18
Mar 05

Feedburner

I was inspired by this post to start using Feedburner to supply the news feeds for letterneversent.com. If you subscribe to the original RSS feeds you do not need to change anything unless you wish to use the feedburner feeds, which will provide some useful features like integration with my del.icio.us links as well as browser-friendly display and nice statistics on how many people subscribe and what they use to view the feed.

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30
Dec 04

Oklahoma and back again

I’ve been back from Oklahoma for about two days. It was fun and relaxing, although occasionally stressful. It seems to be that way when you have to stay with other people. I would prefer that all people lived in shells like snails and turtles. That way if you had to leave your town you would never need to invade another person’s private space. You could just tuck your arms and legs into your person shell and go about your own business.

The night before we left for the drive north I bought a new digital camera as a present to myself. It’s a Nikon Coolpix like my previous camera. This one is the 5200, which is smaller than the Nikon 775 I bought almost exactly three years ago when I spent Christmas in Louisville, Kentucky for my grandmother’s funeral. The 5200 is a 5.1 megapixel camera whereas the 775 was a 2.1 megapixel camera. Everything else is pretty similar, although it is neat to see all the enhancements they have made to the Coolpix line over the past three years. My favorite new thing is the panorama assist mode.

I took some photos over the holiday break. I had this week off from work, and I think that’s the first time I’ve had off for Christmas since I took a leave of absence to attend my grandmother’s funeral. It’s been nice. Here’s a photo from when I helped feed the cattle at Jody’s parents’ place.

There’s nothing to it, every day in the winter when there’s not enough grass for the cattle to graze you have to go out and give them sacks of feed made from dry molasses, alfalfa pellets, and feed corn. Keeping livestock is something a lot of people in the area do since the land is too rocky for farming. I asked Marty a lot of questions about raising cattle since I’m curious about it. Daily life in the US depends on farming and ranching yet many people know nothing about it. I also learned that cows normally give birth in the fall or winter. When we were there there were three or four brand new calves. There seemed to be a new one each day. You notice this because when you go out to feed all the cows they’ll come up and tagging along will be the new babies. One day I got up early and went out to do the feeding by myself. The part I hated the most was calling the cows to come up from the pasture. I felt like an idiot hooting and yelling, “Come on cows.” over and over. It’s difficult to yell loudly when it’s so quiet all you can hear is the wind blowing.

All things considered, Christmas was very nice. I got several nice presents from a few people. Much more than I deserved. I am ready to usher in 2005, and I look back on the past year with the usual mix of feelings. I am glad for everything I’ve experienced. Much has happened, so it seems when you look back and add it up. I hope the holidays found you all well and happy and I hope that the coming year brings to you a bounty of satisfaction and success. Here’s one last photo I took of Josalyn, red-faced from the cold, as the sun set this weekend:


19
Dec 04

Digital Cameras

A while back I sold my Nikon Coolpix 775 digital camera to my little brother at a heavily discounted rate partly as a favor for helping me move and partly because I was planning on getting a new camera. That was over a year ago and I never did buy another camera. This year I plan to. I could always use Jody’s camera, but I miss having my own. I haven’t taken near as many pictures as I use to when I had my own camera.

Anyway, point is, I’m looking out for a new one. Any suggestions would help as I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s most likely going to have to be from Best Buy since I have a couple gift cards for them. Here are a few I’m looking at:


16
Dec 04

Remote Desktop

Have you ever wanted to check something on your home computer from work? Ever needed to mail yourself a file on your home computer? Has anyone in your family needed help with something on their computer and you had to walk them through it on the phone? If so, you will benefit from using the Remote Desktop feature in Windows XP Professional.

Basically, it allows you to use any computer remotely. You will see everything on the remote computer as if it were right in front of you. I’ve been a long time user of VNC (which is similar to remote desktop but works across multiple operating systems), so I had never used Remote Desktop until yesterday and I’m pleased with how well it works for a number of reasons. It works so well I forget sometimes I’m working remotely. The screen can be maximized to take up your entire screen and if you unstick the little remote desktop menu there’s no way anyone can tell your connected to a remote computer. You will need to have high-speed internet access otherwise the connection will be frustratingly slow.

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07
Dec 04

Take my word for it: Razors

Let’s talk about something easily overlooked… shaving. As upwardly mobile primates, we somehow decided along the way that we needed hair removal to maintain an illusion of youth and smoothness. This has been a hassle ever since.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been a daily shaver with few exceptions. I usually even shave on the weekends to prevent the brown and red stubble that looks like wheat smut coating the lower half of my face. Let’s face it, most men don’t look so hot with facial hair. The special few might, but I’m not one of them.

So, after using the Gillette Mach3 for several years I switched to the Schick Quattro, probably because I figured four blades were better than three. For the last couple of weeks I had to start using the Mach3 again because I ran out of blades for the Quattro. Now, I actually prefer it to the Quattro for a couple of reasons. First of all, I like the way the Mach3 head swivels and the angle of the razor itself. Also, it’s light. I feel more like I’m pulling it lightly across my face whereas the Quattro feels heavy and awkward.

Here’s something that annoys the crap out of me. Why are razorblades so damn expensive? This is not some technology handed down by alien benefactors. It’s 3-4 sharp pieces of metal wedged into a plastic bar. Why does this cost 12$ for 8 blades?

While I’m on the subject I’ve also found a shaving cream I’m very happy with. It’s made by Aveeno. It helps you get a better shave and makes your skin feel nice and smooth. It’s bonus that it gives your face a nice oatmeal smell.


12
Oct 04

Pirate Radio



Here’s a good tutorial on how to convert your iPod into a pirate radio station.


21
Sep 04

Minor change

I’ve made a minor change to the website as I am wont to do. This only affects people who use RSS/Atom/XML feeds to view the site. Instead of publishing small excerpts from the entries in the XML feeds, I’m publishing the entire entries (minus the comments) as feeds. This way, if you’re like me and you do most of your regular surfing via RSS reader you never need to visit the actual website. You can just pull the feeds down into your reader and check regularly for changes. Using feeds is good idea for a number of reasons. It’s quicker, lower profile, more efficient, and you’re getting the essential data of the blog rather than everything else that comes with it.


21
Sep 04

Some tools I use

  1. Daemon Tools is the perfect application for CD/DVD emulation. Basically, when you download anything in bin/cue disc image formats you can use Daemon Tools to mount these images as virtual drives. Let’s say you want to download a demo on CD. Most such things are packaged in bin/cue. With Daemon Tools you use the bin/cue files as if you had actually burned them to a CD.
  2. Azureus, a java-based client for bittorrent.
  3. DU Meter Measure how much data you transfer. This is good if your ISP has upload/download limits.

07
Sep 04

Office supplies

I love these Tops Stinger legal pads almost as much as I love Super Sticky Post-It notes.