This blog is now more then a year old, quite a milestone for me. Typically I throw a blog up, use it for a few months and then take it down and replace it with something new, overwriting any data that had been there before. I’ve been blogging for years now but all I have to show for it is 12 months of content. If you are stalking me though you could look over at the wayback machine which seems to have a spotty record of me online since 2004. They are missing anything older than that as well as 2006.… Click here to read more!
Review: Nikon D300
Since I bought my Nikon D40 back about a year ago I’ve taken nearly 20,000 shots with it and could not be happier with the device. It does everything I had hoped it would and had a large enough feature set that I could grow into it a bit. I love it. It marks a real turning point for me in terms of becoming a ‘photographer’. One thing to be clear on though, spending money on cameras does not a good photographer make. What the D40 does do for me is allow the camera to get out of the way and let me take pictures.… Click here to read more!
My OLPC Laptop
I’ve spoken about the OLPC laptop before, Twice, in fact. Mine has finally arrived after much wasted time on Fedex’s part. I still prefer UPS. Fedex was supposed to deliver the OLPC on Dec 20th, I didn’t receive it until the 26th. Whoops!
Within the box you find the laptop, a power adapter, the battery, a quickstart guide and a letter from Nicholas Negroponte.
The first thing I noticed was just how small it is. For whatever reason I was expecting it to be about 50% larger. The keyboard is very small and I cannot touch type, I can only hunt and peck with my index fingers.… Click here to read more!
Leave Your Jacket in the Car!
First off, I live in New Hampshire. We have more then 12″ of snow on the ground and the high today is expected to be 25 degrees Fahrenheit. My recommendation to you is to leave you jacket in the car. Always.
Lets look at the facts. Your home is warm, you car is warm (or will be in a minute) and your destination is likely to be warm. So why are you wearing a jacket? How long does it take you to get from the door to the car? Lets be generous and call it 30 seconds. So, when you are ready to leave you put on a jacket, hat, gloves, and boots and dash outside and jump into your car.… Click here to read more!
‘Tis the Christmas Season
Thats right, I said it. I celebrate Christmas and I’m not afraid to say it! It doesn’t bother me that you might celebrate something else or nothing at all. If you are Jewish then please wish me a happy Hanukkah, I promise not to be offended. This current atmosphere or being insanely politically correct is, in fact, crazy.
I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, even if I do say so myself, and I am able to cope with the notion that you might have a different set of beliefs then I do. What is the goal of these people who get so worked up over Christian or Jewish or whatever else references?… Click here to read more!
Using all that you can
Well, the greatest holiday of the year has come and gone and what do we have to show for it? Heaps and heaps of food. Sure, we all know how to make the turkey last, making all manner of turkey recipes for weeks to come but what about the bones? The carcass. You make stock of course!
I’m a meat eater and I have no problem with that. I have a lot of problems with they way meat is produced, hence my on going effort to try to produce at least some of it on my own, but eating meat is not something I find offensive or wrong.… Click here to read more!
Give 1 Get 1 – Today!
I just wanted to a take a moment and post a reminder about the OLPC Give 1 Get 1 program. From today until November 26th you can buy one of these great machines. Basically, for $400 plus shipping, which was about $25 for me, you by two laptops. One is mailed to you and the other one is donated. I’ve posted about this program before but since today is the first day anyone in the US or Canada can just buy one I thought it worth repeating.
I have already ordered mine which they said should arrive in time for the holidays.… Click here to read more!
Waiting in Line for Leopard
For the first time I went to the Apple store to wait in on of their much publicized lines. It was the release of Leopard and I wanted to be there to a get a T-shirt. To be sure I got the software as soon as I legally could I had already pre-ordered online and by the time the store release rolled around at 6 PM I had already installed my copy of leopard on my laptop and my iMac but, as an email Apple sent out mentioned, they were giving away limited edition T-Shirts to the first 500 people at each store….… Click here to read more!
Book Review: The River Cottage Year
As mentioned in a previous post, I bought two of Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall’s books, The River Cottage Year and The River Cottage Meat Book. While I finish reading about raising my own meat I thought I ought to post some of my thoughts about The River Cottage year.
The book is pretty good, it’s well written quite concise. It’s a bit more of a cook book then I was expecting though. Basically it’s broken up into 12 chapters, once for each month and Hugh talks a little bit at the beginning of each chapter about what he is doing at this time of year for his farm, usually about 2 pages worth.… Click here to read more!
Server Woes: Part Two
So, the site has been down a lot lately. Pretty crappy. I’m a cheap guy and have been putting off replacing my UPS for a while now. Basically, even though it’s batteries are old it has always had enough juice in it to smooth over the quick power glitches that happen from time to time. Recently it has failed at that task. I should also add that it was never designed to be used for servers as I’m using it. It was designed for desktop use, a single tower maybe a monitor and a printer…Not three servers, a Raid array and a computer converted into a router.… Click here to read more!