Morpho Designs

Psst! Wanna Get Away?

Photo by Cubbie_n_Vegas

Like the morons in the highly entertaining Southwest Airlines commercials,
I wanna get away.

For the past few days, I’ve been trying to transfer my blog to a new server.
The error messages finally dwindled down to:

Error establishing a database connection
This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t contact the database server at localhost. This could mean your host’s database server is down.

• Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
• Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
• Are you sure that the database server is running?

If you’re unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host. If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress Support Forums

Searching through WordPress.org, I found a frustrating thread on the Installation Support forum:

Error establishing a database connection

After reading about some poor blogger’s travails, intermixed with hopeful replies,
I noticed a really terse but, essentially correct, comment from Support member DianeV:

Really, if you can’t connect to the database, it’s because you’ve put the wrong information in the wp-config.php file. It doesn’t matter *what* directory you install WordPress in; wrong information is wrong information.
Unless, of course, your tech support didn’t set up the database until after you talked to them. It could happen.

She’s right, folks. Gremlins, power surges, malevolent viruses need not apply.
It took me three days and countless scrutinizing of my wp-config.php file to realize that my user name didn’t match the one I created for the database.

Ain’t dat a blip?

Ding! You are now free to move about the blog.

Posted in High Tech | 6 Comments »

St. Valentine’s Day Mascara

Photo by RBerteig

Ode to a Cornish Hen

Stalking Iris, on my way to St. Ives

Alas, alack! Apparently I am smitten, -

Hiding plainly, in the road lie seven knives.

A trip, a fall, all parts of me are bitten.

Red blood runs free: each blade takes seven hacks.

The puncture wounds cause me to swoon and yet,

My life is spared, saved by a cryptic hen.

From deep within her seven sacks,

The snow white bird retrieves a motley set:

A black kohl pencil plus a styptic pen.

Oh, for a dose of vicodin! O nurse!

With all thoughts of Iris long forgotten,

Euphoria, my new St. Ives perverse,

Take me away to the land of cotton.

Crystallize my swirling perturbations,

Pluck my nervous cord and softly sweetly strum

The cockles of my heart.

Clarify the dripping condensations

As from the mortal coil they come.

When we have done, at last let us depart.

Done at last with narcotic interludes

Foul flights so foreign to my feathered friend!

The diving swoops, the climbs and altitudes:

Reckless endangerment around the bend.

Where perspective embarks on holiday,

Supplanted by paranoid delusions.

Hallucinations hold hostage all thought

And Reason runs away.

Where goodness and light are mere illusions

But where bliss can be borrowed or bought.

No longer shackled by such altered states

I can see you for the blessing you bring.

And through the window I glimpse our true fates -

Certainly, you were not sent here to sing.

Aside from your life-saving measures,

Despite your ministrations and lovin’

What’s destiny if nobody heeds it?

So, get dressed for one of life’s great pleasures:

You’ll be roasted for lunch in the oven.

What’s love but to bite the hen that feeds it?

Posted in Fiction | 5 Comments »

Grave Error

Photo by ikon vodka

Shortly after the New Year, Pinhole, the man with the golden pen, Revived an Old Challenge: write something based on a required opening sentence.

He brilliantly rose to the challenge.

Then he threw down the gauntlet.

Being a bit short of baby gaunts, I gingerly picked it up, brushed it off and nurtured it back to health.

Sköl!

She couldn’t place the accent; it was thick, yet, undefined.

Tasting the noxious brew again, Tilde Tittle decided the tonic had all the flavor of an undercooked umlaut and realized that she could never present such an inferior libation to her cavillous husband, Mark.

Perhaps the shaken concoction of raspberry vodka, Sprite soda and DeKupyer Razzmatazz liqueur was too ambitious.

Even though she was wearing acute négligée, she was certain that Mark would see through her façade and complain bitterly.

Yet, Tilde was tired and she figured she would just take her chances.

She carried the drink from the wet bar, sashaying seductively across the shag carpet.

As Tilde approached her husband, he nailed her with a baleful glare askance (imagine, if you will, a sidelong glance with one questioning eyebrow arched like a hairy circumflex.)

Taking one sip from the proffered martini glass, Mark’s expression changed to shock.

With all the subtlety of a linguolabial trill, Mark forcefully spewed the liquid from his lips.

As the hazy red alcoholic mist hung in the charged atmosphere between them, Mister Tittle flew into a tizzy:

“What is the matter with you, woman? How dare you use me for your grand delusional mixological experimentation!

“Is it not enough that you got tossed out of bartending school after failing the professional server certification test for the third time?

“Where did you ever get the idea that you could possibly improve on the venerable martini?

“Any fool knows that the only true martini consists of gin and vermouth!”

“Why, I just ought to . . .”

At the height of this apoplectic articulation, he experienced a bout of spiritus asper and suffered a sustained voiced palatal implosive.

Thus deprived of oxygen, he collapsed onto the carpet and expired.

Tilde blinked.

Leaning over his recumbent form, she whispered, “I always knew you would die a critic, Mark.”

Posted in Fiction | 12 Comments »

Cat Killers

Animated GIF by joeltelling

Curiosity Killed the Cat . . .

What if you clicked on links without care?

Eventually, you’ll click on a semi-relevant link that will make you forget what you are supposed to be doing.

It’s not exactly mindless surfing, as you had set out to accomplish a task online.

As you digress farther afield, both time and purpose seem to flee.

Before you know it, another day has slipped away.

Let me share these examples of veni vidi ergo tempus fugit:

I was looking for public domain ebooks for a top-secret personal project.

My quest took me to Project Gutenberg

After finding what I needed, I should have returned to the regularly scheduled php program.

But, noooo. I had to “verify” that my rare find was indeed public domain.

So I clicked the link to the Main Page and scrolled down to the sitemap.

HA-HA! Here’s the goods:

Gutenberg: No Cost or Freedom? what does free ebook mean?

Clicking this link yielded some dry, but useful information about free.

Half-way down this page, I saw an interesting link to click:

Here are some real world examples of what people did with Project Gutenberg ebooks.

And this, finally, led to the cat-killing What you cannot do.

Nice sculptures, eh?

. . .Satisfaction Brought it Back

The one good thing about hitting the cyber wall is that you get your senses knocked back into you.

After staring at the incongruous image of a desecrated tome, I blinked a couple of times and went back to work.

Hairball Agonies and Horrible Acronyms

This second example is more insidious. Random clicking and daydreaming lead to moments of unbridled stream-of-consciousness.

If you’re like me, you see messages in tea leaves and blog posts in every Google page.

I was searching for a WordPress editor replacement and noticed many references to TinyMCE.
I wondered, idly, how many people pronounce it like I do, “Tiny Mice”.
So, I Googled “tiny mice” +editor. Clever, eh?
Look what came back!

Oh, hell naw!

All thoughts of research forgotten, I proceeded to create this post.

For the sensibilities of my readers, I had to get to the bottom of this.

And I did.

Frederico Caldeira Knabben is the author of the FCKeditor, an open source text editor for the Internet.

Alriighty, then.

Posted in Musings | No Comments »

Sunday Comics Jan 20, 2008

Photo by makelessnoise
Football and the Sunday Comics, ahhhh…
I don’t know if this will be a regular feature here, but I just have to share this one with you.
(Thanks StumbleUpon!)

Project: Start to Finish?

Project Life Cycle

Posted in Best of the Web, Musings | No Comments »

Saturday Story, January 2008 Edition

This month’s Saturday Story is titled “Secret Shocker“.
Intruder Alert! Homeowner and burglar both get a nasty surprise in this futuristic monologue.
It originally appeared in a contest on Fanstory.com.
Rated V for Violence. If your stomach churns easily, skip this one.

Posted in Fiction | No Comments »

Mastermind: The Private Partners

Photo by d ‘n’ c

If you ever read Consumer Reports, you may remember their reader-rated movie guide.
Because of the subjectivity of cinema, Consumer Reports couldn’t very well put a batch of DVDs in a blender and analyze the slurry for quality.
The readers’ recommendations served as the social proof that drives so many consumer purchasing decisions.

Today, we can immerse ourselves up to our necks in social proof.
With so many sub-webs, cyber-cabals and authority sites from which to choose, how can you possibly decide what to buy, how to dress or what to do with your blog?
To me, this opinion overload is similar to having five years’ of Consumer Reports readers’ recommendations dropped into your lap.

Instead, your own private mastermind partners can give you all the reassurance that you need.
In this context, mastermind takes its original definition: a person who supplies the directing or creative intelligence for a project. So, you’ll be relying on expert advice from trusted sources.
By private, I mean just that. Only you need to know which authorities you’re going to heed.
Besides, why reveal your sources to your clients and competitors?

Here are some suggestions:

• Keep it simple. Use a feed reader for blogs. Use old-fashioned bookmarks for old-fashioned websites.
• Resist the urge to have too many authorities. You’ll become overloaded, again.
• Don’t hesitate to “retire” an authority whose advice becomes irrelevant to you.
• Silently reward your partners whenever you can. Buy their stuff, link to their posts, give silent thanks for their expertise.

Your private mastermind partners have already done the hard work, so why not tap into their brain dumps and benefit?

Posted in Tips, Musings | 2 Comments »

Deprogramming the Difficult

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”- Henry Ford

Photo by qqlauraqq

Henry the First

From an early age, many of us are programmed to believe that certain things are hard to accomplish.
Whether it is mastery of a musical instrument, penning poetry or shooting jump shots, we have been told that we lack the natural talent for such endeavors.
We have been admonished to set realistic goals.
We have been brainwashed into the cult of unfulfillment.

It’s time to deprogram our minds, extract our thinking from the mantra of the mediocre, revoke our membership in the difficult and take steps toward excellence in whatever we desire.

It’s that simple.

When we simplify our lives, we make room for the things that matter the most to us.

Henry the Second

Each of us has to find our own way on the path toward excellence.

Mileposts mark the shedding of complex layers.

For me, simplifying my vrtual world clears the way for so many other needed improvements.

Whether it’s pruning the depth of tree-views by eliminating subfolders, or unsubscribing from most notifications, simplifying my computer interactions means more time to focus on clients, blogging and reading.

Declining to write a series of Simplification Posts frees my readers from having to slog through excruciating minutiae that seem more like reference manuals than inspiration.

Choosing to focus on my passion - game design - frees my mind from opportunistic tendencies.

What areas of your life will you simplify next?

Share your mileposts with us.

Posted in Law of Attraction, Musings | 2 Comments »

Merriment with Memes

Lest you doubt the manifest powers of the Law of Attraction, let it be known that my Gratitude Token is a lion figurine*.

I intend to acknowledge LOA whenever the Universe displays a Serendipity of Synchronicity in my life.

You see, I just received the prestigious ROAR Award.

This literary laurel, which traces it roots to The Shameless Lions Writing Circle, is conferred upon writers who roar with words.

While I’m usually at war with words, it is gratifying and humbling to be considered noteworthy.

Thank you, Sharon Hurley Hall, for according me this accolade.

The ROAR Award is not to be placed on a pedestal, but shared among other noteworthy writers.

Five to be exact.

Not only that, each recipient is to make an acceptance speech, in the form of three writing tips.

With a nod to Pinhole for his literal interpretation of the rules, I’ll simply play it straight.

1. Be Inspired
2. Write Like Nobody’s Watching
3. Use a Thesaurus

Be Inspired

You know when the moment hits.

Your mind sizzles a little and your heart palpitates.

That is the feeling of inspiration smacking, nudging, whispering.

Desperately demanding attention. Your muse, personified.

Heed it and some of your best stuff will literally flow from the keyboard.

Write Like Nobody’s Watching

Joe Vitale talks about this in his book, Hypnotic Writing.

Expunge the little editor in your head and let the words flow.

I’m sure he won’t mind if I share one of his techniques:

turn off the monitor and type at the speed of thought.

Don’t worry about the typos or the SPAG (spelling and grammar).

I have fun when I do this!

Use a Thesaurus

If you find yourself at a loss for words, either you skipped tip #2 or you’re in the vicious vise of the revisionist.

In your quest for the triumphant turn of phrase, turn to the Thesaurus.

Using off-beat words pads your prose with piquancy.

Go find that little editor you evicted and put her to work.

All that flowing has to be polished, somehow.

Pay it Forward

It turns out that my previous post, Hot Buttered Blogs, has a great group of nominees for the ROAR Award.

Indeed, Jen and Pinhole already have collected their ROARs.

So, I’ll add Terry and Skellie to my nominations:

• Terry Snipes - Best Portrayal of Dear Abby Online
  (Trew Life Advice)

• Skellie - Best Exemplar of Value Packed Content
  (Best of Skelliewag 2007)

• Caroline Middlebrook - Most Promising New Technical Writer
  (Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress)

• Stone Aielli- Deepest Thinker
  (Hold that Thought and Feeling)

• Bobby Revell - Most Graphic Artist
  (Lick Your Fingers Clean)

If you already have a ROAR, please accept this reROAR with my deepest appreciation for your talents!

*The lion figurine came from a box of Red Rose Teabags.

Posted in Law of Attraction, Best of the Web, Networking, Websites | 3 Comments »

Hot Buttered Blogs

Photo by Hey Paul

To all my family, friends, readers and drive-by lurkers:

Blogging Rocks.

It is our moral duty to spread the word of great writers.

It is our morsel duty to spread butter on great bread.

I will try not to mix any more metaphors, but the theme is buttered popcorn and you just can’t spread that!

Lest you conclude that my Transparent Wool was an indictment of current blogging practices, let me assure you that I believe in the power of Hot Buttered Blogs.

A Hot Buttered Blog is one that is still tasty even half way down into the bowl (or tub, if you’re at the cinema).

Whether or not the blog is monetized, it is written for readers, not search engines.

There are no artificial flavorings or carcinogenic additives, just the natural goodness of the written word.
Here are some examples.
They are presented in the order in which I thunk ‘em up.

Each is awesome for an entirely different reason.

This is not about ranking the top 17 bloggers on the web.

If you want ranking, check out the rancid butter in your refrigerator!

The World According to Pinhole

Using a deep pen name - in fact, it’s Pinhole, this author has penned some righteous works.

I met Pinhole on WritingUp.com, the erstwhile premier community blogging website.

He views the world the way most of us view eclipses, with our backs turned to them!

(Remember the pinhole-through-the-index-card? No? Never mind . . .)

What I’m saying is, Pinhole is funny in a quirky sort of way. He twists words until they cry.

There appears to be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dance going on in his head.

Sometimes, I think he has a pair of funny brains. To wit:

• Baptism by Fire
• Appeasing the Sports Gods

Enter the solar flare at pinhole.orourkeville.com.

The Blog According to Skelliewag

Who is Skellie and is she a wag?

According to her About Page, she is the author of Skelliewag.org.

She is also a staff writer at Technorati Top 100 blog ProBlogger.net as well as Daily Blog Tips, Freelance Switch, NorthxEast and Daily Bits.

She has written for Copyblogger, Zen Habits and a number of other popular blogs.

From such august beginnings, a wonderfully informative blog springs.

Actually, it was July 26, 2007 and summer was well underway . . . um, or was it winter down under?

No matter. Skellie has shot to the top of the butter churn, with such illuminating articles as:

• Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images
• Avoid Fool’s Gold and Create Value-packed Content

Check out her Best of Skelliewag in 2007!

Ha-ha! I’m following her advice with this post. Check out the awesome picture, above.
And, you’d have to be a fool if you didn’t think I’ve packed some great content in here.

Speaking of advice . . .

The 411 According to Trew Life

I met Terry Snipes when we used to hang out on the now-defunct WritingUp.com.

He wrote some compelling, in-your-face posts on that site and I became an instant fan.

We didn’t keep in touch and I was shocked to find him on another site.

Terry’s rap is smooth as butter and he is funnier than Eddie Murphy (with a mouth to match!)

I love his advice column-style blog. I love his style, period. As his blogline proclaims:

Ask Trew Life: Straight, No Chaser- Expert advice and inspirational resources
The leading source for Advice, Q&A’s, money, online dating, and spirituality from Terry Snipes, Trew Life’s Email questions. Learn how to meet new people, improve your dates, decide when to become more serious, what business to start

When I’m not cracking up over his candid advice, I’m nodding my head as he responds to negativity:

• You Are Misguided

Get this, the man has his own radio show!

Visit Trew Life Advice

The Home and Garden According to Domestika

Someday, we’ll all have coffee table computers *.

When I get mine, I have the perfect coffee-table blog to display on it!

Jen is a good friend. I met her on WritingUp.com, too. (See why I love blogging?)

She adds the honey to the Hot Buttered Blog.

No, really. She is a beekeeper, which is almost like being a bookkeeper, as you can get stung, either way.

Anyhoo, her blog is bursting with easy flowing prose, covering fascinating ground and uncharted territory:

• I’ve learned to make a chair from a tree without using lumber mills.

  Grow Your Own Furniture

• I’ve peeked at whimsical creatures beneath bell jars.

  Design DNA: The Antidote

• We’ve even had a brief conversation about squashing muffins.

  Gorgeous Squash Muffins

I hope you’ll spend some quality time with these fine writers.

And go easy on the salt.

Happy New Year!

*Microsoft: Spilling Drinks on the Surface

Posted in Best of the Web, Websites | 7 Comments »