Happy First Day of Winter!!

We got lots of snow, Christmas shows to watch on the TiVo, cookies to bake, and I can now take pictures of it all on my (almost like new again) phone!  The kids have been having so much fun playing outside that I think they may burst, and it has helped put Allie and I in even better spirits.  In a part of the country that I love for both its mild weather and the proximity to more extreme conditions, it is nice to be visited by some real snow for once.  I think we got about 7-8 inches yesterday, with some more on the way today.

Now that I have my phone back, I'll be able to update my mobile blog more often.  I know that some folks regard mobile blogs as a bit of a joke, but that's fine.  I don't take much time to sit and nurse either of my three other blogs too much, so I think it makes a nice bridge between the instant gratifications of social networks and the blogs that I put some (admittedly) small amount of work into.

The challenging part about swapping back to this phone is getting my fingers (now on ONE hand instead of two) used to holding it, and a single thumb used to typing.  The overall interface is so easy to use that I've fallen right back into it with nary a hitch, but because the dictionary got wiped, I have to do a good bit of manual spelling before I can type with any "real" speed.  Commands and usernames for applications like twitter and Remember The Milk are the hardest to stomp through because they tend to be a bit more cryptic.

The small blessing here is that I don't have to do as much to get my phone up to speed as I would if I still had a data plan for it.  I'd have to load it with bookmarks, and RSS feeds, and whole bunches of Java apps.  I'm happy to leave those for another time.  I do miss using the "Send To Blog" function on the phone, but sending an MMS isn't really any harder. 

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New Drapery

I've been playing with this blog's post formatting and sidebar of late, adding bits here and there as I find new features for it.  I've become a bit of a Digger, so I've added the Digg tabs at the top of posts, and the multi-bookmark links at the bottom (thanks to Allie for the last one ).

Blogger has some newer features, like instant feedback (check under the post labels), in-line comments, playlists (sort of lame),  and of course I had to update my Ad$ense options.

The latest thing to hit the social network news has been Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, and so naturally I have bought my own corner lot to try out.  I added a Friend Connect widget to the sidebar as well.

I know what you are saying.  Why the heck did you clutter up your sidebar so much, kEnny?  I'll tell you why.  It's mine to pollute as I see fit, and I don't have anything better to do here than to see what works and what doesn't.

Won't you do me a favor and let me know what you do or don't like about these things?

Thanks!!!

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I'm Totally Digging Flock!!!

What blatant advertisement right? Well, I'm doing it for a reason: I like to keep certain people informed of what I'm up to, to the point that I can send a some people (mostly one) up to 20 links in a day. Why should i be cloggin up their email if I can make it available to them on the interwebs? I don't know!!

I've been watching Digg for some time, and I became a member once Flock included them as one of the social networks to integrate in their browser, but I had never actually done anything with it before today. I've added Digg buttons to my blog templates, and started doing some Digging of my own. I have a Digg gadget on my iGoogle page, and the best part of course, is using Digg with Flock.

Flock makes it SO EASY to see the articles you and your Digg friends have dug, by displaying them in Flock's Media Bar! No hassle, no muss, no fuss. You know what else? It's all free, and works great!

So please consider trying out Flock and Digg together, just so I don't have to be filling your email inbox with links!!

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Thanksgiving Day at Last

I just wanted to to take a moment this morning to hand out my dose of thankfulness. Here's what I'm thankful for:

• Allison
• Our kids
• My multiple quadrants of family, and Allison's family
  
• My many friends
• Our humble abode, in which we are hosting dinner (and probably other meals as well) today
  
• All the great food we will be eating today
• The Interwebs
  
• TiVo
• Comedy Central
• Tom Lehrer

Allie and I are sitting on the couch (before 7am), watching The Exorcist while we have some time before the kids get up. I emptied the dishwasher, took out the trash and recycling, made room in the garage for Barry and put him away, while Allison seared the turkey giblets for the gravy. We woke up early this morning after going to bed at a rather conservative time last night (you know, because sometimes you have to do that after drinking a whole bottle of wine for yourself).

We are both very excited to now have the proper facilita to host social gatherings that don't need to have exterior spillways, and don't intrude upon the home theater either!

HAPPY THANKGIVING!!!!!

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In Order to Concert

My sister, Kimbolily, and I were recently accosted by my wife, Allie (of Ask Allie fame), about our lack of activity on our blogs.  There was something about it being disconcerting.  I blabbed something back, and threw up some half formed thoughts about how we've been thinking about trying our hands (and nerves) at Tornado Chasing, while I was at work.

Kimbolily, on the other hand got all creative and invited outside participation.  I bit, and in so doing feel obliged to do the same thing.  I think it won't be a problem, as I have more blogs than readers.

I'll start with the questions Kimbolily came up with for me: How did you get to be so tall, and How do you feel about your time in the Navy?

1. Tall?  To begin with, I have never thought of myself as particularly tall, but maybe that is because I'm a fan of the great game of basketball, where I'm lucky if I'm average height.  I can tell you that it was amazing how many people started to take notice of my stature somewhen around the age of ten.  At that point it became my goal to see how many tall things I could reach, be they tops of door-frames, basketball nets, the ceiling, you know, tall stuff!  It was fun to hear our older relatives wax historical about tall genes (including Gene's) in the families.  A fun fact to know is that my parents actually conspired to keep me from growing.  I remember taking a bath in the Watts house and they were talking about how freckle removal was the key to slowing the growth of children.  I think my freckles heard them, because they really dug in to resist.  I guess it could be possible that they were looking for a better excuse for scrubbing the dirt off a seven year-old boy, but I don't think so.  In any case, they were unsuccessful and divorced shortly after (Wow! I never really put it together like that before).
2. Overall I'm really glad I went into the Navy.  I think that it helped me grow wise in many ways I otherwise could not have for some time to come.  When I signed up for the Delayed Entry Program, I was not all that confident in keeping myself on the straight-and-narrow path.  I hadn't been feeling all that great about going to school, and wasn't looking forward to any job I'd probably be able to get at that point.  Going through both good times and rough times in the Navy are things that I'm proud of, and while I hated being so far from my family at times, I feel really lucky to have been able to spend weekends with them when I was stationed close by.  I am happy to have experienced such a large cross-section of people from around our nation, and feel that it has made me treasure it more than I could have, even in any other branch of service.  Lastly, I might not have had as good a "pickup line" for finding such a nice person for having children (and other adventures) with as Allison, if I hadn't done my time in the Navy.

I'm going to copy Kimbolily's set of questions & answers, word for word. Respond by posting your name and:

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you which song or movie you remind me of.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something I've always wondered about you.
8. I'll tell you my favorite thing about you.
9. I'll tell you my least favorite thing about you.
10. Post it on your profile so you can play with your friends.

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The Latest Craze at Home: STORM CHASING!!

Editor's note: This may turn into a multi-blog discussion as plans evolve. Please check in at Autogotistical Carpinions for more of the vehicle oriented discussions in the future.

One of the latest TV thrillers gripping the heart-strings of each occupant in our house of late has been Storm Chasers on Discovery. So far, the show has been very illuminating, and is doing a good job of recruiting. Allie and I are having some semi-serious discussions about making a pilgrimage or two down toward Tornado Alley (ooooh! good nickname for the whirl-winded-wife!!).

As I have discussed before, I have a thirst for gadgets, and I haven't had nearly as many as I would like in the recent past. Trouncing tornadoes might be just what I need to quench that desire for a time. The other part helping that along would be designing and building our own RADAR system for the chase vehicle. After seeing the DOW on Storm Chasers, I know there is LOTS of room for improvement, and I have it: End-Fire RADAR Arrays. I've worked a bit with phased arrays, and end-fire arrays aren't much different for this type of use. The advantage we would have over the DOW is that we could build it on much smaller vehicles. What I would like is to have a kit of eight arrays to attach to any vehicle, but only requiring a minimum of 4. The software controlling the RADAR would be able to change it's usage of the arrays based upon their positioning on the vehicle, allowing you use almost any vehicle you want!

More to come later!!

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Blah, blah, blog!

What am I doing? I'll tell you.

• I'm catching up on The Daily Show with John Stewart, and The Colbert Report, while Allie exercises her brain and fingers.
• I am happy having heard that one of my cousins has another child on the way.
• I'm exited about the prospect of having a sizable group of family and friends over to our new digs for Thanksgiving Dinner (YUM), featuring a few other cousins.
• I am waiting for twitter to start working again. In the mean while I've stopped getting updates on my phone.
• I'm happily attempting to connect with yet another cousin and his family, whom I have discovered can be found on twitter on occasion.
• I just checked my Adsense account, and afer YEARS of making space available on this blog, I have earned all of $4.21!!! Only $96 more, and Google will have to pay me the month after!!! Woohoo!!!
  

Does "reconnecting with the fam" mean I'm getting old? I don't care. I'm just happy to have the opportunity to to do so. Growing up significantly older than most of my cousins, I've always had a soft spot for them, and they are ALL a joy to converse with. I enjoy their divergence, wisdom, and wit. I'm only sorry that I can't still give them piggy-back rides and tickle them until they are rolling on the floor. I guess it is okay that some of them now have children so I might be able to make them laugh in turn.

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Crate Watchers Update

Woohoo!!  I lost my first 10 pounds!  Now I'll have to recalculate my daily allowance.  My losses have tapered off a bit, but I don't consider it too bad, when after the Halloween festivities I had a big meal from BK.  We'll be getting lots of crates in the coming weeks as well, so that should help.

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My new Diet with Crate Watchers!!

Because I don't want to incur their wrath of "Crate Watchers" (please substitute the word crate with the word weight), and because I want to make this stuff available to other people, certain names have been changed to protect the guilty. That might be me, or not.

My wife, Allison, has dabbled in this pay-as-you-go club with some good results, and I have decided to semi-formally join her this time as a mooch. The nice part is that there is a lot of information about the ins and outs of Crate Watchers, so much that you don't really need to become a member to enjoy some of its benefits. The big thing you give up is the meetings, but I'm not so hot on them at the moment because of my work schedule.

The plan that Allison is on takes into account your activity level and weight to come up with an optimal number of food points to eat on any given day, and then you also get 35 "Flex Points" to distribute as you wish throughout the week. While she gets to use the online tools offered by Crate Watchers, I had to come up with something different. Being a big fan of Gmail and Google Docs, I brainstormed a way to effectively track most of the same things.

To begin with, because I don't know anything about Crate Watchers points calculation, I have to save my meal ingredients to process later. This is accomplished via SMS from my phone at mealtime. I send a message like this:

"Dinner: 3 cups macaroni & cheese, 11.5 oz mountain dew."

The message is sent to my Gmail inbox, but with the added alias "+ww". There is a filter that catches all of this email, stars and removes it from the inbox, and waits for my perusal.

The next step is the tracking spreadsheet. If I think I might not get around to processing the information soon, I'll copy my meal email into a comment for the corresponding meal on the spreadsheet. This spreadsheet compiles each day's meal points, along with activity points (in case you happen to be doing anything besides sitting during the day), and keeps track of overages that count against your Flex Points. Another page of the spreadsheet contains my weight tables, logged every week, and charted to show most total weght lost (and gained), and highest week-to-week loss. Still another page has the magic Points Calculator. I was able to put the same equation into an Excel spreadsheet so that I could put it on my phone. I'm determined to figure out enough Java to make a mini-app for my phone, which would be easier to run than modifying the Excel spreadsheet on this phone.

The timing for starting this program was actually a little strange, but made it easy for me to jump in. I was a week into a rather rigorous time at work, where I've been working swing shift, and doing LOTS of physical labor, which has helped immensely in that I didn't really have to worry about eating too much. You may be wondering what paltry bit of physical labor that could have been, given what a slack job I've been known to have. The computers I work on are not small, and the latest ones are almost too big for our oversize lab benches. They weigh in at just about 250lbs empty. I get my activity points from hauling them around the lab on a lift (I have to push/pull/steer/load/unload manually), setting them upright so they can be reconfigured, and packing them into crates for shipment (hence CRATE Watchers). The full crates weigh in at 390lbs, and I get to pull them across 60 yards of carpet between the lab and our storage areas. Needless to say, I've been wearing shorts to work the last few weeks.

As somebody who has struggled to get to a reasonable weight, and as someone living with people in the same situation, I hope that anyone needing the same help can take heart and maybe take a new look at their possibilities. If you would like to learn more about the tools I'm using, or the official tools for that matter, drop me a line. I'm not an expert at weight loss, but I'm pretty good at figuring out methods to keep folks interested in what they are doing.

Good Luck!!

Quick Notes from Work

Here's what I attempted to post yesterday morning, but was unsuccessful in that I was not able to access blogger:

Having completed almost everything needed for the next phase of of work to begin, tensions are running high at work right now.  I can't really explain it (without giving too much away) to most people other than to say this is a server's version of sea trials for the first of a new kind of ship.  We are doing everything we can to break it, and verify the longevity of the design in that process.  For this particular phase, we have just let the vessel into the water for the first time

The majority of my role has been to prepare our lab for for a few different versions of the ship to be tested.  We have set up many, many test stations for teams of many disciplines to work their magic and hopefully identify any problems before they would make it into the hands of our customers.

The bad part about all of this is that I've been working longer hours and so have had less face time with the family.  The part that might be good is that I have been being introduced as the lead technician for our lab (something that has been in question for quite a while).  I'm hoping that waiting around these many years might yield my second promotion.  It has only been about 8 years and 9 managers (okay, one of them got counted twice) since my first one.

Many people ask what I do for a living.  My usual answer is to laugh and say "Pretty much whatever I want," but the truth is that I usually have so much to do that I can afford to pick and choose the tasks I do.  There are many different disciplines at Intel, some that may not seem at first to have anything to do with what you might think we would have any need for, but Intel is not only sneaky that way, but they want to make the most of any opportunity that might come up.

Here are some of the things I do:

1. General clean-up and organization of the lab.
2. Specific organization of the lab (labeling and tracking items/locations of interest).  I have attempted for a LONG TIME to implement a PDA/server based scheme of asset tracking that has a lot of fans, but I've never been able to get enough traction from my "team" of managers for various reasons (usually too many fires to put out) to actually put it into play on a wider scale.
3. Rework Middle Man.  I used to do rework (solder/desolder of boards & components), but have been given a decent supply of folks who ONLY do rework to do that for me.  When an engineer comes along with a need for rework, but lacks the specific skills to "dumb down" the instructions so that somebody can comprehend the work without performing a Vulcan Mind Meld with said engineer, that's where I come in.  I can usually see well enough into the clouds to see what work is needed, and then I can use what talent I have to manipulate the board design tools to make pretty pictures to allow any monkey that can weild a soldering iron to do the work properly.  I'm REALLY good at this for two reasons: As a rework technician, I hated having to hold a piece of paper up to the light X-Ray style to see the work needed in the right orientation (when you look at a picture of the bottom of a board, it is backwards because you are actually looking through the top to see it), and I have lots of experience using the board design tools (because I've been on a few board design teams).
4. Plumber.  Maybe that sounds funny, but I am a plumber of sorts.  In the Navy I was introduced to chilled water loops and water cooling for electronics.  At Intel, I get to use the same priciples to control the temperature of all kinds of chips.  And because so many others have tried and failed at this, I am now The Man.
5. Firefighter.  Not in the conventional sense, but in the sense of taking on big "high priority" jobs that need to be handled with a minimum of hand-off time.  My depth and breadth of experience seems to have made me a prime target to throw into the fire.
   
6. Researching and entering purchase requests.  When one of our engineers or our "lab manager" needed something, I used to be able to actually make purchases on my own, but because we now have a dedicated team for purchasing, I only have to go so far as to find out how much something (or things) cost, which really means I'm a half step away from completeing the purchase, then I send a request to my manager, who likes to find some reason to change the request.  After my manager approves, I get to copy and paste the request into a tracking tool that helps our purchasing team to do their job.  Hopefully, we end up getting the right stuff.
7. General Consultant.  As I've done almost everything there is to do around our labs, there are a lot of people who use me as a handy reference when they are wanting to make improvements.  I've made a number of suggestions to make our thermal tools safer and more efficient, suggesting design improvements as well as offering other advice.

So as you can see, I have options every day.  The trick lies in not getting too fed up with any one of them.

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Why I [heart] Gmail... and the dire consequences that follow!

This is a two-sided entry, in that I'm going to attempt to explain my love for a particular Google email product while tempering that with some respectful fear of the juggernaut that is Google.

As some folks may be aware I used to be a die hard user of Microsoft Outlook for all my PIM and email activities. I didn't use is so much because I thought it was the best, but it was something I used on a daily basis at work, and I wasn't paying much for it either. Familiarity does have its privilege, and it made me a more efficient user at work as well. Outlook was (and still can be) a good option for many folks wanting to achieve a higher level of organization in their life, but only with hard work and a higher understanding of where your own strengths and efficiencies lay. Without extensive tweaking, Outlook sucks right out of the box, and always has. The Power, as with most Microsoft Office products, lies in the flexibility of the software. If you don't take the time to mold it to your needs first, you are really wasting a couple hundred dollars. There have been many Add-Ins devised for Outlook to make the jump to a higher level of productivity easier, but I became aware of them long after I had already made my own similar modifications for use at work. Oops!

When Gmail (still in Beta to this day) came along, like many other local email clients, Google refined the interface to allow more organization. The best part was that it was a web app, so you could access the same information almost anywhere. It literally puts any other POP-based email from your ISP to shame, and still takes the cake compared to the cluttered (and usually advertising laced) competition from most other webmail hosts.

The most powerful of Gmail's features are Filters. Using filters you can let the service sort your email for you, assigning labels, forwarding or replying, even deleting incoming email as you decide necessary. Some folks adhere to a task-based form of email sorting called Inbox-Zero, which makes use of deleting or archiving email you don't need in front of you anymore to do whatever job you are doing. Gmail does this exceedingly well. I don't follow these rules quite so vigorously, but I do archive (after labelling) any advertising to remove it from my inbox view. This keeps all of my inbox email limited to purchase transactions, voicemail alerts, and personal corespondence.

Another handy feature of Gmail is the ability to use "aliases". You can add extra text in the middle of your Gmail address to differentiate it for different purposes or senders. Check here for an example. I use "+voicemail" to let the filters know to label voicemail alerts appropriately, and "+shopalerts" for alerts from Dealnews and Pricegrabber.

The latest set of features is an expansion of the Google Labs concept, but for Gmail exclusively. Gmail Labs givs you access to potential Gmail features which may or may not make it into Gmail on a "permanent" basis later on. The ones I make use of rearrange the interface to make my most used functions more available. I move the labels above the contacts, set the reply button to default to reply-to-all, and add a Mark-as-Read button on the toolbar.

As with any "productivity" tool, a lot of the tool's strength lies in its ability to integrate with other applications. Google has made Gmail a central player in their "suite" of tools, making it a conduit for their Calendar, Apps, and Groups applications, and fully integrating Google Talk (now with AOL IM) into the interface as well.

And now for the dark side: Yes, Google has me. I share everything with them. And everything you share with me is then, by extension, shared with them as well. They are my Big Brother, but for the moment I am happy to play guinea pig if it means they can continue to make better tools and widgets to make my life easier. Thanks Google.

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Sunday Morning Musings

I've been working long hours lately, getting to work some time around 6:00am so I can leave at an early enough hour to enjoy the company of my family. This has somehow been accomplished without the help of an alarm clock. I'm really not sure how I managed to do it, but I like that I can get up early in the morning without disturbing anyone else in the house with blaring noises.

That leads me to this morning. I'm up with nowhere to go, so I figured I would use the opportunity to write a little.

I'd like to lay out some of my thoughts on living with a burgeoning writer. I have always enjoyed writing, but haven't felt much need for an outlet for it until Allison came along. She and her friend Chris, whom I am happy to claim as my own friend too, have helped me realize more of my own enthusiasm for writing than I knew I had. This has led me to find new uses for tools like Remember The Milk. I have a list, which you can find in the kEnny's Tasks section of the sidebar, to show future topics I might write about. I really love that I can simply add something to that list whenever I feel inspired, then pick up that train of thought when I have time later.

I'm learning that living with a writer has its own challenges. Allison needs more time to herself, just like anyone with a "real" job might need to travel to their place of work to actually grind through the particular chores of their occupation. For her to write at home, this comes in the form of some isolation from the frenzy currently defining our children (and probably myself as well). She will find it easier to have a chunk of time during the day to work once the kids are both in school, which she might be looking forward to just a bit. The nice thing is that she has a wide selection of mood music to choose from and a nice place from which to write, with a fairly large workspace and a big window close by. I don't think she would have been able to throw herself into it nearly as much if we (that should really be she, but I did try to help a little) hadn't kept an eye out for her workspace since we moved into the new house.

Her excitement has been rather infectious, and I'm really glad to have been a part of it.

-I should also add at this point that I love the dawning of the new day. I've written the previous words in the last forty minutes, and just noticed that I can see the light starting to fill the sky. One of my favorite morning-time memories is from about ten years ago. The cubicle I occupied at the time, with my current employer, was on the fourth floor on the eastern side of the eastern building of the campus. This put us up above most of the trees for a good distance at the time. The spectacular thing that made the memory special was the way everything above the level of the cubicle walls was lit in golden brilliance as the sun came up. Just sitting in my cube during sunrise, I could see the air shimmering over my head. Really amazing stuff!-

Thanks for letting me share!

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Alien probe alert!

Does this really work?

I'm attempting to use Word 2007 to write and post this blog entry. I'm a bit skeptical, in part because it feels a bit blasphemous. I've been a big fan of using Flock for this task, but now that I've got a moment to try it out I have to admit I'm a little excited to see how it does.

E-Tools that have me hexed, and some that don't.

This is more of a feedback entry than introducing anything new, and for that I apologize. There are a number of my regular tools whose usage has changed and their operation (or lack of) should be noted.

Where to begin... Twitter has been all over the place, functionally speaking. I've recommended it's use to a number of people, both as an organizational aide and for fun, and for about half of those instances there has been something bad going on over at Twitter. I'm happy to say that overall, they seem to have gotten it together, but it hasn't been without some loss of functionality elsewhere. One of those losses has been my twitter sidebar gadget (formerly on the right). Since the gadget doesn't work at the moment, and I don't seem to be able to capture the RSS feed, I decided to remove it for now. I'm keeping it on my mobile blog, if only for the link it still provides.

I have been a little "mixed bag" about Flock's most recent beta (you know, probably because it is a beta!). One of it's downfalls for me has been the (hopefully temporary) loss of keystroke access to the blog editor. The new security features inherited from Firefox have been a pain to deal with, but I can see their necessity.

One good note is that where I had previously been unable to use Flock's blog editor without trouble from the Flock Blog Plus add-on, I'm not having that problem any more.

Google's Send to Phone add-on for Firefox has been retired. I've come up with a substitute of sorts, by borrowing from the clues left by Flock when sharing a link via webmail. I now have a bookmark to open Gmail's Compose Message page, with the To: address filled in with my phone's SMS address. This works almost as good, as Send to Phone did.

***

In my last big post, discussing event organizing, somebody left a comment saying how great their product was. I thought I'd try it out. After reading up on it a little, I made an account for myself and attempted to login, but it didn't work. To make matters worse, there was no password recovery/reset tool either. So much for being able to recommend it.

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Really. What the heck IS happening here?

I've been very busy elsewhere this last month, so one might be asking just that question.  It hasn't been for lack of topics to write about.  My lack of correspondence may be partially related to the staggering number of things upon which I wanted to air my opinions, but things have been busy as well.  The most Headline-able event was that Allison's hard work at the keyboard has taken a big leap toward her (dare I say?) dreams.  She was just recently notified of her selection to have a piece of her's included in a compilation of short stories to be published soon!  I am so very proud of her, and consider myself lucky to discuss her work with her during the fun stages (before she has to actually make a story out of it).

I am going to try to make a better effort to keep my own content updated on a more regular basis, even if it is only for the fact that this is rather theraputic.

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Organizing Events

Four years ago, my dad's side of the family started having a week-long reunion every two years.  This week is the third installation of the series.  In each of the previous reunions, we had a rather ragged and hard to follow series of emails blasted out to most (but usually not all) of the concerned parties.  This would often keep some important details from making it to a few people, which I had made an effort to remember later on so that we might avoid this problem in the future.

Dad started asking for suggestions (as it was his turn to organize) for events during this last Winter, and I was hit with a moment of realization. We could make our own common interest "Group" using the resources of our favorite web portal (MSN, Yahoo!, Google, etc.) to keep track of conversations, schedules, and anything else we might need.  Most denizens of the web have become members at sites like these, usually looking for advise concerning life experience of some sort.  I had been using Google Groups as a repository for our Vonage voicemail, until Vonage got better at distribution of voicemail alerts and Gmail started expanding their storage capabilities.  Administering the Google Group, exposed me to a lot of features that I grew to love about Google's brand of group. 

With this in mind, I suggested the idea to Dad, who fell in line with it right away.  I set about making it all happen.  I quickly realized some drawbacks to going Google.  In order to become a member of a Google Group, one has to have a Google/Gmail account.  This was no problem for me, but might not work so well for some of my relatives.  Another bad part was that there wasn't any integration between Google Groups and Google Calendar (another favorite of mine that requires a Google account).  With these two problems in mind, I set about finding the next best thing.  That ended up being Yahoo! Groups.  Yahoo has some very flexible posting and summary option, keeps things simple, and includes a calendar.  Did I mention that you don't need to be a card-carrying Yahoo! Mail user either?

The only thing I didn't find acceptable about the Yahoo! solution was notification and presentation of the Calendaring resources.  I decided to stick to it anyway, and construct a solution for myself to get the scheduling available on my phone in time for the week of fun in the Summer.

Well, the Yahoo! Group was a big hit, and my aunt started a companion group for sharing information and organizing events for a much larger chunk of family to meet up on occaision.  Dad started laying out the weeks activities, filling in details when he could.  We had plenty of discussions about it all, and it was very easy to use.  There was no more worrying if we were sending all our email to the right addresses or not.

My personal desire for access to the calendar from my cell phone drove me to sample options for importing and exporting the group calendar to other applications.  From Yahoo! Mail, one can view group calendars alongside your own personal calendar, but you can't actually do anything with them until you bring them into your own calendar.  After that, I was able to export the calendar to a CSV file, which could be imported into a Google Calendar I had set up for the same purpose.  This went fairly smoothly, except for one event that didn't make it across by itself.

This was the point where I became glad to have stuck with Google for myself.  I had attempted to print the week's agenda from Yahoo before this, and it just looked horrible.  I tried out the same trick with Google's version, and not only did it come out very polished looking and informative-like, but I was given the option of saving it in PDF format.  So I did that too, then uploaded it to the Yahoo! Group.  I think that was the most useful thing I did for the whole event.

I just finished checking some of the pictures from the big picnic, and I can't wait to see these folks again.

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This is a test...

This is a test blog post using my favorite browser, Flock. For some time now, the insertion of tags has not worked. I will be inserting the following tags: self-depriciationisticism, portable mushroom milkers, finaglisms, and fontopian scratches.

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E-Tools evolved: Flock 2.0 Beta after Firefox 3

This is my first blog entry after installing Flock 2.0 Beta almost a week ago. It has been very interesting. There are good and bad parts. Most of the bad parts have to do with added security that was part of Firefox 3. I have many useful add-ons installed, but because many did not have secure updates they were disabled. I really hope the capable folks who put these extensions together can make the necessary changes to allow me to continue using their products. Some keyboard shortcuts are not working properly yet. Ctrl-Shift-B should open the blog editor, but instead opens the Bookmark manager.

The good news is that Flock is now much faster to load, even on my laptop (hmmm... is that because my add-ons were too bloaty?). It also benefits from Firefox 3's revamped address bar.

As my usage of facebook has continued, I've become even more greatful for Flock's People Bar (not exactly new). I can see all of my friends' updates on twitter and facebook at once from the sidebar. It really is rather convenient.

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Facebook: Initial Pros & Cons

I just started auditioning Facebook this last weekend, and while I like the simple elegance of the interface's layout, I haven't completely bought in to what it can do for me. Allison has jumped in wholeheartedly, so I am relying on her enthusiasm to carry me forward. She's been enjoying Twitter for it's social uses, but wished that she could use it for uploading pictures as well, so Facebook answers that need nicely. There are many other social networking comforts she is able to soothe with it as well.

I have a different usage model in mind, I guess. I would rather use Facebook as a way to let my friends and family access the other content I already have online. My phone has Blogger support built in, so I use that to post a few pictures. If I want to post more, I have Picasa web albums for that as well. I want to keep each of my blogs active, and have updates appear on Facebook. Except for the occasional game or movie question, I want to make my Facebook persona into something where I can set it and forget it, and not have to worry about the information becoming stale.

Cons:

• Some Apps that I'm interested in are not quite functional.
• Adding multiple news feeds is problematic at best.
  

Pros:

• It is almost impossible to make your page painful to look at. It can be cluttered, but not ugly.
• Playing games with your friends is simple to do, and fun.

I'm optimistic, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I've been hesitant to join such social networks in the past, but I'm willing to give it a go now.

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New Computer Diggs For Me!!

Hooray for me!!! I found a "new" monitor for sale and snatched it up. It is a Samsung 21.6" wide screen LCD, and it works pretty nicely. OfficeMax wanted to get rid of their floor model, so I volunteered to help them out. Allison says she is jealous, but she should remember that her screen is actually taller than mine, and that games are a bitch to get running at strange resolutions like 1680x1050, so she's better off by adding a second monitor later on instead.

One day later, I have my desktop computer up and running again. Just like Allison's, it sits me next to a front window in our house. Unlike Allison's, I get to see our cars and more of the street (and it is closer to a bathroom, with a shower even). The challenging part in all this is that I'm now in yet another corner of the house not serviced by our Ethernet router. In anticipation of installing all new hardware in Allison's computer, I ransacked the HTPC (still not set up yet, duh) and took its video card and laptop wireless adapter. After buttoning it back up, I opened up my desktop system, extracted the video card from that, then installed the HTPC components in there.

Allison will get my old video card, but she's getting a similarly "new" motherboard & dual-core processor. She's also getting genuinely new memory for her system (Mother's Day Present #1) as well as the more dependable connection to the internet (Mother's Day Present #2). I currently need to twist my desk a bit to get a decent signal. I need to find the extra antenna I squirreled away somewhere. If that doesn't work, I can always add another Panasonic Powerline Ethernet Kit to my Father's Day wish list.
That's it for now. I can see the bed calling to me.

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E-tools update: Feedburner, FuelFrog, and Meanderings on Twitter

This post is a conglomerate that has been waiting for some time, so here we go.

The first item has been around for quite some time, but I am relatively new to: FeedBurner. This service takes any news feed, and dresses it up so you can do more with it. I've been trying for some time to get my "blogs to be" list attached to the sidebar of this blog, to keep me on track with everything I want to write about and give you a preview of what's to come. I found out that Blogger has a little problem grabbing items from Remember The Milk, and was left with Blogger showing items that had already been completed in addition to the ones not yet done. I did a little looking around and found FeedBurner, a product purchased by (who else?) Google a while back. I found that by pointing FeedBurner at my "blogs to be" list at Remember The Milk, then pointing the Blogger sidebar gadget to the resulting Feedburner feed, everything worked fine! I know it isn't ideal, but I won't have to worry about it again, and I'm happy for that.

Next up is FuelFrog. This is a simple service that offers functions I've been chasing for some time. I've been a long-time believer that keeping track of your car's gas mileage can be a handy way to gauge the relative health of your car. The hard part has always been getting myself to consistently log my fuel usage, or was it doing something with that data later on? In any case, FuelFrog makes it simple to do both. What would make it even better would be to use the mileage entries to integrate service reminders.

Now, I have to rant and rave a little more about .

Raves first: Since blogging about the uses of Twitter, my tweets have gone from private to public so I could (once again) add something else to my sidebar and demonstrate some of the goodness behind Twitter. I'm sure somebody has to be doing this already, but I think there are some really fun games that could be played between friends via Twitter. I originally started thinking poetry would be fun to post one stanza at a time (either ascending or descending order), which evolved into playing "Whose Line Is It Anyway" games. This could be fun. Anybody want to play Scenes from a Hat?

Rants last: For all the mixed opinions about Twitter, it sure has some big issues to overcome. One of them is growth. As it's number of users grow, and the numbers of followings and followers blossom, it seems to be having more problems keeping up. I hope they can find an operational framework that will allow them to grow without taking the service down (willingly or unwillingly).

The drawback to adding my tweets to the public time line is being discovered by the Collectors. This is the term I have coined to refer to those individuals that have bought into the thought that you have real influence over the people that follow you, and that by following complete strangers they will follow you in return. I've been found by a number of these people, and while I have allowed a few of them to receive my updates, I have blocked a few more. I see no use for such efforts, when it does nothing for me but to make it harder for me to handle my own lists of genuine "followers".

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Hooray for Pictures!!

After being jealous of the mini slide show at my sister's blog, I have finally added my own. Blogger did not want to cooperate and use its own built in hooks to to automatically grab the pictures from my Picasa web albums though. I had to make my mobile blog album public, then get the link for the RSS feed, then point the layout tool to it using the "Other" option.

Oh well! It looks nice, and I can give a little more face time to my mobile blog here as well!

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Notes From The Couch

Sitting in the new house with a few moments to spare for what feels like the first time, I thought I'd post an update somewhere. Truth be told, I do actually have stuff to do still. The old house still needs attention, but it has achieved a level of stability where we not only need a break, but don't feel bad about taking one.

We don't have any of the desktop computers set up yet, but they are on the way. We have to find a desk and partitions for Allison's, and my desk needs to be transported from the garage to the bedroom, before either can be set up. I hope we find Allison's desk soon, because some of her Mother's Day presents are rather useless without her computer having a home. I wish there were more "ergonomic" desk solutions at the local stores. We made a trip to Ikea not too long ago, and have been on the lookout since then. She needs a new chair as well. Come on Dealnews & Pricegrabber, show me what you got!!

Last night, I took the kids on their scooters and found the entrance to our nearest exercise trail. All through the Olympia area, old railroad lines have been converted to these trails, and I've gone biking and walking on a few of them after driving to an entrance. Our new location puts us about 3 blocks from one! To prepare myself for my own upcoming fitness challenge, I did a short stint on the elliptical trainer after putting the kids to bed. We have it in the garage and I'm liking it there. Our landlord installed some handy shelves on both sides of the garage, one of which is at just the right height for parking your ice water for mid-workout replenishment. Now I just need to find the closest basketball hoop!

The last note: I'm loving that more of my family has joined the text messaging crowd. Even if we aren't constantly texting each other all the time, we can keep up with each other to a certain extent via Twitter as well. This was especially handy yesterday. I was able to get my siblings on board for my mom's flowers with one text message and a phone call (I have to find a wi-fi messaging device for Jon).

Happy Mother's Day, to all who are mothers or have them!

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Itchy!!

Many moons ago, Allison became obsessed with taking her blog's template and making it her own. I was genuinely excited for her efforts and many hours of hard labor to turn out such a nicely polished site, but felt no compulsion at the time to do anything of the sort for mine.

Having added a few new blogs to my own repertoire just recently, I've been suddenly bitten by a similar bug. Nothing offered by Blogger seemed good enough any more. I found a number of free templates, and I was immediately hooked. Autogotistical Carpinions got the first new dress, and I have just completed the new suit for my mobile blog. I haven't spent this much effort playing with photo editing software since I managed to attach my uncle Marty's head to a manatee gracefully swimming underwater (rather convincingly, might I add!) , about 12 years ago!

In the midst of all the terrible things going on in the world, I'm feeling a little bit as if my life is facing a new dawn. I'm pursuing a few more of my interests, and enjoying watching some of my friends and family enjoy theirs as well. I'm excited to have plans for what I'd like to write about, however trivial it may be, and that I can make a useful contribution.

I wonder how long I've been needing to scratch this itch.

2 quick plugs:

1. My sister mentioned my blog on her's (http://adventuresofkimbolily.blogspot.com/), so I would like to point anybody drifting by toward her place in return. I'm proud of all 3 of my sisters and am always happy to point his out.
2. The latest entry on my mobile blog features a rather funny slip-up that may be rather large in nature. My employer contracts a food service called Bon-Apetit to provide all of the catering and meal services at each site. Somebody there or contracted by them made a little mistake that has shown up on all the tables where I work. I took a picture of it this afternoon. See if you can find it before reading the lower caption here.
   

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E-Tools that don't Cinco el Buque

(I've been trying for so hard to find the name for part 5. Please forgive my lingual mutilation)

This time I'm going to discuss some specifics in using Twitter and Remember The Milk. They seem to be the services that my friends and family have the most problems with. I'm going to start with Remember The Milk, as it is more immediately useful to those who might feel a little daunted by the two at first glance. I seem to be most successful when I can demonstrate the cool stuff first, then encourage the newbs to try it out for themselves.

Remember The Milk is all about lists and how to access and add to them. Checking off items can be useful as well, depending on what you are using the lists for. Lists, or any items within them, can be made public or shared with people that have been added to your RTM Contacts (they have to be RTM users as well. I keep finding new things to make lists of, things that are genuinely useful! The kicker here is that you can access your lists via SMS (with the help of Twitter), mobile web browser, your desktop computer's browser, and even news feeds.

My big thrill for friends and family is Birthday Lists. Everybody is trying to figure out at the last minute what to get somebody for their birthday. We can near-completely solve this by simply populating a list and publishing it. Any lists you have published can be seen by anyone on the web, and has it's own news feed as well. I have shared such a list here. You can see that it is pretty sparse right now, but hopefully you get the point. Now you know what I want for my Birthday!!

An example of using news feeds can be seen in the sidebar. Look for "kEnny's Tasks - Blogs To Be" on the right. This is my list of reminders for things I want to write about. The list is hosted by RTM, but now you can see it from my blog.

How about your favorite books, or books you want to read? Make a new list for the ones you haven't read yet, populate the list with books you want to read, then check them off as you finish them. You have just made a new list of recently read books, that can be added to your blog. it gets updated automatically as you add them and mark others complete. You can move the best ones to a "Favorite Books" list and add that to your blog as well!

I love movies, and I love seeing them in well equipped, modern theaters. Ever since the early nineties, I have avidly watched previews to find the next movie I need to see, then kept the lists to remind me of what I wanted to see later on. I first used PDAs of various sorts for this. I stopped being quite so much of a geek (I mean by whipping out a PDA and typing or writing on it during movie previews, the rest is kinda hard to wash off) when I found a companion to enjoy movies with. Now that I have RTM and Twitter, I am doing it again with my cell phone, which isn't nearly so out of place. At home, I can go through the list of movies and use IMDB to add opening dates, websites, and any other details. Weeks later, RTM sends me a reminder for the movies opening that day. It shows up on my cell phone as an SMS message, courtesy of Twitter, and my email inbox. If I miss a movie and it isn't in the theaters any more, I move it to my movies-to-see-at-home list, and the due date is removed. Now I can watch for it to be available on TV or DVD. I would like to eventually connect that one to a TiVo Wishlist or Netflix Queue. That would be sweet! WAIT! I'm going to add that to my to-do list right now!

I also love music. I've spent a lot of money on music over the course of my years as a bachelor, but in acquiring extra mouths in my household I have come to realize that the same money is better spent elsewhere. I'm very lucky that the popularity of MP3s popped in not long before my first household companion showed up. The good part about having other ears in the house is that I get exposure to music I might not otherwise ever come across. The bad part is that I don't have anywhere near as much spare time for uninterrupted tune-browsing as I used to. Now I can make a note right away for music I need to look for. At my computer is where I can sort the list contents. In my spare time I can see where those songs or artists lead me. Music ID services and HD radio data are also very informative sources for artist and song information, and I'm looking forward to using those to automatically populate my music list in the future.

I'm moving next month, so I started a list of all the big stuff we have to ensure we have the proper facilities to transfer them to the new house. I shared the list with Allison so we both know what we have in front of us.

When I've got a bill or other important matter to attend to in the near future, I send it to RTM, so I don't forget. It only takes a minute to make the note, and I don't ever have to worry about misplacing it.

Does it get better? Yes. Using tags and locations (RTM integrates Google Maps), you can connect items from multiple lists. There's a multitude of ways to manipulate data in RTM. Sign up now, then go here for help setting it up. You won't regret it.

Next?

This is where Twitter comes in. At its core, Twitter is known as a micro-blog. You can send short messages to update your status, and you can "follow" your friends' updates at the same time. Many services (like RTM, duh!) use Twitter as the glue between you and their operations. This population is what gets me excited about using it, because Twitter is so connectible to begin with. You can send and receive updates (and therefore message to the other services) from the mobile devices via text message, email, IM, and their web page, to name only the direct methods. There are scores of other desktop gadgets and programs that can do it as well. My favorite-est browser, , has Twitter functionality built into the sidebar. Between my phone and Flock, I get all the Twitter love I need.

Twitter is smart, too! If you set it up for multiple interfaces (IM, SMS, and Web), it can figure out the best place to contact you. When you have a message coming in, and you aren't logged into your IM service, it can go to your phone. If you designate hours when you don't want Twitter sending Tweets to your phone, it only leaves them in your log on the web for you to check on later. You can also selectively enable alerts from certain folks and services so that you are not totally inundated with incoming Tweets all the time. That was the part that took me a while to catch on to. Every time I added a new entity to follow, I also had to enable their alerts to come to my phone. After that it all works great!

I'm only following one actual person on Twitter: one of my sisters, whom I have suckered into trying it out. I follow 2 services: RTM and Xpen$er (which I haven't done a whole lot with yet). I have also set up two accounts to post to, using Twittermail, that I follow. Twittermail allows you to send an email to post to your Twitter account, and is great for coordinating activities for large groups of people. Anyone who knows the correct address can post comments or directions to everyone following that account. One recent example of such coordination was protesters trying to get face-time with the Olympic torch. I have set one up for use during a week-long family reunion this summer, and another to help coordinate resources at work. You can follow updates from your favorite political candidate, and many other entertaining and informative people.

That's what I've got for now. Tune in later to see what title I come up with for the next installment.

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An Update in General

I've been busy lately, but not here exactly. I started two new blogs that more adequately address some of my desires for outlet of late.

The first was Pushing Wool, a place where I do my part to hinder or help the larger coordinated efforts to pull the wool over our collective eyes. Having been trained throughout my life to be suspicious and look for ulterior motives, I feel well equipped to address these issues. I know there are many other worthy places to look for such illumination, but I think most of them have either jumped the shark and/or been swallowed by the gigantic loom of lies and misinformation.

The second blog, which I just kicked off a few days ago, was something I had been considering for a long time. It wasn't until somebody came out and said I should write for one of the beloved car magazines, that I really considered giving my own thoughts on the topic more than just lip service (because I really can talk about cars all day long). Once given the nudge, I was determined to give it a name both clever and self-centered enough to meet or exceed the standards set by my other blogs. I finally came up with Autogotistical Carpinions.

In the process of becoming inspired on the spot for topics about which to blather on about (see?), I've been trying to utilize any possible tools at hand to make it easier to keep track of my thoughts for expounding upon later. I'm now using Remember The Milk for that purpose, via Jott or by SMS via Twitter when I'm on the go. When I organize my task inbox later, the blog ideas get filtered into their own list, which you can see the contents of in the sidebar of this blog and both of the new blogs. This was my first attempt at using the news feed from a list of reminders. I like the fact that you can make some of the static blog content a little more dynamic without too much babysitting.

So that's what I've been up to. Keep an eye out for more from each blog. I'll probably be adding a news feed for each blog on the other, for a little cross-promotional action.

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Flockin' A, man!

I was really excited to see that Flock's latest version supports Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and Picasa Web Albums, but when it came down to using them, it really isn't happening much yet.

I like having my Picasa hosted pictures in Flock's Media Bar, but I don't really need the photo uploading capabilities because, oddly enough, I use Picasa's software locally on my computers to manage my photo albums.

The method for logging in and checking for unread email seems a little buggy still, so I removed the email button from the toolbar and stashed the icon for the Gmail Manager firefox extension there instead. Previews are better, and I can do more with it.

The one email related feature that does work now is the Share this Link button. Enough said.

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Comcast DVR Kicked to the Curb. TiVo HD has arrived!!

It was inevitable, really. We were trying to hold out as long as possible, but our Comcast supplied DVR finally had to go. It had been generally misbehaving on a regular basis for a long time, taking way too long to respond to commands from the remote control. After blatantly missing an American Idol episode, we knew it's time was up. I called Comcast and the person I spoke to was very sympathetic and suggested I take the DVR directly to the local office to get the trade-in faster. After hanging up the phone (how much longer will that phrase be used?), it was decided that we would replace the malfunctioning box in two days.

On that day, I had an idea. There had been some sales on TiVo HDs of late at our local mini-sized Best Buys. Why not pick up a CableCARD or two instead of a replacement DVR (which still won't be able to keep from recording the same episodes of A Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report 4 times a day!!) and buy a TiVo to solve our DVR problems?

So we got our second Tivo.

And we love it, just like we did our first one before we lost reception on our DirecTiVo.

We are still breaking ourselves in, trying to get the accustomed to the new features, but it really is nice. Thanks, TiVo. It's good to be home!

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Bad Troubleshooting Gone Right...

The LHS is running again, thanks to a decent bit of weather I was able to accelerate the resurrection process. Yippeeee!!!!!

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The Fated Revenge of Complementary Thinking

This is what I was going to do:  I was going to write a little about how nicely mannered our 1995 Chrysler LHS has been through the course of our owning it for almost 5 years.

What happened this morning:  I got in the car to go pick up my children from Granny's house, and it refused to start.  Doh!!  I'm writing this while waiting for a friend to arrive to try to help jump the beast.

The Story I was going to tell: We started looking for another car once when we learned that our son was on the way.  The main family car at the time was a not-too-reliable Chevy Caprice 9C1.  The car had its moments, but was not all that fun to take into the shop.  While the Caprice had plenty of room inside, it was apparent that having two six-footers in front was going to make it hard to carry a toddler and baby in the back.  It was plenty wide, but could use a little bit more in the length department.  Our daughter's carrier snuggled nicely between the seat backs of the front seats when installed in the middle of the back seat, and we weren't going to have that option with two occupants back there.

Our search began, and over the course of a few months of combing through Autotrader's web site, and examining interior specifications of everything I could think of, I noticed a car that was slowly dropping in price as it continued to go unsold.  It didn't have a lot of miles for its age.  The interior was quite cavernous, with legroom everywhere, and it had a (queue the ray of light!) sunroof.  The first problem we noticed was that the display didn't work on the stereo.  Okay, we thought, we would probably be replacing that with an newer unit, so that gives us haggle room.  The next thing was the climate control system.  Somehow it was stuck on max heat.  We went home later and thought it over, inadvertently leaving my Sting CD in the unlit CD player.  We called later to say we would like to buy it, and found out that it was actually owned by a broker who was a good bit closer to where we lived, and that it had been taken back there to replace the stereo (Bye-bye, Sting!).  We made the trip out there, and started talking about what it needed, and what we would pay.  From the continual price drops, no doubt due to some of the flaws previously noted, and the dealer's inability to get the display to work on another stereo, we got a pretty nice deal on a quite luxurious car.

After that it was our primary family car, and while there were some problems with the transmission leaking, a freak coolant issue, and letting it go too long without changing the timing belt, the car has been fairly dependable with regular use.  It has never stranded us on the freeway, which the Caprice did a number of times, and is usually up to whatever task put before it.

The standout feature for me this week, was looking back at how very capable it is in slick conditions.  I don't think I've been in a more capable car with a single axle propelling it.

A few winters back, my father and brother were visiting with Dad's RV, being followed close behind by my step-mother in the Suzuki Sidekick tow-vehicle.  While step-mom was on her way, a big storm hit, and made what is usually an uneventful trip into something a little more scary.  Somewhere between the directions my dad gave her and the weather, my step-mom took a wrong turn and while she had made it to within 10 miles of my home, we didn't want to risk any further problems.  My dad and I headed out in the LHS to find her.  The tires were VERY bald, and the traction control was kicking in every time we started after a stop, but it took the conditions well and never lost its composure.  In the aftermath of this same storm, we agreed to shuttle my brother back home so that my dad could go further north to avoid the storm in the big rig.  That was a real nail biter, as the car was driving on ice during the whole trip.

Earlier this week, I took the kids down to the Oregon Coast to celebrate New Year's.  I had planned on leaving in the wee hours of the morning, which turned out to be a good thing, because we drove on ice ALL the way from Olympia down to Tillamook.  The car seems ideally balanced for traveling like this.

If only it weren't so scared of high winds!!!

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