Divertimento Spring Concert

(This is an old post from March 29, 2016, recovered via the Wayback Machine…) Please join me and the other members of the Divertimento Orchestra for a wonderful Spring concert: Donizetti! – Overture to Don Pasquale An exciting, rip-roaring overture with some brutally fast playing. Beethoven — Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 “Pastorale” … Continue reading “Divertimento Spring Concert”

(This is an old post from March 29, 2016, recovered via the Wayback Machine…)

Please join me and the other members of the Divertimento Orchestra for a wonderful Spring concert:

Donizetti! – Overture to Don Pasquale
An exciting, rip-roaring overture with some brutally fast playing.

Beethoven — Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 “Pastorale”
This is a deeply moving, powerful Symphony that paints beautiful images, from a shepherd tending a flock, to a ferocious thunderstorm. The more I play this piece, the more I discover in it.

Grieg — Symphonic Dances, Op. 64
Originally written for piano duet, and then orchestra, this is a cycle of four pieces founded on Norwegian folk dance melodies.

The concert dates are:

April 22 & 23, 2016 at 8 p.m.
L’Eglise St. Thomas d’Aquin
1244 Kilborn Avenue
Ottawa

Tickets prices are:

$20 for adults
$10 for Students and Seniors
$5 for kids under 13
Free for kids under 6

I hope to see you there.

*sigh*… Yes, I lost data.

Once again, I’ve lost data from the blog. This time it was the more recent posts. The wayback machine captured most of what I lost, so I may be able to recover it, but I may not bother. I hate mysql.

Once again, I’ve lost data from the blog. This time it was the more recent posts. The wayback machine captured most of what I lost, so I may be able to recover it, but I may not bother.

I hate mysql.

Context driven parsing

I thought I’d record this here, because it’s such a great example of why context is important when recognizing text… Consider this: I suspect almost anyone who sees that image would parse it as a date, that is “13 December”. Of course, once you see it in context, at least the Tim Horton’s regulars would … Continue reading “Context driven parsing”

I thought I’d record this here, because it’s such a great example of why context is important when recognizing text…

Consider this:

Text that looks like "13 Dec"

I suspect almost anyone who sees that image would parse it as a date, that is “13 December”. Of course, once you see it in context, at least the Tim Horton’s regulars would know it said “Black Decaf”.

A Tim Horton's Coffee -- Black; Decaf

Apologies

I realize the site has been down for a couple of days. Things continue to be quite complex/random here. Thanks to those who let me know. Apologies again for the downtime.

I realize the site has been down for a couple of days. Things continue to be quite complex/random here.

Thanks to those who let me know. Apologies again for the downtime.

Lucas

As many of you know, there’s a new addition to our family: Lucas. Things have been very hectic here for the last few days. We had a health scare with our adult dog, George, but it seems we’re mostly through that now. In any case, I don’t really have time for a full post tonight, … Continue reading “Lucas”

As many of you know, there’s a new addition to our family: Lucas.
Lucas sleeping

Things have been very hectic here for the last few days. We had a health scare with our adult dog, George, but it seems we’re mostly through that now. In any case, I don’t really have time for a full post tonight, but there’s a short clip of their first meeting on YouTube

And here’s one more picture…
Lucas between Deb's feet
Yes, he crawled between Deb’s feet while she was cleaning up and fell asleep. 🙂

Building a Static Website using IBM Cloud

Update 2: Another round of updates to make sure the URLs and other content match the correct IBM Cloud branding. Update: I have upgraded my project to be a new IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery toolchain and updated the Deploy to IBM Cloud button below to point at my new repository. Learn more. Somebody asked me … Continue reading “Building a Static Website using IBM Cloud”

Update 2: Another round of updates to make sure the URLs and other content match the correct IBM Cloud branding.

Update: I have upgraded my project to be a new IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery toolchain and updated the Deploy to IBM Cloud button below to point at my new repository. Learn more.

Somebody asked me the other day if it was possible to build a simple, static website using IBM Cloud. With a bit of thought, I managed to get one going that used the nginx buildpack, but it turns out there’s an even simpler solution. On the CloudFoundry community site on GitHub there’s a “static file” buildpack that is just what you’re looking for. Given this, it’s just a handful of steps to get a static website going:

  1. Create a toolchain at IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery, with a repo and a pipeline.
  2. Create a manifest file with the buildpack: set to the static file buildpack
  3. Pour in some html content
  4. Configure the pipeline to deploy the app
  5. Commit your source to the repo

Ok, even though that’s pretty easy, it might be a bit hard to get right if you’ve never done it before. So here’s an even simpler solution…

Just click this button:
Deploy to IBM Cloud button

🙂

That will take you through all the steps above, setting you up with a toolchain and all the tools you need to work with on IBM Cloud, along with example starting content for your website. It also takes care of deploying the site so you can see it running right away. All you have to do is edit the html files to be what you want, commit them to the repo, and you’re done.

It even works if you don’t have an IBM Cloud account yet (although you’ll be asked to sign up for one).

Now that’s simple!

(… Ok, it’s not quite that sample. IBM Cloud uses API keys to access its services, including Cloud Foundry deployment. You’ll need to create one along the way. Luckily, that too is part of the flow that happens when you push the Deploy to IBM Cloud button above, so it’s *almost* that simple.)