UPDATE: if anyone knows of a non-broken syntax highlighting plugin for wordpress that supports bash or some other shell syntax, let me know :-/ Apache logs, database backups, etc., on busy web sites, can get large. If you rotate logs or perform backups regularly, they can get large and numerous, and as we all know,…
Category: Woodworking
Heartbreaking screwup. Don’t do this :-(
What a dope I can be. So I have this board. It’s like, 9″x23″. I need to cut it to two boards, each 9″x10 5/8″. That’s *almost* in half. So, what I did is measured out the 10 5/8, drew a line, lined up the crosscut, and ran it across the table saw. Sounds simple,…
Woodworking Progress, and why I hate plywood and woodworking books
So first, the progress report: I’ve had a few days off due to the holidays, and I got a $100 Lowe’s gift certificate for Christmas. I requested Lowe’s because they have a nicer, and wider selection of wood there for me to use in my small projects. When I get to the larger projects or…
It’s a Woodworking Christmas
This year, just about everything I got for christmas was woodworking-related, which is wonderful. After a couple of years of mucking with my tools and making a couple of small projects, I’m ready to move on to projects that are still small, but are made of real wood, instead of plywood or 2×4 lumber. I…
Growing Affinity for Hand Tools
I bought some kind of special edition magazine about using hand tools in the shop. As usual, I read it cover-to-cover in about an hour, and I’ve a few articles over since then. I also purchased a really cool book called “Choosing & Using Hand Tools”, which just completely rocked my world. I also have…
Woodworking Lessons 4: Use more than one source of information
This rule of thumb comes from just my experiences in the past couple of weeks. It applies to a number of things, actually, but the first things that come to mind are your wood measurements, and your step-by-step guides. I bought a book put out by the publishers of a popular woodworking magazine, in which…
Woodworking Lessons 3: Do the stupid beginner projects
Oh man, am I ever glad that I’m doing those really stupid beginner projects. Stuff that looks like it would be super easy to do (and probably is for an experienced woodworker) takes me forever to figure out, and then I still get things wrong. Right now, I’m working on a simple SIMPLE simple box….
Woodworking Lessons 2: Table saw safety is in the details
I have a rather large, hulking, bulky, heavy table saw. It’s one that real men generally like to have, because it’s big, and it’s heavy, and it cuts stuff. However, cutting safely on a table saw apparently is a more detailed operation than I thought. I had a problem where every time I’d rip a…
Woodworking Lessons 1: A matter of trust
I decided to start a little series based on the lessons I’m learning in woodworking. I’m a total newbie, but if I can help other newbies, hey, I’m all for it. So here’s the conclusion I’ve come to after doing just a couple of small projects: it’s all just a matter of trust. It seems…
Woodworking 101
In the world of computer programming, there’s a sort of tradition which dictates that the first program you ever write in a new language does nothing but print out “Hello World!”. Usually, the program can be written in seconds, in only a couple of lines of code. Even this small a program is encouraging to…