I'm Outta Here

Well, if you figured out the math when I mentioned it last week, you know I'm two days late, but I'm heading to the Ozarks tomorrow. I'll explain why I'm going late and all kinds of other good stuff when I get back. Stay tuned!

Step-o-meter challenge: 4172 steps today, I'll try to keep track while I'm gone and report back.

Michael's Friday Five #2

Michael continues his Friday Fives, and I thought this was another interesting one to respond to.

Going on a picnic………………………….. What would you like?

1. A hot dog or a hamburger? BBQ or No BBQ sauce?

Tough choice. How about a hot dog without sauce and a hamburger with sauce? It really depends, I love both.

2. Horse shoes or washers or string golf?
String golf sounds fun… how do you play?

3. Charcoal or Gas grill?
Charcoal provides more BBQ goodness!

4. Potato salad or Pasta salad or 7 layer salad?
None of the above.

5. What kind of chips?
Either Lay's Original or perhaps some kind of kettle chip. If I was picking a flavored chip, I would go with BBQ.

QOTW #4: Kodak Moments

It is a bit late (and will probably have to cover next week too, since hopefully I will be in Branson this upcoming Monday), but here is the question of the week. Feel free to respond here or use this as a meme on your blog (please post a link to your entry).

Do you have a digital camera? Do you use it in lieu of a traditional film camera? How many pictures have you taken with it? Do you stick to the highest possible quality or do you lower the quality to get in more pictures?

Yes, I do. I have a Sony Cybershot DSC-S72, which is a 3.2 megapixel camera with manual adjustments (shutter speed and aperture). It has, for all intents and purposes, replaced my little Kodak APS (Advanced Photo System) camera, not only because it has more features, but also because I can take as many pictures as I want without development costs.

I'm not sure how many pictures I've taken, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is over 5,000 in the last two years. On a trip, I might take 700 or more photos, only stopping when I fill up my four 128 meg memory cards (obviously, yes, that means I don't take pictures at the full rated quality most of the time… I usually opt for 1280×1024 res.). That leads me to my one complaint with the camera. Sony seems to have decided that Memory Sticks have hit the end of the road and the company is now only creating cards larger than 128 megs in the new Memory Stick Pro format, which is incompatible with older Sony cameras. This means I can't get a 256 or 512 meg stick that would truly allow for convenient use of the 3 megapixel CCD.

Overall, though, I love the camera. Only Sony's prosumer V series cameras come in the same heavy duty, SLR sized form factors now, so I'm glad I got mine while they offered it. I like the little compact cameras, but there is something satisfying about holding a decent sized camera that fits one's hands just right. The other big advantage to the full sized camera is that I can screw on an adapter to fit on standard 52” lenses, etc., you can't do that with Sony's heir to the S72.

The Other Thing that Is Keeping Me Busy

One thing I have never really addressed on asisaid is my desire to exit direct work in the computer industry. I love computers, I love writing about them, but I get really tired of repairing them, supporting them and programming them. You fix them, they break. You tell people how to keep them running smoothly, and they ignore you. As a hobby, it is enjoyable enough, but as a job, it just is not very meaningful and it starts to gnaw at you after awhile. Well, I should not generalize that much, but it does gnaw at me.

It also makes me whiney at times, like right now, and I don't like that. I tend to think that part of this is because I do not believe that computer help desk and consulting is really my purpose in life. I have tried to ignore that fact, but it hasn't worked. Finally, awhile back, I realized it was time to do something about this problem.

I have been working on an “exit strategy,” in other words. For a variety of reasons I felt it best not to mention this publicly at first. It was not anything against my blogging friends, just to be completely clear. More recently, I did not have time to put together a post to explain what I am up to, so I just omitted what perhaps I otherwise would have posted. I finally decided it was silly to leave part of what I am doing, and where I am heading, off of my blog.

So here it is. What's my exit strategy? I am presently working on earning a BA in two fields completely unrelated to the IT sector: English and the Academic Study of Religion. More than a few people have said, in more or less direct ways, that I am truly nutty for trying to get out of information technologies. But, after praying and thinking about it for several years, it has become clear this is what I need to do.

I am presently about half way through, which means I should complete the program by about this time in 2006, or six months later than that should I opt to add a minor in Business Administration (I already have half the appropriate credits I need for that). Either way, I am on the road to switching gears in a very serious fashion.

I feel rather badly about not mentioning such a major change of course sooner on here. I do not want those of you who read my blog regularly to think I am hiding a bunch of things from all of you. Truly, I'm not. Frankly, this concern made me somewhat hesitant about saying anything at all at this stage. “Maybe I should just keep on truck'n for now — I can always say something later… you've kept your thoughts to yourself this long.” But, it just seemed like I needed to quit that stalling nonsense finally.

There I have said it. I've now pretty much put the whole me out here. And, with that, I shall go to bed.

iLife '04

When iMovie started refusing to import iTMS music a few weeks back (on my Mac), I had a feeling I knew what the matter was. iTunes 4.5 reworks its iTMS access system to break Hymn (f/k/a PlayFair), a program that strips the DRM from iTMS files. As a side effect, it also breaks older versions of the iLife apps, at least as far as their ability to use DRM'ed iTMS music goes. This was a bit disappointing because I had just purchased a ridiculously bad song to stick into a short movie clip for the humorous impact of its “badness.”

The fix is to upgrade to iLife '04 (I purchased my G5 two months before the new iLife came out). While I wasn't particularly happy about the software that came with Panther already being considered obsolete and not worthy of patching, I had been thinking about buying iLife '04 anyway and so I bit the bullet and ordered it (the MSRP is under $50).

Supposedly, iPhoto 4 is faster and can handle 25,000 photos instantaneously, and iMovie is suppose to be faster and leave backup unedited copies of DV footage. The new iMovie also has better compression techniques, if I understand correctly, which should yield results much more on par with Final Cut Express/Pro. Nice! Now, I just need time to try the package out. It arrived Friday and the box is presently sitting on my desk waiting for me to install.

It will be at least Wednesday before I get to that, but I will mention how it goes once I do.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Busy. I am so busy. And behind. Good thing the Ozarks are t-minus seven days. That won't help on the behind part, but it will give me a break from the busy part.

Stupid Me

I kept wondering why my one client wasn't paying his invoice. I even went into the software and told it to do reminder invoices tonight. Of course, it was only a short while ago I remembered that the said client had me update the e-mail links on his site for his new e-mail address… I've been sending the invoices to the wrong address!

If you haven't already caught Jared's posts (and related comments) on Berg and the prisoner abuse scandal, take a look at them, they are both insightful. They are here and here, respectively.

QOTW #3: Megahertz Race

Time for yet another Question of the Week. Feel free to answer below or on your own blog if you prefer.

What was the megahertz speed of your first computer? What is the speed of your present computer? Have you ever owned a system with a “performance rating” instead of a MHz rating? Do you check your system speed to see if it really is running at the advertised speed?

I'm not sure, to be honest — I'd have to check to see what the TI 99/4A's specs where. My first PC compatible ran at 33 MHz, though (it was a Intel 486 DX).

My current PC runs at 2.66 GHz (but, to answer the last question, its actual speed is 2657.883). It's a Pentium 4 without Hyperthreading… HT boxen run at .06 less GHz. My Mac runs at 2.0 GHz (yes, that's the actual speed too).

I've never run a “performance rating” processor. Although, if I were building a DIY PC compatible at the moment, I'd be very tempted by the AMD Athlon 64. (Offtopic: Remember when Cyrix was trying to do a non-MHz rating in the mid-90's?)

FINFF (FINFF Is Not Friday Five)

Michael has made a little Friday Five replacement now that Friday Five is dead. I thought I'd give it a try.

1. Do you read your Bible everyday??
I certainly try to, although I'm ashamed to admit I don't do as well as I intend to. I'm currently a month behind on my “read through the Bible in a year” Bible.

2. Do you pray everyday??
Yes. I try to pick regular times too — that helps a lot. I need to do the same for Bible reading.

3. Do you attend church every week?
Yup.

4. Do you think we have too many stores and such open on Sunday?
I'd say so. I don't see why there shouldn't be a day of rest. People don't do well on a 24×7x365 schedule… I suspect that's why stress and such are so high now a days. Of course no one wouldn't want to admit the Bible was right about this…

5. Have you ever had to work on Sunday? How do you feel about it.
Yes, and I have come to realize that this was a mistake. Not Sunday itself, but not setting a side a day of rest. (I say this because while I try to make Sunday somewhat of a day of rest, I don't think we should stick to a legalistic preference for Sunday — if we get technical, Saturday seems more logical, but it's best to avoid that pickiness altogether, I think.)

Questions, Questions, Questions

• Mickey or Donald - I'm a duck person. Of course, Mickey Donalds is even better.
• Iced tea: Sweet or Unsweet - Unless it's in a bottle — regular tea in a bottle isn't very good.
• M&Ms or Reese’s Pieces - Not the top of my candy list, but it is good enough.
• Walk or Run - Take time to smell the flowers and all that stuff.
• Zoe or Rosita - I'm not sure I understand this one.
• Drowning or Suffocation - Got a sinking feeling about this one.
• Notebook paper: Wide or College Ruled - More text, less space.
• Art or Music - Art you can enjoy while doing other stuff.
• English or Math - English beats Math for sure!
• History or Science - Well written history can be interesting.
• Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein - Tough choice.
• Al Sharpton or Louis Farrahkan - At least he is funny.
• Infield or Outfield - No idea.
• David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar - Ditto.
• Fire or Brimstone - It sounds more dramatic.
• Salt or Pepper - Salt: The Other Food Group.
• Tape: Scotch or Masking - Invisible tape is fun!
• Beans: Pinto or Black - ¡Yo Quiero Taco Bell!
• Slushee or Smoothie</b - St. Louis Bread/Panera's I.C. Mocha is good.
• IHOP or Shoney’s - Neither are great, but both are fine. Shoney's isn't around here any more though.
• Reebok or Nike - Birkenstock all the way!
• Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino - He's pretty good.
• Benji or Lassie - Better name recognition.
• Superman or Batman - Holy smokes, Batman!
• Sun or Moon - Another bright idea.