The “wash me’ theme was screwing with my formatting, so I had to change it. I like the new look, what do you think?
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Went out trick or treating with Glenn, doesn’t he look cute?
He got lots of compliments and candy. It was a little cold, but he was a real trooper. Chocolate is a great motivator. People were very impressed with his outfit. The costume is very well made and looks pretty legitimate. We picked up the costume (with helmet) last year and added the axe. It is about he safest costume I have ever seen, with the green stripes be actual retro reflective material like the real thing.
The funniest costume we saw when we were out was this one:
Yep, that’s a real monitor shell and Dell keyboard. Tiff and I had a good laugh at that one. The man inside was an adult with a full beard.
Loaded up Windows 7 on Tiffany’s computer, she is very happy with it. It only took Mircosoft 8 years to produce a decent operating system. It is slick, nice, and steals ideas from just about everyone. But, I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It is one of the few times we went with the latest anything. XP was getting too old. With my computer, I am still typing happily away with Mandriva Linux 2008.1. I think I will wait for 2010 to come out before I update again. I am looking forward to trying KDE 4.3. or 4.4, and there are no plans to backport it to 2008.1.
I must say, I really like being on the lagging edge of technology. My 19″ LCD monitor is 8+ years old and has outlived 5 computers! No 16:9 for me, 4:3 baby. My computer case has seen 3 motherboards and processors, 4 power supplies, a 52X CD-ROM, a 16X CD-RW, a DVD-ROM, and 2 DVD-RW’s. It has seen a floppy drive come and go (replaced with a card reader). All in the same steel case. No aluminum here. The case weighs about 18lbs, empty, and has 4 5.25″ bays, 8(!) 3.5″ bays and spaces for 4 80mm fans. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, sonny.
Our netbook is not the latest and greatest, but very mature when we purchased it, with lots of reviews.
My LCD TV is no name and works just fine. I just got rid of my surround system, never used it. My newest game console is a PS2.
My point is, don’t go with the bleeding edge. I wish I could find the article in Wired about always buying 2 year old technology, if you can. It makes sense.
You know what this all adds up to? Reliable technology and money in the bank. I would much rather collect some more watches (that last damn near forever and will never be outdated) than the latest gadget.
With the demise of Geocities, I remember back to my first web site, which was hosted on Geocities, back in 1996/7. I can’t even remember the address, to be honest. It was a simple site, with little original content. But, it reminds me how transitory the internet really is. It is always changing, which is a great strength and weakness. This is why, through it all, I have kept Cyberphreak.com. Yeah, it costs money, but since I am paying for it, it is much less likely to disappear some day. Myspace, Facebook, Bebo will all be gone eventually, along with all that content. This is why books and magazines are still printed. The death of a website does not wipe out that knowledge.
In other news, I don’t know about your area, but Chicagoland had no summer this year, and, so far, a really cold fall. It dipped near freezing with frost everywhere this morning. I think Halloween will be a cold one this year.
I have been keeping busy, work is going well. Things are picking up, to the point that overtime has come back for the hourly people and a few people who were laid off are back. It is a good sign if the electronics industry is looking up, since electronics is in everything. I have never seen a recession this long or deep. I hope we never see one like this again.