Thinking about the time in the NICU.

For all the children in NICU without a finger to grab. A hug for you.

Daddy's Log 20110404 Supplemental

Time has continued with its elusive behavior. I could use a couple more hours in the day. Whether those hours would be best spent working or sleeping has yet to be decided. I've have been fighting off a bit of a cold and it has slowed me down.

Christina and I had a good weekend. Saturday the princess was her typical cuddly self as soon as we got home. We went to see some friends at the bowling alley and the noise had Christina a little startled. She wanted up from her chair and I obliged for a little while. It wasn't long and she was smiling and talking with everyone. Christina was even happy enough for pictures.

Sunday we ventured to the mall. We played a lot and then went for our walk. After some mellow time at home she still did not nap much. It showed Sunday night shortly before bath. The energetic four year old had run out of steam. Yea daddy. With a good nights sleep Christina was ready to go about six. It worked out well getting ready for school with her getting up a little earlier.

Daddy's Log 20110404

I have been working on the pictures and videos pages. The pictures page lays out well. The downside is the number of pictures. I display 100 per page, but it is still not easy to find anything. I would not call it difficult, just not easy. The videos I have opted to upload an mp4 version. It is a smaller file size and plays on most browsers. I have also started experimenting with some of the HTML5 tags. So far success with some learning of the methods used by the hosting service(see note below). The video files are still large, especially starting after the first of the year. I opted to record in HD starting 2011/01/01. I can say this though, watching them is worth every moment it takes to load, but I may be biased.

The pages for the pictures and the videos require a username and password. Please let me know and I can get it setup for you. After a request in court to not have the pictures available to the public I setup the login pages. I love to share the pictures and videos of Christina, just ask.

I am also trying to keep up with the slideshow of pictures. The slideshow page is still available to everyone. Only an email address is needed. This keeps the search engines from indexing the pictures and the spammers and the bots. It has been beneficial in keeping the visitors limited to those who really want to see them. For those who get an email upon update, clicking the link avoids having to enter your email address. If you read your email like I do in plain text the link looks funky. The end is a bunch of characters telling the server "Hey, you gave me the link; let me see the pics". At least for a simple explanation. ;)

I found some more options to display pictures and I will look into it. It looks nice and they market it stating that it is easy to organize and view large amounts of data whether it be news, pictures, feeds, videos, etc. Apparently I fall into the category: "How many pictures?" because it will not be useful for viewing all of the pictures. I'm thinking a replacement for or maybe a supplement to the current slideshow. What I did like are the apps available for the various smart phones allowing them to view this data. That would mean I could see it on the iPod.

Goodnight to all and to all a goodnight.


note: I will say it now as I have to anyone who has asked. If you want a professional site do not use a cheap host. I should rephrase that, even some of the more expensive hosts do not do a good job. For those who understand it is a huge undertaking to attempt to provide service and support while maintaining a level of security. Since I host this blog with an inexpensive provider my expectations are not high; however, it is frustrating when you have to go in and create/edit an access file so an audio file in a standard format will play. Video tags to come.

Christina had a message for Daddy using her talker. I really enjoyed her playing it for me and wanted to share.

Getting the blogs updated has become elusive. Dishes are done, tomorrows dinner is in the crock pot, laundry is started, and I have to head to work. So... here is the skinny.

You may have noticed two more links on Christina's blog for pictures and videos. They are working and if you would like to see the 1000's of photos or 100's of videos let me know.
A username and password is required to keep the public out. It was mentioned in court about the slideshow being available to the public so many of you probably already know I ask for an email address. I chose to use an email address to help keep the spammers and automated systems out.

More update to come later.