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I have a bit of a laundry list of things I want to do this weekend, but for some reason I can foresee only a small hand-full getting done. Why? well it’s not ally how long it’s going to take to complete each task, as individually they shouldn’t take that long (well except for overhauls for 2 websites which will probably take a whole weekend each, but lets forget about those for now).  The problem is that they mostly involve my favored tool and toy, my computer.  You know, the piece of equipment that is suppose to make our lives easier, and allow us to get things done faster.  Instead it seems to promote a form of block where time and space comes to a complete stand still immediately around you, while the rest of the world plods on.  This is demonstrated as one looks at the clock and finds they have been working on that one quick thing for roughly 5 hours. 

I’ve been trying to pick apart this phenomenon and it this last case I came up with this sequence of events.

I got a blackberry for Christmas, a week later it turned into a not so wonderful paper weight.  Verizon did replace it, however, I never backed up my address bookthat I had copied over from my old phone, nor had I synced it with outlook.  I did have a printed list, thank you print copies, and after getting home from work (and taking a bit of a nap) I decided to re-add the names.  This should have only taken a hour tops, as I really don’t have a lot of people in my (accordingto outlook I have 25 names in my address book)  So REALLY this shouldn’t take that long.  then all I would have to do is sync up the phone to outlook and done … Right?  Well I get to one person that is also here on Facebook, and I think, hay, why don’t I get their picture off their facebook profile to use as their caller picture.  Of course when I log in, I see that I’ve been “Kidnapped”.  For those that don’t know, Kidnap is a Facebook program that seems to be tied in with the travel channel, and is now one of the few apps I’ll use.  What happens is one of your friends kidnaps you to their evil lair using one of a verity of possible methods (the more you play, the more points you get, the more points you get the more methods you get).  To escape you have to answer a trivia question about the city the kidnappers lair is.  Which is why I like it, because I’m leaning nifty little facts about places around the globe.  See! I don’t totally hate being educated   Anyhow, as I said, seeing as I was kidnapped I “HAD to” escape.  Now, I don’t know if it’s “cheating” or not.  Personally I think it’s the intention of the app to get you to hit the “cheat-sheet” button cause from that point the Travel channel can now start advertising to you. which is why I do it all the time, hmmm someone let me know if I’m wrong.  Anyhow so I hit the cheat-sheet and start researching the answer, finding that, and answering the question leads me to go off and kidnap a few people also.  You know I get points for escaping, so I feel obligated to give others the opportunity to get the same.

With that done, I’m back to the task of getting the picture, however I also then notice status updates, and of course the fact I haven’t updated mine in 2 days.  So first things first comment on how I have a lot to accomplish, but feel like I’m getting no where (Yes Amy, thinks for pointing out that part of the problem was I was on facebook kidnapping people, I know, I know) , then comment on other peoples statuses… then comment on other comments and so on.  Then check the groups.  Oh look a few posts on the blackberry group.  I go to check them out and respond to one.  In the process though I forget the same of the group within Research In Motion(RIM)  that creates the toolkit to make themes on the blackberry (Plazmic).  Now I want to post this response cause I know the answer and like to be helpful, contrary to popular belief some people may have.  Course this means I need to open another tab in the browser and go to the blackberry sites forums and find the post that has the name of the organization that I’m looking for.

Logging in over at blackberry support forums, I see a few posts that interest me, again one question that I know the answer to, and one that I want to know the answer to.  Time continues to tick away as I read though comment after comment on the one.  The good news is I really did know the complete answer to the other one so it, for a change, only took a few seconds to answer.  Then I get back to the process of hunting down the name of the group that makes the theme toolkit.  I do finally find it (it was on page 3 all the posts) and slap my forehead for forgetting.  OF course at this point a more focused person would go back to facebook and answer the question to move back on task.  Ok more the likely a more focused person wouldn’t have been sidetracked to begin with, but I lets forget about that as I didn’t do either.

No instead I think I should check to see if in the past 2 days Plazmic released the tool kit.  So I open another tab in IE and head over to plazmics forms.  First thing I see is that, No, the toolkit is not yet ready (quick rant, as posted in other places… COME ON PLAZMIC.  The Strom has been out for 2 months now, and the Curve 8900 has started rolling out, you should know this as your a division of RIM, what’s taking so long for the CDK????  Ok rant done) Anyhow, I had to add my thoughts to a growing post of people waiting for the toolkit to be released. 

Now with information found, and verified, I can close the Plazmic tab, close the Blackberry tab… ok  Maybe not close that one, cause I’ll just want to go back later anyhow. Tab over to Facebook, answer the post about theme’s now head back to my main page to get that picture… oh look, more updates…….

After finally going though the updates and the returned kidnapper’s I finallyget the picture, and get back into outlook… Total round trip time…… about a hour or so.  With the picture added, I move on to the next address… hay look, they’re in facebook also…… Rinse and repeat.

So all in all it only took me a few hours to add 25 names to my address book, and I wonder why I never seem to get anything done.  The good news about all this.  It gave me something to blog about… look 2 checkmarks off my list for tonight. and it’s only 11pm *sigh*

Edit: Oh and I forgot, i wanted to post this in the middle of the blog, but it didn’t seem right.  I was listening to the Rush CD – Rush in Rio while writing this (and well getting other things done.  Neal Pert is a beast on the drums, ever watch him?  favored songs on the album, ok I like them all but Driven, Resist, and O Baterista (Neals drum solo) really stick out.

Sometimes it’s amazing how things work out.  Now, I’m not a genius in any since of the word.  But, it’s kind of funny how no more the a few minutes ago (relative to the typing of this post) I was just commenting to a friend of mine, about how sanity is “Is a kin to stress.  Stress is when we want to Choke the @#$^ out of someone that probably deserve it but don’t (as quoted from a few tee-shirts, bumper stickers, and a e-mail or 2). Sanity is  merely the ability to not say something that you want to, but maybe should”.  I mentioned I should write a blog post, explaining it more.  Not that my blog is any sort of big deal, but just because it was a place I could put my thoughts down.  So I hit up my favorite first reference, Wikipedia, which granted isn’t the most academically accepted knowledge store, but good enough for me now. As I look up Sanity, I find this:

A theory of sanity was proposed by Alfred Korzybski in his general semantics. He believed that sanity was tied to the structural fit or lack of it between our reactions to the world and what is actually going on in the world. He expressed this notion in a map-territory analogy: “A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”

via Sanity – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I have to laugh cause this is pretty much what I was talking about.  Basically put, what is defined as Sane is based on what we believe to be normal.  See that guy walking down the road talking to himself (not his bluetooth, that’s a different topic), lost it right? Maybe, or maybe he just doesn’t care if the normally internal discussions we have with ourselves are brought out externally.  Because talking to yourself is against Societies norms, then he would be labeled as “lost it”. But again, that is just due to how Society view it.  Here’s the real fun part, Stress is going against what you want to do. You stress out when someone cuts you off because you really want to put your car into their trunk, but don’t want the cost or other related problems.  Stress likewise is generated, when you choke down words or actions because, well they aren’t normal.  You increase your stress when you can’t dance to that song you really like, because if you’re anything like me, trauma teams would be called because someone thought you had a seziure. Now for someone that has “lost their sanity” this isn’t an issue, as they are bopping away happy as can be.  So by constantly maintaining our “Sanity” we are actually stressing ourselves out.

Of course the question then is, should we all dip over if it would make one happier? Well that would be technically impossible (ready for the headache).  For example, if everybody started talking to themselves out loud, then that would be come the norm, and thus, sane.  So we could never truly all lose our sanity, as the bar would then move with society.  Beyond that, really, somethings are better left unsaid out of politeness.

Now, is the loss of sanity the same as being Insane? No, I don’t think so.  There is a difference between where one just doesn’t stop themselves from going outside of socal norms, and when one can not stop themselves due to some physical disorder.  Which, how to detect the difference is probably a topic of discussion of much more learned individuals (doctors, and lawyers) than myself.

So to my friend (Chris) See, guess I’m brighter than I thought, to my niece… No comments about my intellect from the peanut gallery.  To everybody else… Goodnight.

I have a announcement to make! Contrary to popular belief, The Lady in the Lake did not rise, cross the Atlantic, and deliver the Sword Excaliburunto President Obama.  The Oval office did not receive a round table, and the new administration did not don titles of Lord and Lady, and suddenly develop Posh English Accents.

I’m not trying to put a damper on the parties that, as of this writing, are still going on (I heard the new president will be done “for the day” somewhere around 3am for that matter). Yes, I did vote for the other guy. Yes, I would have preferred that my chosen political party would be the ones that bought us out of financial difficulty.  However, my desire of the success of our nation transcends all of that.  So why then would I mock the visions of a new Camelot with this new President? Simple, because, even if he turns out to be a great leader, he’s still human.  President Obama is not the cure for cancer.  To listen to some of his supporters, he will solve ALL our problems.  I should bold that and underline it (well not underline, I hate seeing anything underlined that isn’t a link or a researchcitation) because I swear, some truly believe that it’s every problem.  Just because he took office the Dow should rise (it didn’t) all nations should love us, and be at peace with each other, any form of disease will be cured, all the hungry will have food, no one will be cold, our cars will suddenly have electric motors in them running at 100% (or More) efficiency.  The list goes on and on.  People! He’s only human, and “only” the president.  He still has to contend with the political Machine, which though favorable towards him, still has a state by state agenda.  Nations across the planet look at him, as they should, as a American.  Some nations like our ways, and some don’t.  Who is in office really doesnt’ matter to them as it’s our fundamental ways, that which makes this The United States, is what they like or dislike.  Oh and all the markets went downward today. 

So, if I’m not trying to be a downer, what am I trying to say? Simply put, lets not build up the expectations regarding this presidency well beyond the capabilities of the Office of the President.  Success (hopefully) or fail, we should be judging him on a more human level.  But where would that human level be.  Personaly here are some of the things that I would like to see, things that may still be on the monumental side but don’t defy the laws of physics.

• How about repairing the division that leaders on both sides of the aisle have developed.  Ever notice are sharply people are on politics.  One side or the other, with the middle ground slowly eroding away.  Note I said repair, I think we have some pretty deep seated hostilities here so it might take a while.
• I want my pay check to be more then 3-5% better  each year.  Obviously he can’t order me up a raise, but if each dollarcan get more for my family than what it could in previous years, then that’s the same thing as a raise.  Bonus points if he can do it with out raising taxes, especially unequally.
• I don’t care if other nations like/dislike us.  As long as they have some respect for us, in the sense of don’t make treaties that they intend to break in 2 week (if not less).  I think the one thing that ticked me off about Iraq is all the French and German equipment that we found that the Iraqi’s weren’t suppose to have due to embargoes and such. Thanks guys! Way to be Allies!

Could I come up with more, Sure, but lets just start here. I think that thoese 3 items are big enough to take 4 years to accomplish.   This, granted in my opinion, is in-linewith the sort of things President Obamas’ campaign was talking about.  It’s more down to earh and not the fairy tails that some minds have invented.  If he can come up with even 2 of those, then I’d have to say, rhetoric aside, that he’s doing a pretty good job. 

As I said before, I didn’t vote for him.  But the line of Democrat or Republican is gone now, and won’t matter for 4 more years.  He is my President, our President, the President of the United States of America, and as such, I pray for the best for him, and for our Nation thoughout his term in office.

A leaked version of the Windows 7 Beta got out about a week a head of it’s public release.  Of course that statement alone brings to mind 2 questions.  One, Couldn’t people just wait another week? and two, which is probably more to the truth, How does something leak from Microsoft labs? They probably have more security protocols then Fort Knox, and the employees stock options are making stupid money.  So it seems hard to believe that this could have made it out with out somebodies knowledge.  Odd isn’t it, that this leak happened a week before CES (Consumer Electronics Show) of which Microsoft was / is a keynote speaker for.  Generating a little buzz before you get on stage? Course one thing for sure, I wouldn’t blame them, that’s what marketing departments are for, to come up with stuff like that.

Well with that said, I, along with like 2 million other people or so (would love to see the download / install numbers) went out and Downloaded the official realase this past weekend, and I’m typing this post from the PC It’s installed on.  So far it has proven (I hope) to be indeed beta software, for every couple of cool or even just working features, there’s a gotcha waiting in the wings.  Granted if we’re looking at a Aug, at the earliest release, then there is still plenty of time to work out most of those issues. 

I’m sure, if anybody cares that doesn’t have the beta, you can do a quick google search and find out about all the new features.  So I don’t want to go over that, as its already widely covered.  Instead I’ll pick on something that near and dear to mine and a few friends of mine, and that is about computer games on Windows 7.  Well on that front, it’s been pretty hit or miss.  I’m making sure to submit feedback on this stuff in hopes that it can be fixed before launch.  Because, to be honest, I like everything else about the OS (bugs aside) and really want to pick it up.

So I started with 4 games of verying popularity, ok they are the more recent stuff in my library, and I really don’t have the budget for to many more right now.

• World of Warcraft (with it’s over 11 millon subscribers will probably be installed on a Windows 7 Machine or 2)
• Warhammer Online: A new comer to the MMO set with a few million subs also, Different enough from WoW to find a solid place in the market as long as they keep building on what they have.
• Universe at War: One of the few (maybe close to the first) XBox / PC games that the players from each platform could play against each other Via Games for Windows Live.  Though some would also say, that’s what killed the game.
• Fallout 3: Post Apocalyptic goodness, Won a few awards, rabid following, don’t know what else to say about it, just good.

I didn’t have a problem installing any of these games, I say that with a bit of glee (Chuck: there shall be no Glee) as it pretty much went down hill from there. With one exception, Warhammer online.  Installed and launched (played) with out a problem at all.  And the real funny thing is, I had the least bit of hope for it.  The other three had problems with patching when the game started, Fallout would crash as soon as I hit the play button.

That’s kind of the ugly part.  For the most part I was able to get these games up and running, but adding the Users group to the folders and giving them full control.  This, of course, probably kills off some of the security features within Windows 7.  I suppose many gamers are computer savy enough to understand what I just said to do, but that not all, and we need to make those others happy also. 

Now Fallout 3 is still giving me a little grief when I exit out, but from reading the forums, others are having the same issues on Vista and XP.  So that’s probably more of a game problem then the Beta OS. 

Other then that, Everything is chugging away pretty good, Getting great Frame-rates in Warcraft and warhammer, no lockups when playing.  I can only comment based on what I’ve been told about gaming on Vista PC’s but from what I see, Windows 7 is working as good as XP.  So as soon as the other issues are resolved, yes, I think Windows 7 could indeed be a good gaming platform.

We all have our code of conduct, the rules we live by.  Today I broke one of these personal rules, and I’m reminded why I had made it.  What was this mistake? I was totally ticked off regarding the Governor’s budget proposals. Now, this at first does not seem so bad. Why?  Because watching the news and hearing some other peoples reactions it seems not too many people like this new budget. But here is where my rule comes into play. Simply put it’s:

Don’t trust the news!

Ok that might be a little too simple but it definitely gets to the point (oh and sorry Dave, nothing personal).  A little more accurate would be:

Trust the news to spin it their way!

And there lies the problem.  None of the news stations that I’ve seen so far are above this yet. CNN and FoxNews are my two primary examples.  CNN leans, politically, heavy to the left (I know, people who like to watch it don’t want to admit it, but seriously they do) and Fox has just a steep tilt to the right (yes, I’m a Republican, and I can admit this to be true.  And no I don’t fear losing my card).  I’ve watched both, more Fox than CNN, just due to my mindset towards whose accuracies I can follow better.  

The rule doesn’t stop there though (hence the reason I need to write them down as they can be rather complex) as it’s followed up with:

Check the references

This one I learned back, around late 80′s early 90′s from the movie Real Genius, though I didn’t realize it at the time.  Basically put the Internet has given us a amazing tool where when somebody said they read some “fact” you have the ability to research it.  Granted you have to make sure your research is with credible sources, just try to avoid the news sites as much as possible.  This is simple for the budget article, just go to New York States Division of the Budget site (http://www.budget.state.ny.us/).

I took the time to start reading the state budget.  There’s a 150 page short version, and a 560 page (both numbers are approximants) longer number laden one.  I’m not going to comment on the longer one, cause it’s well…. long (duh!).  So I looked at the “handbook” that broke down a little bit more as to what’s changing.

Ok, so after the read, I’m not quite so infuriated, as there are indeed many good points to it.  This brings me to the point about what is true (and thus, legally printable) and what is accurate. Lets take one of the CNN highlights.

• Plan calls for major reduction in services, including $698 million for schools

OK lets start with the numbers… we see $698 million which to us seems like a rather large number… I mean I’d love to have just 1% of that.  The School Aid Budget line goes from $21,391 million ( or 21.4 Billion for the rest of us) down to $20, 693 million.  So yes it’s true, the Gov is taking $698 million out of a 21 billion dollar budget.  Panic time? Not hardly, plus some of that $698 mil is due to some accounting trickery of money reduced due to the fact that they aren’t increasing the line item.  Basically put, If my pay was suppose to go up $20 next month, but my boss, due to “Trying economic times”, puts the kabosh on it.  He effectively cut $20 from next months budget (No, my wondrous boss, that’s not a hint or suggestion).  And that my friends is the difference between true and accurate, and why one should always research the headlines. 

One thing I do want to say.  After reading this, I’m not totally upset with this budget, like I was when I linked in the CNN article. But it’s still not the perfect solution in my mind.  It seems like there are areas that aren’t touched on at all, and personally I don’t like seeing the budgets of education systems or our police force dropped at all.  Granted that’s me, and that’s how politics works, but still.  There is nowhere in this budget where we see the politicians who will be calling on us to “tighten our belts” to be doing the same in any significant manor. How many staffers do they really need? And what about their payroll.  Granted, it may be that the Governor can’t call for that, but if he is working with the state legislation, then it could / should be added.

I’m sure, as I research this some more I’ll be able to come up with more areas that probably could use some reworking, but it’s getting late now, and I’m starting to lose focus on the issues (that and I was watching Mythbusters while typing this, that does nothing for the concentration).  So ultimately I need to always remember my cardinal rules about the News, and read before I panic.

OK Trying a different theme. The rounded one was nice, but I was never a big fan of the way the post titles came out. Suppose I Could fix it, but.. eh I was suppose to be calling it a night a hour ago.. So I’ll try this one for a bit and see if I like it or not

…. or two weeks untill New Years.  Pick your favoret holiday and go with it.

 I love the guide on the WordPress site (the makers of this blog software) regarding upgrading to the latest version.  It reads: 

The latest stable release of WordPress (Version x.x) is available in two formats from the links to your right. If you have no idea what to do with this download, we recommend …

I really wish there was a nice little software update that I could run, cause I do know what to do with the download, just after work and the party, I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with it.  The problem is, I know me.  If I don’t take care of these things like this right away, they tend to hang around for a while, like months on end.

I guess I could follow the directions and get a free WordPress blog.  Of follow the link that came after recommend to their partners that do facebook hosting and take care of every thing (except mods probably).  I guess (warning matrix reference)  I took the red pill.  I know what having some fasion of control over the software means.  The customization that is possible, which is normaly restricted when you use a free service, or a paid we-take-care-of-everything set up.  Granted yes, I haven’t really delved into it to much but that’s not the point.  The point is, the possibility is still there.  To not have the possiblitly, would just fester in me untill I just went out and got my own set up any how. 

So in the end,  I got over it and upgraded the blog software.  It’s not like it was all that diffacult, more time consuming.  The theme or layout is the same, so it don’t look any different to the viewer (especially if you are viewing from facebook).  It’s definitely different on the admin / author side of it. It’s all nice and good, but I don’t want to bore those who don’t care about it.  If your interested go to wordpress.org I’m pretty sure they have some screen shots somewhere.

You know, (well ok you probably don’t know unless you can read minds… which if you could I’m sure there are some Government agencies that would LOVE to write to you) I had no intention of doing some drawn out tech post, but I guess that’s where my mind was at.  I was going to talk about my facebook experience (as I really got started with it 18 days ago), or Winter driving. Actually now that I think about it a little more It was going to be a rant about the latest from the Nanny State of New York, and why I’m a step closer to moving out.  But I’m going to save that for another day (who knows maybe tommrow) as it’s time I got to sleep.

As always I’m trying something new with the blog site. In the future I would like to make a blog that is on one particular subject, instead of the digital playground that I use this one as. I’m constantly changing things around, trying out this feature, or that software, or some other plug-in, all this just to see how well it works, or how easy to use. This way when the questions come I have a chance at having answers, cause don’t you know, since I work in some aspect of the IT industry that I know EVERYTHING electronic. Another rant for another day…

Anyhow the test for today is using Microsoft Word 2007 to post to my blog. Word does have a blog post template, believe it or not. I’m sure the intention was for SharePoint or Microsoft live, instead of WordPress. Especially now with all the features that the WordPress editor has and how yes, having all the “power” of Word to edit my post, still seems to fall short.

Well let’s run it through its paces.

Let me make this “heading 2″

I’ll put some sort of chart here

I guess I’ll add some smart art here.

And a normal picture

Eh good enough for now, let’s see how well this posts.

EDIT*******

Well I went to post this, but apparently adding pictures is an entirely different challenge. For now, the results are this. Only use word if you feel like making a post and not opening the browser or anything like that. I suppose you could type it up somewhere else, and then load it once you got to an internet connection. Say you were on a hike of some form no internet access but still wanted to keep a daily log. A stretch probably, but you never know. There is a spot in the Account section for picture settings. I’ll check those out and see if I get any better results.

Well the Facebook import was nice, in that it brought in the text of the post (well as well as this post, depending if I decided to turn it off or not) the only “downside” is if people choose to comment it would only be on the facebook page, and not part of the blog, unless they click like 2 or 3 more times just to get to the blog to post there.  

Now the plugin only brings the title of the blog post over, to actually read the blog you have to click to like to be here.  This puts people on the blog if they want to comment, but, since I’m looking at both positives and negitives, causes the window to leave facebook (instead of opening a new window).

I guess what I was hopeing for was someway there could be a 2 way inforamtion flow between facebook and wordpress so that comments could make it to the blog (as if they where being posted on the blog itself) just like the blog post is going from the blog to facebook.

So now the decision for me, it really doesn’t matter where comments are at.  It’s not like I’m trying to generate revinue from my blog and have to show traffic numbers.  So weather or not people actully get to my blog site really don’t make much of a difference.  I do like the little wordpress / wordbook icon that shows up from the plug in, as oppose to the generic note icon from facebook.  Yes its nice to see the full text on my status, but I think a short blurb is a little bit nicer to everybody.  As long as I keep the titles stright, people would know if they want to take the time to click though.. and I suppose I could put either some form of javascript back button, or a least some link back to facebook just to make life easyer if anybody clicks thought.  BUt on the other hand, WHEN would I make these thigns… I know me, that time frame is anywhere from a few days to a few years.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…..

As stated in my last post I started to use Facebook. Now this is all rather new to me and I’m still trying this and that out.  For example, I had found a plug in that when I posted an update on this blog it would make a update on my facebook page.  Nifty huh? well appearetnly there is also a way for facebook to go out and import the the same information… no plug-in needed.  Experience tells me that most apps behave differently, so I’m willing to bet the the plug in, and the import don’t deliver the content to the face book page the same way.  So I’m testing both items… the facebook import and the wordpress plugin (It’s called wordbook, I’ll link it here as soon as I’m done) to see which I like better. 

And here we go!