iTunes for Windows: Slick.

While the Aqua-like look within iTunes for Windows doesn't look quite as good as it does in Mac OS X (IMO, but I guess you hope it wouldn't, otherwise all of Apple's work on Quartz would have been for naught), it looks very nice. Most everything works the same, save some adjustments to make it act like a Windows app (like a different configuration window that is less iconic).

The really amazing part was getting my iTunes Music Store music onto the system. It was absolutely painless. I went into my Mac's iTunes preferences, enabled music sharing (shares the music within your subnet), and presto all of the purchases appeared in a folder named “Timothy Butler's Music” on iTunes for Windows. After that, it was just a matter of typing in my Apple Account's username and password to authorize the computer and the music started playing! Impressive!

(And, as if you wouldn't have guessed, the music sounds much better on the PC with its SB Live! driving a 5.1 Logitech speaker system than the iMac's two little built in speakers.)

Eye See, Can You?

Alias, the makers of Maya 3D rendering software, have a fun little challenge — can you tell the difference between real photos and 3D renderings? Test your self at Fake of Foto.

(I got 9 out of 10.)

Well, There's Always Next Month

[Update: Since I quoted the text that would have gone on the blog if it had been up, I took Kevin's advice and backdated this entry.]
Up until yesterday I was proceeding along well with my goal to blog at least once a day for an entire month (previously I've never gone for 15 days without at least a one day pause). Unfortunately something took down at least a good portion of the datacenter my site is in, thus preventing me from continuing my attempts.

Unfortunately something else [other than yesterday morning's Slashdotting] has taken down my sites, all of my clients' sites, and my hosting company’s site for the last three or four hours (must be something bigger than a simple Slashdotting or such, since they have 20 or more servers and they all seem to be MIA at the moment). sigh I’ve been trying to post a blog entry every day this month, so I guess this comment will have to count as one because it certainly doesn’t look like my server will be back up any time soon.

At first, the obvious solution seemed to be to just do a post on Sakamuyo, but its on the same company's systems as asisaid, so that didn't work either. Oh well.

Name Game

Timothy is the #27 most common male name.
0.64% of men in the US are named Timothy.
Around 784000 US men are named Timothy! Butler is the #91 most common last name.
0.091% of last names in the US are Butler.
Around 227500 US last names are Butler!
source namestatistics.com

Found on Neil's World.

Rebate!

A few months ago I purchased Roxio Toast 5 from CompUSA for my iMac. I got it for $100 with a $40 rebate and $10 instant savings, so theoretically it was a “mere” $50 when I got done (quotes around mere since it cost nothing and required no effort to get the same external burner working on my GNU/Linux box). At any rate, that was okay.

But, things couldn't be that simple. I got a post card from Roxio that says that I didn't purchase the software during the eligible time (actually, I did buy it during the eligible period)! Worse, calling the phone number on the post card yields no way to get to a live person, and attempts to e-mail the rebate processor have resulted in no response in over a week. sigh

Hrmf.

Got Purpose?

Here's something for those of you participating in the 40 Days of Purpose… My “Got Purpose?” wallpaper, based on the similar design by PurposeDriven and Outreach Marketing for signage. It's on a GNU/Linux (or actually, KDE) art site, but it should work on any OS. It's not terribly fancy, but I thought I'd just mention it — you can get it here.

Blogrolling down still?

Well, most blogs seem to have their blogroll back up, but mine is still down. I wonder if not all of the rolls are restored or if my blogging software (which modifies the blogrolling output a bit) is the problem? Hmm… I guess I'll worry about it tomorrow.

Simulcast -- Two Thumbs Up

Well, I wasn't so sure about a 1 1/2 hour simulcast (or actually non-simulcast — getting the satellite feed was too costly, so we opted for the DVD version) that much, but it was very good. Rick Warren was a good enough speaker to make the time go by fast, not bad considering, as the pastor's son said, “it was like five of your sermons.”

Indeed, it sort of was like 5 sermonettes, a preview of the next six weeks worth of sermons. It was interluded with videos as well as several musical performances, including one from Natalie Grant.

It was also nice because we got to watch it in the Southwestern Bell Auditorium at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, our church's next door neighbor. They were kind enough to open their spectacular doors for the evening, allowing us to use the theater and then their main “lobby” (the word doesn't do justice for the size) area afterwards. It comfortably held the 250-300 church members that went.

It was neat to see, considering that the Danforth Plant Science Center is one of the foremost bio-tech research centers in the world. It's a collaboration between Washington University in St. Louis and Monsanto Co. We have at least one Center employee that is a member of our church and a scientist that worked there that attended our church while in the U.S. So, there were a variety of reasons that it was interesting to go into the building that casts it shadow on ours.

But back to the actual point of the night. It was a good start to the 40 Days. For anyone whose church is saving the simulcast for tomorrow — I think you'll really enjoy it.

In case you haven't been here today due to BlogRolling being down, read on to the next post about Christopher's internet small group.

More Stock

For those that missed the last issuing of stock, I've issued more asisaid.com shares of stock at BlogShares. Take a look, here.

40 Days of Purpose Internet Group

Well, Christopher had a good idea: he started a bulletin board based small group for those away at school that wanted to join in on the 40 Days of Purpose at his church. He was also kind enough to invite any of his blogging friends that might want to join, to do so.

Well, I've joined, and he said I could invite asisaid.com readers to join as well. If you'd like to take part in the 40 Days of Purpose with Christopher's small internet group, you can leave a note in the comments on his site and do so. Just click here.

This could be really interesting. I've often thought an internet small group might be neat (after all, in a slightly larger format, CS-FSLUG's CS-BibleStudy always worked well), but I hadn't thought about one for the 40 Days of Purpose. Why not give it a whirl?