Pratt’s Fun

Tornado: Where In Your House Or Basement To Go

June 9, 2010
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Last weekend we had the tornado’s go through the area. Just down the road from me in Dundee, MI they got hit and also not far from me at all in northern Ohio. SEE MY POST HERE ABOUT THE TORNADO’S As these storms were rolling through and my wife was freaking out, I decided to email the team at WTOL Toledo and ask them were the best places to hide in a house are from a tornado. The thing was that we have recently moved into our house and it does not have a basement. This is probably the...

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Motorola DROID – Navigation With Google Maps And Contacts

April 28, 2010
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For work I literally have hundreds of sites in SE Michigan that I might have to go to. So, as you can imagine I don’t know them all by heart. Work gave me a Garmin GPS unit to help me navigate around but even with that I have to find the place first and then save it into Garmin once I am there. So, now that I have a DROID I have uploaded all my work points to My Maps in my Google Maps account. I have actually made several maps so that each one is categorized and I...

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Playing With My New Motorola DROID – MP3's As Ringtones, Notifications And Alarms

April 10, 2010
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Well my buddy at work got the Motorola DROID. He raved about it. I played with it a little and decided I needed one. I am very impressed with this phone and it is honestly the first new phone in a long time that I have been really excited about. The functionality of the phone, the appearance, feel (even though it’s heavy), the way it operates and of course all the apps that go with it. I read somewhere that it is now estimated there are over 11,000 apps of the DROID. Now the iPhone has about 100,000 apps....

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WordPress Dashboard Widget – Add Your Own Custom Widget

February 25, 2010
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I got to playing last nigh with WordPress (again). My wife uses the WordSpew Plugin on her site for her and her sister to talk back and forth on the dashboard. They run a Twilight Fan site and the 2 of them post articles to the site. So they use WordSpew to communicate. I got it working on the dashboard by simply adding the code to the dashboard file (wp-admin/index.php) and adding the code to import the css into the wp-admin/admin-header.php file. On top of that I also told it to only display on the dashboard for my wife...

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Newbie Getting To Know Linux Distros

January 11, 2010
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Well a couple of weeks ago I decided to start playing with some Linux distro’s. This just happen to be on accident. I read somewhere about small portable OS’s that you can run off a Live CD or you can even make a bootable USB drive. I decided to Google “Portable OS”. This is also an expansion for my love of portable apps. Low and behold the first link I came up with was for one of my favorite sites Lifehacker.com. I was pleasantly surprised that their article – Six Best Portable Operating Systems was the first to pop...

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What Is Windows Genuine Advantage And How To Disable It

October 21, 2009
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Are you tired of getting that pesky pop-up when you start up Windows wanting you to verify your copy of windows? That Windows Genuine Advantage box. Most important let’s disable it first then we’ll see what it is! For disabling it I got the information from here - http://gideonmiranda.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/how-to-disable-windows-genuine-advantage-notification-in-3-simple-steps/ Which was linked to here - http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-disable-windows-genuine-advantage-notification-in-3-simple-steps/ HOW TO DISABLE IT – Following three simple steps now you can get rid of the pesky and sometimes buggy Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) notifications: 1. Reboot Windows in safe mode (hold the f8 key while booting and you will get the option...

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Remembering 9/11

September 11, 2009
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September 11, 2001. I had been out of the military for about 7 months when the Twin Towers were struck by terrorists. At the time I was working 2nd shift. I had got up early that morning, lifted weights and was eating breakfast on the couch in front of the TV. I really don’t remember what morning show I was watching. All I do know is that they cut in to show live video of the 1st tower burning. I remember who ever was talking was saying that there were conflicting reports as to whether a Cessna type plane...

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Scam Uses Google's Good Name, Then Rips You Off

September 10, 2009
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I was on my way to bed this evening when @fevvynoriegaah contacted me on Twitter. I was just finishing watching the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans opening 2009 NFL season game. Here is what this persons Tweet said. @pratts_pub I’m sure you have heard but if not Google is hiring users online for work. You can read it at http://bit.ly/11G7bS It’s very … BEWARE – The link in that tweet is what I am warning you of. I of course can not swear that this particular link is a scam, but my gut says that it is and I...

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PHP: List Files In A Directory

August 11, 2009
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Like I have said. This site is a little about everything. It is also a place for me to keep examples of scripts that I use from time to time in case I loose them. Misplacing items is a very common things for me, just ask my wife. Anyway, whenever possible I will give credit to whoever or where ever I found the code. In this case I have been holding onto the code for awhile and really have no idea where I got it. So if it’s yours, speak up!

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Getting Flash Chat To Work With WordPress MU

July 28, 2009
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Looking for a chat program to add to your WordPress or WordPress MU site. I recommend FlashChat from the guys at TUFaT.com. FlashChat has a very nice interface and configuration that is pretty easy to figure out and customize. You can add custom themes as well as customize how the chat program is used by others and what kind of privileges others have. And I really recommend taking full advantage for their message boards as well. Just make sure you search around a little first and make sure your question has not already been answered. In this article I...

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