We have found that our camera and video recorder is filling up with some of the kooky things she does. You can see some of the photos over at my web album here.

I was watching the World Cup on Sunday and caught this on video. I labeled the video Cat Reacts to the World Cup but my friend Jon had a better title. Cat Attacks the World Cup.

Enjoy!

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I’ve never been much of a cat person having been raised with dogs all my life but I don’t mind cats too much. Correction: We had a cat once when I was in high school but it was an outside cat that never came inside, and I don’t remember us having it too long either.

At first, I protested us acquiring a cat since I didn’t think we were ready for a new pet but since meeting the cute little bugger I gave in. She’s been a delightful distraction from the stress of life.

Here’s a HD video of little miss Oreo I took with my new Flip UltraHD:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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As mentioned previously, I have been on this mission to reduce space in my house with the elimination of books and other media. Well, recently I have started using the eReader application on my Droid and Dell Mini netbook and I have to say, for now, it does what I need it to do. If you have never used the eReader application, try it out, it’s free. The only issue I have found so far is that the electronic book prices in their market are a little higher than the rest of the market, as compared to Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble ebooks. If you are curious, here is what the eReader looks like on a netbook turned to portrait mode:

The advantage I have on this netbook is that the computer came with an Intel graphics card that has the ability to rotate 90, 180 and 270 degrees. All that I have to do is launch the eReader application and then hit a keyboard shortcut combination of CTRL+ALT+LEFT and the display rotates. As you see in the above picture, I can then hold my netbook almost like a standard size hardback book. Granted, this is not a perfect solution but for now this will work perfectly until 1.) I can find a practical need for a tablet device, 2.) devices advance technologically, and 3.) the devices and the media for the devices become more competitive and affordable.

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Well, after owning my second Flip product, I’ve run into a pretty common issue with the UltraHD that a lot of other people have run into. It took me a while to find the solution online so I thought I would post it again on my blog. Here are the steps:

1) remove the battery pack from the camcorder
2) connect the camcorder to a powered USB port on your computer
3) when the “Connected” indicator comes on, insert the battery pack into the camcorder
4) safe eject your camcorder from your computer
5) reconnect your camcorder to your computer
6) the battery pack should now begin to charge within the camcorder

Some people who have attempted these steps have stated that it did not work for them. At first, it did not work for me either but I found one owner who stated that they had to perform the steps more than once before the problem was fixed. I tried the steps again myself and the problem was fixed. So, if those steps don’t work for you try it more than once.

Good luck.

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First, lets start with an old favorite I was using for a couple of years, Box.net. I believe this is one of the few first online backup service that offered the option to upload your files for data storage and data sharing. I first tried their 1 GB free service almost three years ago, mainly to share files with friends and family, and for times I needed to post videos and such to this blog (before I discovered Vimeo). But then I found out that their free service only allowed a 10 MB file upload limit – they have since changed that to 25 MB. Due to that limitation I decided to sign up for their 5 GB storage for $5 a month; I used that service up until a month ago, for over two years. To keep this article relatively short, I will only post the key features of Box.net and the other services I researched.

Box.net

• Good: Web link to private files for sharing; files accessible from anywhere via web; online drag and drop files; 1 GB free
• Moderate: folder sharing, but only with another Box.net user
• Bad: No desktop client synchronization; no security for personal edition (business edition only); $5/month for 5 Gb; $10/month for 10 GB with 1 GB file limit

One of the few reasons I left Box.net was because they do not have a desktop client for easy uploading and synchronization. I’ve contacted their customer service about this and they stated that there is no plan in the near future to offer a desktop client.

Microsoft Live Mesh

• Good: 5 GB free; desktop client; files accessible from anywhere via the web
• Moderate: N/A
• Bad: Adds Live Desktop remote desktop (mirror drivers installed) without the option to deselect; no security; No web link to private shared files

I was using Live Mesh for close to a year until I ran into an issue with the mirrored drivers that are installed when you install the Live Mesh client. As mentioned above, these drivers are used for the remote desktop feature that allows you the ability to remote into your computer from anywhere you have an internet connection. I believe the service is still in beta so I hope in the future they change this so that you have the choice to install the remote desktop client when you install the Live Mesh Client. Also, since I use Logmein Free to access my computers remotely, there was no need to continue using Live Mesh.

Microsoft Skydrive

• Good: 25 GB free; folder sharing; online drag and drop files; files accessible from anywhere via web
• Moderate: Desktop client synchronization via third party tools  (SDExplorer)
• Bad: no security; No web link to private files

Dropbox

• Good: 2 GB free with the ability to gain extra storage with every referral; desktop client; files accessible from anywhere via web; sync files of any size; secure transfer and online encryption; use on unlimited devices; works on Windows, Mac and Linux
• Moderate: folder sharing, but only with another Dropbox user; Public folder with web link to files; $10/month for 50 GB
• Bad: No web link to private files

For most people who want online storage and have less that 2 GB of data, I would highly recommend Dropbox. The ease of use alone is one of the main reasons I would recommend. For someone like my Dad who only has a few documents but has more than a 100 MB of photos, this was the perfect choice for him. I’ve used it (and still use it from time to time), mainly, for purposes of sharing files with my family.

Spideroak

• Good: 2 GB free; folder sharing; desktop client as a Windows Explorer view; $10/month for 100 GB; sync files of any size; use on unlimited devices;  works on Windows, Mac and Linux; secure transfer and online encryption
• Moderate: sharing folders is a little difficult to setup
• Bad: No web link to private files

Before a friend’s recommendation, I had never heard of Spideroak. I first signed up with Spideroak’s free service to check out their desktop client and was immediately impressed. With services like Live Mesh and Dropbox, their client is a predetermined folder that is installed on your computer. To backup files you have to dump your data into this folder. However with Spideroak’s desktop client you have a explorer-like interface that will show you the folder structure. If you want to backup a folder or file all you need to do is make a checked selection on that folder or file for it to be backed up. Very simple.

Carbonite

• Good: desktop client that encompasses the entire computer; $55/year unlimited; works on Windows and Mac; sync files of any size
• Moderate: N/A
• Bad: only sync one machine; no web access to files; no sharing of files or folders

With Carbonite, its only function is to backup your computer, at that’s it. Once you install the client all you need to do is right click on a folder or file and enable Carbonite to back it up to the “cloud“. Its really straight forward and nothing fancy about the service.

Dell DataSafe

• Good: $60/year for 100 GB
• Moderate: N/A
• Bad: client – after installing I couldn’t create the free 2 GB account they advertised because it would not allow me to choose a storage package. Also, it minimizes to the system tray but has no option to close without killing the process in Task Manager; works only on Windows

After trying all of these services, I finally chose Spideroak, mainly, because of the desktop client, but the pricing wasn’t too bad either. This past Monday, after trying their free service for a day or so, I signed up for their $10 a month for 100 GB plan as I have about 65 GB of data to backup. I started the backup process that night before I went to bed and by Friday night the backup finished. This time rate is based on my 1.9 Mps upload speed through my internet service provider. Overall, I am happy with the choice I made. Based on the $5 a month for 5 GB I use to pay through Box.net I am getting a much better deal now with Spideroak. The only thing I have found so far about Spideroak that I can’t forget, or those of you that decide on Spideroak, that if you delete a file or folder on your computer that is being backed up to their service don’t expect it to automatically get deleted from their servers, which isn’t a bad thing. You just have to remember to log into their site to manually delete that folder or file or your storage could fill up over time. But the good thing about this is that if you lose it on your computer and can’t retrieve it for some reason, at least you will have it backed up to your Spideroak storage to retrieve.

At the end of it all, I highly recommend giving Spideroak a try. Again, they have a free service with 2 GB so there is always the option to try before you make a decision. No matter what you do, or how you do it, backup your data. Do it now rather than later because, for all you know, your computer may be getting ready to die on you right now while you are reading this. And if you don’t have your data on a second hard drive or backed up using one of these online services you will lose your data forever.

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Backing up your personal computer data is probably the most important weekly task you probably are not doing right now. All those photos of your family and friends, that video of your child’s football game, that spreadsheet you created of your personal financial budget, even some of those work files that you may have saved on your personal computer while working from home one day is just sitting there on your hard drive awaiting that one time when your hard drive crashes and everything is lost forever. That is all it takes, just one time for your hard drive to crash – and it will crash at any time – that will cause all that personal data to be wiped out.

Many people do not realize it but we have been backing up our personal data since the beginning of time; this ancient form I am speaking of is handwriting. If you think about it, when we write down that grocery list, or take notes in class, at church, or in business meetings, handwriting is a form of backup. It is taking the data from our brain and transferring it to another form of media storage so that it will not get lost just in case our brain wipes it out by forgetting. Backing up our personal data is just as easy as handwriting. If we own a computer, another type of brain, and are storing personal data on that computer we should be doing what we do every day when we write on a piece of paper.

There are many ways to backup your personal data on your computer. Some of them inexpensive and some of them free. First, I will tell you what I do in my personal backup strategy. Most of the data I own that is vital and precious to me are my photos and videos of my friends and family. I have other data in the form of documents and also some applications that are not available online any longer. I store all this data on the hard drive that came with my computer. Knowing that this was my only copy, and knowing I needed to backup my data, I went to the local retail store that sells computer equipment (Best Buy, CompUSA, Staples, OfficeMax, etc.) and bought a Western Digital 500GB MyBook USB external hard drive to plug into an available USB port on my computer. You can get this item, pretty much, anywhere for less than $100. If you want to save money on an item like this, it would not hurt to search online on a site like pricewatch.com for bargains. Once I got this external hard drive home and plugged it in, I then copied all my personal data that was under one folder (a.k.a. My Documents in Windows) to a folder I created on the external hard drive. Now, every time I add data to my computer, be it a transfer of photos from my digital camera or a document I created, I also copy those files to my external hard drive. As a safety precaution, I also use Microsoft’s SyncToy to synchronize my local folder to the external hard drive once a week. That way if I forgot to copy the files in that first stage when I originally created them, then a confirmed copy would take place with SyncToy in the second phase. Another precaution was to buy a small portable 160GB USB external hard drive in the form of a Western Digital My Passport drive so that I could carry around a third copy of my data in my laptop bag. In the extreme, if my house were to burn down while I am away from home I still have all my personal data with me in my laptop bag and nothing is lost.

Some of this, you may say, is a little extreme or too much. Actually, if I were to go a step further and actually bought another 160GB USB external hard drive to copy my data to and store at a family member’s house or in a safe deposit box would be labeled as extreme, but not insane. I have heard many experts state that this “extreme” step of storing your personal data off site is actually the only true means of ensuring valid backups. Corporations do it for all their business data to ensure they stay in business in case of any major catastrophes. Why shouldn’t a home user do the same thing when their personal data can be classified as just as critical?

There are so many ways of backing up your data; my strategy was just one example. Separate from completing backups to a local storage, you can also backup your data to online storage. There are quite a few online sites that offer this service at a cost and for free. Box.net is a service that offers both free and pay service. I actually use a paid box.net service for some of my storage so that I can get to the data I need at any time when I have a internet connection. Here are a few other services that offer online storage: Amazon’s Jungle Disk, Dell’s DataSafe, and Carbonite. The beauty about these online backups is that they usually have an application that you can download, install, point to your data folder, and schedule it to backup your data in the background once a day. This way is all automatic and no extra steps are needed by you to complete a backup versus completing a manual backup to a local hard drive.

No matter how you do it, it is really important that you backup your data. Do your research first and find out what suits you best in your weekly, or daily, backup task; local backups to a hard drive or remote backup to an online service. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

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The year 2009 was the worst year ever in my 38 years of living, and I am not exaggerating.  Here are just a few things that happened that really made the year pretty horrible: First, the economy sucked so bad that the company I worked for was forced to reduce the hours for all employees, which meant for me that I lost a month of pay spread out over the year. Second, there were a lot of deaths this past year. Along with the numerous celebrity deaths that occurred, I lost my 13 year dog, Roxy, at the end of September then my Grandmother two weeks later. In addition there were quite a few personal issues in my household that made the year pretty stressful.

But, I can say that there are positives from these tragedies. First, at least I had a job. I have known quite a few people who were unemployed for most of 2009, so I am fortunate to have been employed. Second, even though I will miss my dog and my grandmother, I know that they are not suffering any longer and are in a better place. Finally, I have good health, all my limbs are in good working order and I have a roof over my head. God has been good to me and my family and I don’t take that for granted. I thank Him everyday for all that He has done for me.

Even though the year 2009 was pretty horrible, I am optimistic about 2010 and I look forward to the future and all the adventures it brings.

Happy New Year!

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1. The Simplify Media app is best if you want to have access to your music library everywhere you go without having to load everything on your iPhone.  Using the desktop application, I installed it, created an account and pointed the application to my music library. Now, I can listen to my music everywhere, even on the Edge network. What is also great about this is that I talked my sister into signing up for Simplify Media. We added each other to our friend contact list so, now, not only do I have access to my music library, I have access to hers also, and vice versa. Current Price: $5.99 (I paid $2.99 when it first came out for a temporary promotion)

2. Shopper is just a simple shopping list to remind me of items I need to buy at the supermarket or Target. One of the great features about this application, though, is that it has the capability to email your list to another person. Very handy when you need your significant other to pick up something for you. Current Price: $.99

3. Evernote is just that, a note taking application. Yes, the iPhone has its own notes application but Evernote is a hundred times more powerful. Evernote has the ability to sync your notes to the “cloud” so it’s safe from data loss. Not only does it sync your text notes, but it can also sync your voice notes and picture notes. I use Evernote quite regularly on my iPhone but the great thing about Evernote is that it is everywhere; I also have it on my iGoogle launch page on my browser to access. I’ve never used it before but there is also an application you can install on your computer. Current Price: Free

4. Tweetdeck is for people who use Twitter and has been ranked as the best Twitter client out there. Current Price: Free

5. Facebook, of course, is for Facebook users. Although I have a Facebook account I rarely visit. Most of my status information is fed from Twitter. I mostly use this application for when people comment on my status on Facebook and I need to comment back. Current Price: Free

6. Skype is an application that allows you to make VoIP calls and instant message to all your Skype friends, however it only works on a wi-fi connection. Current Price: Free

7. Tip Calculator is great for people who suck at math. I use it every time I eat out. Current Price: $.99

8. Google Mobile is perfect if you use a lot of the Google services. I use the Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Talk in this application quite regularly, and they work really well. I was especially shocked at how well the Google Talk portion worked. Current Price: Free

9. Flixster is for the movie fan who likes to check out film trailers and times at your local theater. Current Price: Free

10. I mostly use the Free RSS application to read my friends blogs. Mostly. Current Price: Free

11. RSS Player is perfect for listening to podcast. I love listening to tech podcast. There have been times when I have listened to all the podcast on my iPod in my car and do not have the newest episode of my favorite podcast that I then use RSS Player on my iPhone to begin listening the to next episode. Current Price: $.99

12. Backgrounds is something my sister introduced me to. It just allows you to download wallpaper backgrounds for your iPhone. My sister found this background for me from the application. Current Price: Free

13. WordPress application is for when I want to post a quick blog to this blog site. Current Price: Free

14. Audioboo is great for audio blogging. I have my Audioboo account tied to my Twitter account so that when I have no time to type a Tweet, I talk a Tweet. Current Price: Free

15. The Sims 3 is self explanatory. I don’t know why I bought it. I’ve played it just a few times and then lost interest. Current Price: $6.99

16. Wolfenstein 3D is a port of the classic first-person shooter game. Same for this, I’ve played it a few times and lost interest. It’s pretty difficult to play a FPS game on the iPhone. Current Price: $1.99

17. Sportacular is a fantastic application for sports fans. I use this quite often to check on NCAA Football scores, to see who is ahead in the current PGA tournament, or to see how the NCAA Basketball teams are fairing during March Madness. Current Price: Free

18. Air Hockey is also self explanatory. This is a great two player game when you are waiting in queue somewhere with a family member or friend. Current Price: $.99

When the Apple iPhone (and iPod Touch) application store first came out, I told myself that I would never buy an application for my iPhone, especially since most everything that was out then was free. Well, I seem to have given in to quite a few pay applications since, especially the $.99 apps as they have seemed so compelling.

For those of you that read this, and have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I would love to hear what you have on your device. Just post your list in the comments below.

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This is just a video explanation of using a software KVM solution instead of a hardware solution.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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I found out after the install that the reason I was having audio problems is because my speaker plug was not in all the way.

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To be honest, there really hasn’t been a whole lot that has happened since the last post. The only thing major to report is that I started my own business back in May to attempt to make some extra money on the side. This year’s economy has sucked so much that work has cut down on my hours since the beginning of the year so I had to start cutting a lot of cost in my life. The only problem is that cutting back didn’t really help out a lot; it helped but not so much that I’ve had my head way above water. I’ve been treading the water just fine but I’ve been close to nose deep so I started working on the side to get back to my comfort zone.

In May I started advertising my IT (Information Technology) services on Craigslist, and someone found me. A retail store in Winter Garden hired me to help them with the servers and point of sale computers in their environment. It was then that I decided it best to form a LLC. Thus begin EC Technology Consulting LLC.

http://ectech.info

Its actually taken me this long to get that logo and site setup. Thanks to a good friend of mine with the design talents to help me with the logo, EC Technology Consulting now has a stamp.

Now, I just need more clients to get the flow started. So far, it’s been an interesting experience having to be my own accountant and such but hopefully I can make this successful so that I can make some steady income on the side to help keep my head, comfortably, above water. The goal is just to keep it on the side, I don’t really want to make it a full time business, unless it develops  into something much bigger.

Pray for me and wish me luck.

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I finally found out a little background on this poster this past week.

The poster is from a cover of a pulp book that was published in the early 40′s called Captain Future. Thanks to that show and the total awesomeness of that poster, I became intrigued with the character and backstory, especially after reading about it here. Some of those covers are just plain brilliant. I had never heard of Captain Future before starting my search but instantly became fascinated by the information that I found. I started looking online to see if I could find any of the original pulp books to buy but, of course, they are rare and in some cases pretty expensive. I found out today, though, that the hardcover of the collected works is coming out in July.
http://www.captainfuture.us.com/
http://www.haffnerpress.com/cf1.html

I’m actually excited. I may still look for the original books though.
Thanks The Big Bang Theory.

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You can check out my profile and/or contact me there at the following link:

Edward Crosby on CrossLoop

Or, just check out the CrossLoop badge on the sidebar of this site.

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The Studio Hybrid came with a 2.0GHz Pentium Dual Core Penryn, 3GB of memory, 160GB 5400RPM SATA drive and a integrated Intel GM965 video card.

Here is a video of the setup.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: One thing I failed to mention about XBMC in this video that should be noted is the plugins available in the wild. There are Hulu and You Tube plugins that will allow you to watch their content from within XBMC. The only plugin that came with XBMC preloaded is a Apple Trailers plugin that will allow you to download all the movie trailers from Apple to view within XBMC.

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I want the world to know that I’ve been a Journey fan for about 25 years now and have listened to their music non-stop since then. So, when all these youngsters start listening to Journey and make it a trend or something (it could happen), I never stopped believin’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, Journey isn’t Journey without Steve Perry.

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You can find the Engadget post here.

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This is me as a Romulan.

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As most of my close friends and family know, I have been wanting to move out of Florida for a few years. I’m a native Floridian of 38 years and have felt it time to see a change of scenery outside the southeast. Since 2003, I have been visiting one of my friends in Brooklyn at least twice a year, so for the past two years or so I have had the intention of moving to New York. Well, that has changed.

More information that my friends and family know is that I was unemployed for a few months last summer. During that time, toward the end of my severance, I began submitting my resume to companies outside of Florida; again, something I kept private. Some of those companies I submitted my resume to were located in California. San Francisco and the Los Angeles area were two other city choices I wanted to move to outside of New York. Well, after more than 6 months, and two jobs later, I finally got a bite from a company outside of San Francisco recently. I got a call from an HR recruiter from this company a few days ago and we both have exchange emails and phone calls since then trying to arrange interviews. I had my phone interview last Friday with the recruiter and another HR person. The phone interview must have gone pretty well, even though I was nervous and felt it didn’t go so well. I got an email late last night from the recruiter stating that he wanted to schedule a face-to-face interview next week. I don’t know the details completely yet but I will be flying to San Francisco for a couple of days, maybe more, for the interview, all expenses paid by the company.

I don’t know about you but this sounds extremely promising to me if they are paying for the trip for the interview. What is even better is that I have the week off from work next week. Perfect timing. I’m super excited. This is something I have been hoping and praying would come along for the past two years. I haven’t told my roommate yet, and I know she doesn’t read my blog, so I will be informing her tonight. It should be an interesting conversation.

I hope to be speaking more with HR today on the exact details of the trip and interview.

Happy April Fools Day!

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While I was watching the final season (unfortunately, Amazing Stories only lasted two seasons) it reminded me of another 80′s series of the same genre I had to checkout, the 80′s version of The Twilight Zone. Remember this?

Click here to view the embedded video.

It was one of my favorite shows at the time; unfortunately, Netflix only has season 1, so far. I remember during those years looking forward to Friday nights when this show used to air. Mom would usually just arrive home from the supermarket just before the episode would start which would ensure tasty treats and soda pop while I watched a thrilling episode. It was a magical time that produced wonderful memories today. I’m about halfway through the season and I am enjoying it all over again.

I just finished watching a pretty good episode I had to post on Vimeo. If you remember watching the show, it was an hour long but would have either two 20 minute episodes or sometimes one really long episode with a really short episode to help fill up the hour long slot. The video I posted is one of those short ones lasting only 8 minutes or so. It’s actually an episode I don’t remember seeing when it originally aired but really enjoyed watching this time around. It stars Sherman Hemsley and a very young Ron Glass. I think the main reason why I enjoyed this episode so much was the message it delivered at the very end. It’s witty but very true.

I hope Vimeo doesn’t pull it so try to watch it as soon as you can. Enjoy!

*Note: Pay attention to the Devil’s t-shirt throughout the episode.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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I realized recently that I didn’t post about the new podcast that I participate in, and sometimes host, called Technical Difficulties. It’s a spin-off podcast of The Unique Geek podcast, another podcast I used to, and still on occasion, participate in. Technical Difficulties podcast usually revolves around recent tech news, but we also include a couple of segments for all listeners. The specific segments entitled Tech Breakdown and Tech Tip are usually on subjects where we explain certain technologies for the technically impaired and tips to help you survive this digital age.

So, please, go check us out at: http://www.techdiffpodcast.com/ You can either listen or download the episodes from our site or directly from iTunes.

Here is the most recent episode for your listening enjoyment, but please check out our site too:

Also, I just added a plugin to the site so that you can now subscribe to comments. Which means if you leave a comment on a post and select subscribe, you will receive an email notification when someone else post a comment thereafter. I’ve mentioned this before in previous post, but I still have the plugin enabled for leaving audio or video comments. So please don’t be afraid to leave me a audio or video comment.

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I really wasn’t looking into upgrading anytime soon. I had a Samsung 19” flat screen CRT in good working order that I have had for about 6 years now. In the past 15 years that I have owned a computer, I never upgraded the monitor unless it blew out on me. This time, because it was such a good deal, and my girlfriend really wanted to get me something big for Christmas, I decided, why not.

Now that I have this beauty, I decided to try my luck with Craigslist on selling my old Samsung monitor. At the same time, I had an old Panasonic flat screen CRT TV and JVC DVD player lying around collecting dust that I posted to Craigslist also. I’ve only listed a couple of items in the past on Craigslist and only had luck selling one of those items. Hopefully, I will sell these with no problem as I believe I’ve offered a pretty good deal on both.

Wish me luck.

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As I stated in the other blog, I have plans to rebuild my PC with it but, in the meantime, I wanted to get a glimpse; I have no patience. The best way I could do this was to setup a virtual machine in Parallels on my MacBook. At first, I had some issues with the boot up after the installation, then I found out I had to set the vm to Other Windows instead of Windows Vista as I originally thought it would load as a Vista installation since Windows 7 is supposed to be extremely close to the Vista build. Once I changed this, I was able to boot into the operating system with no problem. Once I logged in, however, I did not have network connectivity, which meant the drivers were not installed. After I ran the Parallels Tools install, though, this corrected the problem, but I was still lacking sound. This was easily fixed by running Windows Update and installing the generic AC97 sound driver.

From what I could tell in the brief browsing around of the operating system is that it seems like Vista on a diet; it’s not as bloated and slow. The way I could tell was by just simply opening the programs menu; it didn’t seem as convoluted and overpowering with so many menus and programs preinstalled. Moving around also seemed smoother and faster.

Again, my experience was very brief. I plan to give a more comprehensive experience once I install it on my computer and use it for a while. From what I have seen from actually being in the OS and from other’s experience, I’m optimistic.

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It began as a trip to New York to act in an off-Broadway play. You can see the entries of those exciting times from archives of the month of July here, here, and here.

Immediately after that, at the end of the month of July, I made a trip to Richmond, VA and Washington D.C.
Then, only a couple weeks later, I made another trip to New York for some leisure time to enjoy the city and some of the tourist areas I had never visited.

Once I returned from my second New York trip is when I resumed my career at a new job working for IBM at Disney’s data center. It was only a couple of months before I realized that job was not suited for me.
The remaining year was filled with new tech gadgets, catching up with old friends after making a trip to Tampa for Halloween (pictures here and here) and a trip to Tallahassee for a FSU football game (picture here and here), and then, of course, the holidays.

It seemed halting my career in the first half of the year was a life changing event. Since then I’ve started a second job that has already proven unstable, so there is no telling what 2009 will hold. I hope 2009 is just as adventurous but a little more stable. It is true what some state though, that chaos is exciting and 2008 sure was an unstable and fun year for me.

I hope your 2009 is just as exciting and more prosperous than my 2008.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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When I first saw the skin before I applied it to my netbook I was a little upset that there was a hole in the middle that, once applied, would still display the Dell logo. I was hoping I could cover this up; not because I am ashamed it’s a Dell but because it would look totally lame to have a big Dell logo over Rick Deckard’s crotch. I called Skinit customer service to find out if I could return this to get one without the hole in the middle but due to their agreement with Dell that allows them to actually sell a customized skin for the Dell product, they could not send me one without the hole. However, after application, I have to say that I still dig it.

By the way, for those of you reading this that may not know me, I am a HUGE Blade Runner fan, hence the reason I chose a Rick Deckard silhouette.

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We all have been hearing about corporate layoffs around the country for the past month or so now; companies like Sun Microsystems laying off 6,000, Palm laying off over 1,000, AT&T laying off 12,000, and Yahoo laying off over 1,500. Well the company I work for can be added to the list. I’m not sure how many total employees were laid off, I just know that my entire team was let go today, except for me. I’m really bummed about it being that I am the only single male without a wife and children that was left with a job in my team. Another reason is because these guys I have been working with had been with the company for almost two years or more and know more about the environment, so you would think that I would be the one they cut, but that wasn’t the case. Apparently, the order was the last to hire was the first to fire. See, the other guys had been contractors since their inception into the company. When they hired me in October, I was hired as a full time exempt employee, whereas they were hired as full time exempt employees a week after I started. It’s something that I don’t completely understand but I have to find the grateful attitude somehow. It’s tough to see the brighter side of it and to be grateful when these other guys that have spent the past two months training me on the procedures of the company were released and I was not.

I guess you can say this is definitely the sign of the times and my time may not be far behind…again (*see Unemployment post). If things do not get better in the economy you, the reader, may be next also. I’m just saying is that we may not see the end of these woes for a long time.

The recommendation I can give to you is pray more, save, keep your resume updated, and your mind open to changes.

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Here is a video I recorded from last night’s visit using my fabulous Flip Mino. One good thing for me that helped enforce the holiday cheer is that it was actually cold last night; cold enough to even drink hot chocolate while watching the spectacle.

Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Unfortunately for me, I will be spending it in bed this year. I’ve been sick with a cold since last Friday however, since Monday, I have gotten worse; I may have the flu. Even though the health benefits at the new job do not kick in until after the first of the year, I had no choice but to call in sick on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was even supposed to drive up to St. Augustine Wednesday evening to be with the family for Thanksgiving day then drive to Alabama to be with my Grandma on Friday and Saturday but I just couldn’t get healthy enough quickly enough.

However, despite this current grief, I have so much to thank God for. I may be sick now but I still am in good health. We may be in an economic downslope but I have a job. I have a loving family and good friends. And I have so much more. Like I stated, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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I wasn’t happy with the job, nor enjoyed the 45 minute trek to the site, nor the night shift I was scheduled. So, I interviewed with a company called The Fund (http://www.thefund.com), they hired me and I gave my two weeks notice to IBM. There are a lot more reasons for quitting IBM but I won’t bore you.

My first day at The Fund starts next week so hopefully everything will work out for me there. One of the best things about this companies location is that it is only 5 miles away from where I live and no tolls. I was spending close to $10 a week on tolls alone traveling to the Disney site.

Pray and wish me luck that I will be as happy as I was at The Ginn Company.

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I stated in previous post that I would post a video of the unboxing of the product. I did record it but it was unuseable footage that I couldn’t post. However, I do have a video that can be posted that shows, briefly, the netbook and the Ubuntu user interface of the new flavor called Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I even found a video online that has a good video substitute of the unboxing of the Dell Mini 9, if you really wanted to see it.

I am typing this post on the Mini 9 now and so far I have to say that I really like it. The keyboard is a little something to get used to since I seem to keep bumping the very sensitive trackpad with my thumbs so the cursor keeps orienting itself someplace else as I type. And the position of some of the keys are a little different from your standard keyboard so I will need to relearn some things as I type, but those are no big deals, it just means a change of habits.

Update (10/13/08 20:20): Something interesting I noticed that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense on Dell’s behalf. I ordered the 16GB SSD drive to go with the machine. They, for some reason, created a 8GB partition to install everything on which gave me a little bit over 1GB of available space and left an unalocated 11GB partition just sitting there doing nothing. I ended up installing Gparted, created a 11GB partition and mounted the drive. Now I have 12GB available.
Eventually, I just may blow the thing away and start over and partition it correctly.
There’s some crazy stuff going on over there at Dell.

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If you are not familiar with OpenDNS, then go here:

http://www.opendns.com/

To put it simple, it’s an alternate DNS server you can input into your home router’s (and I pray that all of you reading this that have broadband have a home network router) DNS settings instead of your ISP’s DNS. If you go to the above site and select Home Network at the bottom, it will explain easily how to configure your home router to use OpenDNS.

Once you configure your router to start using OpenDNS, create a free account with them, download the OpenDNS utility and install. Then go back to your account settings on the site and start setting up your network. I’m not exactly sure if the utility is really necessary as its only function is to notify OpenDNS when your external IP address has changed.

I really do encourage you, dear reader, to use this, especially if you are a parent. It enforces safe browsing without you having to be conscious of it all the time. For those of you that are a little more tech savvy, it basically has some proxy filter enabled when you set OpenDNS as your DNS server and create an account but all the proxy filtering is done on all their DNS servers.

I don’t have it included in the photos below but you can even create a custom message that will be displayed when a page has been blocked and a way for your network clients to email you the site they are trying to visit so that you can mark the site safe in your OpenDNS settings, if you so desire. Just like an anti-virus being needed on a Windows machine, this is just as important, if not more so.

If any of you have any questions about this, feel free to email me.

Below are a few photos of some of my basic account settings to show you what can be set and how powerful it can be.

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I think the main reason why I am so excited is because I have had to wait over a month to receive the darn thing. My patience has been tried. If you don’t know me well, then you should know that I have absolutely no patience. So, it’s been agonizing to wait for such a cool product. Also, I really can’t wait to do this: Dell Mini 9 OS 10.5 Hack

October 14th will be like Christmas. I may even take the day off from work, decorate the Halloween tree and put out the witch’s stockings.

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Screw Christmas. Halloween is my favorite holiday and the most wonderful time of the year.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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• Inspiron 910 Intel Atom processor N270, 1.6GHz, 533Mhz512K L2 Cache
• Obsidian Black Color with Gloss Finish
• 1GB,DDR2,533MHZ,1 DIMM
• 8.9 inch Wide Screen WSVGA TL
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
• 16GB Solid State Drive (mini-card Module/PATA)
• Mini OS powered by Ubuntu 8.04
• Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
• Integrated 1.3M Pixel Webcam
• 32WHr 4-cell Battery

Price: $475
I know what you are thinking. What do I need this for? Well for…stuff. I like the idea of mini-computing. I’ve been a fan of it for quite some time. One of the items I had previously that allowed mini-computing, to a certain extent, was my HP iPaq Pocket PC. I sold that about three years ago and have missed it immensely. I’ve had a couple of substitutions since from a Samsung Blackjack and now my iPhone but there are limitations to what these gadgets have to offer compared to a sub-notebook. With this I can carry it around everywhere very easily and have access to all standard computing applications, like email (which I can do with my iPhone),internet browsing (which I can sort of do with my iPhone), word processing (which I can’t easily do with my iPhone), and so much more without having to lug around my standard notebook all the time.
Like I stated, I ordered it yesterday. What sucks is that it will not be delivered until October 13th. I just found out today that the Linux version, the one I ordered, doesn’t begin shipping out country wide until October 9th. So what I ordered was more like a pre-order. The Windows XP version begins shipping country wide September 18th. Why does Windows get all the privileges?
I’ll post once I have received and used it for a while to give you my hands on opinion.

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I have plans to upgrade the hard drive in my Macbook to a 250GB drive since I found 100GB wasn’t enough; the drive doesn’t arrive until tomorrow. Since I was upgrading the drive I thought it would be the perfect time to upgrade to Leopard since I would be rebuilding my Macbook after all. Well, I couldn’t wait. I bought Leopard this evening with every intention to wait to install the OS when I installed the hard drive tomorrow evening but my impatience got the better of me and I just finished upgrading.

So far as I can tell it’s just pretty. Yes, there are some minor improvements to some of the integrated applications that come with OS 10 like Mail, the Address Book, and iCal but what I am most interested in trying out, and should be using the most of, is Spaces. Spaces is the utility that allows you to have multiple desktops giving you the power to have multiple applications open in separate desktops. Example: I can have two desktops setup. One would have my web browser and iTunes open and the other would have a word processing application and a dictionary application open. It gives you the ability to work in several applications without cluttering up one desktop.

I still plan to install it again. Once I get the new hard drive in the mail I will be completing a fresh install of Leopard on my Macbook instead of an upgrade.

I love technology!

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Today was nothing exciting as it was, mostly, orientation day. I spent most of the day in a conference room going over the details of working for IBM and The Walt Disney Company.

Tomorrow is a continuation, if Tropical Storm Fay lets us work. I may not start getting my hands dirty on servers until later this week.

I’m excited.

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The visit to Serendipity 3 was the highlight of the entire trip. It was Oz for our merry band of travelers. It was a destination that I never stopped hearing the end of even before we left for New York. I was hearing about Serendipity 3 so much before our trip that I was already growing tired of hearing about it by the time we arrived. If you don’t know what Serendipity 3 is, it’s a restaurant that has been the center of attention for many, many years. They’ve focused on it in movies, like Serendipity, and in television, like Rachel Ray’s cooking shows and Samantha Brown’s travel shows. Serendipity 3 is the home of the famous Frozen Hot Chocolate. After having tasted it, it is easy to see why it is famous. If you are ever in New York, I highly recommend visiting, not for the meal but for the deserts alone. During our 45 minute wait to get in, we decided to have a quick dinner at a oven cooked pizza place across the street. Our original intention was to visit Serendipity 3 just for the deserts so having a meal during the wait was perfect, unplanned, timing.
The only unfortunate event during this time was that it started raining and did not stop for the rest of the night. But, we were able to use this to our advantage by visiting Dylan’s Candy Bar candy store and cafe right next to Serendipity 3. It was a pretty neat candy store filled with all types of candies and chocolates. Thereafter, during a brief pause in the rain, we walked to FAO Schwarz and the Apple Store to wait out the rain, and to waste a little more time, before we retired for the evening.

On Friday, we sort of took our time since we had planned to visit Central Park Zoo and it didn’t open until 10am. We arrived there at a decent time and spent most of the midday enjoying the zoo and Central Park until we had to get to the airport for our flight out at 5pm. The rest of the trip, after this, was a disaster.

We got to the airport on time. The only issue was that the plane was delayed 30 minutes later than the original planned 5:05pm schedule. However, due to the surrounding storms, it was delayed again until close to 6pm. While we were waiting in line to get on the plane I had overheard someone else state that there was even a tornado warning in the Manhattan area. Once we got on the plane, the fun didn’t end. We finally taxied out toward the runway pausing halfway for over an hour to wait in a queue with 40 planes in front of us. At the time, there was an estimate that we would not be taking off for another two to three hours. The only problem for us, along with many others on the plane, was that we had a layover in Chicago’s O’Hare airport for a transfer flight to Orlando at 8:00pm. Needless to say, we did not make that flight. We arrived in Chicago close to 9:30 CST, an hour and a half after our plane left out for Orlando. So, we waited in queue at United customer service for another hour waiting to see when our next flight would be taking off. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 12:55 the next day.

So, United gave us a discounted hotel voucher and put us on the wait list for any planes Saturday morning from 6:50am until time of our scheduled flight out at 1pm. Luckily, we found a really nice Hyatt ten minutes from the airport for less than $75 and stayed the night there. I am typing this from the United gate now having missed out on the first flight out at 6:50am. We are now waiting for the next standby at 10:45am but I doubt we will be on that plane also. More than likely, we will be flying out at 1:00pm.

Update: I am typing this now after having finally arrived home in the early evening. It happened as predicted; we didn’t fly out until 1:00pm.

The trip was pretty decent up until that storm hit NY on Friday. I would be so happy to be home now, if I wasn’t so exhausted.

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After, we decided to go back to the Empire State Building to see if the line had gotten shorter, it had not. By the time we discovered this it was dinner time, so we ate and headed to Time Square. We didn’t spend a whole of time there as we were pretty exhausted being that we had been up since 4:00 this morning. So, we turned in for the night and made plans for a long day tomorrow.

I’m still up now only because it’s a little more difficult for me to settle in before 10:00 p.m; Chelby and her nephew were already asleep by 9:30. However, my eyes are growing heavy now; it’s time for Slumberland.

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However, this time, we are taking her nephew. She felt it would be neat to take him on a trip before he starts school next week. What better trip could there be to tell your schoolmates about than a trip to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, amongst other things. He should have plenty of stories to tell them on his first day back to school.

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One was the thought of the month of August. First of all, how it was already here. It’s really true what they say about getting older, how time disappears. It seems just like yesterday I was celebrating Christmas with my family. It’s hard to believe that fall and college football is just around the corner (Thank God!). Second thought – and this is the strange one – was how worthless the month of August is. Really. I was thinking, for me, there is absolutely nothing special about August. No holidays, no birthdays of friends or family, no good summer movies since most of them are released between April and the end of July, and it’s always hotter than hell. I wish there was a way to get rid of August and make the summer shorter so that the cooler months (and college football) could get here sooner. I’m sure as a child I would have a different sentiment since that would mean school would arrive sooner but as an adult who hates summers in Florida, and has more to look forward to in the fall, I absolutely hate August.

What’s your opinion? Don’t you agree that August is the worst month of the twelve? Which month do you hate, if not, and why?

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Maybe if that majority saw this version, they would have had more enjoyment.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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We parked in the Ronald Reagan building and immediately walked to The Washington Monument a couple blocks down the road. From there, we did the whole, what I call, American circle, that involved The Lincoln Memorial, The White House and then The Capital Building, with a couple of stops along the way.

Our last stop at the end of “the circle” was The Holocaust Memorial Museum. What an unbelievable memorial. If you are ever in the D.C. area, I highly recommend this exhibit. It is truly awesome.

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See, my cousin, 1st Sergeant Scott, is in the Marines and has served our country for over 15 years having been in the first Gulf War and made two tours in the second Gulf War; I’m very proud of him and grateful to him for his service. In between he has been bouncing around the east coast at different military bases and been in other countries, so he hasn’t had the luxury of being able to make Christmas visits to Grandma’s house too often for me to see him. But, now that he is back for good, for now, and settled in Virginia, I thought it would be neat to take the time to visit him and hang out while I’m still unemployed.

He’s an avid golfer so hopefully we will be playing quite a bit of golf while I am there. I’m not sure what else there is to do in that area since I can’t see it as a tourist destination, which is actually a relief being that I live in a tourist town. Whatever is planned, I am sure it will be a good time hanging with my cuz.

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A brief summary of the play, as best as I can: A young witch, sister of The Dry-Eyed Widow, has been admitted into The Ginger House, a prison for witches ruled by the Wardlock – a warden type character with powers of a warlock who loves imported coffee. A private investigor, Sam Fleming, and his secretary, Diana Huntress, were hired by The Dryed-Eyed Widow, Dame Rebecca Eveningstar, to investigate The Ginger House and her sister’s occupancy at the witch prison.

That is a very brief summary of the play, there is so much more to it than that. I just wanted to give that much information so that you will get the gist of the following clips.

Act 1 Scene 5 – This scene takes place at City Hall where Sam and Diana are trying to talk Fergus and Cillian, two police detectives, into helping them get into The Ginger House.

Act 3 Scene 7 – Takes place in a cemetary where two witches, Violet and Tabitha, have escaped from The Ginger House and are hiding out. Fergus and Cillian are showing Diana a good time on their date at the cemetary where they discover something peculiar is going on, besides the aftertaste of bat wax.

Act 3 Scene 9 – The Dry-Eyed Widow, Dame Rebecca Eveningstar, has cast a spell of confusion on Sam (“that old black magic…”) in which Sam finds she is simply irresistible by all. Enter Fergus, Cillian and Diana flabbergasted at what their eyes can’t seem to believe.

Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

iPhone 2.0 upgrade, iTunes App Store and a useless iPhone application.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

If you click on the link to the video you can see some other cool digital animated movies from the University of Hertfordshire.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: Replaced You Tube video with a better version posted on Vimeo.

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Yesterday was the last day of the show, a 2:00 p.m showing. It was, yet again, a smooth show and full of fun. I made one minor flub but was able to easily recover without skipping a beat. After the show we had the cast party at the theatre, and what a grand party it was. There was no doubt, by the evidence of the smiles on everyone’s faces, that it was time to celebrate a successful, and exhausting, five day run. Simon and I, plus a few other nice people willing to help, closed out the day by spending a few hours cleaning up the theatre before retiring to Slumberland. The theatre was trashed so it really did take a few hours before it was cleaned. I think we overdid it. We left it cleaner than it was when we first entered the theatre last Monday.

After we woke up from sleeping in a little, we met our new friends from Rhode Island for lunch at Fanelli’s Cafe near SOHO (apparently, one of the oldest restaurants in NY). It was a really cool cafe with some really good food. We ate, said our goodbyes and returned to Simon’s place so that I could grab my items and leave for the airport.

Reflecting back on all my previous trips to New York, I would say that this was probably the best time I have ever had and it will be extremely difficult to top in the possible future visits to “the city that never sleeps”. I’ll probably have pictures and videos posted within the next couple of days, after I have had time to decompress.

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One of the cast members hosted a Independence Day party in Brooklyn in her gorgeous three story apartment(?) where the top two floors had a terrace with a grand view of Manhattan and the area where the NYC fireworks would take place. It was a great time of meeting new people (a few that were actually from Florida) and enjoying the wonderful fireworks.

A half an hour or so after the fireworks, Simon and I left for another party taking place at The Lafayette House hotel in Manhattan. The host and hostess were friends of Simon in town from Rhode Island just to see the play so they invited us over to hang out for a while. When we got there we were greeted by the wonderful hosts and more unmet friends from Orlando. Surprisingly, after I met everyone there, I found out that the host and hostess and two other super nice people at the party were originally from Orlando also so we ended up all being instant friends. It was really a good time thanks to the generous hospitality of all these new friends.

Tonight the play starts a little later than usual (8:00 p.m.) so it gives us all time to rest after a long night of celebrating Independence Day.

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It was another good night. This time I didn’t drop any lines. In fact, I don’t think anyone dropped any lines tonight and everything went smooth.

It was another fun night.

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Hopefully, we will have another successful night tonight. I just hope I can get to sleep sooner and have a successful nights sleep.

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What an exciting adventure I am a part of in my life right now. It’s really difficult to explain in words how happy I feel right now.

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Pretty impressive and exciting.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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You can get full details from their web site here. The device is very straight forward and simple to use. There is a small LCD panel on the back to view what your recording, along with buttons for recording, playing and deleting videos. Best of all, it’s easy to carry around in your shirt or pants pocket; it’s about the size of a iPhone. These pictures show the size comparison to my iPod Video.

You may be shocked and appalled at the face viewed in the following example but here is a small test clip I recorded on the Mino and posted to Vimeo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One other thing to state about this cool little gadget is the software used for editing your videos. Since the device can connect to your Mac or PC using a standard USB connection, it already has preloaded software that becomes available once you connect. For PC, you can install using the .exe installation. For Mac, the application can actually be launched from the device to edit your videos stored on the Flip’s embedded storage. Your edited results are then saved to your local hard drive. Since the Flip records to a .avi file, I normally just copy the .avi file to my Mac for viewing and uploading. The only issue I ran into during this process is that I did not have the proper codec on my Mac to view the .avi using Quicktime at first, however, Flip also provided the codec in its storage for me to install. There are utilities in the included software that allow you to easily upload your video to MySpace and You Tube, but I haven’t used those features yet since I’ve recently become a Vimeo convert.

The main reason I bought this device was for my upcoming trip to NY, so that I can create video blogs during my off-Broadway adventures. We’ll just have to see how often I actually use it.

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Old Business Card

As some of you know, back in March I was informed by management that my job (Systems Engineer in the IT department), along with one other in my department and all of Help Desk, was going to be outsourced. I was given the date of June 27th as my last day of being a Ginn employee.

Well, I went into work today at my normal time, my boss followed an hour later and told me, as he passed my desk, that there really was no need to stay the rest of today or come back tomorrow, he was granting me the rest of the time off. He continued by offering his gratitude for my professionalism, hard work and dedication and finished with goodbyes. I then made my goodbye rounds to the rest of the office, seeing a few wet eyes along the way, and exited the building.

Even though tomorrow was supposed to be the beginnings of unemployment, I get an early start today to prepare. However, preparation is not on my agenda at this time. Monday morning I fly out to New York for my acting adventure (see previous post) and return on the 7th of July. It will then be on the 8th that I start sending out my resume and browsing the job sites for openings.

Thanks to Ginn, I have a severance that will hold me over for a few weeks until I can get back on my feet in the corporate world.

Wish me luck!

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Here is just a short video demonstration of the Delicious Library application for OS 10.

*Note, though, the current Delicious Library 2 is only compatible with Leopard, currently OS 10.5.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can get all the details from their web site:

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

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A lot of time, money and hard work was put into this amateur mod so I’m feeling a little bit of sadness now. I’m sure I will get over it.

I found there was no need to have it sitting around any longer since I had a powerful Dell XPS gaming machine sitting right next to it rarely being used. So, now that the mod is no longer in use, the Dell machine will be me my main desktop machine. It frees up the needed space and saves electricity. I’m sure I could have upgraded all the parts in the modded PC to be just as powerful as the Dell XPS, but there really is no point.

Here is an old web site I keep around showing the created process of the PC mod.

http://www.edwardcrosby.com/personal/Mod/

Next step, selling my 250 CD collection as it is also just sitting around collecting dust. All my music is on three different hard drives in MP3 format. I haven’t touched a single CD in my collection in over two years.

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From http://yourmonkeycalled.com

From http://silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com/

From http://adelgadorey.tumblr.com

From http://www.kungfugrippe.com/

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If you can’t tell what it is, it’s a vulture. A very large vulture. Along with the (previously mentioned) peacocks, otters, hawks, and raccoons, there is an abundance of vultures in my area. So much it has become a huge eyesore. Everyday it is not uncommon to see a flock of 15 or more of these large Turkey vultures congregated on the side of the road or up in the trees. I often wonder if it is because of the new housing and business developments that has been ongoing since I moved to this area four years ago. I would think because of this it drives all the animals out of their habitat into the streets and under the wheels of heavy traffic. It’s a constant buffet for the vultures.

Sadly, this vulture was eying a baby raccoon that met its demise in the road.

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How are you today and i hope you read this message ASAP. Please, I don’t want you to take this as a JOKE or see it as a kind of SPAM mail. I want you to read this carefully because it is very urgent and important. So kindly try your possible best to help me out of this trouble.

I am presently abroad on a personal business trip to Lagos. Unfortunately, I lost both my wallet & my ATM cards. Right now, I’m totally stranded and have no Funds on me, I have notified my bank about the missing cards and also requires them to transfer me some money from my account if possible but unfortunately my bank couldn´t do any wire transfer to me since I’m out of states. I’ve also visited the US Embassy to report the issue of my lost items and to seek for a loan to pay the hotel bills but unfortunately there’s nothing they too could do to assist me financially, I’m totally confused about that, as I don’t know what to do next. So i decided to take this step by reaching out to you by email.

Can you please do me a favor? I need a loan worth of $1250 so that I could pay the hotel bills and plan on coming back home immediately. Would you be able to loan me this amount and how soon can you send it to me, because I’ll need it as soon as possible. I don’t want you to be worried on when you will be getting your money back, I promise to pay you as soon as I return. Please know that I need this money to pay the hotel bills so that I could be allowed to pack my luggage and leave to board a flight home without any delay, thank God i already have a return ticket.

I didn’t travel with my phone since my trip was not within the states, I would have prefer discussing this on phone, and since I have no access to phone I think contacting you by email is the best and the only means I could use to send you this urgent mail. The hotel management here are not taking it likely with me, just because I couldn’t paid up my bills. I have been restricted from using the hotel phone to make or receive calls, just imagine that.

Write back to me as soon as you receive this message and let me know how you could possibly assist me with the loan, then I could give you further details on how to send the money to me via western union money transfer.

Please keep this confidentially, as I wouldn’t want this to be spread around since no one knows about the trip because all my plans was that its going to be a successful one and I will be back with no difficulties.

Thanks.

The email actually looked authentic since it came directly from his Gmail account. Well, at the same time that I received that email from him, I noticed he was also online on Gmail Chat (Google Talk). So, I decided to IM him in a joking matter asking him how the weather was in Lagos, knowing that somehow I got spam from him and knowing that he would not know what I was talking about since I knew he would not send it intentionally. Well, “he” responded back asking if I could really help “him”. I decided to go right along with “him” thinking “he” was joking and asked “him” if “he” could make change for a $5000 bill. “He” replied back stating that it was not a joke.
I then decided to call him. I got him on the phone and found that he was not actually chatting with me, and, shockingly, he could not log into his Gmail account to change his password, he had been locked out.
I let him go so he could fix this problem.
I state this story to you so that you will know that anyone is vulnerable. In this case, somehow, someone had logged into my friends email account and was sending out an email scam.
Change your passwords, and often.

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I took this picture of a lightning flash over my house with my little Canon SD450 point-and-shoot this evening. I was actually amazed that I could catch a flash without having a professional camera.

Of course, it took me, like, over 100 snaps before I could get a few good shots. I have a couple more over at my Flickr page.

It truly is an awesome thing to see.

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Check out this cool video I just found:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Good job, Mike Benson and gang.

Tip: Turn on HD and watch it on Vimeo’s site.

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I grew up in the country on the outskirts of Tallahassee, I was right smack in the middle of the wild there. To this day, though, I don’t recall ever hearing frogs get this loud and in such quantity. To hear it in person is, actually, quite chilling. Every time I hear this song I can’t help but think about the Stephen King short, Rainy Season.

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Of course, I am excited. I’ve never been in a play before, unless you want to count the parts I had in kindergarten. The most exciting thing about this first experience is that it will be – should I call it – an off-Broadway play right in the theatre district of Manhattan. BRILLIANT!

I need to thank Simon for having faith in me. I’ve acted before, if you call working as a gangster on the Great Movie Ride in Disney’s Hollywood Studios acting. But trusting me with this task, even if it is a small part, is something powerful.

The only difficult thing about this is that I will not be up there for all of the rehearsals. I did, however, change my plane reservation so that I would be up there until the 7th instead of leaving on the 5th. Getting there on the 30th will allow me a couple of rehearsals before the play starts on the 2nd. Crunch time!

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His play runs from July 2nd through the 6th (details in that web link above) and I will be there June 30 through July 5th. I’m actually expected to help out with the production (lighting, stage help, or whatever and whenever I am needed) while I am there, which makes the trip that much more exciting. I can’t wait.

One other really cool thing about the trip is that I will be there for Independence Day. The play has an early showing that day so that it will be done in time for the night’s fireworks that, I am sure, will be occurring all around the island that is Manhattan, where the play will be taking place.

I’m pumped! I’ll be sure to post pictures and, possibly, video when I get back from the trip.

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Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Well, I came home today to find two peacocks in my front lawn.

So far, at my current residence, I have seen deer in my back yard, otters in the retention pond behind my house, a frequenting owl, the very occasional hawk, and the usual raccoon. Now I can add a real strange one to my list, peacocks.

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I don’t know how often I will have them running but they are there and will have me live in my home office. Boring, I know.

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Thought I would share.

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It’s kind of neat.

It’s blue when the water is cold.

And red when the water is hot.

I think she got a kick out of it.

I know I did. I may, eventually, buy one for myself to put in my bathroom.

If you’re not familiar with ThinkGeek.com, check it out. They have some really cool stuff there. Plenty of unique gifts for friends and family to choose from.

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I went to the kitchen, drank some water and chugged some Mylanta, hoping this would help. An hour went by and the pain did not go away and I started feeling nauseous with feelings of vomiting. This was new. In the past, I had some numbness in my hands and face along with a very severe acid reflux pain in my esophagus. I had the pain this time but no numbness.

I immediately started researching on the internet the fish I had for dinner, pollock. There were several sites, along with WebMD.com, that mentioned that pollock can affect some people.

Okay. That’s it. No more fish for me ever. Which sucks. I guess I should have researched it before I ate it.

After discovering this problem, I immediately woke up Chelby and told her to take me to the emergency room, thinking I was on my way toward anaphylactic shock. We got there just before 3:00 a.m. and waited to see the doctor, after checking in, for almost an hour and a half. Ridiculous. I failed to mention that on the way to the hospital that I was starting to feel loss of breath. By this time in the waiting room, it was getting worse and the nausea never left. I had mentioned this to the lady at the counter but it didn’t seem to rush things.

I finally saw the doctor. They put me on a EKG again, just in case there were heart issues being that I have those issues coming from my Mom’s side of the family. After they monitored this for a while, and my blood pressure, they eventual pumped me, via a needle in the arm, with Protonix, steroids and anti-histamine. The anti-histamine was enough to knock me out, which was perfect since they wanted to continue to monitor me.

They eventually released me around 7:30 a.m. and sent me home with prescriptions for my acid reflux, more steriods and more anti-histamine (Benadryl).

I stayed home from work today to recuperate. I’m feeling better now and so much more the wiser.

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After much thought on if I really should buy an iPhone, I finally decided to drive to the AT&T store last evening and buy the 8GB version. The purchase was a breeze and the activation in iTunes on my Macbook, once I got it home, was smooth. It wasn’t until later in the night when I was in bed reading my emails using the Wi-Fi function on the phone that my nightmare began. Ironically enough, it was when I was watching a Quicktime video on Apple’s site from the Welcome email that Apple sent me that the phone started crashing. What Apple did was email me a Welcome email with a guided tour video of the iPhone that redirects you to this Quicktime video. I was about 15 minutes into the video when the phone suddenly rebooted. Once it came back up into the OS (the iPhone is actually running a full version of Mac OS X) it froze again. I tried powering it off but it remained frozen in the OS. I then performed what they term as a hard reset using the iPhone combination of button presses (the Home button and the Sleep/Awake button) to reboot the device. It rebooted but remain frozen once it booted into the OS, all the time displaying a “Searching…” in the upper left for the AT&T network. I plugged the phone into the wall, since I knew the battery would discharge overnight being that it would not power down (and you can’t remove the battery since Apple has no means of doing this, like an iPod), and went to bed completely annoyed.
I woke up this morning with nothing but the AT&T store on mind knowing that, deep down, I was going to have an adventure. And an adventure I ended up having.
After I drank my coffee, ate my breakfast, watching an episode of Carnivale in the process, I left for the AT&T store with the boxed iPhone in one hand and my Macbook in the other thinking that I may have to activate the new one while I am away from home. When I got there a young lady greeted me with a smile but then her face changed to shock when I told her that my iPhone crashed and did not recover. She and her manager then told me that they could do nothing for me, even though I had purchased it from them the night before, and that I had to take it to the Apple Store. It was my face that then turned to an expression of shock. I was flabbergasted. Reluctantly, I left the store and drove down the street to the Apple Store. Looking at this on the bright side, it was a good thing I was not far from the Apple Store; I probably should have just bought it from them in the first place. The only thing is the Apple Store is in the mall. I hate the mall.
When I got to the Apple Store, another young lady greeted me with a smile but then her face also turned to shock when I stated I needed to exchange my iPhone because it had crashed. She directed me to one of her co-workers that worked in the correct department which I then explained to this person the situation. Another surprised individual who could not understand that there could be any problems with an iPhone, until I pulled out evidence Exhibit A to show her the crime. She took the device and tried to reset the device, as I did, but had no luck either. She then took the device over to the “Genius Bar” where a technician looked over the device and attempted, yet again, the same exact steps while I waited at the front counter. She finally walked back over to me with the device in her hand when low and behold the device reboot successfully into the OS without freezing while she was handing it to me. We were both amazed, however I explained to her that this clearly was an intermittent issue and that I would like to swap it anyway for a new one since I was having the issue. She complied and proceeded to make an appointment for me to see a “Genius”…what!? Make an appointment to simply swap the device!? Yes. Apparently, that is Apple’s procedure and there was nothing I could do to sway the young lady. What made it even worse was that the next soonest appointment they had was two hours from that time. That meant I needed to go back home to wait. To my own amazement, I kept my cool and anger and gave in. Yes, I was a teeny, tad annoyed but I gave in. What was something else that was interesting during our conversation was that I could replicate the problem. While she was still in front of me, I turned the Wi-Fi on and the iPhone rebooted and froze. So, through an accident I figured it out on my own that it was the Wi-Fi that was causing the problem.
I then went home, with the same defective iPhone, and waited for my 1:45 appointment. The appointment turned out to be uneventful and a simple exchange was agreed upon by the “Genius” at the Store.
After going through all of that, I wonder if choosing an iPhone was a smart thing. I know something for sure, I will try my hardest to make this phone last beyond the next year and hope that I do not have to shop for another mobile phone for at least two years.

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What is even cooler than that is that I had a small part in this project. No, not the laying of the eggs or the raising of the babies but the web cam itself. When our company started working with Audubon a little over two years ago, I was responsible for building the server, installing the web cam software, and setting up the streaming through Windows Media Server service on the server. A vendor was responsible for installing the wireless web cam on top of a post pointing at the nest and the network engineers in my department were responsible for all the network support to get the wireless camera working.

Here is the video segment from NBC:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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It was taken at a small pond on the Celebration Golf Club green that was right next to the road. I noticed, in passing, the crowd of white birds on the right first; this, alone, was very distracting. Then, as I was traveling slowly down the road (since it is a residential area), I recognized that there was a crowd of different birds to the left facing the other birds. What is funnier that is not shown in this photo is at the time I first noticed the birds there were only two of the different birds in the middle facing each other at close range. The time of this photo snapshot took place about two minutes after my initial spotting of the congregation.
When I first saw this exhibition, I immediately imagined that there was some type of secret bird war about to take place in the early hours of the morning. Kind of like the scene in Braveheart where we see the English on one side and the Scottish on the other getting prepared for battle. However, in this scenario, we have some white birds, The White Streaks Clan, and some brown birds, The Brown Brawn Gang, getting ready for battle while their generals meet in the middle to discuss a possible surrender. The only thing that is missing is their shining armour and brandished swords.
It’s funny what you see in nature sometimes. It’s funnier what you can imagine when you are trying to keep your mind off of work on your way to work.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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[iTunes was playing "O Holy Night" by Nat King Cole while I was writing this.]

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[iTunes was playing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Sammy Davis Jr. & Carmen McRae while I was writing this.]

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Pictures from the trip

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Dragon*Con pictures:

Mine

Shag’s

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I was able to get a car in time for my trip tomorrow. Everything worked out well. I stressed over nothing.
Now I just need to get a iPod connector, like I had in my Rodeo, for the factory radio that I will be keeping.

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Bobby Brown’s brains are fried

I read this and, first, laughed, but then the more I thought about it I had pity. Once your brain is gone from use of drugs, there is no recovery.
It’s a shame.

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Unfortunately, they were sold out of Buzz Cola. I’ll have to keep searching and post those photos later. It was mentioned a few months back that Duff Beer was going to be one of the items available for purchase also but I have since found out that it was decided not to sell it since the movie had a rating that was still geared toward children.

Update: 07/19/07 – I was finally able to find some Buzz cola. Actually, one of my friends found and bought it for me. Friends are awesome.

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[iTunes was playing "Nessun dorma" by Pavarotti while I was writing this.]

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