Hey, I don’t know what I’m running for, but with the backing of Bogies, how can I lose?

I saw this sign a week or two ago; finally grabbed my camera and fired off a few shots on the way to work this morning. It’s a restaurant near us in Mount Prospect, IL; I’ve never been, but I pass it every morning on the way to work.

Vote 4 Lee! Woo-hoo!

Update: “Vote 4 Lee” was for Lee DeWyze, who was on – and tonight won – the 2010 American Idol contest. DeWyze is from Mount Prospect (where I currently live); so – sadly (but understandably) – they are not voting for me. Was fun while it lasted…

Went to Chicago today to, well, do what we wanted to do.

What we did:

• Trounced through Millennium Park (nothing’s blooming at this point beyond some tulips) Ah, the Bean is always good.
• Hit the Art Institute to, mainly, see the Matisse exhibition. Not a Matisse fan; unchanged after seeing the exhibition (but enjoyed same)
• Noodled around the Cultural Center – probably my favorite building in Chicago.
• Lunch at Harry Caray’s (never been…maybe for a beer, but not for food. I fergit). Chicken Marsala; nice…best Chicken Marsala I’ve had since Italy (circa 1979).

One odd note: The Daley Center Plaza fountain was dyed pink. Why? I guessed some sort of Breast Cancer promo. Turns out it was supposed to be dyed crimson, as in the color of the Chicago Black Hawks’ jersey (Black Hawks currently in playoffs). Doesn’t seem crimson/red to me. You be the judge….

OK, I had backups (in many formats – .txt .csv etc), but the mysql dump really worked best for this (undefined) task.

Just cut my data transfer time from (???) to a few minutes.

And it was a successful transfer.

Credit where credit is due…

I’ve done a fair amount of work in setting up domains for myself and friends, but I’ve little experience with moving domains.

I finally moved one of my domains (no link; work in progress [what’s with the 404 page??]), and – crap, 12 years since WWW – this is still not an easy process.

I moved to IPower.com, because I have had another friend’s site there for a few years without issues , and – overall – had what I wanted (no SSH! – Not big for this site, but….).

Again, painful process, but iPower made it much easier than other domain setups/transfers:

• Good online description of services; signup
• Post-siignup Email that outlined what one had to do, including name servers etc
• Control panel (web admin) that spells out POP server, SMTP server and so on. Awesome.
• I’ll spare you the grisly details, but what used to cost $220/year will be $48/year ($96/yr after first two years) for, essentially, way more functionality. Duh.
• NOTE: – Not an ad/endorsement for ipower.com; just the facts (good and bad). When I canceled from my old host, I said – honestly – I wanted a Linux solution that was affordable. The former host didn’t offer what I wanted at a competitive price.

Still – and I’m a web dork – not easy. How to set up mySql, does that come with PHPadmin and so on. I shudder to think what would happen if I moved a WordPress site to another host that runs WordPress (I dunno; might be seamless…or not). And does the average user even understand that you’ll nee PHPadmin (or SSH) if you run WordPress (etc)?

Physical fact: I hate moving (apartments etc.); across the street is just as much of a pain in the butt as across the state.

Virtual fact: Moving domains is now easier, but still not non-dork friendly. Getting better, but…

That’s my experience.