This Should Work

With a little work this weekend on the wp-itunes plugin and a lot of work on the style sheet, I’ve finally finished putting together an “iListen to…” page.

You can get to the by either clicking the link on the top menu bar or by clicking the “…more songs” link at the bottom of the side bar.

And if you’re looking for new music recommendations I’ve got two:

• Okkervil River- This alt-country group recently released Black Sheep Boy Appendix but I really like last years Black Sheep Boy.
• Arctic Monkeys- Gotta thank Dr. S for alrerting to this post-punk band from Britian. If you like Franz Ferdinand or Panic at the Disco, you’ll probably dig their last EP titled I bet you look good on the dance floor

My local Starbucks (the one that’s 30-feet from my office door) has an obsession with The Rolling Stones. I can’t say which album (or albums) they’re playing but I know this: every time this week that I’ve passed the Starbucks I hear “Time Is on My Side.”

Monday 9 am coffee break:
“Tiiiime is on my side, yes it is!”

Tuesday 10 am coffee break:
“Tiiiime is on my side, yes it is!”

Wednesday afternoon on the way to the restroom:
“Tiiiime is on my side, yes it is!”

Thursday 11:30 am on the way to lunch:
“Tiiiime is on my side, yes it is!”

Friday 9:45 am answering frantic cell-phone call from my wife:
“Tiiiime is on my side, yes it is!”

The Stones are okay, and I used to like that song, but now it’s stuck in my head. The next time I walk by Starbucks and they’re not playing the Stones I’ll think ‘Oh My God! They’re not playing the Rolling Stones! Yes! Time is on my side!’

[tags] Rolling Stones, The Stones, Starbucks[/tags]

A recently launched website is hoping to become the definitive clearing house for all things relating to spyware and adware. The site stopbadware.org is organized by the Harvard’s Berkman Center and the Oxford Internet Institute, and is sponsored by big Internet companies like Google and Sun Microsystems.

The nice thing about this website is that it encourages participation from Internet users from all technical level. Computer Techs and IT Security specialist can talk about their experiences with each other about what works best for cleaning systems of “badware.”

And non-technical people can also just share their story of what happened with their computers when it became infected. While it may not seem like sharing one’s computer nightmares is not helpful, it can. By reading these stories can help the tech-savvy folks analyze the average user behavior; this can lead to better training, and better anti-badware” programs.

This site is still in its early stages, but I think it’s got a lot of potential because it tries to bridge the gap between the users and the “computer guys.” If you are interested in the whole computer spyware/adware/badware subject, these are two of my favorite sites on the subject:

• Spywarewarrior- a good all around site to find out what anti-spyware tools work and which will cause you more headaches.
• Ben Edelman- former student fellow to the Berkman Center, Ben’s served as a consultant for many big name organizations fighting spyware.

Now that we’re finally moved into our new home (but not completely unpacked) and our Internet is up and running it’s time to fire up the old blog machine, this time with a few new changes.

Some of them you won’t see because the changes were to the back-end part of the server, I was trying to make it a little more secure (and it was very secure! There was moment when I had locked everyone out of my website, including myself!). But there is one change you can see on the sidebar. I’ve add a section called “iListen To…”

This section will display the last three songs I’ve listen to on iTunes. If you’re an iTunes user (or at a computer with iTunes installed) you can click on the album art to view the track in iTunes. I plan on making an entire page out of this, showing the last 30 songs I’ve listened to, but for now this is what I’ve got.

While you’re at the sidebar, I wanted to mention a couple of new-ish links that have been added. First, my brother has started blogging; you can check out his website World Domination Foundation. Also a good friend in Gambier, Ohio cracked a few months back and started a blog as well called Memory Chick on blogspot. Check them out and show them some love.

I’m working on the iListen To… page now, so hopefully it’ll be up soon.

Just a quick note that we’re moving into our new house this weekend (finally!) and that my web server will be down for the weekend. I’m also planning on making a few changes to server and do some routine maintenance on it over the weekend as well. Hopefully, by Monday night it will be back up. Thanks!

I’m starting to realize just how spoiled I was living in Ohio, at least when it comes to winter weather. I lived and worked in North-East Ohio where the snow fell from late November through (at least in some parts) the end of March. I love snow; watching the flakes fall gracefully from the sky, feeling the biting cold air, digging the car out, shoveling the walkways, salting the sidewalks. My wife didn’t like, the dogs hated it, but I loved it.

Now I’m in Kentucky and starting to realize that the definition of a winter/snow event is very different down here. What I would consider a “light dusting” of snow (1/2 to 1 inch) is enough to close and delay many schools and government offices. And usually the snow falls overnight so I don’t get to witness the falling of the flakes (which is probably my favorite part).

Today’s winter weather is a little closer to what I like. There was about 2 inches of snow on the grass, and it’s still falling! And while this is nothing like the snow falls I experienced in Ohio, it is fun to look out the window and see the snow flakes fluttering in the air.

It’s been a while since last year’s 24 with Kiefer Sutherland, but last night the show returned with a bang, literally. Car bombs, assisinations, hostage situations, the two-hour opening roared by so fast that when it was over I kept thinking ‘wait, isn’t this a two-hour premiere? There’s still another hour right?’

I watch a lot of TV, too much. Most of stuff I watch just because it’s on and I have nothing better to do, but 24 is a show that I’ll go out of my way to see. If I’m going ot miss an episode, I’ll set up the VCR to record it (I don’t have a Tivo or DVR yet), and actually watch the tape!

If you haven’t seen this show, it’s not too late. The second part of the premiere is on tonigh on Fox. Don’t miss it. You’ll be on the edge of your seat the entire time.

Me? Well my wife had a business dinner, so I sat at home, ate a little Chinese food, watched a little Sportscenter, and I started packing the house. Doesn’t sound like fun you say, just wait it gets better.

I stepped out into the garage to get some more boxes and closed the door behind me in order to keep the dogs from running into the street (our garage door is broken and remains open). I stacked the necessary boxes next to the door and when I had the enough boxes, I proceeded back into the house. Well, I tried to get back in the house, but the door was locked!

So there I was, locked out of my house with nothing. No keys, no cell phone, no shoes, no jacket. The temperature was dropping to about the freezing mark, and I could see the first flurries of snow in night sky. I walked out of the garage and tried the front door. No luck, it was locked. So I returned to the garage and looked around at my “resources” asking myself ‘What would MacGyver do?’

The first thing I tried was to make sure that all doors were locked. This meant trying the back door. It had been raining all day and the ground was wet; I didn’t want to dampen socks (that would be bad in the cold weather) so I pulled them off and walked across the cold, wet grass to the back door. Locked too.

Now my feet were freezing, so I hung out on the backyard porch for a few minutes and put my socks back on to help them warm up. I looked in the window to check on the dogs, they were fine, and check the time. My wife had been at dinner for two hours, so I thought ‘they’re probably wrapping things up, and she’ll be home in a half-hour or so.’

I took the socks off, returned to the garage, and started to get comfortable. I took out a couple of patio chairs, grabbed a blanket, opened up the Trivial Pursuit box and grabbed a set of questions, and kicked back watching the snow fall while going through trivial pursuit questions.

About forty-five minutes later, my wife drives up and asks what I’m doing in the garage curled up in the patio chairs with a blanket.

“I’m locked out of the house.”

Why didn’t you call me, she asks.

“With what? I don’t have a cell phone.”

She parked the car, unlocked the door, and we were went into the house.

Now you may ask ‘Dude, why didn’t you go to a neighbors and call her?’ Good question. After walking around to back of the house my feet were so cold that walking actually hurt. Also, if I had reached her, the restaurant was a half-hour away. And it turns out she had her phone on vibrate and probably would have heard the call.

Besides, it gave me chance to brush up on Trivial Pursuit skills. Next time we play it, I’ll kick ass!

I updated the look on my blog last night. I was getting tired of the old look and wanted to make some changes.

I found the picture on the stock exchange website and decided to use it for my header. I think it looks funny and it reflects the look on some of my users faces when dealing with computer problems.

Anyways, it was a slow day at the office and I stopped by my website to admire my work when I noticed something. If you hover the cursor over any part of the header picture it turns into a hyperlink (making the arrow turn into a pointing finger). I noticed that you pretend to pick the person’s nose!

Yes, it low brow, but like I said it was a slow day at the office.

I’ve wanted to learn more about Macs for quite a while, but I haven’t found the money (or cracked and used my credit cards) to purchase a Mac desktop or notebook. My friend showed me her Mac Powerbook once and I thought “Wow! This is a great piece of hardware!” I’ve read my former colleagues book Mac OSX Tiger Unleashed cover to cover and thought “This sounds pretty good. I should try it out.”

I thought about purchasing one last year, but all the rumors about Apple switch over to Intel chips gave me pause. I wanted to see if the new Macs with Intel chips (which are faster than the current Macs with Power PC chips) would be reasonably priced, like around $999.

So when Steve Jobs made his classic “One more thing. . .” annoucement today about the Macbook laptop running a Dual core Intel chip, I rushed to the website to see what else came with the new laptop. And while it comes with loaded with stuff (iSight, iLife, iWork, etc) it’s starting price is $1999. And that’s for the cheap one!

I thought that maybe the prices of the old Power PC chipped laptops would drop in price. Nope, they still start at $999.

I think I’ll wait for next Steve Jobs accouncement for Mount Apple and hope they start making affordable laptops with Intel chips soon.