HarpShot - A Webmaster Who Blows

We had a little parade in Lawrence a couple weeks ago. It consisted of a police car, a fire truck, some of the band, some of the cheerleaders, and a few convertibles carrying the chancellor, the basketball coach, and the basketball team. Nothing visually spectacular, but I have never seen so many people crammed into downtown. The parade ran from 7th Street to 19th Street. Originally, it was just going to 11th Street, but they decided there’d be too many people to cram into five blocks. I think they were wrong. There were too many to cram into 12 blocks! It took about five minutes for the parade to pass by us; it took about an hour to get out of downtown. I think the entire population of Lawrence was there!

I uploaded pictures Becky took at the stadium on Tuesday after the game, plus pictures from today’s parade, to HarpShot’s Photos at Flickr. I also uploaded a video to HarpShot’s Videos at Google. Unfortunately, when Becky got to the stadium Tuesday, it was so full she ended up in the nosebleed section and, in any event, it’s hard for her to see over people’s heads. At the parade, it was hard to see much if you weren’t standing in front of the throng, which we weren’t. Nevertheless, it was all fun! I should mention that the Lawrence Journal-World’s parade photo gallery is much better than mine.

So while watching the NCAA Championship game HarpShot’s amigo Bandolero upgraded his WordPress Blog to version 2.5. What a weird thing for El Bandolero to be doing. But, if not, Bandolero would be jumping out of his boots and holsters from the excitement and anxiety. In fact, game not over yet; it’s in overtime. Will Jayhawks pull it out? El Bandolero says: Rock Chalk! And HarpShot seconds that.

In the Chappells Blog I recently wrote about Knoppix on a stick, and mentioned winPenPack where you can get a whole collection of portable apps installable on a USB stick, a/k/a flash drive. In the Knoppix article I wrote about having/escaping the Linux wireless connection conundrum. The evening I wrote the article, it connected with ease. The following evening, however, I just couldn’t find the right sequence of clicks to get a wireless connection.

Being frustrated with the inability to get Linux connected to the internet, I went back to Windows and went to one of my favorite hangouts — the Sourceforge site. Sourceforge is essentially the home of the Open Source Community. It’s more than just a place to get free programs. It’s a place infused with the energy and mindset that made the internet what it should be. A person could write a lot more about that, but I’ll save it for another time.

While perusing Sourceforge I came across the Portable Apps Project, also to be found at its own Portable Apps Website. I think Portable Apps might even be better than winPenPack. I downloaded the standard suite and installed it all on one USB stick, and then downloaded a bunch more portable apps to add to it. Having already done a couple of installations of winPenPack and, therefore, being already familiar with how much can packed onto one little USB stick, I was nevertheless again amazed at all the stuff I put on it, and how much space is still left. I was hard pressed to think of anything more to add, that I might conceivably want to have on it. Yet, a visit to the PortableApps website just now revealed several new additions to the list of available apps, particularly, several new games.

Like winPenPack and Knoppix, PortableApps is all free stuff. BTW, I’m back on Knoppix/Linux this evening, while also watching a little March Madness, though I’ll likely be paying more attention to the TV and less attention to the monitor tomorrow, when KU will be playing. Rock Chalk!

The lack of articles on this blog has prompted many people to ask, “Does HarpShot really exist?” The answer to this question: “Yes, fer shur!”

HarpShot, however, has many fingers in many pies, and no two fingers in the same pie. Sometimes, in fact, one finger is in more than one pie.

“Wait!” you might retort. “How is that possible?”

Well, for one thing, HarpShot doesn’t mess with torts, nor retorts. Additionally, every finger is not only ambidextrous but multidextrous; and some are double-jointed.

This could generate yet more incredulity, regarding which HarpShot could elaborate. But, that wasn’t the point of this article.

The point is: Yes, there is a HarpShot. Beyond that is grist for later articles.

So I spent some time re-doing the “Pages” and now I guess I should take just a little more time to do an article of some sort.

On the other hand, I already kind of did an article because I re-wrote that other article that had all the latin in it. As a result, it feels like I already did an article tonight. I ought to just pack it in, but I still have some “real” work to do and I still feel like procrastinating which means I have to do something web-related. Posting another article here would qualify for that, even though unquestionably nobody in the world is actually going to look at this. <sig>

Now, some people will think <sig> was a typo, or they might expect it to pertain to “signature”, but here’s what it is: “so it goes”. See, it’s almost like <sigh> which everyone understands to mean, well, “sigh”. The phrase “so it goes” is pretty close to a sigh, but it’s more of a resigned sigh. To me, a “sigh” suggests “I wish it were different”, whereas “so it goes” does not connote any hope.

And that’s the way it is…