Proactive Tech Support

12/19/08 – Through the years I’ve gotten used to working with technical support on shared hosting accounts. The process involves submitting a support ticket and hashing out the details through a subsequent string of emails. If you have a good shared host, the support staff will “think along with you” rather than assuming that you have zero understanding of what you’re doing.

With luck, you can usually get your problem or request ironed out with a minimal amount of emails. Other times, trying to communicate via email can be a serious time waster when a simple phone call would clear things up in thirty seconds or less. However, that’s the price you pay with low cost shared web hosting: Limited technical support options help shared hosts keep their costs down.

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The fine folks over at Knoxify have put together a really nice 2009 Knoxville calendar featuring pictures of Knoxville (including one by yours trully). All proceeds will be donated to the Dogwood Arts Festival. [0] #

On December 20th, I posted a picture of the Big Orange Santa on my Flickr photo stream. Beth and I ran into Santa on our way to a UT Men’s Basketball game. He rode the bus with us and shared some holiday cheer with everyone on board. Once inside, we saw Santa down on the court cheering on the players as they ran through the “T” during the pre-game.

Today, I recieved an email from the Big Orange Santa himself. He provided me with a couple of links to his websites that I’m sharing with you today: Big Orange Santa and Knoxville Santa. [0] #

This Mac vs. PC spoof reimagines the classic confrontation with laptops and desktops that transform into deadly robots. [0] #

Among other things, President Bush has sent personal letters to the families of eah of the more than 4000 troops who have died in the two wars during his term. This Washington Times article reports on the behind-the-scenes effort of President Bush and Vice President Cheney to comfort our soldiers privately. (HT: T. Challies) [0] #

Bernadette West spent 18 months in prison. Now she’s out sharing her stories with the Metro Pulse. [0] #

Twitter is a "social blogging" service that lets you stay in touch with friends by posting short, 140 character answers to the question "What are you doing?" Here are some of my recent "Tweets":

  • Just got around to using Jing for creating a screencast today. I'm really liking it. http://www.jingproject.com/ 14 minutes ago
  • I just noticed that now you can set Google Alerts to be delivered via RSS. Perhaps this was added a while back, but it's nice news to me. 34 minutes ago
  • @calebfristoe Perhaps you'll drop by my door with a census packet in 2010? Congrats. 2 hours ago
  • @clarkcm Hmm...I really like it. Much cleaner and I'm able to get to things quicker now. Maybe it will grow on you? 5 hours ago
  • @BluMorningGlory Beth and I split an order of fajitas. They had them out to us 2 mins after we ordered, and they were delicious. 20 hours ago
TwitterCounter for @mwender

Each day, sites I bookmark on del.icio.us automatically get posted to the Links category on my blog. Below is my latest set of links:

I track my runs with the Nike+iPod. Here are my stats:

  • Total runs: 100
  • Total distance: 205.36mi
  • Total time: 30hr 42min 5sec
  • Total calories: 16,338

My Recent Runs

  • November 6, 2008
    • Distance: 2.01mi
    • Duration: 17' 52"
    • Calories: 260
  • November 2, 2008
    • Distance: 2.00mi
    • Duration: 17' 24"
    • Calories: 260
  • October 20, 2008
    • Distance: 3.12mi
    • Duration: 27' 56"
    • Calories: 405
  • October 15, 2008
    • Distance: 2.01mi
    • Duration: 17' 12"
    • Calories: 261
  • October 13, 2008
    • Distance: 2.01mi
    • Duration: 17' 30"
    • Calories: 261

Milestones & Awards

100 Miles
March 31, 2008
51 runs at an average pace of 9.07/mi