August 30, 2007

Link Spam in my Guestbook?!
More spam in my guestbook. Another visit (see first post on 24 Aug 2007) from a 'Russian' visitor. This time it looks like normal link spam. Someone deposited a bunch of one line greetings - four of them - into my guestbook. Apparently, they're doing this in order to increase the number of hits they'll get. Common link spam. While there isn't anything inherently harmful about it, my guestbook isn't a bulletin board for advertisement, and I don't like being used like this. They didn't have anything to say about "Rob's World!", just some generic "You sight lovely, I like much" type of praise.

After these additional 'incidents', I had to go in and remove the 'use URL/your website' ability to post links in my guestbook. Someone with less than honorable intentions has been abusing my guestbook, and I doubt that they would have stopped without this step. Hopefully my previous efforts to protect the email addresses of visitors were successful. Hopefully no one will end up with an infected computer by following a link they found in my guestbook. If you are posting to a guestbook, newsgroup, or web site forum, I encourage you to either 'not post your email address', or 'use a disposable email address'. Posting your real email address to the web, is a bad idea. It will likely result in harvesting by a spam bot or spammer.
<https://www.robsworld.org/gbook/gbook.php>

Our House:
Kim and I bought a new house on the 30th of March, 2005. Our first home. We're still working on the interior. Upgrading our furnishings and decor from slightly impoverished (I retired from the military (where the pay for middle enlisted isn't that high) in Jan of 2005), to slightly upper middle class. Recently, we managed to complete a couple of upgrades. <rave>We've finally upgraded our bedroom furniture. While we've had a nice bed since 2001, our furniture was still assemble yourself particle board. The stuff was small, falling apart, and it didn't match the decor of our bedroom. The new stuff is some amazing furniture from Broyhill. The bedroom furniture (other than our bed) is made of hardwood, with softwood facings. The furniture features carvings which simulate bamboo. The hand rubbed finish has deep, rich tones. The wooden drawers have dovetail joints. The handles and pulls are custom designed with an anodized brass finish. Wow! It's some really nice furniture, but it weighs a ton. We purchased five pieces (armoire, two chests of drawers, and two large night stands), and the final piece arrived on Saturday (25 Aug 2007).</rave>

<rant>While I'm raving about the quality and looks of this new furniture, I can't help but rant about the poor service from this Broyhill store (Broyhill of Denver). When we decided on the furniture that we wanted, we ordered from this store (instead of some other store), partly because they said they had all but one piece in stock, in their warehouse (at the time of the order (29 March 2007)). Well, that just wasn't the case. My wife completed all the purchase paperwork, signed up for their store credit (Interest free and no payments for a year), and arranged for delivery. Delivery wouldn't occur for two to three weeks, because we had to wait for the final piece to complete our order. Two weeks later, we got a phone call from Broyhill. That's when we found out that they weren't going to be delivering our furniture anytime soon. As it turns out, none of our pieces were actually in the warehouse, and it would be the end of July before they could make a delivery. To make a long story short, the end of July turned into the middle of August, and when delivery was finally made, we were still missing one piece. Broyhill contracted out the delivery, and the movers dinged up our furniture. It took four days short of six months to finally deliver the furniture we ordered. We will never order furniture from them again, and I would warn anyone else about this store. Over a period of two months, they deceived us on several occasions. Either they were laying, incompetent, or ignorant of their own operations. Broyhill of Denver sucks!</rant>

If you'd like to see more photos of our house, you're in luck. I've posted a rather large gallery of our house. You can see all the rooms, and parts of the yard. The photos are a mix of old and new, so you can get some idea of what it looked like before we started furnishing it. With these new purchases, I updated some of the photos. Luckily for me, I took multiple photos of each room/feature. I hope you enjoy the photos, we're certainly enjoying our new home!
<https://www.robsworld.org/ourhouse.html>
<http://www.broyhillfurniture.com/furniture/Tropical_Retreat/Bedroom/Master_Bedroom/>
<https://www.robsworld.org/iphoto/ourhouse/index.html>

iPhoto rules!
<rave>So, the other day, I sent some photos to my parents. What I thought would be difficult, turned out to be easy and inexpensive. Apple's iPhoto software made it that way. I took 128 photos. A considerable stack I do admit, but I really needed to send some photos back home. In iPhoto, I dragged all the photos I wanted to print into a folder labeled 'ForKodakPrints'. Once I had all the photos in the folder, I went through and did a little editing. Nothing major, some cropping here, a little enhancing there, and some red-eye adjustments. Once I was ready, I clicked on the 'Order Prints' button. With One-Click purchasing set-up, it took me a couple minutes to set up my order. 128, 4x6 prints at $.19 each. With tax and shipping the order came to $28.28 - and that price is considerably lower than Wal-Mart's price for the same service. Ordered on the 21st of August, shipped on the 22nd, and delivered on the 29th. In about a weeks time, my parents were enjoying 128 pictures from "Rob's World!". Printed on Kodak paper, every print looked fantastic (according to Mom), and it was very easy to do. iPhoto and my digital camera made it easy, inexpensive and fun.</rave> If you're interested in the photos I sent, you can check out some of my photos online.
<https://www.robsworld.org/photos.html>

My Bicycle:
Back in July of 2006, I bought a new bicycle. I bought a DiamondBack response 2006. It wasn't too expensive (on sale for $320.00 / normally $400.00), and I'm happy with the purchase. Since I bought the bicycle, I've started a new work out regimen. Every day that I work, I do push-ups and crunches. I started out with 5 at a time, but now I'm up to 50. It took me a while to get back up to 50 and 50 (in under a minute), but that was my goal. In addition, when I've got the time I ride the bike on the days that I have off. The first few bike rides were pretty short, but I've been slowly working my way up there. This morning (30 Aug, 2007) I managed to take a ride out to the reservoir. The trip out to the lake and back took 90 minutes, and I traveled more than 15 miles (according to a path traced out of Google Earth). I'm in a bit of pain, but I was a good ride. I saw a lot of new home construction. It looks like they're getting ready to put in some homes (a large community) on the North East edge of the lake. The earth movers were churning the dirt something fierce out that way.

<rave>Perils of the trail. I had no idea, no idea that a slight departure from the trail could cost me. In the past, I've had several instances where I had to go off the road. The trail was well marked, but I still had to cut cross-country a couple of times. As a result, I've run over cacti and picked up a fair share of goatheads. Flat tires used to be the result of these off road excursions. Well, back in May of 2007, I bought some tire liners. A short time later I installed the liners, and over the last month or so, I've been testing their 'guarantee'. I have to admit, since installing these 'Slime Tube Protectors', I haven't had a flat. I've even pulled a few goatheads out of the tire. Still no flats. Kudos to 'Slime' for keeping my inner tubes intact.</rave>

Software favorites:
One of my favorites has recently been upgraded to version 3.0. It's one awesome FTP tool. Hmm, Awesome and FTP in the same sentence? Maybe you should check it out?

Transmit:
An FTP tool that does it all. Anyone who publishes web pages eventually needs a way to upload their pages to a web site. I've found that stand alone FTP tools are the best for this task. Transmit has a clean and easy to use interface, and some really nifty features, like the ability to resume a transfer that's been interrupted, site synchronization capabilities, iDisk integration (It's way faster than the finder!), drag-to-dock sending, column views, a built in text editor, and secure ftp transfer (in various different flavors) capability. The most recent update moves this software up to version 3.6.
< http://www.panic.com/transmit/index.html>

D&D update:
We played D&D on the 25th of August and the updates are in. During the last three meetings, the party continued their exploration of the caverns and catacombs of Firestorm peak. While exploring the passageways, they encountered an immense cavern, seemingly guarded by urquirsh. Upon entering the cavern, they discovered a microcosm of hungry and hostile creatures. Entering this dark realm triggered a series of attacks, as the creatures seek food and territorial protection. As the battle carried over into a third day of play, the party's battle continues. With two characters unconscious, you don't want to miss that next journal entry!

Our next gaming date is 08 September, 2007. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come. The parties next big challenge is beating the clock. In this quest there is a time limit that the party must be cognizant of. If they spend too much time fighting beasties, they just might find that they've run out of time to unravel the mysteries of Firestorm Peak. Be sure to follow our adventurers as they search for Tanar's father, and seek out the source of taint inside Firestorm Peak.

August 24, 2007

A Virus in my Guestbook?!
At first glance, I thought I was simply dealing with a rather mundane form of guestbook spam. A couple of visitors had deposited links to their website, just so they could increase the number of hits they get. Common link spam, nothing harmful about that, just annoying. I though I was pretty much inoculated against that. My guestbook does a good job of keeping out the automated posters. In order to post a message in my guestbook, a person has to type in a 'captcha' character string. This makes it fairly impossible for spammers to automatically post garbage to my guestbook. Unfortunately, this doesn't keep out 'all' the riffraff. Recently (on the 20th and again on the 23rd of Aug), individuals (claiming Russian nationality) have posted seemingly innocuous messages to my guestbook:

Along with the seemingly benign greeting, they posted a link to a website. Hmm, thinking something was amiss; after all, they didn't mention anything specific to my website or me, I navigated to an anonymous proxy site (I am very glad that there are a few free ones available), and checked out the links that they provided. Oh, yeah, it's just as I suspected. These web sites have been crafted to infect a visiting computer. After a bit of investigating, it's apparent that they were trying to exploit a Windows vulnerability, gather a bunch of sensitive information, and put some nasty cookies on my machine. I sure am glad that I used an anonymous proxy (which refused cookies), to check out their 'web sites'.

After these 'incidents', I went in and removed some email addresses (and added a cautionary note to the header). Obviously, someone with less than honorable intentions has been inside my guestbook, so I wouldn't be surprised if they've harvested the addresses that were posted there. My guestbook substitutes encoding for the @ symbol and the "." before the top level domain part of an email address, but humans can still read the email address, even if it's somewhat more difficult for a spammer to scan the page. If you are posting to a guestbook, newsgroup, or web site forum, I encourage you to either 'not post your email address', or 'use a disposable email address'. Posting your real email address to the web, is a bad idea. It will likely result in harvesting by a spam bot or spammer.
<https://www.robsworld.org/gbook/gbook.php>

Our House:
Kim and I bought a new house on the 30th of March, 2005. Our first home. We're still working on the interior. Upgrading our furnishings and decor from slightly impoverished (I retired from the military (where the pay for middle enlisted isn't that high) in Jan of 2005), to slightly upper middle class. Recently, we managed to complete a couple of upgrades. We've finally upgraded our bedroom furniture. While we've had a nice bed since 2001, our furniture was still assemble yourself particle board. The stuff was small, falling apart, and it didn't match the decor of our bedroom. The new stuff is some amazing furniture from Broyhill. The bedroom furniture (other than our bed) is made of hardwood, with softwood facings. The furniture features carvings which simulate bamboo. The hand rubbed finish has deep, rich tones. The wooden drawers have dovetail joints. The handles and pulls are custom designed with an anodized brass finish. Wow! It's some really nice furniture, but it weighs a ton. We purchased five pieces (armoire, two chests of drawers, and two large night stands), and all but one arrived on Saturday (18 Aug 2007). Hopefully, we'll have the final piece in a few weeks. We moved some of the old furniture to our guest bedroom, and we put up one of our favorite pictures. A framed photo of a cathedral in Milan, Italy. The rest of the furniture went to the basement, or to the garage.

I addition to the new furniture, we also bought an oil painting. We went to one of those 'starving artist' exhibits at a local Hotel. They had a fairly large selection of paintings, and we took our time picking through the paintings. The one we selected was a 2' x 3' painting of people walking along a footpath in a park. Featuring very large trees, the painting has some nice dark green tones in it, and it's in keeping with one of the themes in our home. Beneath the painting (it's a tall painting), we mounted two candle holders. Eileen (my sister), gave us the Bombay candle holders as a Christmas gift. The painting and candle holders are hung on a narrow wall just outside our bedroom.

If you'd like to see more photos of our house, you're in luck. I've posted a rather large gallery of our house. You can see all the rooms, and parts of the yard. The photos are a mix of old and new, so you can get some idea of what it looked like before we started furnishing it. With these new purchases, I updated some of the photos. Luckily for me, I took multiple photos of each room/feature. I hope you enjoy the photos, we're certainly enjoying our new home!
<https://www.robsworld.org/ourhouse.html>
<http://www.broyhillfurniture.com/furniture/Tropical_Retreat/Bedroom/Master_Bedroom/>
<https://www.robsworld.org/iphoto/ourhouse/index.html>

D&D update:
We played D&D on the 11th of August, and the updates are in. During the last two meetings the party continued their exploration of the caverns and catacombs of Firestorm peak. While exploring the passageways, they encountered an immense cavern, seemingly guarded by urquirsh. Upon entering the cavern, they discovered a microcosm of hungry and hostile creatures. Entering this dark realm triggered a series of attacks, as the creatures seek food and territorial protection. As the battle carried over into a second day of play, Duracell reappeared! - After triggering a teleport trap (nearly a day ago), Duracell and Fang (Zedd's faithful companion), went missing. Now Duracell is back, but the party hasn't had time to question her yet. Here are the updates from the meeting on the 11th of August:

The Big Cave:
During our meeting on the 28th of July, the party discovered a large cavern, they've barely scratched the surface on this underground arena. Who knows what nasties lurk within? As the party prepares to enter the cave, the urquirsh attack! Due to some errors in the map, and character legend, (characters labeled incorrectly) I had to go back and make some corrections. In addition to the corrections, I also added a link to the Big Cave 2, and updated some other minor formatting.
<https://www.robsworld.org/bigcave.html>

The Big Cave 2:
During our meeting on the 11th of August, the party discovered how large this underground cavern really is. Now that the party is down in the big cave, they've encountered many of the caves inhabitants. Unfortunately, the inhabitants want to eat the party members. As the strive to stave off the onslaught of cave dwellers, the party has to contend with the attacks of a determined group of urquirsh. This web page provides a recap for our players, a tactical synopsis of the current situation.
<https://www.robsworld.org/bigcave2.html>

Monsters encountered:
As a result of the meeting on the 11th of August, I added a new entry for the huge scorpions, and updated the entry for the urquirsh (an aberration from the Far Realm) - Not only do they carry taint, they've also got 'free movement'. The monsters page is a listing of monsters that the party has encountered, read about or heard of.
<https://www.robsworld.org/monsters.html>

Character update:
Recently, I commissioned some original artwork from a fan of our campaign. Richard Tran is a freelance artist who lives in the Denver area. Richard first contacted me in response to one of my 'player wanted' adds. While we don't have an open spot to admit Richard as a player, he still wanted to participate in our campaign. After some discussions regarding the current characters, and possible NPC scenarios, his artistic abilities came up. After some discussions, I agreed to commission an illustration of Tanar. I wasn't particularly happy with the 'Hero Machine' rendering of Tanar. While the Hero Machine illustrations are nice, they're no match for a well drawn original illustration. After a bit of descriptive work, Richard set to work on the new illustration. After a short wait, I'm now pleased to present the new 'Tanar' illustration. Don't stop now, be sure to check it out - It's just a short click away, I know you're dying to see it, so don't delay... The "Who's Who?" is a listing of characters, both player characters and non-player characters.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ewhoswho.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/tanar.html>

Our next gaming date is 25 August, 2007. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come. The parties next big challenge is beating the clock. In this quest there is a time limit that the party must be cognizant of. If they spend too much time fighting beasties, they just might find that they've run out of time to unravel the mysteries of Firestorm Peak. Be sure to follow our adventurers as they search for Tanar's father, and seek out the source of taint inside Firestorm Peak.

D&D books:
Yet another new rule book for my favorite game. Recently (15 Jul 2006), I purchased another new rule book for my favorite game. The latest acquisition is a copy of the "Monster Manual V ". This new rule book is a 224 page compilation of monsters from all across the D&D universe. In addition to new monsters, it also includes maps of monster lairs, sample encounters, and tactics sections to help Dungeon Masters run the more complex creatures. . As a result of this addition, I updated my D&D books page. If you're a player in our campaign, you can expect a few more tricks up my sleeve, and a few more challenges in the dark corridors ahead! With this purchase, I updated the house rules, and the D&D books page.
<https://www.robsworld.org/dndbooks.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ehsrls.pdf>

Software favorites:
One of my favorite pieces of software recently released an update. GraphicConverter moves ever forward. One more steps towards perfection. Another product that's always getting better. This release marks the incremental advance of beta releases. Oddly enough, this beta update didn't include a version increment. Here's the official 6.0.1b1 release. This beta release contained more bug fixes, updates and new features than I was expecting.

GraphicConverter:
The developer of this fantastic released a new beta version (6.0.2b0), in the past few days. GraphicConverter is an image converter and editor. A fantastic piece of shareware that is well worth the price ($34.95). I use it to convert image formats into web standard formats, to create and edit image maps and other graphics. I've been singing GC's praises for many years now, and I'm not sure I would do without it. The best part about GC is it's author. Thorsten Lemke is completely committed to his customer base. Constantly and Continuously responding to customer recommendations and bug reports. GC is a dynamic, evolving, application. Always on the cutting edge, an absolute must in any web developers tool box. At a fraction of PhotoShop's cost, this photo editor puts a huge wrench in your toolbox.
<http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index._cGlkPTE5Mw_.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/myfavs.html>

As painful as a visit to the dentist:
<rant>What could be as painful as a visit to the dentist? A dentist's office that's inept. This rant concerns my 'former' dental provider. When I retired from the military - back in January of 2005, Kim and I had to find a new dental provider, and new dental insurance. That's right, despite the fact that the military 'guarantees' free medical care to all retirees, it doesn't pay for dental care. Apparently, your teeth have no effect on your health? So, for an insurance provider, we chose 'Delta Dental'. It was the provider for the military when I was still in the Air Force, and I chose them because it was the plan offered by my employer. Then we had to find a dentist. We took a look at the Delta web-site, and managed to find a provider that accepted Delta, was accepting new enrollee's and wasn't too far away. Well, things went 'o.k.' until about six months ago. (What follows is a best recollection effort, and is not intended to represent an absolute factual evidentiary 'statement'. This is the way I remember it. If you want to get all legal like and such, what follows is my 'opinion'. All dates and dollar amounts are approximate.)

While Kim and I weren't used to dealing with the bills and insurance paperwork, we soon found that a civilian has a few more bills to pay than a military member (where everything was covered by the military), and a lot more paperwork to worry about. We've had our (prior) dental provider for nearly two years, and during that time they've gone through three different 'administrative assistants'.

Typically, they would wait five months (from our last visit) before sending us a statement indicating how much we owed (after our insurance payment). While this was annoying, it wasn't a reason to leave. Then, in June of '07, they sent us a bill for more than $500.00.

On that itemized statement, were charges for procedures that our insurance had already covered (fully covered/paid), charges for procedures that hadn't been submitted to our insurance (they never asked our insurance to pay for the procedure), and charges for procedures that Delta had refused (due to a lack of documentation). We called Delta, and did our best to reconcile all the differences/discrepancies. After we got off the phone with Delta, we had a figure under $200.00. We called the dental office back - questioned their charges, the reason for their charges, and requested a 'recalculation' of the amount owed.

The dental provider admitted mistakes, and indicated that they would have to re-submit claims to our insurance provider. Prior to this, we had watched their claims (which Delta details on their statement to us), and seen some of their sloppy practices. They would routinely re-submit charges without providing the justification or documentation required by Delta. Anyway, we called Delta back, and found out that our provider had called, discussed things with the insurance provider, and re-submitted some claims. This time around they raised their price. According to Delta, the provider claimed that they had inadvertently submitted claims using an out-dated charge sheet. Delta agreed to settle for the higher prices.

About a month later, we got a phone call from the dental provider. They indicated that the new balance was still over $200.00, closer to $300.00. It took a bit of calculating, but Kim quickly figured out where their errors were. They still hadn't submitted a claim for one visit, and they'd forgotten about a $45.00 payment we had already made (on the day of a procedure).

After three months of arguing, negotiating, phone calls, and ridiculous charges, we'd had enough. Kim went down there (to the providers office), and asked for our medical records. They insisted that we complete 'release forms' (for our own records!), before they would turn over the records, and they weren't willing to release my military records. Kim had to come back home empty handed. A discussion over the phone cleared up the military records issue (Those are 'My' records (they turned them over to me after I retired). They don't belong to the dental provider, or the military). Eventually (a day later), Kim was able to pick up our medical records. While she was there, she was able to settle our account for the amount that we had originally estimated. Somewhere around $175.00.

It was three months of frustration, uncertainty and pain. Worse than a visit to the dentists chair. In the end, we decided to switch providers. While the dental care was good, the service was terrible. We don't want to put up with their inept business practices any longer, and they're too far away. Good bye, and good riddance. Hopefully you'll never have such an experience. Who was our dental provider? Steven C. Karden, D.D.S., P.C. 11275 E. Mississippi Ave., Suite 1E3, Aurora, CO 80012. </rant>

August 16, 2007

D&D update:
We played D&D on the 28th of July, and the updates are in. Over the last two months, I've been searching for some new players. One new player (Todd Jordan), has been added to the roles, and now we've added another player to the roles. Lars has decided to join our group on a permanent basis. In the last few months, we've added three new players. Lee, Todd and now Lars. Hopefully, these three will stick around for the long haul. At the meeting on the 28th of July, the party continued their exploration of the caverns and catacombs of Firestorm peak. While exploring the passageways, they lost contact with Duracell. She and Fang were teleported away in a trap, and they haven't seen her since. Here are the updates from the meeting on the 28th of July:

The Big Cave:
During our meeting on the 28th of July, the party discovered a large cavern, they've barely scratched the surface on this underground arena. Who knows what nasties lurk within? As the party prepares to enter the cave, the urquirsh attack! I've got a feeling that we'll be back this way for a second update. This is one big cavern!
<https://www.robsworld.org/bigcave.html>

Monsters encountered:
As a result of the meeting on the 28th of July, I added a new entry for the carrion crawler, and updated the entry for the urquirsh (an aberration from the Far Realm) - They carry taint!. The monsters page is a listing of monsters that the party has encountered, read about or heard of.
<https://www.robsworld.org/monsters.html>

Our next gaming date is 25 August, 2007. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come. The parties next big challenge is beating the clock. In this quest there is a time frame that the party must be cognizant of. If they spend too much time fighting beasties, they just might find that they've run out of time to unravel the mysteries of Firestorm Peak. Be sure to follow our adventurers as they look for Tanar's father, and seek out the source of taint inside Firestorm Peak.

Software favorites:
One of my favorite pieces of software recently released an update. GraphicConverter moves ever forward. One more steps towards perfection. Another product that's always getting better. This release marks the incremental advance of beta releases. Oddly enough, this beta update didn't include a version increment. This version should have been 6.0.1b1, but it didn't get an increment in release by the author.

GraphicConverter released a new beta version (6.0.1b0), in the past few days. GraphicConverter is an image converter and editor. A fantastic piece of shareware that is well worth the price ($34.95). I use it to convert image formats into web standard formats, to create and edit image maps and other graphics. I've been singing GC's praises for many years now, and I'm not sure I would do without it. The best part about GC is it's author. Thorsten Lemke is completely committed to his customer base. Constantly and Continuously responding to customer recommendations and bug reports. GC is a dynamic, evolving, application. Always on the cutting edge, an absolute must in any web developers tool box. At a fraction of PhotoShop's cost, this photo editor puts a huge wrench in your toolbox.
<http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index._cGlkPTE5Mw_.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/myfavs.html>

The 4th Edition of D&D:
It was bound to happen sooner or latter. Wizards of the Coast - The company that produces my favorite game, announced (on the 16th of August, 2007) the pending release of version 4.0 of the game. The company that owns D&D is best known for their Collectible Card Game - Magic The Gathering. With this release, they've proven their true ethos. Profit over purist. With a greater emphasis on the collectible aspects of the game (miniatures), and a new on-line subscription service (you will need to pay to access the online content), it's easy to see that they're more concerned with profit than they are with creating a game that is balanced, well paced and story based. I haven't read much about the new version, but so far I don't like what I've heard. Sure there are things that could be fixed, but that could have been managed in a different way. An entirely new version means that my $1,875.00 plus collection of 3.0/3.5 books is obsolete. A hefty exercise in planned obsolescence. There's nothing wrong with these books, but Wizards of the Coast has decided that I need to buy all new books in order to continue playing the 'official' version of my favorite game. I don't like it. What am I going to do? I'm not quite sure. I haven't made a firm decision yet, but I'm leaning towards - Screw that!

August 12, 2007

Apple's iLife '08:
The other day (07 Aug, 2007), Apple announced the release of some new software. A new version of iLife. iLife '08 is a considerable improvement over iLife '06. I haven't purchased this new creativity suite yet, and I don't plan to - until I buy a new computer. That should be sometime near the end of 2008. Yes, I'm going to buy a new computer next year. It's been a while (May 2004) since I purchased my current computer, and I'm looking forward to the next computer. Yes, it will be a Mac! As for iLife '08. Well, I'm fairly impressed with the offering. I wish I could get the software before I update the computer, but hey, it comes installed on any new mac. It's amazing how much stuff you get for only $79.00! This software application suite includes five premium products, and two free ones. iPhoto, iMovie (a completely new application (using the same name?)), GarageBand, iWeb, iDVD, .Mac web gallery (you need a .Mac account to use this (it's not really an application). In addition to these great applications, you also get the latest copies of iTunes and QuickTime. If you'd like to learn more about the applications included in this new release, head on over to the Apple web site.

FYI: With this release, Apple has increased (at no additional cost!) the storage for .Mac users (that's me). They bumped up the included storage from 1Gb to 10Gb! That's a pretty hefty increase. So much so, as a matter of fact, that I can now afford to back-up some critical files to my .Mac account. Thank you Apple. I guess I'll keep my .Mac service for another year.
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/>

Apple's iWork '08:
The other day (07 Aug 2007), Apple announced the release of some new software. A new version of iWork. iWork '08 is a considerable improvement over iWork '08. I haven't purchased this new productivity suite yet, and I don't plan to - until I buy my new computer (see above). iWork '08 adds a missing piece of the picture. Something Mac users have been calling for in droves. A spreadsheet application. The new application is called 'Numbers'. The addition of Numbers makes iWork '08 a viable replacement to AppleWorks, and I'm planning to purchase a copy. At $79.00 it offers all but a database. The one application of AppleWorks that I no longer use. Why don't I use it anymore? Well, I don't use it because Apple never updated it. It couldn't produce web-ready output, so I had to turn to stand-alone solutions. I'm particularly interested in the graphic tools that they've added to Pages, the templates, and the addition of a word processing (not just page layout) module to Pages. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait more than a year before I can add this to my computer... If you'd like to learn more about the applications included in this new release, head on over to the Apple web site.
<http://www.apple.com/iwork/>

Music collection:
Here's a list of some of the music I recently acquired. Where do I get all this stuff? I find a lot of free (actually free) music by visiting several of the new music web sites out there. Artists want you to hear their music - If you like it, you'll buy it. The major labels want you to pay for their product - letting you hear it for free is contrary to their business model. Well, guess what? I won't buy it unless I can listen to it first. The major labels are killing themselves with their restrictive distribution and dissemination policies. If you like new music, you can do a google search to find your favorite artists web site, a new music web site, or an archive of free music. Free music is available - Legally! Don't believe the major labels propaganda - Not all free music is illegal. You can legally download music for free. I download music from websites, newsgroups (when I already own rights to the music), and a couple of commercial sources. Here's a listing of some of the music I legally downloaded.

eMusic downloads:
* Stan Ridgway - The Drywall Incident: (31 songs) One of my favorite artists. Ridgway manages to mix Americana, country, and avant-garde new wave, in a moody mood that sets him apart from other crooners lamenting their misery and melancholy. This 2 disc compilation contains the 'Dumb Oracle' release and the soundtrack from the 'Drywall Incident' independent movie.
* The Swimming Pool Q's - Royal Academy Of Reason: (20 songs) It's been 14 years since this band released any new material, so this album came as something of a shock. I dug this band back in the 80's, and I rediscovered them during a recent cassette digitization project. Excellent music by an all but forgotten band which emerged from Atlanta, GA during the height of New Wave.
* Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: (10 songs) One of the hottest indie bands in recent times, I discovered this band by previewing their music at eMusic.com. The title is truly bizarre, but the tunes are great rockin' rips, sure to please the indie rocker in you.
* Rullian - Is This My Guitar Or An Albatross?: (15 songs) Instrumental rock, jazz fusion. The guitar work on this album is outstanding. Featuring lead guitarist Raoul Ranoa, these tunes are uncluttered by lyrics, allowing you to soak up the funk without any pretentious political nonsense. I discovered Rullian a long time ago, by listening to samples on a CD distributed with MacAddict magazine.
* Paul Brill - Halve the Light: (8 songs) Almost missed this one. I'm not quite sure where I first heard this band, but the alt-country, folk influenced music has me hooked. The blending of fine instrumentals and heartfelt lyrics feels like a Sunday afternoon on the back porch.
* The Sneaker Trio - Big Smoke!!: (6 songs) First heard these guys on a eMusic free compilation. The punchy techno dance is full of crushing drums, up-tempo lyrics, and street wise savy. Cut yourself a big slice, and indulge in this first rate first release.

Web site download:
* Easy Anthems - Easy Anthems: (11 songs) Offering their entire debut as a free download, this band is ultimately confident in the fact that you'll be back. An alt-country band which whispers, speaks softly, and leaves you with a big impression. Excellent blend of melancholy and promise.

These are just some of the items I added to my music collection during the month of August. Since returning from Japan in 2001, I've been rediscovering my appreciation for music. I really picked it up again in September of 2005. Since then, I've been slowly adding, revising and updating my music collection. If you have a comment or a question regarding my music collection, please don't hesitate to send me an email.
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymusic/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/music.html>

Rainy and Hot in August:
The dog days of August are upon us. Those eponymous afternoon thunderstorms, which charge the air and rip through the sunsets of our western community. Washing the gutters clean of the days detritus. Making way for crickets, coyotes and the night birds intent on staying anonymous for the next six hours. Hot days meet cooling nights. The days produce temperatures in the upper 90's, and the evenings bring thunderstorms, like they did this week. It rained on the 5th, 6th and 7th of August. On the 7th and 8th the temperatures rose back into the 90's. On the 9th we were rewarded with a rippin' thunderstorm.

August 06, 2007

Purchased some movies:
The other day (6th of August), I purchased some movies from Wal-Mart. Normally I purchase my movies online. For a couple of reasons. They're cheaper online, I avoid the urge to buy something I haven't seen, or don't really want. I try to purchase three movies a month, and I try to keep to the movies on my 'must buy' list. Unfortunately, this deviation found me buying some movies I hadn't seen previously. So, what movies did I purchase? I'm glad you asked: In no particular order:

* The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: (1962 - Western, drama, romance) A movie by John Ford, starring John Wayne and James Stewart. This one wasn't on my list.
* 300: (2006 - Action, drama, historical) Adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel. Directed by Zack Snyder. I've saw this in the theater.
* Lemony Snicket's - A series of unfortunate events: (2004 - Adventure, comedy, family, adventure) Directed by Brad Silberling. Starring Jim Carrey. This used to be on my 'must buy' list, but I removed it for reasons unknown..
* Once upon a time in the west: (1968 - Action, drama, western / Italian - C'era una volta il West) A movie by the legendary Sergio Leone Fantastic cast, including Henry Fonda as a heavy. Music by Ennio Morricone. This movie was on my must buy list.
* Hot Fuzz: (2007 - Comedy, action, crime, satire) Written (in part) and directed by Edgar Wright (of Shaun of the Dead). The true impulse buy. Hadn't seen it, and it wasn't on my list.

With this purchase, I deviated from my usual practice. Watch the movies before I purchase them. Regardless of director, actor, or hollywood hype. It's always a good idea to watch it first. One of these days I'll learn. So, how did I fare? Well, factoring in the retail markup, and the $5.00 movies ('Liberty Valence' and 'in the west'), I paid about the same as I would have if I'd ordered online. Were they good movies? Well, you can read the reviews at my reviews page, or see the posting near the bottom of my movies page.
<https://www.robsworld.org/movies.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/reviews.html>

Software favorites:
A couple of my favorites were recently updated. Safari (Apple's web browser) is now available for Windows. This release precedes the OS 10.5 release slated for later this year (October of 2007). In addition to the release of another Safari beta update, another favorite - GraphicConverter, moves ever forward. One more steps towards perfection. Another product that's always getting better. After the release of a new full version (a paid upgrade), the software author has been hard at work, patching the inevitable bugs.

Safari is Apple's default web browser for OS X (also available for Windows!), is way ahead of the pack. Apple's browser contains a plethora of incredibly powerful features. I wonder why Microsoft stopped developing IE for Mac? I'm currently using version 3.0.3 (522.12.1). This new release addresses some security concerns.

Battle of the browsers. Netscape versus Internet Explorer. Those are your choices right? Wrong! Think different! Think Mac! Choose Safari, the new kid on the block. A fast (The fastest available for Mac) but full featured browser, which performs like a pro. Tabbed browsing, URL snap-back, a powerful but elegant bookmark implementation (with built-in import capability), Google search integration, built-in pop-up blocker, multiple standards (HTML, XML, XHTML, DOM, CSS, RSS, JavaScript, and Java, plus QuickTime, Flash and Shockwave plug-ins), and a host of other features. Just one more reason to Switch! It's won a place as my default browser, give it a chance and it'll soon be yours.

By the way, Safari is fully compliant with the Web standards projects Acid 2 test. So, if you're concerned about standards and compliance, you've nothing to worry about. Develop your web site using the Safari webkit and you won't have to worry about rendering problems or sticky browser compatibility issues.
<http://www.apple.com/safari/>

GraphicConverter released a new beta version (6.0.1b0), in the past few days. GraphicConverter is an image converter and editor. A fantastic piece of shareware that is well worth the price ($34.95). I use it to convert image formats into web standard formats, to create and edit image maps and other graphics. I've been singing GC's praises for many years now, and I'm not sure I would do without it. The best part about GC is it's author. Thorsten Lemke is completely committed to his customer base. Constantly and Continuously responding to customer recommendations and bug reports. GC is a dynamic, evolving, application. Always on the cutting edge, an absolute must in any web developers tool box. At a fraction of PhotoShop's cost, this photo editor puts a huge wrench in your toolbox.
<http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index._cGlkPTE5Mw_.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/myfavs.html>

Apple Security Update 2007-07:
Another security update released by Apple This update addresses a slew of security concerns. Twenty five different patches, as a matter of fact. Heap buffer overflows, malicious URIs, cross-site scripting, unauthorized information disclosure, arbitrary shell commands, and many other issues. Apple's software update makes it easy to find out about, and implement these security updates. If you own a Mac, you can rest assured that any potential security concerns will be addressed in a timely and thorough manner. You can read more about the update at Apple's website. Keeping my Mac safe from malicious hackers and such.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/security/>