Care to Buy the Magna Carta? No, Seriously...

When I saw the headline in this morning's New York Times, "Magna Carta is Going on the Auction Bloc." I didn't believe it. I knew it was on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., but I thought it was in possession of the United States. But, it would seem not.

It was on loan from the Ross Perot family. They now want to sell it to raise money for medical research and help veteran's familys.

Will the next person who buys it lend it back to the archives or is it going to be someone whose source of wealth is from oil? Might the English want it back?

If I was them, I would.

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The Big Bang Theory is Funny!

I must admit, that is not something I thought I would ever write. In the past there was nothing about the big bang theory I found in any way humorous. Now that it is a TV sitcom, between How I Met Your Mother and 2 and 1/2 Men, I can say that.

It can honestly be said, if you read blogs, you will find this show funny.
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When I Was a Kid...

There were at least a dozen local papers. Some were morning papers and some evening. There was also the afternoon edition of the morning paper with stock prices. The evening papers were for the sports scores and the morning papers were to find out what happened in the rest of the world while we were sleeping.

But on Sunday, they all published in the morning. Each paper had comics that only ran in that paper. Then syndication happened and they started running their own and a few of the syndicated strips.

As the number of papers dwindled so did the comic strips. The ones that survived were those in syndication.

Enough history.

The point I started to make before the lecture was that I no longer go to the Sunday paper for my comics fix. I go to News Yahoo.com's Comics page. I have a few attached to the MyYahoo! page but on Sundays I need to go to the core site and browse them all. It's a worthy thing to do.
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We Found a SquarePage Offline Editor!

In truth we didn't find it, we already had it, but we just didn't try it on SquarePage. We thought it would have to be something new to us. That where Ecto and Qumana came in.

But no, it was diehard w::bloggar that did the trick. Now we need to see if it can also work as well with the WordPage and TypePad and LiveJournal sites.
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US State Dept Has "Blog Team."

In yesterday's NYT, there was an article about the State Dept.'s "Blog Team." It is a very serious article about a very serious subject. It shows that blogs are becoming what used to be the posters in 19th Century Paris. The call to arms and the plea for peace.

But now the poles and walls of Paris are the laptops and PDA's of the colleges, the cybercafes in China and the middle east. But like the posters, there is a limited space in the blog entry without links to more in depth information. And like the posters, the blurb excites the crowd; the crowd looking for direction, any direction.

We have let the monkeys out of the cage. Now let's watch the fun but be ready to clean up the mess. -30-

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Slow Feeding Day

I just went through the thirty-two feeds I have in my Bookmark Bar in FireFox. I saw only two items of interest on eHub and the rest did draw me in. I am sure, with more careful examination I might find something about which to comment. This late at night, it is not an option.
Night-night!
-30-

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Warmer March Because of Daylight Savings?

There is a pdf file going around that contains a copy of a letter printed in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette paper that, quite indignantly, blames the warmer March weather on the Federal Government's decision to move the change-over to daylight savings time to an earlier date in the year.

The last paragraph of the letter reads: "Perhap this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects." Signed (Name) Hot Springs. It is dated April 16, 2007

The debate here is, is this a tongue in cheek inclusion by the manager of Letters to the Editor, or is it serious? The vote is towards it being serious because, according to Wikipedia, this is a conservative paper.

Oh, dear...
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Looking for off line SquareSpace Editors

We're looking for an off line editor for SquareSpace. This is the OpenOffice Text Writer with the blogging add-on. We couldn't set it up with SquareSpace. Googled all over the place for settings and couldn't find any.

Then we tried Ecto. Same story.

So, instead we used OpenOffice to post this to our WordPress blog and here at Belltower News. After a reboot we were able to get Ecto to acknowledge the existence of this blog, listing the last ten entries but it wouldn't post the message we typed.

Settings again, I am sure, but we like an offsite editor that gets the URL of the site and figures out the rest.

Are we dreaming?

No, some do well here while others do well there.

We shall see.

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Temporary Grazing Site

We've created a temporary blog on SquareSpace.com just to see how it works. Like old times!
The blog is located here.

We're calling it Grazing on the Square.

How Original!!
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Mexican Immigration to Canada

A few hundred years ago, in my teens, I considered migrating to Canada to join what was then called the RCMP. Not being a totally foolish teen, I did some research.

I discovered to be a member of the RCMP required Canadian citizenship. To acquire this citizenship I would need to live in the country over a certain number of years. Then I visited Montreal in midwinter. These two things discouraged me.

Now, the New York Times is running an article about Mexican immigrants coming from Naples FL, to Windsor, Ontario.

It is near the end of September. I can say from first hand experience, Windsor's winter weather is nothing like the weather in Naples, FL. I believe some people are in for quite a shock.

I wish them well in their odessy. I hope the officials there treat them with human kindness. It's not something this country has done.

But, I also hope they survive the winter.
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Hopefully the last Last Comic Standing...

The only way you could get me to watch another Last Comic Standing is for there to be a Reader's Digest version. I can't imagine what people without TiVo did. Wait, I know! They changed the channel. But, it was like a car wreck, as long as you're not a victim, you want to watch the rescue to make sure everyone survives, or not.

Or, closer, a young person down a well. You know they're alive, but it takes forever to get them out. Take that, then collect the worst comics on the face of the earth, the ones with the free time, the clones already created by the past two seasons this show has survived, and have them comment on the rescue operation and make it funny.

I have decided, even if they do a Reader's Digest version, I'll wait for it to show up on Google News, right below whatever is going on Florida... always something going on in Florida...

Geeze, Loise!!!
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Mea Culpa to commandN!

The comment below was left on a blog entry in August that we made about commandN.

Brian is absolutely correct.

We miss Mike Laz's lively interaction with Amber.

In our defense, no matter on which show, we did see Leo standing, sitting, etc. next to Amber so often we identify them as the pair.

We ask for a mea culpa from the entire crew in giving credit where it wasn't due.

Brian McKechnie said...
To be clear - Leo never had anything to do with commandN except for a few appearances.
Mike Laz was the original co-host/founder but left after episode 69.
We're at 103 now and will continue to do it until people stop watching.
- Brian

The links in the comment, with the exception of the Blogger profile in Brian's name, were added by us to clarify the cast of characters.

PS: They are up to episode 104 now!!!

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Open Office and IBM_NYT Article

IF you are interested in Open Office software you want to read this article in today's NYT.

I.B.M historically has not been “with it” in competition with MS. But now that the Big Blue is not so big in this arena, they're hooking up with us MS rebels in the Open Source cause. I hope this is good news and they're not bringing their bad mojo into the camp.

There was a time IBM could be where MS is now. In fact there would be no MS. But they went the way of Ma Bell and stumbled over their own blind sided hubris. Have they eaten enough humble pie to have seen the light and understand what Open Source means? Or, are they coming in thinking they'll run the show?

Call me paranoid but I've seen this company do just that. -30-

New Rule

Don't drink Alca Seltzer Night Time Cold medicine and then try to install Spiral Frog on your computer. Good Night
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Open Office 2.3 Blog Loader Test

I am writing this in Open Office 2.3 with the expressed purpose of exporting this to both Google Docs and to the Blogger web log.

• I am just curious what else can be done

• I couldn't get it to upload into Google Docs, yet.

• There were problems mentioned here about uploading pictures to Blogger.

• We'll test all of that

Now the question is, how many of these formatting features in will carry over to the

blog. There is the button link:

And the highlighting feature: FONT COLOR

And	Tables
Will	Copy?

Let's see what this puppy can do?

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OOO 2.3 Update

What I remember most about Open Office was the length of time it took to load. This seemed true of most anything coming out of Sun with a Java base. I just installed the new 2.3 version. It loaded very quickly after the obligatory registration bit in the beginning. What disturbed me was the constant interruptions from the firewall.

This program seemed to be in constant communication with the people at Sun. I am very curious as to what they are saying to each other.

The AutoCorrect seems to have a problem if you don't capitalize a word that should be so. I will look in to the documentation about that one.

There was a quick mention of extensions on the installation page. I was too eager to get to the installation to see what that is all about. Perhaps after the family goes to bed I'll go back and see.

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Bay Bridge Rebuild Time Lapse

This LINK to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Update on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission website was found on BOING-BOING

It is worth watching.

This is especially so if you ever lived in the San Francisco Bay area. I lived there during the Loma Prieta Quake and saw a chunk of this bridge collapse from my bedroom window. It felt good to see they are maintaining it.

-30-

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The Alienist Was Great, but..

Caleb Carr's second tome, The Angel of Darkness, took me forever to read. It's 623 pages could've been cut down to half of that without any loss of storyline. The unfortunate narration by what is supposed to be a reformed feral 19th Century youth, with the constant use of the word "what" for "that" made the reading even more tedious.

Carr's other book, The Alienist, was a must read. I picked it up and found myself taking it everywhere to get to the exciting ending. The Angel of Darkness, however, was constantly put down to pick up another book, only to get back to it when there was nothing else to read. I was determined to finish it.
I found the solution to the problem obvious and the end of the evil one contrived. The attention to 19th Century New York was an injection instead of part of the story. If you enjoyed The Alienist, do not feel obligated to rush out and buy its sequel. -30-

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Watching the Emmys

I just had to compliment whoever it was who put together the nominations for the comedy writers. That was one funny string of sketches.
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Honor Flights

On CBS's Sunday Morning today was a piece on the Honor Flight organization that started in Hendersonville, North Carolina. They transport those elderly veterans who still live to see the WWII Memorial in D.C.


My father was a WWII veteran who died over thirty years ago. He took me to the memorial in lower Manhattan where the names of the war dead were inscribed on large stone walls. A lot of large stone walls. The fact that this monument was in his own town was good enough for him. He never spoke about the need for one in D.C. He didn't need it but this generation and generations to come do so they don't forget.

Locally in Massachusetts there are memorials in each of the over 300 towns. The most prominent is always the Civil War memorial. This is because so many young men from the Commonwealth died in bloody that war. In many, if not most, there is a standing statue of a soldier leaning on his rifle. He is looking off into the distance, alway south, keeping guard.

How soon will the ones for Iraq start looking for space?

We can't forget.

We won't forget the dead and the still living veterans. What I don't want is a an honor wall for Iraq as large as that for the WWII or the VietNam veterans.

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Open Source Windows Apps link

On Technology Bites is a list of the 20 Open Source Windows Apps For You.

Of the twenty I would say I am running 16 of them. The link to Sundbird should mention the Thunderbird AddOn Lightning.

More on that at another time.

There was another link on Technology Bite to the fifty most influential bloggers. It's mentioned on Grazing Portal.

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There Should Be Something Today

It is a Saturday and I have the house to myself. There should be something to write today, but it is cloudy and my dishwasher doesn't work. Mice ate the wires. It tool $135.00 for the repairman to say that. It was free for him to tell me I needed an electrician. Crap!

So, this has not put me in the best of moods. Maybe later, after the game...

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One of these Weekends...

I just completed filling in my Google Calendar for the rest of the year to coincide with the school calendar. It has four layers, the first two - appointments of a work and personal nature. The third is a layer showing the phases of the moon and the fourth national holidays.

When I first started tinkering with the Google calendar, I searched around of for special calendars to enhance it. I found what has to be close to a dozen. It took several months to whittle it down to these four. The other plug-in is the five day weather icons.

Then along came Lightning. This is the calendar module for Thunderbird.

Coming from MS Outlook, we expect a calendar to be part of the email program. Now it is. However, I find I am more likely to open the Google Calendar in Firefox than to hit the tab to open Lightning. Too much of a good thing? I don't think so. The Lightning calendar is linked to both the work and personal calendars, so when I make changes, they appear almost instantly on Lightening. I would like different colors for information from different calendars, but not yet.

If I don't have Internet access, the information is still there for me.

On a totally different topic, today is the anniversary of the Attica prison riot in upstate New York. I was overseas at the time of this blot on the country's history, but I think it was a major tipping point in history and should be remembered.

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A Picnic and Birthday Party

Today was a hot late summer day in New England.

It started with a picnic in Pawtucket followed by a birthday party in Sharon. Monday the workweek really starts for our growing student. This is the weekend to do nothing that even closely resembles work. -30-

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Went to San Francisco Last Night

At least my voice did.

I did a live broadcast to a group of people gathered on Mason Street to hear me talk. The host used FWD as our contact portal. I must say it worked very well. I could clearly hear all the comments and questions and everyone remarked on how rich my voice sounded.

This 21st Century has some good parts. -30-

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Double Digit Midgit

Olivia Turned Ten






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Jott Blog Post

Crossing the Longfello Bridge in to Cambridge.
Click here to listen

Powered by Jott.com - Try it at 1 (866) JOTT123 -

Jott Message Came Through

It was the way I set it that was preventing the messages from being relayed to Bell Tower News.

I had used my Blogger user name where it called for the blogs own ID number. As I mentioned in the clip below, you can find how to get that number in Blogger's own help file.

Good Night Gracie and Happy Birthday Melissa.

=30=

Jott Blog Post

It is the blogger ID. See help. Not your email address.
Click here to listen

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Sent Jott Comment but...

I used Jott to send a blog entry to Belltower news, but don't see it here... hmmm. Time to check settings, I suppose...
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Jaiku Comments have no limit.

In one of my first Jaiku comments I mentioned not understanding the use of a blog with a 140 character limit. CAW commented:

"My guess is that this is to promote the notion of putting in lots of
quick little random thoughts throughout the day, rather than writing a
few large treaties. Jaiku is, after all, a micro-blogging
site. However, you do sometimes see people start a message with
basically a teaser subject within the 140 characters, and then
immediately comment on their own Jaiku with the lengthier details."

Now that makes a lot more sense for me. I will probably most use it to make quick Jott entries open for later comment. Just when we gave up finding new ways to blog, Jaiku and Jott come along and wake us up!
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Spare Time

In the last hour I have signed up for Buzzword, created a Jaiku account and set up my Jott to add information to this blog and to the "bloget" at Jaiku. All that from an email form Jott that I haven't finished reading yet.

The idea is to be able to add information to your blog from a voice message left on you Jott account. At first I could see no use for this. Then it occurred to me, unlikely though it may be, I could be out there in the cruel world witness to some newsworthy incident and, instead of calling the Boston Globe or NYT, I could just post the story on my blog. How bloody self centered would that be?

Plenty. Good. I'll do it!
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Just When I Thought it was Safe to Open the Browser

In an earlier blog entry I warned of the addictive quality of going to Cali Lewis' Vlog site GeekBrief.tv.

Wouldn't you know it while waiting for the first part of the season finale of The Closer, I came upon another site, through Digg, called Deputy-Dog.com. In one of the comments it says that the author is a blog genius. I can't argue with that. In the "Explain" page the author states this is a temporary site until he can sell an organ to pay for a server.

It's worth a trip.

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The Children of Hurin

Let's begin with my relationship with Mr. Tolkien's work. When I went overseas a long time ago, I brought the Lord of the Rings trilogy with me. I survived, it didn't. By the time I returned, the pages had been taped together so many times, the yellowing cellophane tape crumbled in the tropical climate.

At the airport on my return I was greeted with hugs and the gift of a red leather-bound edition of the trilogy and later a green leather-bound copy of The Hobbit.

I have a copy of Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wooton Major and The Lost Road.

The Silmarillion is well read and annotated by me and friends.

So, at the very least, we can say I am a fan and have been one for over three decades.

Now... The Children of Hurin.

I read it cover to cover filled with dread at every page. Christopher Tolkien's stiff writing style is more evident in this volume then any of the others. That and the story is SO DISMAL.

Unless you feel a need for more stories from Middle Earth, please don't read this. If you are in any way leaning toward depression, don't read this.

If you are, like me a fan of the old man himself, buy it, put it on the shelf right next to the Lost Road (and other writings) and never open it. If you do read it I recommend reading The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and wander by the Withywindle River as an antidote to the black cloud of doom that will have enveloped the core of your very being.

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Cali Lewis: Be Careful When You Start Watching

It was one of those early morning things:

Browsing around, through some link or another, I ended up at GeekBrief TV. I had forgotten what fun it was to watch Cali Lewis and her infectious good humor. I know one other person on the earth who so honestly projects such bonne femme.

The thing is, I am in no way, okay maybe in a little way, a gadget freek. I find a gadget, like a car, and use it until it doesn't work anymore and then get a new one. I don't have to have the newest. This could be why I am still using my HP iPod. Let's see you find a HP iPod anywhere!

Back to Cali. The problem with her infectious good humor is just that, it's infectious. All of the work I planned to do this morning before the family rose, out the window. I went to the PodShow.com and watched every episode back to April. The Road Trip!! Who would think of doing a pod cast from Old Faithful?

See what I mean? Like a drug.
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PingMe-Jott Instructions Page

There are dozens of articles and blog entries out there regarding PingMe and Jott combining to create reminders using voicemail messages for free, for now. All of that works and both services are great.

But...

The learning curve takes a while and many pages back and forth between PingMe and Jott.

THIS page clarified the entire process for me. If I had read it a few dozen clicks ago, it could've saved me an hour or so.

That's just me.

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Thunderbird Growing?

TechCrunch has an entry dated July 23, 2007 entitled Mozilla Ponders Thunderbird Spin-Off.

I came across it when I was following another link from lifehacker on the Top 10 Firefox features that don't require extensions.

The article concerned me because I am a devoted user of Thunderbird and Firefox.

It's sort of like having a car where you can tweak this hose and that fluid to make it run just a little better. It is also not a ponderous and dangerous program like targeted MS Outlook. Thankfully, I hope, the article was saying Mozilla was going to spend more time working on Thunderbird. I say "I hope" because of the line popular in New England, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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Malcolm Muggeridge and The Life of Brian

It's amazing sometimes the things you find on the web. If you Google the words Life Muggeridge Brian Malcolm and Cleese you come to this entry in Wikipedia.

If you are a fan of Monty Python or the late Malcolm Muggeridge, I think you will find this entry of interest.

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Deezer

As you may have learned from previous blog entries, I do like to play music while writing. The latest option to do that can be found at Deezer.com. It was one of the places we discovered from visiting Emily Chang's eHub website last night. We were too tired to give it any time. Now we're too busy to give it much more.

We did have time to explore its interface and play a few of the songs. Sebastien Schuller's Sleeping Song was perfect as a lullaby song. (I mean that in a nice way.)

It is French.

Clicking the tiny American flag in the flag field on the upper right of the screen will bring you to the English interface. If you are interested in songs in other languages, just chose their flag.

It also overly uses javascript to show its sophistication, but it isn't too annoying.

It is worth a try.

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CommandN's Bounty

Even when you think the show is of a minimalist ilk, they give you something that takes you into the web and causes you to follow one thread of information after another.

CommandN this week gave me Emily Chang's site eHub. There are many more links, the PC Magazine list of 100 great but unvisited sites is an example, but you should go to CommandN episode 102 to see them.

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MediaMonkey

MediaMonkey and I have had a hot and cold relationship down through the years.

My first media player was, of course, WinAmp, which is now owned by Time Warner. When Justin Frankel first put it out in the last century, there was nothing like it. It brought back the counter top juke box controls at Mel's on Lombard.

Then, with the advent of the iPod I was lured away to iTunes. It held me for a year or so, but the limits it puts upon itself were too much. It was then, through Google searching for an alternative, I found MediaMonkey. It puts no limits on itself. Ying-Yang stuff here.

It is this very same limitlessness that give me the chills. I let it look over my Laptop for media. Whoa! From whence came all that Crap??? How is it possible there were three copies of Heading for the light by the Traveling Wilburys on my C: drive when I keep all of my music on the J: drive?

If I didn't know of this, I could've left it there in peace. Now I had to do house cleaning. It took days to collect and cull. The good news is I cleared Gigabytes from the hard drive. But now everything is measured and indexed automatically by MediaMonkey's Library.

Was this good enough for me? It should've been; but NooooOOO! I had to press F1. Worse, after I RTFM, I googled and Yahoo searched for add-ons.

It was Firefox all over again. I learned that not every add-on is needed, or even good for the system. I still check out every Firefox extension, like the ScribeFire with which I am writing this blog entry. Like most of the Firefox extensions, the add-ons for MediaMonkey were to try them and disable them.

Then there's FoxyTunes. I am listening to Requiem Novus Mundus, as I write this with MediaMonkey in the background controlled by the FoxyTunes interface in Firefox. The banner at the bottom of the screen, telling me now it's Annie Lennox singing Money Can't Buy It.

The point here, is try Media Monkey, as the priest said when he put the purple ribbon around my neck over my protests, "It couldn't hurt."

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A Billion Blogs!

Well, more like a billion bits in many blogs.

The blogs to which I refer are the ones found at ZD-Net's blog tag.

If you are looking for something to read, a tip here a rumor there and you are geekish in nature, toggle along there and I'll see you in a week or two. -30-

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Breakpoint, a novel

Richard A. Clarke's novel Breakpoint was recommended to me because I have much in common with three of the principle characters. It may be because of that I found it so disappointing.

However, it was more the two dimensional, stereotyped characterizations of all of the people in the book that made me just want to get to the end, find out who did it and rid myself of the onerous task of reading the stiff and stilted prose.

Not a good review, I know. Perhaps it was because there was so much promise, for a geek, for a person formally in the military and government service. None of the jobs were explained in any detail, very important facts were either ignored or fluffed over, perhaps with the assumption you would know as much as the very experienced author knows.

It just didn't make it for me. Then there is the inane mention of alcohol brand names. This was, perhaps, an attempt at displaying the author's sophistication. It didn't work. It worked for Ian Fleming, but not for Mr. Clark.

Sorry, but speaking solely as a geek, I would not recommend this novel set in the near future.

-30-

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Needed a Little Tweak

The photo uploaded directly from the FotoTabber interface didn't fit well into the skin we're using for this blog. The link FT and the words Annotated and Original were in "LARGEST" font size. The photo itself was slightly squeezed when viewing with Firefox.

But...

Going back into the Blogger Dashboard and editing it was very easy. I highlighted the link and the words next it on the top and scaled down the font size without losing the link. Then, in Compose edit mode the photo and it's matte were easily stretched to the left, removing the squeeze look. Wah Lah!

So, it wasn't as automatic as the spoiled brats we are have come to expect. The good news, the upload to Flickr option worked seamlessly, after the required authorization email from Flickr. To see the photo on Flickr, scroll down to the photobar on the left column of this blog.

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Tagged File

FTAnnotated | Original

June Jubilee 2007

This is a picture taken at a picnic in June. I am testing PhotoTagger along with the new WordPro version 5.0. So far the two seem to be working well together.
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Doc Searls Moved.

I'll be teaching a class in Cambridge tomorrow.

This reminded me that I wanted to let you know Doc Searls has moved his blog to THIS new address.
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Yahoo Mail Subject Button

I was playing with the new Yahoo Mail that I've been in Beta for what seems like years. For some unknown reason, I clicked the button for Subject. A subject about being busy building a pig from a kit popped up.

That surprised me.

I clicked it again and the subject changed to "Sound effects sold separately". Okay, one more..."Darn...Probation denied again!" Be careful, some of the subjects are not in the mother tongue.

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CommandN Still Kicking!

CommandN is still going strong. They've posted their 101st episode. Can you believe it? In the commercial television business that would mean they are set for life with syndication.

Leo Laporte is no longer with the show, having fled Toronto for reasons known, and the fella now backing up Amber MacArthur , Will Something, is a bit of a light weight, the show still packs a tremendous amount of information in its compressed format.

And then there is the 10% they can get you at GoDaddy.com.

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Domain Safe Until 2011!

There was some question about who exactly was hosting Belltowernews.com. If you've been following the RegisterFly thing on these and other pages, you are familiar with that debacle. All of a sudden, like mortgages, we found that Belltowernews.com was in the hands of the trustworthy people at GoDaddy.com.

It took a bit of this and a bit of that, but we finally nailed it down until 2011.

We feel much better because another of our domains was stolen right from under our noses. We hosted the domain and had it on auto-renew. Then the above debacle happened and somehow, unlike belltowernews.com, this other domain, which now has naughty links attached to it, slipped away. It was one of our first registrations that we've held since 2001.

Then the debacled outfit billed us for the hosting. Can you believe it. They give way our domain name and then try to charge us for its hosting.

It must be the day, but we also got a message from some other jerk saying we owed them money for the "nascar stuff" we bought on ebay. We don't even have an ebay account. Forwarded it to ebay and they confirmed it was a phish.

Perhaps... no, I won't even go there.

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Vox Keeps Coming Back

The good people at Vox, where our Canadian branch keeps its now and again blog Trounce Alley, does something I haven't seen other blog hosts do as well.

It keeps its "neighborhoods" in good order. Perhaps that's why out Canadian compadres feel so comfortable there.

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Who Invented Tuesday?

I used to think Monday was my least liked day of the week. My mind has changed.

It is Tuesday.

On Monday you are still a little bit in shock, so the effect is lessened. However, on Tuesday morning you realize there is an entire work week ahead of you. Wednesday, the famous "hump day" foretells the weekend, Thursday might as well not be there and of course Friday, at Five, the weekend begins.

But Tuesdays are just not fun.

-30-

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What a Quiet Weekend

I watch and read the news and it looks like there is nothing but violence and religious turmoil all over the world. This is not true of course, but merely the focus of the News organization. It's the "man bites dog" syndrome.

At the moment the most annoying thing in this area is the sound of high powered lawn mowers.

The question to ask is, why shouldn't that be the most annoying sound in the rest of the world?

It may seem a naive even simple question, but if you think about it, what is it all of these people are fighting about? Simple: My point of view should be your point of view. If it isn't and you say so, you are my enemy. This is stupid.

Just so stupid...
-30-

And no it's not about oil...

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Dreaded Blue Screen - Gaaaaah!

Do not install SoundTaxi if you have a machine running an AMD processor. I was going Blue Screen all over the place until I started uninstalling recently installed software.

It was SoundTaxi.

If you're in your sound software, in this case MediaMonkey, (THE BEST,) and you go blue screen, and you have been getting a weird message trying to install new hardware where you haven't added any hardware, and SndTDriverV32 is somehow involved, start

uninstalling software immediately.

I got Blue Screened twice. In the old days, that meant it was time to go out and get a new computer, new software and turn your old machine into a doorstop. This time it was just telling me something major was happening and I should fix it NOW.

Good night! -30-

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Creative Commons.

We just added this Creative Commons license to the site. If you click on the icon below, it will explain how this works.



This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
-30-

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Politics

It is almost time to pay attention to politics in this country.

Most of the candidates I have looked at on both sides are talking heads to me, except Ron Paul.

Without taking into consideration his tenuous ties to the Republican Party, he seems to be the only one who actually has his own, not yet totally canned personality. He reminds me in many ways of Eugene McCarthy.

Again, not in political or philosophical beliefs themselves, but in that he actually has political and philosophical thought unique to him and not a party line. As with Eugene McCarthy, he has strong support in the individuals and not the masses. As with Mr. McCarthy as well, this will, I predict, lead to his not being nominated.

I was in Chicago at the convention that threw Gene in to the woods for the wolves to devour with not so much as a please or thank you.

It was there I became apolitical.

I saw the machine of the "party of the people" choose its representative against Richard Nixon. I also saw Mr. Nixon win in a landslide victory. In the broader picture, this was Karma paying him back for JFK's father stealing the previous election from him, and not Humphrey being defeated, in my elderly opinion.

Ron Paul - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog

This is not an endorsement of anybody. I am not even sure I will vote in the national election. These things are so fixed I don't want to waste my carbon footprint on the drive to the high school and back. There may be local issues on the ballot. For that, I will go.
I just put this here to get your attention. It's for those of you who scan blogs for pictures before you will read the entry. I am guilty of that as well. I believe we all are. I promise not to become a pundant and fill the entries with long winded attempts to influence you in any way. I am just here to speak my mind.
-30-

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Let's See if This Works...

Luciano Pavarotti sings

[via FoxyTunes / Luciano Pavarotti]

Still playing with FoxyTunes...

I should go to bed.

-30-

Whoa, It's Amazing What Can Happen...

When you click on things in FireFox.

I have the FoxyTunes add-on. I was listening to the Traveling Wilburys Tweeter and the Monkey Man.

Just for the hell of clicked on the lyrics name traveling across the bottom toolbar. .

Bam!


Traveling Wilburys - Music on FoxyTunes Planet

foxytunes planet popped up with a copy of the album cover, links to You Tube and, best of all, a copy of the lyrics from LyricWiki.

With Bob Zimmerman singing, sometimes it's a good thing to have a copy of the lyrics handy.

There is also a link to Flickr, Google, somethings called Hype Machine, Rhapsody, Wikipedia and Amazon.

This is a very helpful feature.


-30-

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Another One Goes Down

A friend of mine, and fellow former Marine, died today suddenly from a blot clot dislodged from his leg. This was a man who loved to walk and has been known to do twenty to thirty miles a day. He was also almost exactly a year younger than me.

-30-
One less Marine down here, one more guarding the streets of Heaven.

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A Headline That Sounds Good, but...

House panel approves legal shield for bloggers | Tech News on ZDNet
Further down the story reads: the revised bill attempts to exclude the "casual blogger" from reaping those benefits by stipulating the protections apply only to those who derive "financial gain or livelihood" from the journalistic activity, Boucher said Wednesday.

That broad rule could, however, include part-time writers who receive even a trickle of revenue from Google Ads or Blogads.com.

So, it might be a good idea to sign up for one of the advert links that you
can add to the side of your blog, as can be seen to the right of the
Belltower.com messages. A lot of money is not derived from these
links, but now, if the bill passes both houses and is signed into law,
these links may be buying you added protection.

Wait a second,
do you remember The Untouchables? Wasn't "buying protection" something
rackets did to increase the numbers of their bottom lines?

Hmmmm.

Time to go to actual work and earn a living. -30-

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Spoko's Brain Younger than Belltower News!`

But not by much. His first entry, using a very similar blog style, was in July of 2004. Ours was in May of that year. Because of connection problems, we had no entries in February and March of this year, but we did carry on at Grazing Press until we could get this blog back up.

For those of you who haven't heard of Spocko's Brain, it's a blog that has made International news, most recently on Al Jazeera's English version web cast. The report can be found on You Tube.

This report tells of a David and Goliath struggle between Media Giant ABC and this poor Blogger. ABC won the first battle, but that win became a Cause Internet when EFF picked it up and decided to defend the blog. It's a story all bloggers should read, whether they agree with the tactic used by the blogger to get advertisers to pull out of financing the talk radio the blooger found offensive.

There are enough links here for you to fill out the story. I need to go to bed.

-30-

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ScribeFire got better.

ScribeFire, the blogging addition for FireFox has become MUCH better.

There were a few glitches unique to the Blogger uploads that seemed to have disappeared in this latest version.(1.42)

It also isn't displaying the high ASCII code for double space when I do that out of habit between sentences.

This is a good thing.
=30=

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Did you see the latest?

Did you see the latest Dr. Who on SciFi? There is a scene allegedly shot from what was Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor. It is now called Liberty Island in New Jersey. If you saw the scene of New York Harbor in the 1930's I swear the boat in the picture I took from Ellis Island last month that caps this blog for now.

Almost as good as a Moleskine spotting...

=30=

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Hot weather sucks...

when the air conditioner in the bedroom breaks...

=30=

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Harry Potter Done!!!

Read The Deathly Hallows.

WOW!

Best book of all of them. She did it! (Zen Moment!)

That's all I will say.

One more WOW!

-30-

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Saw It!

I can say this is the worst of the Harry Potter films so far.

The editing was very choppy in places. It felt like the movie was trying either to get on with it, or these were the nasty bits cut out from the American audience.

Most of the main characters had walk-on rolls. The Minister who takes over the school has far too great a role and the actor who played her just didn't play the character as I imagined her to be. More like Chucky from horror genre.

The Ron character hasn't aged well at all. Either that or they should update his hair.

The House Elves were given short rift compared to their roll in the book. The Black family house elf was depicted as this grumbling floor sweeper with no connection to anything.

It reminded me of the total exclusion of Tom Bombidill from the LOtR series. Tom represented the only character in the series connected to Reality and therefore not effected by The Ring. All three movies together seemed to be a decade in length. He should've been included.

As for The Order of Phoenix, I wouldn't rent it to see it again. That about tells it all for this Potter film.

I can say of the books so far, The Order of Phoenix was my least favorite as well. At least the film is consistent with that.

Unless there is a radical change in Director, I don't think I will go to see the next one so close to its release.

-30-

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Harry Potter Movie - Ducking Spoilers

So I can safely browse the Internet, I have to go see the latest Harry Potter movie now.

It's the only way.

I know the story, but I don't know how it was represented on the screen. I can't look through any of my news indicia without seeing a little bit of Harry Potter this and Harry Potter that.

I never thought I would go see a film in self defense. -30-

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Superstitions

I waited until it was past midnight to talk about superstitions.

At a meeting in a hospital on Thursday something was said about something
surely turning out right. There was some subtle tapping on the table
with knuckles. Then one of the meetings members stood up and said to
the presenter that she had to find wood quickly on knock on it. This
was one medical professional to another.

The presenter thought about it for a moment, then walked over to the
wooden door and whacked it loudly a few times. There was a general
sigh of relief in the room.I would say knocking on or, as it is in the UK,
touching wood is probably to most commonly practiced supervision
immediately around me.

Contrary to the opinion of some, this does revolve around me. I write
about what I see, read, feel, touch, hear, taste and so on.

Most people I see knocking do it unconsciously and subtly.

Sit in a bar during a sporting event and say something good about the home team.

Then observe how many people, both men and women, will knock without saying
anything, or in the extreme, moan and knock.

Now what is the second most commons superstitious act around here? I’ll get back to you on that one

-30-

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Sat in an Un-airconditioned Meeting

Along with 47 other people we sat through a community meeting in a large hall with ceiling fans pushing the risen hot air down on our heads. The humidity was palpable.

The meeting was long, with many questions asked for the sake of the questioner hearing their own voice.

All the motions on the warrant were passed.

The one motion from the floor made to speed things up took an extra hour to be voted down. No wonder we all took the summer off before air conditioning and went home at night before electric lights. Now, before Blackberrys and PDA's, how did we function?

Amazingly well.
-30-

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Welcome To GMail

A very good friend of mine has found Gmail.

My sister and Niece have found Gmail.

I Beta tested Gmail and now the entire world has found the best way to send, receive, archive and best of all share, share alike.

I have used 38% of my Gmail storage. I didn't think that would be possible.

A favorite phrase in Worcester County is "Back in the day."

Back in the day I was a sysop in a small California village called San Francisco.

Back in the day, email was for the elite. Now it is for the many.

Come the revolution, we used to say. The revolution has come and it's nothing like we thought it would be.

Where are the clowns?
-30-

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Booger Contemplating The Snow

Thoughts on a 90 degree day.

On a hot day, like today I like to think about this shot that I took two winters ago.

That's our cat, Booger. If you saw his nose you would know why we he acquired that name.

Booger thought it would be a good idea to go for a stroll in the garden. He's originally from Florida. What is in front of him is four of feet snow.

The impression on the snow is the imprint from the door.

Booger decided not to go for a walk.
-30-

Heroes Like Bobby

There are heroes in this world who get medals. There are heroes in this world who get parades. Then there are heroes like Bobby here.

Bobby sees a wall and wants to know what's on the other side; how to get over it, under it, around it. If needed, knock it down.

Bobby thought he would take on the Hudson River. The river welcomed his attention. The people on the river welcomed his attention.

When you have heroes like Bobby, you can sleep at night.

When you have heroes like Bobby you know you live in the right country, on the right side of the country.

-30-

Lots of Talk About Talk

Each morning I peruse the Google News Site.

Some stories, especially in the Tech and Celebrity sections can run on forever.

The one about a study that says women do not talk any more than men has been going on for three days. The latest on TIMESONLINE goes into more detail than most of the other news services. It brings up a reference to The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine that says women's daily word use is an average of 20K compared to 7K for men in a day.

If I was inclined to use more words, I'd explain why that confuses me.

The news is also telling me I should be upset about the pope bringing back the Latin Mass. Oddly enough, I can't get riled up about it, considering all of the rest going on in the world.

-30-

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Missing Months

If you look at the archive listing for this blog, you will see it goes back to the early days of blogging in May of 2004.

If you examine the list carefully, you will also note that February and March of this year are missing. This is because of two major reasons.

I was working so hard that I was diagnosed with clinical exhaustion. Secondly, Registerfly.com, the original registrar and server for this blog did a melt down. I had to change my URL's to other ISP registries.

This time I did not follow the advice of Mark Twain to watch the basket, but spread the names from here to there and back again.

If you were wondering what blog entries I did make during that two month hiatus from Bell Tower News, go to the Grazing Press Blog.
-30-

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See If You Can Pick the Window

Thirty eight years ago I spent the night in one of the apartments whose window you can see in this shot. We had attended a party of people who had worked on a failed political campaign.


I woke to the smell of coffee brewing and cigarette smoke.


I sat up and found I had been sleeping on a couch when my feet hit the back of the person who had slept on the floor in front of the couch.


That's the way it was in mid-town Manhattan - thirty eight years ago.

-30-

Happy Fourth

This is a photo I took of the Statue as we sailed around it on the way to  Ellis Island.

On Ellis Island we saw the name of my son's great grandfather etched into plaque 122.


We also saw the parts of the building that look so well built from the outside, yet obviously rotting on the inside. Whether there was poetic symbolism here, or just a sample of things the way they are, I couldn't say. I took a few shots of the broken windows with feral plants reclaiming the land.


Whatever it all means, we still live in the greatest nation on the planet.


Now instead of trying to export that greatness though force and foolish evangelism, we do it by just living the good life and make people want to emulate or emigrate, the world may one day, a few lifetimes from now, but one day, get it.
-30-

Hero Died Today

Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey died today. He was a great hero of World War II.

I just thought it worth mentioning.

=30=

Back in Focus

Coming back to the first blog makes sense. For various reasons, some of the financial and some merely because construction and maintenance, even though almost wholly in my hands, wasn't worth it. It is no longer a toy, or a gadget. It is now something where I will get back to writing for the sake of writing.

Of course, my Moleskine takes care of most of that, internally, but there are just some things that need to be shouted from the rooftops, echoed in the valley and whispered in the check out line at Hanneford's.

This week should be called Limbo Week. Not for the Caribbean dance, but for the place betwixt heaven and Hades, or the time it takes to get an operator to fix the problem with the credit card. No, not that bad, but close.

Meetings are being canceled, moved, shortened,etc. Why don't we all just admit nothing is getting done and take the week off.The weather could be better for those who enjoy that airy thing you need to walk through to get to your car. I like it just like this.
=30=

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It's Monday Morning or the July 4th Weekend

As I sit here at my home desk getting ready to leave for work, the thought occurred to me, is this the July 4th weekend or is next?  I asked my wife and she, in her wise way, said "Neither.  This is the July 4th week."  Ah!

She may have something there.  It sounds suspiciously French, but still worth creating an Institute or at the very least, a congressional committee to study.  Instead of putting holidays on a Monday, to create the three day weekend; put them on a Wednesday to create the holiday week! 

Pure Genius!

=30=

Look Into My Eyes

The last photo depicting the sock dumping was posted using the Live Writer Software. The problem with that is it can't upload photos to the Google server, except through FTP settings that are too complicated for this late at night.
I have been using the Picasa settings for uploading photos, but forgot that it was done from the installed software and not from the web album. The two have become so integrated that I am not sure if I am working online or on my own laptop.
The new Google documents have become part of my workday. I write all of my drafts on them, in Word style or using the spreadsheet software. I have several collaborators who also share the same workspace even though we are continents and oceans apart. =30=

Photo Post With Live Writer

This is an attempt at writing around a posted photograph of this sock dumping in   Croton-on-Hudson. Sock dumping is the traditional greeting god-daughters giver their god-mothers. 

It is believed this custom started with the Dutch settlers who adapted it from the local indigenous people's custom of dumping flowers.  Originally the Dutch tried it with their wooden clogs, but after a few unexpected fatalities, the switched to socks, clean socks.  This is the tradition that follows us today.  Though it was used in the City of New York until the late 17th Century, it is only in Croton-on-Hudson it is actively used.
=30=

Okay, Now That We've Setup w:Bloggar

In a little side note in the help file mentioned in the last entry regarding w:bloggar, there was a comment regarding Windows Liver Writer.  Being always willing to experiment, I installed it. 
The only problem I was having was with the site URL.  It was totally my fault.  I was putting in the dashboard URL instead of that for the blog itself.  Once I corrected that line, the rest of the installation was automatic.

Let's see how it looks when published...
=30=

Thanks to Samishra - w:Bloggar on Blogger

If this posts on Bell Tower News, it will because of Samisha at his website that explains how to get w:bloggar to work with Blogger Beta. Being that it is no longer beta, I would have thought this problem at been worked out at both the w:bloggar end and the Google end.

The only way to find out if the tip works is to post this message. Here goes.....
=30=

End of Grazing Blogs

For now. The experiment of going to all the possible sources of blogging has come to an end. We will no longer support the many Grazing blogs that were created in the last few years.

Bell Tower News will now be our primary blog. We also have Rye Cake on Blogger and Artistic Grazing but have given them over to other users for specific topics. The broader range of blog topics will stay on Bell Tower News. =30=

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Wikipedia's Censors - High School Sophomores...

This morning's NYT has an article about Wikipedia's 'editorial staff' that anyone interested in how it works should read.

Don't read the author's credentials until you finish the article. =30=

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Scribefire High ASCII Test

I am writing this with the Scribefire WYSIWYG editor and then will view it in the HTML editor, both of which are included in Scribefire.
That was a non-breaking space and this's an apostrophe.
Let's see what all of this looks like in the HTML editor...

It didn't show up in the HTML editor.

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ScibeFire just upgraded

ScibeFire just upgraded itself.

I wanted to see if it was still adding a few lines at the bottom of each message and if it would retain the password for the blogs to which it can publish.

Uh, oh! I just noticed it's replacing the apostrophe and non-breaking space with the high ASCII abbreviation. Now I need to check the settings. It may be the laptop's keyboard, though it isn't doing it when I use the online Blogger editor. Hmmmm...

=30=

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We Only Have One Day

We only have one day off this week, but it is a glorious day.
We just returned from a nice picnic at the Rich Folks house.

Once a year they open their estate for us poor folk to visit.  Some take umbrage at this.

I say, if I only get the one day it's one more than those who don't take advantage.



A well know Town Politician didn't make it because he died last night. I had said good night to him a few weeks ago after a town meeting, but didn't know it would be the last time I saw him. He had lost a lot of weight, but I attributed it to his being healthier.



Impressions can be SO wrong. =30=

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Safari For Windows

The computer experts are putting Safari for Windows down as just another browser, late in the game, full of bugs, etc. |

I've been using it all day. It might be wishful thinking, but it is working very nicely for me. The only problem I have had is with my spell checker. It is not working well inside this message window. It is producing all sorts of weird results when I try to use the single quote. It is bringing up arbitrary words and putting double letters in the front of corrected words. That is a bug for the spell checker.

=30=

This is Fort Popham in Maine. What they are calling “The Patriot’s Day Storm” brought up the piles of driftwood you see along the lee shore.
=30=

Who is this Alexa?

If you Google Belltowernews.com you get something called Alexa Liquors.

We know nothing about this company and has nothing to do with this blog.

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Google Editor Taking Away From Blogging.

After making an entry on to my virtual Moleskine document in Google Documents it occurred to me that there is a lack of entries in the blogs because I have kept a daily account there. It also explains the lack of entries in the real Molesting. 



I need to go back over those entries and see which belong in a blog.=30=

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One of those days...

It has been one of those days. I needed to get to somewhere early to set up. Did that and then spent the rest of the day moving people from one stage to the next and then back for evaluation. The last time, when I just took part without organizing, it was a circus.

This time it went smoothly, but was long. In the background was another low key crisis that kept reigniting itself spontaneously.

That's all I can say on a public blog, but it was good to get it off of my chest.

=30=

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Media Monkey and Foxy Tunes

I stopped using Foxy Tunes when I stopped using iTunes and switched to MediaMonkey.  Then I discovered Foxy Tunes is not limited to iTunes.  If you click on the player choice you will see if covers most of he major media players now used in Windows.

Not a profound statement, considering the state of the world, but it was what was immediately on my mind when I opened ScribeFire.  =30=

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Registerfly flown

There is all sorts of weirdness going on at the company where belltowernews.com was registered. We are at this moment trying to move it all over to PowWeb, Tucows registry and hosting service. 



If Belltowernews. com no longer shows this blog but some sort of weird portal advertising house sales or the like, we are losing the battle.  For now, it seems like we're only halfway. 



The photo you see in the heading is not the photo it's supposed to be.  It's something weird at brdk.net, our other battlefield. 



This is very tiring.  =30=

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Scribefire Blogger Editor

The rock star formerly known as Performancing in is now called ScribeFire.  This is my first attempt at using it to write to Belltowernews.



It seems to have inherited the settings that were already up for Performancing.



=30=

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Firefox Media Plug In

For a while I have been getting a "Plug-in missing" message when MS Mediaplayer files are embedded into a site.

I wanted to see the demo for Phrase Express version 4, but was stymied by this problem. I went to Firefox plug ins and the Extension Mirror for the same with no results.

Then I googled the problem, and came up with this link. I followed the instructions and now the media at least play outside of Firefox in the MS Mediaplayer itself. Not elegant, but I can see the demo now.

=30=

Performancing Gone

The Performancing Firefox extension was causing all sorts of crashes, so I not only disable it, but deleted it from Firefox. Now I am looking for another extension to take its place. The lack of blog entries demonstrates how dependent on it I had become.

=30=