Sage Lewis

I have a small computer that I would like to play movies on. However, it doesn’t have a dvd player.

So, now I’m venturing into the dark world of cracking dvd’s with Decrypting software and then re-encoding the movies to fit the various formats I’m interested in using.

Right now I’m testing this:
DVD Decrypter

You have to do a search for something like ‘download DVD Decrypter’ to find a mirror where you can download this.

I’ve also downloaded this:

HandBrake

Thinking this would solve all my problems. However, this is more of a tool to encode your already ripped dvd’s.

So, I’m decrypting a movie right now. Then I “think” I’m going to use HandBrake to re-encode it to a size I want.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I also downloaded this:

dvdshrink.org: FREE Backup Solution for your DVD movies!

But I think this all-in-one package might not be ideal. We’ll see.

I’ve been playing around with Google Apps on SageRock.org to see if it might, someday be something for our main site.

The thing I’m working on now is getting the MX records setup for Google Apps in my dns records. (My dns records are on 000domains.com. All of the changes are happening within their dns management tool.

I’ve changed all of the mx records to this:

But I have them referencing mail.sagerock.org. I’m wondering if I don’t need the subdomain of “mail”. I’ll check back in a few days to see if it took this time.

Actually, upon thinking about it, I’ve now removed the mx records for mail.sagerock.org and just directed them all to sagerock.org. I “think” this might be what they wanted. We’ll see.

I am teaching a class tomorrow on SEO Tech Tips. Part of the class is .htaccess rewriting. I think one of the hardest parts of this is knowing what all the different codes stand for in what is called Regular Expressions. I won’t list them all. But I do want to put the most common ones used in .htaccess rewriting. I’m going to put them here for easy access:

• ^ The caret signifies the start of an URL, under the current directory. This directory is whatever directory the .htaccess file is in. You’ll start almost all matches with a caret.
• $ The dollar sign, $, signifies the end of the string to be matched. You should add this in to stop your rules matching the first part of longer URLs.
• . The period or dot matches any one character, except a newline.
• \. This backslash is an escape telling the Apache server to treat the . as a normal character.
  
• [] The parts in square brackets are called ranges.
• () We have encased the regular expression part of the URL in parentheses, because we want to store whatever value was found here for later use. In this case we’re sending this value to a PHP page as an argument. Once we have a value in parentheses we can use it through what’s called a back-reference. Each of the parts you’ve placed in parentheses are given an index, starting with one. So, the first back-reference is $1, the third is $3 etc.
• + The plus modifier changes whatever comes directly before it, by saying ‘one or more of the preceding character or range.’
• * The asterisk means ‘zero or more of the preceding character or range’,
• ? The question mark means ‘zero or only one of the preceding character or range.’
• [R] R forces a redirect of the url
• [R,L] flag. R forces a redirect of the url, while L says this is the last rule, don’t bother checking any more.
• [R=301] makes the redirect a 301 permanent redirect.
• [NC] Since Unix is case sensitive, the [NC] flag makes the statement case insensitive.

I had a ton of water in my basement. A friend and I installed a sump pump. This is how we did it.

YouTube - Installing A Sump Pump

If you are going to be in Chicago this week, come check out:
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Training Workshops - Chicago, IL - June 4, 2008

I’m teaching a class called:
Tech Pitfalls That Will Derail Your SEO

Watch this video to learn more about the workshops and my class:

Rocky was talking about all the cool things we need to do this summer.
Here’s the list so far:
Cedar Point Amusement Park, The Roller Coaster Capital of the World! - Opens May 10
Geauga Lake’s Wildwater Kingdom- Northeast Ohio’s Premier Waterpark
Kings Island | Official Home Page
We have a year pass for all Cedar Fair Properties
May 17 - Partners in Percussion with Cleveland Orchestra
Akron Zoo
Miniature Golf
Cleveland Air Show - August 30, 31 and September 1.
Pool
Memphis Kiddie Park
Lake House
Invent Now - Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
Great Lakes Science Center
Hale Farm and Village
Medina County Fair - 2008 Fair Dates: July 28-August 3
Stan Hywet Easter Egg Hunt - Saturday, March 22, 2008
Peter and the Wolf with Cleveland Orchestra

Local search is on-fire hot! By catering to a local audience you can significantly increase your sales and your conversion rate. But creating local search campaigns isn’t as simple as just mirroring your national paid search campaign. Come to the Think Global, Act Local Training Class at SES Chicago to learn hands-on, how-to techniques and strategies to make full use of the local search market. And if it could get any better, I will be co-presenting this cool class with fellow SageRocker, Greg Habermann!

Check out this video to get a taste of all you will learn. And click on the following link to get all the details:
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/chicago/training.html

Check out this video to learn more about it:

So I’ve been told and consequently been reading about the causes of cancer. If you are interested in the research, check out these articles:

Check out this article on the causes of cancer put out by the AICR:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/six-good-eating-habits-help/story.aspx?guid=%7BAE0DF295-2B39-4AA2-B634-B57F5CCE0E45%7D

This is a similar article, based on the same survey, talking about how people think the “everything” causes cancer. When in reality there are specific things that cause cancer… just the things people don’t want to admit:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/87474.php

Apparently meat and dairy are major contributors to cancer. So, viola! I’m not eating meat or dairy. I don’t mind it at all from a food variety standpoint. However, I have caught a cold (something I rarely do these days). And I’ve also felt a little tired. I’ve only been doing it for two weeks. It’s possible this might just be a transition time for my body. But I thought I’d look into it to see if others felt similar things.

Here’s an interesting article on what a person needs, from a protein, calcium, iron point of view:

No Meat, No Dairy: A new approach to weight-loss.:

So do your body a favor - get your protein from the following sources and realize that you only need an average of 44-56 grams of protein per day to meet your daily requirements. 44 for females, 36 for males. The average American eats an average of 100-120 a day - hmmm I wonder where there getting their protein?

Excellent sources of protein:

Grains: Brown rice, oats (CEREAL, OATMEAL, GRANOLA), millet, corn, barley, bulghur and wheat (WHOLE WHEAT BREAD, PASTAS, CEREALS, FLOUR, ETC.) FYI: Corn isn’t a vegetable, it’s actually a grain.

Legumes: Green peas, lentils, chick peas, alfalfa sprouts, mung beans, and beans of all kinds (kidney, navy, lima, soy) and products made from them like tofu, textured vegetable protein - TVP - tempeh, soy milks) peanuts, etc.

Greens: Broccoli, collards, spinach, etc.

Nuts and Seeds: Almonds, cashews, walnuts, filberts, pistachios, pecans, macadamias and nut butters made from these. Sunflower seeds are a good source as well as sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds.

Fish: Fish offers an abundance of health benefits (essential fatty acids, protein) and are a good alternative to meat and poultry. But be careful and watch which types of fish you eat. Some contain high levels of mercury that can wreak havoc on the body. Salmon and tuna have the lowest levels. Please note that EFA’s can be found in yellow vegetables and oil-rich foods.

Let’s talk about calcium for a minute. Yes, milk does contain calcium but I can name at least 6 different healthy alternatives that contain even more calcium than milk. Keep in mind that milk contains about 120 mgs per cup and too much calcium can lead to kidney stones. The average adult needs around 800 mgs. per day.

Collards - 304 mgs. Kale - 249 mgs. Oats - 170 mgs. Chickpeas - 150 Almond/Raisin mix - 290 Tofu - 150

Don’t forget calcium fortified OJ contains just as much calcium as milk as does soy milk.

Many healthy foods and snacks contain Iron. 100 grams of beefsteak contains about 3.0 mgs of Iron. The average adult requires 10 mgs. for males and 18 mgs. for females.

Spinach 100 grams - 4.0 mgs. Raisins 100 grams - 4.1 mgs Molasses 15 grams - 3.2 mgs. Garbanzo Beans 100 grams - 7.0 mgs. Lentils 100 grams - 4.2 mgs Tofu 100 grams - 2.5 mgs. Millet 25 grams - 4.0 mgs. Pumpkin seeds 50 grams - 3.0 mgs. Prune Juice 3 ½ oz. - 10.5 mgs

On a first pass, no one seems to be reporting similar things. I’ll keep at it, get past this cold and then see how I feel. I’m also going to try to up my intake on some of the above things.

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This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands.