Holiday idea

CNN.com has posted an interesting article about learning about your family history during the holidays.

Photoshop Alternative

Would you love to learn Photoshop but can't afford the hefty price tag? Perhaps you've heard of the free GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Project) product. Well now there's the free GIMPShop a version of GIMP with a menu layout that is more in line with Photoshop.

Napster Redux

If you liked the ability to discover music that is similar to your old favorites on Napster, check out Pandora. Pandora allows you to build custom radio stations based on your favorite artists and songs. You can "train" it to tailor your tastes with a simple thumbs up/down on each song you listen to. It is a free service with minimal advertising and a decent privacy policy.

It made the Time magazine's list of 50 coolest websites.

12-year-old art prodigy

Wow. You just have to see this 12-year-old art prodigy for yourself (3 min).

HD vs. DVD

Great site to do a comparison of HD vs. DVD. The mouseover technique helps you see the difference in a fairly clear manner. The very first shot of the map is probably the most telling. Try to read the words and then mouseover. Pretty convincing! Now if only the price would drop a bit more on those HDTVs.

NES PC

This has to be one of the more fun projects I've seen in a while.

It's the NES PC! A home theater computer (1 GHz, 20 GB HD, DVD player running Windows 98).

History of Desktops

Interesting little run through the history of desktop operating systems.

Remember, 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner's, 1905, page 284

DRM-free Music

I guess I'm a little slow on this, but eMusic is the only music download site to offer their music free of digital rights management (DRM) code. That means you will be able to transfer all the files you download to ANY .mp3 capable device with no problems. Every other site adds overhead code to prevent you from moving the music to other devices or kills the track after so many uses or after you cancel your subscription. These tracks really are yours to keep and use however you see fit!

This is the first subscription-based service that I've seen that seems even-handed for both the seller and the buyer.

Computer security in 2007

TechRepublic has posted some predictions to watch for in the computer security realm in the next year.

The major threats Mr. McCormick sees are:

• Increases in Spam activity
• VoIP eavesdropping and scams
• Corporate identity theft
• ATM PIN numbers

I plan to revisit this toward the end of 2007 to see how close they really were.

National Tree

From National Trees

Went to see the National Tree last night. It was a fun evening. DC does some fun downtown activities. There was a tree from every state around the big monster in the middle. We even listened to a local high school choir. If you look at the picture real close, you can even see the White House to the left of the tree in the distance.

Need a 2nd job? Try 2nd Life.

CNNMoney has a great article describing how some of the economics work in Linden Labs groundbreaking game "2nd Life". Currency exchanges between virutal "Linden dollars" and real world currencies help users move money into and out of the game. Virtual entrpreneurs are making anywhere from a few US$ to thousands of US$ per year selling virtual real estate, clothes and other services within the game.

You can create a character in the game and get oriented to the Linden world for free by downloading the 2nd Life software. However, just like the real world, you will want to be careful who you associate with and where you go.

Snake River Valley

Having grown up in the Snake River Valley, I found this address (HTML or Windows Media Format) from Brother Michael R. Orme the Associate General Counsel for BYU-Idaho. It's a history of the area told from the perspective of the "Wagonbox Prophecy" of then Elder Wilford Woodruff.

Christmas message

Since I can never put things into words as well as an apostle, I'll just let Elder Holland provide everyone with a lovely Christmas messge (the first 12 minutes are more about Thanksgiving, it is also very good, but you may want to push ahead to the 12 minute mark if you want to hear just the Christmas message).

Bold statement for the NFL Playoffs

I just love the swagger of sports analysts. They'll say just about anything since they know very few of their readers will ever call them on the carpet for their predictions. This is one to track.

AMERICA'S TEAM
7. New Orleans - I don't think the Saints have enough, although there's no way they're losing a playoff game at the Superdome. It's simply not happening. Every article written about the potential Nos. 5 and 6 teams in the NFC over the next four weeks should be required to mention that they have no chance -- none, zilch, zero, nada -- if Seattle and New Orleans end up hosting Round 1 games.

How do I build a website?

I've been asked this by a couple of people before. I found a great in-depth look for beginners at buildwebsite4u.com. It covers resources for:

1) Planning
2) Building
3) Promotion
4) Making Money

Vista prep work

Want to upgrade to Vista? Not sure if you should want to upgrade? Better do your homework first. Check out CNET.com's 10 Things to Consider before Upgrading to Windows Vista.

The biggest challenge seems to be figuring out which of the five flavors (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate) is for you.

Hope for the Office of tomorrow

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has finally released an Open Document Format (ODF).

Hopefully, this is a move in the right direction. I don't mind a situation where we can agree on a method of sharing outputs and disagree on the tools (Open source vs. Microsoft) to get there.

Abandonware for everyone!!!

Commercially unavailable software (a.k.a. "abandonware") has been deemed legal. Check out this PCSIntel posting.

I found this from another blogger. He recommends Abandia and Dune.

Here's my favorite site if you'd like to try it out: Home of the Underdogs.

Is Vista going to change everything?

One CNN Money writer makes the argument here.

I think I'll take the wait and see approach on this one.

1997 - Bill Gates on the future: "People tend to overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years but underestimate the changes that will occur in the next ten...We're developing OS technology that will enable computers to see, listen and learn." (CIO Magazine)

Maybe I'll check this post in 2 years and 10 years to see what I think.

What have we learned?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/12/01/hacker.charged.ap/index.html

After reading this story I have to ask the question: What have we learned about securing information resources since the early 1980s?

For anyone who has read the book "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll, I think the answer is "Not a whole lot".

Virtual Education

Harvard Law and several other colleges are now experimenting with the concepts of open models for education. This means that many of the course materials are available for public use. I found out about this from an article on CNN about how some online classes are using the game 2nd Life to provide class members in diverse locations the opportunity to meet together for class discussions. Here's the story from CNN http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/11/13/second.life.university/index.html.

Here's the Harvard Law course wiki: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/wiki/Main_Page.

Library computer humor

Great error messages you might see at your next visit to the library:

http://warriorlibrarian.com/ROFL/opac.html

BYU-TV and Podcasts

I found some excellent LDS media out there. First, is BYU-TV that you can watch live online at http://www.byutv.org/.

Here's some other excellent podcast sites:
BYU-I Devotionals: http://web.byui.edu/presentations/presPast.asp?sortType=1
General Conferences: http://www.lds.org/conference/display/0,5234,49-1,00.html
BYU Speeches: http://speeches.byu.edu/
LDS Voices: http://www.ldsvoices.com/

Free Movies -- But Be Careful

I was just informed of a great website that allows you to watch movies online. Of course, the site is built for you to rent or buy movies, but they have several on the site that you can stream and watch for free.

The link: http://www.cinemanow.com/

Search for the following:
The Best Two Years
Baptists at Our Barbeque
The Singles Ward
The RM
The Home Teachers
The Book of Mormon Movie
Seven Alone
Latter-day Night Live

Of course, the only one I really recommend out of these is "The Best Two Years." The others are a bit too much for me, but just in case you might like them. Oh, and be careful, there's a bunch of trash on the site too, but if you go directly to what you are looking for you can enjoy.

Fantasy Football Draft Spreadsheet

Swing on over to my sweet, free website where you can download the latest and greatest Excel 2003 spreadsheet for organizing your own fantasy football draft. If you'd like to use this for Baseball or Basketball, go ahead and tweak it, but let me know what you've done... please?

http://draftboard.20m.com/

Oh, and please keep your code clean. I don't like buggies!

Sweet Code

I came across this handy dandy code today for duding up an Excel spreadsheet. Conditional formatting... Hah! Try this candy out and you won't be limited to only 3 formats or logical tests. Enjoy!

http://www.vbaexpress.com/kb/getarticle.php?kb_id=90

And we're off...

Here's my first ever post on this wild and wacky site. I'm not much of a writer, but I thought I'd play around with this new fandangled technology garbage. I'm not sure I'm sold on the whole blogger craze, but don't knock it until you've tried it I always say.