The Chicken Nest Boxes Are Finally Done

The chicken nest boxes Are finally done.....and just in time! As I was working on the finishing touches, I went out to give the birds some fresh water and found a a brown egg on the ground.

Below is a photo of the completed nest box right inside the coop. It's a double-seater, which should be plenty since I only have 4 hens left. I put a hook on the bottom to hand the waterer from as well. I'm hoping the water won't get as nasty if it's hanging instead of sitting on the ground.
The design is fairly basic -- 2 nests with a perch on the front and a hinged top to ease egg gathering. I built the whole thing from various wood I had laying around the barn: some 2x3's, 2x2's, 1x12's, and a half-sheet of plywood. The only thing I purchased especially for this box was the set of hinges.

Below is a picture of the nearly completed nest box in my workshop. Here I'm demonstrating the hinged top and making sure the sizing is right -- notice the Blue Araucana hanging out in there trying tofigure out what's going on.
Once I moved this into the coop, I placed a small smooth rock in one side hoping it would look enough like an egg to let them know what the thing is for.

Yesterday I went in to check, and the rock was moved aside, and a nice brown egg was laying there.

Overall I would have to say I am pleased with the nest box. It took longer to build than I was hoping, but that's mostly because other things kept coming up. I could have purchased pre-built nest boxes, but what fun is that? This was a lot of fun to build, and finding my first egg in there made it all worthwhile.

You've Got Mail

Just a silly dude I drew while coloring with my daughter the other day. Sometimes you gotta break out the crayons....

Error 2 (net::ERR_FAILED): Unknown error.

Well, so much for Google Chrome, at home at least. I installed at work yesterday (XP Pro) and used it all day. Started to kind of like it, albeit some features I am used to are not there, yet. (See yesterday's post for my first impressions.)

But once I got home and installed it on my laptop (XP home), every page I go to gives me an error saying the webpage is not available. Firefox and IE work fine, my firewall settings are to allow Chrome to access, everythign looks good. I reinstalled with no luck, I disabled my firewall, no luck.

So I installed on my desktop (XP as well), and same thing. I can get to the main Google page but cannot search. I got to Microsoft's homepage, but can't go anywhere from there. Same thing, where Firefox and IE work fine.

Several issues we posted on Google Code site for this error so it's not just in my imagination, here are a few samples (search for error msg, there were about 10-12 when I posted this)....

• http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=89
• http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=503
  

I guess it is a beta, so instead of whining I will just stop using it until the next version comes out.

This webpage is not available.

The webpage at http://www.google.com/chrome might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

More information on this error

Below is the original error message

Error 2 (net::ERR_FAILED): Unknown error.

Below is the original error message

Error 2 (net::ERR_FAILED): Unknown error.

Google Chrome versus Hype

Well, everybody in the online world seems to be writing about Google Chrome browser. Lots of hype, both good and bad. It's going to kill of Firefox and Internet Explorer, it's the final nail in the coffin for Microsoft, it's buggy, it's evil, it's great, it's just a beta, it's the next big thing, it will fizzle out and nobody will care about it, etc.

Well, I jumped on the bandwagon. I am currently using it to write this post. I used it off and on throughout the day alongside Firefox and Explorer. Here are my thoughts, as if anybody asked....

• It has some nice features, some of which are admittedly borrowed from other browsers. They are nice, but not enough to make me switch, not nice enough to make Microsoft tremble in fear.
• It is lacking some features of other browsers that I have come to rely on, and for that reason it's not "replacing" my other browsers any time soon (or ever).
• Viewing XML and XSL files -- they show up blank or with some text here and there. Basically it tries to treat them like HTML and ignores most of the tags.
• Sidebar - I have been using sidebar for the menu panel of my Bookmarks Launcher+ app. (shameless plug)
• RSS support, e.g. Firefox's live bookmarks feature
  
• Plugins, especially 'Firebug'.
  
• It seems pretty zippy, but speed wasn't an issue with my other browsers, so not sure this one will make it "win".
• Some of the stuff was a little odd to get used to at first, e.g. lack of menu bar or title bar,lack of bookmarks menu (unless you check the "Always show bookmarks bar" option under the wrench icon.
• The "New Tab" window is kind of neat once you get used to it -- the lack of bookmarks menu above is actually right there when you open a new tab, along side thumbnails of most often visited sites, and a list of recently closed tabs, and ability to search your history.
• Read some reports of the back button not working. It's been working for me. Even still, it is a beta, there will be bugs.
• I like the idea of each tab being a separate process in case one gets hung up. I have had that problem a lot with Firefox, especially when trying to open PDF's or long loading pages. To that end, the Task Manager window and the info for nerds link is kind of cool.
  

My impression, it's a browser. Pure and simple. For some reason Google felt the need to reinvent the browser with lots of mature fully featured browsers already out there.

Chrome isn't bad, but it's not worth all the hype either. It will be interesting to see if it carves out a small niche, takes huge chunks of market share, or just fizzles out comepletly. My guess if either niche or fizzle at this point.