I'm closing out the week of females not with a song, but with an artist. I'm not sure what it is about Billie Holiday, but her voice takes hold of me and holds me like a gentle lover. Before I discovered her recordings by accident, I had heard of her but never listened to her music. On a whim I picked up an unknown Jazz compilation of various artists, and she happened to be on it. The compilation itself was fantastic, and but she made it even greater. So, make a fire, open a bottle of wine, and let the voice of Billie Holiday soothe you as you head gently into the night.

: Permalink

Published: (2005-06-17 16:10:41.0)

gconf has posted an article on how to add trackbacks to your blog. So, what in the world is a trackback? Here's a quote from Movable Type's Beginner's Guide to Trackback:

In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, "This is something you may be interested in." To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.

And why would person B be interested in what person A has to say?

• Person A has written a post on his own weblog that comments on a post in Person B's weblog. This is a form of remote comments--rather than posting the comment directly on Person B's weblog, Person A posts it on his own weblog, then sends a TrackBack ping to notify Person B.
• Person A has written a post on a topic that a group of people are interested in. This is a form of content aggregation--by sending a TrackBack ping to a central server, visitors can read all posts about that topic. For example, imagine a site which collects weblog posts about Justin Timberlake. Anyone interested in reading about JT could look at this site to keep updated on what other webloggers were saying about his new album, a photo shoot in a magazine, etc.

Alright, so lets give it a whirl. Following gconf's instructions:

• New blog entry (which would be this one) ... check!
• Find a long textbox titled "Trackback" ... check!
• Copy trackback url into the textbox on the edit entry page and click the "Send Trackback" button ... check! To see this action, take a look at the screenshot. The Trackback box is at the bottom highlighted in yellow.
• After pressing the "Send Trackback" button, you should see a green status box. (screenshot)

Now if you go look at the comments on gconf's post, you'll see that this entry had been added there and prefixed with [Trackback].

: Permalink

Published: (2005-06-17 09:18:42.0)

Near sunset, I noticed strange light filtering through the house. I was puzzled, because it had been raining, and well, there shouldn't be any light. Intrigued I headed outside was immediately awed, the light was fantastic. The clouds had broken and the mother nature was putting on a light show. I ran inside and grabbed my camera. When I came back out, a magnificent rainbow had appeared. "Sweet!" I exclaimed. Then I ran inside and grabbed my daughter who was getting ready for bed. "Rainbow!" I told her as I scooped her up. We headed outside and I pointed up to the sky to show her. The rainbow was beautiful and clear, taking up most of the sky. "Oooohhhh pretty" she said. "I want to touch it" she said as she reached up. "I think it's too far away" she said as she put down her arm. "That's okay, sweetie, you keep trying" I told her smiling. We spent a few moments in silence, enjoying the show. Finally we headed in, and she told the rainbow goodbye. So to mother nature, thank you ma'am, I rather enjoyed that.

Comments [1] : Permalink

Published: (2005-06-17 00:13:44.0)