Hurley's World

I'm writing this from the comfort of MidNite Laundromat in Newtonville, MA. So far my experience here is great. In addition to extremely helpful staff and reasonable prices, the location has free wi-fi access. With it's location near both Cabot's restaurant and Whole Foods, there are lots of things you can do while you wait for your laundry. And the staff can't be beat. For instance, when my husband dropped me off today, he forgot our shopping list. Since he realized this when he got to Whole Foods, he figured it was easier to walk back than to drive. I explained to the gentleman here that I had to leave for a moment to give the list to my husband and he insisted on bringing it himself so I could finish loading the machines. He also offered a number of times to help me with my chores, including moving the laundry closer to the machine, and offering to watch over my things when I went to get something to drink from Cabots.

In addition using del.icio.us as a research log, I have found yet another use for the site. Using the aggregator2 module for Drupal, I can add items from my del.icio.us rss feed as a node to my site, allowing me to kill two birds with one stone. In addition, once it's on my site, it gives my visitors a chance to see and comment on what I find interesting and important, without any additional work on my part.

I hope other social networking sites pick up on this idea.

paradise is less about some abstract concept of beauty and is more about feelings and memories. Here is one of my most favorite places on Earth.

Over the past few weeks, I worked on a new default site look for the site. The old look seemed a bit washed out for my tastes. I hope the new color choices and use of color to delineate blocks will make the site more vibrant and easier to use. Over the next few weeks, I hope to make additonal changes to make the site easier to use. Also keep a look out for site tips. And, as always, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Feel free to leave a comment or email me at tracy.hurley[at]hurleyit.com.

One new feature is the share links both in the right navigation menu and below each story.

Microsoft has released the official patch for the WMF vulnerability found earlier. All Microsoft users should download and install this patch as the threat is pretty serious. It is highly recommended that you use the Windows Update tool if it's on your computer but you can also find the necessary downloads here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-001.mspx.

In celebration of my birthday, I've added a new game to the line up, Jewel Miner. A continuation of the Gold Miner family, this game involves the Gold Miner's niece, Julie, in her very own matching game. Enjoy!

Much of my father's side of the family is very hard to research. A multitude of reasons exist for this state of affairs, but the main reasons are these: New York did not keep vital records until the 1880s and many of the family members were very poor.

One of the most interesting brickwalls, though, is my great-great-grandfather, John W Rhodes, of Plattekill, Ulster County, New York. After finding my great-grandmother, Irene Rhodes, in the 1880 census, I traced her father, John W, through the census years. One pattern stood out to me, John always lived near or with Jonah and Abigail Rhodes. I assumed that these two might be his parents but I did not have proof of this relationship since before 1880 the federal census did not specify relationships between members of a household and he did not live with them in 1880.

For some reason, I could not get the installed search engine to work correctly with my site. Since I've been adding a bunch of information to the site and not all of it is displayed on the front page, I thought I would add the Google Search form to my site. It can be found at the top of the right hand navigation column. If you want to search this site, be sure to choose the tracy.hurleyit.com radio button. I hope you find it useful.

In a recent Genealogy Guys podcast, their guests, Gary and Diana Crisman Smith, mentioned keeping a website log of the sites you visit with notes so that you can remember where specific information came from and to identify sites to revisit at a future date. I definitely recommend the practice and, in fact, have started doing it myself using my del.icio.us account.

For those of you who have not heard of del.icio.us before, it's a site that allows users to create an online bookmark of sites they visit. Since the bookmarks are online, they can be accessed from any computer connected to the Internet. In addition to the url, a user can keep add a site title, notes about the site, and give the site tags, or keywords, which can be used to group sites together. For instance, you may want to tag all genealogy related sites with the keyword genealogy and then all family name sites with the family name as a keyword. The site will also automatically add the date on which you added the site to your bookmarks.

I have added some free games to my website.

Clash 'N Slash

Space shooting has never been so simple and addictive! With Clash'N Slash arcade game you will battle pesky aliens all around the galaxy.