Overpass Experiences The Eric Wroolie Blog

My new profile picture

I started out this morning with the realization that I’m not ready to go to China.  A visa for China requires 6 months time remaining on your passport.  Mine is due to expire in a few months.  So, I need to renew my passport, transfer my UK visa to the new passport, and apply for a China visa.  This is going to time-consuming and expensive.

One thing I really needed was some passport photos.  The London U.S. Embassy site puts the fear of God into you about not having the right type of photos:  “Don’t get them from a machine.”  “Make sure they comply with standards.” “Any problems with the photos and your application will be REJECTED!”  So, I decided to use one of the photographers they recommended.

I went to a tiny place at Charing Cross called The ID Photo Shop (http://idphotoshop.co.uk ).  It’s a nice little hard-to-find place in the Charing Cross underground station.  It’s not a chain, but they have a nice informative website. 

The shop is hard to find.  On entering it looks like a sandwich shop—I think the business shares the location with another shop.  I actually walked into the place and asked the sandwich guy to take my picture.  He directed me around the corner to talk to the guy who runs the other id photo place.

It is run by a guy named Samir.  He knew all about the photos I needed for my US Passport and for the Chinese visa application. 

In addition to passport photos, the shop also advertised “professional photos”.  I asked what this was (I’m ever the hayseed sometimes) and he told me that this is what people use to put on CVs and media types use it for press releases etc. 

I have been having a hard time finding a new photo for this blog and other places like Facebook, etc.  It was a big self-indulgence, but I asked if he could make a professional photo for me.  After he took the passport photos (no smile—not even a smirk!), he took about a dozen photos for my professional picture.  He talked me through various poses and let me choose one I like afterwards.  The price for this picture?  Same as the passport photos: £4.95.  It’s much better than anything I could have done on my own and I think about as well as any portrait studio could have done for much more money.

So, here’s the new look as compared to my old pic.  I’m not used to looking at pictures of myself, but I think Samir did a great job.

Old picture (taken by me)	New picture

Yeah.  I’m getting older.

This place is hard to find, but well worth the visit if if you need a “professional” picture.

It was a nice find and I highly recommend it.

Plesk Upgrade messed up Mysql and PHP

My site was down for a little over a day because I upgraded Plesk to version 9 on my VPS.  It caused the PHP and Mysql adaptor to stop working.  The site gave me this error:

Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.

It took me more about an hour Googling this to find out what the issue was.  Plesk modified my php.ini fil while upgrading. 

The guy that helped me the most was Donncha O Caoimh which his blog post on Holy Shmoly: "Cannot load mysql extension. Please check your PHP configuration".  I'm really glad he posted that.  I've never met him, but he really helped me out.

Problem solved in less than an hour.  5 years ago, before the blogging explosion, this problem would have taken me days to resolve (at least!).  Thanks to Donncha.

Some thoughts on Facebook vs Twitter

Facebook reached a tipping point some time last year I’m sure.  That’s when I joined.  I was surprised by how many other had joined too.  When I joined the service, a colleague gave me a hard time.  He thought I was too old for Facebook.  After politely reminding him that I’m only 36, I told him how surprised I was by how many others are on there too. 

These days, not having a FB account is almost like it was to not have an email account in 2001. 

Then there’s Twitter.  Twitter is the popular thing at the moment, but I know very few people who actually use it.  It’s tipping point hasn’t been reached yet.  Celebrities use it.  There is no better way for a B-List celebrity to move up the ranks than to adopt the new technology.  Politicians use it.  Average ordinary people use it, too.  Just not many that I know.

I personally prefer Twitter. 

Facebook is nice in that it has so many people subscribed.  It’s nice that your friends have to be confirmed before they see your special little area.  But it’s also cluttered.  There’s a lot of talk about how Facebook as adopted a Twitter-like interface, but it is still filled with loads of clutter. Here’s the kind of things that bug me about it:

1.  Every other status update is “John Smith has taken the Blah blah quiz and found that he is a blah blah person”.  You voluntarily took a quiz?

2.  "So and so threw a snowball at you.  Do you want to throw one back?” or “So and so smiled at you.  Smile back?”  What does that mean?  Does it mean “I acknowledge that I know you, but I have nothing to say to you”?

3.   So many alerts and notices.  Alerts say things like “Someone voted for you as a nice person.  Go here to find out who.”  I get three of these a day.  I think I’m being spammed.

I suppose it isn’t all that bad.  I’ve been able to re-establish contact with people who I haven’t seen in years.  It’s nice to see what people are up to and where they’ve gone in life.  I’ve re-established contact with people I knew in High School and in the Army.   I know what my not-so-immediate family are doing and don’t have to wait for a reunion to see what they are up to.  I also get to see what kind of Doctor Who they would be because of a quiz they took.

Twitter is more self-obsessed really.  It says “If you want to follow me, then follow me—but I’m posting it anyway.”

I had installed a Facebook application which updates Facebook status with Twitter updates.  I had it for about a day before I turned it off.  It was just not right.  I might tweet something which I don’t want that group to see.  Posting 8-10 updates a day on Twitter is normal.  Updating your status 8-10 times a day on Facebook is just weird.

Twitter as a fad is definitely fading a bit.  People aren’t updating it like crazy anymore.  Some people will stick with it, I’m sure.  I probably will.  I like the open API and there is something to be said for expressing a thought where others could see it and getting it off your mind.  I like that any time I have some downtime (like standing in line), I can take out my iPhone and read the latest tweets by the people I follow.  I myself have something like 7 Twitter followers (as popular as ever).  I know they don’t hang on my every word.  I’m fine with that.

I’ll keep Facebook open.  I’ll update status from time to time.  But, I prefer the blog and I prefer Twitter.

Facebook-Wordpress Sync

I'm attempting to use a Wordpress plugin called WordBook to automatically send my blog posts to Facebook.

The URL is here.

This post is just an attempt to see if it works.

Manga Me

I learned of a site which allows you to create Manga avatars of yourself from Dan Pink's site.  The site is called FaceYourManga.

Dan Pink wrote his last book, the Adventures Of Johnny Bunko, entirely in Manga.  It was a very good book and very ejoyable.

Here is my Manga.  I had help from my son who pointed out that (1) I always wear a baseball cap when I'm home, (2) my beard is not the same colour as my hair, and (3) I'm always sitting down.

Late comer to Facebook

A few months ago, I started to realise that everyone I know has a Facebook account.  These weren't just kids-- well, some are twenty-somethings, but people may age and older have them too.  I have this site, so why would I want to maintain a Facebook page too?

But I set up an account to see what it was like.  I prefer the blog site better.

A few days ago a friend from high school contacted me when she found my empty Facebook page.  I hadn't talked to her since High School-- she asked if I was still in the Army.  We caught up on how our lives had progressed in the last 15 years and I spent the most of the day thinking about my time at Central High School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

So, I'm trying to customise my wall and am enjoying doing it.  It's eating some of my early morning time, now.  Since baseball ended (for the Padres), I had been spending most of my time coding Silverlight to pick up some of those skills.  I'll go back to that soon.

Now, I'm going to see how to integrate this blog site into my Facebook page.  There are several Wordpress plugins out there . . .

Coverted to Wordpress

If you have an rss feed. To this site or found it through a broken google link, you will find that many of the links have changed. Sorry about that,

I've just migrated all of my content from dasBlog back to Wordpress. The primary reason for this is so I can play wit the worldpress app on the iPhone. My old method of mobile blogging with my old phone on WM5 was not very reliable.

Now I can upload picture straight from my phone.

Diggnation in London, Cont’d

Last night at the Diggnation taping, someone asked if they could take my picture (well, a lot of people's pictures) because I was wearing a Digg shirt. Someone posted my picture Flickr. Here was me sitting in the audience of 1,000 people.

Unlike the picture on the left-hand side of this site, you can see I started growing my hair longer and sporting a beard.

I'm still excited about the great event last night and am really glad I attended.

You can see the rest of the photos on the Flickr site here.