General

The wife’s old laptop started crapping out so we decided to buy a new one. So yesterday the DHL driver delivered a brand new Dell XPS 1530 to the house. I was a little nervous because it came installed with Vista Home Premium and other than seeing it on someone elses machine I hadn’t actually [...]

Transporting crops from farms to cities uses a lot of fuel. With oil prices continuing to rise we can all expect to be paying more for our food. While reading a few of my favourite sites on Google Reader I came across an article about The Vertical Farm Project. The concept sounded interesting and after [...]

As a regular Firefox user I went ahead and downloaded the latest version to two of my home PCs. I did wait a couple of days to avoid the rush on their servers. Had absolutely no problem downloading it and the installation went smooth. One is my desktop and the other is an older Dell [...]

The Phoenix Mars Lander has touched down. I sat through the two hour live special on the landing on the Discovery Channel. Seeing the joy on the faces of those who have spent years of their lives waiting for that moment was priceless. During the two hour show there were interviews with many of those [...]

A few observations and thoughts…
Recently I’ve started using Google Reader for my RSS feeds. I’ve been a Bloglines user for a while but decided to give Google a try after reading some good reviews. It is still a toss up as to which I prefer but as I think about it I’ve realized just how [...]

I’ve always loved looking at maps. I can spend hours playing around with Google Earth and similar software but I have hesitated on taking the plunge into a portable GPS unit. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t quite bring myself to doing it. But I finally decided to go ahead and spend some [...]

I’ve decided to give it a go again with Linux. Installed an extra hard drive on my computer and have installed Ubuntu’s Hardy Heron. So far it seems to be working ok. One thing that is irritating is that Firefox 3 Beta is loaded so I can’t use my Foxmarks add on so I don’t [...]

Where does the time go? Hadn’t realized that it had been over a month since I last posted here. Seems I have a million things going on and not enough time. My project to start digitizing my documents has started but it certainly has a long way to go. Just today my wife and I [...]

Wow, where did the month of January go? Seems I put off writing a day or so and the next thing I know weeks have passed. But no more I say, I must write, write, write. But what to write about? Well this post is about a couple of freeware programs I’ve used lately.
First up [...]

Well, another year down and hopefully many more to go. Sometimes I wonder where all the time went, then others it seems like it has lasted forever. My wife and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary, our son turned 16, my grandfather died and we had a house full for Christmas. That’s life, the ups [...]

I’ve been teaching my son how to drive over the last few months and it has been an interesting experience. So far no accidents and I’m more patient teaching him than I thought I would be. The law here in Illinois requires that kids have at least 50 hours behind the wheel before they can [...]

Once again it is that time of year to do the holiday shopping. Not only do I have to get Christmas presents for family but my son, my sister, and a few close friends all have birthdays coming up in December. The eternal question of what to get everyone is annual event.
Trying to get [...]

Last week was my birthday and besides hearing the “old man” jokes as I turned 42 I also got asked by a few of my friends when I was going to grow up. Now for some that might seem to be an insult but the question wasn’t asked in that matter. Now [...]

Music is one of my passions and I have a large music library. When I was younger and single I spent a good portion of my paycheck buying CDs. But now I’m married, have a teenage son and a dog so my budget for music has shrunk quite a bit. I would buy more music [...]

With all apologies to Bob & Doug McKenzie the US, Canada, Russia and the other nations with borders in the arctic are heading to the Great White North. With the earth warming and the arctic ice packs shrinking claims to the resources north of the arctic circle are beginning. Russia recently [...]

Coming up with something to write isn’t always easy. I don’t want to repeat something that someone else has posted here at Lockergnome so today it is just going to be a few thoughts and observations:
Yes I know it is summer here in St. Louis but 100 degrees is just too frickin’ warm no matter [...]

My drive to work every day is approximately 20-25 minutes so I spend a lot of time listening to music in the car. Today was one of those rare instances where I forgot to bring along a CD and had to resort to listening to the radio. I won’t make that mistake again. I have [...]

The other day I decided I was going to put another phone in the basement near my computer desk. Since I only have one phone jack I bought a splitter. When I got home and dug out a phone cord to run to the wall jack I realized I already had two splitters sitting in [...]

Well I’ve decided I’ll give Linux a go again. I hate giving up on things and that is how I feel about my experience with Linux. Now that I have a computer with a little more horsepower and an extra hard drive I’ll give the dual boot option a try. That way I can keep [...]

On Saturday the wife and I stopped by an estate sale in our neighborhood. While she was browsing the silver and china I went downstairs. There in the corner sat a PC; beige case and very plain. It was a custom made system made in St. Louis according to the tag on [...]