Please update your bookmarks to http://derekhildreth.com/blog.  See you there!

The reason for the move is simple: I wanted more control over my WordPress blog than what I had here at WordPress.com, so I switched to WordPress.org on a dedicated host. All of the posts you find here are also available over at my new blog address. I’m leaving this blog and its existing posts active, but any new posts, tutorials, guides, entries will be continued on http://derekhildreth.com/blog.

Thanks for understanding,

Derek Hildreth

Qeirstyn is getting stronger and stronger each day, and she’s getting smarter as well.  She’s figured out how to pull herself up onto furniture now.  I’ve shot two videos to capture the event, enjoy!

Part 1:

Part 2:

I just shot a quick video of Qeirstyn army crawling towards the camera.  She’s getting pretty darn quick at it too!  In about 20 seconds she’ll get from one end of the living room to the entire opposite area (mainly where we keep our shoes, she has a strange attraction to ‘em).  Anyways, Enjoy the video!

I’d like to take a moment to let anybody who cares know that I’ve gotten a website setup at http://www.derekhildreth.com and/or http://www.sendderek.com. There, you’ll have a chance to get to learn about me and my hobbies. One of the reasons I wanted the website was to get all of my links into one place so that my friends and family could find my pictures, videos, music, etc easier. Also, I thought it was valuable to me to have a website in my own name that potential employers could have a place to download my resume and parts of my portfolio.

On the technical side, I registered the domain name through godaddy.com and it’s hosted by justfree.com. I don’t have as much time as I used to, so I used a template I found through openwebdesign.com called Busy City by JJenZz.  My website utilizes a java program called LightBox2 which adds a touch of Web 2.0 to the site and I customized it to my liking with the BlueFish editor.  So, basically, I have found my own little piece of the internet for $7 a year. My hosting and design was totally free and in the mindset of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the new resource as much as I do. Be sure to bookmark it as it will be the one bookmark to rule everything that is Derek Hildreth.

Thanks for listening,
Derek

So, we’ve been trying hard to teach B-B-Q some sign language and she’s finally starting to grasp the concept.

MOVED!
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Ampache Scores No. 1 in My Streaming Media Book on DerekHildreth.com/Blog

Thank You.

If you’ve been interested in streaming your music collection to anywhere in the world from home, you just simply have to take a look at Ampache. It’s a web-based audio file manager which implements mySQL and PHP to bring a feature rich environment to you and the people you want to share it with. After looking around at other solutions such as Zina, Jinzora, Andromeda, and Orb, I feel that Ampache has the most appealing characteristics. It was easy to setup, easy to learn, and most importantly everything “just worked”. If you do run across problems, their support forums are friendly and quick to help. I didn’t find that with Jinzora’s forums where there were inquiries from two years ago without a single response. Also, I really like the appearance of Ampache’s default theme. It’s clean, light, and doesn’t have 1990 web design look like Zina does. Plus, Ampache is free, unlike Andromeda, and cross-platform, unlike Orb which means that it’s available to anybody running Linux, Macintosh, FreeBSD, Windows, etc. If you haven’t looked at it, I would suggest you do so right away and set your music free.

It just occurred to me that it has been far too long since I have kept you up to date on what’s happening with Qeirstyn and Heather and me in general. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures for everything, but I do have plenty for you to look at. I’ll start with the beginning of the year with the move from Rexburg, ID to Sandy, UT.

Our move was pretty hectic so we didn’t have a lot of time for much of anything. We did check out a lot of restaurants when we first got here because we didn’t have any food in the fridge yet. There sure is a lot of good food to be had around here. There’s a really awesome IMAX movie theater here practically in our backyard that we’ve been meaning to get to, but just haven’t gotten around to finding a babysitter yet. The Wasatch Mountains are practically parked in our front yard and are a sight to behold. Heather and I want to go explore them really bad, but again, there hasn’t been time for either one of us. Right now, Heather is doing her internship at MyGym and Derek is doing his thing at OfficeMax (he left RadioShack for now). Between us, we’re just trying to make rent, utilities, and in the meantime, keep our sanity. We have driven around the city quite a bit and we’re starting to get used to it. We still think the drivers in the area are insane. We’re having a hard time adjusting, so we’re looking forward to getting back to Rexburg hopefully this mid-March if all goes well.

Qeirstyn’s First Christmas and Packing

View From Apartment in Sandy

Qeirstyn is growing really well, and she’s starting to outgrow a lot of her clothes. We’ve been waiting for this moment so that she could finally fit into Heather’s home-made jacket. She’s been a lot of fun for both of us recently with her smiles. She always seems to cheer us up when we’re having a bad day. She can still be a pain in the rear when she wants to be.

She has been eating solid foods and liking them or hating them depending on the flavor. We caught a funny picture of her hating one such flavor. But, after dinner, she always gets her bath and she always enjoys it.

Qeirstyn has been developing great. We’ve been taking her to MyGym and Mom has been teaching her all kinds of things in the gym. She also gets to play around with other children and she really enjoys socializing with other people. She’s starting to have a standing preference where she’ll cry until you help her stand up. We have a blue walking/sitting hippo and she likes to play with that as well.  She still hasn’t gotten the crawling down yet, but she really kicks like she wants to when she’s on her belly. We practice everyday so hopefully soon it’ll just click for her. Heather and I are also trying to get her to learn sign language, so we bought her a “Baby Einstein: My First Signs” video to watch. She watches it every morning and she loves it. She giggles at the little sock puppets they have on it.

Cute Qeirstyn in Mom’s Hand-Made Coat

Dinner and a Bath

Qeirstyn at MyGym

Qeirstyn Walking with Hippo Toy

I also wanted to share this video of Qeirstyn spazzing out while watching TV upside-down. She always seems to do this when viewing anything upside down, even us. I always get a kick out of it, and apparently, so does she!

We finally did find the time to make a trip up into the Wasatch Mountains because we heard about a really nice shopping outlet in Park City called Tanger Outlets. So, we bought Qeirstyn a dress there and took some pictures of the scenery and buildings. I’ve never seen a 3 car lane highway shooting through the mountains before! It was pretty neat, but nothing like the hills around Montana or Idaho. Right before we were going to head out, we were hit with a snowstorm and had to make our way out very carefully. Once we were back in Sandy, the snow started to settle down. I guess Park City gets snow just about every day. It looked like it too with all of the mounds of snow in the parking lots.

The next day, it was gorgeous outside, so we went to Temple Square to get some pictures of Qeirstyn in her new dress. She was really having a good time there being pushed around in her stroller and posing for the camera. I also threw in some other pictures I took of the temple as well trying to capture the scenery.

Visit to Park City, UT

Qeirstyn at Temple Square

Another very exciting thing is that Qeirstyn now has two (2) bottom front teeth! We’re pretty excited about it. It took a while for them to cut through, and Qeirstyn was really, really fussy for the couple of weeks that it was happening. We tried our best to give her medicine, but she hated that too. So, it was really just a bad experience for her (and us), but she made it! The first tooth came in on a Saturday and then the other tooth showed up very quickly after that in only about a week and a half.

Showing Off Toofie

It has been snowing quite a bit down here in Sandy. One morning we woke up to about 15 inches of snow on the ground and then a couple of weeks later, we were caught in yet another snowstorm, so we took advantage of it with Qeirstyn and had some fun in the snow.

Qeirstyn in the Snow

Now, it’s another nice day outside, so Qeirstyn and Dad might go take a walk outside while Mom is at work. It’s been hard with both of us working because we only get to see each other for about an hour a day. Oh well, it will be over soon and we’ll be able to look back on the experience and say that we were happy to have done it.

As always, we hope things are going well with everybody and that you’ve enjoyed the pictures and stories to go along with them. Until next time (which I promise won’t be long again)…

Love always,

Derek, Heather, and Qeirstyn Hildreth

I just wanted to let you know that the Hildreth Server has been drastically improved by making the thumbnails load 100% faster. Now, it’s practically instant viewing pleasure.

Also, I thought I would take some time now and show you a few features that you’ll find when you get there. You may already know about them, but I’d like to tell you anyways.

Thumbnails:

Something that I’m most proud of because it makes going through pictures enjoyable. The main benefit is that you can see a smaller “preview” of what the actual full sized image looks like so you’ll know if you want to view it or not.

Directory Download:

So, what happens when you see a folder with 52 pictures and you want them all? If it weren’t for this nice little feature, you’d be stuck downloading them one-by-one. Now, just simply click on the link and download the whole thing!

New Images Indication:

This one is pretty neat just because it lets you know what’s new in my pictures. So, if you see the “New” image, you’ll know that it has been freshly uploaded within the last 5 days.

Search :

If you’ve seen a picture that you’d like, but you don’t know where to begin looking, then use this feature. Simply type in some keywords (like “Qeirstyn” or “Cabin”) and *poof* it will show you what you’re looking for.

File Information:

This is more-so just detailed stuff, but you can see how many times each file has been downloaded, when it was modified, and how large the file is.

Breadcrumb Trail:

This just makes navigation through the gallery easier. Click on the link and it will bring you to that directory. Click on the period “.” to get back to the very beginning.

I hope you like the Hildreth Server. I feel that it’s valuable to everybody and myself, so keep using it! Remember that the hours of operation are around 9AM to 9PM everyday (or when my laptop is on).

-Derek

PS. All this was made possible by a script called AutoIndex.

I was lucky enough to catch Qeirstyn doing something brand new this time.  She’s starting to mock us in a few things (like smacking her lips and waving just a tad) and this one surprised us… she’s nodding her head “no”!  She was a little over due for a nap at the time I shot the video so she’s a little crabby.  I had also caught a little bonus.  I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but it almost looks like she nods her head “yes” in the second video.  It could’ve been a mistake, like she could have lost balance, or for real.  Either way, I hope you enjoy the videos!

“Nope!”:

“Yup!”:

Qeirstyn has been making some strides recently. She’s been mocking us in a couple of different things and her gums aren’t so soft anymore– we’re pretty sure there’s a little “toophie” popping out! So, I’ve prepared a video showcasing her abilities to smack her lips (as well as being too darned cute). You can mostly hear us smacking our lips trying to get her to do it. Anyways, just press play and enjoy the video.