Loved this comedy bit. I have a couple 12 O’Clock flashers that I have to support and was laughing out loud when I watched this.

via Prajantr

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who startled his neighbors when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the night, was let off for disturbing the peace by police who sympathized with his technical frustrations.

Police in the northern city of Hanover said they would not press charges after responding to calls made by residents in an apartment block who were woken by a loud crash in the early hours of Saturday.

Officers found the street and pavement covered in electronic parts and discovered who the culprit was.

Asked what had driven him to the night-time outburst, the 51-year-old man said he had simply got annoyed with his computer.

“Who hasn’t felt like doing that?” said a police spokesman.

While escaping any official sanction the man was made to clear up the debris.

via: Reuters

I am a geek. I’m sitting at home making straight-through network cables for my patch panel at work. Because it’s FUN to have an orderly closet and I LIKE making my own cables.

Someone call Bellevue please.

My latest client launch: The McCarton Center for Developmental Pediatrics

Graphics once again by the fabulous Beth Benzaquin who has contributed her talents to many of my projects in the past two years.

Ain’t it purty?

Am I the only person that sees the humor/irony in this?

Update for Windows XP (KB922582)
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So, I’m supposed to be on vacation this week. All I’ve done is work. It’s good though. It’s (1) getting a bunch of past due hanging-over-my-head freelance stuff done and (2) doggie rescue stuff. What have I been up to since my last post? Well, let’s see.

*Foster Mom Terra had already named him Hero when I got there. Poor Hero can walk but it’s pretty wobbly and he falls down sometimes. He has a terrible looking skin condition, which the shelter didn’t tell us anything about before we picked him up. The vet we originally went to wanted a fortune, so I called my vet and they squeezed us in at closing time. They examined him and gave him pain meds and an anti-inflamatory and kept him overnight. They ran blood work to rule out thyroid problems or testicular tumors that could be causing the skin condition.

My vet doesn’t think he has any fresh fractures but he has a good bit of muscle deterioration and arthritis. Mostly likely scenario is that this guy never recuperated from a previous accident (notes from the shelter say he has a plate in his hip from before they got him) and then was injured again recently. His general health checks out pretty well though except for the back legs and the skin. The vet thinks with some exercise and physical therapy he could build his muscle tone up to compensate. He’s only about 5 years old, so he’s got some good years left in him if we can get him healthy and neutered and adopted out. He’s definitely adoptable. He was an angel for us. He never complained when we picked him up. He walked as much as he could and we carried him when he got tired. When we were waiting at the vets he laid down and put his head on my leg. He was just so sweet. He’s got the Shiba pride and stubborn streak though. It showed through even though he was tired and in pain.

**The vet decided to keep Hero a second night. He’s resting comfortably. He has Lyme disease and a low thyroid. Nothing serious though. Vet changed his antibiotic to cover the Lyme disease. He got a bath and will get treated with Revolution in the morning. Vet thinks with good nutrition and exercise he’ll be ready to be neutered in a couple weeks and we’ll redo the blood work then too.

***Terra said he’s walking way better already and she has him settled in at her apartment. Her female Shiba wants to PLAAAAY with him, but she’ll have to wait.

I’ve been busy. OK? Just busy, that’s all. Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve been up to since my pre-cocktail pawty post.

And that’s just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head!

I never get any work done when she’s home sick from school. Yesterday, ~T~ (who’s now known as "Miss ~T~" btw) stayed home from school with some sort of stomach thing. She was miserable all day, which meant I pretty much didn’t hear anything from her. Today is a different story. She’s on the mend and she’s IM’ing me CONSTANTLY. A certain blog friend is home from work today and IM’ing me also. My productivity is at an all time low at the moment. On the other hand, I had these gems to LOL at so far this morning:

[12:51] Miss ~T~: I’m so hungery
[12:51] me: so go eat
[12:51] me: hungry not hungery
[12:52] Miss ~T~: ~T~ is cooking
[12:53] Miss ~T~: Should I leave water in instead of pouring out??
[12:53] me: ?
[12:53] me: you should do it however you usually do it
[12:53] Miss ~T~: These are the questions that haunt me
[12:53] me: LOLOLOL

AND

[12:57] Miss ~T~: Seek is licking Snick again
[12:57] Miss ~T~: She stopped
[12:57] me: I love being able to see when there is someone on my blog. it is very cool.
[12:58] Miss ~T~: I see blog people
[12:58] Miss ~T~: Ahhhhh
[12:58] me: LOL
[12:59] Miss ~T~: He he
[12:59] me: when did you grow up and get so funny?

Check out the box in the sidebar… to the right and down a bit. The gray box that says “chat with me.” YES, that one!

Well, what are you waiting for? If it says I’m online, then SAY HELLO!!!

I’ve been using Google Spreadsheets for a long while and I’ve been using Writely for a short while and now they’ve finally combined them into Google Doc and I LOOOOOVVVVVE them for it (among other things).

It really is happening you know… computing is all moving online. I’m almost to the point where I have everything I need, no matter where I am. I carry Portable Firefox, Portable FileZilla, and a handful of necessary files around on my USB stick. I use GMail, Google Calendar, Google Notebook, and Google Docs religiously. When I’m away from GMail, I have my email in my pocket through my Hiptop (T-Mobile Sidekick). My backups are all on Amazon S3. I have to get all my photos stored online, including scanning all the non-digital ones and then my laptop will almost be just a simple workstation!

I love the 21st Century.

If you could see my to do list… we’ll you would likely cry with sympathy.

Saturday morning, I made three lists: mine, ~T~’s and ours. T even added a few things to hers after I finished. It was a very aggressive collection of to do items, but I must say that T and I did some SERIOUS damage to those lists this weekend. I also did a few things that I’d forgotten to write down. What did not happen however was work for any paying clients. I had a bunch that coulda/shoulda been done too. <sigh> There just isn’t enough time in a weekend to do everything that needs to be done. Is that what weekends are supposed to be about?

I also haven’t had time to blog, but here are a few notes:

• ~T~ and I both got T-Mobile Sidekicks (Hiptops) this past Wednesday. We’re both quite enamoured of them. I’ll write about it later this week.
• Secret gets spayed tomorrow, so we’ll be setting a ship date for her soon!
• Benedict and Kaos have NOT left town. They were up in the Bronx for a bit, but I ran into him in the neighborhood a few days ago and several times since then. I met up with him today and gave him Kaos’s paperwork from the vet and got his signature on the city license app, which I’m mailing tomorrow. Plus, he has my phone number again, so he can stay in touch. Kaos looked GREAT, btw.
• I finally admitted to myself that I’m not young anymore… I used moisturizer before bed last night! Since when did I become my mother?
• My list of draft posts keeps growing and they’re so much better than the stuff I actually post. No time. No time. Does that happen to you guys?

That’s it. Got a little more work to do and then I’m off to bed. G’night!

EDIT, EDIT! News Flash! (sort of)… 11:51 PM: I just checked Urban Hund’s website and the new pictures are up and (this is the news) I don’t hate the picture of me and Snick! LOL. Check it out. (From the home page, click into the fall collection and wait for the third slide.) Pretty cute.

• I’m porting the blog to WordPress and redesigning the templates sometime in the next couple months. Fun fun.
• I received some photos last week from a high school reunion that was held this summer. (I’ve never made it home for one.) I’m sad to say I only managed to recognize 4 people out of about 40.
• WATER, IT DOES THE BODY GOOD!
• Snickers is scheduled to take his AKC Canine Good Citizen test on October 24. We have some work to do between now and then.
• Did someone shorten the days to less than 1,440 minutes each and not tell me about it? Lately, I can’t seem to keep up with everything that has to get done in one day.
• A neighborhood friend gave Benedict some dog food for Kaos a couple days ago.
• Why do tourists insist on trying to flag down cabs that are occupied???
• ~T~ is getting a Sidekick. She’s paying for it herself from savings. WOW!

This is very cool. Scientists are using x-rays of fossils to piece together full images of what prehistoric organisms looked like and how they developed!

Paleontologists have been using acid to dissolve the embryo fossils out of rocks for about a decade, focusing on specimens from the time about 500 million years ago when multicellular animals began to proliferate. Tons of rock must be dissolved to retrieve a few hundred embryos, none of which are more than a fraction of a millimeter across.

Until now, Donoghue said, the specimens have mostly been treated as "curios of fossilization."

Using the new technique, he and his colleagues have been able to create cutaways, cross-sections and, by stringing together images of embryos at different stages of development, virtual time-lapse sequences of the animals’ metamorphosis.

The rest of the story can be found here.

One question though, for the people who don’t believe in evolution (not that anyone like that would be reading my blog, so this is rhetorical I guess)… if God snapped his fingers and “creation” started with the Garden of Eden, why did he plant all this evidence to the contrary? To confuse us? To keep us busy? What?

I really wanted to post today’s Dilbert on my blog, but I’m afraid their copyright police will come after me. You’ll just have to click this link instead.

I think I’m about to take another self-imposed hiatus from the blogworld… at least for a few days. I haven’t been able to keep up with reading my favorite blogs, which drives me crazy.

So… I’m going to spend the next few days trying to catch up on my client work (again) and my apartment cleaning (again) and then maybe I’ll be readin’ and writin’ again.

Back in September, I stumbled across a nifty way of tracking what you eat no matter what type of diet you follow - The LifeStyle Scanner. At the time, the service was “coming soon.” I checked again today and I see that it is up and running. I was thinking of trying it both for myself (low carb diet) and for my daughter (eats too many empty calories and no veggies), but their website doesn’t say how much the service COSTS. In their FAQ and on their pricing page it just says “The LifeStyle Management System^TM has a low monthly fee. With your subscription you will receive a LifeStyle Scanner^TM valued at over $100.00.” You have to SIGN UP (meaning give them your email address) before you can even find out the cost. Seeing as how I noticed a couple typos on their site, I don’t have enough confidence in them to sign up without knowing more. Hopefully, they’ll add the price and other info to their site eventually, because I think I’d like to give it a test run.

So, T-Mobile USA released the T809 that I was so excited about. I don’t need it. It is almost EXACTLY like my D500 feature-for-feature. The only differences are:

• the T809 is flatter, but it’s also WIDER (weight is the same) (draw)
• the D500 is tri-band, but the T809 is quad (T809 wins)
• the T809 has IM (but I don’t care cz I IM on my Palm, not my phone (draw)
• the D500 has WAY better battery life (D500 wins)

I’ll stick with the D500, thank you. Between talking and using the GPRS for the Palm, less battery would kill me.

lt is a beautiful morning here in NYC and I am combining several enjoyable activities, I am

1. sitting in the sunshine with Snickers,
2. enjoying my morning coffee, and
3. catching up on my email and my reading list.

This is all made possible by my Palm T|X, because now I can be online at the dog run! Yay!!!

And now, for one of Snick’s favorite weekend activities, we’re off to the local pet store!

I know, I know. I teased you by telling you I got a new toy and then I never posted about it! Sorry. I’ve been a WEE BIT BUSY this month (as in so busy I think my head may explode)!!! If I survive through mid-January, I’m going to need a vacation.

So. Anyway.

I bought a Palm TX. I considered the Life Drive, but settled on the TX because (1) it was cheaper and I’m poor, and (2) it is smaller and lighter.

I wanted something that would

• have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in,
• get email
• not be a phone
• not have a camera
• be small and light
• work with Life Balance
• sync my contacts from Thunderbird Address Book and my calendar for Sunbird
• have a nice size/resolution screen
• edit excel spreadsheets

Although, I’d like for the email to be always on, my other requirements eliminated blackberries (hate ‘em anyway) and Treos (which are way too bulky for my tastes). I decided I only needed email to be on-demand. I also - briefly - considered Windows-based handhelds but couldn’t stand the idea of all the unwanted applications that come bundled into them.

I’d had a Palm Vx years ago and loved it, but stopped carrying it when I got in the habit of taking my laptop almost everywhere. Ever since I got Snick though, I’ve been needing new one. (I don’t take my laptop when I walk the dog and sometimes he and I stay out and about for hours.) I decided on the TX and picked one up locally. So far, I’m really happy with it except (1) there’s no way to sync with Sunbird and Address Book - which I knew before I bought it - and (2) it has this annoying habit of rebooting itself when I switch networks and then open the email or browser.

Having email on demand is fabulous. When I’m near free wi-fi (which is about 80% of the time), I can email and surf really quickly. When I’m NOT near free wi-fi, it connects via Bluetooth to my GPRS enabled phone (Samsung D500). I’m a walking PAN*!!! Just waiting for a good utility to sync my Mozilla stuff and I’ll be all set.

So. I won’t be away from my email for a minute while I’m driving to my sister’s for Christmas this year AND I’ll be able to surf Google Maps if we get lost.

Oh, AND I can mo-blog now! (The note that I had a new toy was my first mobile blog entry.)

Life is good.

*personal area network

mobile blogging that is…

got a new toy… talk later!!!

I was reading this post about a particular keyboard key and started giggling to myself when I realized I don’t even THINK about what keys are called anymore. My keyboard keys are blank, so my thoughts just go brain-to-keyboard now without having to think about how the keys function. It’s kind of neat. I was going to suggest in the comments that everyone just get a Das Keyboard, but someone beat me to it.

And, I just have to say, regarding the keyboard, my mini me sat down to use it the other day and after a couple minutes of exasperated frustration, she totally got the hang of it!

It really does make you type faster once you get used to it. And just by virtue of being full-sized, it also forced me to correct some of the weird finger combinations I was using for keystrokes on my laptop. (This is the first time I’ve used a full size keyboard in 6 or 7 years.)

So… I saw my first episode of Desperate Housewives last night.

A note for those of you who don’t know me personally: I don’t have a television. When my ex and I separated, I was more than happy to let him take the TV and to NOT buy one for ~T~ and me. ~T~ was not too happy about that in the beginning, but soon she was telling me how much longer her weekends seemed without time falling into the sinkhole that is television. At first, I didn’t notice much of a cultural loss - I had mostly watched L&O reruns anyway. I didn’t realize though that TV was still feeding me references to popular culture. Only after about two years did I start to feel like I was missing something. For example, Desperate Housewives is a phenomena that I’ve been completely clueless about. Until last night, that is.

Since iTunes 6 came out, ~T~ has downloaded and watched several episodes of A Suite Life and of That’s So Raven. I decided last night to give it whirl myself, so I bought the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives.

<sigh>

I’m downloading the second episode right now. If I like it as much as the first one, I may just buy the whole season. It is still way better than having a TV though, because (1) there are no commercials, (2) I can’t just turn it on and get distracted by whatever is on and (3) nothing comes on AFTER whatever I am watching. At least this way I have to make a conscious decision to take 40 minutes out of my busy schedule to do something completely frivolous and when it’s over, it’s over!

I hope. <grin>

According to Gizmodo, this will be the phone of my dreams. Wheee!

http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/hands-on-the-samsung-sght809-verdict-hello-lover-134134.php

If this GPS dog collar were just a little smaller, I’d be all over it. Snick’s never run off, but I totally stress and worry about it all the time. If there were a way to have this on him without the collar, that would be even better, because the most likely scenario if he is running loose is that he slipped his collar when we were out walking.

[via Gizmodo]

I must have this phone when it comes out. According to MobileBurn, Samsung should be announcing the SGH-T809 in the next couple months. It looks a lot like my SGH-D500 only smaller. Whee!

…and I didn’t know it.

I have this nifty Samsung phone that has only been released in Europe. It’s the SGH-D500. I’ve loved it desperately from the moment I got it. It’s slick. It slides. It has bluetooth. It plays techno (with the built in MP3 player) when I get calls. It does POP email. It even has software to let me IR the info from my SIM to my laptop. It’s a Samsung. (My last four phones have all been Samsung. LOVE THEM.)

However, I think having a camera in a phone is kind of silly. Whose idea was this? I’d prefer a smaller, lighter phone thank you! So, why do I have a camera phone, you ask? Well, because I have bluetooth and there were only a couple phones I liked with bluetooth and email; they both had cameras. It also records video.

So, anyway, since I have it, I use it now and again. I’d use it more, but it takes terrible pictures in dim light. Now - 3 or 4 months after I got the thing - I realize it has a flash!

That’s all. I just felt like a dimwit is all.

I’m working on a website for an off-broadway theater in my neighborhood. I was supposed to be finished yesterday, so, of course, I should be rushing, but as I was flipping through CDs full of photos to pick photos for the site, I found a series of the client and her dog goofing off during a photo call. I couldn’t help myself…

Now that I’ve seen it, it’s amazing to me that no one thought of this a long time ago. I’m ordering one today - maybe two or three!

The Power Squid from Think Geek is a power strip, without the strip! Finally, a easy way to plug in all the adapters for my computer peripherals and mobile chargers.

[via Gizmodo]

Now HERE is a nifty use of existing technologies. They aren’t quite up and running yet, but when they are (depending on the cost, of course), I am all over the Lifestyle Scanner!

It’s a keyring barcode scanner. You scan everything you eat and their website compares it to the nutritional goals you’ve set (based on your particular diet). They even have a database of foods for the things you can’t scan.

Now, I wonder what it will cost…

My sister sent me an iPod shuffle! You rock Sis! Thanks!

Yesterday, I had five (5) cups of coffee and two Diet Cokes. I am on my third coffee today. But something isn’t right. I feel like there is a fog machine running in my head. Is my coffee broken?

Someone told me recently about this thing called sleep. It supposed to be like a reboot for humans - clears your mind, puts your memory back in order, helps you think faster. They say it has been around for a long while and is very well tested. I remain trepidacious though. From what I hear, it is very time consuming. That is billed as a feature, but it sounds like a bug to me.

Has anyone tried this? How does it work?

I just hooked up THREE new goodies to my laptop. Count ‘em… not one, not two, but three!!! Ahhh… I’m so happy I can’t even write about it yet.

<time goes by. J goes to and returns from the dog run.>

I’m a little freaked out. I just looked at Life Balance on my new monitor and realized that little calendar in the bottom corner is actually USEFUL in the month view… it has DETAILS! I never knew! (That stuff doesn’t show up on my 12″ laptop screen.) How bizarre! I’ve been using my laptop without a monitor for so long that I’d forgotten I was missing stuff.

Ah. So, now you know what one of my new gadgets is. <g>

Now, I’ll tell my happy secret. I have a Samsung SyncMaster912n (good lord, it’s big), Das Keyboard (what? you don’t know Das Keyboard?), and a Kensington Orbit Optical Mouse (which fits my hand a lot better than the Logitech Marbleball I’ve been using).

<happy sigh>

Oh, and apparently, my brain types a LOT faster when I stop paying attention. Whee!

Great WIRED article about how no one could have foreseen today’s Web 10 years ago. What will it be like in 10 more years?

Is anyone else amazed by how simply wonderful this is?

OK, I must admit, sometimes on a Saturday morning when I’ve left Snick to wait in the apt building lobby while I run to Starbucks for a frap, I get in the LLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG line and I think "I wish I could call Snick and tell him not to worry, that I’ll be back soon." Um, but… then I come to my senses!

1. He’s a dog.
2. He wouldn’t know what I was saying even if I could call him and he could somehow answer.
3. HE’S A DOG.

So, when I saw this cell phone collar for pets (which hasn’t actually been released, by the way), I couldn’t help but wonder… if I put one of these on Snick and then called him from Starbucks, wouldn’t he be just a bit confused when my voice suddenly came out of the side of his neck???

I’m all for applying existing technology in new ways, but this one doesn’t make sense to me.

[product discovery via techiedivas]

I am repeatedly flummoxed by the fact that I cannot wear my bluetooth earpiece and my sunglasses at the same time.

Not long ago I thought "wouldn’t it be cool if google maps would show the map AND the satellite image at the same time?". THEY HAVE IT! Just click on "hybrid" and you get the satellite image with a map overlay. Now _that_ is cool.

OK, no one likes to admit when they are wrong. Knowing how difficult it is, I try to be aware of when I need to do it and just DO IT and move on.

So… ahem… with no further ado… I was wrong about Life Balance.

It seems to be working pretty darn well. I’ve even started using the balancing part of it. First, the things I was wrong about:
Read the rest of this entry »

Now I am remembering the things I didn’t like when I tried Life Balance a few months ago. I’m going to try and see it through though and put my whole task list in before I give up.

1. It doesn’t actually have categories. I think I can get around that by making several overall tasks that are actually categories and then making all the tasks sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks and sub… well, you get the idea.
2. I don’t like the balancing concept at all. I’m telling it every single task is "essential" to my life balance!
3. If I schedule a recurring task (or routine task as LB calls it), the first one shows up as PAST DUE when I put it in. There’s no way to give it a due date. The recurrence rules aren’t very sophisticated either; all you get is every day, week, month, etc… you can’t say every second Wednesday of every month and you can’t set exceptions.

OK, I’m getting pretty frustrated at this point. My favorite software in this whole process so far has really been VIP Organizer. If only it could handle dependencies. Seriously… do I really need to be reminded that Snick’s heartworm pill is past due if I haven’t refilled the Rx yet? NO! I only need to be reminded to call the vet. Without dependencies, there is just too much clutter on my list. I’m confused, overworked, ineffective and unproductive. I need some peace, not more chaos.

Spoke to my sister and she’s been looking for something for TWO YEARS. Read a bunch of blogs on productivity and everyone seems to be happy with Life Balance. Hmmm… maybe I should try it again and set it up differently this time. My sister suggested giving every life goal the same priority. That would help keep it from changing my task priorities around. Maybe I won’t put actual life goals in there. Maybe I should just use those as super categories.

I think I’ll try it. We’ll see how it goes.

I finally decided today that I have to get a handle on my task list or just go hide under a rock somewhere. Since hiding under a rock doesn’t pay well enough to cover T’s tuition (or Snickers’ rawhide addiction), I decided to go with the former.

This evening I took time off from scrambling furiously and ineffectively from task to task to research, download, evaluate, uninstall and delete various task management solutions.

History: I’ve kept my task list in my Palm software for ages. Simple and convenient with a clean interface, but unfortunately not cutting it for me any more. A few weeks ago, I moved my calendar data out of Palm and into Sunbird (Mozilla’s standalone calendar project). This was GREAT because Sunbird is iCal compliant and now I can publish and share a calendar with my daughter. Unfortunately, the task list leaves MUCH to be desired - namely the ability to set up recurring tasks.
Read the rest of this entry »