Month: March 2005

Why The Huge Link Dump?

As you may have noticed, I posted quite a few links today. Why am I doing it? I wanted to give you something to look at for the next few days as I’ll be offline. Why? My wife and I (and no kids) are going to an undisclosed secret location tomorrow where I will be enjoying a nice dinner and a show. I’ll actually be back in town late Thursday if anybody needs to get ahold of me, but don’t expect much in the way of updates until Sunday when I’ll be back to procrastinating during my lunch break at work.

Meanwhile, enjoy all the links I posted today, click on a few ads while I’m gone (because each click is a few pennies for this site), and be sure to enjoy some of the downloads I posted earlier before they disappear for good.

And I apologize for folks on my mailing list who will see these links for the next several days in your inbox.

On a side-note, anybody have a mini-van for sale? Our small sedan is just not working for a family of four with car seats (and I’m NOT buying an SUV). I missed out on one on Craiglist Portland earlier this week. E-mail me privately if you have a good deal on a decent rig (and NO, I’m not buying a Ford — ever. If somebody were to give it to me, that’s fine, but I’m not paying for one).

March 29, 2005

Good Photography Articles

For all of you photographers out there, here’s a couple good article that I’ve had flagged and haven’t had a chance to post.

  • How To Edit Your Photos Like A Pro. Most of it is common sense for somebody who has done any photo editing, but it’s still a good article.
  • Quit Fethishizing Your Equipment. A good article that explains why I’ll always be shooting with my old manual Canon AE1: Your equipment will give you better images. Your eye for a good image and your abilities as a photographer will give you good images. A great photographer could shoot equally as well on brand spanking new digitals as they can on the old classics (I own one of those old classics — it’s a great camera).

March 29, 2005

Don’t Blame Wal-Mart

There are some folks who really don’t want to see a new Wal-Mart Superstore show up here in Bend. I understand everybody’s gripe about it, but I’m sorry: I’m like most Americans and like low prices. I like supporting the local community, and do when I can, but, for the most part, I go wherever is easy and cheap (two things that will be more available since the new Wal-Mart will be about two miles from my house).

Should we really be blaming Wal-Mart when Americans like low prices? I don’t think so. Besides, they are really good at getting federal funding for projects, so maybe they can help us out a bit.

March 29, 2005

Laws of Parenting

Anybody who has kids will appreciate this (thanks Susan for this):

1. The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.

2. For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.

3. Toys multiply to fill any space available.

4. The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.

5. If the shoe fits, it’s expensive.

6. The surest way to get something done is to tell a child not to do it.

7. The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.

8. Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.

Any others from parents out there?

March 29, 2005

Disneyland’s Secret Boozy Club

Just above the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland is a semi-secret private club that is the only place in the entire park that you can drink. But good luck getting in. Link via BB.

March 29, 2005

The World’s Fastest Train

Cruising at a cool 220mph, this looks like a fun ride. Too bad the ride is only 20 miles long (<teacher>which would take how long, class?</teacher>).

March 29, 2005

Never Miss A TV Show

All you need is Bittorrent and RSS. It’s like a Tivo for folks who are poor but have broadband.

March 29, 2005

How To Find MP3s Using Google

A very handy guide for the pirates among us.

March 29, 2005

Great Firefox Tips/Hacks

If you’re not using Firefox, you’re really missing out. Here’s a great K5 run-down that lists some great hacks and plugins you can install on it to make it work exactly how you want it to (there were several plugins on there that I have never heard of, but now have installed). The coolest thing I hadn’t seen before are these performance-tuned builds of Mozilla products that take advantage of the extra instructions on modern processors. I’ve installed one of them, and it works pretty slick.

And I don’t care how fancy IE 7.0 is supposed to be, I doubt I’ll install it (actually, I will, but only for testing purposes).

March 29, 2005

New “For Sale” Site

Anybody ever used Pricetag? It basically is a fixed-price listing site and free to list on. Anybody had good luck with this? I wonder how they make money.

March 29, 2005