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I’ve had major computer issues this week. Apparently, the motherboard in my PC has “given up the ghost”. I decided to go ahead and buy a laptop. I’ve been considering getting a laptop for some time now, and decided to go ahead since I wasn’t sure just what the problem was that I was having. I do plan to get my desktop back up and running before long. Since I’ll have to buy another motherboard, I may take the opportunity to upgrade the processor as well and go dual-core. Anyway, this is my first post from the new laptop.

The thought of getting a Mac crossed my mind more than once, I just wasn’t quite ready to spring for it. I bought an HP Pavilion dv9000, which was way less expensive than a Mac Book Pro. I’m also a bit of an Ubuntu fan, so I’m trying this Vista thing out. My thoughts so far is that it’s OK. I haven’t really had any problems doing anything. It’s similar in my mind to XP, just shinier(I know I’m probably not telling anybody anything you don’t already know). The biggest disappointment to me is all the junk that comes pre-loaded…..all these icons on the desktop and in the start menu with their 60-day free trials. I got rid of all that junk first thing.

Here’s a quick overview of the specs on the laptop:

• AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-60
• 17.0″ WXGA+ High-Definition Widescreen Display
• NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M
• 3 gigs of DDR2 System Memory
• 250GB Hard Drive (SATA)
• LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support

The first thing I did, after getting rid of all the junk that came pre-loaded, was to set up XAMPP for develpment purposes. You just can’t hardly do Wordpress themes with out having a local install. You can, it just takes so much longer. Luckily, I didn’t run into any problems there.

I’m thinking this laptop should serve me well for a few years. There are several things I’ll have to get used to though.

1. I’m used to a normal keyboard. This small keyboard will take some getting used to.
2. I’m not very good with the touchpad. Presently, I have a mouse hooked in. I’ll have to work on that.
3. 17″ screen…..When trying to code, I generally have at least 4 or 5 windows up at once. I’ve grown accustomed to having two larger screens to spread everything out. This will be the hardest thing to get used to.
4. Mobility. Of course, having a laptop will add lots options as to where I want to work. Not being restricted to my desk will be very nice.
5. If I continue using Windows Vista, I’ll have to get used to the annoying security measures they’ve taken. Seems like every time you click something, you have to click something else to tell the computer it’s ok…….quite annoying…….who does the computer think just clicked that icon in the first place?

Well, that’s been the biggest event of my week.

Tags: Personal by Anthony ∗ 13 Comments »

Today marks the third anniversary of me being a dad. In other words, today is my son’s 3rd birthday. I’ve been thinking about how much my life has changed in the past three years as a result, and let me tell you, everything is different. My whole lifestyle and every decision I make is influenced by my role as a father.

It’s funny how a person so small in stature can possess so much power. They can dictate when you sleep, when you’re happy and sad, and whether or not you’re on time or late. Kids are a LOT of trouble, and mine is no exception. But I wouldn’t trade the experience so far for anything. Seriously, life is more complicated now, and I don’t have the freedom to just get up and go anywhere, anytime as I once did. Although it doesn’t make any sense unless you’re a parent, it’s much better now.

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Tags: Personal by Anthony ∗ 14 Comments »

This is one of those emails I got forwarded to me. This one got my attention……..

“There was a family on holiday in Australia for a week and a half when the husband, wife and their 15 year old son decided to go scuba diving. The husband is in the Navy and has had some scuba experience.

The son wanted a picture of his mom and dad in all their gear so he got the under water camera ready to go. When it came to taking the picture the dad realized that the son looked like he was panicking as he took it and gave the “OK” hand sign to see if he was alright.

The son took the picture and swam to the surface and back to the boat as quick as he could so the mom and dad followed to see if he was OK. When they got back to him he was scrambling onto the boat and absolutely panicking.

When the parents asked why he said “there was a shark behind you” and the dad thought he was joking……..but the skipper of the boat said it was true………but they wouldn’t believe him. As soon as they got back to the hotel, they loaded the picture onto the laptop and this is what they saw. (continue reading to see the picture)

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Tags: Personal by Anthony ∗ 10 Comments »

Have you ever thought about what your character might look like if you were on South Park? Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it, but my blogger friend Shane at Zoomstart has put together this little meme that looks like a lot of fun.

I’ve seen South Park before, however I’m not a regular viewer. A cartoon with potty-mouth characters probably wouldn’t mix well with a chatty two and a half year old.

South Park Studio is a neat little tool where you can build a SP character from the ground up. The deal with this meme is for bloggers to build themselves with this tool so, I suppose, we can all laugh at one another!

Sound like fun? All right! If I were on the show, I’ve determined that this is probably how I would look……

Now, to complete my part in the game, I need to pass this own to a few people. Let’s see, how about Azmeen, ClarkeW, Jake, and Ian. If you guys don’t want to participate, no big deal.

Tags: Networking, Personal by Anthony ∗ 11 Comments »

What should you do…….when others take credit for your work?

If you’ve read this site much in the past month, you know I’ve released a few Wordpress themes. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and finally, I decided to just do it. I have quite a few theme ideas hidden away in the proverbial closet of my mind.

Putting that into action has been a lot of fun for me……and it has brought some traffic to this site(which is one of the main reasons to offer a theme for free).

For those that don’t know, if someone links to your Wordpress site, that information is revealed to you in the Wordpress dashboard. Every now and then, I take a few minutes and look at sites that link to me - especially since I’ve started releasing themes. I like to not only see what types of sites are using my theme, but also what changes they make - some make some very creative changes. I don’t look at all of them, but I enjoy checking them out randomly. This past Friday, a new website activated my new YellowJacket theme. The title sounded interesting enough to me that I wanted to see what it was.

The first thing I noticed was the change in the header image - which is fine with me. However, I also noticed that they removed the attribution link in the footer of the page.

*NOTICE: This has been resolved.

Tags: Design, Personal, Web by Anthony ∗ 13 Comments »

Every muscle and joint in my body hurts. This past week was my vacation, and rather than taking a trip, we opted to take on a few needed home improvement projects. What we did was replace the flooring in about half of our house.

First up was the kitchen floor and the formal dining room (which is used as my wife’s office).

The kitchen had a linoleum covered floor that was extremely difficult to remove. I rented this “floor stripper” for the day which set me back about $75, but well worth it. I first made an attempt at it with a manual scraper, and didn’t get very far before deciding to spend a little more.
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Tags: Personal by Anthony ∗ 10 Comments »