Maybe it's just me but Mother's Day just doesn't cut it for me. Nor does Father's day for that matter. This may sound cliche but you should be nice to your parents 365/24-7; period. And you should not have to worry about meeting the marketing expectations.

My brother-in-law and the rest of us took my mother in law out to eat. We had reservations for 1pm yet we didn't end up eating until 1:40-ish. Heck they didn't take our order for well over 20minutes. The place was jammed packed with a line out the door. It felt more like a night club with everyone packed in so tight then a nice quiet time for Lucy's mother. I made an off hand remark that next year will have them over and get take out. All parties seemed to like the idea.

On my side we ate over my parents place and just sat, talked, ate, and relaxed. I'm thinking this may be the start of a new tradition.

God Bless

Category: Family | Permalink | 0 comments

A rather straight forward and right to the point TQ for today, online talking.

1. How many email addresses do you have? (Please don't list them I don't want you to get spammed)

2. How many IM addresses do you have? Please just name the protocols that you cover...ie. Yahoo, AIM, Jabber....etc etc.

3. Do you use any of the microblogger tools? Twitter - Pownce, etc

4. Do you take part in any IRCs. (p.s. I'm on/in the Vectorlinux IRC when ever I can. Good bunch of folks)

5. If there any form of communication that I left out that you want to mention?

Enjoy.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 5 comments

As you may or may not know on Feb 17, of the year 2009 Analog TV as we know it will cease to exist. (Except if you're a low power station) That means we, the Falconportal.com clan, who do not pay for their TV in any way (But we may to get a mythbox running in the future, but that's only $20 a/year for the subscription to have access to channel listings), signed up and received our coupon. We technically have paid for it even though alot of people think they are free. Can you say Taxes?

So I'm staring at my sony 36" HD Ready TV while at the same time holding two $40 coupons and wondering which converter box to buy.

I'd like to get folowing features:

Analog pass through.

At the least an S-Video output.

Maybe some component outputs.

Surround sound output.

To be honest I really don't need of all that but, I'd really like to watch Heroes, or a football game with 1080p res and digital surround sound. I think it would really add to the viewing. I also have to buy an extra converter box that will work with what ever my future mythbox ends up using in the way of a video capture card.

So if you have already gone through the whole comparison shop think please help a fellow Geek in need. ;-)

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 comments

If you don't mind I'd like to throw my hat into the ultralight, inexpensive laptop discussion. As you have probably heard by now, cheap and small laptops (see Asus EEE PC) are quickly becoming the next big, or should I say small, thing. But before I begin let's go back to a time when I was working in the pc industry. Back then alot of us were wondering why anyone needed a (insert Intel latest and great processor name here) at 2.5 GHZ to read email, surf the web and type up doc files. We were constantly blown away by the options and how everything was moving towards a bigger and better model that really had no need. Ok ok you needed that stuff to run Longhorn Vista with it's 25Gig minimum RAM requirement but beyond that, it was pure marketing. If you don't believe me go back and look at the news postings when Intel and AMD were racing to 2gig, then 3, then multi thread, etc etc. So here is what I see happening.

Let's start with MS since they have market share.

At the moment this company has no clue what they are doing. Vista is a complete failure given the time and money dumped into it. I thought ME was bad but this may be worse. I've heard that SP1 may fix alot of what was wrong, but this won't make it any more sell-able.

Next up *****, who are a marketing machine. They are on the up swing but have a long way to go to supplant MS.

That leaves us with Linux / BSD. Alot of these new ultralight and cheap laptops are running the free OS and most won't even know that.

(drum roll)

MS is in big trouble. ***** has the designer high end (for lack of a better way of putting it) and isn't really interest in the low where the margins are much smaller. Linux on the other hand is becoming the defacto standard on all of these new inexpensive and small units which means people will become more adept at running something other then MS. If MS doesn't watch itself I wouldn't be surprised to see MS get out of the pure OS game and go after the Word / Office suite /Gaming and ad revenue area. They can't stand that Google is killing them and they have no response. But then again Balmer has been rather unpredictable as of late (we'll do a hostile take over....no we won't, we're walking away) so they may redisign the whole OS from the ground up and blow everyone away. Either you look at it , it's MS who has to change something because ***** will continue to do what they do. Linux on the other hand will continue its slow march towards the end game of being the best OS out there.

No matter what I wouldn't want to be MS right now.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 0 comments

When you start with the following....

"If I Were President.....

Republicans tout themselves as being "pro-life." Yet, the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the White House for six years and did absolutely nothing to overturn Roe or end abortion-on-demand. Under my administration, we could end legal abortion in a matter of days, not decades. And if Congress refused to pass Dr. Paul's bill, I would use the constitutional power of the Presidency to deny funds to protect abortion clinics. Either way, legalized abortion ends when I take office......."

....you definitely have/get my attention.

The rest of the entry is just as good. Mind you all is not perfect but from a moral point of view, voting for Mr. Baldwin won't make me feel dirty when I leave the booth.

God Bless

Category: Family | Permalink | 2 comments

For me personally I don't see the need to get a Twitter account but I'm wondering if getting one for my podcast would work? Here is the idea.

As I'm watching a race I can post comments that others can see and reply too. Community type things. Stories that are related to what is being said, stories that cover some technical aspect not covered during the race, stuff like that.

I'm also wondering if Steve (Man From Essex) would be interested in doing the same thing? He's got that wiz bang phone of his so I'm sure he could comment using the phone while watching. Whether his data plan could handle such things is unknown but like I said, just thinking out loud.

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us
Topics: Volume 244: WRC - Jordan Rally recap. Slip Sliding Away.
Enjoy

and God Bless.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 locked comments

Let's see there's the war, taxes, gas prices, cell phone usage while driving, and on and on the list goes of things to complain about. So how do you handle it all?

1. Do you feel that you complain too much?

2. Is there one subject that you find yourself always complaining about?

3. Is there one subject which you can't stand others complaining about?

4. What stops you from complaining or puts and end to your complaining if you have already started?

A quick story to prove that everyone, no matter what age, joins in on the complaining fun.

While driving through a mall parking lot I came to a cross walk in which an elderly couple were waiting to cross. I didn't have to stop but I did to let them get across. The gent had a cane and his wife(??) was helping him. When they got to half way across the lane I was in they waved a thank you. When they reached half way across the next lane over I started to pull away to go past them. Immediately the women starts to berate me for not having enough patience. I couldn't believe it. I didn't smoke the tires, accelerate quickly, nothing. Just went past them in my own lane while they were in their own. I had to laugh because one second I was this nice guy that let them go. Meaning I was willing to wait for them and then the next had me this crazed can't wait for anyone driver. Oh well.

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us
Topics: Volume 243 F1 - Spanish GP recap with our Man from Essex via mp3 file.
Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 1 locked comments

I still remember walking around the sales area of last year's Boston Men's Catholic conference and seeing the Air Maria setup. I remember being drawn to their display due to it's technical nature but I tried to stay away and remain focused on why I was at the conference in the first place. Well wouldn't you know it, because God had other plans for me. He was going to use the talents that he had given me to help out the Air Maria gents. In the grand scheme of things I am but a small piece to their big puzzle but one that feels greatly rewarded when I do get to help them out.

So if you are looking for some quality IPTV being created by a bunch of Friars who have just celebrated their first year please don't hesitate to give Air Maria a look see.

Ave Maria guys and well done.

God Bless.

Category: Religion | Permalink | 0 locked comments

First round of pictures from the party have been posted here.

For those of you who could not attend, Dad set up a race course with traffic cones and such so the kids could race.

For the F1 fans in the audience, I modeled it after the Canadian GP complete with a long straight followed by a tight hairpin. IMG_1872_1 shows the pack bunching up in the hairpin but everyone held their line and no one had to retire.

BTW, The Good Lord came through HUGE in the weather department.

To all family member, let me know if you want the original pictures and I will send them off to you. What you are seeing is a cropped version.

God Bless.

Category: Family | Permalink | 0 locked comments

You're sitting in a large gym with hundreds of other nervous students. The topic, word meaning.

You have 15mins and you are not allowed to use the net, dictionary, or any other source except for the ol' brain. You may begin now.

1. quaff

2. gimcrack

3. gauche

4. cacophony

5. draconian

6. primogeniture

7. nonagenarian

8. perdurable

9. lambaste

10. importunate

Answers will be posted tomorrow.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 1 locked comments

I must be clairvoyant because just two days ago I blogged about a certain language as well as other languages and once again /. has posted another story regarding tons of different languages. When I had a look at the actual site I was very relieved to see Ada on it's way down yet still in the top 20.

To be honest the top three were shockers; Java, C and visual basic. When you hang around in certain circles you tend to form opinions on what you see and hear. I knew Java had its following but I never thought it that big. Oh well guess I was wrong. The C thing caught me off guard because I thought C++ would have replaced it by now. Wrong again; bummer. The last one is pure and simple not paying attention. I honestly thought PHP was either 1 or 2 given that almost every hosting service out there has PHP at the ready. The article states the following on how they rank:

"The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors. "

Maybe that's why Java is up there because there are plenty of courses and conventions etc etc. I don't think PHP has anywhere near that type of support so it all sorta makes sense.

So for you geeks / programmers out there, let's see what you got.

I labeled this entry TTQ for Technical Thursday Questions and for good reason.

1. How many out of the top twenty have you used? Meaning did more then "Hello World"

2. Out of the top 50?

3. Out of the top 100?

A regular TQ is still coming so don't fret if you have no interest in this entry. ;-)

BTW - 12 out of 20 / 18 out of 50 / 24 out of 100

Category: Technology | Permalink | 3 locked comments

Hello all

One of the greatest joys of blogging is bringing goodgreat awesome news like I have for this entry. Today Lucy, Zack and you know who headed to the doctors for an ultrasound. A what you say? That's right Lucy is with child and is due sometime in Sept. (We know the exact date but would like a certain level of detail left off-line)

I'll admit that we have been hiding this news for some time now for the following reasons. The first being Lucy's age and next we wanted to announce all at once that she was pregnant and what the sex was IF we found out. Well we did and it's a boy.

God has truly blessed us once again.

Category: Family | Permalink | 1 locked comments

Aside from two programming languages I'm pretty agnostic. If you know the basics you can pretty much figure out how any particular language handles (or should I say best handles) your task. I'll also be rather up front. I've never coded in any one language for more then a year, except for php, so I've never mastered any of them. My site is coded in php but I only work on it when needed so again not an expert.

Some languages I picked up rather quickly. C, Pascal, Coldfusion, and php. Some not so easy. Lisp and assembly. Assembly I eventually got the hang of it but Lisp and all it's parenthesis just dropped me to my knees. But the one language that all I ever did was fight with was...

Ada

One of my college profs called it the language of pain and I completely agree. That is why I called my shrink immediately when I saw this post at /. talking about The Return of Ada.

I'm in education now so I don't ever see me needing to relearn that nightmare they call a language but, if they just quietly do away with it now, you'll be saving people alot of pain and anguish. Trust me, it's all for the best if it just goesssss awaaaaaayyyyy.

p.s. If anyone out there wants a slightly used Rendezvous with Ada 95 book let me know. I'd have to clean off the 6-7 inches of dust from it but it's yours. ;-)

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 locked comments

I noticed this over at Gadgetopia and almost fell off my chair from laughing so hard.

Now before you think I'm busting on ***** and their OS, this was designed / written / coded not by the mother ship but by a user. Here is what the program does:

"Freedom disables all wireless and ethernet networking on your ***** computer for up to three hours at a time. After the time is up, Freedom will re-enable your network adapters and display a confirmation. Simply restart the program to get another period of freedom."

Are you telling me that someone out there doesn't know how to disconnect the Ethernet cable from their computer? Or better yet, hit a button to disable wifi? You need a program to stop you from doing something that you should be adult enough to do on your own?

(shakes head in dismay)

Category: Technology | Permalink | 0 locked comments

As you can read here The Doctor's new companion is called Donna Noble. Both the Doctor and one of the writers for the show put her personality perfectly.

"Donna's strident reaction to her sudden appearance in the TARDIS includes yelling at the Doctor and leaping to the conclusion that she has been kidnapped. The Doctor appears to find her loud-mouthed manner off-putting at first, saying "I don't want you here, anyway".

"

"Series producer Russell T Davies at one time dismissed Donna's potential as an ongoing companion due to her abrasive personality, saying that "she'd get on your nerves".

"

To put it bluntly she has to be one of the worse companions I can remember. Even Lucy calls her (and I quote), "Obnoxious."

So with all of that above stuff in mind, why did they get rid of Martha, played by Freema Agyeman? She was brilliant. I understand why Rose left because the actress playing her wanted to try something different. Logical enough, yet the whole Donna Noble thing really has put me off. First the writers completely ruin Torchwood, the Doctor Who spin off. Now they cripple the Time Lord with some yelling, shrieking, loud mouth who can't fathom half of the responsibilities that the Doctor has to deal with every day of his life.

My goodness where is Sarah Jane when you need her?

One can only hope that Donna will be silenced by some lone Dalek.

Exterminate!! Exterminate!! Exterminate the annoying women!!!

Now that would be a great season ending.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 2 locked comments

From a technical perspective I am completely blown away by this poor homeless man who has figured out a way to download music with no ISP, no computer, and for those of you in the RIAA, NO HOME!!!! Yet for all the misery they cause this person all they get is a slap on the wrist. When will the courts start to see the pattern and hold the RIAA accountable?

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us
Topics: Volume 241: Cycling - Boonen takes the Hell of the North, WRC - What really stopped Petter's car, F1 - What is a DigiFlag?
Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 locked comments

With Earth Day quickly approaching I thought we ask a few questions on the matter.

1. Do you believe Earth Day helps?

2. Are you planning on doing something for Earth Day?

3. What have you done to help our current situation as seen through the eyes of the Earth Day folks. ( I worded it that way to be clear that large corporations probably view ED in a very different light)

4. Do you believe it's only a matter of time before the Earth starts to show some really bad signs exposing our abuse or do you think it's still a ways off and nothing really to worry about?

Enjoy?

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 2 locked comments

(Inhale deeply)

Aaaaaahhhhh, can you smell it? Can you hear them going back and forth? Their typical song and dance? Notice how they puff themselves up to attract the females? Notice how their passion for the moment captivates them. There is just nothing like it. People come from all around to watch them, to take notes, to pick out their favorite ones but most of all, to enjoy the show.

You can tell spring is in the air because /. has released a story about some lame skd, or ksd, was it a kds and everyone is up in arms.

To be honest I never really understood what all the fuss was about. I mean it's only a Single Decimal Knob.

;-)

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 locked comments

When I saw that we'll soon have another Linux run player I was like, "hey!" Then I saw which player it was supporting and went, "oh."

Then I read the comments and saw/read what it looks like. The gui. I then went, "whaaa?" Which brings me back to where I started by saying, and I always say this, "it's nice to have competition because the end user always benefits."

So now I'll say, "Bye."

man do I need more sleep after training.ZZZzzzzzz

Category: Technology | Permalink | 0 locked comments

How about a clear plexi-glass case? That way you can see everything inside.

The Geek community would love it. I know I would.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 locked comments