Wikipedia to black out; will go dark for 24 hours...

 

Don’t Let It Happen!

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – may look good from far, but is far from good! Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay, AOL and others have all spoken out against the proposed legislation and its threat to the Internet…and now Wikipedia! Please bear with me people, THIS IS IMPORTANT! It has the potential to affect us all and although I'm politically neutral, it is important that we stand up for basic human freedoms and the freedom of expression.

For some time now, I have had the Support Mozilla link in the upper left side of this page.You may not be American, and English may not be your home language; this doesn’t matter! If you use the Internet, this legislation will affect you…Read more here at Time Magazine...

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2104586,00.html#ixzz1jirpzbdZ  

The latest, on-line giant to get involved in the protest against SOPA and PIPA, is Wikipedia. Tomorrow, Wednesday, the 18th; Wikipedia will black out the English language version of its website for twenty-four hours. Many other online communities such as Reddit, Boing Boing and others will be joining the protest.

Although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. The following excerpt is from The Wikipedia Open Letter…

“We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression… Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia… We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it…!”

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

Bookmark with Facebook, share on Twitter, share on Reddit.com, share on Digg.com.

Do what you can to make your voice heard.

With all the social media available, just take a few minutes to put in a word, somewhere, even if you’re not American, in support of a free Internet.  Imagine, for a moment, what life would be like for all of us if we were to lose this remarkable resource…

WordPress…I Slay the Lion…

I can get myself into tricky situations!  There were times over the last eight days or so where I seriously doubted my sanity. I mean, every kid over ten can build their own website – so what was I trying to prove? 

For my purposes and to tell a good story, M and I assigned our own hall-of-fame status to five top website platforms out there, and WP became the lion.

 

King of the Beasts

I wasn’t even sure that my antiquated old PC would survive but it did and this post proves I’m still here. 

And the men in white coats never even appeared in my neighborhood, so looks like the heat’s off. 

Coolest of all? I hand-built my first website, by myself and I’m waaaay over 14 - so take that, all you junior, internet geniuses.

If I can do it, then anyone can! This is a written guide – complete with pictures - that I hoped would help everyone from babies to baby-boomers build a website…assuming they need and want one. 

This new site was built on the WordPress CMS platform. I started with a blank slate – a new domain – and hand-built it through 1 & 1 Hosting, deliberately taking no shortcuts or CMS handouts.

The saga unfolded on our tech site – MozimaxWeb - under the WordPress tag. There were eight entries in all, detailing the necessary steps to build a WordPress.org website from scratch. 

I had something to prove. Our sons have their own web hosting business in the UK. Mom was going to prove baby boomers can do it too. I wrote each entry as I did the steps in sequence. 

It was all included, from registering the domain to setting up a MySQL on the server. Setting up the FTP account was next so that the files could be transferred from my computer to the web host in order for WordPress to access them.

When the FTP account was good to go, I had to download an FTP program to my computer and I chose FileZilla because it’s free. 

Imagine the total bliss when I clicked the “submit” button and the WordPress screen popped up to run the install. But that was nothing – nix, da nada – compared to seeing the next window open – SUCCESS!

The high from that little accomplishment lasted until the following week when I had to start the whole procedure all over again with Drupal. 

But that, my friends, is another story. To see my new beginnings, please go to carimostert.com.

  

Elephants Crossing the Chobe River…

The project I wrote about here is almost ready to be revealed. Along with the completion of this particular venture, exciting possibilities have appeared; prospects that cannot go unheeded and I’ll be sharing more of these new paths before long.

Elephant - Zimbabwe

Sitting here, very close to the southernmost tip of Africa, the elephant doesn’t feature much in our local wildlife scene anymore.  Back in the day (Oh, about 300 years ago) there were many elephants in the Cape.  Human expansion over centuries has almost eliminated elephants here, and today there are only a few known specimens of Cape elephants living near Knysna and Addo in the Eastern Cape.

Elephants Crossing the Chobe River - Botswana

Fortunately, for us and the elephant, there are other parts of Africa more tempting for elephant habitation… here’s a glimpse of what life can be like if you’re an elephant, without pesky humans plowing up the natural bush, paving over the savannah, sticking buildings everywhere and just generally getting in the way.  

Uluguru Mountains - Tanzania

Imagine, having a whole slice of river all to yourself – and your other twenty or so relatives.  Mind you, if I had a choice, I’d pick this lovely pool and these pretty little falls in the Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania… Mmm, and not so much family; at least not to bathe with!  Imagine, after the heat and dust of the plains below, this is waiting...

Anyone for a Swim?

The picture of the Chobe River is too small - I have purposely selected "large" for these photos so that you can click on them to see the elephants (and the scenery) better.

A Whole New Year…

After an unusually full holiday season, the beaches and the roads are emptying as the holidaying multitudes head back to daily routine and into the promise of the New Year. 

Marking one of the highlights of the season; this short hiatus between the old and new; the past year can be weighed by the entries in its diary, lending impetus to change and growth. I so love this time of year with all the reflections on the year just gone and the potential of the year unfolding before me.  I love the new diary in my hands; the blank pages thrill me with anticipation and as I transfer important dates and anniversaries, I find wonderful surprises, accomplishments forgotten in the bustle of the busy year just gone. 

One New Year’s Eve, in Scotland; I think 2008, I was sent a quote (see below) that has impacted on me ever since… The simple thought that potential could exist in my life was a 180 degree shift from where I had been and opened a whole new world of opportunity. Everything, anything became possible and as the reality sank in I was freed from a lifetime of self-contempt and all the damaging emotions that come with being in that place.  I still walk through the rooms, planning improvements, contemplating changes…But now it is with a pleasurable anticipation... 

“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room-by-room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.”

~ Ellen Goodman

An Irish Blessing for the New Year

The auld farmer's New Year's gift...

May the New Year bring…

The warmth of home and hearth to you.

The cheer and goodwill of friends to you,

The hope of a childlike heart to you,

The joy of a thousand angels to you,

The love of the Son and God's peace to you.

Wishing you a blessed and peaceful 2012

The auld farmer's New Year's gift to his auld Mare Maggie by Richard Ansdell - Wikipedia

Merry Christmas...

May your Christmas be wonderful and bright...

                                                                        Merry Christmas Everyone...

What Do Doctors, Mongoose(s) and Weather Have in Common?

This was Wednesday’s update, only it’s a little later than intended. That’s out the window now, having spent the last two days being completely indulgent and lazy. Monday, I had oral surgery (involving stitches) and was back at home just after lunch time…So far, so good. Where this story gets wobbly, is the bit where I have a nap instead of writing.  Tuesday I was back at the Doc so that he could admire his work. M and I did some Christmas shopping and were home in the early afternoon, plenty of time to write, perfect time to have another nap…So I did. As for Wednesday, well I started writing (but didn't finish) ‘cause Wednesday’s weather was a gift and I was mongoose watching too!

Hiding...Until Next Week...

Living in the southern hemisphere gives us Christmas in the middle of summer…Just like the Australians; we have heat and dust instead of snow and cold. By this time last year, our rainy season was over and desert days had replaced the greenery and colour of flower season.  This year we are having a cool and somewhat slow start to the languid, sultry days of high summer. Wednesday was foggy grey and overcast with gentle showers on and off.

Our crazy birds and other wildlife were playing in the birdbath and the mongoose mama and her two babies were all over the veranda.  We have a curtain of heavy-duty, deep-sea fishnet that hangs over the front of the veranda, shielding the house from the worst of the sun. The small mongooses were playing in the folds and scampering up and down like monkeys while mama kept a lookout on the steps.  The babies have been around for the last three months (since very small) and they are almost fully grown but we haven’t seen them for a couple of weeks. We thought that they had grown too big for climbing around and hide n’ seek but the unexpected coolness must have made them playful and they entertained us for ages.  These are the Slender Mongoose (Galerella sanguinea), about fifteen inches long and a twelve-inch tail and they live in the brush and scrub outside the garden.

The picture is from my old-friend, (thank you) Wikipedia; unfortunately our long-suffering camera died a violent death when it leapt from the office table and hurled itself to the ground, damaging the internals as well as cracking the screen. Wouldn’t you know, not three weeks later, we get a wildlife photographers dream…Our house has full length glass doors all around the veranda; the main living area, office and one bedroom each have a glass wall. The Mongoose babies sat on their haunches (like Meerkats) peering into the house, or so we thought, but they probably caught sight of their reflections in the glass doors and were actually staring at themselves. Too delightful! M could have taken dozens of photos but for the dead camera…

I sure hope Santa is reading...