I discovered a nifty looking embed.ly plugin for WordPress yesterday so this is a quick test post to try out a few of the different link embeds it supports (71 total, but twitter, youtube, imgur, vimeo, dribbble, and a github gist respectively in this case).

http://twitter.com/axodys/status/14496569206

I probably don’t use my iPhone to surf the web via Mobile Safari as much as some people, but one recent trend I have noticed on a few blogs is themes specifically designed for optimal iPhone consumption. I did some research and it turns out that there is a great WordPress plugin called WPtouch that allows you to offer a highly customized and mobile friendly theme for visitors using Mobile Safari. Since WPtouch is a plugin it operates side by side with your standard theme and only iPhone (or iPod Touch) users get the new user experience.

Always one to want to try the latest and greatest web technologies I went ahead and installed WPTouch on axodys.com yesterday. I’m still experimenting and tweaking the settings quite a bit, but the results have been pretty good so far with minimal work on my part.

Here’s what the front page of axodys.com looks like in an iPhone thanks to WPTouch.

One subtle feature about the calendar icons that I noticed (but isn’t visible from this picture) is that each month has a distinct color. It’s very evident that the developers of this plugin paid a ton of attention to little details like that.

This is a shot of an actual post page.

I also whipped up a quick iPhone home page icon using this handy web iphone icon generator, but it’s not reflected in my original screen shots.

I’m looking forward to playing with WPtouch further and adding it to a couple of my other blogs. If you’re looking to add similar mobile functionality to your own WordPress blog quickly and easily I suggest you check it out.

I’ve been using NIMH rechargeable AA batteries in various digital products for roughly 10 years now, but I just learned something kind of significant today while perusing prices on Amazon.com. One of the reviewers pointed out that high battery capacity (typically 2500-2700 mAh nowadays) isn’t the only characteristic you’ll want to look at. The other thing to look for in a modern NIMH battery is a low self discharge rate. Many of the highest capacity brands like Energizer have a high self discharge rate and will quickly lose a large percentage of their charge over the course of a month even if not used. If you’re swapping and recharging them daily or weekly that’s probably not an issue, but if you’re using them in scenarios where the device will be used sporadically over a longer period of time you’re going to want a long self discharge rate.

Four long self discharge NIMH options: Sanyo Eneloop, Rayovac Rechargeable Hybrid NiMH, Kodak NIMH batteries, and Duracell Pre Charged (Amazon Associate links).

I haven’t played with the OPML Editor in quite a while, but I saw that it has a WordPress tool now so I decided to give it a quick test.

Overall the WordPress OPML Editor tool seems pretty straightforward.

Macros seem to work as expected too. I will have to explore that aspect a little further.

Testing out glossary support. Took me a few minutes to remember that doublequotes was the key to referencing a given glossary entry.

While catching up on some feed reading yesterday I saw Gina Trapani mention a cool looking projectview add-on for todo.txt, her text file plus shell script command line task manager. I was vaguely aware of todo.txt, but had never really played with it until now.

I’ve actually been working on a few different projects lately and trying to be more organized about tracking and handling them. Rather than using one of the GUI task managers I have at my disposal (The Hitlist, Entourage), I’ve been relying on a simple text file. I went this route mainly because it’s really easy to keep synced between my various computers using Dropbox (it’s also possible to do this with The Hitlist, but it’s kludgy and requires closing and relaunching the app).

My text file solution worked great as far as syncing goes, but was pretty free form and not as useful as it could be. Todos were mixed up with a sort of running journal of what I’d accomplished for a given day. Great for looking back on what I’d accomplished, but not so hot for figuring out what still needed to be done. When I read about todo.txt this time around it’s utility immediately jumped out at me- this was exactly what I wanted: an easily syncable, organized, flexible utility.

I’ll check back in a few more days to further document my progress using and getting adapted to todo.txt.

I saw on twitter this morning that Mark Madsen has begun his basketball coaching career as an assistant coach for the Utah Flash in the NBDL. Madsen had a surprisingly long NBA career as ultimate bench leader, good teammate and  12 minute a game guy. He even won a couple titles with the Lakers back in the Shaq and Kobe era.

As a Zag fan I’ve always wondered why Madsen made it and stuck around in the league when Casey Calvary never did. Physically, they seemed pretty comparable. Both guys were warriors in the paint, although I remember Calvary being a little more explosive athletically while Madsen played with a ton of emotion. I’d love to go back and analyze some games from both of their senior years to compare and contrast with each other and my memories of how they played.

Since I don’t have any video at my disposal, I pulled up their senior year numbers through statsheet.com (great site!) and did a head to head comparison. Madsen is listed at 6-9/235 his senior year and Calvary was 6-8/235 as a senior one year later. On the one hand, Madsen was an elite college rebounder- averaging 9.3 boards a game, but on the other he was a pretty average scorer at about 12 points per game. Calvary’s rebounding numbers were about 2.5 lower per game, but  he averaged 19 points and could actually shoot the three pretty well. In stark contrast, Madsen took two three pointers in his entire college career and missed both. Despite his offensive limitations Madsen ended up as the 29th pick in the first round of the 2000 draft. The more skilled Calvary went undrafted the following year.

Ultimately, like a lot of things in life I guess it just comes down to luck and opportunity. Mark Madsen got his shot and to his credit worked hard and impressed his coaches and teammates enough to carve out a nice 9 year career as a well respected pro. It’s just a shame that Casey Calvary never quite got that same chance to prove his worth.

I finally settled on a new theme to start adjusting to my liking today. It’s called RCG Forest and I think it’s going to work pretty well as a starting point for updating things around here.

The main thing I knocked out over lunch today was simplifying the Twitter posts (technically my Microblog category) so that they don’t take up nearly as much space as a more conventional post. I still want to add a bounding box, timestamp and probably a permalink for each one, but I can get to that later.

Other things on the redesign todo list include a new header and perhaps  a modified color scheme, but probably not too much beyond that.

So it turned out that the Fresh From Friendfeed and Twitter plugin was only assigning gmt time stamps to the blog posts it created. That’s why I was running into the weird posting order for my imported tweets yesterday. I’m kind of surprised that a plugin that’s been around for quite a while would still have this bug- it seems like something most users would want a fix for. Here’s my solution:

In the function get_post($post_date) change this line:

$obj->post_date = $post_date;

to this:

$obj->post_date = get_date_from_gmt($post_date);

I haven’t tested this for Friendfeed itself yet, as I primarily use Twitter, but I thought I’d put this out there for any others that may have been having the same issue. I’m also going to try to contact the plugin author with this fix to see if it can be incorporated in the next revision.

Strange, I tried creating a short post with quickpress in the WordPress dashboard earlier today and despite having the right date and time it’s completely out of order in relation to the other posts. I guess I may just delete that post and recreate it if I can’t figure out why it’s behaving that way. Odd.

In other news experimenting with different layouts. Once I decide on one, I’ll need to customize the Microblog category display on the front page to get all my tweets under control. No need for them to take up as much display space as a conventional blog post.

There were a lot of significant revelations about the Final 5 and Cylons in general during No Exit, the latest BSG episode, but there was one key quote from Sam that I hadn’t seen anyone else pick up on yet:

Back on Earth. The warning signs that we got… They looked different to each one of us. I saw a woman Tory you saw a man. Funny, no one… no one else could see them. Galen you thought you had a chip in your head.

Now maybe it’s just me, but that sounds a heck of a lot like the visions of Six that are good friend Gaius Baltar used to experience. In fact at one point he even thought he had a Cyclon chip in his head that Six had placed there. Sam finishes with the revelation that the 7th humanoid Cylon was named Daniel and we learn via Ellen that John (Cavil) destroyed Daniel’s entire line in an act of extreme jealousy.

Except I don’t think Cavil completely destroyed the Daniel line. At this point six of the seven people we know to have had visions are confirmed Cylons (the Final 5 + Caprica 6 and her visions of Gaius). I think Gaius is a Daniel model, probably the only one remaining in existence after Cavil destroyed the rest. Given his sadism and propensity for tinkering it seems likely that Cavil might even have taken the last Daniel and reprogrammed him a bit to exacerbate his most human flaws as a final revenge before deploying him on Caprica as Gaius Baltar.

At this point we still can’t explain the visions and Starbuck’s resurrection, but there certainly appears to be some kind of external guiding force that has had a hand in events since at least the destruction of Earth.

• Hmm. No new Lost episode on abc.com yet, guess I’ll have to wait until later in the day to get caught up. Till then: Oh Hulu… #
• “With all due respect Madam President: Ask around.” Heh. Classic Jack Bauer. #
• Time to update @TweetDeck… Er, install for the first time on this computer. Firing it up and taking for a spin now. #
• Spotify is hot in TweetScoop, but completely irrelevant in the US because of music licensing issues. Should trend down as we wake up. #
• @TweetDeck I like single column mode, but wish there was an option for collapsing to the right side of the screen. #
• Doh! Totally forgot about this game last night. Bradley goals help U.S. dominate Mexico again: http://tinyurl.com/dm44ct #
• One of the great perks at work that I always forget about is the free catered food leftovers. Mmm… sausage and eggs today! #
• Playing with MrTweet a little more today. If you haven’t tried this Twitter service before go here: http://mrtweet.net?v=12 #
• Who watches the Watchmen posters? @morganrichter does of course! http://tinyurl.com/d4ycac #
• Linus Torvalds has the most amusing 25 things meme response yet: http://tinyurl.com/dkom4y #
• I love my kids. Mary took them to the library and they wanted books on dinosaurs, volcanoes and trains. Science and transportation FTW! #
• Last night’s Lost was pretty good. No spoilers here, but I have to say of all the shows I follow I’m most satisfied with Lost’s execution. #
• Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman last night. Comedic genius or pure train wreck? You decide: http://tinyurl.com/azu2h7 #
• Sitting on the bed with Nene while waiting for dinner. Not going to be able to see the Zags play after all. Hope they bring it tonight. #

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• At work, now must start the day off right with some cocoa, cinnamon rolls, and a mandarin orange or two. #
• Thought for the day: There is no time like the present when you’re a character on Lost. #
• Working on a faculty member’s computer that had 13,000 emails in his inbox! My own total? No comment. #
• @bre I regularyly eat Top Ramen for lunch; it never occurred to me try it with just soy sauce (or something spicy). Thanks for the idea! in reply to bre #
• @lancearmstrong I got a good laugh when I discovered I’d been fixied! That’s a handlebar you can work with. in reply to lancearmstrong #
• Installed feedly at work and putzed around a bit, but now I need to go home. Guess I’ll have to install it there too so I can keep playing. #
• Eawyn discovered the Caillou website today so we’re getting in a last bit of computer time before bed. #

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• Forgot that sometimes it takes a while for shows to get up on Hulu. I’m ready for yesterday’s Chuck and Heroes now, but no joy. #
• Not to mention last week’s House should finally be up soon as well as guilty pleasure 24. Plenty to keep me busy until Wednesday (Lost). #
• @Ed_Dale You’re making the right choice about how to use Facebook. Anybody that complains is nuts and doesn’t really get it. #
• Snow Leopard will load print drivers on demand. This is a huge improvement for MacOS X: http://tinyurl.com/bs7kqo #
• @jimmygle Well PHP is pretty much ubiquitous to all web hosts out there, but yeah python is definitely superior in all other ways. in reply to jimmygle #
• Played with Inkscape for the first time in quite a while. Love that you can save directly to pdf these days. http://www.inkscape.org/ #
• http://twitpic.com/1fbw8 – One massively delicious cupcake! #
• Feedly sounds like a pretty interesting mashup of Google Reader, Twitter and Firefox: http://feedly.com/ #

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• As of this morning 2/3 of the way through Watchmen. As good as advertised. I have to wonder how it all gets crammed into a movie though. #
• @morganrichter At least you can turn to your Heroes for a pick me up at the end of the day. in reply to morganrichter #
• My friend Dan just picked up a Blackberry Pearl to replace the phone he killed in his washing machine. I think he made a good choice. #
• Still thinking about Watchmen. The movie is only a month away and looks fantastic. Haven’t gone to one in months, but must see this one! #

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• Cutting out paper hearts with the kiddos. Time for a breakfast break and a homemade cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting. #
• http://twitpic.com/1eey8 – Nathan takes a break from rambling. #
• Weird, I sent a text message tweet before the last TwitPic, but it seems to have gotten lost in the ether. Oh well. #
• Dinner soon, but first I must wrangle the toddler so Mary can actually put it together. Then turkey and cranberries! #

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• Set Eawyn up with her own account on an old powerbook and helped her download some dinosaur pictures. Clearly she’s a budding geek. #
• Waiting for a TwitPic to appear. My phone says it went through- not sure what the hold up is. #
• http://twitpic.com/1dqkq – Budding computer geeks having fun! #
• Realized my TwitPic mistake: don’t add any text beyond the subject line when sending via mms. Worked fine once I made that correction. #
• The LeBron Cleveland Browns dream commercial cracks me up every time I see it. #
• Whoa. Davidson let College of Charleston back into the game while I wasn’t paying attention. Time for some Curry. #
• http://twitpic.com/1drk3 – #
• The Zags are stinking it up on offense and their defense isn’t much better. What a complete and utter disappointment on the national stage. #
• Digger wants to know where Pargo and Bouldin are and I concur. If they don’t find their game there’s no hope of making this respectable. #
• Just heard Ammo has been traded to the Lakers. That’s some good news on the Zag front in an otherwise dreadful day so far. #
• @brendanloy I didn’t see the ND game, but the GU debacle took the headache I already had and made it twice as irritating. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. #
• @JPhilipson http://twitpic.com/1dwcp – What’s the occasion? #

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• Finally started reading Watchmen this morning after all these years. I want to continue, but I’m tired and ready for bed. Maybe one more. #
• Last night’s rain turned into a little bit of snow this morning. A bit slick coming into work, but not bad. Supposed to warm up and hit 40°. #
• @morganrichter Sounds like when I went to see Gattaca at a morning showing when it came out. They don’t show movies that early in Spokane. #
• Just discovered a homeless guy sprawled on the men’s bathroom floor at work. Security is handling it. Time to go home. #

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• Looks like the dogs are ready for breakfast. Hoping I don’t have to break apart yet another bag of frozen turkey necks. #
• Watchmen lettering helped spawn Comic Sans?! Say it ain’t so: http://tinyurl.com/ae7ers #
• Colemak is a post computer keyboard layout alternative to qwerty and dvorak: http://tinyurl.com/anq5zz #
• Came across this extensive list of eBook formats today: http://tinyurl.com/djnexf #
• Foxmarks is now supported on Safari and IE. Probably time to start using: http://tinyurl.com/ah3f25 #
• First Twitter post: 2:42 PM Jul 14th, 2006. 200th Twitter post: right about now. Tweet frequency trending upward after a very slow start. #
• Just realized I won’t have to miss the Gonzaga – Portland game because it’s on ESPN2 at 8PM rather than the earlier local TV time slot. #
• I don’t have an iPhone, but Classics demonstrates what an awesome ebook platform it can be: http://www.classicsapp.com/ #
• Great John Siracusa article on the state of the ebook. I’ve read quite a few books on Palm devices, but I’m still looking for the perfec … #
• Let’s try that again. Great John Siracusa article on the state of the ebook: http://tinyurl.com/dmwzb4 #
• I’ve been tempted to participate, but have refrained so far: http://tinyurl.com/c2jowr #
• @thekristen I generally find them entertaining as well. I think that piece was probably geared towards getting a reaction from facebookers. in reply to thekristen #
• Time to get in a quick ride so I can chill out and watch the Gonzaga game. Hope it’s in HD- ESPN2 should’t settle for the cheap FSN look. #
• @mgilman Looks like you are right based on the brief cutaway from the Seton Hall game. This game needs to get over with now. #
• I guess Gonzaga is losing, but would really love to see firsthand for myself ESPN2. #
• Finally. Portland is playing some pretty tough and tenacious defense. No easy looks for the Zags. #
• Hmm. Daye just picked up his 2nd foul. Sikma is going to work in the paint. Doh! Niedermeyer just banked a 3! #
• Bouldin with back to back trifectas! Zags need a stop. Bingo. #
• Raivio is tough, but that last three was too deep. #
• @mgilman Nice looking website. Is that the building you’re located in as well? #
• Good start to the half for the Zags, but Portland is hanging tough and not going away. #
• No caffeinated beverages left in the fridge. I may have to break out the French press and brew some coffee because I’m behind on caffeine. #
• @morgandodge Was that for my benefit? Heh! in reply to morgandodge #
• @mgilman That is a cool video, but that kid gives me the impression that it’s all his drug induced hallucination. Maybe that’s the point. in reply to mgilman #
• Just when I thought the Zags might be putting this away they are letting the Pilots back into it. #
• I think barring an unforseen slump by himself or the team Matt Bouldin will be the next WCC player of the year. #
• Whoa freaky. I just realized it’s raining pretty hard right now. First precipitation in a while and not what you expect in February. #

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• Tempted to have some early morning ice cream, but went with a mandarin orange instead. That was good, I think I might just have another. #
• Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/aduqlw Awesome NY Times visualization of SuperBowl tweets. #
• Doh! Just realized that I neglected to pack one of several delectable chocolate cupcakes sitting on the kitchen counter at home. #
• Two year old plus a bottle of red pepper on the counter does not a good combination make. Luckily both laptops were closed and survived. #

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• @mgilman Wanda: last seen on network television 5 years ago on an episode of Cold Case. http://is.gd/icDE #
• @StatSheet I think StatSheet and Twitter are a great combination- much like Peanutbutter and Chocolate! in reply to StatSheet #
• Just confirmed that I can access my Twitter favorites via RSS given my username and password. Now to do something with that feed… #
• @morgandodge I haven’t seen this week’s Chuck yet so I will look for that shout out when I watch it at lunch. in reply to morgandodge #
• @Mary1 is bringing me some lunch! I still have to get her squared away with Twitter even though I signed her up eons ago. #
• http://twitpic.com/1bidg – #
• http://twitpic.com/1bidg – This was just a quick mms to twitpic test I sent right before heading home from work. Forgot to title it in m … #

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• Realized I hadn’t actually used my Gravity to send a tweet yet so I’m rectifying that issue right now. And away we go. #
• Minor Gravity annoyance that may only bother me. I can’t seem to make custom wallpapers that fully utilize landscape mode. #
• The nine included Gravity wallpapers utilize the full screen regardless of screen orientatation so it should be possible, but no go so far. #
• Lots of talk about ruby (webby, nanoc, rubyfrontier) and python (jekyll, hyde) powered static website generators right now. #
• The technical side of the new Muxtape. Rails based after shedding its PHP roots. http://is.gd/hJKH #
• The Mean Troy Coke Zero ad – an amusing twist on the classic Mean Joe Greene Coke ad or am I just showing my age? http://is.gd/i4PM #
• Not having much luck with my efforts to send picture mail from the Gravity. Not sure if it’s the phone or the data network. #
• Picture mail is go. Going to have to try a TwitPic soon, but I’ve got to get a quick bike ride in now. #

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• @Bennethon Here’s a nice explanation of how to get an RSS feed of your Facebook status. http://bit.ly/25lL in reply to Bennethon #
• Finally figured out how to upload files from the Gravity to my MacBook via Bluetooth. Bluetooth must be on in the Sharing System Preference. #
• http://twitpic.com/1adnt – Here’s a screenshot of the Bluetooth Sharing settings necessary for Mac to phone Bluetooth filesharing. #

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• The Twitter Tools plugin is working pretty well except for the fact that it wants to publish tweet digests a day later than it should. #
• BSG Thoughts: Better episode tonight because their was a lot more open conflict and that’s when Starbuck is in her element. Cliffhanger too. #
• General consensus in the Twitterverse seems to be that this BSG episode got things back on track. I concur. Less moping- more machination! #
• @thekristen Have you tried Facebook Scabble yet? I’ve been having a lof of fun getting schooled by my friend Jesse. We should play sometime. in reply to thekristen #
• Acquired new Samsung Gravity phones this morning. We even won a free bluetooth headset for Mary at the new T-Mobile store grand opening! #

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• I’m glad the Zags got the win, but it’s unfortunate that they didn’t have Patty Mills to overcome in the 2nd half. http://bit.ly/2XB2u0 #
• I’ve always liked Vim, but only recently made it my primary text editor. Editing is improving, now I need to master buffer manipulation. #
• Okay, I I now understand window manipulation and navigation in Vim at a very basic level. It all starts with CTRL-W. #
• I’ve played so much facebook scrabble with my friend Jesse lately that it seems appropriate to borrow @kevinmarks pic idea for a few days. #
• SMC’s Patty Mills is out for the next month with a broken hand and will most likely miss the GU rematch in Moraga. http://bit.ly/mills-out #
• Mill’s injury is bad for St Mary’s, Gonzaga and the WCC as a whole on multiple levels. Hopefully the Gaels can rally together and adjust. #
• Lengthy Ian Hickson (@Hixie) video on “HTML 5 feeatures you want desperately, but still can’t use.” http://bit.ly/2AJ8e0 #
• Time to buy another tank of gas on the way home. Hopefully this will be my last for a while- I should be able to bike to work more soon. #
• @midmajority The Mills injury is so unfortunate. Davidson – SMC with Mills vs Curry would have been phenomenal! #

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• Feeling bored and sleepy, I’ve doing a little weeding and feeding with my Twitter subscriptions. Must find new streams of entertainment. #
• Mary just took Nene to bed, but he’s restless. Hope she can get him to settle down for the night. Is the new Lost up at abc.com yet? Yes! #
• “It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.” #
• Now this is an unexpected opening flash forward- no wait. Flashback?! Nice. #
• Desmond didn’t actually promise and the Others know how to speak Latin. Interesting. #
• “Could be five minutes, could also be five thousand years.” #
• “What about you? Do you want to stay in Crazytown or do you want to rescue the geek?” Gotta love Sawyer. #
• Ahh. So that’s what this episode’s title was referring to. I think I like the comic book character better. #
• Well, that finally explains a very important piece of the puzzle. I must say, this season is off to an excellent start. #
• I’ve been thinking about giving Life on Mars a try. Not this morning, but sometime soon. #
• Trawling on Twitter for interesting people to follow. Also, a good list of Twitter plugins for WordPress: http://is.gd/Fq1 #
• Statsheet.com looks like a really sweet service/web app for sports fanatics. I can’t wait to dig in further. http://statsheet.com #
• Mark Mason has a pretty interesting offer for free back links that I’m taking him up on as a traffic experiment: http://is.gd/hHJ2 #
• Looks like the Twitter Tools plugin is doing its job. Cool. I’ll have to add that to a couple other blogs with their own twitter accounts. #
• “No public internet company stays on top more that 4 years.” Great post on the rise of twitter/hulu vs google/youtube. http://is.gd/gRat #
• Mr. Spock as Templeton “Faceman” Peck -
  Star Trek as the A-Team: http://is.gd/3YrJ #
• @KimToomey I’ve got to call you on the OSU statement. Their glory years are just further back: 1500+ D-I wins = 13th all time + 2 FF. #
• @KimToomey I’m a GU fan like you, but OSU was solid back in the day when they had players like AC Greene and Gary Payton. #
• @thekristen What’s new and improved about your schedule? #
• TweetDeck is pretty nice. At this point I don’t follow enough people to keep very many columns filled , but it’s fun to run full screen. #
• Full desktop view of TweetDeck in action. Information overload rules! http://twitpic.com/18whn #
• Patty Mills is en fuego from behind the arc. Not good. If he doesn’t cool off he could beat the Zags single handedly. #
• Wow! 6-8 from 3 before he hurt his hand. Mills was unbelievable. It will be interesting to see if he can play through the injury now though. #
• Zags started great, but things got gross on offense right around the time Mills started heating up. Too many turnovers/missed opportunities. #

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I installed Twitter Tools while fiddling around on the web this morning. I’m going to experiment with updating my blog here with daily digests of my all my twitter tweets since I’m doing that a lot more these days. We’ll see if it sticks as something I end up doing regularly. If nothing else it will be a good way to breathe some life back into my blog again I figure.

On a related note it looks like Mary and I are going to try to replace our ancient Nokia 3650s with Samsung Gravity messaging phones this weekend.  I don’t see myself needing (or wanting to pay monthly data fees for) a true smartphone like an iPhone or G1, but I’m looking forward to having an improved camera, a qwerty keypad and new ways to do remote microblogging.

Axodys.com is 10 years old today. I began my first post on January 24, 1999 with, “I’m finally starting to make a little progress on my site here.” And in the intervening years I’ve held that sentiment with surprising regularity.

I spent the last week or so revisiting and tagging the posts from 1999 and made some interesting discoveries. For one thing, by today’s standards the majority of my early posts look like a day’s worth of Twitter tweets in form and content. In those early days I mostly used this blog as a personal journal documenting my day and occasionally shouting out to my friends. Today there are other services like Twitter and Facebook that handle that type of communications far better anyway.

I don’t post here as much as I did in the early years, but I like to think when I do post the quality has improved a bit. I want to start posting a little bit more regularly here again (and maybe even get to 2000 total posts by the end of the year since I’ve been stuck in the 1700s for literally years), but we’ll have to see.

For that small handful of you that have been following along for all ten years thank you for tuning in. I hope it’s been interesting and at least a little entertaining if nothing else. Here’s to another 10 years!

Fuzebox is a pretty sweet do it yourself 8 bit console that you can buy in kit form from Adafruit Industries. If my kids were a little bit older I could totally justify getting one because this would be an awesome project to do together.  The fun and learning possibilities for this are pretty unlimited.  Also, here’s a video demo of its Uzebox relative in action:

I’ve been using Pandora to fuel my internet radio listening habits for quite a while.  It’s a cool service and does a good job of finding music that I both enjoy and often haven’t heard before (at least unti l’ve listened to a given station for hours on end).  The one minor downside has been that it takes up yet another tab in my browser.  Until now that is- I had a brief 3:45 AM aha moment and realized that there was probably a Pandora Dashboard Widget. 10 seconds later I had it downloaded and installed. Problem solved.

It was recently announced that President-Elect Obama will be doing weekly YouTube addresses to the nation rather than the more traditional weekly radio address U.S. Presidents have done in the past.  A simple yet highly worthwhile change that embraces today’s information on demand paradigm.  Here’s the first one:

Not a whole lot of new information if you’ve been following politics in the last couple months, but a decent first step towards improving government accessibility and transparency through technology.