purlblog

May started under the umbrella that my uncle Michael had passed away. To complicate things, there was an incident surrounding his death that caused an autopsy and inquiry by the Coroner. The funeral was held May 8. My grandmother, called "Nana" by all of us grandchildren, seemed to be taking it well on the day of the funeral, but then, as there always is in times like these, there were lots of family, friends and well-wishers around. She made what has turned out to be a hauntingly prophetic statement. She said, "I was worried what would happen to Michael if I went first. Now that he's gone, I don't have to worry. I can just go." She maintained through the next week, as my Aunt Terry was staying in the house with her through Mother's Day. Two days after Terry left, in the evening on May 17, Nana suffered some complications and was admitted to the Critical Care Unit in Newton. Inexplicably, on the Monday prior, my cell phone had stopped working. I was using an unlocked T-Mobile phone with Cingular, and they decided they'd shut off these renegade phones on their network. Due to this, it wasn't until Thursday that Alicia and I got the message about Nana being in the hospital. Alicia and I went right after I got off work Thursday, Friday, Saturday (she had a bad time that day so we only stayed a little while) and Monday, each time staying as long as Geordi's bladder would allow (except Saturday). I texted Tuesday night rather than driving up, and on Wednesday, May 24, my cousin TaMisha responded: "I haven't talked to my mom today but yesterday she said she was doin better." Something dreadful happened on Thursday. I was caught unaware, and I became concerned when Alicia tried to call me three times in a row while I was at work. As soon as I called her back, already expecting the worst, I found out the worst. Not withstanding whatever good (like Geordi) happened this month, it will be remembered by me as the Worst Month Ever. I am comforted knowing she is with God, but sad she is no longer with us.
Thanks to all for your condolences.

This is Geordi, our new Sheltie pup! He is 10 weeks old and loves to bite film canisters and old socks, although he doesn't have a strong bite with his puppy teeth. He does NOT like being in his crate while we are attempting to crate train him. Soon, hopefully, he will learn to ask to go out (or respond when we ask him), then the door to his crate will remain open. Britney, our cat, is quite unsure of how she feels about Geordi. For now, even though she is bigger, she is playing it safe and hiding from him.

This puppy is forcing me to tend to the back yard! The grass (yet to be mowed this year) is way too tall for Geordi to get up a good run. He isn't used to his leash yet, so we have to let him get a little running around in the living room.

This little blog is information about how to import the certificate authority I use. As time allows, I may be having my web server re-writing some of the URLs auto-magically into the "https" space (thus eliminating the non-secure access to said URLs). By importing the root CA used to sign the SSL certificate I use to secure www.jamespurl.com, the secure page will just "come up" OR you will get warnings. Right now, you (probably) get warnings if you are using any https: parts of the site. It's tough to know if the warnings are benign or not. Importing the cert will remove the "benign" warnings. This will be of particular importance to those using the CGI::IRC portal as I will be rewriting those URLs first.

Okay, down, to business:

1. Go to CA Cert's site
2. Click "Root Certificate"
3. For IE, click the link for importing the root cert into IE. The link uses ActiveX, so you might have to allow it to run if on XP SP2. For Firefox, click the "Root Certificate (PEM Format)" under "Class 1 PKI Key" and allow for the key to at least be used to verify websites. In both browsers, there is a way to view the thumbprint (IE) or fingerprint (others) of the certificate. In Firefox, I believe you have to click "View Certificate" to see the fingerprint. Make sure the signatures for the cert you are installing matches the numbers on the Root Certificate page, which are located down below the links in the courier font.
4. Voila!

You might notice the link on the right to Webmail. It is SquirrelMail, and only works with an @jamespurl.com email.
Hollaback if you want one.

On an unrelated note, The media link is back and IS protected. I had it danglin' in the wind for all to get at. Hollaback if you want at it.

Finally, in this trio of unrelatedness, I've updated the hollaback page, and pimped it via links three times in this short entry. w00t! w00t!