Baclaran Parañaque Rizal

We were out when the crash happened.

There was a brief power outage in our area while we’re away & saw the usual signs:  flashing timer lights in our oven, audio amplifier, coffee maker and the Mac Pro server was off.

The Power Macs had been hosting my website since 2004 as well as a Movable Type blog that I included in my “Kupitero’s Keep“ website (as an ‘offsite page’) in late 2004 (I started with MT version 3.121) .

I started hosting my website in 2004 using a Power Mac G4 (with OS X 10.3.x aka Panther) and upgraded to a Power Mac G5 (running OS X 10.5.x aka Leopard) in late 2006.

After I had saved enough money, in January 2010, I upgraded to a MacPro Dual Quad since the latest incarnation of OS X during those days – yes, until today – only supported Intel processors.  And, that was the server I was using when the power outage happened.

I powered the server back on – no problems with the hardware – but the OS just won’t load. Uh-oh, here comes the hard part.

I worked frantically the rest of the day & managed to load the OS from the Time Machine backup I had.  Great.

Everything seemed back to normal until I tried to make a new blog post in  Movable Type that fateful day in 2012.  There were errors here and there.  The Movable Type installation was busted and the related MySQL database & PHP scripts were all messed up.

I was able to restore the database and the Movable Type installation several weeks later but there was still a minor problem with one plug-in: Image::Magick.

And, that was the day I decided to do the following:

• Buy a UPS (uninterruptible power supply)
• Have a backup for the server – I got a Mac Mini (quad-core Intel Core i7)
• Move my blog from Movable Type to WordPress
• Revamp my website so that it will be more accessible to the latest and greatest browsers found on phones, tablets, and computers.

I accomplished all these until early December of this year with the exception of the 3rd one on the list above: porting my blog from MT to WordPress.

And, that will be my topic for my next post.

On Valentine’s Day of 2010, immediately after I ported my blogs from Movable Type v. 3.38 to v. 4.33, I made an entry that documented my key observations during the entire transition process.

Although optional – but it will make your main blog page livelier – one of the most difficult tasks was how to insert an image on the main style sheet.

I even wrote on that very same blog that I will try to make another entry on how I managed to do it.

Well, life goes on and people forget but here it is anyway.

However, after looking back at the entire process, it was really simple.

The simplicity was emphasized after I re-coded my main website to render it in the HTML5/CSS3 version.

So, here’s how I did it (note: your MT blog must be up & running already) on my MT 4.xx blog site, so just change the URL, the image size, position & alignment on your own blogs:

—-start tutorial—-

• On the server hosting your MT blogs, go to–>mt-static–>support–>themes folder.
• Depending on your blog theme, you will see the folder of the one you used.  In my case, it was minimalist-light-green
• Open that theme folder and you find the exact .css file that you’re using.  Again, mine was minimalist-light-green.css.
• Open that .css file, go to the /* Header————————-*/ section and add these lines:

#header-content {

width: 925px;

margin: 25 px 50px 26px 15px;

background: url (“enter your website link here“) no-repeat bottom right;

padding-right: 1px

padding-left: 0 px

}

—-end tutorial—-

Note that the key entry line is the background: url since it is where your image is to be looked-up by your main style sheet.

That was easy, wasn’t it?

The hard part in Movable Type is just in what folder where to look for the right .css file to insert and edit your image since there are so many files and folders after the installation of the software.

Hope this helps all MT users who like to put up an image within the style sheet !!!

On February 9 of this year, I bought a remote-controlled micro helicopter, the Syma 107G,  for $17 at a discount store near our house in one of the cities comprising the East Bay of California.

I had so much fun flying this 7-1/4 inch long toy which I had mastered in just a few minutes.  And this was when my obsession began.  I ventured into aerodynamics, physics, chemistry, and microelectronics.  And countless Google searches.

To start with, I had a brief fling with R/C back in 1982 when I was a contract worker in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  To kill my boredom, I bought the glow-powered Cox Cessna Centurion set, the radio system (made by Sanwa of Japan for Cox), and the maintenance kit, all for about $300.

I had memorable days flying this molded-foam glider (powered by the Cox 0.049 ORC engine)  in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, especially when the wind was almost at a stand-still during the hottest months.

Fast-forward to 2004.  The guy I purchased an Apple PowerMac G4 from somewhere in Lodi, CA, just gave me all his truck R/C stuff, including all accessories & transmitters – – for free!

As a concession to his generous gesture, I bought his still-in-the-box HobbyZone Firebird Commander ready-to-fly (RTF) R/C plane for $30.  He informed me that he only flew it once and crash-landed without damage.  The set also included a brand-new, molded-foam wing – as spare – for this beginner’s R/C glider.

I played with the R/C truck – powered by a ROAR-approved, 4000Kv brushless motor that ran on Dyna-Sport 1700 mAh NiCd batteries – for a few days with my niece and just got bored with a land-based R/C afterward.

The beauty of R/C airplanes & helis – let alone flying a kite – as a hobby is that it seems you’re also trying to control your destiny.  Nothing can compare to the feeling you get when you have that plane or heli up in the air and that you’re now using your skills to command it to the direction you want it to go.  It’s simply exhilarating!

After getting my feet wet again in R/C with the Syma 107G heli, I bought E-Flite’s RTF Blade 450 3D.   The set came with Spektrum’s DX6i transmitter  –  a popular 2.4GHz, 6-channel programmable radio.  It is  compatible with newer R/Cs using six (6) channels or less) – with the glorious thought that I could quickly fly it outside my backyard.

I was wrong; that was lesson #1:  The Syma 107G is co-axial while the Blade 450 is a collective pitch helicopter.

A collective pitch heli has a single set (if you consider a pair of blades to make one straight helicopter blade) of non-curved rotor blades.  Changing the blades’ angles by tilting them along the longitudinal axis lifts the heli.  Hence, the altitude is governed by how much pitch you apply to the rotor blades while in flight.

A co-axial helicopter is the easiest to fly since it has two sets of rotor blades that spin in opposing directions.  Hence, the torque generated by the spinning blades cancels each other out, resulting in a very stable helicopter.

But, all this type of heli can do is hover up & down, move forward & backward, and forward flight is generally on lower altitudes.  You can’t bank the heli as it makes a turn.

My attempts – both inside & outside the house to hover my Blade 450 3D a few feet in the air resulted in costly trips to several hobby stores – to replace damaged rotor blades, main gear, and just about all the small parts above the swashplate.

Frustrated and humbled, I Googled to find out what would be the easiest way to fly a collective pitch heli without having to learn the technical details – I just wanted to get one up in the air & control it!

I was so wrong again, and this was my lesson #2:  You can’t learn to fly a collective pitch R/C helis unless you’re willing to learn & understand the underlying science and art of the hobby.

During my continuing education, I also purchased John Salt’s e-book “Setup & Tips For Electric Collective Pitch RC Helicopters.”  I tried as best I could to understand all the new terminologies and jargon in this now getting-to-be-complex-and-expensive hobby.

So on February 23, I purchased the E-Flite Blade SR (RTF) – there is no BNF (Bind and Fly) version – plus an assortment of extra parts at a HobbyTown branch in Vacaville.

Learning from my Blade 450-3D fiasco, I also ordered the Phoenix RC Flight Simulator V3 from Amazon to hone my flying skills on a computer screen before I even attempted to hover the new Blade SR.

Wrong again, and that was lesson #3:  A simulator can help you learn how to control your transmitter and pilot your model heli.  But, in the real world, no flight simulator can genuinely recreate the environment you’re flying your model R/C.

And so, just as I had with the Blade 450, my dream of simply hovering a collective pitch with my new Blade SR (which E-Flite touted as “the heli to make your transition to a collective pitch as smooth as possible“) ended with “shattered results” also.

I broke the wooden 325 mm rotor blades, bell mixer & pushrods and almost broke my right middle finger when I tried to stop the erratic heli while spooling it up.

Back to the drawing board, I assumed I was trying to fly a big-sized CP heli too fast.

So, why not try a small collective pitch heli – so I can even try practicing with it inside the comforts of the house?

And so, on March 3, I went to a discount hobby shop – Low Price Hobbies – in Newark, CA, and purchased the E-Flite Blade mCP X2 (BNF version), plus an assortment of spares for the Blade SR.

I also bought an aluminum case for my Blade 450 3D.  I knew it would take some time to fly this bird, so I wanted it protected from the elements.

The Blade mCP X2 is a small collective pitch heli that measures about 9.5 inches in length.  It is also flybarless, so it only weighs about 46 grams.

A typical collective pitch heli comes with a mix of the Bell & Hiller rotor heads, which has a flybar.  It is oriented 90-degree to the main rotors.   The flybar helps stabilize the heli by changing the pitch angles of the main rotors in gusty wind conditions.

By removing the flybar and placing all the servos in a single system board,  E-Flite made the mCP X2 very light.

And so, was I successful in, at least, hovering this ultra-micro collective pitch heli?

Yes, I was, but the duration of all my attempts never even lasted a full minute.

It takes a finely tuned transmitter –pitch & throttle curve and all other crucial transmitter settings – plus a very steady hand to deftly guide a CP heli.

I had to get home early after our Thanksgiving party in Fremont so that I can get to bed early.

By 10:00 pm, after watching a streaming video – “Bride Flight” – via Netflix, I dozed-off and dreamed about the gadgets I planned to buy for this year’s Black Friday sale, version 2.011.

On top of my list was Roku’s HD-XS video streaming pod.  The only other gizmo on my list was Blackberry’s Playbook tablet.

These two were by painstakingly culled from the numerous gadgets that were playing tricks on my head as Nov. 25 slowly crept in. My reasons were as follows:

For the Roku HD-XS, I plan to give it as a Christmas present.  Two BFs ago, they had a similar sale for their then, top-of-the-line, Roku HD-XR at half ($65) their selling price of $130.

The choice of the Blackberry Playbook was one that was arrived at after days of careful research and thoughtful considerations.

Did I get both?

And so, my biological clock roused me up at 5:30 am. Made and poured me 3 cupfuls of coffee unto my thermos and by 5:50 am, I was already at the front door of the nearest Office Depot store.

At the door, the sales person handed me a piece of paper which served as my ticket to get my Blackberry Playbook 16GB at the limited-time offer price of $200.

Blackberry originally sold their 16GB version of the Playbook for $500. After Amazon began shipping their “Fire” tablet last Nov 15 for $200, Blackberry joined the tablet price-cut fray by offering their Playbooks $300 less out of your wallets.  This offer is good until Dec. 3, 2011 only.

But, I want my Playbook now and so after taxes ($17.50) & the CA recycling fee ($6), my new BF toy set me back at $223.50.

By 6:45 am, I was already back at home.

Got another cup of coffee & checked out Roku’s website.

There was a Roku HD-XS deal but it was not the similar deal they had back in 2009.

You have to buy two HD-XS boxes just to get a $40 discount.

And – this was the part that really turned me off –  you have to kiss their ass via Facebook.

Facebook????  Yucks.