Google News Alerts

Did you know that Google will deliver up emails to you with alerts to any news topic you might be wishing to keep an eye on? Yep, works quite well. You can tell Google how often you would like to receive these alerts. Check it out at this Google site . This is not a new Google tool, in fact, I've used it for over a year now, but I suspect many are not aware of it.

More on the "Roady"
Yesterday I mentioned XM Radio's new "Roady" version. There are some good reviews of it at the Epinions site. Speaking of Epinions, it is an excellent source for indepth reviews of many things, so before you buy something, you might want to scan the Epinions site to get a few user opinions. Update! Well, I sprung for the Roady - pretty slick. Slap tiny antenna on the roof (strong magnet) , route the antenna wire into the car - plug in cigarette lighter adapter to receiver along with a cassette adapter and you're good to go. Simply call or go through the Net to XM Radio's site and activate the unit and in about 20 minutes, your unit has some 100+ channels on it. Reception was excellent on top of our mountain - will be giving it a good test tomorrow when I drive up towards the Chicago area.

D70 Picks up another positive Review

Ken Rockwell writes a long and very positive review of the Nikon D70. If you're looking for a digital SLR with an outstanding kit lens, this may be the one to look at (for the moment, that is, until Canon comes out with their reply!). I had some concerns with the focus issues, which Rockwell explains here - still would be good to check that issue out before camera gets out of warranty. Incidentally, you might want to check the fine print on your credit card, as often they add 1 year warranty to the basic warranty. Another reason I always use a credit card that offers this advantage.

Safer Shopping
Although you wouldn't expect it from Doc Mercola (since he writes mostly health articles), he is a gadget freak and in this article points out a few ways to shop safer online - worth a look.

Wireless
Had a chance to try out my Dell 600m laptop in Roanoke in the downtown Market Square the other day. Free for 2 hours of use at a time - was a good way to download my audio books which are often 25mb and up in size. Unfortunately, signal was a bit low and got only 1mb/sec download speeds (still better than 56k dialup by a long shot!). Normally, would get 5-10mb/sec downloads. Even lost the signal a few times, but couldn't complain for free. Will be glad when wireless takes off everywhere. If businesses are smart, they won't charge - brings in business to coffee shops, etc that they might not otherwise get. I can certainly see the advantage of a PDA though - beats lugging around big laptop, especially if you're just going to check email,etc. Will be interested to see what kind of a wireless solution I can come up with for the Tungsten T3 that will hopefully be arriving soon in my mailbox. The Bluetooth cell phone option is nice, but too expensive and the speeds are more in the 56K world and who needs that?

XM Radio
Getting interested in XM Radio at the moment - noticed that they now have an XM "Roady" available for $119 and if you act soon, you get a free Home kit (which enables you to plug into your home stereo) and a free wireless FM transmitter kit for the car, which enables you to transmit the signal into an empty FM station on your car radio and thus play it through your car speakers (in the event that you don't have a cassette player in your car - the kit comes with a cassette adapter, if you do). It plugs into your cigarette lighter and doesn't require hard wiring, so you can transfer it over to your other car and use it there, or take it into the house and use the Home Kit to plug it into your AC outlet and then plug the RCA cables into your home stereo system. Check out the options at the XM web site! . For a list of some of the programming and to hear some samples, click here . You can pick these things up at your local Walmart.

2 Gigs of Free Email!
It didn't take long for folks to challenge the Google email system. Check out AventureMail

Politics
Bill Clinton was front and center again this week, kicking off his "My Life" book tour . Put June 20th on your calendar for his 60 Minutes appearance, just a few days before his book is released. He'll also be on Oprah a few days after. If you want to listen to Clinton and talk to the BookExpo America folks, then you can listen for free at this Audible site . I listed a few days ago and it was typical Clinton - always interesting, amusing - quite refreshing to hear someone who is so good at getting up in public and speaking, something I miss in a President. I think we'll see Kerry do well, once he gets past the campaign and starts talking like a human being again, but nobody can match Clinton.

Quote of the Day
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

How Cool is this? Hello is free, so give it a try!

Will it be Smarty Jones's day?

The big event of the day comes late this afternoon when Smarty Jones goes for the Triple Crown - he's a good bet to win, but it's a rare one that can pull off the Triple Crown - tune in! (For an opinion on the race, read this article .) The race takes off at 6:38 ET, but TV coverage begins at 5:30 p.m.

Music Players
This looks like a pretty neat 20 Gig music player. Certainly different than most. I like the line-in recording ability, which makes it nice to record those old albums. Check out the specs and a review . Certainly not cheap, but cool!

Word of the Day
autochthonous aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs\, adjective:1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native. 2. Formed or originating in the place where found. Autochthonous derives from Greek autochthon, "of or from the earth or land itself," from auto-, "self" + chthon, "earth." One that is autochthonous is an autochthon. - Usage - For cultures are not monoliths. They are fragmentary, patchworks of autochthonous and foreign elements. This is the word that won the 2004 National Spelling Bee Championship for 14 yr old David Tidmarsh of South Bend, Indiana

Fiber to the Dorms!

Think I'll go to Case Western Reserve in my next life (of course larger brain will be required to get in, but that's another story). Fiber connectivity in the dorms! "Case operates the fastest and largest network in Higher Education. We have deployed more than 16,000 Gigabit Ethernet connections throughout the residence halls and campus buildings. This Gigabit-to-the-Desktop approach provides each user with 10 to 100 times faster connectivity then a typical Ethernet connection. All students have access to over 16,000 fiber ports throughout the university plus 802.11g campus-wide! "

Music
DALLAS - Eric Clapton will host a three-day festival this weekend featuring 60 guitarists, including B.B. King, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck , Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Joe Walsh , J.J. Cale , Bo Diddley, James Taylor , Jimmie Vaughan and Vince Gill . Proceeds go to Crossroads Centre, the nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation center Clapton founded on the Caribbean island of Antigua, where he maintains a residence. The Crossroads festival, which will be held at Dallas Fair Park and Cotton Bowl Stadium, coordinates with the start of Clapton's U.S. tour, which begins June 9 in Oklahoma City.

Politics
George Tenet is resigning come July. "Tenet, who also faced fierce criticism over his agency's handling of Iraqi intelligence, including a now famous prediction that the case for war against Iraq (news - web sites) was a "slam dunk," broke the news to Bush at the White House on Wednesday night. "He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving," Bush said. LIfe in the fast lane - it was probably time for him to go - I can imagine he's had enough.

Audible in USA Today
Big article in the money section of USA Today about Audible.com and its drive to success. They're really the only player in town at the moment and with the ability of Ipod owners to listen in, sales are picking up. Audible continues to add new compatible players to its line up - the Creative Nomad MuVo being the latest one (free with 12 month membership). So if you have have an Ipod, or a Palm Pilot, or Pocket PC, or one of their compatible mp3 players, you're ready to start listening! It truly is a great way to increase your reading and in a whole new, different, and enjoyable way - you will be amazed at what good narration can bring to a book. So when you've grown tired of listening to just music, you can now listen to a good book - ya gotta love it. You can see some of the Audible selections I would recommend on the sidebar to the right.

DaVinci Code Fans
Did you like the DaVinci code? Lots of debate over that one - I started it as an audio book but then realized it was the abridged version, so I stopped. Audible now has it in the unabridged version so I will have to download and listen in. There is now a new book out by Dan Burstein entitled, "Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code ". To read the transcipts of a recent chat with the author of this book, click here .

Feed Demon Revisited

If you're not yet using RSS feeds for your Internet browsing, then you're missing a tool that will save you boodles of time. Check out this good review of Feed Demon 1.10 It will save you a lot of time wandering around to various web sites, when you can visit them all with this one tool all while staying within the same window. "The highlight of the interface is the integrated browser and how seamlessly it blends in with the rest of the application. What makes the browser so great is that it has the capability to open new windows in tabs. This feature alone makes FeedDemon more useful than IE as a Web browser." This review actually covers Version 1.0, but if you pay for it, it is actually up to 1.10 RC5 (release candidate 5).

Word of the Day
pernicious Tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly:a pernicious virus . Causing great harm; destructive: pernicious rumors. Usage - "The murders have subsided, but a more pernicious trend worries him. The price of food -- particularly rice -- has almost doubled. ... "

Big Pipes

Music
Happened to turn on the Today show today and heard Renee Olstead belting out "Summertime". What a great set of pipes on this 14 year old prodigy. Boggles the mind how some folks can be so accomplished at such a young age (Charlotte Church, LeAnn Rimes, etc). You can hear her debut album and this incredible voice at her web site. You can buy her album for a good price here. Some of you may know her from her role on the CBS sitcom "Still Standing" (I don't watch sitcom trash, but if you do.... you may know her from there - suspect you will be surprised at her real talent here). Performing with Bill Cosby's All-Star Band at the 2003 Playboy Jazz Festival, she literally stole the show. At the age of four, Renee was approached by an agent at a tap dance recital. Since then, she has featured in many commercials, TV shows, and movies throughout America, of which "End of days" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Space Cowboys" and this year, "13 Going on 30" were a few.

Teenagers
Then, on the other hand, your teenager may represent some of the teenagers outlined in this NY Times article in this Sunday's lead article in the Magazine section. If so, my sympathies are with you!

Movies
Watched Runaway Jury yesterday with Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusak. Rachel Weisz - good flick of a John Grisham novel. Lots of interesting twists. Interesting that these two consumate actors had never acted together before, despite knowing each other since 1956 and having roomed together in a tiny NYC apt in their early days. The "extras" on the DVD are worth watching to learn more about the two of them and to watch them rehearsing and shooting some of their key scenes. Rent it.

Cheese rolling,anyone?


Bored - looking for something a bit more exciting? What? Did someone say "Cheese Rolling" ? Yep, those merry ol' Brits are up to it again. Now this little activity is sheer lunacy - watched it on CNN today - if you happen to get CNN, you might catch it on a rerun of the News, but if not, head to the Coopers Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake site . This little bit of inspiration takes place yearly in Gloucestershire. Have a look at some of the pics!

Open Source our Electronic Voting Machines!

Along comes an excellent idea to take the electronic voting machine debate out of the hands of the private companies (which can be bought and paid for) and post it on the Net as "open source" code. That way anybody can inspect it and discover the bugs and create an electronic system that really works. Read the article to learn more.

Political Polls
In an unofficial NY Times poll of its readers, Edwards gets 55% of the vote to be Kerry's VP, Wes Clark 37% and nobody else more than 1%. Who would you recommend?

Computer Specials
Scoop up a copy of Nero 6 Ultra Edition for $19.99 after $50 rebate from Outpost.com Good only through June 3rd, so if you want it, you'd better hurry. Rebate available at the link via a .pdf file.
(Nero 6 Ultra Edition wins PC World`s Best Buy Award - “Of the seven DVD Burning suites we examined, only Ahead’s Nero 6 Ultra Edition handled everything we threw at it – and handled it well” “Had everything you’ll need to do almost anything related to CD and DVD creation” PC World, April 2004)

TechTV
A true bummer, G4, which specializes in computer gaming, has taken over TechTV and has eliminated the extremely helpful "Call for Help" show. The "Screensavers" still survives, but "Call for Help" was especially helpful for us mortals. All in the name of greed. Bah, humbug. For some of Leo LaPorte's final comments, check out his blog on this topic

SP2 From Leo's Blog - "We now know why there was a delay in shipping Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Security code in the update breaks 64-bit processors. Microsoft says it has licked the problem and expects to ship Release Candidate 2 this week with release to manufacture in late July. That should get it out to users by September. Sp-2 adds much needed security to XP and will be a must have download once it ships. "

Photo of the Day

This little fella is out for a stroll after a recent cloudburst (Casio 3000EX 1/524th@f5.6 30mm macro mode ISO 100)

Like to Read?

Books
Although I primarily listen to audio books, sometimes not every book finds its way into an audio format (although nowadays, most do). Here's a new book club that sells you hardcovers for $9.95 each with free shipping (sales tax in NY,PA, and IN). That's a deal. Heck, most paperbacks cost that much or more nowadays. It works like Netflix - you populate your List with book choices and each month they send you the book at the top of your list. If you want to buy more books, then just pay another $9.95 and you get free shipping on that as well. The only catch I see - "sometimes are altered in size in order to save the members money". That is similar to what the LIterary Guild used to do (and may still do). Unless you are into collectibles, that really doesn't make a whit of difference.

Television
Six Feet Under returns to HBO June 13th. If you haven't watched this show yet, you should. Some of the better work on TV. A portrait of the women, who are a large part of this series, is described in this article.

Movies
Watched the Last Samurai with Tom Cruise the other day. I'm not sure it got rave reviews, but I liked it - lots of actions, great scenery - just plain ol' good entertainment and about a subject most Americans would know little about. I know I wouldn't want to see on these dudes bearing down on me! Other movies I've enjoyed recently - Calendar Girls (older women posing nude for a fund raising project for their group - true story - funny and unusual), Something's Gotta Give with Nicholson and Keaton - both superb actors - good fun - it's hard to find a movie where Nicholson is bad. Next movie on my list - Osama This stunning film, the first to be made in a post-Taliban Afghanistan and inspired by a newspaper account read by director Siddiq Barmak, recounts the efforts of a family of women to survive under an oppressive regime. To eke out a meager living, they dress up their 12-year-old girl, Osama, as a boy so she can work. A talented cast of non-actors -- including Marina Golbahari and Zubaida Sahar -- adds integrity to the heartbreaking story. .

Photography - Digital
From a friend comes these two freebie programs, designed to reduce or eliminate noise in digital photos (often happens at higher film speeds or in low light situations). Check out Helicon's Noise Filter or the one by Imagenomic called Noiseware

Email
Being a member of Blogger, I get the opportunity to beta test the new Google Email program. That's pretty cool, since it is a hot ticket apparently, even being auctioned off on Ebay. My initial reactions? Very fast, much faster than Yahoo or Hotmail. Pretty much like Google's search engine in respect to speed. The ads that are displayed on the sides of the email are not a bother at all, in fact they lead to some very interesting sites, so actually I welcome them. Yes, they scan your emails through robots to determine which ads to serve, but heck, ISPs scan your email for viruses, so not a big deal. One interesting aspect which I'm curious to see in action is the "threading" of conversations - however, nobody has answered any of the emails I've sent out, so I can't tell how the thread works! LOL Obviously, they were overwhelmed. You also have the ability to keytag emails, which they call "labeling". So you can assign various "labels" to emails and thus easily find them later through a search of a "label". Of course, you can also search for previous emails by simply typing in a word as it keeps a vast database of all the words you've used in your emails and can thus search on any word you might be looking for. Slick (Outlook Express will do the same thing) You get 1Gig of Email which should keep most people happy. You can delete your mail as you go along, but once deleted, it is gone for good. Archiving it, keeps it on Google's servers and allows you to retrieve any message. The "labeling" and "Search on keyword" attributes of the program pretty much do away with the need to create Folders to sort your email, although Filtering rules are available (a limit of 20). This is a lot like the Powermarks program I use to keep track of the thousands of bookmarked sites I have. A simple keyword search brings them forth, much faster than using the traditional browser bookmarking system. Powermarks offers a free trial, so check it out, as well.

Photos of the Day
Two panos (each shot consisting of 2 pics) of the flower gardens (work in progress) at the Fox Hill Inn and a picture of the sitting area at the goldfish pond. Seen to the left of the garden is a bocce court (the long green strip of grass), and bordering it on its outside edge is a new wildflower bed, just seeded. Click on the pictures for larger views.

Quote of the Day
"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off."
Johnny Carson

Photo of the Day
Work progresses on the Gazebo at Fox Hill Inn High on top of a mountain (3200'), the Inn and nearby cabins offer sweeping vistas. (Casio 3000EX - Pano - 3 photos stitched together)

Blogger Mania

Surely, this isn't a disease? Hmmm....maybe it is. ""It seems as if his laptop is glued to his legs 24/7," Ms. Matthews said of her husband." Obviously, we of the Blogger mind are sick puppies. But, if you're reading this, then your life must be as tiny as mine and that is quite comforting. LOL

Expression of the Day
SMS(Short Message Service) A text message service that enables short messages of generally no more than 140-160 characters in length to be sent and transmitted from a cellphone. SMS was introduced in the GSM system and later supported by all other digital-based mobile communications systems. Unlike paging, but similar to e-mail, short messages are stored and forwarded at SMS centers, which means you can retrieve your messages later if you are not immediately available to receive them. SMS messages travel to the cellphone over the system's control channel, which is separate and apart from the voice channel.

Photo of the Day
Foxglove - Currently blooming at Fox Hill Inn and Cabins. A tall plant (native to Great Britain) that has numerous thimble-shaped purple or white flowers and is the source of the drug digitalis (A pharmaceutical prepared from the seeds and dried leaves of the purple foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, and prescribed as a cardiac stimulant in the treatment of congestive heart failure and other disorders of the heart.) The throats of foxglove blossoms feature exotic blotches and a runway that guides bees to nectar and pollen. Carl Linneaus, a Swedish physician and botanist, named foxglove Digitalis because folklore said the tubular flowers were worn on the digits, or fingers, of fairies. Foxglove would not become widely used by physicians until 1870, when a French chemist isolated the active constituent and named it digitalin. This became the standard pharmacy drug until 1970, when a synthetic form, digitoxin, was produced.

(Casio 3000EX - Macro Mode - 1/155th @ f4.0 40mm ISO 100)

Quote of the Day
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
John Benfield

And from the Odd World
The fashion police won't be coming to Louisiana. State lawmakers refused to make it a crime to wear low-slung pants in public that expose "undergarments or ... any portion of the pubic hair, cleft of the buttocks or genitals."

and....

Want to be hip at the beach while being cool and healthy too? Try Hippopotamus sweat. Not only is the sweat of the hippo a fetching shade of red that gradually turns to brown, it also acts as a sunscreen and has antibiotic properties, according to Japanese scientists writing in Nature science journal.

Photo of the Day

Roses and Dianthuses Taken in the Fox Hill Inn Gardens. Casio 3000EX 3.3 mp camera ; 1/435th @ f2.8 70mm Click on photo for larger view.

Thought we needed a touch of tranquility during all the stressful talk about war!

Money
Are you keeping up with the Joneses? Avg salary in the US was $36K in 2002. Of course CEO's of big companies are making a tad bit more - they're averaging 12 million/year. Avg hourly wage of non-supervisory workers was $15.54 in March of 2004. For more stats, check out this page.

Get off the Roads! Bad Driver Approaching!

There's a terrible sense of dread filtering across America at the moment and it's not simply because of the continuing fear of terrorism and the fact that the nation is at war. It's more frightening than that. It grows out of the suspicion that we all may be passengers in a vehicle that has made a radically wrong turn and is barreling along a dark road, with its headlights off and with someone behind the wheel who may not know how to drive. Bob Herbert of the Times

Quote of the Day
"I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either."
Jack Benny

Time Running Out to get a FREE Palm Tungsten T3

If you have 10K lying around in some account somewhere and can move it into an Ameritrade account before the end of May, you can snap yourself up a free Palm Tungsten T3 (packs a brilliant 320x480 screen, a 400mhz Intel XScale processor and 64MB of RAM - shown here in landscape mode in slide-out mode) . You snooze, you lose! Go to this site for the offer. Good for listening to audio books, showing your friends your pics, listening to mp3's, surfing the Net with a bluetooth enabled phone (and hopefully soon a wi-fi card), using as a voice recorder, reading E-Books, and using thousands of Palm Programs that are available for download (check out PalmGear or Freeware Palm)

Quote of the Day
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. (Leave your Tungsten T3 behind for this moment of serenity. :)
John Muir

Bloggerman on the shores of Lake Michigan - Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.(click on picture for larger view) Giving a new tool from the program "Hello" a whirl. Hello is a very neat chat program for sharing photos and it now allows me to upload and post pics easily to my blog. Pretty cool. (Since Hello is partnering with Google and Google owns Blogger, Hello is offering all Blogger members free image hosting. I like that! Easy to post a pic - Hello will resize the pic automatically, write the html and post it to one's blog).

Gambian Giant Pouched Rats to the Rescue!

Say what? What the hell is a Gambian Giant Pouched Rat, you say? Well, when you least expect it (sounds like Allen Funt, doesn't it?) they may well save your ass some day! Give that guy a banana! Read on dear Reader!

Bugs
Easy on those cicadas now - they may be tasty, but ya gotta know your limits!

Smarty Jones Dominates!

If you missed Smarty Jone in the Derby and missed his great rush to the finish in the Preakness (he won by an amazing 11 1/2 lengths after coming off the final turn, neck and neck) , then in 3 weeks (June 5th) you get one more chance to see him in the Belmont Stakes and this time see him run for the Triple Crown. I sure wouldn't bet against him. Coming into the Derby, he had won 6 in a row. He won the Derby and a 5 million dollar bonus for being undefeated and winning and if he wins the Triple Crown at Belmont, he'll pick up another 5 million dollar bonus and be the richest horse of all time. Nobody has won the Triple Crown since Affirmed, way back in 1978. Smarty Jones would be the first undefeated to win the Triple Crown since Seattle Slew in 1977.

He's lucky to be even racing. "As a 2-year-old, during a schooling session at the starting gate at Philadelphia Park in July in preparation for his first career start, Smarty Jones reared up and slammed his head on an unpadded iron bar, fracturing his skull and shattering his orbital (eye socket) bones. Trainer John Servis said at the time, "Oh my God, this horse just killed himself." The accident nearly caused him to lose his left eye." For more about Smarty Jones, check out this page.

Graduation Day!

The Art "Brains" of the Sr. Class - (left to right) Janet (my wife) (Magna Cum Laude) and friends Christine (Summa Cum Laude) and Brenda (Magna Cum Laude) celebrate Graduation Day at Emory and Henry College. Janet ended up with a 3.86/4.0 where Summa Cum Laude requires 3.9 - you woulda thought they could have rounded it up! Not bad though for someone who gets to celebrate their 50th birthday next February (now how many would guess that is a 49 yr old graduate? - Not many, I suspect - she is the Dick Clark of the female world. LOL ) But I gotta brag and say that Janet stole the show with her Sr. Art Show representing a lost civilization off the coast of Africa - visitors to the gallery were actually fooled into thinking it was truly was a lost civilization and thought the artifacts were real (Janet created them).

Janet is now going to take a break after 3 years of staying up till midnight each night cracking the books, 7 days a week. Will explore what she wants to do in the world of Art and I have no doubt will accomplish whatever she chooses to do. She might not strike it rich, but she will enrich her soul, something the ol' greenback fails rather miserably at doing.

Computers
Here are a couple of free programs I stumbled across the other day that are quite useful. Folder Box and an automatic Zip program for attachments sent via Outlook Express. The Folder Box is particularly useful for moving files amongst different drives on one's computer. You might find some of the other programs on that page useful as well.

Quote of the Day
Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.
Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930 - )
Polish sculptor and graphic artist.

Encarta 2004 on DVD

Want to get Encarta 2004 for super price? Check out this link. $20 rebate comes inside the box, so total cost is $8.80 delivered ((I got it in just a couple of days via Fed Ex). Incredible price - installs easily (I put the whole thing on the HD for faster access). Grab one while they're still available. Once installed, you can download all the latest updates (I downloaded 23MB worth of them). You continue to get free updates through 10/04. After that, you need to buy the 2005 edition, but I always wait till the Spring of 2005 when I can find deals like this one.