Displaying post 1 to 50 of 138
I went to see my doctor yesterday for a running injury (IT band). He says that basically I'm fit but that I have the "flexibility of a two-by-four". He wants me to do a stretching regimen three times a day — more if possible. He showed me a couple of stretches, but I'd like to do more. Can you recommend any good individual stretches or stretching routines, especially for a novice runner (and especially for one having trouble with his IT band)? YouTube clips a HUGE plus. Yoga's fine, but there's now way in hell I can do the
pigeon pose (I have the flexibility of a two-by-four, remember?).
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:24 AM on June 17, 2008
(18 comments)
I run a couple of WordPress blogs. Sometimes a reader will leave an excellent comment. I would love to find a plugin (or an easy method) to highlight these great comments, similar to the way AskMe highlights best answers. I can't figure out how to do this. Do you have any suggestions?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 7:18 PM on April 18, 2008
(8 comments)
My family owns a
small business. We manufacture boxes, which we sell to other industrial clients. We've hired a salesman, but he has no sales experience. (We're okay with that.) We're teaching him about boxes, but we'd like to get him some sort of training in sales. We don't have traditional expectations (we think of the job more as "customer relations"), and aren't going to demand that he meet quotas, but we'd like him to have grounding in the basics.
Can you recommend some good books on sales? How about training seminars in the Portland (Oregon) area? Any web sites he should read? Info on how to approach cold calls would be especially helpful. (So far we're just going with the "baptism of fire" approach, which has its pros and cons.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:32 AM on February 27, 2008
(16 comments)
I have a web site. I want to write a book based on the topic. I have publishers/agents asking to talk to me, but I don't know if I'm ready. For one thing, I'm not convinced traditional publication is best — I'm intrigued by self-publishing and e-books. I'm looking for general advice: What are the pros and cons of each method? It seems that unless I'm lucky, traditional publishing offers the lowest dollar return. But are there other, intangible benefits I'm missing? Exposure? Having somebody who knows what they're doing guide me along? And how do I approach a discussion with agents/publishers so as to get the best deal?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 12:56 PM on January 7, 2008
(13 comments)
I've tried to resist, but I can't any longer — I want to subscribe to satellite radio. XM has at least two stations that I'll listen to almost constantly (channels 4 and 44, though 28 and 81 sound appealing, too). After hearing the web-based "free trial", I'm ready to sign up but I don't know anything about receivers. I'll mostly be listening at home. I don't have a stereo setup, but I do have lots of Macs (including Airport Express). I'd like to be able to listen in my car, too. Which receiver options are best? I know that XM and Sirius are merging — is this any reason to wait to purchase equipment?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 7:46 AM on December 11, 2007
(23 comments)
My wife is going to kill me. While "fixing" her computer (g5 Macintosh running Leopard), I managed to move 20,000 of her mp3s to the trash. I actually thought I as moving one genre with "select-all", but apparently I moved the entire frickin' library. She doesn't know yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have not yet deleted these files. All 20,000 (well, 19,868) are sitting in the trash can. There's no "restore to previous location" type option, though. Help! Is there anything I can do? Is my only option to have iTunes re-import the entire lot?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 7:34 PM on November 13, 2007
(29 comments)
I need a better browser for my Mac. I use a MacBook Pro 17". For the past year, I've been using Safari as my default browser. I like it swell except that it crashes all the frickin' time. I've installed SAFT, which allows me to restore my browsing sessions, but still -- it's a pain. Last weekend, I moved over to Firefox in the hopes that things would be improved. That's not going to work. What's with the delays for nearly every action?
Ugh. (No extensions installed.) I don't yet have Leopard, but am willing to upgrade if Safari 3 offers a marked improvement in performance.
What can I do to improve my web browsing experience? (Session restore is a
must. Undo closed tabs is nice.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 11:59 AM on November 1, 2007
(66 comments)
I'm in Oregon. I run a website which generates moderate traffic. I would like to hold a group writing project in which I would award "prizes" to participants. (Prizes would include a Wii, and possibly gift certificates, etc.) I want to do this with minimal hassle, but within the bounds of the law. What do I need to be aware of?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:01 AM on September 6, 2007
(5 comments)
Are U.S. Government publications copyrighted or in the Public Domain? More specifically, are Federal Reserve publications copyrighted or in the Public Domain? I'd like to be able to monkey with
these comics, but am wary of violating copyright.
(I've sent e-mail to the Federal Reserve asking this same question, but am skeptical that I'll receive a timely response.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 9:33 AM on August 23, 2007
(28 comments)
I have a personal blog running under Movable Type. I want to move to WordPress. I've exported the existing entries to a text file, so that's good.
However, a couple years ago my
previous MT install tanked (
similar to this). I cannot access it.
I have several years worth of posts that are stuck in a database that I can't get to. I've been gradually moving these by hand to my existing MT install, but that's a pain in the ass. Is there some automated way to crawl/scrape the existing HTML files in order to retrieve these "lost" entries? Some way to break back into a corrupt MT database? Some way to repair it? (The install is BerkelyDB-based.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:25 AM on June 29, 2007
(11 comments)
1986 Mac Plus vs. 2007 AMD Dual Core
"When we compare strictly common, everyday, basic user tasks between the Mac Plus and the AMD we find remarkable similarities in overall speed, thus it can be stated that for the majority of simple office uses, the massive advances in technology in the past two decades have brought zero advance in productivity." Factor in the internet, and the technological advances have brought me
negative productivity.
posted to MetaFilter by jdroth
at 7:23 AM on May 31, 2007
(77 comments)
I'm looking for mid-century pop songs with sexist lyrics. Think Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin singing about how nice it is to have a "girl" cooking dinner at home. Or about all the pretty "girls" out on the street. The lounge feel is what I'm after, though anything jazzy ought to work.
Please help me annoy my wife!
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 11:50 AM on May 10, 2007
(73 comments)
IPR: Irrational Public Radio
"We love NPR, PRI, & MPR. We are fans of
All Things Considered,
Morning Edition,
Car Talk,
This American Life,
Fresh Air, and
Prarie Home Companion. We like the commentaries, the features, the independent member station programs. We love them all dearly. But we also think they're begging to be made fun of. So here we are."
posted to MetaFilter by jdroth
at 11:06 AM on March 29, 2007
(31 comments)
We're traveling abroad for the first time this year (UK, Ireland). My wife has decided that she doesn't want me carrying bags (camera, book, etc.) around with me when we're sight-seeing. She wants me to wear a vest like
this one. I admit that all of the pockets are cool, but I'm not that keen on the idea otherwise. I think the vest looks dumb. And I doubt its practicability.
What can you tell me about travel vests? Are they useful? What should I look for when shopping for one? Can I get one that actually looks good? Is durable and comfortable? I haven't checked my Filson catalog yet, but that's my next stop.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 11:15 AM on March 24, 2007
(54 comments)
I just received my new Airport Extreme. I'm eager to make use of its ability to connect to a USB drive. I'd like to transfer most of my data — songs, movies, and TV shows, in particular — to this drive, and then use it as a central repository for most of my Macs. But these computers already have existing iTunes libraries. What's the easiest way to make this transition? What's the
best way?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:58 AM on February 28, 2007
(11 comments)
I'm generally a fairly confident guy. I write well. I can carry on an intelligent conversation. I'm a salesman by training. I acted on stage in high school. In college I could deliver (and enjoy) speeches of all sorts. I can even hold my own when interviewed for the newspaper or for a podcast. But when it comes to speaking on live radio, I'm a nervous wreck. What can I do to improve?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 11:35 AM on February 1, 2007
(18 comments)
What are some of the
stupid things rich and famous people have spent their money on? I know about Michael Jackson and his ten AIBOs, for example. What are some other examples? Actors, politicians, athletes, past and present — tell me about their excesses.
[This is lazyweb research for a future article.]
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 2:29 PM on January 10, 2007
(58 comments)
A speeding driver just about rear-ended my delivery truck. I know how long her skidmarks are. Can I determine how fast she was driving?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 3:03 PM on December 21, 2006
(19 comments)
I'm looking for one or more past AskMe threads in which people shared how weight-gain or weight-loss affected the way they were treated by other people. I know I've read these stories, but I'm just not finding them. It's possible that the they were shared in threads that weren't actually about obesity, but how others perceive us. Can somebody with better search skills help me?
posted to MetaTalk by jdroth
at 9:21 AM on December 2, 2006
(4 comments)
I'm looking for easy-to-manage community forum software. I run a site hosted at Dreamhost, and would like to add a message board for community discussion. I'm not averse to using phpbb (which Dreamhost can auto-install) if it can be made administrator-friendly. (I find the current admin panel a frustrating pile of crap.) In particular, I don't want to have to mess with
spam user registrations. Ideally users could register and use the site with ease, while spammers would be blocked with minimal intervention on my part. (Kind of how WordPress/Akismet deals with spam comments.) I rather like the
Joel on Software discussion group layout — clean, simple, yet effective. Willing to pay, if needed.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 3:36 PM on November 29, 2006
(12 comments)
I recently purchased a 23" Apple Cinema Display for use with my 12" Powerbook G4. It's great. It's a boon to productivity.
However, sometimes when I plug or unplug all of the monitor cords to my laptop, the system becomes unresponsive. This is Immensely Frustrating. The laptop's screen goes black and does not respond. (The keyboard still works — I can get the Caps Lock light to turn on and off.) Why does it do this? What am I doing wrong.
What's the correct way to be moving to and from this display? The manual is no help, nor is Apple's web site (surprise, surprise).
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 9:25 AM on November 18, 2006
(23 comments)
I'm looking for sites related to American popular culture from the early 20th century: books, films, radio, magazines, music, dance, comic strips, celebrities — you name it. I'm particularly interested on the period between the wars, but open to great stuff from before (and during) World War I, as well. Little Nemo, Keystone Kops, the Lindy Hop, Enrico Caruso, Fatty Arbuckle, Al Jolson, Clara Bow, Flash Gordon, Alice blue, Teddy bears, etc. These are all the sorts of things I'm after, especially as they're represented on the web.
Bonus points for sites with RSS feeds.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:05 AM on November 3, 2006
(10 comments)
I have a Moveable Type weblog. I would like to redirect the feeds. This probably involves using .htaccess and mod_rewrite. My mind has grown weary after two hours of trying to get this to work. Can anyone offer advice?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 5:51 PM on October 25, 2006
(4 comments)
I need a tool (web- or Mac-based) that will help me measure how long a web page will take to load. I'm familiar with tools that measure page weight based on the HTML in a document, but I need something that will measure load times including dynamic factors. Does such a beast exist?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 1:20 PM on October 16, 2006
(15 comments)
When I post a comment, the page reloads. When the page reloads, it jumps to "#comment". This bugs me, and I don't think it used to happen. What this means in practice is that if I refresh the page to follow a thread, the reloaded page jumps to "#comment".
Grrr. Intentional? Good? Bad? Ugly?
posted to MetaTalk by jdroth
at 12:15 PM on October 3, 2006
(27 comments)
You know those pickled sausages you can buy at convenience stores? The ones wrapped in plastic with a little bit of brine? I love those things. Especially if they're spicy hot. My dad used to buy them at the grocery store back when they had to be fished from a jar with a pair of tongs.
How do I make pickled sausages of my own? Has anyone done this before? I'm willing to go to a lot of effort in order to have a jar of tasty pickled sausages that I can access at a whim: boiling, cooking, canning, whatever. Though it's going to limit responses, I'm mostly interested in recipes that you've tried yourself and know to be good. (I'm also open to recipes for other pickled meat, as well.)
Nutrition not a factor.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 12:54 PM on September 30, 2006
(20 comments)
I'm trying to mark best answers in
this thread, but only the first one took. When I click "mark best answer" on any of the others, it acts as if I clicked on the post time.
posted to MetaTalk by jdroth
at 9:44 AM on September 20, 2006
(5 comments)
Remember my request for
sci-fi music? Six months later, I'm finally ready to make my CD mix. Almost. Last night I figured out how to record mp3 audio from DVD on my Mac, and now I want to rip key dialogue snippets from classic sci-fi films. I went for Khan spitting at Kirk from his grave, but there's too much incidental music. I think maybe I can get Ripley signing off.
What other short, iconic soundclips from sci-fi films should I look for? The intro to the old
Battlestar Galactica? Something from
Logan's Run?
Blade Runner bits? Eerie, ethereal, otherworldly, outer-space stuff is best. (Bonus points if you can direct me to a source that's already done the work for me; right now I'm looking at a several-week Netflix slog.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 1:53 PM on September 19, 2006
(67 comments)
I'm looking for funny stories about money, both funny "ha-ha" and funny "strange". These can be news stories, fictional stories, video clips, or whatever. It's best if these are available online in some fashion — actual URLs are a bonus. Anything funny/odd about shopping, saving, bank robberies, currency, rich people, poor people — I want it. Anything funny about money at all. Even funny money jokes!
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 7:44 AM on July 28, 2006
(36 comments)
I love 80s New Wave synthpop in a completely non-ironic way. I came of age with this music, and it's still a big part of my life.
What contemporary music has that mid-80s synthpop vibe? I'm looking for both individual artists and songs. (For example, I think Kylie Minogue's "I Believe in You" has an 80s vibe, but not everything of hers does. But The Postal Service would be right at home in 1984.) Here are some examples of what I'm looking for:
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 4:09 PM on July 14, 2006
(63 comments)
I want to compile a list of personal development and productivity sites. (Most are probably weblog-based, but that's not a requirement.) I'm looking for sites with real, practical information that you can use in your everyday life, sites that motivate you to be a better person, to try new things. Examples:
43 Folders,
Steve Pavlina. Please point me to your favorites!
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 8:50 AM on July 7, 2006
(13 comments)
My personal weblog runs under Movable Type. I use the plugin "otherblog" to embed the contents of a secondary linksblog in a sidebar of the main blog. My new financial blog runs under WordPress.
What's the best way to implement a linksblog sidebar in a WordPress blog?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 4:05 PM on June 21, 2006
(6 comments)
I need to post an e-mail address to the contact page of a website. What's the safest way to do this? (
Is there a safe way?)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 11:57 AM on June 4, 2006
(18 comments)
Bob Keller's Jazz Page
"Welcome to my jazz page. It contains stuff to which I want to refer and to which I refer my students." Yes, it's just a single page of links, but
wow what single page of links. An amazing jazz resource.
posted to MetaFilter by jdroth
at 8:08 PM on May 29, 2006
(24 comments)
What a surprise: I'm working on another music mix and would like suggestions. This mix features folk/bluegrass/country songs that tell stories. The less production, the less instrumentation, the more acoustic the better.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 9:01 AM on May 27, 2006
(44 comments)
I'm going to my first opera tomorrow night. It's
Don Giovanni here in Portland. It's opening night. We have cheap seats, I think. I'm moderately overweight, and so cannot fit into my truly nice clothes (which aren't even really
that nice to begin with).
What the hell do I wear?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 11:19 AM on May 12, 2006
(18 comments)
Get Rich Slowly
This site picks up where a
popular weblog entry left off, with daily information about personal finance and
related topics. I share stories about
debt elimination,
saving money, and
practical investing. I post occasional reviews of
web sites, books, magazines, and
software. (Sometimes I mine
AskMe for topics!) I also post news about simplicity,
frugality, and
personal development. There's even a
personal finance forum where like-minded people can exchange ideas. This is a new venture for me, and I'm still trying to find my footing. The site will evolve over time, improving at every step. Please feel free to leave suggestions and comments.
posted to Projects by jdroth
at 7:45 PM on May 3, 2006
HTML woes: How can I make Amazon ads play nice with Google ads? Also, why is my web site's layout screwed up in Internet Explorer on Windows?
I can't figure it out.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2006
(8 comments)
I'm looking for songs that you associate with Liberal ideals. (Or "progressive" ideals, if you prefer.) Examples: "Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen,
"If It Were Up to Me" by Cheryl Wheeler, "I'm Not the Man" by Natalie Merchant/10,000 Maniacs, "War" by Edwin Starr, etc. I'd prefer the songs weren't blatantly "Republicans suck and Bush is mean" (though "When the President Talks to God" is a fine song); I'm looking more for songs about social activism and progressive ideals, about the things that Liberals typically hold important. (Songs about the general state of the world are fine, too: "Ball of Confusion", etc.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 2:33 PM on April 12, 2006
(82 comments)
Waterfilter
(heh) — so, I have a couple of water-related questions born of a drunken debate among friends. First: what is the difference between a coast, a beach, and a shore? Second: is Puget Sound part of the Pacific Ocean, an entirely separate body, or some freakish combination of the two? Finally: when Seattleites go down to the Sound, are they going to the coast, the beach, the shore, or something else?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 1:15 PM on March 29, 2006
(41 comments)
My computer is driving me insane. Please help.
My 1.8gz Macintosh g5 has developed several annoying quirks, the cumulative effect of which is to make browsing the internet an exercise in frustration. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out. Here are the three things that I believe, individually and/or in combination, are causing the slow-downs. I have no idea how to fix any of them:
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 12:41 PM on March 22, 2006
(31 comments)
Please recommend some good personal-finance related web sites. I'm looking for sites with good information on all aspects of personal finance and responsible money use. Most of what I've found is focused on investing, though, and on macroeconomics. I'm not interested in the Big Picture. I want sites that focus on the Small Pictures: dealing with debt, saving for the future, finding bargains, etc. Think
Your Money or Your Life, but in web form. Big sites, little sites, weblogs, print magazines — I don't care, so long as it's focused on personal finance.
Bonus points for sites with RSS feeds.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 9:00 AM on March 14, 2006
(21 comments)
Matt, while I quite like the new layout of the "fantastic posts/answers" page for AskMe, some of the old functionality
has been lost. It used to be that when I was pressed for time, I'd come and see what questions/answers had been recently flagged. This gave me the "reader's digest" version of AskMe. Now, though, all I see is the "greatest hits". There's no way to see what's bubbling to the top, only what's already there. Anyway to combine the two somehow?
posted to MetaTalk by jdroth
at 12:23 PM on March 13, 2006
(3 comments)
The Final Frontier:
I'm looking for music with a sci-fi feel, the kind of music you might have heard at a planetarium display when you were a kid.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 12:35 PM on March 5, 2006
(48 comments)
So,
I've just started selling stuff on eBay again for the first time in years. I'm purging some of my excess geekness. I find the experience much more daunting than it was five years ago.
What do I need to know?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jdroth
at 10:04 AM on February 7, 2006
(40 comments)
