Family First

Do you have a Gmail account? If not, why not?
I received mine in 2004. It was love at first sight. Not only did I get a gigabyte of space (that has been bumped up to two gigs since then), but I also had an account accessible via pop3! That meant I could use Thunderbird to […]

Have you ever thought about buying an electric car?
Let’s see, I estimate that 50% of you readers rolled your eyes, and the rest snickered.
Electric cars have a bad reputation among enthusiasts who crave speed and performance. Why? Well, they look silly, they barely move, and you have to charge them every hundred miles or so.
Well, […]

I have a real love/hate relationship with my cell phone.
It’s a very handy thing to have when I need to get hold of someone quickly. On the other hand, it always scares the dickens out of me when it buzzes. And it seems like, more often than not, it’s someone I really don’t want to […]

Hmm… that’s peculiar.
Actually, I meant Peculiar. As in Peculiar, Missouri.
Today’s Family First site hails from one of the greatest named towns in the US. It’s called Peculiar Stuff. Here’s what it’s all about:
Personalized gifts are memorable. For instance, parents will always remember who gave their newborn a charming personalized picture frame, but can’t recall who […]

It’s amazing how many Family First picks are (a) musical in nature and (b) influenced by what I happen to be listening to at the time.
Today, driving home from work, I was blasting a best-of by The Animals. As I listened to the music, it struck me as amazing that the incredible bluesy rock and […]

Hybrid cars have become a common sight on the roads of America.
The technology has become reliable to the point that they are now considered a good investment, rather than a risky experiment.
One, in particular, the Toyota Prius, has a nice benefit that an enterprising individual has discovered:
It’s a UPS.

For children, learning to read opens up worlds of adventure and fun, limited only by imagination. For me, going to the library as a child meant a long ride on my bike. Today, it is possible to read a book simply by clicking a mouse.
Called StoryPlace: The Children’s Digital Library, this site is an online […]

When I purchased my screaming fast 486SLC2 system back in 1993, computer owners were, for the most part, technically savvy.
As prices for systems plummeted, more and more individuals joined the ranks of PC owners. The result is that today, everyone from your grandma down owns one.
However, that aforementioned group, better known as geeks (or grrls, […]

Geeks. You gotta love em.
As a geek, I am aware of the basic food groups: caffeine, sugar, Cheetos, and caffeine. Additionally, we geeks recognize that the office is a place of play. Hence, miniature trebuchets to hurl objects over cubicle walls to sack our rivals, and things like that.
So where does a geek go online […]

Whew! Okay, I’m done blowing off steam about the MPAA and the RIAA.
Time to get back into families.
Today’s Family First pick is all about families. Specifically, it’s about families meeting other families. It’s called Meet a Family, and here’s its mission:
The purpose of this Web site is to enable families to attract other friendly families […]

Okay, this is the last Family First pick as a result of my rage at not being able to purchase edited DVDs.
The MPAA walks hand in hand with the RIAA. They are both ostensibly out there to protect the interests of the artists that they purport to represent, but in reality it is blatantly obvious […]

As I said yesterday, the ungainly dinosaurs that insist on making life as difficult as possible for the rest of movie and music fans, the MPAA and the RIAA, need to go. And go they will, although they are kicking and screaming in the courts as their inevitable demise nears. We don’t need corporate fatcat […]

I am absolutely in awe of the MPAA.
I have some friends of mine who recommended getting edited DVDs from various Web sites that offer edited DVDs. It’s a great idea, because we don’t watch R-rated movies in my house. However, many excellent movies have come out with an R-rating due to content that could easily […]

This week’s Family First pick is one I just happened to have stumbled upon (as so many of them are). I’ll be getting on a plane Sunday to fly to Raleigh, North Carolina for a week of training. I’ve never been there before, so I wanted to check out the area beforehand.
Sure, there’s Google Maps, […]

We baby boomers are a stubborn lot. We grew up listening to mom and dad’s weird, old music (which many of us have grown to appreciate later in our own lives). We found our own music, and it was christened rock and roll.
We may sound like snobs to the kids who don’t remember the ’70s, […]

The Web is a continuing string of phenomena that captured the public’s interest and exploded. An online auction site called eBay appeared about ten years ago. So did a search engine called Yahoo! A bit later, a site called Amazon began selling books.
The rest was history.
A recent explosion has taken place with MySpace. It’s not […]

For his age, he’s wise
He’s got his mother’s eyes
There’s gladness in his heart
He’s young and he’s wild
My only prayer is, if I can’t be there,
Lord, protect my child. -Bob Dylan
We parents worry ourself sick about our kids. There are so many things that might happen to them.
Well, we do our best to protect them and […]

If you have a computer, you need help with troubleshooting various aspects of its operation. That’s a fact.
That’s why many have people like me on their speed dial. A good portion of us professional nerds are happy to give occasional free tech support to friends and family.
Notice I said occasional.

I like to have fun from time to time with this great Family First gig, but sometimes, I have to turn to a more serious side.
Today, I bring to your attention a group of individuals who have long been heartlessly kept captive by middle-class families like the ones on your street!
The majority of these downtrodden […]

Well, as you read this, I’ll have just returned with my wife from Branson, Missouri, after enjoying a relaxing weekend which included a trip to the premier theme park in mid-America.
The park is Silver Dollar City, and its official Web site is the Family First pick of the day.
Silver Dollar City was a very important […]