dabbling with PHP3. I eventually stepped up to using MySQL and PHP4 then made some minor changes to update to PHP5. Around the time that I moved to PHP4, I began experimenting with framework ideas that I would eventually apply at work and run several enterprise websites on for about 5 years. I’m also finally consolidating my “portal” website (archived here) and blog/personal site into www.leinninger.com, rather than using a non-search-friendly subdomain.
I’ve finally jumped ship for WordPress. Why? I guess I just want to fit in. It seems that the internet loves WordPress and there’s a lot to be said for doing things the same way as a lot of other folks. I don’t spend as much time maintaining my site as a I used to and the tools developed by thousands of folks are more rich and diverse than those I can come up with on my own. I will still do some interesting custom stuff ( like the modified moblog viewer plugin on the homepage), but for now, I’m liking the simplicity and organization of an app designed for blogging. And yes, Brad… I finally have comments.
- Duane
