Archive for October, 2007
The universe is off-balance again. I've by-passed too many memes and the narcissistic deities hovering over my computer have finally caught-up with me. I shall bring the yin and yang back in harmony by taking part in one of these gratuitous self-indulgent trips down music lane. My deep apologies for the numerous memes I've let pass me by. I sincerely wish I could keep pace, ah but life has a way of overtaking our best intentions.
If there is any blogger out there that taps my virtual should
October 30, 2007
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After reviewing my options for a new home computer setup, I am pleased with the outcome of my decision. My requirements were: purchase a new machine for home computing and entertainment, upgrade parts to my old Dell desktop and network the two together.
Initially I debated over whether to go Mac, Windows or Linux. While Mac is groovy and Linux is cheap, I have decided for best integration to stay with Windows. All my Mac-loving friends, go ahead and let the tomatoes fly. Yes, I'm staying on
October 26, 2007
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RSS feeds provide a means to extract topical information from a website. Often there are subtopics within a site that hold particular value or interest to me that I want to track. Instead of subscribing to the site as a whole, I often add select feeds to my reader. This can be extremely useful in research of any kind.
A good number of sites make the topical feeds option very obvious. Sites such as:
Craigslist.org. I like to keep an eye on the Austin real estate market. I added the fee
October 23, 2007
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There is a pandemic plague afflicting business and home users of technology that is growing exponentially by the day. Spam is a resource parasite that is leaching into every crevice of our communication systems. The economic impact of spam continues to be a fundamental driver for more innovative and rapid change on the IT horizon.
Spammers use tried and true systems to infiltrate email and database systems. Put simply, spammers don't like change.
As a professional web developer
October 17, 2007
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This past weekend, my family and I scurried off to Port Aransas on the Texas Gulf coast. It is by no means the sweeping vistas of Big Sur, California or the placid white sands and blue waters of Florida. But Port Aransas was a nice sleepy little oceanside town to retreat from life for a few days.
Descending on the beach a short hundred yards from our seaside condo, we body surfed, caught wildlife and collected seashells. The sea engaged all of our senses and invited full participation
October 15, 2007
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For all of you road warriors looking for ways to keep up-to-date with your latest blogs and news sites, I've got good news for you. Google Reader can be read offline. A few quick steps will get you reading sites offline.Install Google Gears. Google Gears is an open source extension that enables you to pull data onto your machine for offline functionality.Restart your browser.Open Google Reader and accept it for use with Google Gears. You will now see a green dot with a white arrow showing t
October 12, 2007
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If you float around in the micro-blogging world of Pownce, Twitter or Jaiku, you will most likely have heard today of the recent acquisition of Jaiku by Google. This news has my engines gunned, so much so that I wrote a short post on it at TechFires.com as well.
Now, before you think of me as one who just loves to jump on the bandwagon, you should know I don't care that it was Google who did the purchase or that Jaiku was the one acquired. I have nothing against either entity, I'm just glad
October 9, 2007
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We love lists and if you can compact information into a set of 10, then you've found the holy grail of blog post formats. Searching Google with the phrase "10 reasons" turned up 190,000,000 results.
There is something tight about a list of 10. It's long enough to convey a good amount of information but short enough to assimilate and remember. It just seems complete that number 10. So, in good fashion, what would a post on list-items be without rounding to the number 10.
List
October 9, 2007
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Ever hit a dry spell in your writing? Was it a mental block, life distractions or just in a funk? I've never been much for a loss of words but noticed that the rate of posts this last week slowed-down considerably from the rhythm I've been keeping in the weeks preceding it. In my case I hit a very busy point where a number of areas of my life required a great deal of attention. Work spiked among other items requiring a new campaign involving a micro-site and a video. Video production is a very t
October 8, 2007
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Day 35 came and went on Sunday and two days later I still have not imbibed on a caffeine drink. Why? I really haven't gotten the urge. People have asked me whether I am going to start drinking coffee again and I don't have an answer for them, well not a simple one. Here are some things I've learned as I sort through the process.
A 39 year-old can change his habits. They say it takes 30 days to make a habit. Fasting from caffeine for 35 days pushed it out just a bit further to the point wh
October 2, 2007
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