Here's another crochet-skills-building exercise I've worked through. These place mats are rectangles of crochet mesh, and my big accomplishment is that I have the same number of stitches on each row. At least in the case of mesh stitches worked in yarn, I'm now able to create actual rectangles, sporting lovely parallel sides.

I changed color several times in the mesh pattern, to make stripes, and then I took advantage of the "holes" in the mesh to slip stitch perpendicular stripes over the top of the mats. I've been fascinated by crochet faux-plaid patterns, and it happens to be a simple design to make, one that doesn't require much advance planning. It's perfect for using left-over bits and pieces from other projects.

I always love an event that features free stuff and sales, so I took notice of Read an E-Book Week (March 7-13). Their website features a list of authors, publishers, and ebook stores giving away free ebooks or slashing prices. The E-book promotion site says of their event:

Read an E-Book Week educates and informs the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically. Authors, publishers, vendors, the media and readers world-wide are welcome to join in the effort. We encourage you to promote electronic reading with any event....

This week, I'm reading Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, which I got from my beloved Project Gutenberg. I'm reading it on my Astak Reader, where I've also downloaded all 69 files they have of his, including 47 novels, some short writings, and his Autobiography.

If I were reading my first Trollope novel in the usual way, either from a library or from a second-hand book dealer, I'd be reading whichever novel I happened to find. This way, I was able to pick the one that seemed the most engaging for me, and I am able to read the Autobiography alongside it. In fact, my local library has none of his books, and my second-hand paperback copy of Barchester Towers is falling apart and features type too small to read except in very good light.

I'm not saying that ebooks have no drawbacks. So far, I haven't been able to find a well-formatted poetry book. (I'm using Tennyson and Whitman as my test cases.) Also, I have no truck with Digital Rights Management (DRM), so that means I won't be buying many ebooks in the near future. Still, access to "The Complete Works of" so many out-of-copyright authors is a real treat for me. When I enjoy a work of fiction, I immediately want to know what else that author has done.

I've updated At Home on Spice Ridge and Pocahontas County History on the Web, and I've been asking myself, "What was all the fuss about, Boots?" It was much more trouble to set up test sites on localhost than it was to run the update processes on the live web sites. Of course, I see the point of having a test site, and I'm going to keep localhost up-to-date and backed up, so that next time I have a hardware disaster, I won't be starting from scratch.

I never got the Drupal image gallery modules and the enable clean urls functioning on localhost, but they never stopped working on the live sites, so there's not much pressure to fix the issue locally.

It seems that it's best to update modules one at a time, so that if there's a problem, you'll know which module caused it. Because I had both module updates and core updates, I updated the modules first, one at a time, and then did the core last.

Here's a list of the resources I used in the update process, with short descriptions.

• How to Upgrade Drupal from the O'Reilly Web site. This was much more helpful than the equivalent Drupal.org explanations, mostly because it was better written and edited. This is the link to go back to.
• HowTo: Updating Drupal 6.x to newer minor version. From the title, you'd think this Drupal.org guide would be exactly what you want when you're ready to update, but that's not the deal. It's a discussion of different tools that expedite the updating process, but you need to fuss with these long before you need to update. Frankly, I'm wondering whether these are worth the trouble...given how painless updating was. Of course, painless updates may be a fluke....
• Introduction to Upgrading. This seems to be Drupal.org's canonical upgrade instruction. It seemed pretty complete, but I didn't hit any snags, so I don't know whether it will help when one really needs help.
• update modules best practice--This is a nice discussion on a Drupal forum. I found it helpful in figuring out the sequence of my updates--that is, what to update first, second, third...

The security updates are in place, and the Archives are once again active. I've spruced up the place a bit with clip art, thanks to these websites:

• Clip Art Collection is provided by www.rrhistorical.com(gifs)
• Free Clip Art from download-free-pictures.com(jpgs)

Since I involuntarily switched from Debian to Kubuntu a month ago, I've run into some new and unfamiliar problems with Openoffice.org. (I teach courses in Microsoft Office, and some of the organizations I work with are Windows shops, and Open Office meshes better with that stuff than anything else I've tried.)

Basically, every time I used Open Office under Kubuntu 9.10, it would hang or crash. I couldn't identify what procedure precipitated the crash, so it was hard to find solutions via search engines. Eventually, I found this, (while looking for something else).

Title: OpenOffice 3.1.1 crash from the Kubuntu Forums Title: Re: OpenOffice 3.1.1 crash Post by: CH~ on November 07, 2009, 09:24:19 am I had diffrent problem with it. You can see it here http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3107536.0 Resolution: Remove openoffice.org-kde and install openoffice.org-gtk. ::)

So, that's precisely what I did. I uninstalled the package openoffice.org-kde and I installed openoffice.org-gtk and it has worked just fine for several days now. I'm posting this in the hopes that the search engines will find the terms "openoffice" "kubuntu" "kde" and "crash" together in one place.

Rather than posting yet another "tinkering with computers and software" saga, I'll show you some more of my crochet projects. Like the wobbly potholder, the goal here is to improve skills, while making a potentially useful object.

After completing the potholder, my next thought was to crochet some slippers from my cheap acrylic yarn collection. Acrylic yarn has gone steadily downhill in quality in the years I've been knitting, but this yarn was given to me during someone's spring cleaning, and had been purchased new in 1970--in other words, a blast from the past. I actually crocheted three different slipper patterns, found them unsatisfactory, and unraveled them. At this point, I decided that the best slippers are the garter-stitch rectangles that you sew up and adorn with pompoms, so I put aside my crochet hook and knitted the black acrylic yarn, sewed them into slippers decorated with two-tone pink crocheted "roses." They're washable house slippers, and the "roses" don't look so oversized when the slippers are stretched over my feet.

Having practiced a bit with stretchy yarns, I believed I was ready to move on to crochet thread, which is reputedly more difficult to work with. I pulled out my Quick Crochet thread, purchased at American Thread's "Yarn Barn" in Willimantic, CT around 1980. (For me, fiber crafts are always a walk down memory lane.) I'm really pleased to finally use this stuff, after hauling it up and down the Eastern Seaboard over all these years.

First, I made a simple pinwheel motif out of white thread. This stuff is a little coarser than the thread sold as "Bedspread Cotton," it's polyester, and it came from the factory seconds bin at American Thread. I was pleased to have it turn out relatively pinwheel-shaped, although there are a number of mistakes. Washed and starched, it doesn't look too bad, and it is currently sitting on the kitchen table under the sugar bowl.

I've been intrigued by two-color crochet, so my next move was to mix the red and the white thread in a project. I just followed the instructions I found on Carol Ventura's web pages (see links below), and made up the pattern as I went along. It's crocheted very tightly, and because the unworked thread is carried along in the pattern, it's quite thick, and works as a potholder.

Some of Carol Ventura's Tapestry Crochet links:

• Tapestry Crochet, a website by Carol Ventura, features her own approach to colorwork and beading in crochet. She has text instruction, free video tutorials, links to her books for sale, and examples of her own work. The work in her Gallery is just amazing.
• Tapestry Crochet...the rest of the story is Carol Ventura's blog where she profiles tapestry crochet artists. More examples of beautiful colorwork crochet.

The current edition of History News Network's "Website of the Month" feature highlights 20 history Websites, with topics ranging from a facsimile edition of the lurid publication "Wet with Blood: An Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln's Cloak" to Digital Vaults, an on line tour of the National Archives.

If you're looking for some snowy day reading, you're bound to find something here that will interest you!

I was very happy yesterday when I edited my settings.php file and a normal-looking copy of my Spice Ridge home page appeared at http://localhost/spiceridge. I posted my step-by-step directions here, and marveled that I had completed my cloning project before the wee small hours of the morning, and without weeping or cussing. Then, I sat down to tweak, modify, and update the local installation, and discovered to my dismay that the only thing that worked as intended was the front page, the page generated by index.php

The course of true upgrades never did run smooth....So I turned to Community Plumbing for Drupal advice:

• Copy your live site to a test site (GUI). OK, that's what I'm trying to do...but these things aren't working.
• How to copy a Drupal site from server to local? Here's a forum question from someone who's having the same problems I am, and who has tried a bunch of the same things I have. One helpful person points to this:
• How do I unset the clean URLs? There were three things to try, and I tried them all. when I tried logging in by adding ?q=user to the end of the localhost URL, I got a 404 error as usual; while the msql commands to clear the cache files in the database had syntax errors that I couldn't work out. However, when I added $conf['clean_url'] = 0; to the end of the settings.php file I was back in business.
• But only for a minute. This lets me log in, but I still can't find my image files, and I get "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 40961 bytes) in /var/www/spiceridge/projects/includes/theme.inc on line 1010" when I try to navigate to the admin page. The Drupal.org advice was quite confusing and probably not applicable to my situation: Increase PHP memory limit.
• It seemed to me that the thing I should do (since the installation on my hosting provider's server runs like a top) is to fiddle with my newly-installed PHP stuff.
• Ubuntu Documentation--Drupal has this to say:

  You should increase the default PHP memory limit value (the amount of memory dedicated to running scripts), since the default 8 Mb is not sufficient. Use 96 Mb (or even 160M) if you intend to use graphics (although for simple uses 32 Mb may be sufficient).

  In newer versions of Drupal6, you can simply edit the settings.php file and add the line:

  ini_set('memory_limit', '96M');

  In older versions of Drupal5, or if using PHP for many different uses, it is best to increase the amount of PHP memory using this method:

  Edit the /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini file and increase the memory_limit value to 96M (or another value of your choice).

  Of course, you have to do all this as root, and then you restart apache2: /etc/init.d/apache2 restart (also as root).

• All right! now I can log in and access my Administration page, and start playing with the core and module updates. However, I notice that all my pictures are missing. What's an image gallery with no photos? Well, I know where they're supposed to be:

  rebecca@hecate:/var/www/spiceridge/projects/sites$ ls default/files/images ls: cannot access default/files/images: Permission denied

  Permission problems? This is really weird...I can't navigate into the default/files directory, even after I chmod the files as root. So I delete them, and ftp the originals from http://spiceridge.com, where the permissions are normal. OK, these are fine; let's see if the browser can get to them now....

• OK, I'm seeing some images, but I'm also getting lots of copies of this error: warning: unlink(sites/default/files/images/1908Xmas001.preview.jpg) [function.unlink]: Permission denied in /var/www/spiceridge/projects/includes/file.inc on line 435. OK, I read in the comments in includes/file.inc that directory permissions might be the problem....I chmod a+w for the involved directories, and this brings in some, but not all of my images. About half of the thumbnails are gone.

Well, I never liked that image gallery anyway....This permissions issue is the inelegant and rather haphazard way Drupal handles an aspect of security. That's the down-side of having an automated installation, I guess. They say all this will be much improved in Drupal 7.x, but of course, that will be its own "learning experience."

I'm going to say, "Good enough for government work," and start messing around with the updates now.

If you've tried to access our "Digital Archive," you'll know we were off-line for a while, due to a small but fatal error with software updates. It's fixed now, and I hope to add large bundles of digital images as soon as the infernal updating process is complete.

If you're interested in such things, I've been detailing the Drupal update process. Step One and Step 2 are completed. I sincerely hope there will not be more than five steps total, but software updates usually surprise me, and not in a good way.

Following the old computer user's adage "If it's not backed up in three locations, it's not backed up," I've been making sure all our digital materials are adequately backed up. It's easy to let data acquisition get far ahead of annotation and backup.

As I said yesterday, before I disrupt my Web presences with Drupal updates, I'm going to break them locally. So today's project is to create a replica of the spiceridge.com installation of Drupal on localhost here on my Linux box, set up as an Apache2 server. I'm hoping that if I write it all out once, I can do this over and over without too much trouble. (Please don't laugh. Sometimes it does work that way.)

1. Go to the /var/www/ directory, and make a directory to contain the Drupal installation you're cloning. the URL will be http://localhost/yourDrupaldirectory/

2. Grab a copy of the website. The cPanel tools can create a compressed back-up copy of the website, and let the user download it through the browser. When doing this, be sure you just compress and back up the Drupal portion of the website--there's all sorts of extraneous stuff you don't need, like the email accounts. Then you can expand it using tar on the command line. Here's the syntax for tar:

   tar -xvwzf myfile.tar.gz to uncompress (untar) the myfile.tar.gz file in the current directory where "x" is for "extract;" "v" is for "verbosely list files processed;" "w" is for "ask for confirmation for every action;" "f" is for "use archive file or device ARCHIVE;" and "z" is for "filter the archive through gzip." To skip the annoying request for confirmation, use tar -xvzf myfile.tar.gz

3. Alternatively, you can download the files and directories you want via ftp and use phpMyAdmin to export the contents of your database to a .sql file, which you can download. See How to backup your Mysql database with phpMyAdmin for exactly which buttons and boxes to click to get the .sql file for the whole database.

4. Once the files are uncompressed and arranged the way they're supposed to be, It's time to recreate the database. It's probably a good practice to create a new user with password and new database for that user, rather than use the root user for the new database, so:

   1. Log into phpMyAdmin as root user.
   2. Click on "Privileges" and then "Add a new User"
   3. Set "Database for User" option to "Create database with same name and grant all privileges" and check all "Global Privileges."
   4. Hit "Go" and do what phpMyAdmin tells you to do. Remember to write down your user and database name, and the password you selected. Your database won't have any tables, but don't worry. We'll fix that next.

5. PhpMyAdmin has an "Import" option, but it can only import very small databases. My Spiceridge database doesn't have much in it at all, but it's about three times too large for phpMyAdmin to import. Not a problem, though, because it's really easy to do this through the command-line program mysql. Here's the command: mysql -u username -p databasename < databasedump_dp.sql and it will prompt you for the password after you hit enter. This creates all the tables and populates them in one step.

6. Now you've got the files on localhost and, and the database in your local MySQL database, you just need to update your settings.php file, which is in /var/www/your_Drupal_directory/sites/default/. You'll have to give yourself write permissions via the command-line program chmod a+w settings.php Then go into a text editor, and look for this:

   * Database URL format: * $db_url = 'mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename'; * $db_url = 'mysqli://username:password@localhost/databasename'; * $db_url = 'pgsql://username:password@localhost/databasename'; */ $db_url = 'mysql://yoursecret stuff';

   Modify it to include your local user name, database name, and password in the format they demonstrate for you. It's probably best to remove the write permissions when you're sure everything is working.

7. Point your browser to http://localhost/yourDrupaldirectory/ and you should see your Drupal website.
8. After fussing about with the Drupal site's documentation, the search engines showed me this short and sweet set of directions: Moving A Drupal Site From One Host To Another - How To. This worked for me.

I've been a bad Drupal website administrator. I have ignored update after update on my own site Spice Ridge and Pocahontas County History. They are minor, fiddly updates, but I've put them off again and again. However, now something is broken on one of these sites. It doesn't have to do with Drupal, but I'm going to have to go into repair mode anyway, so I guess I might as well update Drupal now. Why not break everything all at once?

First, I need local installations to test stuff before I start breaking Websites out in public. My original local installations were vaporized when my last Linux box fried its cpu and hard drive in April of 2009, and because I messed up my Debian Lenny and switched to Kubuntu, I need to set up Apache2, PHP5, MySql, and PHPMyAdmin from scratch in order to rassle with Drupal. It turns out my collection of links on setting up a Debian server from my initial Drupal adventure is still up-to-date. This process goes surprisingly quickly this time.

The next step is to download the Drupal installations (and the broken Archon CMS as well). I'll just ftp the files to my localhost directories, but I also need to recreate the MySQL databases locally, and I don't remember how to do that.

• How to backup your Mysql database with phpMyAdmin. This worked like a charm, but phpMyAdmin balked at importing the .sql file into my local database--it said my file was too large. Well, I was once an old hand at command-line sql interactions, but I couldn't remember syntax....
• How to restore MySQL database from sql dump file? gave me the directions I needed: rebecca@hecate:/var/www/spiceridge$ mysql -u root -p spiceridge < spicerid_dp.sql Enter password: rebecca@hecate:/var/www/spiceridge$ This creates all the tables I needed, as well as populating them. Pretty slick.

In the process of doing all this, I discover that my hosting service's new setup has a nifty, easy-to-use backup utility that handles files, scripts and databases in a single step, eliminating the time-consuming process I just completed for my Spice Ridge website. Oh well, it'll really help when I start on the local history site.

Here's some stuff I found about Drupal updates and back-ups. I haven't tried any of this yet, but I'm saving it here so I don't misplace it.

• Upgrading from previous versions
• HowTo: Updating Drupal 6.x to newer minor version
• Drupal Backup and Migrate Module

  Backup and Migrate simplifies the task of backing up and restoring your Drupal database or copying your database from one Drupal site to another. It supports gzip, bzip and zip compression as well as automatic scheduled backups.

  With Backup and Migrate you can dump some or all of your database tables to a file download or save to a file on the server, and to restore from an uploaded or previously saved database dump. You can chose which tables and what data to backup and cache data is excluded by default.

Three ladies with bicycles, and a man afoot. Written in corner, “Gay,” possibly refers to the Marlinton photographer’s studio. From the Susan A. Price collection, Pocahontas County Historical Society

From the Susan A. Price collection of the Pocahontas County Historical Society: Susan A. Price, Handwritten on back: "1203 Madison Avenue, Baltimore, Md. Boarding house in my old Medical School days. The picture taken in June, 1907, when I was resident physician at the Weston State Hospital."

It doesn't seem that long ago that every Woolworths's had stacks of pillowcases printed with simple patterns, ready to be embroidered and edged, but nowadays such ready-to embroider items are only found in pricey sets from mail order companies like Herrschners'.

This pillowcase was in perfect shape when I took it out of the box. My grandma would have embroidered it, then crocheted on the pink edging, and washed it, ironed it, and put it away. Unfortunately, its mate lay directly on the bottom of the box, and was badly stained by acid in the cardboard. I was able to bleach away most of the stain without harming the embroidery thread, but I don't expect it will last long.

I'm going to use these, and remember to enjoy pretty things while I can.

Periodically, I run across ideas for recycling plastic bags into craft materials. I get all excited, try the suggestions, and then go back to stashing bunches of plastic bags inside a plastic bag in the pantry.

Here I go again. In my search for crochet tips and patterns, I've been seeing quite a few items crocheted from plastic bag yarn, or "plarn." Tote bags, "rag rugs," pot scrubbers, many of these look perfectly functional. I'm going to have to try again. Here are some links.

• Plastic Bag Crochet from needlepointers.com is a link list of plarn-making directions and instructions for various crochet items.
• All you need is plastic bag and a crochet hook.... via Whipup--Handcraft in a Hectic World. Actually, you need quite a few plastic bags, but that doesn't make such a good slogan....
• My Recycled Bags, where Cindy shows us all sorts of things she's crocheted from plarn. She also recycles old clothes into crafting materials. Myself, I make cleaning rags from worn-out tee-shirts and I cut up newish but damaged tees to make cotton underbritches, but Cindy cuts tee-shirt fabric into strips for knitting, crochet or weaving, and displays some very cute projects.

I aim to stay away from the highly processed foods of modern life. I have every intention to eat plain foods cooked at home, and here on Droop Mountain, far from fast food outlets and big, variety-filled grocery stores, there's not all that much temptation to stray from the path.

However, I also have a deep-seated need for bargains, so when there's a really good sale on cake mix boxes in Marlinton, I simply must stock up. Besides making "normal" cakes as the box directs, I like to try non-standard variations.

Last month, I made a sour cherry cake that turned out pretty well. I prepare cherry pie filling with our own sour cherries and freeze it for pies throughout the year. It's really simple, although our cherries are small, and pitting a quart of them takes quite a while.

I used a yellow cake mix as directed, except that I left out all the water the box called for, and substituted the quart of thawed out pie filling. The stuff I make is much runnier than canned commercial pie filling, and the batter I got was much wetter than that of a normal cake mix, so it took longer to bake.

I topped it with chocolate cream cheese frosting, and we really liked the results. I'm the only one who likes cherry pie at our address, so this is something I can make for a change. I think next time, I'll try a chocolate cake mix, for, perhaps, a pseudo-Black Forest cake.

Sour Cherry Pie Filling 1 quart (four cups) pitted sour cherries, and their juice 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup flour Mix in a bowl, pour into a quart-sized freezer container, and freeze until you're ready to bake a pie. (Of course, you could just go ahead and make a pie crust and have a pie right away.) Cherry Cake 1 box yellow or white cake mix. (Chocolate might be good, but I don't know for sure.) 3 eggs 1/2 cup oil 1 quart of frozen sour cherry pie filling, thawed. Beat the eggs to mix, add oil, pie filling, and cake mix. Mix ingredients thoroughly, and pour into a greased 9" x 13" pan. Bake at 350 degrees F until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. My cake took about 50 minutes, but this will vary depending on how wet your pie filling is.

This winter, I had a few cake mix boxes nearing their expiration date, so I tried a recipe I had "digitally clipped " from Hints from Heloise: Cake Mix Cookies. Here's her basic recipe.

Cake Mix Cookies 1 (18.25-ounce) box cake mix 2 eggs 1/2 cup vegetable oil Choose your favorite flavor--I like chocolate, and the lemon mix makes tasty lemon cookies. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix only the above ingredients (although you can add 1/4 cup chopped nuts, raisins or chocolate chips) in a large bowl until blended. Drop the batter by spoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake on the middle rack for 8-10 minutes, watching them carefully. They'll brown quickly, so stand by the oven for the first batch.

I made a batch of chocolate cookies with no inclusions, and they were quick to make and tasty, although much sweeter than homemade cookies. For my second batch, I used a yellow cake mix, added a scant cup of chocolate chips, and made the cookies very, very small. A normal-sized drop cookie would have just been too, too sweet. These didn't last long, so I'm not the only one who liked them. Next, I'm going to try chopped nuts, or maybe a little cooked oatmeal, to cut the sweetness and add heft.

When I was a teenager in Iowa, a hot new recipe making the rounds was the "Dump Cake." It was yet another riff on the non-standard cake mix recipe, and I remember liking it. However, I moved to Connecticut for grad school, and Yankees are way too sophisticated for cake mixes. (They go to the store and buy Carvel's or Entemann's, which are, no doubt, all natural and hand-made products.) Anyway, after an evening of ridicule at the potluck, I quit making "Dump Cakes" (a really unfortunate name) and lost the recipe.

However, Heloise has come through for me again this month, with This Cake Is in the Dumps, and, bless her heart, she provides a prettier name, The No-Mix Cherry-Pineapple Nut Cake.

Dear Heloise: I have lost my copy of your recipe for DUMP CAKE. Could you please provide me with a copy? -- Carolyn Stonesifer, via e-mail

I believe you are requesting the NO-MIX CHERRY-PINEAPPLE NUT CAKE, because you just dump the ingredients into the pan. It is an easy-yet-delicious cake to make. This is what you need:

1 (20-ounce) can of crushed pineapple in heavy syrup 1 (21-ounce) can of cherry pie filling 1 (2-layer size) package of yellow cake mix 1 (3-ounce) package of pecans, or 1 cup chopped 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine (chilled works best)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Spread the pineapple with its syrup evenly in the prepared pan. Spoon the pie filling evenly over the pineapple. Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the fruits, then sprinkle the chopped nuts over all. Slice the butter into thin slices, then place the pieces evenly over the top. Bake for 50 minutes or until golden. Serve warm. Makes 12 servings.

This is only one of many unique and delicious recipes in my fabulous four-page cake pamphlet. To order a copy, just send $3 and a long, self-addressed, stamped (61 cents) envelope to: Heloise/Cake, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, TX 78279-5001. Extra tip: This cake also can be made with other fruit combinations, like pineapple/strawberry, pineapple/apple, pineapple/blueberry, apple/cherry, etc. Serve it with vanilla ice cream and/or whipped cream. -- Heloise

Add this little hat to my minimal knitting projects for 2009. The scarlet mohair came from my Regan administration yarn purchases, while the hat pattern is a recreation of the first wearable knitting project I ever completed. All in all, it was a walk down Knitting Memories Lane.

I have a decent collection of crochet patterns. My grandma left a collection, and some of my mom's knitting leaflets also include crochet patterns. After I learned to crochet, I subscribed to some crochet newsletters for a couple of years. I could crochet from this library until the end of my days, but there's that itch to see something new....Fortunately, I can indulge this without buying stuff, thanks to Websites like these:

• Crochet Pattern Central is a great place to start. It's a curated link directory, and it's actively updated. Welcome to Crochet Pattern Central--an often updated online directory featuring thousands of links to free crochet patterns. Choose from 90+ categories, including clothing, afghans, doilies, baby items, bags and totes, potholders, toys, stuffed animals (including amigurumi), and so much more.
• The Antique Pattern Library is the Project Gutenberg of the needlecraft pattern library. On their "Welcome" page, they say

  This ongoing project is an effort to scan needlework pattern books that are in the public domain, to preserve them, so we can keep our needlework heritage in our hands. These scans have been photoedited to make them more useful for needle workers, and to reduce file sizes. They are available, for free, to anyone who wants them, for educational, personal, artistic and other creative uses.

  Their collection of crochet patterns is awesome, especially for those who like working with fine gauge crochet thread, as opposed to yarn. I have a real fascination with crochet lace collars and nightgown yokes from about 1900 to 1940, and I've scored dozens of gorgeous patterns. Now, to develop my skills to that level....Be prepared, if you start downloading, for a time-sink, not because the website is slow, but because these collections are quite addictive. I'm unlikely to do purse netting, silk embroidery, or tatting, but you should see the awesome patterns I've got, just in case...

• The Free Patterns page from Heirloom Crochet has some wonderful old patterns for free. There are also many vintage patterns are for sale, but I'm a little unclear on her business model.

I joined the knitters' social network Ravelry a couple of years ago, but found it disappointing. I didn't like the social interaction--I got flamed for submitting a very polite bug report, for heaven's sake, threats of violence and all. The tone of dialogue is just not my style--one of the newsletter feature writers calls herself "Auntie BubboPants." Whatever floats your boat, but not for me, thanks. However, in my hunt for free crochet pattern novelty, I did revisit Ravelry's crochet section, and found it much more to my liking. I think there are two reasons for this--one, the crochet community is smaller, and that means a better signal-to-noise ratio. That is, more crochet talk, less general conversation. The second reason I like it better is that I'm a novice crocheter, and Ravelry probably works better for novices than for long-time afficianados. There's just more new stuff for a novice to see there.

I'm never sure if the themes I find in my reading come to me from the outside world, or if my subliminal, half-formed thoughts cherry-pick articles and ideas. Whoever is responsible for it, I've been finding some interesting articles about gadgets, the Internet, and the way people use them and are, perhaps, used by them.

Last week I was intrigued by Book review: You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier. The reviewer and the author whose book is reviewed are both fascinating. From the review:

....He discusses how pack-like attacks arise on the Web wherever there is an opportunity for "consequence-free, transient anonymity." The topic hardly matters: "Jihadi chat looks just like poodle chat."

He describes the sad, stressful lives of young people who "must manage their online reputations constantly." He makes the point that the free use of everything on the Web leads to endless mashups, except for the one thing legally protected from being mashed-up: ads, making advertising the one thing on the Internet that can be "owned."

....The preface says he is grateful for the "real human eyes" that will pass over the following pages, and for the "tiny minority" of humanity that still reads books. Yes, Jaron, we are still here. We few, we happy few.

Jaron Lanier's slim volume intrigues me, with chapter titles like The Noosphere Is Just Another Name For Everyone's Inner Troll, but much of what's in his new book he has already discussed in a long essay, One-Half of a Manifesto. Those of us on a budget may read it there for free. This "read it for free" aspect is of concern to him, not in terms of lost revenue, but in the way blogs and rss feeds can make everything appear to be "one book," by quoting without attribution. Nothing I read by choice does that, and I never do that intentionally, because I love footnotes, hyperlinks, and all scholarly reference techniques. However, I do monitor a Pocahontas County website where this is the norm. It's tangentially related to my job, and it offers an education in all types of bad Internet behavior, including plenty of anonymous trolls.

While Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto book looks interesting, so does the Washington Post's reviewer, Ellen Ullman, a former software engineer...the author of "Close to the Machine" and "The Bug: A Novel." Maybe it was her wry "Yes, Jaron, we are still here" that got me, but I wanted to know more about her.

She has eleven essays archived at Salon.com, and a number of on-line interviews, including What's Bugging Ellen Ullman? A conversation with the author of "Close to the Machine," and "The Bug: A Novel", where she suggests some things computer science students might want to learn:

...I think if you could somehow teach students to understand that Linux or Windows or Java or C++ are just current implementations of old ideas, and to understand that what's new has roots in long-standing ideas that have gone through permutations. Computing is not a brand-new profession. It's a generation or two old by now. It has a history. I really would have people understand the history of computing much better. I mean a detailed survey of the different operating environments as they came and went over time, what they were good at, and what they were not good at. These ideas are getting lost.

The Red Tape Chronicles is also fretting this month about Internet users and their gadgets, in Why so much FAIL in the digital world?

There are many valid defenses for technology. It's just a tool, of course -- the Internet doesn't kill brains, people kill brains. Obviously, a tool that allows people to find virtually any fact ever known within a few seconds can help make people a lot smarter.

Even [Michelle] Weil, the Technostress author, is quick to say that technology is not the problem: "The problem is the way people use technology, and the expectations they have for it," she said.

People have come to depend too much on gadgets, and fail to plan for the logical possibility that they will occasionally break down....Meanwhile, too much alcohol, too much chocolate cake, too much exercise--all these things can be bad for people, just like too much digital exposure....All those bad habits existed before the Web and continue to exist in spite of the Web. It's fair to ask, then, where the fault lies for "The Dumbest Generation" -- with overexposure to digital media, or with adults who don't force the kids to turn off the laptops and listen once in a while.

The book Red Tape cutter Bob Sullivan mentions, The Dumbest Generation, by Mark Bauerlein, asks the novel question, "What's the matter with kids today?" The answer is MySpace and Facebook.

According to recent reports from government agencies, foundations, survey firms, and scholarly institutions, most young people in the United States neither read literature (or fully know how), work reliably (just ask employers), visit cultural institutions (of any sort), nor vote (most can't even understand a simple ballot). They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount foundations of American history, or name any of their local political representatives. What do they happen to excel at is--each other. They spend unbelievable amounts of time electronically passing stories, pictures, tunes, and texts back and forth, savoring the thrill of peer attention and dwelling in a world of puerile banter and coarse images.

Anyone who thinks this is mere intergenerational grousing, the time-worn tradition of an older generation wagging its finger at a younger one, should think again....

I recently taught for a semester in a local middle school, and I met many kids who had all these vices and deficiencies. I've also met adults of my generation who fit the description. Wouldn't it be wonderful if no one were ever lazy, and everyone availed themselves of all the opportunities life presented them? I certainly don't have the answers--I have my own laziness to wrestle. If you're interested, The Dumbest Generation Web presence has articles, reviews, and links to Mark Bauerlein's other books, as well as videos, presumably for those who don't read easily.

I have a prejudice against instructional videos, partly because when I want to know something, I want to know it right away, and on my terms. For me, it's more satisfying and quicker to flip through a book than to fast-forward through a DVD or videotape. Likewise, on the Internet, I can read faster than video can download and play, at least on my connection and hardware. Don't even get me started on Drupal how-to's--so many of them are video-only, when searchable text would be so much more useful.

However, some things are best demonstrated, not explained. There are amazing free music lesson videos on Youtube, and I've seen some really helpful animations of chemistry concepts. In the interest of being more open-minded, I clicked on the knitting video above, found at Crazy for Cast-Ons, Part 2, which is the follow-up to Crazy for Cast-Ons (Part 1): The Old Norwegian and Some "Tail Tips."

For me, this is a really great video--"Helpful Knitting Tips from Knitting Expert Eunny Jang," on a series called "Knitting Daily TV." It moves quickly, so I don't get impatient, and it's well-produced, so you can see what her hands are doing. I've tried lots of cast-on methods, although I usually revert to the first one I learned, which is, well, idiosyncratic. I do, however, often want a provisional cast-on, so that I can start knitting "in the middle" of a project, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the methods I've been using. I'm excited to try all of these provisional cast-ons.