Book: St. Patrick of Ireland
If I had to estimate, I would say that about 10 percent of "St. Patrick of Ireland" by Philip Freeman is fact; the rest is speculation and tangential information. To be fair, there really isn't much factual info about Patrick available; much of what is recorded about him is fictional (with the occasional smidgeon of truth tossed in). So Freeman does a good job with what he has, but I didn't much enjoy reading a biography that had so little biographical information. I don't recommend this book.
Photos: Trip to the beach
We went to the beach this past week and spent a few days with my side of the family. I took some family pictures, and they turned out better than expected. Enjoy.
What's your offsite backup plan?
You do have a plan for backing up your data, right? You've heard the saying "it's not a matter of 'if' your computer crashes but 'when'." Personally, I use Chronosync to automatically backup my iMac to my Time Capsule. I hope you do something similar.
But what's your offsite backup plan? I had a friend email me last weekend. Someone broke into his house and stole his laptop and the external harddrive he used for data backup. He lost everything. He had no files left from seminary. So what's your offsite backup plan? From time to time I burn my data to a DVD and sent it to my father's house. If thieves steal my stuff or a fire burns my house down, I'll at least have my most critical data available to me.
If you've got a good idea for an offsite backup plan, leave it in the comments.
But what's your offsite backup plan? I had a friend email me last weekend. Someone broke into his house and stole his laptop and the external harddrive he used for data backup. He lost everything. He had no files left from seminary. So what's your offsite backup plan? From time to time I burn my data to a DVD and sent it to my father's house. If thieves steal my stuff or a fire burns my house down, I'll at least have my most critical data available to me.
If you've got a good idea for an offsite backup plan, leave it in the comments.
Fortune Cookie
The message in our fortune cookie tonight? "Relish the transitions in your life - they will happen regardless." Heh. There's the understatement of the week.
Book: Ayn Rand
I knew a little about Rand. I knew she was a philosopher and was from Russia, but that was about it. So I decided to try this biography by Jeff Britting and found it to be very interesting. She immigrated to America in her 20’s. She wrote books, plays, and movies. Her writings, even her fiction, always had an agenda, advocating her personal beliefs and philosophies. She opposed socialism and communism. She believed in objectivism, which asserts that reality is objective and outside of man (a good thing) and individualism, which asserts that man can determine the nature of reality using his mind, thus bringing glory to man (which is not such a good thing). Her beliefs tended towards being self-assertive, egotistical, and very man-centered. She believed she had the mental capacity to live like she believed, and unsurprisingly this made her rather arrogant; she was critical of most everyone who didn’t believe like she did. She had little use for family and had few friends, though she had some very close friends and was married for 50-some years.
This biography is very well-written. It shares her beliefs and works without being particularly approving or critical. The pace flows well through the various stages of her life. Perhaps the best feature of this book is the various pictures and memorabilia included. Instead of being jammed into one section all in the middle of the book, they are interspersed throughout the book, co-located with the pertinent sections. This makes for pleasant reading and viewing. Even though I personally disagree with much of Rand’s beliefs and philosophies, I highly recommend this book.
This biography is very well-written. It shares her beliefs and works without being particularly approving or critical. The pace flows well through the various stages of her life. Perhaps the best feature of this book is the various pictures and memorabilia included. Instead of being jammed into one section all in the middle of the book, they are interspersed throughout the book, co-located with the pertinent sections. This makes for pleasant reading and viewing. Even though I personally disagree with much of Rand’s beliefs and philosophies, I highly recommend this book.
How cool is Skype!
I installed Skype last week for the first time. I’ve known about Skype, and I’ve used AIM and Google Talk for years (and ICQ before that), but I’ve never used Skype before. Setup was simple and quick. Adding friends who have Skype as new contacts is painless. So now I can chat, talk, and video conference with people anywhere. One day I was talking with friends in Brazil, the next day friends in Indonesia, and the day after that a friend in Senegal. How cool is Skype!
If you've got Skype and would like to talk, leave me your Skype name or send me an email with it.
If you've got Skype and would like to talk, leave me your Skype name or send me an email with it.
Surf fishing
We're at Nags Head for a bit hanging with our family. I went out onto the beach this morning to do a bit of surf fishing with my dad. Now dad really likes to fish, and I've done a lot of fishing with him. Most of time we either stand safely on the shore or sit calmly in a boat while fishing. No problem. You pay attention to your rod and your bait and that's all there is to it. But when you're surf fishing, you've also keep to keep an eye on the waves. The waves relentlessly try to knock you down or pull you in, and when that doesn't work, they pummel your feet and shins with shells and rocks. So, it's challenging. Dad caught a couple small speckled trout this morning, but I got nothing. We'll try again later.
New icons on your mac
I have a number of folders that I put down on my dock. Applications, utilities, downloads, my programming software, my photography software, games, and so on. The generic blue folder icons all look pretty much the same, so I thought I'd liven them up and make them easier to distinguish. A clone trooper for the games. A camera lens for the photography stuff. Etc.
So how did I do that? Here's how: First, I found some icons I liked. There are tons of nifty icons at InterfaceLIFT. Download the ones you like; put them somewhere accessible. Second, find the folder whose icon you want to replace. For example, use finder to navigate to your downloads folder. Third, get info on that folder (use command-i or select "get info" from the file menu of the finder). Move the info window to one side. Fourth, find the icon you want to use. Get info on the icon file. Fifth, with the two info windows side-by-side, select the icon you want to copy (the icon in the upper left corner), copy it, and then in folder window select the icon you want to replace, and paste. The generic blue icon should be replaced by the snazzy new one. Spiffy.
Let me know if that works for you.
So how did I do that? Here's how: First, I found some icons I liked. There are tons of nifty icons at InterfaceLIFT. Download the ones you like; put them somewhere accessible. Second, find the folder whose icon you want to replace. For example, use finder to navigate to your downloads folder. Third, get info on that folder (use command-i or select "get info" from the file menu of the finder). Move the info window to one side. Fourth, find the icon you want to use. Get info on the icon file. Fifth, with the two info windows side-by-side, select the icon you want to copy (the icon in the upper left corner), copy it, and then in folder window select the icon you want to replace, and paste. The generic blue icon should be replaced by the snazzy new one. Spiffy.
Let me know if that works for you.
Zinni Optical
Someone recommended that we try out Zinni Optical, an online store where you can get glasses for $12.95. He was happy with his glasses, so we decided to try Zinni. We ordered one pair of glasses for Ann as a test. When they came in, we were a bit unhappy. Although the lenses were fine, the arms (the part that connects the lenses to your ears) were really flimsy and cheap. Because of the price, we decided to order more glasses for the family, but we paid really close attention to the pictures and only got glasses with thicker arms. It didn't help, they were flimsy as well.
So, would I recommend buying glasses from Zinni? Maybe. If you wanted a second pair cheap, an emergency backup or a pair to leave at the office, sure, that would work. But as a wear-them-everyday-all-around pair? Nope. I guess the old saying is applicable: You get what you pay for.
So, would I recommend buying glasses from Zinni? Maybe. If you wanted a second pair cheap, an emergency backup or a pair to leave at the office, sure, that would work. But as a wear-them-everyday-all-around pair? Nope. I guess the old saying is applicable: You get what you pay for.
Mac case made with Legos
I love my iMac. I love Legos. What could be better than a Mac computer case built with Legos? Watch the time-release video some folks made of building a Mac case with Legos.
Dropbox: File sharing done right
We have 2 computers in our house, and often my wife and I need to share files back and forth or use the same file on different computers. We could mail each other. Or we could use a USB key. Or we could log into the other computer. These work, but they're cumbersome. Dropbox works better.
It's a fairly new file sharing software that I recently installed on both our computers. When I put a file in the dropbox folder on my iMac, it shows up near instantly in the dropbox folder on my wife's PC. And when I edit it on her computer, it gets updated back on my iMac as well. Nothing to it. There's also a web interface, should I need to access these files online or share them with someone else, and version control, should I delete or overwrite a file accidentally.
I like. Give dropbox a try.
It's a fairly new file sharing software that I recently installed on both our computers. When I put a file in the dropbox folder on my iMac, it shows up near instantly in the dropbox folder on my wife's PC. And when I edit it on her computer, it gets updated back on my iMac as well. Nothing to it. There's also a web interface, should I need to access these files online or share them with someone else, and version control, should I delete or overwrite a file accidentally.
I like. Give dropbox a try.
New iTunes Visualizer
Ok, normally I don't care anything about visualizers for my music. They're boring. They're dumb. Whatever. But I gotta say that Magnetosphere in the new iTunes is pretty cool. It's like a concert light show smashed into some fireworks. Pretty cool. You get the visualizer free with you get the latest version of iTunes. Or if you just want to get a taste, you can watch a demo of it on Vimeo. (Uh, the song is in Spanish, and no, I don't know what she's saying. I hope it's not bad.)
ChronoSync
Recently I mentioned that I was looking for some good software to backup my iMac to my networked hard drive. After looking through a list of available solutions, I finally found one that seems to work: ChronoSync. It does everything I need: one-way synchronized backup, automatic scheduling, error logging, and automatic mounting of the network drive. It even sends me an email when there's an error!
You can download a trial version from Econ's website, but the trial version is really annoying. It displays a splash screen that requires you to click on it, and it only lets you make one backup before having to restart the program. This made it impossible to adequately test it out. Fortunately, Econ allows you to request a temporary license; I did, and now I can test it fully functional for 30 days. So far, so good. Barring something unexpected, I'm going to be buying this backup software.
You can download a trial version from Econ's website, but the trial version is really annoying. It displays a splash screen that requires you to click on it, and it only lets you make one backup before having to restart the program. This made it impossible to adequately test it out. Fortunately, Econ allows you to request a temporary license; I did, and now I can test it fully functional for 30 days. So far, so good. Barring something unexpected, I'm going to be buying this backup software.
Photos: Jacen's new glasses
Well, not only does Emmy need glasses, so does Jacen. We found this out when he was trying to sing in church and had a hard time reading the words on the screen. So we got him a pair, and he looks sharp in them. I wanted to take some pictures, so this seemed like a good time to try out my new camera lens, so off we went. I hope you enjoy them.
Backup Software for the Mac
Yes, I know Leopard comes with Time Machine. And yes, I got Time Machine working with my Time Capsule. So I have a painless backup system. But honestly, I don't like it. Two reasons: 1) It fills up the whole stinking drive (almost). Time Machine just keeps mindlessly making copies of all my files until it fills up the hard drive in Time Capsule. If Time Capsule had a preference that said, "Only use up ___ GB of space," I could be happy with this. But no such option exists. 2) It's not recoverable from another computer. Suppose my iMac goes up in flames. I'd really like to recover my files using my PC. That means my files need to be saved simply as files, not as some strange binary format.
So, I need another backup program, something for my Mac like Second Copy on my PC. I don't know what I'm going to use, but I found this nifty page listing tons of options. I'm gonna start trying them out. Let me know if you have one you use.
So, I need another backup program, something for my Mac like Second Copy on my PC. I don't know what I'm going to use, but I found this nifty page listing tons of options. I'm gonna start trying them out. Let me know if you have one you use.
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