Sleigh riding after the big snow storm, January 2005!

Old Friends, New Lives

I met an OLD friend tonight - someone I hadn't seen in many years - in fact - hadn't seen him since after high school . Way back in 1988 or so.

We were pretty good friends back then - we ran in very similar circles. It's funny though, how people seem to change so much, yet stay the same. My friend runs his own company, hangs out with famous faces and is doing his thing like no one I know. It's not just fantastic, it's astounding. The funny thing is, underneath it all, he's pretty much the same guy. Well, he's not "that guy" - not the jerky high school idiot like we all were back then - but it's still him underneath the hood.

I do think that people can change. But after tonight, I'm feeling that no matter what happens in your life - some of core seems to remain intact, buried deep down. I know that for myself, I've changed dramatically since then (thank god), but deep down - way down deep, there is a bit of the high school me still kicking around, feeling insecure, stupid and completely retarded.

The thing is - as I look at my life and start to understand where I've been and the choices I've made, I start to realize that those old friends and those foundational moments (stealing shit, high school sports, 3rd grade crushes, summer camp) all help create the dough that you eventually bake into your life.

It was a total trip catching up on old high school people - names that come screaming out of the past and collide with your current mindset - it's such a blast going back in time, The best part of course, is being able to jump out, back to today - back to my family and my almost middle age life. Happy Birthday to me.

Blizzard 2005

We spent an amazing weekend in NYC and got to fully enjoy the blizzard. Running in between snowflakes - we managed to do the NBC Studio tour, see Avenue Q, eat at Chevy's and wait in line for standby tickets to SNL (we didn't get them).

NYC in the winter is pretty damn amazing!

Picasa: Free download from Google

Picasa 2!!! This thing is unreal. The timeline feature alone is amazing but get this... directly publish photos from Picasa to Tivo! Nice :)

Other neat features include enhanced editing, color options, cropping and other stuff. It's so easy my wife can use it (god I hope she doesn't see this).

Picasa: Free download from Google

Lookout email search for Microsoft Outlook - Lookout Software

I found out that MSFT has bought Lookout and installed it this AM. So far so good - it installs quickly and the search is very fast compared to the built in Outlook search. More testing is needed but things are looking good!

Lookout email search for Microsoft Outlook - Lookout Software

Common Craft: Interview with Marc Sirkin

I did an "Instant Messenger" interview with Lee Lefever from CommonCraft a few weeks ago - talking about my experience in building an online community for the March of Dimes. There was a lot more we discussed, but the darn text got too long to publish it all.

Common Craft: Interview with Marc Sirkin

Firefox Fun

Wow! I'm starting to be blown away by Firefox... I installed two extensions today in particular that are pretty incredible.

The first is Sage

This is an RSS/Atom aggregator which is pretty slick. Once installed, you can bookmark RSS feeds and bring them up in a sidebar toolbar.

The other is FireFTP - a built in FTP client. Duhhhhh... M$FT are you watching? This is so simple and integrated it's amazing. I'm lovin it!

Creating Passionate Users

Amazing post on keeping users engaged...

Creating Passionate Users: Keeping users engaged...

Thunderbird - initial thoughts

I made the switch to Thunderbird a week after switching to Firefox. The main reason was built in spam blocking (which I haven't really had a chance to use yet).

The first thing I noticed about switching is that amazingly, the import process from Express to Thunderbird worked perfectly! I had 4 different accounts in Express pulling mail from 3 different email servers and with the exception of passwords, all my messages were properly sorted and each account was transferred perfectly! Wow!

So far so good - spam blocking is next!

mozilla.org: Site Map

Bloglines and Corporate Firewalls

This is pretty elementary, but I'd bet that 9 of 10 corporate IT managers would have no idea how to deal with the fact that the sites they block (porn, gambling, games) access to would be readily accessible via RSS feeds.

Several business blogs have been blocked to me via browser, but are easily added and viewed via Bloglines, Doppler and other RSS aggregators.

Get Firefox

Ok, I totally resisted but finally am making the switch. I downloaded Firefox at work, and am planning on updating my home browsers tonight. That's it - I've had enough of worrying about security crap w/IE. Done and done.

If you use bloglines - there are some very cool extensions available for Firefox as well... install it and check it out for yourself!

You can also add some neat search engines like IMDB and A9 directly to the Firefox toolbar which is pretty slick.

Just a Geek and Fast Moving Librarians!

I kept hearing about how great Wil's books "Just a Geek" and "Dancing Barefoot" were so I checked out the local library to see if I could get them there. Since the answer was no, I told the librarian all about the book and she told me she'd look into it. This in early December, 2004.

I went home that day feeling like I did a good thing, but without Wil's books. I quickly bought them online and have since read them.

Today, I'm in the library again looking at new releases and lo and behold - there's "Just a Geek" on display! Unreal. Who would have thought the local librarian could move so fast - or perhaps it's just a coincidence?

Here's a screen shot from the library web site if you care:

iPod My Photo

This is a bit neat and a bit odd don't you think?

iPod My Photo

A few weeks ago, I did my own - no need to pay someone to do it... linked here.

The Command Line In 2004

How cool is this! Someone took the time to update "The Command Line" - I think I dug this up on slashdot - not sure where I orginally found the link. Neat.

The Command Line In 2004

TIVO Rules... but mine broke :)

I got a TIVO a month ago, but have only been able to use it for a few weeks because it BROKE! The customer service guy said my problem was not usual, and they'd send me a replacement. So I'm waiting...

Meanwhile, I found this article from PVRBlog...

The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo's Director of User Experience, Margret Schmidt

The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo's Director of User Experience, Margret Schmidt | PVRblog

Read on!

I'm a podcasting fool! Doppler : Podcasting redefined

Interested in the murky world of Podcasting? Download Doppler and give it a ride! This thing is pretty neat, and will aggregate your bloglines.com subscriptions and auto download podcasts. Huh? Give it a try!

Doppler : Podcasting redefined

Picasa: Automated Digital Photo Organizer software

I downloaded Picasa a few weeks ago and continue to be blown away by this free software! I'm managing over 10,000 family photos with no effort at all.

Best features:
- it monitors whatever folders you want it to for new images
- it's free
- it has the absolute coolest timeline feature thingy ma-bob I've ever seen!



Picasa: Automated Digital Photo Organizer software, instant photo albums, sharing & printing: Download

Flickr Rules

If you haven't tried Flickr yet, you should! Not only is it a free photo sharing service, it's easy to create some neat collaborative sharing groups, and to manage your online images.

Flickr: Photos from msirkin

Zach Braff's Garden State Blog

Like Scrubs? Like Zach Braff? Well I do. So take that! Here's the link!

Zach Braff's Garden State Blog

Bittorrent and RSS

Found this nice article/how to on downloading stuff using Bittorrent and RSS.
I have it set up and am testing it - and although I'm getting a plug-in load error in Azureus, it seems to be working.

I'm also messing around with another plug-in called RSSFeed which seems to do the same exact thing. Perhaps having them both loaded is why I'm having an error ;)