Ben tells his testimony including his struggle with worldly things & ending up in military school; drugs, pain, addiction, and ultimately his release & hope with Christ and new-found love in youth ministry. Ben is a great example of living what you believe…

I am The Gathering – Ben Hamilton is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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It’s a lot nicer on my photoblog, this link takes you there.

Beautiful Sunset is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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In ancient times, the people of the world didn’t have a lot of the things that we have today and ultimately take for granted. Even though the Bible and our history books have taught us that these ancient people weren’t always happy, they seem to have gotten by just fine. So apparently, the things that the human race has created over time haven’t made us any happier. Sure, these things were made for our conveniences, and some really do help us out, but they haven’t succeeded in elevating our level of true happiness or created any more time for us. And certainly our happiness hasn’t decreased due to lack of things, or even lack of money.

Cause of Unhappiness

Have you ever stopped and wondered what some of the overall causes of our unhappiness are? I think at the root of our overall unhappiness is that we are just not satisfied with what we’ve accomplished. It’s the “Tomorrow Syndrome” of always wanting more or always wanting to achieve that next level has made us unable to enjoy the things that we have now. Not that achieving big things in your life is wrong, it just seems as if we’re never satisfied with it. This leaves us thinking that maybe we are not where we would like to be, spiritually, professionally or in life, or maybe we just don’t have what we thought we would have.

We are also victimized by the “Yesterday Syndrome.” This is evident in those who are always wishing they could change the past; always wishing they could redo something. Like they could somehow live the Butterfly Effect, or have a time machine and change everything bad to good. Those who are trapped by this, I feel, are often those caught up in a midlife or identity crisis trying to relive some of the days of old or to regain their childhood that maybe they didn’t get to live out. You simply cannot live – truly live, like this.

Stepping Up | Changing

Changing the way we think and live is the only way to find happiness in our lives. The only way to do that is to savor all of your todays. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34 Don’t try to predict what tomorrow might bring…no one on this earth knows what tomorrow has in store. “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24 There is absolutely no guarantee of tomorrow so enjoy the things today with all that God has allowed you to have. It’s a gift.

We’ve all heard this cliché, but you have to enjoy the trip as well as look forward to the destination or you’ll end up missing out on what could be a tremendous experience. Take the time to look around, notice the flowers, and take in the aroma of a fresh rain. You may find it newly exhilarating to pause, reflect, marvel at God’s creation and take a deep breath all-the-while reminding yourself that breath itself is spiritual. “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” Genesis 2:7 On the contrary, you’ll find it quite depressing if you wait until tomorrow to realize you had or could have had a good time today.

The world can give you nothing, God gives everything

You also can’t count on the things that are outside your means to try to attain happiness. Many of the things of this world cannot truly make you happy; the kind of real happiness that we all seek. This includes money, clothes, cars, etc… Don’t be afraid to once and for all lay down the proper priorities for your life and for your family, but most importantly, put God at number one and live by them.

Everyone has possibilities, opportunities and talents…that’s part of what being human is about. Therefore do what you can do when you can with what God has given you. This involves being productive at the talents that God gave you, finding your spiritual gifts, accepting them, and helping others with that gift humbly.

Go Get It!

For happiness to affect your life, it’s impossible to run from those problems you’re facing. You have to confront them head on. You have to introduce the elephant in the room. In 2 Corinthians 6:2 the apostle Paul said, “Now is the accepted time”, so if you want happiness, do what’s necessary now to get it. You can’t sit on the sidelines of life in a constant pattern of sitting on the bench waiting to be called to join the team; you must be responsible for your own spiritual & physical well-being right now.

True happiness also comes with companionship. Most people aren’t truly happy without some sort of companionship in their lives; we need others in and around our life to make it fulfilling…family, friends, church, etc… But, that kind of real, fulfilling, enjoyable happiness comes when you find one thing. That one thing is Jesus Christ. He is the key to the Pursuit of Happiness. Once you’ve found this, everything else seems to find new meaning.

Pursuit of Happiness is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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What’s Missing

My photoblog, that is using the amazing Autofocus theme is simply that…a simple photoblog of some of my photos taken from any and everywhere.

I noticed something wasn’t right and I had one gripe about it…on single pages it lacked a bit of class and touch that I think photoblogs should have. Mainly I was looking for a previous/next thumbnail support when it displayed previous and next navigation links under the content. I thought that would be a perfect place to put these little gems.

By default, Autofocus theme puts the navigation to the previous and next posts underneath your content photo. Makes perfect sense, but I figured it’s a friggin photo blog, why not display the previous/next available photo too?

Modifications

So tonight, I played with the Autofocus code a bit and produced what I had wanted.

• Now when you go to an individual image page, you’ll see all the pertinent information about that photo, but underneath where the preview of the previous and next posts are, you’ll see those post’s thumbnail too.
• The image shown is the thumbnail size setting which is 150X150 of the photo.
• The previous post’s image auto floats left while the next post’s image floats to the right.

That’s about it, check it out on my photoblog and please give me some feedback or comment love. Might make that into a little plugin or something.

Screenshot

There, now doesn’t that look better?

Code Snippet

In the spirit of sharing, I’ll just go ahead and list the code snippet I used in the “single.php” in the Autofocus theme folder. Please note, this is just the navigation section below the current post.

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$previouspost = get_previous_post($in_same_cat, $excluded_categories);
 
if ($previouspost != null) {
echo '<div class="nav-previous">';
previous_post_link('%link &laquo; Previous');
echo '<div class="nav-excerpt"><p>';
 
/* Show previous Post's Thumbnail */
$tq_previouspost_img = get_post_meta($previouspost->ID, "image_url", $single = true);
$tq_previouspost_title = get_post($previouspost->ID);
$tq_previouspost_title = $tq_previouspost_title->post_title;
echo '<img class="alignleft size-thumbnail" src="' . $tq_previouspost_img . '" alt="' . $tq_previouspost_title . '" width="150" height="150" />';
/* End previous thumbnail */			
 
previous_post_excerpt();
echo '</p></div></div>';
} 
 
$nextpost = get_next_post($in_same_cat, $excluded_categories);
 
if ($nextpost != null) {
echo '<div class="nav-next">';
next_post_link('Next &raquo; %link');
echo '<div class="nav-excerpt"><p>';
 
/* Show Next Post's Thumbnail */
$tq_nextpost_img = get_post_meta($nextpost->ID, "image_url", $single = true);
$tq_nextpost_title = get_post($nextpost->ID);
$tq_nextpost_title = $tq_nextpost_title->post_title;
echo '<img class="alignright size-thumbnail" src="' . $tq_nextpost_img . '" alt="' . $tq_nextpost_title . '" width="150" height="150" />';
/* End Next thumbnail */			
 
next_post_excerpt();
echo '</p></div></div>';
}

Previous Post / Next Post Image Thumbnails using Autofocus is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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Installing it now is a snap and I had it up and running in less than 5 minutes. Works just as advertised and I whipped out my iPhone to test it out and straightaway, it looked perfect. Nice, clean, simple mobile interface for the blog that users can easily navigate and heck, even comment if they so choose to.

I was a big proponent of MoFuse for a long time, but they just weren’t doing it for me anymore. Sticking ads in my content, not giving me near the customization that this simple plugin does.

So now if you get a tweet about my site being updated or you happen across it using a mobile browser, you should see the magnificent WPTouch in action making your mobile experience on TQuizzle.com much more enjoyable.

WPTouch – Mobile Friendly is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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Apparently, UFC Pres. Dana White felt like Shogun won too. That’s one thing about Dana White, he’ll tell you what he really thinks and you got to love that. When asked about another fight, a controversial call by veteran Ref Steve Mazzagatti, White said he that he “shouldn’t even be allowed to watch MMA, let alone referee it.”

(video after the jump)

At least there’s a Machida / Rua rematch coming…

UFC 104: Shogun Won the Fight is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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Saturday night we saw a phenomenal DJ named Bassnectar. I’d suggest checking him out. Amazing sold-out show he put on at a club called La Zona Rosa in downtown Austin. 3 + hours of non-stop beats and this guy was killin it.

Sunday was just a day to walk S. Congress and do a little shopping. Kinda slow…my kind of day.

All-in-all, the trip to Austin was a blast. I’m ready for some “relaxation” vacation now…

Gallery of ACL Randomness

Austin City Limits – 2009 is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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If you’ve got an XP machine and are not planning on updating it to Windows 7, check out this little gem that turns your ordinary XP taskbar in to the new Windows 7 "pin" look and feel.

ViGlance is freeware that adds this funcitonality. While the footprint is 10MB, its not too bad considering what its doing. It also adds that nifty thumbnail preview of pinned items and replaces that boring old-school start button to a Windows 7 orb.

Check it out.

How to Get the Windows 7 Taskbar in Windows XP is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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So, I have an ESXi 4.0 server here at home that runs a Linux server, a windows 2003 server and other various guest OS flavors. As of ESX 4.0, the client was renamed and updated to vSphere Client instead of vMWare Infrastructure Client. That client piece is the piece that lets you modify your ESX host and all of its virtual machines, datastores, network, etc…

As luck would have it…the client doesn’t work under Windows 7. Blast! You get this error:
Error parsing the server “SERVER IP” “clients.xml” file.

With Google and a little patience, I got it working again – for the first time.

Here’s a little rundown of how to get VMWare’s latest client product to work under Windows 7:

For starters, your system needs a file from Microsoft’s .NET Framework on an earlier system of Windows. I got mine from an XP machine.

1. Obtain a copy of %SystemRoot%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v2.0.50727\\System.dll from a Windows Vista or below that has .NET 3.5 SP1 installed.
2. Create a folder on your Windows 7 machine where the vSphere client is installed and copy the file from step 1 into this folder. For example, create the folder under the vSphere client launcher installation directory (%ProgramFiles%\\VMware\\Infrastructure\\Virtual Infrastructure Client\\Launcher\\Lib+).
3. Now we need to tell the vSphere client that we’re going to run the product in Development mode. So, in the vSphere client launcher directory, open the VpxClient.exe.config file in a text editor and add a <runtime> element and a <developmentMode> element as shown below. Save the file.
   
<configuration>
...
<runtime>
<developmentMode developerInstallation="true"/>
</runtime>
</configuration>

4. Create a batch/cmd file (e.g. *VpxClient.cmd*) in the same location. In this file add a command to set the DEVPATH environment variable to the folder where you copied the System.dll assembly in step 2 and a second command to launch the vSphere client.
   
SET DEVPATH=%ProgramFiles%\\VMware\\Infrastructure\\Virtual Infrastructure Client\\Launcher\\Lib
"%ProgramFiles%\\VMware\\Infrastructure\\Virtual Infrastructure Client\\Launcher\\VpxClient.exe"
5. Replace the shortcuts in the start menu to point to the batch file created in the previous step. Change the shortcut properties to run minimized so that the command window is not shown.
   You can now use the VpxClient.cmd (or the shortcut) to launch the vSphere client in Windows 7.

Note that this workaround bypasses the normal .NET Framework loading mechanism so that assembly versions in the DEVPATH folder are no longer checked.

Big up to Fernando from the VMWare Communities forum for writing this up. I changed a few things form his original post but follow these steps and you’ll vSphering in Windows 7.

vSphere Client in Windows 7 is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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A co-worker of mine shared this little gem, and I thought it was absolutely hilarious. I can just think of the times I’ve been to Wal-Mart recently and thinking that I would’ve Bingo’d easy in a matter of minutes.

Take this with you during your next trip…and yell out “Bingo” when you win. Its not so much that you won or anything…but a fun game that probably leave you in stitches.

Wal-Mart Bingo is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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It’s not easy to stay in touch with friends and family when you’re fighting in a country thousands of miles from home. I spent 13 months in Iraq as an Army journalist where I flew in Black Hawks over Balad and Baghdad working to generate news coverage about my fellow soldiers. The whole experience was physically and emotionally draining, but it was especially difficult when I called home at the end of the day and nobody was there to answer.

For servicemen and women who are constantly on the move, having a single number and an easy way to retrieve messages from loved ones can be invaluable. To help our service members communicate with their loved ones and show our support to those serving our country, Google is launching a new program. Starting today, any active U.S. service member with a .mil email address can sign up for a Google Voice account at www.google.com/militaryinvite and start using the free service within a day.

When you deploy, your life is put on hold. While you live and work in a different world, everyone else moves on with life back home. Your family and friends keep moving, and this sometimes means it’s just not possible for them to stay awake until 2 a.m. to receive a phone call. Calling Iraq or Afghanistan is seldom an option.

Google Voice provides a solution to some of these problems. Service members can set up an account before they deploy. Or if they’re already deployed, families can now set up an account for their service member. Loved ones can call to leave messages throughout the day, and then when that service member visits an Internet trailer, all the messages are right there. It’s like a care package in audio form.

Sergeant Dale Sweetnam, US Army

I’m really glad that Google’s doing this. This could mean the difference between families getting to leave daily voice mails and just simple “hellos” from home and only being able to occasionally get or make a phone call or a letter. This “Google” way, the service men and women have the opportunity to listen to these messages when they get the chance to get online. Whether that’s daily or weekly for them, it’s nice to see a system like this in place and a company like Google championing getting military families in touch a little easier.

Google Doing Right – Military Families Win is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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At work, we’ve already jumped ahead and bought an IBM Blade Center with 10 blades to run this thing, we just haven’t had the knowledge and experience to set things up properly or really know the ins and outs of the systems and how to create them using VMware’s “best practices.” This week has been a complete eye opener for me.

I enjoyed this experience immensely, but of course when you get back to the “real world” its the same old grind. Trying to take what we learned this past week to the production environment is still laced with tons of red tape and political decisions that are out of our control. Basically, we cant exactly do what we learned…we’re doing what they’ll let us do which is a little disheartening.

All that to say, I’m very excited to have this new found knowledge and sometime soon becoming a VCP.

ESX, VMware and Training…a reflection is a post from TQuizzle.com.
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It started off with me starting to feel bad on Friday and just escalated from there. All weekend I felt like crap, forcing me not to go to Church on Sunday and missing both Monday and Tuesday of work.

To make things just a bit more exciting, I got to have another root canal on Monday afternoon. After that, I was in a great mood! Jumping into the car, and forgetting that the A/C in the car wasn’t working properly, this is image is what my reality was.

Also on Monday, the A/C unit on my renter’s house stopped working. In the thick of the Oklahoma heat, this is no good. I started calling around to local A/C places to find out that they couldn’t come out and look at it until like Thursday or Friday. Obviously, I couldn’t expect my renter to wait that long so then came the favor calls.

I ended up calling a friend of a friend, and it paid off big time. He was able to get it up and running at 3am. Yeah…that’s right. This dedicated guy came over to my rent house at midnight and didn’t leave until 3am. What a guy! All was good, until…

The next day, during the hottest part of the day too, it failed again. This time, all the refrigerant had leaked out due to a bad valve and they’re back to where they were…hot as hell in the house. Another call, lots of freon, lots of sweat from my renters coupled with their patience; and its cold and working again.

Hopefully it will stay that way.

Aggrevating Things is a post from TQuizzle.com.
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He’s a great guy to give his buddy one of his MacBook’s that he wasn’t using…especially since at that time I wasn’t a Mac enthusiast. That all changed last February when I got a call from @justinshattuck that he wanted me to come over and look at some stuff we were going to be starting to work on. During the course of this conversation, I was offered this glorious piece of hardware and absolutely fell in love with it.

Now I understand what Mac enthusiasts have claimed all along…there’s just nothing that compares to using a Mac. It’s sleek, its sexy, it works (almost ALL of the time) without reboots, memory leaks, etc… It just works!

I will admit it was hard making the switch after being a career-long PC user, but after about a week or two…there was no turning back.

Upgrades

After just a few months, I ran into a problem with the MacBook. It had a small hard drive. It was only 60GB, and that’s not near enough for a digital packrat like myself. After suffering long months, and constantly moving things back-and-forth to make enough space to do whatever it was I needed space to do…I finally sprung for a new hard drive. Luckily, these are easy to swap out.

I’ve got instructions & pictures of how to swap out a MacBook hard drive after the jump.

To swap out a hard drive, it really doesn’t take much time or effort. Just some finger crossing and relying hard on your previous backups. The route I chose isn’t the only way to restore data, but it worked out beautifully for me.

Here are some thing’s you’ll need:

• Coin
• Phillips screwdriver (#1) if possible
• Torx (T-8) driver
• Patience

Here we go…

1. Shut it down and wait for a little while for the internal components to cool down…
2. Unplug everything…
3. Flip it over and use the coin to release the battery
   
4. Once the battery is removed, touch a piece of metal inside the case to discharge any static electricity.
5. Remove the three screws
   
6. Pop that “L” bracket out. Your hard drive is on the left-hand side.
7. Slide the old hard drive out using the nifty tab.
   
8. Remove the little case that surrounds the hard drive using your Torx T-8…and add it the same way to your new drive.
9. Now, just the reverse of the above directions…
10. Put the new drive in and tuck its tab underneath it.
11. Replace the “L” bracket
    
12. Put the battery back in & boot up with the OSX install DVD.
13. Got to Utilities > Disk Utility and format the new drive to the appropriate specifications you want.
14. Restore your old data whatever way you choose…

There you go…you’ve now replaced your old hard drive with a new one. I went from a 60GB to a 500GB.

MacDaddy Storage Upgrades is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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Since I don’t subscribe to to own feed (I’m not that vain), I didn’t see that it wasn’t displaying. It essentially was blank with an error.

Checking out FeedValidator.Org, I saw that it not only wasn’t validating, it had errors on lines 1 and 2…which were empty. Empty I said? Good thing FeedValidator is so smart, it knew what I was using (WordPress) to produce the feed then offered some suggestions to fixing it.

I guess it’s a known problem with some plugins and theme files having empty lines after or before their relative opening <?php or closing ?> tags.

So began the journey to find out what was causing this…

Per FeedValidator’s recommendation, I checked wp-rss2.php and wp-atom.php both of which were fine. Then checked wp-config to see if the problem was there…still no love. I checked my theme’s functions.php file since I use that immensely in customizing the look of this blog but it too didn’t have any empty lines. Next step…checking all the plugins.

For some reason, I started alphabetically from the bottom and checked WP-Super-Cache. Boom. There’s the culprit. Right at the end of the file there was a ?> followed by two empty lines. I deleted those, and all-of-the-sudden the feed validated again. W00t.

Now you 30 people or so that subscribe to my feed…it’s working again. Thanks for hanging in there.

Feed Me Seymore is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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What is with most people nowadays? Do we all just think that we are the most important person around? Is everyone so ideal and individualistic? What gives?

My mother and father taught me well when I was young. They taught me respect, courtesy and chivalry. Are all three dead now? I think they are for a lot of people. If we’re wanting a better world, a better place for our children; shouldn’t we be practicing these fundamental things?

Excuse me, Rude! is a post from TQuizzle.com.
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While on Google’s Webmaster Tools page, I noticed this little gem:
<script type="text/javascript">
var GOOG_FIXURL_LANG = 'en';
var GOOG_FIXURL_SITE = 'http://www.mydomain.com';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://linkhelp.clients.google.com/tbproxy/lh/wm/fixurl.js"></script>

Since users need to find what they’re looking for within 7 seconds to avoid them leaving your site…use this little guy to help out. It will make it easier for them to find the information they’re looking for. So, you’re probably wondering, “What does that do to help me?” Good question, here’s a rundown of what Google says:

• It adds a search box for your site with appropriate search suggestions.
• It tries to provide alternatives to incorrect URLs.

So to make this thing a little more WP friendly, I added the <?php bloginfo('url'); ?> to that GOOG_FIXURL_SITE variable in the script and shebang, it’s working like a charm. Now, add it to your 404.php file in your template directory and users might thank you.

Here’s what it should look like sitting in your 404.php file:
<script type="text/javascript">
var GOOG_FIXURL_LANG = 'en';
var GOOG_FIXURL_SITE = '<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://linkhelp.clients.google.com/tbproxy/lh/wm/fixurl.js"></script>

If you really want to tweak how this gadget looks, Google’s provided custom classes that its script uses to give you full customization.

Google’s Help for your 404 is a post from TQuizzle.com.
TQuizzle.com - ramblings, utterances, nonsense...my life.

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Everything I found was for either comments only, or simply didn’t accomplish what I wanted. So I sat down, dissected Matt Freedman’s Twitter Links to see how he did this with comments, bounced the idea off of @justinshattuck and @tshaiebly, and then added a little more functionality as far as being able to do the same with post and page content as well as comments. So its a trifecta!

You can jump on over to the Plugin page to see more about it.

New Plugin: Twitter Links Plus+ is a post from TQuizzle.com.
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