Google Analytics

Some of you probably know that I am a bit obsessed with all of the tools, toys, and services that Google has to offer. Well, I've just made a basic update to the web page to take advantage of yet another. It is Google Analytics which lets you view statistics about traffic on your site. I've been using Stat Counter from the beginning and I haven't gotten rid of it. The little number at the bottom right of every page is my unique visitor count from Stat Counter. My only complaint is that I only get to see the last 100 page loads with the free subscription, but I just thought I'd add Google's free tool as well to see if I like it.

By the way, I've got some other projects to update you on. E just dumped a month or so worth of pictures off her camera so hopefully I'll be able to give you some updates soon.

Edit (4 Aug 08): fixed broken links.

More Garage Lighting and Upcoming Projects

E and I have decided that our next big project will be the "headboard" for our bed. I put that in quotes because it isn't exactly a headboard but I can't think of a better description either. It's actually more like wall art over and around the bed. Confused yet? The picture below is a rough sketchup of the design.

There are actually a few details missing. There will be small tables on each side of the bed cantilevered out from the boards there and some pendant lights that hang down above the tables. Again, hard to explain but we hope to have it done soon so I should be able to put up some pictures. I've already got the middle boards ready to be stained. I cut keyholes in them for hidden mounting to the wall.

The reference to more garage lighting is that I installed two more lights in the garage like the others. I wired them to the existing switch so I can get some pretty good light in there. The motivation was that we are in a pretty rainy season but there wasn't enough light to stain wood with the garage door closed. There is plenty of light now!

The other "upcoming project" I'm actually just about to go do. Because of tree roots, there are some steps in our sidewalk and the community association has been complaining. There is a whole frustrating story there because the steps in our sidewalk are nothing like some of the others around the neighborhood. We figure that someone on the board must live on our street. Anyway, I bought some concrete and I'm going to try to build "ramps" like the association requested. We'll see how it goes.

Customizing Outlook Today

This post talks about how to customize the Outlook Today page. This is something I worked on a while back when I was trying to increase productivity at work. I wanted to have everything that I look at in one place: calendar, tasks, unread mail, and mail marked for follow-up. Here's a screen shot of what my Outlook Today page looks like.

So, it's not beautiful but it is functional. It just uses basic HTML along with a bunch of special Outlook stuff. At various times, I've had the weather, a Google search bar, and other basic things on the page. The other warning before I give you the file to download is that I just patched this together from the default Outlook Today page and various custom pages I found on the web so the HTML is very ugly. Please, no complaints about how poorly it is written. It works and that's all I was going for. I'd be happy to see improvements, however, if anyone wants to send them to me. Anyway, here is a my custom Outlook Today page and associated files.

To install, you just unzip the files anywhere on your computer, open Outlook, right click on your mailbox, select properties, go to the home page tab, and browse for the Custom_OT.htm file. When you apply the setting, you might get an error message that you can ignore. The first thing you might notice is that because of the embedded email windows, the page doesn't work particularly well if the embedded email folders have the Reading Pane active.. You can turn it off by selecting the email folders (by default, Unread Mail and For Follow Up) and then View->Reading Pane->Off. Next, I'll talk a little about customizing this page and give you refer you to some more information.

To customize the folders that show up in the Messages section, how the calendar looks, and how your tasks are organized, you need to edit the registry (Start->Run->Regedit). Outlook Tips defines the registry keys that affect the appearance of Outlook Today. Defining the folders isn't as hard as the site makes it seem though. For instance, one of my entries is just "Search Folders\Unread Mail". Let me know if you have any trouble setting things up. The other thing you might want to customize is the mail folders that show up at the bottom of the page. For that, open Custom_OT.htm in notepad (or your favorite HTML editor) and search for "Search Folders". You'll find it twice. I have "Search Folders\Unread Mail" and "Search Folders\For Follow Up" and you can replace them with whatever you wish.

If you are interest in more information, slipstick has some. The links on that page might be of particular interest. I also collected various parts of my custom page from other sites that I can't seem to find again so sorry to the people I ripped off without crediting. Good luck!

Lighting Projects

Over the last couple of weeks, I've done three lighting projects. First, we had these really ugly outdoor lights on the back patio that we wanted to replace but hadn't gotten around to yet. One of the bulbs burned out so that was our motivation to take care of it. Sorry I don't have any before pictures but I've included an after picture. Not that it is particularly exciting, but there is also a picture of the other one in the album.

The second project was a little more involved. E got a new dining room chandelier for Christmas to replace the beautiful thing you see on the left (in mid-removal). Of course, it wasn't as simple as just replacing the existing one; it had to be moved as well so I started by patching the existing hole. This is the first time I've done this before so I'm pretty happy with the results. If you look closely, you can tell where it was but it certainly doesn't stand out. Anyway, I used this real popcorn ceiling stuff that came in a tube and just had to carefully apply it to get a similar texture to the rest of the ceiling. Next, I moved the ceiling box and cut a new hole for the new chandelier. Here are a couple pictures of the finished job.

The last project was simply replacing the light over my workbench in the garage with a couple of new lights. The old one was broken and only occasionally worked. It's nice to actually be able to see out there now. Here are the before and after pictures.

I'm actually planning to do a little more lighting work coming up. I am probably going to put another one of the outside lights under the patio and I've got a couple more lights for the garage. Both of those projects require running wire though so I might not get to them right away.

Computer Desk: Part VI - Finally!

The computer desk is done! Actually, it has been for a couple weeks but they have been a very hectic couple of weeks for E and I. I went to Washington, DC last week for work and E joined me for the weekend. We've also been really busy at work. Anyway, that's why it has taken a while to get this entry published. We've completely moved into the desk now including computer, accessories and files. There's not really much to say about it except that we decided to go with glass for the durability. See the pictures below. Notice that all of the components can pull out. This is great for access but made cord running a real pain.