My AC Died, Summer's Over, and Football's Back: A Perfect Storm of Sunday Shenanigans

It's a relaxing Sunday morning, and a perfect time to catch up on a few things.

Speaking of catching up, our AC decided to take a break on Friday. Not ideal! But we have someone coming to check it out on Monday. Hopefully it's a simple fix like refilling the freon.

Can't believe how fast summer is flying by! It feels like just yesterday school was out and the season began. Now, fall is right around the corner with another semester starting soon.

By the way, you might notice some ads back on the site. My web host fixed a security certificate issue, and that got the ads up and running again. I apologize for any pop-ups, but with over 1,000 weekly visitors, it helps keep the blog going.

Speaking of keeping things going, NFL preseason is underway! I always enjoy fantasy football drafts, and I have my next one coming up on August 26th. Carrie, on the other hand, prefers the live game experience. Luckily, NFL Sunday Ticket lets me catch all the action on YouTube TV.

And for some local excitement, Washburn football kicks off the season on August 29th! The first home game is September 14th against Colorado School of Mines. It'll be fun to be back at the stadium for tailgating and cheering on the team.

That's all for this Sunday morning ramble. Time to catch the Royals game! Have a great week, everyone!

Haverty.NET: The Website That Needs a GPS (to Find Itself)

Working with hosting company, we got the the issue somewhat resolved from last week regarding Haverty.NET. I am still seeing issues if I try going to haverty.net where the page will not load. It has to have www.haverty.net to load every time. Again, working with web hosting company to try and resolve. Of course everything should redirect to https://blogger.haverty.net which is my blog, but I want all sites at haverty.net to be secure.

This should not have been this difficult to set up but here I am two weeks later only slightly better. If I can get the issue where the page redirects properly regardless of what address is entered, I will be happy. Work continues and waiting to hear back from hosting company on how to resolve.

More on this later and hopefully by next weekend, this will all be resolved.

Update on haverty.net sites not working and continued troubleshooting

I wanted to provide an update to the status of my website (www.haverty.net). A week ago I started a process to provide secure connection when going to sites other than the blog. It has not gone well. This has broken all sites except for https://blogger.haverty.net which is hosted is still working. I am working with my hosting company as well as domain registration company on the issue. For now, I have tried to set it back to how it was set prior to the changes so that email and some web pages will work again.

If you are having problems accessing Haverty.NET, this is the reason why. I was hoping to resolve it over the weekend, but most pages were not working as of Sunday morning which required me to revert back to prior to making any changes. I am waiting for my issue to be escalated to help with this issue.

Have a great rest of your Sunday and I hope to have an update later this week on this issue.

Thank you for visiting.

Email Subscription from haverty.net Going Away in June -- Other Options to Connect

Email subscription to my blog will be ending in June. I have removed the email subscription from the site as the service is being abandoned. You will need to visit the site (i.e. https://blogger.haverty.net/) or watch on the various social media sites mentioned below where I post updates.

I do have the site post to Twitter, FaceBook Group, and LinkedIn. LinkedIn probably generates the majority of the traffic to my site and interactions. The FaceBook Group site was something I tried as it was not possible to auto post from my site directly to my FaceBook profile. The FaceBook Group gets very little visitors as it is separate from my profile and I have really not publicized the group on FaceBook.

If I come across another option to allow for email subscription for this site, I will post an update and share the process on how to do so. Feed Burner is through Google and will be expired which is the reason for this update.

My plan is to post at least once every Sunday throughout the year. Some Sunday's I post more, but at least once a week is my goal. I look forward to interacting with you and sharing what is happening, or I am thinking, on The Dog House.

Improvement to Mobile Site for www.haverty.net and Interested in Feedback on the New Mobile View Look

I made changes to the mobile view of this site. I realized that the mobile view was horrible and not easy to follow. Hopefully the new view is easier to read and follow. It should also be easier to browse the site, read articles, and get back to the home page or other sections of the site.

It is funny how bad the old mobile site was and I did not realize it even though I had checked the site multiple times on my cell phone but only realized it was bad when I was going back to read an old post from years ago and realized there was a lot of "dead" space at the top of the page that is not there when viewing on a computer.

The image to the right is the new view which resembles how it appears when accessing on a computer. Basically, I got rid of the odd blank space that was showing up on mobile devices when accessing the site.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please post a comment in the section below.

Updated Web Site for The Dog House with new Design for Blog

Following discussions last week in the weekly #blogchat via Twitter, change have been made to the look and feel of The Dog House. Still working with different ideas, but so far the changes seem to make the site easier to read and navigate.

The site still uses Blogger, however, it is no longer using my custom template. Instead, the site is using a template provided by Blogger that I can change at anytime. Google Analytics has also been updated and tweaked to get a better sense of the traffic visiting the web site as visitors per day continues to increase.

Let me know your thoughts by posting to the comments or send me a tweet.

Blab Blab Blab... A new Social Media Site to Check Out

During the weekly #blogchat last week, a fellow #blogchat participant introduced me to site Blab.  Marc Miller introduced me to Blab by way of his blog posting back in October 2015.  Blab is still in beta, so it is still being tested.  I was intrigued as soon as I visited the the blog (Boomer Job Search with CareerSherpa and CareerPivot) and saw the demo of how Marc was using the Blab service.

At first glance of Blab, it appears to be a simple video chat.  With deeper investigation (and use) it is similar to Google Hangouts, but this was different in that anyone could tune in and watch the conversation.  Not only can anyone tune in and watch, but they can also chat with anyone in the "room".

I admit, I have not done a lot with Google Hangouts.  I have visited the site and participated in one or two Hangouts.  Although, usually when I have taken part in a Hangout, it was through a YouTube video where someone was doing a Google Hangouts and then broadcasting it via YouTube.  I think the last time I tried using Google Hangouts was in 2011 or 2012.  Sure, I see them from time-to-time when visiting various sites or when browsing #live streams on YouTube, but it has not been something I have been involved in at all.

From what I know of Google Hangouts, I remember it would allow up to ten people doing video chat.  No one else can join in on the call to watch those ten people chatting.  Only those ten people connected are able to video chat and see one another in the chat.  This is where I believe Blab is different.

Blab only allows for a maximum of four people to video chat at one time.  The difference is that anyone can tune into the Blab to watch and even interact with the "blabbers" in the chat.  A complete description of what the site is about can be found on their web site at https://blab.im/about.

The site is currently in beta, but so far from what I can tell, it is working fine.  The site does only currently work with Firefox or Chrome.  It does not work with Internet Explorer or Safari.  I am hopeful as they build and develop the site that other browsers will work with the site too.  Possibly the HTML engine of the two browsers they have selected that allow for the video chat to work where IE and Safari do not allow for it to happen.  Regardless, to gain popularity I hope that other sites can be used too.

The site went to beta back over the summer of 2015 as indicated on the About Blab page.  It appears they have had some good publicity from presidential post debates as well as Big Brother chats.  Yes, the first time I hear about it was during a weekly #blogchat when a fellow chatter mentioned it to me.

I am certainly interested in what the site is about.  I see the potential for a lot of events.  No, not necessary me doing them at this point, but looking through the various categories, it already appears to be catching on to TV and radio hosts to allow interaction for their shows.

Interesting point that Marc Miller suggested in his Blab chat, what it can be used for office hours for faculty.  The site allows anyone to jump into the video chat and the entire class, or anyone interested, and that has the link to the video chat, can tune in and take part.  They can take part by jumping into an open seat (remember there are four spots to video chat) or they can take part in the chat.

They have an app for Apple and imagine if it continues to grow there will be apps for other mobile devices too.  Certainly a interesting concept they have put on the web.  I would never have known  about it until the #blogchat last week.

What cool and different sites to you visit each week that you are not sure anyone else knows about?  Feel free to share in the comments or send me a tweet.