Adam Howitt's Blog

Why the web went down

At : 3:38 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (1) | Send | 1288 Views |

On days like today where twitter is being hammered by a DDOS attack, facebook is being flaky and even Gmail was taking an hour to deliver my mail, I like to know as much as possible. I've asked my fave sysadmin for this link over and over but as I've hopped from OS to OS (presently Mac) I've lost the link so I'm recording it here for posterity and so I don't forget: The Internet Health Report shows which ISPs are having trouble connecting to each other. I also love Down for Everyone or Just Me for these times to help distinguish between a localized network issue and a problem on the interwho.

How the World would vote in the US elections

At : 9:03 PM | Link | News, Immigration, American History, Misc | Comments (3) | Send | 1720 Views |

A good friend of mine built a great Flash app to capture the world's votes for the upcoming US Election.  It's a great idea for a site and executed really well.  If you have 30 seconds to spare, please head over to theworldfor.com, place you vote and then adjust the sliders for the issues you care about most.  Over 1,000 votes in the first day and counting...

Earthquake!

At : 9:30 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (0) | Send | 894 Views |

Argh!  First there are problems with the planes and now my trip home to Manchester is disrupted by an earthquake!  I jumped out of bed after it started shaking pretty roughly around 30 minutes ago at just about 1pm GMT.  My Mum jumped out of her bed thinking there was something hiding under her bed.

Being a big nerd I googled and saw nothing, put on 24 hour news but saw nothing, found the USGS site and didn't see anything listed so I added my tremor in the hopes I'd hear some news that I'm not going crazy.  Shortly after I started my report BBC 24 reported breaking news of an earthquake felt around the country and USGS updated to show a lot more activity. I looked through Google blog search and now see a bunch of reports from late night nerds like me.

I've never felt an earthquake before.  It started with what felt like my heart pounding and I was checking my heart rate when the walls and the bed started shaking.  I thought it was the wind shaking the house but outside was perfectly still.  My mum told me things on her dressing table started shaking too.

Protect Your Children Online for Free

At : 10:07 AM | Link | SEO, Misc | Comments (1) | Send | 912 Views |

In just a minute you can set-up an alert to keep a watch on your family's internet exposure with Google Alerts.

I heard about some changes on the radar for Facebook or maybe MySpace yesterday to protect children online by requiring their parents to register and it reminded me that I was going to post a tip about Google Alerts.  

When the name of one of your family members or your business appears on a blog, in the news, in a video or even in a newsgroup, you can get a daily summary of those listings.  I use it for my business and my running site to make sure I know what people are saying, if anything at all.  In most cases it is a blog somewhere and I leave a comment thanking them for the feedback or offering an answer to a question or a problem they encountered using my site.

You could easily use the same approach to monitor your children's names to protect their online identity.  If you see something they have done or someone else has posted about them that you think could be a problem, you can take action early before it gets to be a bigger problem.

How it works:
1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts
2. You will need a Google account to set this up so it may prompt you to create one at this point
3. For search terms put the search term you want to track in quotes e.g. "adam howitt"
4. For type, select "comprehensive" to make sure you get a broader insight across video, blogs etc.  If you only care about blogs you can just select that
5. Set "how often" to daily for a daily email
6. Enter your email

Easy huh?  The only challenge may be a common name or that you have the same name as someone else with a lot of activity on the internet.  You can minimize mistaken identities by adding extra qualifiers to your search e.g. "adam howitt" Chicago
Here I'm trying to broader mentions of my name by picking out those that mention the city where I live.  You can create as many of these as you need so in addition to geographical tips like "Chicago" I can use keywords related to the type of work I do or the activities I'm involved in.

Blackberry DST Patch Just in Time

At : 4:56 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (0) | Send | 1130 Views |

I received an obscure text message a week ago about a Daylight Savings Time patch for my BlackBerry Pearl but it didn't inspire me to do much.  Fast forward to last night where my appointment reminders didn't go off and then all of a sudden started going off well into my meeting.

Maybe I'm shirking responsibility here but part of me thinks I'm not the only Blackberry user who got this message and thought - not urgent - especially since it told me roaming charges may apply.  If you haven't done so yet and have a Blackberry, get the patch at www.blackberry.com/dst2007

Make a Wish Foundation

At : 12:22 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (0) | Send | 734 Views |

I wanted to let you know about the incredible work the Make a Wish foundation does and give you an idea of the impact on the lives it touches.  Melissa's niece was diagnosed with leukemia one week after I started training for the San Diego marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.  Her chemo continues and she has lost all her hair now but reassures her father on a daily basis that everything is going to be okay.  The story of the make a wish day is here on Caring Bridge, a great site dedicated to helping cancer patients and their families keep everyone updated on their progress:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/haidyn
And the YouTube video showing how excited she was when the make a wish people arrived is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pqKRBi42Fk
For anyone wanting to make a contribution:
http://www.wish.org/help/donate

Adam

Countdown to Home Ownership

At : 10:19 AM | Link | Coldfusion, Misc | Comments (8) | Send | 1035 Views |

51 days to go until we close on our first home together!  Our offer was accepted yesterday and we're so excited.  My wife and I have been out for marathon househunting sessions each weekend for the last 2 months after getting pre-approved for a mortgage and we finally found one we agreed on.

In other news, I've expressed an interest in running a Chicago Amazon Web Services User Group.  I've been running virtual servers on Amazon's EC2 platform for about 6 months now and all the WalkJogRun images / static files have been served from Amazon S3 for roughly the same period.  I'll be talking about how to get started with both services at CFUnited Express Chicago on the Sunday before MAX (Sept 30th) if anyone wants to learn more and I'm sure I'll be blogging about it a lot in the upcoming months.

Woah, oh. I'm an alien

At : 4:36 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (5) | Send | 818 Views |

I'm a legal alien at last.  I just received my alien number in the mail yesterday welcoming me to the United States of America as a new permanent resident.  It's been 7 years and 141 days since I left my home in Stockport, England to move to Chicago for work.  I've been an H1B visa holder since then and have battled through the process of flying to London or Ottawa to get new visa stamps, paying fees and attorneys to transfer my H1B between employers as I moved around.  It's not been easy and at times I've grown weary of the paperwork and the expense so the emotion was pretty intense yesterday to be holding the document in my hand granting me residency and freedom from (as much) red tape.  

My employers applied for my Green Card 2 years ago but around the same time I got engaged to my wife and after our wedding in September we applied for a Green Card by marriage instead.  We had our interview in February and I was terrified.  I knew that I had nothing to worry about because our relationship was real, but it's still a scary prospect.  I had heard some horror stories and some tough questions like which shampoo does she use.  This one scared me because when there are 8 bottles lined up along the bathtub and we have separate bathrooms it makes it harder for us to concur!

Raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma research

At : 7:09 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (3) | Send | 586 Views |

I've joined the Team in Training Chicago chapter and after the kick off meeting next weekend I'll be training for the San Diego marathon on June 3rd.  As a participant I'm responsible for raising $4,000 for Leukemia and Lymphoma research to find a cure for blood related cancers.  The common belief is that a cure for blood related cancers could be the tipping point for curing all cancer.  I would love to be able to bring children into a world where cancer is a thing of the past.  

I'm running in memory of my Aunty Moreen who passed away in 2004 after a battle with bowel cancer.  Bowel cancer is the 2nd most common cancer affecting women (after breast cancer) in the UK. Each year 35,000 people are diagnosed with the illness.  My Aunt was an incredible woman who, despite her own illness, worked tirelessly to support patients and raise money for Cancer Research UK before she died.  You can read more about her on my donation page.  Please help me towards my goal with a donation.  Every little bit helps.

Thank you,
Adam

Watch out Neptune Uranus is next

At : 2:12 PM | Link | Misc | Comments (2) | Send | 607 Views |

Excuse the pun but it's official that Pluto is no longer a planet.  What a sad day for parents who now have to go through the painful process of explaining why it is no longer a planet as they demolish their childrens maps of the night sky.