markmillard.com

Update 12/31: We’ve started posting photos at http://markmillard.smugmug.com/. It’s password protected, so contact us if you need the password.

I’m taking an extended break from blogging. I enjoy it, but am just too busy. Which is a bit of a shame, since that’s probably when I have the most interesting things to blog about.

In the meantime, you can always:
- Email me at markmillard(at)gmail.com
- Keep up with my bookmarks at del.icio.us/markmillard
- Look for our photos online at a smugmug.com account I will create soon

By the way, SmugMug looks like an excellent photo-sharing service. I’m looking forward to using it.

My coworkers Jamey, Summer, Donald, and I ran today in the Keep Austin Weird 5K. It felt good to participate in my first official run event since I ran/walked the Capitol 10K back in 1983, as a UT sophomore. While I have a ways to go to really consider myself a “runner,” I am in better shape now than I was in college.

Update:
My time was 39:30 (12:39/mile).
I placed 41st in my age/gender group, and 664th overall.

How did my friends do?
Jamey 40:33
Summer 35:24
Donald 23:12

I’ve been using Journler for five weeks now, and I really like it. I use it for general-purpose logging of all sorts of information, at both home and work.

The developer, Phil Dow, does a great job of responding to forum feedback, and adding/refining new features. Keep up the great work, Phil!

As many of you noticed, an unexpected upgrade problem brought my website down for about a week. Thanks to Giles for working hard to get everything running again!

I’ll get caught up soon and post George’s 18-month pictures.

My blog got hit by relentless comment spam this week. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, let me tell you: this is a major downer. When comment spam hits your blog, you often have little recourse but to turn off commenting completely. That strikes me as a very sad, antisocial outcome of bullying behavior.

Fortunately I found a great solution in Akismet. I installed Akismet yesterday and it instantly, completely blocked my comment spam.

Thank you Akismet!

(The Akismet folks also have a cute little blog about how much spam they block.)