Sonnack.com

May 30, 2019

Big News!

I've moved my hosting to InMotion, and so far I'm very, very pleased. (One benefit, the site now has https!)

It turns out the directory structure I've used here (admittedly inspired by my Unix background) had some problems. The problem is the Etc and Lib directory names. Hosting systems can have filters or rules that make those names problematic (because those are crucial Unix system directories). In my case, there's no need to block access — these are just local directories — but systems have rules.

Oddly, at the old place it was FTP issues, whereas in the new place it was web access. In any event, it was obviously time for a restructuring to just avoid the whole mess.

It's going to require checking (and potentially changing) a lot of pages. (The site has over 11,000. A lot of them are baseball stats.)

But for a while, now more than usual:

Pardon our dust!

August 19, 2017

I've continued my renovation efforts this month. A double benefit of retirement is: (A) so much free time; and (2) no work stress sucking up mental CPU cycles. I'm actually not sure which one contributes more to how productive I've been the last couple years or so. Certainly both are huge (and welcome)!

Anyway.

The Baseball section continues to improve. I completed a Python project, HTML Template, which allows me to create the season overviews automagically. (For that matter, I re-did the whole Python section!)

Biggest news here is I migrated the Special Relativity series from my blog to the website. Turned out pretty good, IIDSSM. Much growth there in the “My Pen” section with more to come!

Also working on the Etc and Library sections, so stay tuned!

July 23, 2017

In the past two weeks, I've added a lot of new material! I simply decided to put my mind to fixing this place up, so I've been putting in some time.

There's also that I've been playing with Matplotlib and SQLite in Python. The result is a bunch of new charts! The Baseball section benefits greatly from those new charts. but there's a great deal of other new stuff there, too.

There's also an entirely new section with a lot of charts: Weather. I've always been fascinated by it (both being in it and studying it), and it turns out NOAA has lots of free data! It also turns out to be easy to throw their CSV files into an SQLite database and generate lots of charts off the data. It's all almost too much fun!

And there's a great deal more to come…

July 8, 2017

Not a fall entry this time! It's… a global warming hot summer, and politics has gone crazy. (But never mind that here.)

In the past almost two years, I've improved quite bit, especially (as usual) the Baseball section. I've put more work on the Lib section, which is coming along. (Just added a bunch of Song lyrics.)

The place is starting to look almost sort of respectable these days. Enjoy!

September 23, 2015

Another fall entry, this one on the Autumnal Equinox! It's the end of summer!

In the past year, I've been slowly working on improving the site, especially the Web and Baseball sections. I've also been working on the Lib section, which is coming along.

As usual: Work in Progress!

September 14, 2014

Huge changes this time! (And falling in the fall again, and coinciding with the first entry here!)

I'm leaving VISI (Vector Internet Services, Inc)! It's been 14 years of great service, but they've evolved into an Enterprise service provider (and been bought out by a non-local corporation, OneNeck). My humble website is a bit beneath their radar, so I decided it was time to switch.

Now I'm on Network Solutions. They've been my domain registration provider since 1998 when I got Sonnack.com. I have a lot more disk space here, plus some cool tools, so I may get into this site again.

November 11, 2013

Here I go again. (A little weird it's the 11th and almost the same month as the last entry!)

So much has changed since the last update. So much has changed in the last decade (let alone since the first entry below). So much has been lost (and there is only more loss ahead).

So.

So… just about everything is going away. The age of websites—especially static, silent ones—is behind us now. (How quickly they blossomed, became a thing, became the thing, and now something much different.)

I almost decided to hang it up and let go of the domain name. Instead, this is now a really personal site where I'm keeping some things I can reference from anywhere. (Most established social sites control much of how content is displayed, not to mention forcing those ads on us all. A website gives me nearly total control.)

So that's the deal. We're closed. Sort of. There's nothing to see here; move along.

December 11, 2009

Another major site change!! I'm beginning YASO (Yet Another Site Overhaul), which should result in a lot of new material.

First, I'm migrating my Newsvine articles here; I plan to publish new articles here, rather than on Newsvine. Second, I'm going to restore some of the material from the previous version of the site. I'm planning to try to be very selective, so we'll see how that goes.

April 2007

The entire site (with the exception of the /Sam branch) has changed!

Most of the previous content is gone (some may be restored later or by request), and the site now consists mainly of some things I want to say (before it's too late).

February 2003

A long time idle, but there is progress.

Doubled the diskspace on the server in preparation of site expansion. Began work on various authoring Tools (primarily publishing). Returned to CGI!

May 2001

Finally deploying the "new look" I've been working on for so long. It's not done (lots of new material to add), but I wanted to start getting it out there. So enjoy, and watch out for broken links (the edges can be kinda sharp)!

February 2001

Work begins on a complete revision of the site. There's a lot of accumulated material waiting to be added, and it's necessary for other reasons to change the structure of the site.

This overhaul is long overdue, but I've been busy in the real world.

January 2000

We have a new home!! Some domain, different server! Hopefully nothing is broken…

Now we live at VISI (Vector Internet Services, Inc). Main reason for the move was that VISI has more reliable USENET service, and I'm an old news hack.

February 1999

Starting a whole new structuring of the web site.

December 7, 1998

Wow, check it out!! I'm here at last! I have my own domain name: Sonnack.com

November 19, 1998

I have a new website to call my own. It's not my domain; it's the one that comes with the ISP account.

But no more ads, and I have much better control over the content. Goes to show: ain't nothin' for free! (TNSTAAFL: There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!)

September 28, 1998

First version put up for free at www.GeoCities.com. It's not horrible,... exactly. But there's these popup ads: yuck! And my poor visitors get the Geocites cookie forced down their throats. Ugh, yuck, blech!! (Plus, no CGI!!!)

September 21, 1998

And I want my own domain. I'll bet Sonnack isn't taken...nope! Mine, all mine!!

September 14, 1998

It starts with the idea that, “I wanna website, too!!”