Monthly Archives: March 2009

Harlemite Skype’in In the USA

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Yep. I made it. I’m back in the US of A! :D It’s almost a bit surreal. Of course, that may have more to do with my waking up — FULLY, mind you! — at 0310 U.S. time, which would be about 0910 Swedish time. My body’s saying, “Hey, you actually slept in today, bud!” And my eyes and ears are saying, “Dude, you should really be trying to sleep.” It’s a conflict that my mind will ultimately pay the price for (lol). I see a nap coming.

Anywho.

Here I am in the lovely little sleepy town of Manassas, Virginia at my friend Duke’s place (thanks, Duke!). This is normally my first stop when I hit the D.C. area. (There’s absolute truth to the saying about ex-military friends being friends for life.) After landing yesterday, Duke was kind enough let me get in a bit of quick shopping. First stop, Marshall’s. Yep. I know of no better place to restock underclothes. My secret’s out (lol).

One of the added bonuses of having woken up at 0-dark-thirty, or  0300-ish for me, was that my wife and daughter were wide awake at 0900 their time. This meant we were able to get in some great Skype video conferencing. If there are any of you out there who still don’t know what Skype is, and maybe there are one or two of you left, it is a free software package that allows phone calls and video conferencing over the internet. When you call another Skype user, the call is free. If you both have a video camera on your computer, the video conferencing is free. I think you get where I’m going. Have a look at Skype if you haven’t already.

My wife and I were pondering how our little Esme and kids her age would simply expect technology like Skype as they grow older. For her, CDs are likely to not be anything more than those things she played with as a baby. Her world will likely be more digital than I can even imagine. Music. Pictures. Most things digital. Of course, the challenge for my wife and I will be to ensure that she doesn’t mistake “digital” to mean more valuable. While I’m unquestionably a techno-phile who earns his living in keeping things digital running, I’m well aware of their value ends. I love being able to video conference with my family, but all of the video conferencing in the world will not be able to match the experience of reuniting with my family and giving them big hugs and lots of kisses. Nope. That moment is filled with something that can best be described as divine. :) Tech is good and offers a lot of fun, but there are some things in life which are truly great and offer genuine joy. I know you folks already know this, so I’ll end that there.

Well, it’s time for me to try and study a bit of the course material. More to come later.

Macheist Time Again!

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For those of you who really love your Macs, Macheist 3 is here! For the mere price of $39 you can purchase $626 worth of software, that will increase to $975 worth as certain goals are reached. The focus this time is unquestionably multimedia. I could go through each app offered, but I highly suggest you go and have a look for yourself. There are demo videos for every app offered that are well worth watching. I can tell you as an experienced user of WireTap Studio, that alone is well worth the $39!!!

And for those of you who have either purchased or ordered new Macs, I think you should really consider saving yourself the time and consider purchasing this bundle before time runs out (12 days from today!!!). I fear I may be doing it…

Okay. That’s that. I just purchased. I now have WireTap Studios for my iMac as well. Call me a Mac addict if you will, but better hooked on Mac than crack!

Go and check it out. ;)

Firefox is on the Move

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Wow! It’s been some time since the last post. It’s been nothing less than the family getting my time, and I don’t regret that for a sec. I’m sure you all understand. This is likely to change a little. I’m scheduled to head to the U.S. on business (Security+ training, finally!!! I’m pretty psyched) this coming Saturday (all prayers for my save passage are appreciated), which means when I take a break from studying if I’m not praying or doing push-ups I’ll likely blog. That’s two weeks worth of blogging. Seeing as I haven’t been to the U.S. in nearly three years, there should be plenty to blog about technology-wise among other things.

Now to the actual subject of this post.

I’m happy to see that Firefox is making it move in the browser world. I REALLY like Firefox, and think the Mozilla folks are long overdue. In my humble opinion, they pretty much invented the browser. I’ve tried IE7 and 8 and wasn’t really impressed by either so much. They weren’t bad, mind you, they simply didn’t bring anything to the table for me. I was glad to see them start using tabs, but they were old-school by the time they decided to make the move. I actually found Opera more interesting and user-friendly than IE. That’s saying something, both about how far IE has fallen and how sharp Opera remains. In all honest, my being stuck with IE6 at work — because the decision makers on high won’t approve anything beyond IE6 — doesn’t help the Microsoft folks. Super large global enterprises — one of which I’m a part of — move towards progress like elephants (sigh).

Anywho, I offer a hearty congrats to the Mozilla folks. :)