Plus ça change... Time to check in once more.

This blog needs some attention!  It has been over a year now.  The Blogger service is changing, and the world of social media is evolving drastically.  I've just cancelled my Twitter account, which draws a close to that small chapter in my life.  Elon is now free to drive things into the ground without my help.

I've dumped Instagram and Facebook, also.  The idea is to reclaim as much of my time as I can, free of the morbid stuff on the Internet.   That should allow me to concentrate on more important things.  That, or I can just enjoy a bit of peace as I enter deeper into codger-hood.

This old-fashioned blog is an interesting case. I can write what needs to be written, at whatever length.  Comments are welcome.  It should remain mainly technical with an amateur radio focus, but there will be tangents.

Let's see how it evolves.

SDR Blog and the Way Forward

A nice note from Tobias, DH1TW, got me in touch with his fascinating blog "Contesting & SDR". As luck would have it, he has a nice set of reviews of a forthcoming SDR kit, the FA-SDR-TRX designed by Harald, DL2EWN, and published in 3 issues of the German magazine "Funkamateur", Oct. - Dec., 2009.

The kit is supposed to be coming in March. I can't wait. It may relieve my frustration.

Comparative Blogging

I thought I'd try setting up a blog using the new WordPress facility at the famous Open Source Software facility - SourceForge.net. So far, the format is a little disappointing. What do you think?

Update 8/21/09: I see that the SourceForge.net blog (above) now sports a reasonable (if unimaginative) blueish skin. SF has now provided us with two (count them, two) themes!

New Year's Thoughts

Paraphrasing my favorite bookstore bookmark: Danger, the next year may be odd.

Steve K9ZW has a posting that brings home a good question. Is your on-line data secure? (Also, the post from K9JY.) What if your hosting service melts down? Some folks have been able to migrate their blogs and web sites when that has happened. But if you're like me, using a proprietary service such as blogger.com, you may not have that option.

That's an argument for putting anything of long-term value onto a site using industry standard software - preferably open source. But even open source solutions will fade after a while. You can always go back to bare HTML, saving your own off-line backups. (Even then, what are your choices for archival backups?)

It's something to think about.

Blogger.com vs AA6E

This blog was dead for about 24 hours thanks to obscure issues with how blogger.com deals with "custom" domain names. Or, maybe readers actually prefer seeing a big "Error 404" message instead of the normal drivel?

For better or worse, we're back. Thanks very much to the rapid advice provided through the Blogger rump blog called "The Real Blogger Status".

Field Day at Yale - W1YU

Small, but successful Field Day operation at Yale Field - Yale's historic baseball stadium. More info at the new Club blog: W1YU.blogspot.com.

Photo troubles!

Some photos from earlier postings seem to have vanished. I hope I can sort this out quickly.

Update: Some photos from before 2007 got lost in a server shuffle. I think I've restored them all now. Blogger's photo archive is a lot easier to use than what I had in those old days -- having to put photos on a private server.

So no one reported this...?

one more time

Some text and a photo

This time I sent a plain text message, with an attached photo. That did the trick for the simple case, but I don't expect I can intersperse text and photos.

and photos?

Here's one:

That's what I got when I sent an HTML email with a graphic inline. (but sent as an attachment, I think.) It did not work.

Another test

This yet another test of the blogging system.  This time, we publish to the blog from an e-mail.

Question: Does the HTML get interpreted correctly?  Do links show up the way they should?

Just testing...

Just testing...

This entry comes to you through the "gnome-blog" posting program from my Linux environment. If you can read this, it does work.

I have also tried BloGTK 1.1, which looked even more promising, but it does not seem to give good results with Blogger.com sites, which this one is. It does not treat titles correctly, for example.

Note added: Gnome-blog also appears unable to set an article title. So, maybe it's not going to work out.

Hamlib, reloaded

The Hamlib project has been working on a rig-independent API for software developers that will allow them to connect to a wide variety of ham rigs without worry about their individual interface quirks.

Lately, we have begun discussing how this project can envolve into a "version 2". There is a new blog at hamlib-developer.blogspot.com to support development of Hamlib. If you want to take an active part in the Hamlib project through this blog, please contact me.

The Hamlib project is supported at sourceforge.net/projects/hamlib, which provides a mailing list, CVS, and other amenities.