Posts from — December 2004

Continuing my ‘Best Of’ entries, here is a list of my favorite web sites of 2004.

Fark
Simple interface, indexes news articles from all over the world. Very humorous.

Gizmodo
keep on top of all the new gadget tech.

Freshnews
a fast and simple way to read the news.

del.icio.us
a ’social bookmark manager’ that’s incredible.

Flickr
‘the best way to store, manage and share your photos.’ Click on the thumbnail image to the right to visit my Flickr page.

Boing Boing
calls itself a ‘directory of wonderful things.’ I’d have to agree.

Engadget
like Gizmodo, this site features the latest in gizmos and gadgets.

The Morning News
witty and informative writing highlights this wonderful site.

Buzzmachine
I met Jeff Jarvis once and have been reading his excellent weblog ever since.

Kottke
in my opinion, the best blogger on the web today. His site continually has fresh content and excellent writing.

Frontsideback
I put my own site on this list because of the fun I have with it every day. Thanks for visiting.

Each week I watch a lot of movies, and I rely on Netflix and our Tivo to see most of them. Instead of fighting the crowds and paying high ticket prices, we enjoy the movies in our nicely equipped “home theatre.”

There were plenty of good movies released that I haven’t seen and would probably be on my ‘Best Of’ list. Movies like The Manchurian Candidate, Oceans 12, The Aviator, Sideways and The Incredibles are among the ones I’d like to see soon.

Of the ones I did see, here are my favorites:
10. Supersize Me
9. Spiderman 2
8. National Treasure
7. Shaun of the Dead
6. Miracle
5. The Day After Tomorrow
4. Fahrenheit 9/11
3. Kill Bill Volume 2
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
1. The Bourne Supremacy

And my vote for the worst movies of 2004:
5. Van Helsing
4. Starsky and Hutch
3. Garfield - well, we always like the comic strip.
2. Chronicles of Riddick
1. The Whole Ten Yards - absolutely the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

Car A needed to go in for service. Driver 1 took Car B to work this morning. Driver 2 took Car A to the shop and picked up a loaner, Car C. Driver 1 drove Car B home after work. Cars B and C are in the garage, Car A is still in the shop. Tomorrow, Driver 1 will take Car C to work. During lunch break, Driver 1 will pickup Car A and return Car C.

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses.
6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial “9″ to get an outside line.
8. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.
9. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

Everyone has their pet peeves. I tend to have more than other people. To help avoid some of them, I thought I would list things that annoy me when I help people with their computers at work.

1. Reboot your computer before calling me. This will usually solve your problem.
2. If you have trouble with your computer, just email me if you can. Don’t appear at my desk and expect me to come over to help right away. It’s a good bet I’m already helping four other people while I’m sitting there. So you’ll have to wait your turn.
3. If you see me outside of the office, don’t ask me to help you with your computer. I’m there to get away from work, just like you.
4. After you ask me for help, don’t continue to nag me until I help you. This will only serve to delay my response time.
5. It’s not necessary to read the entire error message you are getting. Chances are I’ve seen it before many times.
6. Finally, NEVER ask me to fix your home computer unless you are willing to pay me big money to do it. This includes giving advice during work hours concerning any trouble you have at home. I call it “consultation” and charge $60/hour to give you my troubleshooting advice.

My computer crashed the other day. I had a problem with the CD-ROM drives disappearing from Windows that turned out to be an issue with a recent install of Nero. Not realizing it at the time, I tried the usual tricks to get them to work. I continued to fiddle around and did something to cause the computer to stop booting. Luckily I had a recent backup and restored everything with no problem. Now I have a fresh copy of Windows and the computer is running great. I should crash my computer more often. The problem is it’s time-consuming to reload all the apps I regularly use.
Here are a few of my favorites:

MS Office 2003 - very useful
Dreamweaver MX - web page creator
Photoshop CS - image editor
Crimson Editor - Windows Notepad replacement
Firefox - use this instead of Internet Explorer
Roxio Easy CD Creator 6 - CD burning software
iTunes - manages my iPod and MP3 files
Microsoft Digital Image Suite - organizes my digital photos

I only have 3 more days of work this year. That’s good because I’m so busy with personal stuff, that work was starting to interfere. We are planning a short getaway after Christmas. I also have several projects that I’ve been meaning to get done. With almost 3 weeks off from work, it will be a perfect time to do them.