Social Wok

I posted a tweet today that suggest that Social Wok had problems. Social Wok replied to my tweet asking for more information. Now that's the way to follow up! Take note of that folks. Responding to complaints is a good thing as I went the extra mile to grab some screenshots(see below) and am creating this post. If they hadn't responded I probably would have removed Social Wok and just moved on.

update: And they wouldn't have fixed it already making their product better, this user happy with them, and all that before I could even finish this post (granted there's a lot of fluff in this post).

Korean BBQ in CA

A month or so back, I was in Orange County, CA on business. On a previous visit, our waitress at the California Pizza Kitchen was kind enough to give us a list of restaurants to try out in the area, mostly Asian, though one was Cuban.

We found a Korean BBQ she recommended and it was really, really good.

I won't lie, I like the Japanized version of Korean BBQ but it was still really, really good. I want to order the beef tongue, but my colleague wasn't interested and it would have been too much to eat by myself. As it was, we barely finished everything.

See the reviews of the place we went on Yelp. I think the reviews on it are lower than I would have given as I thought it was good, service was friendly etc. Next time around, I think I'll try some of the other ones in the area too.

Seed Catalog Arrived

Just noticed that my seed catalog arrived today. I believe that I asked them to send me on via the web. Considering the fact that the weather is clearly getting warmer - it was gorgeous today here in Cleveland - it's time to start planning for the garden.

Google Fiber for Communities

So Lev Gonick has started an effort to get Google to choose Cleveland and/or Northeast Ohio for its Google Fiber for Communities. I of course followed the twitter account Lev created for this purpose - Google1Gig4CLE. Lev has been very active in bringing broadband and it's benefits to Cleveland, with OneCommunity and the effort around University Circle and Case University.

My question for Lev is this - what's the plan?

Excell Tecc and Malley's Chocolate's Partnership

I got this from Ken today.


Hello,
Ken Hawkins is a member of Excel Tecc and their group is conducting a fundraising activity with Malley's Chocolates of Cleveland, Ohio.
A website has been setup specifically for the Excel Tecc fundraising campaign.
All purchases made on that site will be credited toward Ken Hawkins and will directly benefit Excel Tecc.
To connect to this site, please click on this link.

Thank you very much,
Excel Tecc

If you are interested in supporting Excell Tecc or just want some chocolate, give Malley's a try.  It's good stuff.

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Edward Jackson Hawkins - Memorial Site

As some of you know, my Dad died on January 15, 2010. He had been sick for a while and we were expecting it, but that expectation doesn't reduce the shock and sense of loss when, inevitably, the news comes.

To all the folks that have expressed their condolences via Facebook, email, and other ways thank you. They mean more than you know and are greatly appreciated.

We have created a temporary memorial site. The site has a longer obituary that probably won't run in newspapers, information on the Funeral, and will have information on a Memorial Service in Cleveland. Please check it out.

Memorial Website URL: http://www.edhawkins.info

The site has a page to leave messages that we'll be collating. The current web site is temporary and for immediate use. However, my siblings and I have decided to build a more permanent memorial website to honor my Dad. We'll be collecting and organizing his writings, photos, movies as well as wider family histories into the site. Just based on what I have, it will be a pretty impressive site from a volume of content perspective.

In fact, the effort to categorize and convert the content for web use will be fairly intense. We are fully aware that we'll not be able to do this in one fell swoop, but will have to do it over an extended period of time. The good thing about that is that it's a great way for us to keep Dad in our thoughts and remember all the good things he meant to us, and to the world.

The current design is okay, but certainly nothing to write home about. That's not surprising since I did it. I hope to engage a real web designer for the permanent memorial site. Dad deserves a better looking site than I can do.

It'll also be a collaborative effort amongst us siblings at least, but I hope to get some of my Dad's siblings to contribute stories, information, etc. They know a whole side of my Dad of which we, his kids, are completely ignorant.

Of course, we are spread out across the country and each have our own lives to live. So we'll be using some online services like Google sites to help reduce duplication of effort, share information and tasks. I must say I am looking forward to working with my siblings to make this happen. My Dad deserves a nice memorial site, and I am honored to be a part of building it.

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Wow

Umami Asian Kitchen

Last night, Mom took us out to celebrate Arisa's birthday.  We went to Umami Asian Kitchen in Chagrin Falls.

The menu says that Umami is the "fifth taste", as in sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.  Umami is a Japanese word.  See the wikipedia article for a description.  Also see the "basic tastes" article too.

I see why they call it Asian Kitchen as it's not really a Japanese restaurant.  They take some Japanese foods and make it all their own.  For example, they have an Udon Noodle dish, but it's not what one would expect from a Japanese restaurant.  It was really very good.  We had Seared Red Tuna, Spicy Tuna Rolls, and Calamari.  I had the halibut with sweet potatoes and ginger, Arisa had one of the specials which was scallops (hotate) on Jasmine rice.  Ken had the Seared Salmon, and George had the curry chicken entree.  Elly had Calamari and Assorted Sushi appetizers as her entree.  Mom had crabcakes.  I tried everything except the crabcakes and it all was very, very good.

Oh, and Chagrin Falls looks great at night.  The whole town is decorated in Christmas Lights.  If you get a chance, I'd check it out.

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Neohawk.Org Down

www.neohawk.org is currently down.

@grokthis: The SAN filer crash appears to be non-trivial. Recovery efforts are underway. Service is not expected to be restored in fewer than 12 hrs

It'll be up when it's up. That was from 5-6 hours ago.

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even*cleveland: the snowman

Thanks to this post, even*cleveland: the snowman, a small trip down memory lane.

While I wasn't 6 or 7 like Stephanie over at even cleveland, I did watch it with my kids, and it quickly became a favorite of mine. We bought the book and had the dvd. Neither of which made it with us when we moved to the U.S.

Thanks for the reminder, Stephanie

technorati new claim

U5AA7KUEJQ7U

Damn You Byteflow!

U5AA7KUEJQ7U

As many of you know, I've been using Byteflow for this site and blog. Byteflow is a blog system built in Django. The glorious design(sarcasm) is mine. I should also add that the News and Links are little modules that I created. Which I'm pretty proud of as I'm not a programmer/coder, and even though they are real simple and pretty featureless (no RSS for example).

That's one of the things I like Byteflow, which is really a blog system, is that I can build other "apps" and include it into the blog to make it a "cms". And Django is fairly easy to get your head around to do so, at least for the easy stuff.

Anyway, as I posted in "New URL", I was planning to move everything over to Google, particularly the blog over to blogger - this one in particular: robataka.neohawk.org. For one reason, it's free. Free as in no charge, not the FLOSS free. It was a cost saving measure as I run this site one a vps, from VPS Village. Now it's not terribly expensive, in fact it's inexpensive. I'm sure I might find even cheaper ones. But if I'm going to move my site for cost reasons, it'll be to free rather than for just less money.

More importantly though, I was going to switch simply because it was easier to post to blogger than it was to a Byteflow blog. My number one "complaint" or dissatisfaction with Byteflow was simply the inability to post to my blog via ScribeFire (what I'm using now) or other blog editor/tool. I always had to go in via the web admin interface. Where as with Google's blogger, I could use a blog tool like ScribeFire to post to it. It just makes it easier to post which means I'll post more often. Or that's the idea anyway.

So here I was getting ready to move. I updated my dns so that you could see robataka.neohawk.org, and I posted all of the entries from here to my blogger blog. I was playing around with Google Sites (useless for my current needs), App Engine Site Creator (cool, and usable, but just not quite right for this - I do use it elsewhere). But I was going to bite the bullet since every decision involves trade offs. I'd be getting a blog that's easier to post to, but a weaker solution for non-blog stuff. And less control, or more work really, to control the look and feel of the site.

So what do the developers of Byteflow do? They fix Byteflow so it now can handle the MetaWeblog API, and therefore using blog editing tools like ScribeFire(apparently Echto works too). Damn you! Stop making Byteflow so usable!

So now I'm back to using Byteflow at least for the foreseeable future. I may end up posting in both blogs until I finally make up my mind. But for now, Byteflow wins again.

Damn you Byteflow!

Technorati Tags: byteflow, django, blogger, google

What is ECM?

As many of you know, I work for Hyland Software here in Cleveland. I don't post much about work or work related items because that's not my role in the company. I'm a project manager and am focused on specific client projects, not touting the company.

But every now and then, there are things I just can't pass up. It's not something like Hyland winning Crain's Company with the Best Perks Award, or software product under category of "impact" by NEOSA. Hyland wins those alot.

One of the things I get asked alot is what does Hyland do? Well we're a software company that provides Enterprise Content Management, ECM, solutions. That answer, particularly amongst family members, gets me a glazed over eye "huh?" response.

The following video "What Is ECM? The Laundry Analogy" answers it much better than I ever could in just 60 seconds.

I'm not the only one that found this highly informative as well as entertaining. I actually found this on the AIIM page announcing the winners of the ECM Video Contest. Not surprisingly, this video was selected as the winner. If you're interested AIIM is:

For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes. AIIM was founded in 1943 as the National Microfilm Association and later became the Association for Information and Image Management. AIIM is also known as the enterprise content management (ECM) association.

Anyway, the two folks that made this video work at Hyland. Seeing something like this video this morning just reminded me of how good it is to work at Hyland with intelligent, creative people dedicated to their jobs and serving markets and clients.

Yes, its a small thing, but it reminds me as to why I'm proud to call myself a Hylander.(and if you go back far enough as Scottish Highlander too)

旅行の帰り

昨日、兄貴のとこから帰宅した。でも、最悪。　トランスミッションが飛んじゃって、ペンシルベニア州から牽引してもらう必要があった。　
先日、トリプルAを紹介したが、今回発見したのはターンパイクを利用するとトリプルAを利用することが出来ないそうだ。　PAターンパイクは独自のシステムで＊１１（オハイオ州なら *990 だと思う）を携帯で電話するとターンパイクが牽引車など呼んでくれるわけです。　一応、トリプルAに入会して「プラス」になっているので１００マイル牽引無料だが、ターンパイクの業者さんがこれを認めるなので家の近くのガレージに運んでもらったんだ。

これから調べるが、多分ワランティーが切れているので修理全額を払う必要があると思う。最悪。きっと＄３０００ぐらいかかると思うのだ。　このお金がどこから歳出出来るか悩む。

ということで今朝はワランティーの有効期限を調べるのだ。

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Yes, it's a day late but that's okay.  I was busy eatin', and pulling my hammy.  Aaargh, age sucks.

But the eats were excellent!

Update: Check out the pics below. I'm still trying to get some more so we have the whole slew of pictures.

トリプルAに入ってよかった

一週間前ぐらいにトリプルA（AAA=American　Automobile　Association)に入会しました。　我が家の愛車２台とも中古車であり、いつ壊れるのが不安です。　僕は結構出張があるのでいないときにありさやエリーが何かあった時にトリプルAに電話するだけでバッテリチャージとか無料で牽引してもらえると思って入会したわけです。

ケンとジョージが予定がある場合に、向かいに行ったり、送ってあげたりしてもらう代わりにエリーは割と自由に車を使わせています。　昨夜はそうでした。ケン君が友達と映画を見に行く予定だったのでエリーが車で送ってあげていて、その後出かける予定でした。　そうしたら、映画館の駐車場で車を止めていたら、再度エンジンがかからなくなったことになりました。　エリーはバッテリーの問題かと思って、友達に電話してチャージしてまらったのですが、やはりエンジンがスタートしませんでした。

そうすると、仕方がなく僕を電話しました。　すぐにとまったところで行って状況確認しました。　そして、AAAを電話しました。 会員番号や住所を教えて、４５分以内に牽引車が来て、ガレージまで牽引してもらいました。　今はガレージからの連絡を待っていますが、昨夜はAAAを電話できると知っていたのでだいぶ安心しました。

トリプルAに入ってよかった

Case University Intiative: Gigabit to the Home

Hattip to George Nemeth.  Case announces a project to provide 1000mb/sec internet service to the community surrounding it.

The details are over at Lev Gonick's blog. They'll start with 100 households but hope to grow to 25,000.

Note, this is just the announcment of the initiative not announcement of service.  It appears that they have some review hurdles to overcome.

Regardless, this is a great initiative!  Kudos to Case.

Google Apps Account as Google Account

Wow. I discovered this morning that I can use my google app private domain account as a google account. Perhaps I am slow, but what I had been doing is associating my gmail google account with my google app account. However, today I received a google wave invite to my private domain. In the process of muddling around I discovered the ability to create a google account using the google app domain. So for example, now that my rbh at neohawk.org account is also a google account, I have a google profile, picasa account, etc. Until today, I need to use my gmail account to login, but now I can use my neohawk.org account. See below:

You can see my profile below:

This is huge. One of may largest complaints with google has been the two different logins I needed. One for my google apps, one for google accounts. Now that they are the same, I'm a happy camper. I did have to remove my neohawk.org account from my gmail google account to make this work.

Did I just not know this or is this new?

Be Afraid

Hat tip to Cleveland Scene.

I've always wondered how an something like the Roman Empire could fall. Now I know.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Blog It Forward

Like this idea. I don't think I'll be in town for it, but if you have time this a great thought to help a complete stranger.

http://www.chefswidow.com/2009/11/23/2827/

Blog it forward.