Loved this. Thanks Joe and his Stranded Starfish blog, and thanks to the authors of the book “The Art Of Possibility”

As the old man walked down a Spanish beach at dawn, he saw ahead of him what he thought to be a dancer. The young man was running across the sand, rhythmically bending down to pick up a stranded starfish and throw it far into the sea.

The old man gazed in wonder as the young soul again and again threw the small starfish from the sand into the water. The old man approached him and asked why he spent so much energy doing what seemed a waste of time. The young man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.

“But there are thousands of miles of beach, and miles and miles of starfish. How can your effort make any difference?”

The young man looked down at the small starfish in his hand, and as he threw it to safety in the sea, said, “It makes a difference to this one!”

Anonymous

Recent projects include:
hangitwright.com – a building contractor in Wildwood, Florida, specializing in drywall, acoustical insulation, and framing for commercial and residential construction.
frankjdeluca.com – a site for Frank J. DeLuca, owner of DeLuca Toyota in Ocala, Florida, and great supporter of the community.
debbieklugger.com – a life coach, Debbie Klugger coaches individuals and groups and conducts workshops globally based on the Inner Bonding and Heal Your Life philosophies.
fabiandinkins.com – a site for Fabian Dinkins Construction, a highly successful and respected residential and commercial construction firm based in Ocala, Florida.

The description is as follows:

How many times have you been embarrassed by giving the wrong gifts? Or the wrong size? Or the wrong color? The new QuickGifter iPhone app takes all the worry out of gift giving by keeping a well-organized gift database of any and all important wish list information that you may need while shopping . Best of all, if you have a spouse, partner, relative, or friend that is shopping and needs the same info, you can easily email them QuickGifter wish list details for any person in your QuickGifter library.

Check it out at quickgifter.com or watch the video:

Watch the video:

zachfightsback.com

Facebook

Thank you.

In the case of web development as with many things, some people who use web sites, think they know how easy/hard it is to build them. (Hint: they don’t)

Check out this person who needs to hire a programmer yet they already ‘know’ how ‘hard’ the task is and how long it will take.  link.

A few months ago I figured I’d upgrade the display driver, and got a new install from the ATI (now AMD) web site. After the install, the ‘Catalyst Control Center’ (known as the evil ‘CCC’ to many) would NOT start automatically or run when launched – displaying some obscure error.

After so much wasted time researching the problem, finding hundreds of people with similar problems but no answers, or none that worked at least, I gave up, but wait, I couldn’t uninstall the new software either. So I had to use the system restore to go back to an earlier ‘time’, which worked, restoring the old driver and control center that shipped with the system.

Fast forward to recently, and my system has been crashing overnight a few times lately. Not good. Couldn’t find out why, nothing in Event Viewer, or anywhere else. I leave my machine on all the time because it backs up at night, plus it’s actually less wear and tear on the hardware to leave it on.

Recently after being frustrated further with the occasional out of the blue crashes, I upgraded to the latest driver, but did NOT bother trying to install the catalyst control center (ccc) as I don’t need it anyway. All good so far!!!

Guantanamo, the U.S. military detention camp, has been loudly criticized for ‘water-boarding’ (simulated drowning) of 3 terrorists.  No doubt this technique is psychnologically terrible, but whether any permanent damage is inflicted is unclear.  Top level U.S. military personnel themselves are subjected to water-boarding so they’re aware of what they might be subjected to by enemies, so if one believes water-boarding is torture, then the U.S. tortures its own military.  A soldier told me of a fast 25 mile walk he had to endure with 50lbs of gear on, and his bleeding feet.  Is that torture?  Heck, I’ve been in business meetings I’d describe as torture.  Sorry, must not make light of this!

But somehow lost in the argument is what other countries do.  60 Minutes did a piece on an Iranian student’s story.  He had been part of a student protest in Iran and was eventually arrested and then held and tortured for years before being released.

I think everyone should see this. It’s just 12 minutes.

I’d looked around the internet for solutions and most described things I’d already done, plus the usual “they all do that, throw it out” unhelpful comments.

Then finally, I found solution #2 at fixya.com’s page on this and figured I’d give it a try.

It basically said open it up, clean out the dust, and then disconnect and reconnect every connector you can get your hands on. I’d already vacuumed out the inside (which wasn’t really dusty anyway), but proceeded to disconnect and reconnect every connector in there, and there’s a BUNCH. Some are electronic type connectors with tiny wires, and others are definitely power type connectors.

Anyway, did all that, fired it up, AND IT WORKS! I’m now testing with loud playback connecting my blackberry storm to an input (what an amazing phone that is!).

Anyway, sounds awesome. State of Trance 2008, Mosaik’s music… ahhhh….

• He’s fighting to restructure healthcare in the country while the economy collapses.
• He’s had a string of tax cheating nominees and appointments to his cabinet.
• He’s reneged on his commitment to get out of Iraq, taking longer to end ‘combat’ than he promised, and he’ll leave 50,000 troops there after.
• He campaigned to veto all earmarks and yet is ok with a budget containing thousands.
• His trillion dollar ‘stimulus’ program does not seem to have impressed anyone, except politicians bringing useless pork-barrel projects to their districts.
• After just 5 weeks, he plans to balloon the deficit to exceed the total of all deficits during the 8 years of the Bush (II) administration.
• He is planning to end tax breaks for sizable charitable donations by the wealthy which will really hurt charities AND small businesses.
• His vice-president has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe.
• His vice-president met, just today, in a SECRET meeting with AFL-CIO at their swanky conference in Miami. The Obama administration plans to end privacy for union votes.
• Instead of trying to inspire a nation, his speeches have been consistently negative, talking of crisis and catastrophe. He pathetically said this week maybe it’s time for people to put money in the stock market. The market plunged right after.
• He keeps the White House heated like an oven, is doing massive and expensive renovations, yet wants everyone else to conserve.
• He’s talking about ‘green jobs’, but there’s no energy policy.
• He still hasn’t filled his cabinet.
• He has waged a PR war with a radio blow hard (Rush Limbaugh) which is completely irrelevant, and just a distraction.
• His treasury secretary (Geithner) has no lieutenants and so the senate banking committee got no treasury representative to attend their inquiry into AIG bailout because Geithner was being grilled in the House on another matter.
• One day the President declared Geithner would speak with details the next day on the banking and other plans, and the next day Geithner gave no details, and weeks later, still has no details or plan.
• Perhaps this is Obama’s actual plan – to drive the economy into the dirt, so he can then establish some ‘emergency powers’ or something, and turn the U.S. into the socialist economy he wants.
• I do believe he LOATHES small business because everything so far has been aimed AGAINST that. Why? Because small businesses are hard to control. Europe began a war on small business decades ago and killed most of them. European governments prefer big companies with back room ‘deals’ because they can keep an eye on them and control them better.
• I think it’s fair to say he’s off to a horrible start. Wall St. has ZERO confidence in what they’ve done and what they haven’t done.
• I believe we are witnessing the END of America and any American dream as we have understood it. Thanks a lot Obama.

If you voted for him, shame on you. Fooled you good.

Get involved!

At this past week’s tournament however, where he played excellent golf but was just outdone by a bad shot on the last hole and a surging Phil Mickelson, I heard about Fred Couples the person, with real life challenges. His wife with whom he was long since separated and working toward a divorce, had died of cancer at the home they once shared in California. A tragedy indeed, but he has said he remains devoted to her children, his step-children.  Sounds noble. I decided to read up a bit on that history, and wait, there’s more. Much more.

This was his second marriage.  His first marriage ended in the 90s in what appears to have been an ugly and expensive divorce in Florida.  His first wife later committed suicide in 2001.

Fred Couples is also known for his really major back pain problems.  No doubt made worse by a game of unnatural contortions and a unique swing that probably puts more stress on him than other golfers with theirs.  This back pain limits the tournaments he can play.  It limits his practice.  It has basically hindered the last 15 years of his career in a major way.

At 49 though, he’s still out there, and in many ways he seems more determined than ever.  Maybe his shattered personal life and failing body increases his determination to overcome these major challenges.

Regardless, he is still a joy to watch, a class act on the golf course, and I for one want to say “thanks Freddie” for all the joy you’ve brought me over the years, and I hope only the best for you going forward.

And I won’t miss any coverage of you at the Masters in a few weeks.

References:

1993 NY Times

2003 Sunday Herald

2009 (this week) Golf Digest

When i was a kid in England, my Dad got a sail boat (or yacht as the English say for anything with a sail) – I think he was given it by a wealthier friend – we certainly couldn’t have afforded it. It was nothing huge, and it certainly wasn’t new. It was 22 ft with a small engine that was noisy and stinky, and a typical mast, jib and main sail. It had a raisable keel which my Dad thought was cool, but and it did mean we didn’t worry as much about running aground in the tidal waters around Portsmouth.

To GET to the ‘yacht’ we had to use this small fiberglass dinghy with an outboard motor. I’m talking 6 foot long boat with noisy stinky 50cc (maybe?) outboard (Yamaha?).

So my Dad would drive us to the dinghy place (maybe 60 miles which in England is a LONG drive) early in the morning, get in the stinky cramped dinghy and go at about 2mph I’d guess for about 1/2 mi. ? to where the boat was moored. With bags and crap in the dinghy it was about 3-4″ out of the water at the back and more at the front of course especially when moving, but it was creepy to me seeing the dark water so close. and of course it was often cold out, or rainy, or foggy, or all of those.

We’d get to the boat, clamber on, detatch from mooring bouy, attach dinghy to mooring bouy quickly before we drifted away, and then “head out” wherever into the harbor from the small waterway (solent?) where the boat was moored.

Then my dad would attempt to sail at some point, which was a pretty hit and miss thing. Too slow and we didn’t get anywhere. Too fast and it was pretty scary as the boat leaned, or rocked, or hit waves, just right was hit maybe twice for a minute or two in all the times I went on the boat.

My dad would criticize almost everything I did on the boat (too slow, too fast, not done right, too lazy, get out of the way) – oh it was so much fun.

One time, I was told to hold a rope by the mast which held the boom up (for those that don’t know that’s the horizontal piece connected to the mast and the main sail connects to both). Anyway, he had to duck under the boom to get to the other side I think and of course I somehow got distracted and let go of the rope and the boom fell on his head. He wasn’t injured and I can laugh now, but boy was he pissed off and was i scared. Nowhere to go, him ticked. Ah, good times.

On a more positive note, the wealthier friend of my Dad’s (well compared to us when i was growing up – the friend who gave my Dad that boat i think) – well he had a 36′ yacht and we went on that ONCE out into the English channel to fish. We fished for hours in roiling seas and caught a FEW mackerel, each probably 8-12″ long. I of course got sea sick for a while and the adults all laughed telling me it was good I was getting my “sea legs”. They cleaned and cooked the fish and we ate it on board, and in a massive group delusion we all claimed it was excellent. That was the BEST experience i ever had on a sailboat.

To say i loathe sailing would be an understatement.

http://passionateaboutpizzabook.com/

Like many who love NASA and all it has accomplished, I was horrified to learn the Challenger space shuttle blew up a couple of minutes after launch as it rocketed into space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

Later that day, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to the nation, that was brilliantly written by Peggy Noonan, and brilliantly delivered. He talked to the astronauts loved ones, to all adults, to children, about loss, taking chances and bravery, why life isn’t for the ‘faint hearted’ and added a poetic line at the end that still gives me goosebumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JKIZ7j20EA

I’ve watched some of Vice President Dick Cheney’s interviews too, and I am completely convinced he was critical to this country’s effective (although not perfect) response to 9/11.

Despite critics, as you said, the Patriot Act, the military actions, and many other things done, despite huge opposition, meant the U.S. was not attacked again in the past 7 1/2 yrs.

The economic collapse will be a black eye, although there’s an enormous number of people who can legitimately be blamed not for just not avoiding it, but for actively causing a crisis to become a MAJOR disaster. Banks were told to write lousy loans, and they did, then banks and Wall St. bundled up all the lousy loans and sold them to suckers worldwide, with the government’s blessing, or ignorance.

The final Press Conference today was good, but it’s a shame most people won’t see all of it. You were forceful, direct, articulate, and in control, and handled the media’s ‘obvious’ questions well.

You handled the worst disaster since Pearl Harbor effectively, brought a fledgling democracy to Iraq, made this country safer, got the terrorists on defense and on the run, and the economy did ‘ok’ for the most part, despite man made and natural disasters, until the ticking economic time bomb went off.

You leave office unpopular, but as you have said, no one knows what will happen from here or how history will ultimately judge events and actions of the past 8 years.

I, for one, thank you.

Anyway, it can capture video, which is pretty cool.  So I grabbed a few tiny videos and wanted to see if I could transfer, edit, and publish on youtube.

Took two tiny videos, transferred them, imported to Windows Movie Maker (free), trimmed the videos, added titles, credits, transitions, and music, in, oh, 15 minutes?!

Here it is.  Not Oscar-worthy, but hey, it’s my first.

Trying to be a good developer I’m using ‘div’s more than tables these days, using CSS extensively, and trying to code to ‘strict’ page layout rather than ‘quirks’ mode or ‘transitional’.

If all the above paragraph makes no sense to you and you’re developing web pages, I can guarantee they won’t look the same across Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or earlier (shudder), Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), and the about to be released IE8, FireFox (FF 1.x, 2.x, 3.x), Safari, Opera, endless mobile phones, oh and Google Chrome, etc.

First admission – I do not bother testing on all the above browsers.  That would be the first step toward insanity.  I look at browser statistics to see what the vast majority of people are using.  Anyone else?  Best of luck to you.  I refer to w3school’s excellent page on this.  As of writing, this shows IE6, IE7 and FireFox account for 91% of all browsers in use!  So that’s what I test.  I have an old computer I deliberately don’t upgrade to IE7 (it has IE6 SP1), I have IE7 and FireFox 3 on other computers including my main desktop.  IE6 is sliding down (thankfully) from 34% to 20% in one year but that doesn’t mean I can avoid the testing for a while yet.

<rant> The biggest headache by a long shot is IE6.  It has some BIZARRE behavior.  For one of the wealthiest and most successful companies on the planet to have its most widely used piece of software be so riddled with bugs and incompatibility with MASSIVELY documented web standards is inexcusible. </rant>  OK, I feel better now.

There are MANY web sites documenting IE flaws, but the biggest problems I’ve found are with IE6 and earlier, and specifically with its confusion and completely screwed up calculations relating to widths, margins, padding, borders, and even positioning.  Apart from that it’s great.

The page here demonstrates ‘default’ differences in browsers.  It looks different in IE6, IE7, FF.  Go ahead and look at the html/style tags – not much to it!  IE and FF have different default body margins, different default paragraph line heights, and a HORRIBLE bug in IE6 which DOUBLES the margin sizes of any divs that are FLOATED!  Ugh.

Fortunately, there are fixes that countless wasted hours have been spent discovering.

For the doubling (and worse) of margin sizes for floats by IE6, the fix is to add “display: inline;” to the style definition (or inline style value of the element) which since it’s a float should be ‘obvious’ and the default, and does seem to be for IE7 and FF, but IE6 needs this to get it right.  Thanks to this excellent web site for this solution!

For other problems, setting defaults are the main solutions.

The second page here has these fixes applied and looks pretty much identical in the 3 browsers.

I hope this helps.

No easy option to change this, but it IS changeable.

Great blog post here about it:

http://softwarex-nz.blogspot.com/2008/01/stop-vistas-update-auto-reboot.html

Thank you!

Presidency: Obama by 188 electoral votes! (vs. 100)

Senate: Dems gain 5 or 6? (vs. 6)

House: Dems gain 18-25 (vs. 25)

Now let’s hope Obama truly leads and doesn’t cave to Reid and Pelosi’s agendas…

My predictions:

Presidency: Obama by 100 electoral votes.

Senate: Dems gain 6

House: Dems gain 25

Pretty much just guesses…

9/11/01 showed the world the worst and the best in humanity.

RIP to the victims and heroes who didn’t survive.

Thank you to everyone who has worked to heal the physical and mental scars, and to get those who share an ideology with those who committed the acts.

We didn’t capture Bin Laden ‘dead or alive’, but I still think he’s dead.  Good.

I finished the mowing I had started earlier, showered, ate, had a swim, ate dinner, and the power washer was still on my mind.  I decided to look at the wand again to see if I could figure it out. I thought maybe a rubber seal ring had somehow become dislodged or something. I decided to look carefully at the area where the spray tip landed in the grass and voila, I found a rubber o-ring! Took me half an hour to figure out how to install it (goes completely inside the wand coupling) but I knew I had it. Put the tip back on (SECURELY!), fired it up —– YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

Another maintenance mystery solved. I was so pleased I didn’t have to buy parts or deal with warranty or get someone to fix it that I power washed her horse’s stall.  Just another of life’s ups and downs on the farm.

To me it contains parts of many science fiction books and movies, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, all of Isaac Asimov’s amazing robot books, even Rendezvous With Rama, my favorite book by Arthur C. Clarke.

The movie’s web site is also amazing.  Here’s a free embed they provide: