iTunes is the new Windows

Just so you don’t think this is a compliment… to me Windows is a necessary evil. I dislike it for so many reasons. I don’t have the time to state them all. I tolerate it because it’s at work and all of our clients have it. They have just too much penetration to completely avoid. I think this is the main reason why they are so marginal. Whatever they produce people will buy. I’m just glad Linux and Mac are slowly eroding their strangle hold on operating systems. My laptop belongs to work. My crappy desktop won’t do Linux. When I buy my next set it’ll be a Powerbook and a Linux desktop.

iTunes is the new Windows.

del.ici.ous mirror

Future home and present babel about what may become a WordPress plugin.

Almosts and Inspirations…
Delicious Cached++
Del.ici.ous API
mog.rif.icio.us

Possible Symbiotics…
Ultimate Tag Warrior 3
Huddled Masses » Ubernyms
SimpleTags – A WordPress Plugin for generating Technorati Tags
Simple Tagging

$1 PayPal Donation Per Question or Download

Update – Please see $1 for Good for more info.

After surfing through scores of silly questions, on multiple forums, message boards and help sites, I have decided that there needs to be a new standard in free help.

Not so free help!

K2 Custom Meta Widget

I have this nifty site map plugin from Dagon Design, but no where to put it. I had previously set up the Widgets plugin and had the Meta widget hanging out there just aching for another item, my sitemap link. I couldn’t find the correct file to edit, in fact I found the wrong one, and edited that code to no avail. Luckily I was able to use that code for a cut and paste quickey to get things going in a php widget. Anyway, I did a WordPress support search and came up with this post asking the same sort of question. Here is what is did described and posted to the support topic.

WordPress Quicktags Anchor Tag Button

I have an article on my Mailing List How To site that was getting a bit long. I decided to take some of the sub headings and make a pseudo table of content. This led to the need for some anchor tags. You know what I mean… These type of links are prevalent on FAQ pages. List of linked Q’s at the top of a page that take you to the Q&A way down the page. In order not to leave you stranded mid Q&A, they provide a link back to the top. This is what I wanted.

I could type all of those links and name tags, but that is tedious, and well that is what WordPress is for, facilitation of ease, lest our time, full of code bleeds over into the rest of our lives… ooops! Anyway I fixed up my quicktags.js file to help me out.

Comcast has an amazing deal right now on Internet service!

Get Comcast high-speed Internet for $19.99 a month for the first 6 months* with PowerBoost™, Free Motorola® Cable Modem and $100 Cash Back exclusively from comcastoffers.com!

Feel the power of 100% Pure Broadband with scorching download speeds up to an unbelievable 6 Megs. That’s four times faster than 1.5 Mbps DSL and 100 times faster than 56k dial-up. It’s lightning fast, always on, always connected and ready to take you anywhere you want to go on the net. It’s a faster, more powerful and more convenient Internet experience. Nothing else comes close.

Brazil: Day One

We made it to Brazil. I’m sitting in my hotel in Sao Paulo. The flight was not too painful. Mike taught me in the ways of international travel. Summarized: Stake Claim, Be Rude! We both picked open seating rows of 3 seats and reserved the aisle seat. When we go to our row we sat in the middle and hoped that no one else had taken seats on our row. We were both able to get free rows, so when the plane took off, the armrests came up and we both “stretched” out in 3 seats. Mike obviously had better drugs because he slept almost the whole time. Next time: get an Ambian prescription! Our hour drive to the hotel was alive with traffic and new types of cars. The graffiti here is pretty cool and I tried to get so me good shots but didn’t get any good ones. The craziest things are the motorcyclists. On the 5 lane freeway there were 4 extra lanes (on the lane lines) taken by 50 cc motorbikes and their insane drivers. At least they all had helmets!

The flight was fine from Salt Lake to Dallas Fort Worth. Mike got me upgraded to first class, a first for me. We spent 3 hours being deafened by overly load music, imposed upon by lame airport “news”, and defending the only outlet for 6 city blocks. All in all, a good time. From DFW to Sao Paulo the opportunity to lay down was priceless, but still it was a long flight. 2 meals, 4 drink services, a movie, and way too many episodes of “The King of Queens” (predictable, trite, and absurd even with no sound). I slept for about 5 of the 9 hours, so I can’t complain too much.

In about an hour we’ll head down to the lobby and catch another taxi ride to the airport for our flight to Brasilia. I’m hoping to catch some shots of the graffiti. We’ll see!

Here are some video clips of Sao Paulo that I shot.

Wanna Vote? Say goodbye to privacy!

I hate junk mail! To me junk mail is any commercial mail I did not request. I don’t want polls, offers, PSA’s, and don’t even get me started with credit card offers, mortgage companies, and ads.

Today I received a mailer from Discovery Gateway. I’m sure I voted to fund them in 2002, and walked by the other day at the Gateway. It sounds like a great organization, and looked fun, but I still don’t want their mass mailings.

This mailing was especially disturbing because it not only had the address of the place where I rent, but also my PO Box. I don’t give my physical address out to anyone. Eventually I’m going to move and don’t want all my junk coming to my roommate for years to come. I also am very cautious about who gets my PO Box. The whole purpose of the box was to control who gets my info. Foiled again! When the mailer arrived with both addresses in the “To:” field, I was very disturbed.

I called Discovery Gateway and left a message. I was called back almost immediately and given the scary news that the list they used was purchased from the State. Thanks to Jen and DG for being open and helping me sort this out!! Apparently for $1000 you can by the State Voter Information list. Is nothing sacred? This is like when I bought first my house and the first piece of mail I received had the amount of my loan in it. Oh yeah, that information is publicly available too!

Welcome to Utah. Your right to vote is prostituted! I have a call in to get my name removed and to complain. Stay tuned to see if my right to vote will be held hostage by the state government’s greed…

Update 9/26/06: No word back from my friends at the State. I’m in Brazil now and will need to wait until I get back to figure this all out.

Free Culture in Audio!

Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law professor and engineer of the Creative Commons has many good things to say. He wrote a great book, “Free Culture”. I wrote about it in a previous post. It was amazing! And now it can be read to you. The book and audio book file are free and unfettered by traditional copyright. So use your copy tool (computer) to make a copy of these. Not only is it legal, but it is encouraged!!

Other great Lessig productions. Free Culture the presentation (different from the book!) & Google Book Search (below) or download this great free speech/culture tool (micro bittorrent client) to download this torrent of the presentation and free yourself of the YouTube window.

Cycle Salt Lake Century