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=

Just a few hours more!

Only a few hours left in 2005.

I wonder how long it will take me to write 2006. I know it will be a while because I wrote ‘1995’ before correcting it.

Most of my blogging of late has been over at Grazing Planet and Home Grazing, using Easy Blogs and Thingamablog respectively.

It all comes down to ease of use. In the case of Easy Blogs it is ease of use as it relates to graphics. Once you learn the use of the big X on the right side of the window, your illustrations are limitless.

Thingamablog has the attached newsreader that with a click becomes a blog entry. So, two blogs with two different engines of creation. And then there’s Blogger.

Happy New Year!

=30=

---

---

M, Formerly known as Mj

M, Formerly known as Mj,
uploaded by sgtret.

I am busily updating my Flickr account. I finally went pro and am digging up stuff from WAY back to add.

Oh, Yes, the Health!

If you’ve been watching the entries regarding the pneumonia, the good news is I am 90% better. The lungs are clear and most of the congestion is gone. My energy is not quite where it was, but is improving on a daily basis.

That’s the good news. On the other side of the coin, I am on call this weekend and next weekend to make up for the three weeks I was taken of “call.” Oh well.

=30=

Famous Grazing URL

It occurred to that with all of the Famous Grazing blogs out there, we should own FamousGrazing.com. Now we do. We opened a Easy Blogs blog there with the purpose of commenting on the blogs themselves.

This will leave Belltowernews, the former default site for Famous Grazing blogs, to go back to the simple journal weblog it as it started.

=30=

Blog Easy is Addicting

I have been spening most of blogging time filling in the vacant spaces at the more substantial of the two new Blog Easy grazing blogs. The creation of Articles is my latest project.

Once I have that all in place, it will be abandoned along with the other grazing blogs coming out of other than Blogger clay.
=30=

Tomorrow to Work?

I will make an attempt to return to work tomorrow. I am not sure if I will make it through the entire day, but it will be worth a try. The coughing has settled down to a controllable amount and comes with ample warning.

There is another doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon, so I will be leaving work early on Wednesday.
=30=

A Tad Better

For those of you who have been following my adventures with pneumonia here, the good news is today, for the first time through all of this, I am feeling a little better. There is still a crackling sound in the lungs, so the pneumonia is not gone, but, I feel a little more energetic than I have for weeks.

My son and I are going downtown for haircuts this afternoon. That has to be a good sign. I will admit my personal grooming habits have been in the dumps for at least a month. I frightened myself when I glanced at my face in the bathroom mirror this morning.
=30=

Two New Famous Grazing Blogs

Using Easy Blogs blog generator, I have created two new Famous Grazing blogs. The first is called Easy Grazing. The other, a retread of a failed site, is called Planets Grazing.

The Easy Blog blog generator requires you to have a hosted site. Our company has a little-used site at brdk.net, so I just added a two new folders to house the Easy Blogs generated pages.

The initial templates chosen lack a certain sophistication, but have great potential. I will spend some time learning the method the templates are generated and tweek each one in a different direction.

In a recent questionnaire sent by a dear friend, I was asked what I do when I am bored. I replied: design web sites and blogs. This caused me to go out and look for another non MySQL or php based blog generator. I certainly found that in Easy Blogs.
=30=

Fortune Cookie

Tonight’s fortune cookie read: “The work will teach you how to do it.” This is followed by a series of numbrers: 34, 25, 1, 47, 8, 33. I will have to see if that number won the next lottery, whatever it is called, around here.

You can tell how stir crazy I’ve become when I report as news the saying on fortune cookie.

Que sera, sera.
=30=

Risen to the Level of Boredom!

Okay, this being sick thing has risen to the height of boredom. I want to stop “resting” and get on with my life. My schedule had one free day in December and that was today.

Perhaps it’s because the anti-biotic treatment ended today and I am not better that I’ve become so peckish. It was a December twenty-one years ago that had me in a hospital close to death. Maybe...

Enough group therapy!

I am going to send myself a get well card and take it seriously
=30=

Flicking Through Flikr

The pain from the torn muscle is keeping me up. I was looking for something that would bore me to sleep, so I went to my Flickr.com account to browse though my uploaded photos.

That didn’t take long because I am yet to spring for the pro account. I went to popular tags and clicked on San Francisco.

I must’ve looked at three to four hundred thumnails. It was amazing to me how the majority of the photos had no people in them. There were the posed tourist shots taken in all of the places where I have been photographed by visiting family.

Then there are the Christmas Office Party shots. There are several up there I am sure the poser would rather not have on a public forum. It was then I realized what I was doing. I had become a virtual One-Hour Photo shop clerk, living vicariously though snapshots taken by others.

A low point in my life.

=30=

Half Century of Places

Central Park Bandshell, Columbus Circle, Washington Square, Thompkins Square, Cooper Union Square, St. Mark’s Place, Avenue D, West Fourth Street, Tenth Avenue, Fort Washington, Turtle Bay, Lennox Hill, Parris Island, Pendleton, San Mateo, Sacramento Street, Nob Hill, Golden Gate Park, Golden Gate Bridge, Marin, Charlotte, Burlington, Quincy,
Providence, East Providence, Deer Isle, Staten Island, Gouvenor’s Island, Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Treasure Island, Alkatraz, Juarez, Seattle, Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec City, Ontario, Toronto, etc.

=30=

If it is not quite Winter yet...

If it is not quite Winter yet, why is there a small blizzard blowing in my front yard?

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, as I am sure many other people do as well. BUT, this is my appointment, it is my ribs that are killing me from coughing, and it is my lungs that have had just about as much of this pneumonia crap as they can stand.

Cool off, whew! If you can’t rant on your own blog, where would be a better place?

=30=

Just When The Silver Lining Starts Flashing!

Just when you think all is getting better, things happen.

A cough came out of the blue while I was sitting in an awkward position last night. For some reason a rib poked my gut and now something seems to be torn. This makes every cough feel like a sharp punch in the gut.

Oh what fun.

The good side of this is the coughs are coming less frequently. I am just in mild terror when they do.
=30=

Pneumonia is not fun

This is the 21st Century and Pneumonia is not treated as the life threatening condition as it was in the middle of the twentieth, when I had it last.

In my infancy I contracted it and miraculously survived. It was a proud moment for my mother. Many times I would hear her say to other mothers words like “...didn’t think he would make it” or “it must have been god’s will.”etc.

Now I call in to work and say I have been diagnosed with pneumonia and they want to know if I will be coming in on Monday. In part wonderful and in part sad. Pneumonia is still a major killer amongst the elderly and infirm. I don’t quite qualify as either but am certainly on the downhill side in the direction of both.

With the uber-antibiotic churning through my system and a night time prescription medicine knocking me out for so long, I just about skipped today, I feel on the mend.

I feel as bad as I did when first I went to the doctor and was told it was just a mild infection and should pass in a week or two. As things go at the moment, feeling that bad is an improvement.

I am not going to work on Monday.
=30=

Is that sunlight?

Probably the only climate related thing I miss about living in California is the sunlight.

Of course, when I was there, I missed the changing weather.

In May, we plan to go to Alaska for a week. It is the only one of the fifty upon which I have not put foot. I understand there will be almost constant sunlight while we are there. That should take care of my missing sunlight.

All of the above was inspired by the sun coming through the now bare New England trees into my office. In the summer, I would’ve pulled the curtains, but for now, I am enjoying the light.
=30=

Health Update.

For those of you paying attention, I am on the fifth day of a ten day stint of antibiotics. There has been mild improvement, but not marked.
=30=

BlogWizard a Bust!

BlogWizard from Lionhardt looked like it might have some potential as an alternative to posting one by one on the variety of grazing blogs we have running.

I downloaded it for evaluation, version 2.0.0.8. I couldn’t get it to sign on to Blogger.com to post a simple message. The error message it always gave was:

Socket Error # 10054
Connection reset by peer.

I didn’t give up there.

When I clicked on help, no help appeared, either in the program, or as is so often of late, on my browser.

Not to be defeated, I went to their website - looked into their meagre troubleshooting section and found what basically said, if you’re getting a socket error, you are not connected to the Internet. Of course, I had to go to their page to read that, and to accomplish this, I would need to be connected to the Internet.

It went on to state if there were any other problems to contact their user support, but, if I read the rest of the comment correctly, if I was a user with less than 10 licenses, I would be put on a waiting list scaled according to my license status.

You can be sure I did the next right thing, deleting the program entirely from my machine.

Oh, well. More starfish and all that.
=30=

XTort — Beware!

It is a very good site!

The beware is just because it is so good, don’t go there while at your job. You won’t be able to tear yourself away from the selection.

There is also the danger that you will be tempted to download the freeware onto your work computer. We all know how ant-freeware the corporate slugs are.

It goes against the grain of a for-BIG-profit organization to support something that works and is for free. There is a natural level of suspicion attached to the “free lunch.” This suspicion is based on a long history of scam artists taking advantage of the gullibly greedy part of all of us.

So don’t be too hard on them and download these files in the comfort of your own Starbucks WiFi zone, or even at home.
=30=

Is Xtort.net For Real?

Now that I am so sick I couldn’t answer the phone this morning because I didn’t have the strength to crawl across the bed before the machine picked up the call, I do have the strength to flip through online pages I have bookmarked for future viewing. Xtort.net was one of them.

It is an interesting site. My primary reason for going there was to look for a graphics file similar to pixia that could handle .GIF files. I was somewhat disappointed to find only a link to a Dell page featuring a discounted, ($500.00 instead of $588.00)version of Photoshop CS2 for Windows.

Then, the page filled out, listing a grand selection of free graphics programs with an index to the right of related program types ranging from animation tools to vector editors.

Further exploration of the not so adv. heavy site found a profound selection of singular programs for each and every need of the average and Lake Woebegone style user.

The Author’s claim to have each and everyone of these files on his computer for personal use may be a stretch. That they were tested by the author is more believable. Having all of these programs on one hard disk would be a tad top heavy.

I wanted to post this before I became completely lost going through the selections. I may be gone for days. Keep the search parties to a minimum.

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Officially Sick!

I have been coughing up my lungs for almost a month now. I went to the doctor two weeks into it and was told it was a post viral upper respiratory infection that should clear itself in a week or two.

That didn‘t happen. I went again this morning to a different doctor. She told me it is “Profound bi-basil Pneumonia.“

Before she told me this, I thought I had a bad cold and it was just taking a while to clear. Now that I am told I am sick, I suddenly realize how much in denial I have been.

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Going to the Doctor’s Office Again!

The last time I went, I was told it’s “post-viral upper respiratory infection” that should work it’s way out in a week or two. That was three weeks ago. Now it’s much worse with a continuing low grade fever. Not fun, not fun at all.

Now I am going to the doctor’s office tomorrow morning to see a doctor who probably knows more about all of this then the one that saw me before. I shouldn’t be surprised, it took three doctors over three days to figure out it wasn’t gas in my lower intestine, but a leaking appendix.

Touch Wood.

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Neglecting Other Blogs...

Most of the other grazing blogs have been neglected of late, because I use w::bloggar to edit them. The new online editor at blogger.com is so easy to use now, I have been using that to post most of my messages at Belltowernews.com.

The project that opened most of the grazing blogs had to do with learning how to use all of the various methods available for publishing blogs. Blogger.com and Thingamablog won out completely due to ease of use. The Livejournal and Wordpress self hosting programs are good as well, but just not as convenient. Other Grazing is a Livejournal selfhosted blog and Field Grazing is done with Wordpress. The other, Dragons Grazing, is a b2Evolution based blog. I haven’t given that one much attention either.
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Why does stuff that has nothing to do with me...

Why does stuff that has nothing to do with me, bother me?

In a recent Guardian (UK) article The Royal Society complains about scientist uploading their work to university online archives, where the information can be read, for free, online. The article says, in part:

• ‘A spokesman for the Royal Society said: "We think it conceivable that the journals in some disciplines might suffer. Why would you pay to subscribe to a journal if the papers appear free of charge?‘

I don’t read their publication. Most of my information about the society has to do with Benjamin Franklin. I know they are quoted as an authority on this and that. What this article is saying, basically, is that they don’t want the information to be free because they would rather you pay to see it in their publication and that they should have the editorial control about what goes out and what doesn’t.

A bother on them and their house. Magazines publish history by today’s standards. By the time the information gets into the publication most people seeking it have already found it on the web. Granted, what is on the web needs to be sorted through to get to what’s real, but that’s life in general, isn’t it?
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Happy Thanksgiving!

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Isn’t Chicken Lovely?

A very bad day at work today was totally cured by coming home to my son greeting me at the door with a hug and words of love and a barbecue chicken dinner lovingly given to me by my wife.

Life is good.

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Quick Health Bulletin

This chest thing is still lingering, but I felt much better this morning. Last night I watched the last chapter on Masterpiece Theatre of “The Vigin Queen.” It was a bit disarming to hear her lover, Robbie, cough in a manner very similar to mine and then go off and die at his hunting lodge.

I will keep clear of my hunting lodge.
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Grazing on Thanksgiving

The topic of this blog really has very little to do with Thanksgiving, US style or Canadian. It has to do with the words “Grazing” and “Thanksgiving” combined around the holiday to skew Google and its search engine for the word “Grazing.”

Normally grazing is used to talk about cows, sheep, goats etc. eating grass and other plants found in fields and on hillsides. During the week of Thanksgiving, it refers to the eating habits of the celebrants during the day. Ergo, many people must either rejoice in this behavior of condemn it.

Who cares? What matters here is the skewing of the Google index. What happened to this nation‘s priorities? When did the health and happiness of the American people become more important that maintaining the purity of the algorithm?

What? Geeks have yet to own the world? In the words of the late great comedienne, Never Mind.
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Still Sick.

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Why is nothing working today?

I think I should return to bed. Nothing seems to be working today. I expected to breeze by a few web related updates only to find my access to them has either become restricted or the portal isn’t working at all. I have email messages out there to the responsible parties at RegisterFly. Now all I can do is sit and wait.
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Firefox Extensions

I found this link in DIGG. It is a blog by one of the Firefox engineers. If you are a user and a fan of Firefox, it’s worth a side trip just to read his opening paragraph about starting a blog.

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e.Digital Treo 15 and Windows XP

Recently, I dicovered my old e.Digital TREO 15’s battery wasn’t dead. The doorway holding it to the front of the unit was loose.

I took it out of its protective case and pushed the door shut. The battery still had some life in it. So, I rummaged through my collection of power cables and found one that fit. I plugged it in and soon the machine was fully charged.

Of course, the computer on which I first installed the e.Digital’s Treo 15 Digital Music Jukebox’s installation software is no longer in use. Back to digging though things: I found the CD. Eager to hear what music I had loaded, I installed the software, plugged in the USB cable only to find the old installation software didn’t work on Windows XP Pro.

Going to the e.Digital Website didn’t help. I googled the name of the device and found a 2003 upgrade. I downloaded that, tried again, but XP still wouldn’t admit the unit was attached. Think-Think-THINK!

I reloaded the original CD, stopped autoload and chose Explore. Lo and behold, a txt file regarding installation on XP OS equipped machine.

You have to manually install the hardware, pointing the driver request to d:\drivers\ — then install the viewing software and then install the flash update.

Now all is well and I don’t feel as bad as I mentioned earlier about being iPod Free. The e.Digital TREO 15 has 15 Gb’s of memory. This pretty much holds all of the music I have on my laptop.

Joy to the world!

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Podcast in the car.

The problem with listening to podcasts in the car is the people in the podcast recommend websites and products. The frustration of not being able to look up the URL right away makes a geek cry.

It is now my policy to only listen to podcasts like NPR’s Science Friday and CNN Update and reserve listening to things like DIGG and TWiT on the laptop.

Of course watching a video Plog like CommandN in the car is out of the question. That one would be make it even harder for a geek to pay attention to the road.

This upper respiratory post viral chest infection is really starting to get to me. The doctor said I have to ride it out, but it’s starting to hurt just to breath from all of the coughing.

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The Draw of iPod Through iTunes

I know there are other media players out there. I have paid for Winamp and have used it for years. But, just to try it, I installed iTunes.

Lord, but isn't it easy?

Again, not only easy but addictive. Everything I want regarding online media is easily accesable, the interface is intuitive and connected. Burning disks is a breeze.

The only thing I don't have is an iPod. I have resisted Apple products since they were working out of a garage.

The years I spent perfecting my MS DOS skills were not going to be wasted on some limiting GUI. Of course, MS fell for it, dragging me along with them. Now I am looking at Linux as another way to avoid Apple.

Then there is the upcoming end of year holidays. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one form of iPod or another in the stocking
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Remember the Milk

On the CommandN weekly blog, the site, Remember the Milk was mentioned by the co-host Amber MacArthur.

I haven't gone wrong with anything she has recommended in the past. I thought I was going to be disapointed for the first time when I visited the site.

I was wrong.

Don't let the modest interface fool you. This is a very powerful site worthy of your time and effort. The two owners are somewhat overwhelmed, if you read their related blog, but they seem to have the handle on this and are in it for the long run.

There is a message on the blog asking people to stop uploading large attachments.

They don't say it, but I will say it here, they aren't Google.

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It was like we had won the lottery

The enthusiastic congratulation at work today were invigorating. Everyone, to the man, appreciated the work I had put into this and the spare time I lost in preparation for the test. The peer recognition was outstanding! =30=

I am back

The test was a grueling four hours. I sat down and didn’t get up until the time was up. Then I had to sit through a survey on the conduction of the test. I could have screamed. I ended up doing a chair dance! I passed! Whewwwww!

If I hadn’t completed that certification, I don’t know if I would’ve went into work the next day. I did, I will.

Whew! Again and big time!
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Still At it

Either studying used to be easier, or I am just out of practice. I st at the table, open the books and say, this would be easier if all of this information was on line and cross-linked.

Oh well, back to the grind.


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Big Test Coming Up

When I left school, I thought all the tests were done. Little did I know, they’re not only still there, they are bigger and meaner. Next Monday, I am scheduled to take a HUGE test at Four P.M. in Rhode Island.

You won’t see hide nor hare of me until then.

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The Death of Original Thougth at the NYT

In my pursuit if something other than work on this rainy, (again) Sunday morning, I went to the Sunday NYT and read an article entitled ALMOST HUMAN By CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL.

I honestly believed it was going to be an article containing original thought. It wasn‘’t. It was a review of other writings that may have contained original thoughts.

When our local church changed ministers, I was hoping for a fresh prospective, a few more original thoughts. Unfortunately I was treated to a series of somewhat related soundbytes, connected by quotations and review.

There was a time when articles, especially on Sundays in the NYT, contained original thoughts. But perhaps all of the original thoughts have been used up. I should check with Google. They would know.

Many years ago, when I could be found leaning against oak bars at four in the morning on New York‘’s Upper East Side, a recently retired assassin for the Israeli government regaled on just this subject.

He bemoaned the lack of innovational thinking that used to run his country. He said it was all taken away by the need to be in a state of constant defense. He hoped this would never happen to the US.

This was before 9/11, before Katrina, before government by cabal.
(See today‘’s article regarding statements made by a former aide to ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell.)

Perhaps the lack of original thought is a result of this feeling of constantly being on the defense. Oddly enough, I would ha’ve thought the opposite. The need to defend your home, your city, your country, should excite the brain, should make it want to come up with all sorts of divergent mental exercises. Perhaps it did, for a while, perhaps we just ran out of steam.

Perhaps I don‘’t know what the hell I am writing about. Don‘’t ever forget that last sentence when reading anything any where, especially on The Net.
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Search Name - Poor Results for Belltower News

I just did a search for belltowernews.com on Google’s blog search site and came up with mentions of Bell Tower News at other blogs, but no reference to this blog.

Considering Google owns blogger, you would think the Blogger blogs would get some kind of priority.

It would seem not.
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I Was Waiting for the Dove

This morning when I was awakened by the sunlight streaming through the windows, I looked out upon the still wet streets expecting a dove with an olive branch sitting in the nearby tree. Instead I was greeted by the trees branches, they were waving wildly at me. It was as if to say Mater Nature is not through with us yet.

Still, the sight of the sun was a joy.

Then I went down into the basement and joy left. It floated away on the tide moving from the laundry room into the boiler room and out through the storage area.

It went out through the bulkhead and returned through the kitchen window. On the table by the window lay the sheet of paper upon which is written the flight information for my returning family.

This is certainly Mudville with as fleeting a condition of joy.

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Nine Straight Days of Rain

There are two sump pumps in this house. They are both pumping away and there is still four inches of water in the basement. That could be because there is six inches of water in the back yard.

We’re not being washed out of house and home but anything that was on the floor of the basement is either soaked or floating. When I went down there this morning the laundry had floated into the next room.

A third pump was set up and is pumping away. It hasn’t lowered the water level at all, but I at least I feel like I am doing something.

What a drip!
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Old Man Snoring

We are not having a hurricane here in the Northeast. Its more like a Chinese water torture. I can say without exaggeration that it has rained here for eight days straight. I am glad we bought a canoe last year. I may have use for it yet.


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Female Dog, Female Dog, Female Dog

There have been times before when I moaned about working in the corporate structure. Consider this a similar message. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it hasn’t been the best of weeks.

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comment on a comment

It is good to know what was called a pound sterling in my youth now has a name similar to the public broadcasting station in my new home town. I certainly thank the guy who runs Soap Detectives.

It’s worth a trip there just to understand how we could sit in front of a box that wasn’t HDTV with Cable and flatscreen and still enjoy ourselves.

Hi, I am the guy running soap detectives. Just to clarify, the old link went to my old paypal account in the UK, thus GBP as in Great British Pounds. It has since been replaced with a new account in US dollars.

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Anasi Boys

Neil Gaiman has a new book, new to me anyway.
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Soap Detectives

BoingBoing.net listed a site where old radio shows are being pod cast. It‘’s called Soap Detectives.

If you read the comment about postage and paypal, the currency mentioned is ““GPB“” I am not sure what that means, but I‘ve a feeling it isn‘’t Canada.

All of that aside, I don‘’t recommend you go to Soap Detectives late at night. The radio shows are in serial form and it‘’s hard to stop at just one. You‘’ll find yourself wanting to know what happened to the baby, who was that dyeing man in the bathroom and who exactly is Mr. Van Dyke?

If you like what you hear, the entire collection can be downloaded using iTunes.

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Technorati blogs

I have been spending a lot time Technorati, you can tell because I have a Technorati Profile in my clipboard. I was looking for a place to put it, Blogger seemed like a good idea.

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The Boys of October

Just to make things interesting, the Boys of October, chose the last day of September, 2005 to make things interesting. I would rather things not be so interesting. There is enough going in the world and in my life. More interesting, I don’t need.

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Three

Three Games to Go!

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Sparse Entries in September

This has been a busy month not only at work but in the rest of what is called my life. People and companies are pulling at me in an unsolicited manner.

I don’t like it and it should be done with by the beginning of next week. Hopefully then my blog entries will pick up.

I also have a ton of spam remarks to remove from ALL of the grazing blogs. It’s like cleaning out the horse stall. Yuck!’

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Melancholy Evenings

You would think an online radio station called Melancholy Evenings would bring you down. On the contrary, the music is all extremely pleasant in a singular fashion. The fare runs from serious Blues to light Jazz, to Frank Sinatra singing “Funny That Way.” and then The Ink Spots singing “It Hurts Me.”

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i Tunes - Live365 -satellite radio

At the moment I am listening to Terry Edwards Playing “You Don’t Know What Love Is” on Live 365’s Evening Melancholy online radio station. z

If you are doing any sort of writing, this is the perfect station. It’s a blues station with a touch of loose jazz. I love it. The Bosa Nova Breakfast station is a great one to bring into a good mood.

This is the free online radio outlet that offers commercial free access on the own player for around six dollars a month ala carte, or if you want to put up around $90.00 for two years, it comes out to $3.75 a month.

I have it hooked into my WinAmp player but they offer you a choice of just about all the major mp3 players, including iTunes. You can also chose the store if you wish to download and own songs that are being played. Be careful using this option. At .99 a song it can add up if you plan to fill you iPod Nano with 1000 songs.

Do the math.

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Zoundry

Zoundry worked once and then fell apart. Without changing the seettings which worked yesterday, we tried it again today. Each try on different blogs came up with a strange error message.It said nothing other than the upload failed because of an Atom Error, whatever the hey that is.

We’ll put that program in the try again latter folder for now. The entries you can make on the new improved online Blogger editor are far superior to all of the offline editors almost exclusively because of the new image upload feature.

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