*-)- welcome aboard *-)-
just me. my current interests and stories for the interwebs.
Meeting in the morning, checked out the new Sababa Kitchen in Del Sur which was VERY fresh! Play date at the park then naps, piano lesson and dinner brought to you by Green Chef! Good meal and all vegetarian and organic today!
I've always wondered why over the years or so that one of my favorite websites started to get bogged down by excessive loading times. Now I know exactly why and no it's not your old iPhone / Android phone model.
Holy crap. It took over 30 seconds. In the end, it fetched over 9.5MB across 263 HTTP requests. That's almost an order of magnitude more data & time than needed for the article itself.
Just to put this in some rough perspective: Assuming I had a 1GB / month data plan, I could visit sites like The Verge about 3 times per day before I hit my cap. If I'm lucky, some or most of this will get cached between requests so it won't be quite that bad. In fact, another report tells me that a primed cache yields 8MB transferred - so maybe 4 visits per day.
Read his entire analysis and tell me what you think. It's mind boggling really.
With the recent security flaw in OpenSSL, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, every major website is alerting you the change your passwords. Just this morning alone, I'm sure that most of you will have to go about and I advise that you do so now, change your Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Tumblr, GoDaddy, Dropbox and Soundcloud passwords just to name a few. Do it now and make sure that no two are alike! Lucky for me, I use AgileBits's 1Password which, by the way, is now multiple platform, so generating that 8-16 or even 24 character password is automatic. If you haven't read the various sites that are listing the vulnerable web services, I suggest your head over to either here, here or the master list and start working!
3 things you can do to protect yourself Wait for an official announcement from any secure website or service that you normally use regarding a security update.
After you've confirmed that the site or service has installed a security update, change your passwords.
For at least the next week, keep an eye on any of your sensitive online accounts (banking, webmail) for suspicious activity.
In the meantime, while websites are installing the latest version of OpenSSL to fix the bug, it would be a good idea to wait for confirmed updates on your favorite websites and services and then change your password, just to be as safe as possible.
I don't usually win anything when I enter various online giveaways but maybe that's about to change! Last night, I threw my name in the hat because I thought, there's really nothing to lose and low and behold, I won! Easy as regram'ming @cityofgentlemen's post showing off the Microtouch Classic ONE Razor and following him (which I have been now for a while), I was notified early last night that I won. The reviews of the Microtouch are mixed on Amazon and it's the one that you see being marketed by Pawn Stars' Rick Harrison.
I'll post a review with my first experience with using a double edge safety razor here as soon as I get the chance to shave with it! Good thing I have my full Art of Shaving Kit to lather me up.
Since our correspondence last night, I told @cityofgentlemen that I've been wanting to post some pictures from time to time of my "looks" / OOTD but I've been hesitating since I'm not that relevant in my opinion. He said just do it so here's the first:
shirt: Gustin Blue-Hunter Gingham
glasses: Warby Parker Roosevelt Striped Chestnut
belt: Gustin Classic Belt
jeans: Gustin Heavy American
shoes: Allen Edmonds McAllister Wingtip Oxfords
and my staples of my Citizen Eco Drive Blue Angels and Tiffany Atlas Bracelt. If you like any of my Gustin clothing and are into raw denim, please use my referral link and get $5 off too!
This is coming to you a tad late, but with Captain upgrade training, traveling back and forth to and from Atlanta then Washington Dulles, back to Atlanta then Dallas, it's been quite hectic. Norah enjoyed her first plane ride to Atlanta and we as parents enjoyed the happiness that comes with traveling with a young mobile child. I know, we know it's shocking that with me being a pilot that we waited so long to take her on a flight but our schedules only lined up recently to which of course they are now out of whack again. This, plus all the exciting happenings at home with our daughter growing up too fast and my wife starting a new job, the tail end of 2013 slid right into 2014 and it's off to a running start!
There are a couple of changes that I'm lining up for elijahnicolas.com to say the least and first and foremost is the styling. (maybe hosting or platform as a whole) I'll have more on that much later but enjoy this family photo and Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Oh yeah I forgot to mention. I'm also starting it off this week with a guest post scheduled for tomorrow morning so check back then! It's going to be a great one! GO CHARGERS!!!
With the Ghost platform recently launched and proving to be a viable medium for easy publishing and a clean writing style, it comes as no surprise that Wordpress finally supports writing in Markdown. For those that are unfamiliar with the style, here's the definitely from creator John Gruber.
Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).
I've been learning how to write in Markdown and have installed awesome plugins for support in my Wordpress site such as Markdown on Save Improved and WP-Footnotes. Of course with this launching, I suppose I can turn these off now but I still have yet to find where to "activate" the setting.
You can find a quick reference guide here.
I've finally found a viable, easy Wordpress plugin for footnotes and activated it here on elijahnicolas.com ((first post with embedded footnotes)). I decided to go with Simon Elvery version instead of Austin Sweeney's only because I could customize it within a "Settings" tab. I like Austin's idea about how his Civil Footnotes makes decisions for you and that you could edit the output easily in the plugin, but I just proved to be a little lazy. They seem to operate in similar fashion and I couldn't be happier. ((for some reason, my social plugin and the new wp-footnote plugin are conflicting in the spacing area beneath the body of my main text in preview mode but not when the post is published. Weird.))
Got my personal site on techmeme.com under Top News / more: yesterday with my Online iPhone 5 Pre-Order Fiasco story! That's always a positive way of looking at how crappy my experience was with Apple's website and AT&T servers.
Two things. 1) I've just been accepted into 2XU's 2012 Ambassador Program and I'm super stoked. I can already feel that it's giving me that extra edge to not only train but to bring it to the next level! If you have the time, check out their awesome clearance section for some great deals of up to 40% off! Just click here.
I've been stuck on my current level of physique weighing between 165-190 lbs for the last two years and I need to manage that. As of this morning, I'm at 186.6 w/ a HIGH BMI of 26.0 / 146 lb Lean mass and 40.6 Fat mass. (all these measurements have been calculated with Withings iPhone App WiScale) I paired it up with a Tanita Irongirl scale because it was on sale at 75% off so until I find the need for the BC1000 or when Withings producers a better scale with more readouts, I'll hold off.
Eating on the road has its challenges and working out at hotels does have its drawbacks. Because of that, I'll be taking it up a notch and actually be documenting it more here on elijahnicolas.com. That's just an intro to number two; my dedication to Crossfit. Check out my buddy Ryan Espiritu's blog. He makes an awesome comparison between "Marathon Ry | Crossfit Ry" and he definitely is a great inspiration.
I let him down last week after he took one for the team partnering with me for the partner WOD and I blew chunks 5-8 minutes into the workout. Way to pull for my slack. SWAG!
Crossfit Ry takes better race pictures than Marathon Ry.
This post won't last long because having pictures of Ryan on my blog aren't my type of thing.
Surprisingly enough, I've been actually getting random hits on elijahnicolas.com but I have been neglecting it completely while concentrating on adellelijah.com. Things such as Facebook Comments for WordPress (also which I just found out will not be updated until a new programmer is found, but hey, it's still a great tool) and Twitter Goodies. Both awesome WordPress plugins that help you, the viewer/user/consumptionist leave comments and retweet and just be an active reader! Good stuff is under way and my schedule, along with LOTS of motivation, will promise...more things to come. I do sound like a broken record but the being a one man married show makes it tough. Loving life always!
Click here or here directly dcrainmaker.com to enter for a free Garmin Forerunner 110 from DCRainmaker! I've been reading his reviews and it was because of him that I bought the Garmin 500 setup w/ the Premium HR monitor and cadence sensor for my 2009 Specialized Roubaix Expert. I'm loving it!
I love free stuff but even more so when I win 'em! Stay tuned at adellelijah.com for a comment giveaway coming up in the next few weeks!
By the way, a friend of mine, Ryan Espiritu, setup a new blog documenting his journey in training for multiple marathons. Awesomely titled "Marathonin', Like Pimpin', Ain't Easy. My Pursuit of (running) Happiness" Check it out here: http://three-fifty-nine-fifty-nine.blogspot.com/
The month of September ended in a whirlwind of vacationing, moving and surviving the slew of mosquito bites that I suffered both from Nicaragua and Atlanta. The last week in September was dedicated to moving, but after a great night of splurging at Taco Mac with some good pilot buddies, my roommate and I still hadn't made a final decision on where we would end up. Eventually being forced to move out of our apartment because the management ended up renting it out to a couple of college girls, we were lucky to be able to negotiate for a "non-upgraded" 2 bedroom, two bath for even cheaper than what we were paying in the same complex! The non-upgraded tag once specifies that it has black appliances rather than white ones, but you can't tell the difference at all anyways. We now have a pool view, and a 1-year lease for $818/mo (that's actually $750 + their fees for water / sewer / garbage, etc). I think we definitely scored as we're also closer to the front of the property making it so much easier to access the huge trashbin, Starbucks across the street, my favorite Cuban restaurant Coco-Loco, as well as Best Buy and the MARTA. I'm happy with the place and I'm just happy that my roommate, Mark Russell and I have a place that we both like a lot. Dealing with Comcast in trying to get the cable line activated was a little bit of a cluster, but apparently, it was disconnected within our apartment!? I guess it would have made sense for them to send out a mechanic guy to our apartment rather than just assuming turning it on from the outside was all they would need to do.
I finally made it back to San Diego by way of ATL-PHX-SAN and the last leg was great. Southwest is always just really friendly, but I have to admit that the two Delta pilots were great company for the 3.8 hrs in the jumpseat. Thanks for the ride guys!
For now, I'm just excited to be back home but there is so much to do when it comes to cleaning up my desk space, taking my bike out for a ride and hanging out with my favorite girl!
In the meantime, check out my new favorite drink at http://elijahnicolas.posterous.com/favorite-new-drink-and-turtwig-on-a-couch-at and the relaunch of the "peak interest" podcast at www.peakinterest.net or via iTunes.
I recently signed up for a posterous site, http://adellelijah.posterous.com, to host both Adelle and I together in one cloud space and in doing so, I actually ended up creating two more different posterous sites, http://adellelisa.posterous.com and http://elijahnicolas.posterous.com so that we can post on an individual basis. Adelle actually didn't like me posting my stuff to "our" site so I decided that we each needed a separate one for self preservation. I'll just admit it already: I am a posting whore.
Over the last few months, I've been using the Thesis Wordpress Theme in order to help with Search Engine Optimization on elijahnicolas.com. I love the simplistic layout of the Thesis Theme so much that I even ended up buying the commercial license to use on Peak Interest (www.whatspyi.com) as well as my fiance's blog (www.adellelisa.com) which she is very hesitant to update but at least it's there. Over the years, I have graduated from the Blogger platform hosting a multitude of different sites, to trying out joomla for a hot second to finally settling down on wordpress as my choice for a content management system. Of course, twitter came around along with friendfeed and now posterous all within the last year or so and I indulged. All the while, I was only looking for that singular reasonable mean to have all my personalities talk to each other and reflect each other's status'. With posterous, I think I may have found the perfect solution!
The basic idea of Web 2.0 was to forge a design template that allowed for an easy GUI interface for those that weren't code savvy. It was to provide a simpler means to update ones' online mediums / personality sites and in doing so, collaborate with others in the virtual arena. That's my personal spin in layman's terms. If you want the "real deal," here's Wikipedia's here.
Posterous has done just that. They simplified the entire process. They have taken out the horrific means of uploading to an FTP site or Content Management System and instead substituted it with the easy medium we use everyday: e-mailing. You can "attach photos, videos, MP3s and files" to your e-mails, send it off to space and boom...it's that simple! You could always do that on Blogger.com with text and photos and use a not so great plug-in with WordPress, but with one touch, I can upload a picture with a small post to my posterous account directly from my email address, it detects where I want it to go and publishes instantly without a hitch not only to posterous, but to anywhere else that I'm connected to be it my facebook, blogger, wordpress or even twitter account.
I was thinking of having it update my actual wordpress blog, but that's when things started to come together in my head. I finally drew somewhat distinct lines. I have come to the definite conclusion that my posterous and mobile blog are one in the same. That's almost a no brainer, with a slight difference that the blogger site has a black background and posterous has a white one. Posterous and my trelijah mobile blog are just quick snippets of my life. Twitpic and twitter are just even quicker moments that I deem "3rd class" per say. Of course the hierarchy of it all would be a long post, such as this one, on elijahnicolas.com, a picture accompanied by a posterous moment then a tweet.
It is however convenient to have one place to update every personality, but duplication starts to become rampant and I don't want that to happen. For now, I guess I'll keep trelijah going along with elijahnicolas.posterous.com and maybe with time, just end trelijah. But as I always keep on saying, you can always count on me for some type of update. That's enough.
p.s. I had to edit the template of trelijah to fit the new format of pictures. I like them in the full form. Nice stuff!