Category: blogging

Gallery Installed, Finally

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

After some effort, I successfully installed Gallery yesterday (it wasn’t quite as easy as I was hoping it would be).

In older versions, Gallery used to insist on the NetPBM library (installation requirements). However, it now supports ImageMacick as well. During the installation/configuration script, the pre-screening reported that NetPBM was found (“All 12 files found”) on my host. So, when presented with the pull-down to choose between NetPBM and ImageMagic, I just went with that…

The rest of the installation seemed to go fine. I then went to upload some photos and I started getting errors (the mind-numbingly vague “Unable to make thumbnail(0)”, whee). So, I re-ran the configuration script and turned on debug-mode. Then, after trying to upload photos again, the debug-mode diagnostics reported that one of the NetPBM files couldn’t be found (I’m still not sure whether this was the fault of Gallery or a mistake on the part of my hosting provider).

Since the NetPBM files were shared among several domains on my host and out of my reach (permissions-wise), I decided to attempt to install the latest version of NetPBM on my own. So, I uploaded those files to my host, set their permissions (755) and re-ran the Gallery configuration script. I told it the location of these newly installed files, but I just couldn’t get Gallery to recognize them (yuck).

I was about ready to give up, but then I remembered that Gallery supported ImageMagick as well. Of course, the pre-screening script didn’t affirm the discovery of ImageMagick files, so I wasn’t even sure if they were installed. But, I tried it anyway — setting the image-library in the configuration-script to ImageMagick — and it just worked (whew).

Don’t get me wrong — Gallery is a great program. But, its installation seems to become a bit wonky if it veers off its best case scenario. And, the “installation instructions” (if you can call them that) were a bit terse. Some of the steps were on the level of asking a novice cook to “julienne a potato”. Sure, that may be straightforward to an experienced cook, but it would also be understandably tough if you don’t even know what julienne means.

(And, just to clarify, I don't consider myself an expert cook, nor did I know what julienne meant until I looked it up just now.)

DFWBlogs Cocktail Event – January

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This month’s DFWBlogs Cocktail Event was held at Lakewood Landing:

This upscale dive is roomy enough so patrons can be seen, but cozy enough to remain discreet. You'll find a totally swank jukebox, pool table and random live acts during the week. To keep you sober, the kitchen serves chicken fried steaks, burgers, fries, and amazingly enough — veggie burgers. […]

I was encouraged by the mention of hamburgers, as a good hamburger is still one of my favorties. This user-review at Digital City confirmed that:

Extremely tasty burgers (I highly recomend adding blue cheese to this item) and wings so hot, I blame them for my first stomach ulcer. Irresistable nonetheless. […]

As toppings go, blue cheese is my favorite for burgers. So, upon arriving, I was sure to order a burger with blue cheese (and a Bass). When taking my order, the server gave me the option of mayo and/or mustard, and I opted for “a little mayo”.

The burger arrived shortly, and it was good. The meat was hot and loosely packed (just how I like it). The crumbled blue cheese was sprinkled across the patty; it added a pleasant blue-cheese nature to the burger, though the burger may have been even better with just a touch more blue cheese ;).

The only disappointment in the burger was the bun — it was very McDonald’s-like, as it was just a fluffy white-flour bun. The bun was like a week ending to an otherwise-exciting movie — had they put some more effort into a whole-wheat (or even rye) bun, the burger as a whole could have been elevated to the next level. (Though the bun was a bit of a disappointment, the burger a whole was still very recommendable.)

Lakewood Landing, as a cocktail-event location, worked well. As it was just a Wednesday (as always), the place wasn’t that crowded. And, with the sheer number of bloggers present, it seemed like half the customers were bloggers. So, it was very easy to have conversations, as you could run into another blogger with another step in any direction.

Ed K warned earlier me that Lakewood Landing was quite a smokers-hangout. However, the ambient smoke wasn’t much of a problem that evening (though it may be on weekends). All the same, my clothes still had the aroma of cigarettes by the end of the evening.

I had a good time, and I’d certainly come back to the Lakewood Landing if the Cocktail Event were held there again sometime. All the same, it’s not-quite-a-sports-bar and not-quite-a-restaurant so I’d probably elect to go somewhere else if I were looking for either of those genres (err, do restaurants have gentres?). Best of all, it came up in conversation that Peter may have some front-end web coding available (woo!).

DFWBlogs Cocktail Event – November

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

The DFWBlogs Cocktail Event for November was held this month at Cosmo’s. I had a great time, and it was just what I needed after a hectic day at work.

Cosmo’s has a jukebox that didn’t drown out our conversation, though the sheer number of people later in the evening tended to do so. Their interior lighting was a bit quirky, but lovable. It was full of those goofy colored lamps that see you see at places like Eurway.

According to the GuideLive review, Cosmo’s speciality is its little personal pizzas. And, actually, that seemed to be the only thing on the menu (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

The pizzas came in 7” and 12” sizes, and I knew that a 7-inch would be plenty for me. They had various topping-combos, including Greek (feta cheese, olives, and so on) and Sun Dried Tomato (sun dried tomatoes, garlic, and other toppings).

The menu also had an option for a make-your-own pizza at $4.95 + 50 cents per topping. Considering that the combo-pizzas were all $7.95, that’d allow me to choose up to four toppings while still costing less or equal to the regular combo price.

So, I chose Italian sausage, pepperoni, and sun-dried tomato. The pizza arrived shortly and, though it was appropriately hot, its other features could have used some improvement. Sure, the sausage was tender and crumbly (just how I like it) and the sun-dried tomatoes had a pleasant sweetness, but I didn’t detect the pepperoni (perhaps they forgot that).

The dough was full of good flour-and-yeast flavor and had a browned-crispiness from a good oven. The make-or-break factor in any pizza, I feel, is the sauce. And, in this case, the pizza didn’t fare so well. After a few bites, I realized that I couldn’t taste the sauce. Thinking that maybe the other ingredients were simply overpowering the sauce, I even took a quick peek under the cheese: I couldn’t see any sauce in there.

Consider an entree made from freshly baked dough with a generous helping of hot mozzarella chesse, and what do you have? That’s right, I had apparently unknowingly ordered an open-faced mozzarella-based grilled cheese sandwich ;). As grilled-cheese sandwiches go, it was pretty tasty — especially with the Italian sausage and sun-dried tomatoes sprinked on top. But, it didn’t make much of a pizza.

Kidding aside, the food was still a pleasant change-of-pace from my normal dinners at home , and I look forward to the next Cocktail Event.

DFWBlogs Cocktail Event – October

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

This month’s DFWBlogs Cocktail Event was at the Stoneleigh P. The GuideLive description specifically mentioned their “super burgers”, so I figured I’d try those.

Oddly enough, their menu advertises “No fries! No ketchup! No pickles!”. That impressed me a little bit, as their hamburgers would have to be very good to stand on their own like that. However, they weren’t.

Sans ketchup, sans pickles, it’s pretty much just meat on a bun (with some mayo). It was like eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, only without the jelly. To be fair, my “Ranchero Deluxe” included chipotle mayonaise, but it was more like mayo with diced tomatoes — or, as Gary put it, the mayo closely resembled McDonald’s special sauce ;).

Per the menu, the Ranchero Deluxe was touted as an 8 oz burger. I know my 1/2 pound burgers, and this one didn’t seem to live up to that. I wouldn’t think they would lie on their menu, but it still didn’t seem to be a full half-pound.

Other than the hamburger debacle, I enjoyed the evening. They had Sam Adams on tap, and that’s always a good thing. And, the decor was delightfully kooky (including obsolete arcade games that no one played, as if they were around just for decoration).