Month: February 2006

Need Suggestions On Good Time Tracking Software

As of next week, I’ll be basically getting my paycheck from three different companies here in Sunriver. It’s a long story, really. While the first company linked will be the ones actually signing my paycheck (like usual), I’ll be doing a crapload of work for the other two as well, and I need to track my time appropriately so that my employer can make sure things are billed out appropriately.

Does anybody have any suggestions on project and time tracking software? I have access to the various Microsoft products (Project, for example) and the time tracking functions in Quickbooks. I’d prefer something that would either integrate with either Outlook or Quickbooks, as I work in both of those quite a bit (preferbly Outlook — haven’t really had a chance to play with Quickbooks time tracking functions, but I have them here if need be).

Anybody have any suggestions? Cheap is always good, but free is even better.

February 21, 2006

Freedom Of The Press Gets A Serious Blow

When I was in college, and for many years after as part of my job, I closely followed college media trends. I still read up on it whenever possible, am still a subscriber to many college media mailing lists, and was even asked to judge in a college online media competition recently (which I am probably going to have to turn down due to the time involved). That being said, I was deeply saddened to hear that the Supreme Court decided it would not hear Hosty v. Carter (case No. 05-377) and let stand a June 2005 decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The news flash from the Student Press Law Center is here with their background on the case here. An AP-Wire story is here, but the long and short of it is that the case gives administrators at public colleges and universities the authority to censor student produced newspapers and publications, using the Hazelwood decision (which affected high schools, not grown adults) as a basis. It’s a sad, sad day, really, and I really hope that colleges make formal declarations (like some schools in the 7th circuit have) that protect their students from administrators who have issues with content.

Thankfully, many college newspapers (like the newspaper at Oregon) are fully independent organizations and corporations which cannot be touched by administrators (and I know that in the past that UO administrators have made it clear they will never require prior review or censor the publications there). Just the same, the administrations at these campuses should still make it clear — in official writing — that the publications on campus are a designated public forum and that student editors, for better or for worse, have the authority to make all content decisions without fear of being censored or requiring prior review.

I know for more people who read this site, this is not a big deal. But as someone who probably spent more time in the newsroom in college than I did in the classroom, this is a very big deal.

February 21, 2006

Calling All Local Photographers

If you’d like to make some money off your photos (and I’m considering throwing a few up there as well), a new local stock photo agency might be able to help you sell them (yes, that is Simone‘s new project).

February 20, 2006

What A Great Little Flash Application

This goes into the “Why didn’t I think of this?” category (oh wait, I know why…because I can’t program in Flash. Duh…). But the concept of the Sketch Swap is very simple. You draw something — anything — and hit the submit drawing button, and then wait. In a few seconds, you’ll get to see a drawing from somebody else that has used the application. Most of the drawings are stick-figure esque (at least everything I put in there is) but some folks are putting in some very cool drawings and you’ll see those if you submit enough stuff.

February 20, 2006

Addicting Flash Game for The Day

Monk is one of the two TV shows I have to watch when new episodes are on (House being the other, which is on tonight). For kicks, I went to the Monk web site and played the games they had posted there, and I have to say Monk’s Mind Game is a great little game that is far better than you typically see on TV shows’ Web sites (usually there’s no thought put into the game, but this one’s kind of fun). b3ta also linked to it over the weekend, so enjoy.

February 20, 2006

137 Feeds And Counting

We’re now up to 137 feeds over at Bend Blogs. Many of the ones I added in the last couple days were LiveJournals, a few Blogger.com blogs, and even a few MySpace and MSN Blogs. There’s some very good reading and some well-established blogs that have been added that I didn’t know a thing about, so be sure to check it out.

And for my reference, here are the Google search queries I used to find them (and variations on them for the different cities):

  • site:livejournal.com “Location: Bend, Oregon”
  • site:blogger.com “Location: Bend : Oregon”
  • site:spaces.msn.com “Location Bend, Oregon”
  • site:profile.myspace.com “Bend, Oregon”
  • site:blog.myspace.com “City: BEND”

Also of note: I didn’t bother to put any blogs on there that hadn’t been updated in more than 6 months or so, though I did find quite a few of them. I’m pretty sure one of the features they’re working on for Gregarius is a system that automatically depreciates a feed after nothing has been posted to it for six months (which would include several blogs there, I know).

If you notice something I’m missing, please let me know (contact form coming on BendBlogs of these days).

February 20, 2006

You Get Five Kilobytes To Be As Offensive As Possible

That’s basically the premise behind this image challenge, done in the spirit of other coding challenges. I’m going straight to hell for laughing at some of these.

February 19, 2006

Sonic The Hedgehog on The Piano

There have been a pile of variations of folks playing the Mario Brothers theme song on everything from marimbas to piano to the ukulele, but it takes a real man to take on the Sonic The Hedgehog theme.

Now if the guys playing these were as easy on the eyes as these amazing percussionists….

February 19, 2006

What’s The Moral of The Story?

The teacher gave her fifth-grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.

The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.

Ashley said, “My father’s a farmer and we have a lot of egg-laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the car when we hit a big bump in the road and all the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess.”

“What’s the moral of the story?” asked the teacher. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!” “Very good,” said the teacher.

Next little Sarah raised her hand and said, “Our family are farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks, and the moral to this story is, ‘don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.'” “That was a fine story Sarah.”

Joey, do you have a story to share?” “Yes, ma’am, my daddy told me a story about my Aunt Carol. Aunt Carol was a pilot in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a flask of whiskey, a pistol and a survival knife.

She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy troops. She shot fifteen of them with the gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife, ’til the blade broke and then she killed the last one with her bare hands.”

“Good heavens,” said the horrified teacher, “What kind of moral did your daddy teach you from that horrible story?”

“Don’t f**k with Aunt Carol when she’s been drinking.”

Thanks Barn for the joke.

February 19, 2006

Why Learning The Language Is Important

If you’re going to have a job or move somewhere where you need to speak a foreign language, it’s best if you do your best to learn it, or bad things will happen…

(more…)

February 19, 2006