whodawannahuh?

Now for something completely random I learned today. As we all know the '#' symbol is called the "pound symbol," but this is not it's proper name! It's true and proper name is ... the octothorpe! Exciting stuff huh? You can impress your friends, relatives and coworkers by telling them to press the octothorpe next time you need it =p

I need to get back to work on this blog. I've been using my free time lately to read up on computer related things; CSS, car computers, and google talk. Google talk is Google's latest application. There had been a lot of speculation about this program before it came out and to be honest now that it's out it's a bit of a let down. Normally when Google releases a beta application it is a well polished application that revolutionizes something. This time though, their beta application truly is in a beta state. The program doesn't have many features that other programs have, such as file transferring and smilies. The nice things about it though is, it has a very clean interface and is very easy to use especially the talk feature. The main obstacle facing google talk is that it's a late player in the market with a very small user base. With all of that said, I am very excited about Google talk. The reason I am excited is because it is based on an open protocol and Google normally releases an API for their programs. So, I'm excited not for what Google Talk is but what I can foresee it becoming, especially with Google in the process of talking to other companies (such as AOL and yahoo) trying to make their networks inter-operable. Maybe one of these days the instant message scene will be unified all thanks to Google Talk. In the mean time I'll keep using aim as my primary method of chatting but I will be using Google Talk to well... talk =)

I'm sure we have all at some point owned a TI graphing calculator, and I'm sure a lot of us probably had a game or two in it. A few games seem perfectly okay but some people take it WAY too far. The Make Blog posted a link to a site where people have found a way to play movies on their TI calculator. Why would you ever want to do something like this?!!?!? What is the point of downloading a movie onto a graphing calculator, do you really want to watch it with no speakers and a small blurry black and white screen? Even I'm not that geeky, close but not quite there yet ;) This is following the article last week when someone ported Doom onto their TI, apparently it had a really bad frame rate (not surprising if you ask me). People it's a calculator, use it to add and subtract don't try to make it into the worlds smallest pathetic laptop =p

While I didn't post about CSS yesterday I did buy two books from Amazon about it. The books I bought were from O'Reilly's. If you have never read an O'Reilly book you are missing out, they make excellent books on technology. I'm sure in the bookstore you have seem them, their covers are almost always adorned with an animal. I have no idea why they always use animals, they just do and personally I like it. Thinking about it, I have such fond memories of these books. The first HTML book I ever bought was from them, and I definitely had a lot of fun writing my geocities homepage (wow that seems like such a long time ago). The reason I think these books are so good is because they are just well written. They are clea,r concise, and informative. Some technology books jump all over the place or assume too much about what the reader knows. With an O'Reilly book they clearly state what you will need to know and give a logical and clean layout to the book. If you ever need to read up on a something dealing with technology, definitely check out an O'Reilly book first!

Ok so I lied, I will not be posting about CSS today. I got caught up with some other stuff. I know you will all be crushed, but in the spirit of wasting time though here is another one webcomic site... Mac Hall Comics I'm not even going to try and post one of their comics because, they are a lot bigger then the usual three panel strip. Although, I'm a huge fan of their art work, not to mention their writing. It's a great all around comic, I hope you enjoy =)

I feel like I've been absent from this site for a while, probably only about four days. Have no fear though, I have returned and will be making a posting about Cascading Style Sheets today. The post, like all the rest, will be fun and exciting! In the mean time I will leave you with this link to keep your self amused. It's a site called Addicting Games and it has a ton of them! Have fun, just not so much fun you get fired from you job or fail out of college ;)

Yet another geeky comic to pass the time with! This time it's Penny Arcade. Penny Arcade is actually a fairly well known web comic, it has appeared in many publications and has a fairly large loyal following. The comic deals primarily with all kinds of gaming, as well as some very random things thrown in such as the cardboard tube samurai. well... Enjoy!

This is a completely random "article" from the New Yorker that I came across last week. I have no idea why the person wrote it or why it appeared in the New Yorker. If nothing else it is definitely amusing =) By the way, yes I know that image has nothing to do with the actual posting. I was looking for a picture of an anime style alien. I was unable to find one (google image you've failed me!!!!) so I gave up and chose something random that I liked. =p

Have you ever had days that just seem really slow? Well today is definitly one of them. Who knows what causes them to occur but when they do... -_- Hopefully things will pick up, even the sites I read seem slow today. Come on people pick up the pace and keep me occupied!

The past week or two I had set up one of my home computers to run as an SSH server. The purpose of this server was just for the challenge and to see if I could do it, and to learn stuff along the way. Unfortunately Verizon must have noticed the data going to and from my home using that port and they closed most of my ports! While they had all right to do this, since it says in their TOS that you can't run any type of server on your home network. I was still upset though, especially since I was thinking about setting up an apache server and hosting my own website and blog! I spent some time yesterday trying to find a broadband service provider that would allow me to have a server running. I eventually found Verizon business DSL. It was hard to find any pricing for the service, since they check your phone number for availability and then tell me I already have DSL, but I was eventually able to get some details. Their bare minimum service is $39.99 a month, only $10 more than I pay now. Not only are you allowed to have servers running but they also increase your speed to 3mb download and 758kb upload, which would definitely be nice. To get a static IP address they want another $20 a month, but with a dynamic DNS account who needs one of those? Now I just need to decide if I want to upgrade or not... but knowing me I probably will ;)

Another day another link to entertain you and waste your time ;) Today's link is for Guess the Google. It is a rather addicting game that loads in 20 images from Google images based upon a search word. Your job is to guess what keyword they used to get those images! On my first try I was able to get 6/10 of the words, I'm sure I will get better with practice though. Have fun and good luck! =]

Have you ever noticed how every few months a new substance will be found that is good for you? Even if it is not newly found, it suddenly becomes widely known to the general public. Once this happens all people talk about is how certain drinks and foods are good because they contain a high level of this substance. One such example is anti-oxidants. I never heard of these until about a year ago, now all I hear is how good they are for me and what contains them. The latest one I've heard about is flavanols, which is found in chocolate. I think from now on when ever some one comments on the unhealthy food I am currently eating I will say it contains a lot of "endromorphines," which are suppose to be very healthy for you. To make this convincing I will have to be ready to answer what healthy benefits they provide. When talking about health benefits of these substances - anti-oxidants, flavanols and now endromorphines- you have to phrase it in such a way that it counteracts a negative without making a positive. For example if you said "They make me grow taller" people will think the substance is a fake miracle drug, but if you say "It helps keep me from stunting my growth," or if you are older, "Helps keeping me from shrinking" people will believe you. Feel free to use this miracle new substance when ever it suits you. Here are some more reasons why you use it if people ask. "It helps stop bone lose" "They help blood cells flow better" If you can think of any more reasons please add them to the comment sections, I would like to read them =)

For those of you who don't know, there has been a lot of buss lately about the new version of internet explorer (ie7). Originally Microsoft planned on releasing the new version when Windows Vista, the new version of Windows, comes out some time next year. Now they are saying they are going to have a release of ie7 before then. Microsoft says they are moving the release date due to users wanting it sooner, but I think the real reason is because of Firefox. Microsoft is loosing more and more people to the Firefox web browser and they want to stop migration and try and get people to return. Not only that but they are only releasing it for Windows XP and above. From all the information I've read ie7 will indeed have tabbed browsing and built in rss support. Currently the beta 1 version of ie7 does not support the css standard, but on the msdn blog they comment that it will be all set by the final release. The new version is also suppose to have a lot better security and even anti-phising tools. I have no doubt about the increased security since that seems to be what Microsoft is focusing on recently. Persoanlly, I'm looking forward to the new ie7, I've always been a big ie fan, although I'm currently using firefox. I'll definitely download and install the new ie when it comes out though.

Wohoo! Today marks the day this blog past the 1000 visit marker! I'm sure about 50% of those visits are probably from me, checking to see how many visitors I have had or if any new comments were posted. In other news... I actually received a request to do a post about IE7 (internet explorer 7) which just went out to a select group of people in beta form. Later in the day I will make sure to do a post about this, I'm sure you all will be on the edge of your seats in anticipation. In the mean time... another comic I enjoy reading, foxtrot.

I first heard about Make magazine when it first came out, not that long ago. Make magazine is dedicated to, well, making things. It covers items from wiring up your house for VoIP to modding your car. I actually just subscribed to the magazine and am anxiously waiting for my first one in the mail! What I really like about Make magazine's site is the Make blog. Every day they post links to a wide range of interesting projects. It is definitely worth a look, even if you aren't a big tech person they cover a lot of other things too. Enjoy! =)

I'm currently thinking about installing some server software onto one of my home machines, probably Apache, and migrating this blog over to there. The main reason would be just for fun, the secondary reason is it would give me a lot more control over this blog. My only concern about doing this would be getting some free blog software that is comparable to blogspot. It will definitely take me some time to get all of this done, although I'm really looking forward to doing it! =) If anyone has any tips or suggestions definitely let me know. When I was making this post I used google image to find a picture relating to the word "server." When looking through the results I came upon this little guy. Your guess is as good as mine what it has to do with the word "server," but I found it amusing non the less =p

Well that was definitly a refreshing three day weekend. It was so refreshing in fact I can't think of anything to write about =p Rather sad huh?