The Cook Give Directions

This photo comes from Flickr by way of Performancing.

I just added the Flickr add-on, read the directions and was able to go to the Flickr site and grab this shot of The Cook Give Directions."

There is a MySpace blog editor add-on as well. It's a little more complicated, but if you blog to MySpace a lot, and you use FireFox 2.0, you should get it.

powered by performancing firefox

Open Office 2.1

I downloaded Open Office 2.1 from the OpenOffice.org site. To quote their Home Page:

OpenOffice.org 2.1 is recommended for all users, as it represents a significant improvement over all previous versions. Among other things:

• Multiple monitor support for Impress
• Improved Calc HTML export
• Enhanced Access support for Base
• Even more languages
• Automatic notification of updates

If you're going to use OpenOffice.org, and you should, go right away to the templates page here.
=30=

Black & White

This is the MS Zaandam at the cruise pier in Victoria, British Columbia. This was a dark, color

Black & White
Originally uploaded by sgtret.

photograph that I converted to black and white and brought the background light to the fullest.

I like it.

First we had to figure out how to get the photos from Picasa to Flickr. Then we had to figure out how to get the photos from Flickr to the blog. Basically its the Google server to the Yahoo Server and then back again to the Google server. All that to get better photo position in the blog and the neat captions.
=30=

Black & White

Black & White
Originally uploaded by sgtret.

Black & White

Black & White
Originally uploaded by sgtret.

I Love Lucy at the Wolf

I Love Lucy at the Wolf,
originally uploaded by sgtret.

From the left, Sam, Eli, Sarah and Ben as Fred, Ethel, Lucy and Ricky in a tribute to the 1950's sitcom I Love Lucy.

Picasa to Flickr

I have been neglecting my Flickr account because of the ease of use Picasa has brought to uploading photos to Google photos. What I was also neglecting was the huge archive of photos I had already uploaded there along with the associated community of people with common interests in the groups to which I subscribe.

This was especially noticed when I was looking further down in this blog and saw the Flickr.com photo strip along the right side. It had photos from out trip to Alaska in May on the Zaandam.

Time to upgrade. The photos in the strip as of today are from Thanksgiving.

The point here, is the way to get the photos, as they've been finished by Picasa into Flickr it to email them directly from Picasa into Flickr using your Gmail account. Simple as that.

If you Google Flickr into Picasa you will find one solution and another that involves program language and DOS commands. I am not in need of something that sophisticated. Email to Flickr from Picasa, slam-bam-thank you Mam!
=30=

Ben as Ricky and Sam as Fred

Sam and Ben do a number from their version of I Love Lucy,
with Ben as Ricky and Sam as Fred. Sarah played Lucy and
Eli did a wonderful acting job as Ethel.

A grand time was had by all.

Go to our Google photos site to see more.



=30=

Donna Bogatin vs. Google

Just out of idle curiosity, what horrible thing did Google do to Donna Bogatin to make her hate it so? Did they make it difficult for her to be one of the first on her block to gain access to GMail?

There is a comment on one of her attacks on Google's Gmail calling her a yellow journalist. I don't think she's that important. I just think she's having a hard time to come up with topic for her posts so he rehashes the same theme.

Poor thing!

=30=

Picasa is Back Up!

I downloaded the recommended beta version from the help forum, returned the IE7 settings to default and BINGO! We're in busines. This is a picture of Thomas and is first tooth loss.

From 7th Birthday ...

=30=

Picasa upgrade- BAD!!!!

If you use Picasa, don't upgrade. I hit the upgrade button automatically and lost all ability to upload to both this blog and my Google web albums. Alas. It was right afer I paid good money for more storage space as well!

=30=

Up and Running!!!

The good folks at RegisterFly.com finally were able to correct the URL redirection and bring Belltowernews.com back up.

We were never really gone, the Blogger.com address was still working.

It just wasn't the same without the anchor URL.

=30=

Belltowernews.com still down

Registerfly.com is still working on bringing the belltowernews.com URL transfer up. For now we just need to go to the blogger address http://randomthoughtgrazings.blogspot.com/ for now.

=30=

If you came looking for us...

If you came looking for us at belltowernews.com, and you came upon a page with links to steeplechasers, wine and drugs, it is because of a difficulty we had with our domain registrar. There was a message in our e-mail early this morning saying all was better. Now we shall see.

=30=

Thanksgiving 2006

This Spalding women group hug demonstrates the general feelings surrounding the family gathering last night. A daughter, mother and two aunts celebrate the meaning of family or, more likely, are goofing around while subconsciously celebrating.

The turkey was splendid, the side dishes superb, the company heartwarming and the evening to be remembered.

The kids are all taller then their mothers now, the nests are are less empty, but this flocking together a few times a year allows for evaluation of the efforts of the past to allow days like this to occur.

It is for this we are all thankful.
=30=

Dr. Adams

  

iLike.com and Mary Foster Conklin- A good thing!

Mary Foster Conklin on iLike™

=30=

Firefox 2.0 Up and Running!

No surprise there. I was disappointed that some of my priceless extensions weren’t ready in time for the grand opening. The beta has been out for quite a while. Most of them are quickly being updated, but one of my favorites, colortabs, still hasn’t been fixed

In the theme department, avoid MiniFox. It kills the ability to jump from theme to theme. I had to go into about:config and go to skins to change the MINIFOX entry to DEFAULT to get back the ability to change skins.

No big deal, but I think it poor form to take our configuration ability when designing a skin. That isn’t an error of omission but an overt act.

As has been said in most of the reviews I’ve read there are no startling changes but the feel of it is much smoother and there is less incompatibility with some of the more IE oriented websites.

=30=

Words of Power on a sad Sunday

My friend Richard Power has a blog going at Words of Power.

If you want to dive into a world with a whole lotta words, all of which are full of Power, this is the place to go.

I will admit to being somewhat overwhelmed by the amount and intensity of this blog. It crosses many causally directed paths, not all in the same blind direction. The environment and the current political atmosphere seem to be the paths most trod.

My only word of caution is this is not a cheerful blog. This is not a cheerful world; so if you’re looking for a quite, calm and careless place, avoid Words of Power.

=30=

RIP

Good bye, dear sweet man, father and joy to the world.
=30= 

Over the Shoulder

Were you ever taking a picture of one thing when something else caught your eye from the side? That is what happened with this picture. I was focusing on a tree planting for a moment, looked to my left.

There were Andy and Bob focusing on the same planting.


Their look alone will tell you how important this moment was to everyone.



=30=

Looking Down

This is a picture of Julie looking down into a hole she and a large number of people took part in digging last week.





Into this hole was planted a dogwood to commemorate the birthday of a dear friend, John.










=30=

Itchy soles

I am imbedded in Fire in the Mind, the detailed but well written biography of Joseph Campbell. He is currently in Paris, it is 1927 and Sylvia Beach is walking him through the writings of James Joyce.

Looking deeper into the life of Sylvia Beach it was pure Parisian. She even had a man recreate her bookstore and was left the store’s name in her will. He named his daughter after Sylvia. Though I am not a bibliophile, I am an avid reader in all media. I do, on occasion like to be in the company of people who love books for books sake.

The Zen saying about reading being the same as scratching the sole of another’s shoe to relieve an itch on your own foot still hangs over me when I get too into books alone as an escape, rather than an entertainment.

=30=

Hegemony on on line

Not sure what is going on here.

Google seems to be taking over the world. First my Writely account and now the Blogger. Is there not a non Google tainted online application out there? The next thing you know, they’ll take over YouTube!

=30=

POPURLS

Go here if you don’t like to spend hours looking at various sites with film and RSS content.

=30=

Amber Mac Goodbye Video

Though it probably won’t rank historically with General Washington’s good bye to his troops or Douglas MacArthur fading away in front of the U.S. Congress, or Edward Windsor’s goodbye for the lady he loved, Amber MacArthur’s quickly spoken good bye to TechTV-G4 was important to the geek culture.

Her CommandN videos are part of my weekly online read. So, her leaving G4 serves mostly to diminish the station in my eyes. G4 is a gamers stations with little of interest to a geek who doesn’t game. Their Borging TechTV killed it.

Though I doubt I will be watching the Toronto news station who has wisely picked up her talent, I will see what feeds they produce once she comes on board.

The bloggers at Grazing wish her the best for her life and career!

=30=

The Angst of September...

Taking a moment to reflect historically on this time of year, as September starts to rev its engines during the Labor Day weekend and "Summer” officially ends.

Today is the day Japan signed its surrender, yesterday is the anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland.

It was mentioned on NPR yesterday that September was the month in which couples are most likely to argue. Then of course, there in 9/11. As a native New Yorker, this is a scar that will never heal.

On top of that, there’s the start of school. The angst for this is compounded in the parent.

The general human angst level is high.

I believe this is a good time to take the month off from the news. This is extremely hard to do, considering from the many corners of our surroundings news now leaks into our conscious and subconscious.

In my youth, if you wanted the news, you picked up the newspaper. Either or both the morning and evening edition. There was one nightly news program on either ABC, CBS or NBC.

Then, in NYC, 1010 ‘all news-all the time’ started the trend for constant barrage of stories. It was addictive. CNN is its television incarnation.

Now, needless to say, you turn on your laptop and headlines flash across the bottom of your screen, Google homepage, My Yahoo even Wikipedia have news portals.

I only pick up newspapers if I arrive early for an urban appointment and need to spend 30 minutes or more at a Dunkin or Starbucks. Here, this habit of many years is being replaced by the blackberry.

Desert islands would look good right now if it weren’t for satellite phones and GPS devices...
=30=

Careful on the Templates

Last night in a fit of curiosity, I reformated the template for Rye Cake with the new templates offered with Blogger Beta. It looks fine, but it erased all of the secondary bells and whistles, especially to Flickr bar and the Amazon pay link.

Before you use the new formatting tool, back up the old template.

=30=

Blogger Beta Desktop via Google

When I signed on to my Gmail account the option to sign into Blogger was presented. That’s a good way to inspire people to make at least daily entries.

=30=

Switched to Blogger Beta

Like Flikr requiring the use of a Yahoo account number, Google is requesting a Google account sign in. Soon all the world will be gained access to through one or two access portals. Like Mark Twains egg basket, guard that portal!

I haven’t taken a grand tour yet, I just wanted to see how easy a quick enty was to make.

=30=

Too Many Changes?

The "new" Blogger is starting to look like the other commercial blogging software. I was happy with the Blogger interface the way it was. It was mostly because I never used it. I did all of my blogging using software designed to work with the inteface as is. Now I can almost be certain all of that convenient software, for some of which I plopped down dinar, will either need to be retooled, or leave the scene entirely.

I will report here the progress of the new interface, still in beta.



=30=

Whence flew the Summer?

Whence flew the Summer? It is starting to get chilly at night.

This is bringing back memories of shoveling the car out of six feet of snow to go to work. Only now I work much further into the sticks, down a steep and curving hill.

Oh, lordy! Mosquitoes or Winter?

There’s a name for what I am doing now. I will stop doing it and go read a book.
=30=

Words of Power

Words of Power
A very interesting blog by a man who has been full of power as long as I’ve known him, and that is a very long time.
=30=

I changed 20 to 6.

An entry or so below called the 20six blog Twenty Grazing. I changed it to Grazing Six
It just looked better on the graphic header.
=30=

Oh, Yeah, the Lyme Disease

After three weeks on antibiotics and Vitamin C (500mg), the fevers are gone and the symptoms are minimal.  We are on wait and see mode now.  The “we” being everyone I’ve told about this, which is, not counting the blog, around 2 and a ½
dozen people.

If there are additions to the med bulletins, I will place them here.
=30=

20six Famous Grazing Blog

Though I didn’t think this would happen for a while, one more famous grazing blog has been opened.  It is called Grazing Twenty.  There has been little design work to it, or content included for that matter.  It looks like a fairly simple interface.  I have found the off line editor for it yet.  I tried the easy method with Performancing, but it is not a default blog, unfortunately.  Perhaps ::w.bloggar will have settings for it.  We shall see.
=30=

Spambots suck

Fight Spam! Click Here! This blog has been the subject of two to three hundred spambot attacks a day. I am considering taking it down. Give me a good reason not to.

=31=

---

Oh, Great!

The news that I have Lyme Disease came to me last week.  I need to deal with this before I get much else done.  Hold on.

Barry

Passed a Man Building a Boat

If you are in New England, you are wet.  Though the rain hasn’t come with hurricane winds, it has certainly come heavy and steady for several days.  It has done this continuously since the beginning of May.  There isn’t a dry field in the county or a pond or lake not full to the brim and overflowing.  Wet, indeed!

A dear member of our family is recovering from severe burns in a Boston Hospital. If anyone is expecting me to pay attention to petty minutiae for the next few weeks, dream on.  It is not only this family member requiring support.  It is the parents and siblings as well.  Consider me busy.
=30=

Back in The Swing

It has been a stressful week at work and at home.  Friends have been hurt and my job could change or worse not change in the next week. I was reading Gideon Strauss’ blog this morning and thought I should get back into making morning entries.  It is a beautiful morning in New England.  The sign is shining, the birds are singing and the mosquitoes are breeding.  For what more could you ask?

Be Cool Cartoon!

Sam put together this Be Cool cartoon.

I was more impressed than you can ever imagine. =30= 

You don’t see too many people sitting in the lounge chairs as you cruise along the Inside Passage along the Yukon/Alaska coast. One of the reasons is there are so many places inside on other decks of this Holland America ship where you can sit in comfort, with a beverage and a companion and watch the wonders of nature pass. As is clearly indicated by this photo, I spent a good deal of the time on the open deck. For those in need of meditative solitude, where better could you find it?
=30=
 

10 Flagrant Mistakes

Wondering through the net trying to find a way around the endless menu at Signal Insurance’s Customer “Service” I came upon the ZDNet UK page on “10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid“ I can be honest and say I do make at least two of the listed mistakes all of the time.  I won’t tell you which two.
=30=

---

I was going through my Picasa library and came across this picture.
I have no idea of its origin. I could see some people thinking it quite
provocative.
Let’s see what else I have...
=30= 

This is what the Pelson Center looked like this morning seconds before the crowd piled in to watch the school’s closing ceremonies. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as the child of one of the school’s founders and after whom the school is named, graduated.

He handed over the gavel to the man after whose family the Pelson Center is name. One namesake to the next. Very touching.
=30= 

Monday-Monday

This was the first Monday back from vacation. Of course vacation was over two weeks ago, but last Monday was a holiday, so it didn’t count. I don’t care for Mondays. I call them the hang over of weekends. On Sunday nights I debate the wisdom of returning to work the next day or to continue the sabbatical that was interrupted by this spate of work.

But then, I survive the Monday and come home to dinner, a family + and a new puppy. I guess I’ll continue with the working for a while at least.
=30=

Mosquito Trap

The most deadly sport, in that more people die playing this sport than any other: Golf
The most deadly creature on the planet earth: Mosquito.

The preventative action against golf is easy, don’t play.
The preventative action against Mosquitoes is don’t go outside at all. This is much harder. When kids and a back yard are concerned it’s even harder.

Yesterday I made an attempt at getting one of the propane based mosquito killers.  My wife nixed it as too expensive. $279.00. How expensive is EEC or Malaria? I asked.

Still didn’t get it. With most things like this I did a little research and found a similar device for $200.00. In a review of the item the two comments against it said a $10.00 bat box was as effective. There’s the rabies and guano side of that equation. The second comment mentioned an almost free invention of a school class in Asia that involved a plastic soda bottle, sugar water, yeast and black paper.

Will try it.
=30=

Taken from the bus

This was taken from the window of the bus on the way to the photo safari.

It was a shot I took to test the veracity of the driver’s claim that the windows were specially designed to allow photography with no return glare. I would say it was a good claim.

Another thing I liked about his shot is the word “AlaskaCo..” in the lower right corner. A self captioning photograph!
=30=

Browster- A Very Userful Firefox Extension

I found Browster in an emailed article from ZDNet.

It is rare for ZDNet to recommend an extension so roundly. I am glad they did.

Though it claims no spyware connections, the agreement does state it collects information that cannot be linked back to the user. Uh huh. Having very little information anyone would find useful on this computer; I have no compunction about using it, and it is fun.

What it does is pop up a small lightening icon, similar to the one found in Word. When you click the icon next to any link on the Web site browsed, it pops up the window attached to the link without leaving the page being browsed.  This make browsing much more intuitive.

Try it, if you don’t like it, uninstall, no harm done. Except the part where they will probably know by the end of the day what brand toilet tissue you use. (Charmin!)

=30=

Upgraded Firefox AND RoboForm Almost Simultaneously!

In the bad old days, whenever Firefox updated there was a wait for up to a week for RoboForm to come up to grade and reassume its compatibility.

Today I upgraded Firefox to the latest version and it automatically upgraded the RoboForm extension with two reboots.  A minor act as life goes, but a pleasant way to start the morning.
=30=

powered by performancing firefox

powered by performancing firefox

This was taken on the way back from the tour of the Misty Fjords National Monument. The trees in the foreground are on Ship Rock. The Habor Seals are enjoying the warm air. It is impossible to get a bad view when you are on the water up here.

The joy of the trip is clouded over by bad news on the family front. Burglary in Maine and serious burns in Ohio.

Life goes on. =30= 

The Very West Coast!

This is where we’ve been for the past week. It looks cold, but it was in the mid-sixties almost all of the time we’re there. If you ever get a chance to go to Alaska, take it. You will not regret.

Now I’ve been in all 50 States. I feel oddly fulfilled. Trips to foreign countries have been postponed. Perhaps now would be a good time to start saving for a round the Mediterranean cruise.
=30= 

How Insulated We Can Be

It took an online alert from the NYT to tell me I am living in a state of Emergency. I was wondering what that big puddle was doing in the neighbor’s yard. Growing, it would seem. It has rained here for three or four days solid. According to the national weather service, it should continue at least until tomorrow night. I hope the weather knows my wife is flying out in three days and I will be following her in four.

Not too self centered...

Where I am we’re used to being wet.  This house has stronger bilge pumps than a good sized freighter. We have backup to the backup for them. Now there’s one more thing to worry about on this Monday before vacation starts. I will not worry.  It accomplishes nothing.  I’ll assign that to my assistant. Uh-oh!  I don’t have an assistant. Now I’ll worry.
=3O=

powered by performancing firefox

Absalom, Absalom! in Alaska!

In a few days, I am scheduled to take a long journey from New England to Seattle to British Columbia to Alaska, with a side trip to the Yukon.

As you might imagine, what to bring is becoming more and more a question that needs answering. Having a geek centered mind, the laptop, blackberry, iPod and M50 Nikon are a given. Then there is the clothing. For ten days, eight dress shirts, a few sweaters, slacks and a light winter coat are recommended.

For reading I am bringing Strunk & White, Zinser’s On Writing Well and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!. I have been looking for Richard Halliburton‘s Complete Book of Marvels, but have had little luck.  Perhaps the library might have it.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Being an orphan boy myself, you would think it would be a sad day. Not so much.  With a wife and son, my own mother has faded into the past where she has long resided. Now, where am I getting flowers at this late stage in the game?
=3O=

powered by performancing firefox

powered by performancing firefox

D50 Nikon Color

This was taken with the Nikon D50. No modifications have been made to the photo with the exception of the automatic pixel reduction when sent using Picasa.

=3O= 

After the Blackberry, could the D50 be far behind?

The toy level of the Blackberry 7100i has pretty much passed. It has graduated to a tool. The next toy is the Noting D50. I am going on a long trip next week and needed a camera of some quality that didn’t bankrupt me. I looked at all of the digital camera in my price range, not even thinking of a DSLR. Then I read a blurb on the Lockergnome site and went searching for reviews. This review is the one that sold me. It also serves as a decent guide for the cameras parts and feature.

When I come back from my trip, I should be able to post a few pictures here. I will try not to make them too boring. More will be loaded into the Flickr acount, a sidebar for which is attached to many of the Famous Grazing Blogs.
=3O=

powered by performancing firefox

ira-ira saseru

ira-ira saseru is the Wiktionary translation for ennui.  Ira Saseru
would be a good name for a completely bored out of his head fictional
character.  The inside joke of the name would be so deep it would be
worth writing a book around it.  There was a moment today when a severe
bout of ira-ira saseru set in.  I believe it was more a case of being
over gageted.  Setting two Blackberry's for people with very different
end user habits should be interesting, but it just was so frigging
easy, there was no challenge. 



The wonder of what a Blackberry and other similar technical items,
earlier in my lifetime, would have had me up for days learning all of
the ins and outs, the wheres and whyfores.

When the i286 replaced the i2080, it was revolutionary. Considering my microwave oven now has more computing power than the i286, it shows the leaps and bound. Unfortunately when leaps and bounds become commonplace, ennui is the result.

Perhaps this is why I so readily agreed to go to Alaska. It could also be why I was so eager to sign up for all of the land side trips as well. I don’t just want to say, I rode by it, I want to say I stood on it, felt it, ate the local food and drank the local water.

Considering again, that I can do this on a weeks notice, travel across the continent, jump on a ship, spend a week in the arctic wilderness and expect to be back at work the day after Memorial Day is amazing.  I want to spend every waking hour of my life in a constant state of amazement. Is that too much to ask of life?

Perhaps so. It’s the effort that makes it all worthwhile.

=3O=

Went Blackberry

I finally broke down and went Blackberry. I am in the midst of setting it
up. More dificult than my first i286 PC. When it's done, I call my
skype on the bluetooth and verify the settings. Did I mention it was
Nextel Walkie Talkie enabled?

Now if I was a movie, I'd be making money from product placement. I'm not, and all of the above have made money from me. Welcome to America!

=3O=

Work Work WORK!!!!

I am not allowed to complain about anything at home any more.  So I will complain here.
Work!
There, I am glad I got it out of my system.  I feel much better.
=30=


powered by performancing firefox

Avid Fans, all around

These three are very good friends of ours. Their son in the middle is an avid fan of the local AAAAA team. You can see the parents are avid fans of him!

=30= 

Smart Cat, that!

It’s been a while since I posted this picture. This is Mougli. We opened the door to let him out the morning after a Nor’easter.

Would you believe he decided not to go out? Smart cat, that.

=30=

In my youth, this was the bed in which I slept. Of course it was the sixties, it was the “East Village” and the only other piece of furniture in the apartment was a highly used bean bag.

We expanded the decor by adding an empty cable spool on its side as the dining room table a few weeks later. It was even later enhances by two metal milk crates with seat cushions.

Ah the luxury of youth!
=30= 

They Sent Me Home.

It was mentioned in other Blogs, but for those of you who care, when they saw how swollen my face was this morning, work sent me home. Good work!
=3O=

powered by performancing firefox

Handy freeware programs to put on a USB stick

Don’t pass up reading the comments as well. There are listed several other sites that display portable applications.

For those of us old enough to remember dual floppy PC’s; where Drive A: was the operating system and Drive B: was the program, it proves every thing that goes around, gets better.
=3O=

============

A list of free programs that do not require an installation and can be used directly from your USB stick or any other removable drive

read more | digg story

NYT Article on The Bank of Mom and Dad

An article in todays NYT, called The Bank of Mom and Dad was an interesting read to the father of a child in Middle School.

It would appear we have the false notion that payment for college is the last big expense, (short of a wedding or new car), we‘ll face in the cost of rearing a child. It would appear this is not so.

Or, is it more unique for parents whose children decide to live in NYC?

Or... is it just true of the subjects of this article who fit the criteria of the article’s subject? Probably a little of all three.
=3O=

powered by performancing firefox

If You Can Believe It...

...I am going to work. I have a meeting this morning upon which the employment of another person depends. Otherwise, I would take today off as well. The swelling under my left eye is making it hard to focus. Perhaps a half day is in order.
=3O=

powered by performancing firefox

TWiT 51: Digg This

Kevin Rose explains how digg works in this TWiT epsiode. For all you people of the digg community, this podcast episode will answer quite a lot of questions. It's definitely worth checking out (and subscribe to TWiT podcasts!)
========
To distract me from the pumping pain of today’s redux root canal through the gums, I spent the afternoon adding footprint messages to all of the surviving Famous Grazing Blogs and listening Kevin go on about digg. I am glad I listened to it because now the site makes MUCH more sense to me.
=3O=

read more | digg story

Calendar Dilemma Solved

I am sure you’ve been losing sleep on this, but fear not now that The Calendar Dilemma has been solved. I had to go back to PayPal  to find the receipt to get the name of the program for which I was seeking.  The program’s name is Yagoon Time.  Now why I couldn’t remember that is beyond me. The good news is I found it.
BUT THEN,
I went to my Thunderbird to reset the mail and remembered there was a calendar extension for that in the works as well It is called Lightning. This is not to be confused with Sunbird or Mozilla Calendar. Lightning is an extension for Thunderbird that can integrate the messages received with the calendar, similar to the feature on the new Google Calendar.

So, of course, I set up both. Google Calendar was subscribed to by both of the calendars with ease.  The added feature of Yagoon mirrors the feature in Google Calendar in that you can select the calendars to be displayed.  So far, Lightning doesn’t do that.  It is promised in future development, but who can wait!

If you do use Yagoon or Lightning, be sure to chose WebDav and not iCal when choosing the interface. That’s an error that took me a while to catch.
=3O=

A Disaster or a Cleansing? Computer Crash.

It would be a disaster if I had not bought the Workbook exterior hardrive and ran the included back-up utility the week before the crash. 

Ten years worth of writing and work would have disappeared like rust on plastic. I’ve made back ups to CD on several occassion but I cannot claim any organization to that.  To speak the truth, most of the stuff backed up on CD’s really was to take the information for use someplace else.

Now that I’ve returned the information, or most of what I need now to the recovered laptop; I am amazed about the amount of crap that had piled up. Going to my RoboForm toolbar, the database for which I had backed up on the NetVibes Box.net widget, I could see the pages and pages of sign-ons I’d collected while acquiring all of the junk.

Now most of it is gone.  I decided only to install software as the need for it arises, instead of doing a blanket recovery. The one I missed this morning was the CLOCX analog clock I kept in the corner of my second screen. It is a cute utility that displays an analog clock with many different faces available. It will optionally display the date and AM PM. It also has a calendar with reminders I use on a regular bases to remind me of things told to me over the phone.

What I am missing is the iCal compatible calendar I had installed to act in conjunction with google calendar. As with GMail, I have turned my life completely over the google calendar. Thankfully the crash had no effect on Gmail or Google Calendar.

The local calendar I had found worked perfectly with it.  I will spend the next half hour searching for in the places I go to find software.

Then I’ll do the laundry. It’s nice to have priorities.
=3O=

Emachine Died, Enter Gateway

When my almost three year old eMachine bit the bucket this morning. It does this, of course the day before I have a presentation due for the President and Senior VP's of the company.

I went to Best Buy looking to either repair the old laptop, or buy a cheaper but better one. Hence the Gateway MX7525 upon which I now type. The branding on the cover is different, but eveything else about this machine is just like the eMachine, only better.

Whoa! Just hit the wall. It is bed time!
=3O=

If you came over to see what boring is all about, welcome Jef!
=3O=

Todo Day

For several weeks now I have had a Todo List on my Airset and on my Google calendars, (went public today), that I was only able to nibble away, little by little. Working long hours makes it hard to do public errands. Today was a holiday, of sorts. My son and I got in the car to go to Chili's for early lunch. On the way there, we passed a Vavoline Instant.

I looked up at the Oil Change Due sticker, looked at the milage and realized I was almost a thousand miles overdue. We pulled into the empty bay, over the hole in the ground. They took some information regarding the registration and such. Less than 20 minutes later, we were in Chili's having a jacked up appetizer. While sitting there, I called the 877 number on the Vavoline Instant receipt to enter the $500.00 in gas - once a week sweepstake.

The major point here is I didn't feel ripped off. Not with this car, but with others, I have gone to quick oil and lube places and felt flamboozled by the time I left. This place did offer to replace the air filter, which they showed me. When I said it looked like it had a few more miles on it, they cheerfully returned it to its receptacle.

All of this is done while you sit in the car. You can see and hear all they are doing to your car. There is a franchise cadence where they overtly check each other's work. I liked that.

Over all, not bad. The good news is, it is on the way home from work, so the next time I need an oil change, I'll just pull in and get it done with less effort than putting gas in the car.

We went from Chili's, bought four pairs of shoes, two for him and unexpectedly two for me. Then we got our hair cut, gassed the car and picked up the dry cleaning.

All of this may seem mundane to you, but it cleared my domestic Todo file and my son and I did it all together. This is a good thing.
=30=


Technorati Tags: Vavoline, Airset

I have a simple wireless router in an isolated area but still I get the error message there is an IP in conflict. If this message gets posted, I will not worry about that for now.  I am more worried about The new version of Firefox, which Firefox installed on its own.  I am sure, somewhere along the road of setup, I gave it permission to do that.  The promblem is, RoboForm, upon which I am totally dependent, is not working with this newest version, which is only .001 above the last.  It usually takes a few days for the two to sinq, but a person can go through withdrawal in that short a time.  This is especially true if it's a weekend with no substantial social obligation. =3O=

It was just one of those days.  A lot of talk with no accomplishment to speak of.  Three hours of staying at work to make up for the time spent talking.  Tired is the word of the day.
=30=

Looking for an iCal connection between AirSet and Yagoon.  Haven't found one yet.
=30=

Following Leo LaPorte's lead, I set up a NetVibes page as my home page.  There was a default module called NP, for Now Public.  It's a crudely set up page. 

It's content is jumbled, combining news clips with blog entries and Flickr like photo thumbnails.

I will leave it up on the home page for now.  I am exploring other options short of about:blank. 

AjaxWrite vs. Writely — Apples and Pears

This is being written in AjaxWrite 0.9. It differs a great deal from Writely. It is more like opening a single word processing page. When you hit the save icon, it acts like a file download. When you hit it a second time, it creates an entirely new file with a version number in parenthesis (2),(3), etc.

Writely is a much more sophisticated Web 2.0 suite. It has elaborate collaborator validation, folders saving the documents online, etc. AjaxWrite is barebones all the way.
=30=

If you are just starting out with Firefox, it's a good idea to become familiar with the power of the extension.  Extensions are used to design Firefox to be your browser and do what you want to do.

This blog entry is being written with the extension called Performancing.  A large series of extension collections can be foun HERE at the Lifehacker website.
=30=

CommandN, episode 40

For those of you who follow CommandN, episode 40 is now available. It's filmed at a converted church in T.O. Amber and Mike 's initial technews is given from the balcony with a little too loud music in the background. In episode 39 the presenters were competing with the wind off the water. (Still, we watch...)
It's a joy to watch Amber and her constant intelligent smile.
Her brother, Jeff is back from filming his documentary. He's as as interesting as usual.
Web Picks had Leo LaPorte as their guest - lot's of hugging.
No flub at the end of this one.
There was a cute flub at the end of Episode 39.
It's much easier to review a 15 Minute plog than it is to review a book or movie.
=30=

When I got the root canal a dozen or so years ago, it was my
impression there could not possibley be any more pain from that
direction. My body disagreed with me this week and introduced me to
bone infection. This makes tooth aches feel like stubbed toes. Surgery
will be near the end of the month when the infection is hopefully
handled by the antibiotic.

So, if my entries start to take on a tinge of grumpiness, please forgive and understand.

=30=

It seemed like yesterday it snow in western Massachusetts, and yet today the baseball season opening in NYC.  Wait, it did snow in western Massachusetts and the NY Yankees beat Oakland 15-2 in their season opener.  Alex Rodrigues hit a grand slam and it was up hill from there.  As Tyler Kepner said in the morning's NY Times, "It will not always be this easy..." Of course it won't; this is baseball. 

I am hopefully going into surgery sometime today.  I will report on that opening session later today or tomorrow morning.  It will depend on how I feel.
=30=

Cross Your Fingers

For those of you using Performancing, and obviously, I am one of them, the following paragraph was in the help blog inside Blogger:

Performancing for Firefox

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Logging into Blogger using third-party apps lately is problematic. My favorite blogging tool Drivel can't login. I have tried Deepest Sender but just the same. I found a way to login to my Blogger account using Performancing for Firefox (the best browser in the planet :) ). Just create a custom blog account on Performancing, choose Blooger API for system type and use http://www.blogger.com/api for Server API URL. Hope this help you all :)

posted by Wakizaki at11:17 PM

I used it and if you can read this, it worked!!!
=30=

Peforrmancing Working Everywhere But Blogger.com

This is a very sad situation. I found this new very helpful tool, Peformancing Firefox interface, as well as the great blog associated with it. As you can tell from previous entries it HASworked wonderfully before. And then poof! it the dreaded Atom Server Error #3 came down and struck it down.

The good side of that is it caused me to explore the interface further and hook it up with with two WordPress, a Livejournal and a MobBlog connections. It also sent me back to w::bloggar where I found the Firefox interface has been finished. So that's from whence this entry originates.
=30=


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Scotland License.

It Wasn't Me

There are several threads running on the Performancing website about the Atom Server Error #3. At least it's nice not to feel alone. I am not going to use Performancing of for a while with the hope this problem is resolved sometime in the near future.

I guess it's another one of those too good to be true things.
=30=

Be Careful With Passwords and Performancing

I was using Performancing merrily when I accidently slipped in the wrong password to blogger. Then it wouldn't let me in, even with the corrected password. Oh Bother!

We tried uninstalling Performancing, erasing the Launch Account Wizard settings for Blogger.com and reinstalling them. The confirmation window would pop up continuously even thought the correct information was being supplied. When I finally cancelled the efforts, the following error message would pop up: There was a possible error contacting the ATOM server: Error #3 [object Object].

I have gone to the Performancing website to seek answers. I will report them here; hopefully using Performancing.
=30=

March-Lamb Thing

For the last few years, March has certainly held on to its lion identity.

This year things have definitely stayed to script. It's gorgeous out there. So much so, Spring Fever is upon me. It is Friday and I DO NOT want to get dressed and go to work. Even though there's a go-away party at the end of the work day, I only see that as a reason to stay longer than I really want to. TGIF is alright, but not at 0627.
=30=

The Tuesday- Not Quite As Dreary

Things were fixed today. The sun came out and I feel its effect on my face. It was good to be out of the bunker and in the fresh air at least for a little while. An extra hour's work today saved me grief tomorrow. Grief of a very minor sort in the grand scheme of things. But then aren't we all minor but so very important at the same time in The Grand Scheme of Things? =30=

Even After a Long Hard Day

It was a long dreary Monday. I am about to tranmorgraph into a pod in front of the TiVo. But I still found it easy to use the Performancing Firefox extension to make an entry for today. Amazing that! =30=

The Rarity of a Monday Morning Entry

This is an example of the ease of use for Performancing. I would never think I had time to make an entry on a Monday morning when I barely have time to peruse the news, drink my tea and get on the road to the city. But here I am, making an entry about making an entry. This is either Zen or spitting into the wind. Perhaps both. =30=

AllPeers ...still waiting.

I just came back from allpeers.com again and still don't see the product. In the FAQ, many things are promised. I will be glad to try it when it comes out. WHEN it comes out. =30=

Zen Saying in MetaTab

The man is free who no longer seeks recognition.
=30=

Firefox Performancing Handbook.

Performancing, when you visit their website has many features related to data. This is probably interesting to someone to whom this information matters. What is important to me is its ability to pop a pager up in Firefox that gives you the option of making a quick entry into the blog of your choice. For more information go their Firefox Performancing Handbook.
=30=

Moleskine Addiction...

Anyone who has ever felt the need to blog and wants to stay blogging, should avoid tapping into the Moleskine Consciousness. The Furrygoat blog entry on this subject is a good example. Even though I've been slack on all my blogs for the past few months, there's a rare day I don't make some sort of entry either in my large square Moleskine, or my 2006 Moleskine calendar. I haven't taken my Palm out for ages. =30=

Spread Firefox!

File Hippo - Free Software Downloads

File Hippo - Free Software Downloads
This is being written with another Firefox extension called JustBlogIt! I've wanted to post a ling regarding File Hippo for a while. It isn't SnapfilesPro, but it is a good source of Free and Shareware. =30=

Now I don't even need to leave Firefox to maintain the blog

This is way too easy. Life has been hectic and February was too short a month to accomplish any blogging. It's not like there were a lot of entries in March. I believe and hope more time can be given to this. =30=

Firefox Extensions

If you want to see what is happening at Firefox with the advent of version 2 coming soon, it would be a good idea to go to Chris Pirillo's website and download the Firefox tips pdf. It deals mostly with extensions. I am using one of those extensions called perfamancing to make this entry into Blogger.
=30=

The Ides of March

It was the Ides of March at work today. Ceasar fell and the minions danced in their chairs, in the halls and in the freight elevator. =30=

MBTA

MBTA

Out of commission

Dislocated my hip. The pain is unreal. Just started feeling a little better. Film at 11

=30=

The Pats! Say it Isn't SO

I had to just turn off the game. If someone said this was a thrown game, I wouldn't have a hard time believing.

What a disappointment!

=30=

So Much Fuss Over What?

All over the tech blurbs AllPeers is being talked about.  I am sorry, I just don’t see about what the fuss is being made.  Talk about hype.  The extension is not even functional yet and its praise is being sung to the high heavens.  Let’s wait to see if it does all that is promised.

Don’t go on about the paradigm of the Swiss Watch Makers.  I will watch this and if it meets all of the promised hype, it will be reported here or at Home Grazing.
=30=

just testing

Blogjet test

Beware of Writely

If you blog, beware of two things, Writely and Moleskine.

The two of them will drain you of your desire to write in your blog.

When I tried both it was with the intention of using them as tools to enhance the blog entries. What actually happened was the entries became Writely and Moleskine entries which never made it over to the blog platform.

It then occurred to me none of the fourteen or so blogs on the Famous Grazing Blog field had received attention in quite a while, some not since the beginning of the new year. It is a new year, isn't it? Hold on, let me check my Moleskine Date Book which arrived on Friday. Yep.

See! These books are a definite addiction. When my wife saw me open the box from the Vickery, I believe she thought it was a place like a Victoria's Secret. She was somewhat disappointed to find the Vickery is a good location for Moleskine products in the Boulder CO area. In what a small world we live.
=30=