Windows Update

Every so often, I pay a little visit to Windows Update, like a good little Windows user. This morning I did just that on my wife's laptop since I'm using it while in L.A. this week. It turns out there were a couple of updates that she did need. (I guess?) But the most bizarre thing I saw actually had me laugh out loud while sitting in Starbucks.

Here's a Windows Update item that you might be interested in... purely for its comic value. (Click image for larger version).

Wow. Basically, put another way, the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" does not actually transfer files and settings -- despite its rather misleading moniker -- and this 794k update is all that's missing to make the utility work.

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 4

Woo! I finally got my microphone back from Steve! And I actually had time to record the latest mathcaddy radio session. Enjoy! Or don't. It's up to you, I guess.

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 4

01: Sufjan Stevens - "Holland"

02: Wilco - "Poor Places" (live)

03: Ryan Adams - "The Fools We Are as Men" (live)

04: Cat Power - "I Don't Blame You"

05: Jennifer Bresnahan - "American Girl"

06: Modest Mouse - "Float On"

[31 MB MP3 :: 34 Minutes]

Leaving the Country or at Least the State

I'm headed to Pasadena for a week starting Tuesday. Either I will find a good wifi spot or I won't. And if I don't, this site may look even less updated from my end than it has for the past week. (I was also out of town for part of the week last week but without any internet at all.) Hopefully things pick up shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the Daily Show's online clips. There's some pretty darn funny stuff there. In fact, now that I don't have cable, it's the one thing I miss. (The weird thing about that is, when I did have cable, I didn't watch it.)

Yo!

I think that this must be the "deluxe" version of Microsoft's Office flagship product. Don't click on the link if you are offended by mild language, even though it is funny as crap. However, for those who ARE offended by language, please click here. Thank you.

Get Lindows Linspire for free

Lindows -- now Linspire -- is currently available for free over BitTorrent. (Link) It's an incredibly well done professional linux distro for non-linux folks wanting to see what it's all about. I have been messing around with a paid copy of LindowsOS for some time (49.95!) and I really like it. There are a number of features that actually make it a better option for someone completely new to using a computer. It's very well thought out - the click 'n run feature is by far the most unique and helpful idea ever for new users looking to seamlessly add software to their systems.

The (Bizzarely) Illustrated 10 Commandments

As most of our regular readers know, I'm a pastor. Occasionally, I get to clean up and throw out old junk around the church. Sometimes when I do, I find some peculiar stuff. Very, very old Sunday School curriculum is always the most interesting - and the older the better. (The youth ministries stuff that contains slang from the 60s and 70s is a riot.) Well, anyway, a few years ago, I happened to be cleaning up a storage room and came across this poster, which I found to be quite funny. (Personally, I don't find the 10 Commandments themselves humorous, but I sure did find this 10 Commandments Poster to be enormously hilarious.)

Here are the illustrated 10 commandments from the poster, along with my reaction to each of them. The thumbnails all have links to larger images for your viewing pleasure.

Commandment 1:
You shall have no other gods before me.
In addition to having no other gods before me, also be sure not to make large stacks of coins or currency in front of your TV, as it will most certainly restrict your viewing of "All My Children" reruns. Also, if your television set ever chants "FAME MONEY POWER," get a stone monk thing and put it next to the TV. It will distract the people inside.

Commandment 10:
You shall not covet... anything that belongs to your neighbor.
If your neighbor has a fur coat like that, you don't want it anyway! Trust me. You'll be way better off without it!

Oh Yes Wyoming Lyrics

I noticed that Mathcaddy's top search phrase was "Oh Yes Wyoming Lyrics." I am just here to give the people what they want. I thought that the Wyoming fans might also want their very own copy of "Oh Yes Wyoming!" so here it is.

Oh Yes Wyoming!

"Oh Yes Wyoming!
With the trees and the horses and the rocks and the sheep

Oh Yes I'm Going!
Through the plains and the trails
and the streams and the hills

Oh No Nebraska!
Is there a plainer state I ask ya?

Oh Yes Wyoming!
There's no place I'd rather be roaming
With the geysers and the canyons and the watering holes
With the geysers and the canyons and the watering holes

Oh Yes Wyoming!
With the mountains and the lakes
and the plentiful fish

Oh Yes I'm Knowing!
This land will fulfill my every wish

Oh No Dakota!
Doesn't interest me one i-ota

Oh Yes Wyoming!
There's no place I'd rather be roaming

(Spoken)
"Hey Zinc!
What is it Antelope Joe?
You know, I love them girls back in Wyoming
I heard you love the geesyrs too
It's gysers, and anyways that's just a rumor
I'm talking about my special girl Daisy
I call her Old Faithful
I heard she aint that faithful
She sure is old though!"
(Laughter)

Oh Yes Wyoming!
With the cabins and the camping and the bakin' beans

Oh Yes I'm Glowing!
With the bison and the banjos and the wily racoons

Oh No Ohio!
I can hardly wait to say goodbye-oh

Oh Yes Wyoming!
There's no place I'd rather be...
Ends with m-i-n-g...
Shout it out loud with me
W-Y-O-M-I-N-G

Oh Yes!

Posted by Steve at 10:47 PM | Comments (10)

1984

I hate to always post about things that I read on daypop and popdex, but they are usually just that cool and make me want to post about them. Anyways, does this sound like Big Brother to anyone else?

Free Culture

I can't stand reading anything extremely long on the computer. This includes the Free Culture e-book. So naturally I went to purchase this book so that I could read its greatness in the luxury of not using a computer. My sister took me to Barnes and Noble so that I could buy the book and Battlefield: Vietnam! Once I got there I realized that I couldn't buy both of these things, or even one. So I decided that I would borrow money from my sister and buy the game. It made sense to buy the game because I knew that I could get the game now and then maybe persuade my mom into buying me the book, I wouldn't be able to persuade her to buy me the game. So I got home and asked my mom to buy me the book and she asked me what it was about. I was prepared for this and told her that it was about 'How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.' She immediately said that she wouldn't buy it for me because it had do to with Adam and his fight to change copyright policies! That is absolutely silly, this book was not written by Adam! Then she told me that I could just go and buy the book myself, to which I responded that I would just go and read the book for free online! Anyways, we are not allowed to talk about Adam in our house anymore.

Adam, how do you set up a Paypal donation account so that people can send my mom money to buy the book for me?

Gmail: first look

"April Fools turned into Christmas very fast." The screen shots have circulated a bit, but Sean Palmer gives an early review of gmail. One interesting comment of note:

"I'm told that there will even be a way for users to export email in case they want to switch to another system..."

But will there be a way to import from another system? I would love to take my Outlook .PST and Googlize it!

iTunes Always on Top

I like iTunes. I like Winamp. I use both. But the thing that kills me about iTunes is the fact that you can't have its mini-player "Always on top" like you can with Winamp. iTunesOnTop takes care of that.

Hey, Punk. Weblog This.

Wow! Thanks to Joseph of Make-Believe.org, I am using Sauce Reader 1.3 to post this. It seems there's a small wave of new "blog this" type tools just now arriving. Scoble has been talking about his new "Magic Folder" (OutlookMT) from Kunal. And now Sauce Reader's latest upgrade includes this feature. This brings me to another point: I probably need to rewrite my aggregator review now that I'm not using RSSReader as my default. Maybe I'll get to that today.

Put Me Out of My Misery

I'm watching Something's Gotta Give with my wife and folks. Let's just say I'm glad I grabbed my mom's laptop before we started the movie. It's the worst one I've seen this year! Maybe in the last few years! Seriously horrible! Whee!

Seinfeld + Superman

After many annoying popups from AIM I actually looked at them and one sparked my interest. A seinfeld and superman webisode! I had no idea what a was, or have any idea what it is now, but what could be better than Jerry Seinfeld and Superman in one togethor? After watching it I thought that it was pretty funny and you might too. Maybe.

The Dr. is In (the Op/Ed Page)

Dr. Suess drew political cartoons?

Feed Me: In Search of the Perfect News Aggregator

RSS. You've probably heard of it. Maybe you haven't. But it is "The Thing" on the Internet today - and has been for sometime among most bloggers.

If you're unfamiliar the concept works like this. Remember when "content delivery straight to your desktop" was the big wave? I think it was around 1997. The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape both had "channels." The idea was great, but it didn't take off and it wasn't applied well. Today, the concept has been much refined as it has evolved into RSS and Atom.

I have been reading news feeds for quite a while. They're the quickest way to sift through many web pages in minutes. Along the way, you'll find yourself using your RSS reader first and then your browser to read sites you regularly frequent. With my RSS reader, I can tell at a glance if some of the sites I visit often have been updated, which saves me from checking on four or five at once.

The difficulty I've had is that I can't ever decide and stick to a specific reader. I find little frustrations with one and turn to another too frequently. FeedReader seemed occasionally unstable. NewsGator gave Outlook problems occasionally. The otherwise superb FeedDemon doesn't (to my knowledge) allow a complete "at a glance" view of all your feeds listed on the left pane, and instead forces you to pick a category. All the web-based RSS readers I've tried (including AmphetaDesk, WinRSS) seem too clunky to me.

SharpReader, , NewzCrawler, RSSBandit, and RSSReader are pretty similar upon first glance. Some are free, some are shareware, some are better than others. All depend on .NET.

FeedDemon, to me, is so close to being perfect, it's just painful. The brilliant idea of creating a well laid out - and easily styled "newspaper page" of a group of feeds is very appealing. I was so impressed with it that I didn't mind the concept's shortcomings until after the novelty wore off. The problem with this wonderful feature is that some feeds should be given the flexibility to take up more or less space on these newspaper pages. The ability to customize this to a greater degree by "prioritizing" feeds within the layout page would make it very practical. With this feature taken to the full extent, you have the potential of building your own version of Google News. Without it, the feature is merely a unique idea.

Do I sound picky? I am when it comes to applications that I use on a daily basis.

But I think I have finally settled on one RSS aggregator: RSSReader. At least I've stuck with it longer than any of the others I've used!

The only two features I would add to it would be FeedDemon's "newspaper" concept and tabbed browsing windows - and I can live without these for now.

I might end up moving to FeedDemon, but for getting a quick glance through a ton of information, RSSReader does it quickly, simply, and elegantly. It has the best import/export feature of any of the readers I've used, which is great since any day I use at least four different computers. Plus, it's 100% freeware.

To Enjoy RSS on RSSReader:

If you haven't already, install Microsoft's .NET Framework(required prior to installation of RSSReader)

Download and install RSSReader

And to get you started, you can import a short sampling of my list of RSS feeds I frequent.

Will I stick with RSSReader forever? Maybe not. I could see myself shelling out the 30 bucks for FeedDemon if it progresses a little more in the areas I described, as I'd expect it to. But until then, RSSReader gets the job done. And done well.

------

For more information on RSS Readers, I recommend this wiki, which gives very quick information on a number of RSS Readers, as well as links.

If RSS is a part of your Internet reading, what do you use? I am still in search of the best and most flexible

------

(By the way, I also like Steven Garrity's idea of using the new web-based kinja as a simple public weblog aggregator. With a little more customizable design, I think it would function enjoyably in this way.)

Sheesh. I am all about customization today!

Sneaky, Sneaky AMD

AMD has been sneaking around. They don't want to get caught. But ExtremeTech has caught them! Ha! And boy, have they caught them!

It seems AMD was being so sneaky they actually were described as doing something "quietly" in a headline. That's impressive sneakfulness, if you ask me.

See here: "AMD Quietly Launches Athlon64 2800+"

I want to see more headlines containing the word quietly:

"Mice Quietly Sneak Into Kitchen For Some Cheese"

Or maybe... more headlines using the phrase "Quietly Launches":

"North Korea Quietly Launches Nuclear Missiles"

"McDonald's Quietly Launches Fat People"

"Batman Quietly Launches Robin from Front Seat of Batmobile on Accident"

April Fools?

Did anyone else notice the new job openings at Google? I can't tell if this is an April Fools day joke or not. It just seems too good to be true.

I Found This in the Desert.

Being a warm and beautiful spring-ish day, I decided this afternoon to go for a walk out in the desert behind the church (where I work). For those of you who aren't familiar, washington state does indeed have a desert! No, seriously. No April Fool's joke! (See illustrated map.)

There are those who think desert country is not much to look at, but having made my home in the low desert of Eastern Washington for most of my life, I greatly appreciate both its beauty and its climate. I am actually afraid of precipitation. I had friends in college from Seattle who teased me when it would just sprinkle because I always had to have a rain jacket.

Rain confuses me. It's a little like being repeatedly smacked in the face, very lightly. At first, it's cute. And then you just want it to STOP! Luckily, here when it rains, it's usually at night, so I don't have to yell at the sky out loud. But sometimes I do anyway.

Anyway, I was out walking in the middle of the wonderful little nameless desert hill in South Richland and I stumbled upon some not so deserty things. The first being that little dandelion that seemed to just poke some color defiantly into the brown nose of the desert. This particular little plant could be seen from a great distance and I did not spot any others like it nearby. I do have to admit, I was a little confused about how, exactly, there came to be a single dandelion growing in the middle of this desert without another one in sight!

Aha! That's where that miniature flower garden came from! I believe the old saying is "if you irrigate, they will come." Meaning dandelions. These two (the sprinkler and the dandelion) must just be some of the first residents of what is currently quite "unsettled" land.

Dandelions really are a funny sort of thing. My dad and practically every other person who has a lawn hates them with a deep passion. I personally don't get it. I think a couple of them kind of spice up a boring green lawn. But that doesn't seem to be concensus among lawn wranglers.

And this? A strip of cut sod - over a half a mile from any house or lawn! We have some pretty strong winds in the Tri-Cities, but I would count myself amazed if this got so far into the desert by gusts alone! Maybe it followed the sprinkler out here!

Have you ever seen a sod farm? They're nearly the craziest sights imaginable. It's like you're staring at acres and acres of beautiful parks. But they're really just Future Lawns of Suburban Families. It's a little troubling that we have to have people literally farm our grass before it gets to our house. I wonder if they call it a grass "nursery" just after they've planted it.

Ah, spring... When birds turn to making nests... out of leaves, twigs, brush, caution tape, and an orange plastic bin. Sigh. You may have heard before, "The solution to pollution is dilution." Interesting concept, but dead wrong. The solution to pollution is actually to have birds build nests out of it! Hmm... Where's Woodsy the Owl when you need his spokespersonry? Spokespersonhood? Spokespersonity? Spocompton?

Yes, it was a little troubling to see such a great deal of litter so far out into the desert. But what was very disturbing to me was this. A Bruchi's napkin discarded. First, who on earth would do something so horrible as to discard their napkin to have it blow away into the desert? And second, WHY DIDN'T THEY PUT THEIR NAPKIN IN THEIR LAP?

(By the way, can you tell I once again have access to a professional digital camera? Now, if only I knew how it worked...)

April 2nd

I would have waited until midnight to post this, but I like to sleep. After posting my april fools day joke i felt obligated to fix the second edition of one hour news. So I did! But not only did i stop there, I also fixed the network problems that have been plaguing our home network basically since we have gotten it. I feel like such a genuis! And an idiot to because I didn't fix it earlier. Oh well, to the victor goes the spoils. Which is a great quote or something, buthas no reasonable application here in this post at all.

"Mathcaddy: One Hour News: Session 2"

April Fools

Well I finally got around to making my mathcaddy radio and fixing the problems with the second edition of one hour news. HAHAHAHA, man that was a good one.