Christian Radio in iTunes

Did you know you can listen to Christian radio stations directly in iTunes? I just learned that today. From my son. (Sigh. It's finally happened: Something my kids know better than me. It's all downhill from here, ain't it? But I digress...) Here's a screenshot that illustrates how to do it.



KLove is there, as is His Radio. Me? I like Air1.

The Kindle is on Fire

Want a tablet, but don't want an iPad? Here's the first tablet I've seen that has a legitimate chance of actually being worth the money to own and having the firepower to stay in a fight with Apple longterm: It's Amazon's Kindle Fire. It's not big and doesn't have tons of capabilities, but it's cheap at $199. And you can add apps, movies, shows, music, books, and magazines. It's worth looking at.

The "L"

When I went to Chicago, I took the "L" from the airport to downtown, where my hotel was. The "L" is Chicago's name for the metro/subway system. It still amazes me that part of the "L" is not only above ground but right above the streets, such that there are supports in the middle of the roads. Crazy. But it worked. Easier and cheaper than renting a car.

How to Reinstall Lion

Suppose you bought a brand-spanking-new Mac, like this super amazing 27 inch iMac. It came with Lion preinstalled, but not with a reinstall DVD. How do you reinstall Lion? Try the instructions on this Macworld article. The key is to hold down Command-R after starting. Of course, if your disk drive has crashed, this won't work, in which case you'll have to buy a install USB from Apple for a painful $69. I can't say that I like this option; a DVD should have been included.

Another use for chopsticks

I have some friends in China, where they eat with chopsticks instead of fork and spoon. Learning to use them is an acquired skill, and one that may have other uses.

Preying Mantis

My son found a huge preying mantis while mowing the lawn today. Check him out!

Crown Fountain

Another feature in Chicago's Millenium Park was the Crown Fountain, a pair of structures with faces on them that poured out water like a waterfall.

The Cloud Gate

Back in August I went to Chicago for a week long conference. While there I did a bit of sight-seeing. One of the more photographed sites was the Cloud Gate in Millenium Park.

Omnibar for Safari on the Mac

Finally, a way to get an Omnibar on Safari. Basically it combines the location bar and search bar into one omnibar. I find this small feature to be quite handy and one of the many reasons why I like Chrome so much. Works on Lion.

Learning HTTP

Most of the time we don't know anything about HTTP headers, and honestly we don't really care. Enter a URL, get a web page, life is good. But if you ever find yourself needing to learning more, here's a few good resources:

* An introductory tutorial
* A more detailed tutorial
* More info on caching

Where's my iDVD?

Today I needed to burn a video to a DVD, so I went looking for iDVD on my new Lion iMac. Guess what? Not there! Apple chose not to include it, presumably since it wasn't updated from the previous version. If I had upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion, that would ok, but I bought a new Lion machine. So, no luck. I know Apple's going to the Cloud with everyone else, but I still need DVDs from time to time. This isn't helping.

Solution? One, I copied iDVD from my old machine to my new. That seems to work, but time will tell. Two, buy Toast Titanium 11. It can do everything iDVD can do and then some.

API Kitchen

I'm starting to do some work with HTTP headers, and I wanted a simple tool on the Mac that allows me to examine and set headers. A bit of googling found a Stackoverflow page that mentioned API Kitchen, which is exactly what I wanted. Nice.

Netflix spins off DVDs

Netflix has announced that they are spinning off their DVD service to a new company. As someone who subscribes to both their streaming and DVD services, this is both good and bad. It's good because they are adding video game rentals for no price increase. Now we can try out a Wii game before deciding if we want to buy it. It's bad because they are starting a new company. Another web site to check. Another account to manage. Another bill to pay. Another place to check if I want to watch a particular movie or show. What a pain. I can't help but think that Reed Hastings is not very bright. Or maybe he just doesn't care about customers.

Baby Turkey

One last shot from Ray Farms: Here's Emmy with one of the baby turkeys:

Skype is really annoying me

The longer they continue to "improve" Skype's interface, the worse it gets. In particular, it's getting bigger. It wants more and more space on my screen. All I need is a list of who's online. Nothing more. And now, news is out that they are going to be putting ads on Skype! Ok, that's it, I'm done with the upgrades; it's obviously not going to get better. I went back to version 2.8 for the Mac. Small. Clean. Simple. I like.

Horse

Here's another shot of the animals we found at Ray Farms. This horse was leaning over the fence, waiting for some attention from the kids. He was quite happy to eat the grass they fed him.

Guinea Fowl

These guys are guinea fowl. They are somewhat related to chicken and turkeys, but they are primarily used to eat bugs. They keep the pest population, including ticks, down to a minimum. They also make great watch, uhhh, birds.

Pig

We saw this cute little guy at Ray Farms this summer. Can't say that I'd want one of my own, except as bacon with my eggs:

Mudcats Baseball

Here's a couple more pictures from the Mudcats game we went to. One is the Mudcats pitcher (who gave up 4 bizillion runs in the first); the other is a catcher warming up the relief pitcher.

The iMac has arrived

So, the new 27" iMac with Lion is here. And I must say: It. Is. Huge! Loving this screen.

Mudcats Baseball

For the fourth of July we went to see a Mudcats baseball game, which was a lot of fun. They're a AA team over in Zebulon. The park is nice and ticket prices were real reasonable. Here's a couple pre-game pictures, signing autographs and warming up.





Just in case you're wondering, a Mudcat is a type of catfish and a pretty ugly one at that.