When you have opportunities to do things you might not normally do, it might help to consider why you feel uninterested or uncomfortable doing them. Would you benefit from pushing your personal envelope by doing things you might not normally do?
22
Apr 05
PDF Printer
Have you ever needed to send someone information from a program you know they don’t have installed? A lot of times you could just print something out and send a hard-copy, but there’s also a better way. I came across the free program called Primo PDF that installs a virtual printer on your machine that can output anything you could print into a PDF form. For example, if you had Microsoft Money 2005, it has the ability to create and print out invoices, but no way to save the invoices
in any other format than text. Why not just print the invoice to PDF and email it to your customer exactly as it appears? This has come in handy a lot.
22
Apr 05
Twitterpated
We have one of these adorable little Tufted Titmouses (Titmice?) banging into the window here at work several times a day. He looks ticked off. For a while we called him Jon Shelus after a guy who works here, since whenever the bird would appear Jon was nowhere in sight.
Here’s some information on why they do it:
Birds are hurling themselves against windows, hammering on drainpipes and pecking on glass. But don’t let it get to you — it won’t last much longer, says a wildlife biologist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
“At the beginning of the breeding season, birds are establishing territories,” says Margaret Brittingham, associate professor of wildlife resources. “They’re singing, displaying and telling all of the other males of their species to keep out.”
When a bird sees his reflection in a window, he thinks it’s an intruder, she says. So he ‘displays’ to try to get the intruder to leave. “Of course the ‘intruder’ displays back, and the bird gets madder and madder until he starts pecking on the glass.”
It’s cute when you think about it.
20
Apr 05
Google search history
Google released another awesome tool today. A personalized Google search history. You just login and it tracks all your searches, and the results you clicked. It is wicked.
19
Apr 05
Drawing with the mouse
Drawing with the mouse is a lot like drawing with Prisma Design Markers, except you have somewhat less control.
18
Apr 05
A Taste of New Orleans
It was my dad’s birthday last week, so he suggested that I come down to the Taste of New Orleans event in San Antonio at the Sunken Gardens theatre where his company was providing security. The event itself is put on by the San Antonio Zulu Association, and this is their 20th year as a part of Fiesta. It was my dad’s second year working the event, and he beat out sizable competition in the bidding process. I learned a lot about how he runs his business by asking a lot of questions, and I had a great time riding around with him in his golf cart and meeting all kinds of people. I forgot how good he was at jawboning with people and making jokes. I also forgot how cool San Antonio could really be. It’s not a youthful and pretentious hipster enclave like Austin and it has a real feel of community to it for such a large city. When I first moved to Austin, I was stunned at how white it was. This is in part due to its de facto segregation into East and West Austin. You could say the same thing about San Antonio, but it is certainly more obviously diverse.
18
Apr 05
Final decision
Absent last minute alterations, I’ve decided to leave NCSoft at the end of May after we finish everything we need to do for E3. It’s the best decision since I won’t have to leave the team hanging and I’ll have ample opportunities to earn overtime. Between now and then I will need to curtail any extra spending in order to be in the absolute best financial position to launch the business on a full-time basis.
13
Apr 05
Good topical blogs
- Marketing: All Marketers Are Liars
- Drawing / Illustration: Drawn!
- Defense / Military: DefenseTech, Global Guerrillas
- Tips: Tricks of the Trade
- Human Resources: HR For the Leader in You
- T-shirts: Preshrunk
13
Apr 05
Odds and Ends
- Jody took this adorable photo at her apartment complex of an inexplicable stuffed bear with a sign that read “Take me home”. A boy there explained that it was broken in a few places so they were throwing it out. I had to reign in the kitsch impulse to keep from taking it home.
- Sarah got to go to a cable television trade show and made a hilarious Weather Channel video. Check it out on her site.