Tag - I'm it... finally

Rules: Write a journal entry for this meme with six random facts about yourself. Then pick six of your friends list and tag them – no tag-backs! These rules should be included in your entry.

1. When I was very young, I wore leg braces. They had little white boots attached to them, and ugly metal rods that ran up the sides to my hip. I hated them, and wanted to hide them whenever I could.


2. Between full time work and a couple of change of majors, it took me 10 years to finish college; resulting in a degree in Computer Science, an integrated studies minor in Electrical Engineering and minors in Math and History.


3. As part of volunteer service projects, I was a swimming instructor and a candy-striper (not at the same time of course).
   


4. I have flown on a plane only twice in my life - once as a baby, and once as an adult.


5. I enjoy writing poetry, fiction and humorous essays. (Well, I think they're humorous). Never had anything published, unless you count 4th grade.
   


6. I have a fetish for and a collection of coffee pots and coffee cups/mugs.

Tagged:
Um.... ( I don't know as many bloggers as some of you do, so you may find yourself listed here as well as another list)
Jason B
Angela B
Syd
Gee
.... ok I give up.

Blogrot

Okay, so the last time I updated this was in September. Way past blog-rot or whatever the term is. More like blog-rotted-away-into-nothing.

Why? I think I bore myself. I either have too much to say or nothing at all. Apparently I haven't even committed to whether this should be a strict programmer's blog, or more random things. I favor the randomness. It's so random-y. And much more like the way I actually am.

I started this blog I think with from the wrong motivation. I ranted. Something happened, I wanted to vent, and so I found this place and I ranted. Maybe that's why I don't post much anymore. My impulse was, and still occasionally is, to post when something bugged me badly enough I felt warranted to get on-line and blow hot air about it. I don't want to give into that anymore, it wasn't really helping me. I don't want to just be about complaining about everything - so I was waiting until I felt I had something worth posting that wasn't that.

Then I got lazy. Motivation and I are not so well-acquainted these days. I'm trying to fix that. Maybe that will be part of my New Year's resolution.

So to start off early, I'm supposed to post about this thing I've been tagged for. (Yes, I know that was ages ago, but better late than never, right guys?) I'll get to it later today.

Oh did I mention I have procrastination issues too?

Trees

Tonight's latest storm is strong enough here that it is ripping branches off the tree in the front yard of my duplex.

I found one on the front sidewalk when I was on my way out at about 10 til 7. A branch that would require cutting apart for garbage. I moved that to the side of the house until I could deal with it over the weekend.

I came home around 45 minutes later to find a rather large limb full of leaves and what have you, covering a section of the front lawn and my sidewalk. I'm a little freaked now, imagining one of these branches coming in through a window, or crashing into the roof. Not much I can do about it, but hope the wind dies down and call the landlord since I can't clean up something like that myself.

I should ask my friend Laurie if this is a sign of a diseased tree that the branches were breaking off like that. I did not think it was blowing that hard, but maybe I was wrong.

When browers collide

Nothing major - just had a hangup trying to load a flash game and I got a interesting view of firefox and IE together - You think they're crazy with toolbars now!

Radio Nostalgia Network podcasts

Radio Memories Network

(If the link above takes you to something that doesn't look like a listing of channels such as Radio Nostalgia, yesterday usa, sci-fi, etc..) try this one :radiomemories.libsyn.com)

After mentioning old time radio podcasts in an earlier post, and chatting with a friend at work about them, I thought I might briefly mention my favorite old time radio site here.

There are feeds to a variety of channels which are aggregated into the main feed at radiomemories.libsyn.com. You can look around in there and see all of the latest podcasts from a variety of categories. I discovered some of the old comedies here - Ronnie Milsap interestingly enough hosts one of these and podcasts shows like Fibber McGee and Molly, Lum and Abner and Jack Benney.

If you have an idea already of what you like (say old radio detective shows), make sure you use the links at the bottom of this page instead of the 'channel' pages along the left. The bottom navigation will take you right to listings of shows you can individually subscribe to. Check out the Horn Speaker collection in Yesterday USA for gems like the Lone Ranger, Perry Mason and the Great Gildersleeve. Just looking around in here again has me wanting to sign up for several more feeds.
I'm a fan primarily of the comedies: Jack Benny mostly to start with -a great Jack Benny source is Tucker Mike (http://tucker.libsyn.com/) I discovered I liked the Great Gildersleeve and Life of Riley too, along with Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello. Oh, and I found that Phil Harris (bandleader, part of Jack Benny's show, did the voice of Baloo in the jungle book), had a pretty good show of his own with his wife Alice Faye.

These podcasts are the perfect thing for me to fall asleep to. I used to leave the tv on a sleep timer, if I had trouble falling asleep, but no video to distract me is a much nicer option. My only problem is the shows generally run an hour and I always fall asleep before they're over, so I have to play them repeatedly to hear all of it.

Two co-workers bite the big one

Today, I was witness to an event that.... well, I'll be shaking it off for a long time.

Two of my co-workers downed the new quad stacker from Burger King.

Yes folks - 4 patties of meat alternating with cheese topped with bacon, and just to, I don't know - 'tone down' the meat, topped with a dollop of special sauce. Mmmmm mmmm. Just makes your arteries clog thinking about it.

They had taken a bite or two by the time I got to the table. One was already half-finished. A side view of the half-eaten product showed nothing but 2-3 inches of meat. Unhampered by anything that might accidentally counter-act the cholesterol (like tomatoes, lettuce, etc.. ), they kept powering through them although they had to take breaks periodically to catch their breath. Yes, breathing was becoming a problem. I'm sure sweating anything but hamburger grease will be too.

So Jason, the first guy finishes. Victory!(although there is some discussion that it was only because he didn't get secret sauce) He achieved his goal anyway, if that was to have a slight tightness in the chest, and the fact his eyes looked like they were swimming in hamburger juices. When asked if it was good he responded hollowly "I don't know". He did change it a bit later after digesting the first percentage. It was horrible, but good. Okay then. Excellent marketing I'm sure.

After waiting a respectful period of time (in other words - until the two could move again), we decided to leave before any veins could begin congealing or someone decided to go for another round.

Moving the parents - what day is it??

Friday. I told them this was my last day here really. Having to go back to work on Monday, I'd like to be home on Saturday so I have Sunday to take care of things at home. That's ok with them I think.

There's still a lot of stuff in cupboards, nightstands, closets that had to be brought over. I pondered really how much longer this might take.

I think my dad is overdoing it - trying to do too much. I was trying to do as much as I could, but everytime I turned around he'd gone off for 'another load' and carried it all himself. My parents accept their senior citizen classification only to a certain extent it seems.

The place is really shaping up. Roomier than my place - better design too. Living room that easily fits two couches and chairs. Two bedrooms with ample space for the beds and dressers. Dishwasher in a roomy kitchen with cupboards that go all the way around, and a new fridge. Patio. Garage. Washer/dryer supplied on the first floor. Decent basement. I wish I had a camera phone to take shots of it - but then it'd be out of juice anyway. Which reminds me - I'll have to do something about that old computer I gave them. it was running Win95. It was enough for my dad, cause he just wanted to play solitaire, and type up letters to print on it. When I connected it after the move, it started looking like a blown drive. Really sad part is -their old Gateway Win3.11 computer still works just fine. Testimonial to Gateway I guess (and Dad loves pointing that out to me with a big grin)

Moving the parents - the big move

Moved a few boxes in the morning - main push was to get stuff ready for the moving guys in the afternoon. My parents wanted me to come eat downtown again with their friends, but I told them I'd feel more useful boxing up stuff. So with no one to glare at me, I threw out a lot of stuff in the process of packing up several boxes. I got a lot more done by myself.

Later in the afternoon, the guys with the pickup came. Young guy arrived to move the bed, tv's stand, dresser - big heavy stuff. Nice polite kid. Don't think he called me ma'am - that would have lost him points for sure. We got a lot of stuff moved in today. Another chair, their bed, some lamps, many, many boxes of stuff for the kitchen, bathroom.

My parents have no concept of space apparently, as my mother did not understand why she couldn't fit her bed, his and her nightstands a dresser and two chairs into their new bedroom (which has less space then their apt bedroom did) The only answer I would get when I tried to point out this very logical point was - "Well, whatever." That's the extent of most discussions.

They're staying at the duplex apt. tonight - we'll go back for more tomorrow. This was the most tiresome day. My feet and knees are VERY un-happy with me. Lots of up and down stairs - I walked the 5 blocks to and from the apt to the new place in the heat many times to give them room to fit stuff in the car. I didn't need the two exercise bicycles they bought for next to nothing and put in the basement, to give me a workout. I better lose weight after all of this.

Moving the parents - day 3

Unfortunately my parents are getting older, and couldn't do much in the way of moving, especially in the heat. My mom needs to rest a lot from some surgery she's had, and I was itching to just throw stuff in boxes and get it all moved. They were running the show though and I found the slow going frustrating.

They wanted me to eat lunch with them and their friends downtown, and I hated the loss of time, but agreed. Nice people - I can see why they like it here so much. A little freaky to sit down to a table full of images of my Mom and Dad. They took great fun in teasing my Dad about having a daughter better looking then him. Haven't decided yet how to take that. One thing I want to remember to do for them is make some CD's of old time radio. I'd lately gotten into some podcasts of Jack Benney shows, Burns and Allen, the old comedies mostly, and had taken my ipod and speakers to share some old radio podcasts with my parents. I heard him tell some friends about it, and they thought the residents at the assisted living facility might enjoy it. I'll have to pick a wider variety than I'm used to.

Didn't get much moving done. Tomorrow (Thursday) the guys with the pickup are coming to move the big stuff. Until then, my parents are staying at the apt. Today was the cable guy appt. Turns out my parents wanted digital for the music channels. Much to my parents dismay, they discover later that with all the new technology, they are told they can no longer watch one tv show while taping another unless the cable guy comes and runs another line in for it, and my Dad told him no way.

In one of the last moves of the day, we were trying to move the jungle of plants my mother has. Thought it would be good in the cooler evening. That was right about the time a big storm hit. With hail. Brief torrential downpours. We were soaked. The plants liked it though.

Moving the parents -sizing things up

When I was making plans to help my parents move out of their apartment into a new duplex apartment, I thought we might be cleaning out my grandmother's house some too - and store anything they felt they absolutely had to keep in the basement of their new place. When I called the week before to confirm my vacation and availability to help, I was informed my brother had already come and was helping them move larger things in his truck. So I came expecting to not have much to do - maybe last boxes, clean out the apt, that sort of thing. When I arrived, I discovered a number of things:

1. the new duplex had a bed moved in, as well as some living room furniture. Not my parents - well it is now. 'New' purchases from their favorite auction down the street. TWO couches (one's a pull-out bed that they had to get because if they didn't bid on it - it would be 'gone') Another recliner (they had two in the apartment already and I think my grandmother's newish one was still at her house). I have to admit it's nice furniture - things I'd want with space, the means to transport it, etc.. It was driving me crazy seeing them get more stuff though. Probably because it's not what I would do. Or maybe I wanted to, and couldn't - either way I let it annoy me all week.

2. the apt - still looks just like the last time I saw it. They haven't packed yet. So I go into lecture mode, because apparently all things have to be done in my way in my time. That's where I get into trouble. It's hard to question your parents, no matter what age they are. What advice they wanted was what pictures to hang. Which way to turn the coffee table. Where to put the cereal boxes. They didn't want to be scolded about buying 6 or 7 end tables at 50cents each. We've had this discussion numerous times before anyway, so I will try to not push it.

3. I've forgotten my cell phone charger, so I can't even call anyone to talk about it with. It's not gonna last if I do that, and I need it when we split up.

4. My parents don't have internet access, except the public library. So I'm making do with journaling this differently until I return and post-date the posts.

Insanity doesn't run in my family...

... but it might be slowly limping along. I will drive myself insane trying to help out and make everybody happy.

My parents are moving from a small apartment they had while they were helping my Grandmother when she got unable to care for herself. They didn't want to dump her in a nursing home, so they moved to her town - about 2 hours away from where they own a house.

They got an apartment for my Grandmother down the hall from them in a special complex. Couldn't live in her house - no central air, no shower, basement falling apart, etc. They lived this way until she passed away in 2004. Everyone assumed they would move back to Lincoln to their house. Not so - turns out they like this small town. Plus they still "have to do something" with my Grandmother's house. So they stayed 'doing something' with the house, whileliving in an apartment. In the process, they had gotten into the habit of buying furnishings, appliances, etc... from an auction. A little place just down the street from their apartment lies a shop a guy my mom went to high school with owns. He sells stuff during the week there - second hand material usually. Twice a month is the 'auction' that draws my parents like moths to flame. They just can't seem to say no to anything there. Can't pass that up the garage sale prices - it's like an addiction. "It's only 50 cents" was the phrase I most often heard. "How could we pass that up?" They'd say, as they'd bring in a box of other people's discarded knick-knacks. Got a coffee-pot already? Didn't matter- there was a nice carafe system for only a buck or two. "At least get rid of your other ones," I'd beg them. If you bring in something 'new', you should get rid of something to make room. "Oh no - we might need that in case the other one doesn't work out." This is where one of my great frustrations begins. {sigh}

FIFA Fever

These days I seem to be easily swayed into becoming a fan of something that I never would have given the time of day to previously. Lately, I've been flitting from one phase to another faster than the moon. Just jumping on the bandwagon, or passing fancies maybe.

Most recent acquisitions:

• The 4400 on USA - recently got caught up in a marathon that explained the whole thing. I got absorbed immediately.
  
• American idol - because of Taylor Hicks. I was rooting for you since the beginning!
• World Cup soccer because of Steve. I had to add content to my yahoo pages so I could keep up, get the latest match results, etc... I was dissapointed I couldn't watch any matches live on the web - but I guess can listen to the whistle blows on yahoo's live match. Why have sound if that's all you get?
  

Oh, and apparently I am the 'kiss of death' for teams however, as every team I chose to root for, or even thought about rooting for has lost so far. I will stick with them though and not jump ship yet! Go Ukraine!

BBQ Bonanza

So I decide to have two BBQ 'get-togethers' at my place over the Memorial Day weekend. I was so afraid of running out of food and room because I wanted to invite a bunch of people from work, and some friends of mine from church. I decided to split them up and have people from work over Sunday afternoon, and the other group Monday. That seemed to work out fine, except about half the people I expected to show didn't come. That's not horrible, except I was so afraid I'd run out of food - I overbought to be on the safe side, and have tons of food left over. At least I bought enough variety (hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken) to keep me happy the next two weeks I'm drowning in meat. I wonder how long that stuff's good for? I'll have to check expirations.

Food aside, I think it was a really good weekend with the parties. I love having my friends from work over, as they are always even more entertaining when they 'let their hair down' and relax (or in Scott's case - hide it under a ball cap). It was terribly warm both days though, so adjourning inside earlier would have been more sensible then sitting downwind of the flaming barbecue. I don't cook out that often anymore, so I had to borrow someone's grill - and it was one of those little tabletop varieties - no, not the George Foreman, but a little Weber grill. It was shooting out some decent flamage at one point which scared me. So I panicked and turned the grill down, and then couldn't figure out why the hot dogs wouldn't cook (it had gone out entirely by that point).

Since I was spending a lot of time cooking food on Sunday while people were there, I tried to reverse it Monday and get the food started before they came to speed things up. That didn't work too well either, because it turned out none of them were ready to eat yet. And they weren't ready for two hours. Maybe if I'd thrown a third party I would have figured out the right combination.

Anyway, I had a good time both days. I probably shouldn't have mentioned to EVERYONE coming that I had forgotten to buy buns for the burgers and dogs, because I now have 3 or 4 bags left. I guess I'll need them with all meat left. Now might be a good time to start that Akins diet again......

I forgot to mention something earlier. The landlord normally mows, waters and does yardwork every Saturday for several hours. I was almost afraid they wouldn't make it the weekend of the barbecues, since it rained. Never fear, they were here later mowing, and I assumed figured they didn't need to water thanks to the rain. On Monday, while my friends and I are sitting outside on the driveway (because they don't like us to have things on the lawn), trying to enjoy a memorial day celebration, the landlord's crew appears, flinging fertilizer everywhere. I was so stunned, my jaw was hanging open. They were nice enough to 'point it away from us' as they go around the building and come out behind where my grill was set up with the food sitting out. Thankfully covered. Then they started watering the lawn. We gave up and went inside, deciding to play a game and watch a video. We could hardly hear though thanks to the water pipes going, especially the groaning everytime they shut off the water to move it. There was a collective sigh when they finally shut if off.

Wired News: Your Thoughts Are Your Password

Wired News: Your Thoughts Are Your Password

The possibility is intriguing, but I'm trying to imagine logging on to my computer in the morning before I've had my coffee. And what if you're interrupted by the phone or someone in the process? I can see locking myself out of an account on a regular basis. "Your password has been changed to 'Who the heck is calling me NOW, when I'm right in the middle of working on [fill in the blank] project?' Good luck remembering that".

tabbed browsing in IE 6

While I'd been perusing Yahoo for some other things, I'd decided to try setting up "My Web 2.0" Beta from Yahoo. I updated my yahoo toolbar that I'd had turned off for ages so I could add stuff to the "My Web" pages. Once I did that I discovered a new feature included in IE - tabbed browsing. So far it looks and acts a lot like firefox's tabs, down to the scroll button opening a link in new tab. There is a purple plus icon next to the tabs to open a new tab, which loads a yahoo search page.

Haven't had a chance to explore the Web 2.0 much yet.

Addictive video games

I've always enjoyed playing video games, going through phases where I'd play one game nearly non-stop for a week to a month and then tire of it.

Among these are PC Games:

1. Neverwinter Nights
2. Elder Scrolls III (Morrowind) not Oblivion
3. Knights of the Old Republic

Game Cube:

1. Star Wars Lego
2. Pikmin (someday I'll remember to return that to Angela)
3. Zelda (any and all)

I'm sensing a trend that sorta shocks me. I never really thought that I like RPG's, and yet my top obsessive games are all that (well, single player versions at least). I do go through phases though - enought that despite not having finished the game, the icons have been removed by oh-so-helpful Windows to the "Unused Desktop Shortcuts" collection. Then I'll decide I want to see if I can get past that stuck point, and I'm playing it again all the time (Morrowind is experiencing that right now).

I can't really explain my latest addiction, and the one that prompted this post though. I dabble in the on-line games occassionally, but I thought they were all pretty much the same. If it wasn't a card game, it was some version of the matching game bejewelled. I didn't think much of that, and now I find this game on yahoo, and I can't stop playing it. I'm totally obsessed with it even though I don't really know what the goal is, other than to turn the backgrounds of the stamps all red. I want to line up 5 in a row, because that seems to get rid of a lot of them. I want to keep playing to see what happens after stage 4. I want to leave New York! I can't seem to get there though. Something weird happens in that stage (or maybe it's the next one)with umbrellas and rainy squares that intrigues me. I want to know if more things happen like that. It's not even a full game! I'm scared that I will want to download it, buy it, and grow more addicted until I eat sleep and dream swapping stamps. I work in a library, so I can see me out in the stacks swapping books on the shelves getting frustrated at why they won't dissolve so the next stack moves down and I can advance to the boss level.

That reminds me - I need to finish that javascript for the search page for my boss tomorrow....

Blak is....

I'll avoid the obvious "Blak is blech" here . I don't think it really is blech anyway. I was convinced to try it on the premise that it was something to be experienced.

I don't think I need to experience it again.

It's supposed to be a fusion of coffee and cola - a blend of two favorites. It's not terrible, it's just not good. I can't envision myself wanting a 'cool, refreshing blak.' It pains me to even write it, let alone say it. Never mind drinking it.

What is it exactly like? It's like flat cola that you poured in a coffee cup you forgot to rinse out. Tasty, hmmm? Not enough carbonation, not enough coffee-ness.

Maybe it's the cold coffee part. That should never be. I'm not a fan of iced coffee drinks, but at least those have the milk or whatever additive that makes them taste alright. I like my coffee hot and strong and some would say bitter, and this is .... coked down coffee for lack of a better term.

And yeah - for some reason I drank the whole thing. As if it was going to change by the time I got to the bottom. It didn't.

{sigh} Some things shouldn't be messed with.

Note: Spellchecker did not like Blak (heh) and some of the recommended replacements were bleak and blase. :)

Can Programmers Party?

Are programmers too geeky and anti-social to party? That's a question that I had to ask myself as I hosted some of my co-workers at a party at my duplex. I think about 12 people got invited. Three would be a large number for a true introverted programmer, so this was.... huge. I like my duplex as a single person dwelling. As party central - well, it might need some work. Mainly because it gets a little cramped. Plus I'm terribly self-conscious about... well, everything. So I worried over appearances, food, etc.... Forgetting that this was a game night, and to get out all the games. I'm hoping people had fun - hard to tell with so many different people and personalities. Pretty much all techies (read geeks). To our credit, we didn't talk about work hardly at all. Unusual for us to not get together and just gripe about stuff. Nice to see we had other things to do and talk about.

I haven't played poker in years. That was fun. 5 card draw, 7 card draw, Texas Hold em.... I need to brush up on that. The game of trivial pursuit that ran until 1 am was better. Genus IV edition? Way too hard for people who'd been drinking. I never really get why you play getting wedges at the end spots only. Makes the game waaaay too long, but it was still a lot of fun. New catch phrases for people- "That didn't sound right".

I gotta have a better variety of food next time I think. There was chips and dip and about 20 different kinds of popcorn. I was getting sick off too much popcorn myself.

So have I answered the question as to whether programmers can party? Nah.

firefox extensions and version 1.5

Just to be in keeping with the rest of the programmers, etc.. who are posting their favorite extensions:

Thanks to MR Tech Local Install, here is a quick list of some of my enabled extensions


ColorZilla 0.8.2
Gmail Notifier 0.5.5.2
Html Validator 0.7.9
IE Tab 1.0.8
MeasureIt 0.3.5
MR Tech Local Install 4.2.6
SearchPluginHacks 0.1.3
UrlParams 2.01.00
View formatted source 0.9.4.4
Web Developer 1.0.2

My favorites by use: Web Developer - for debugging form submissions, checking table layouts and working with CSS. UrlParams is a nice extension (when I remember I have it) because it lets you change any of the parameters including hidden fields for debugging forms.

Next would probably be the ColorZilla, and MeasureIt for CSS color schemes and sizing/positioning. Colorzilla is a little eyedropper icon that runs in the lower left corner of the browser. Click that and cross hairs come up and you can click anywhere to grab the color. Button, image, text, it doesn't matter. The color displays as you hover, and when you click it displays the RGB, hex and css codes that get you that color. A right click and you can copy it for adding to your own documents. There are additional options for getting the coordinates of the color position found, hsv and dom-path. Really useful for matching colors when you can't remember what the css element you used, or you're trying to mimic another site.

Gmail notifier would be great if it didn't stop working about every month or two, due to whatever Google is doing, and require an update.

Search plugin hacks turned out to be very useful when I was playing with my own firefox search plug-in and needed to remove a bad version.

IE tab is new for me. Rather than remember that I'm testing things in firefox, start IE, search for the file, open that, then switch back and forth, left clicking on the lower right icon will switch rendering engines between firefox and IE for comparisons. On a three button mouse, the middle click will open the opposite engine in a new tab. For the IE version, I'm guessing it's whatever is currently installed on your computer.

That's all on my work setup. At home I've upgraded to Firefox 1.5.0.1, and am using the All-In-One Sidebar to a great extent along with some of the same extensions from work.
That's a nice little way to manage a lot of windows (downloads, themes, extensions, bookmarks, history....) I also have a blogger bar installed so I don't have to skip back to IE to blog when I land on a cool site, which happens quite often thanks to the StumbleUpon extension.

As for firefox 1.5:
Some things are a little hard to get used to in 1.5. I keep thinking the apply/use or options is missing from themes and extensions and whatnot, because that stuff is hidden under a gear button. A small nuisance when so much real estate exists in the toolbar that could easily fit the update, disable and option buttons too.

One thing I noticed after carefully preparing everything for the upgrade: backing up my files to retain bookmarks, extensions and their settings. I didn't need to do that. Everything was still there when I restarted. Extension options, bookmarks.

Automatic updates are now part of the package. They wait for you to install. I kinda miss the little update icon on the top telling me to install a new update. I haven't noticed a lot of other changes yet.

Discovery Channel :: News :: Computer Senses User's Frustration

Discovery Channel :: News :: Computer Senses User's Frustration


"if a computer senses that its user is agitated, it might tone down the background color of the screen, turn down background music, enlarge or reduce graphics, adjust the flow of information being presented to the user or simply apologize"

I'm wondering what the computer would do when I get frustrated by another last minute request to add a feature to an application. Blow-up? Inject me with a tranquilizer through the keyboard?

Niiiiiiccceeezzzzzzzz........

Automated Capture of Thumbnails and Thumbshots for Use by Metadata Aggregation Services

Automated Capture of Thumbnails and Thumbshots for Use by Metadata Aggregation Services

My clients have been saying they wanted more visual results in their search pages. This seems to back them up. I had issues with hundreds of results taking up a lot of real estate, and therefore a lot of time to navigate to find what you wanted. The load time could have been problematic too with wait time on images. If a user could switch back and forth between 'quick results' that just gave you briefest information (title say, plus short snippet) and a more graphical thumbnail view as outlined in the article, I could see the benefits.

'Vintage' TV

As the current news on the AOL Beta site states:

"With the AOL® In2TV™ Beta, hundreds of episodes from some of the most popular television series of all time are available online, exclusively on AOL®Video. The In2TV™ service will allow you, at any time, to stream full-length episodes from your favorite series, all free on-demand. Try AOL® In2TV™ today!"

You'll need an AIM screen name to access the material, and the list of shows so far isn't very expansive. Or vintage in some instances. Dark Justice (where a man can hide his identity with eyeglasses and bobby pins)? Histeria! ? I'd choose Schoolhouse Rock over that any day. I'll wait and see what else they add to it before I really judge it. The Brisco County Jr. episodes intrigue me....

I'd like to see how this all plays out with what iTunes offers in the Music Store. Their list of vintage shows is just starting. I'm torn, because I like what iTunes puts out, but I'd really like Schoolhouse Rock and paying 1.99 for a 3 minute animated song seems a bit much.

Holy Code Search Batman!

krugle

Excellent code search engine. No more hopping from script site to open source site, etc... looking for some project that might have what I need. This search engine proposes to show me the code right off the bat, so I can see if it is indeed what I want. THEN I can download the project/code. The tagging will be extremely helpful in cases where a project team is researching something (say, cms) and one search could be tagged for the whole team to share and investigate. Suh-weet!

Happens every time

I swear it must be some law of programming. If you create a project, do whatever testing you can, place it up for your client to use/TEST in advance of their big presentation deadline, your client will proceed to ignore it. For months. Then this law states that one month before their deadline, they will suddenly begin using it, and a flurry of reports about things not working right will come in (some of which are "It would be great if it did this..."). All needing to be fixed well in advance of their deadline.

{sigh}

Virtual scream

I think I will figure out a way to add a virtual scream to every project I have out there, embedded within the link "Click to report a bug". Not like that would stop anyone, but it might make me feel better.

I should also add something that redirects them if they report something as a 'bug' that is really 'something they thought should be built into the design but wasn't and now they expect it to be there because they were thinking it should do this the whole time, even though they never said a word in the countless project planning meetings you had or hundreds of emails sent before, therefore the program has a bug in it'.

Redirect them to the IRS page or something.

First post

This is my first post on my new blogger site. A quick introduction is probably in order.

I'm a Programmer. I use a capital P, because with the craziness I sometimes deal with I think it deserves a capital P. My job is programming web and other database applications for a University library. I really do enjoy my work - it's challenging, although stressful at times. I'm the only programmer on staff, so keeping up with projects can be a bit of a trial. I work out of a small office (referred to affectionately by my co-workers as 'the closet in the back'). That's room 31E. Complete with a 'load-bearing' whiteboard that has ER diagrams burned into it. I also have a plant. A fake ficus. Somehow I feel it brightens the place up. I could be wrong. Turns out I am a lot.