I am still hanging around, but have not had time to post. I am archiving things to post....of course I have done that before....I have word documents upon word documents (probably 50 or so pages that I have written to post but never finished or never got around to it).
I just dropped by to say a few things:
1. I bought a
Rio Carbon. Its the smallest MP3 player I have owned to date, and has the most space for music of any portable device that I own. Its small enough to fit in the palm of my hand (actually smaller than my palm). Its also extremely thin. Its just over a half inch thick. It holds 5000MB (not really 5GB, more like 4.6GB) which is plenty for something of that size. It also had a few requirements which was to play WMA and to support USB 2.0. My very first MP3 player that I had in 1998 was a Diamond Rio (which I was extremly pleased with and still have), and it looks like the latest in the Rio family also does the name justice. I will continue to report on my experience. I LOVE the fact that I plugged it into my media center and without any drivers, the media center asked if I wanted to start syncing my highest rates songs, newest songs, etc. (you can define the rules) I was happy that its just so easy to sync music based on a set of rules (since I have a lot of music). I plan on making some detailed rules that cover various sets of songs I can use.
2. ARGH!!!! WHY DOES AIM CONTINUE TO DISABLE MSN???
DID EVERYONE KNOW THAT? WHEN YOU RUN AIM, SOME VERSIONS (mine does) WILL ACTUALLY STOP MSN FROM STARTING AUTOMATICALLY ON REBOOT EVEN IF YOU CHANGE THE SETTING TO ALLOW IT. MICROSOFT WOULD NEVER GET AWAY WITH THAT! IT WOULD BE THE TOP STORY ON SLASHDOT AND THE REGISTER. ANDREW ORLOWSKI WOULD HAVE A FIELD DAY! (Yes, the caps mean I am shouting, its extremely annoying...)
3. Set up a
MSN Spaces site. I will not link to it or talk about it more until they fix my known bug that I found.
4. Having SERIOUS workflow problems with my blogs that I read. I now have over 8000 unread entries waiting in RSS bandit. (I dont think I can catch up.) Its consistently taking more than 2 hours a day. That does not cut it. I need it to take on the order of minutes a day to read what I want. So I am probably going to trim down DRASTICALLY what I read.
5. Have ipodder installed in the car now. I listened to Al Franken in the car via an ipodder download the other day. Cool...need to use this more.
6. I have a new bluetooth adapter in the car (the linksys with the significantly large antenna). It means I can leave my phone in my pocket and it connects to the internet just fine. :) I also have a new wireless card. NOT USB this time, but this pci card has an external antenna port, so I can get a more receptive and more powerful antenna for the car. I have netstumbler installed now and have been doing some war driving, its really powerful even with the default antenna. I am pleased.
7. Been working a TON on media center over the last month or two. I have it doing a lot now like watching HD over Comcast without using the set top box. :) It can also archive DVDs and recompress the TV shows I save to smaller sizes as well. It still needs a better case, a better location, and a DVD burner though...but all in good time.
8. Finally sold the fully enclosed rack I had this server in. It was only one of two machines that were powered in the rack. No reason to keep a 7`x33"x24" 420lb cabinet around for only two machines... The person I sold it to got a great deal on it. I should actually have a regular looking office within the next few months.
9. Got a REALLY COOL device called a
Cell Socket. Its a charging station for my phone that has a POTS port on the back (thats Plain Old Telephone Service) that can connect to any phone jack and allow you to use all the phones in your house with your cell phone. Of course I canceled my home phone service a while ago and was looking to just use a regular phone again. I tried VOIP with the linksys PAP2, but its LOCKED and vonage sucks....so screw VOIP, its not ready for me....the cell socket works better anyways. I really wish that I had more than one sim chip though. I have 4 GSM phones now that can all work on the tmobile network, but I have to move the SIM chip between them (which means I can not leave one phone in the cradle and take another one with me, etc). Oh well.
10. One thing special that I was working on will be announced later...stay tuned, but its really cool and I am glad I was given the opportunity to be involved.
11. Going to the gym usually 3 times a week now (Tue, Thurs, and Sun). Sunday is for the treadmill where I usually can walk/run more than 4 miles in 60 mins. It means that I am basically tired all of the time, but at the same time, when I am not tired, I am feeling better than before and losing weight as well.
12. LITERALLY working on a TON of other things. I could list out my status on at least 10 other projects right now...and thats not including work at all. Also, work has really picked up (thats ok though because I love being able to get a lot done, it makes me feel really productive).
Ok, enough for now. I REALLY could go on there are SO many things going on in life right now. Please feel free to email or IM me with questions. (Or email me for my IM addresses)
J.P.