Monday, 12 November 2007

More podcasts

Amazing. Today I found the Gimp podcast at Meet the Gimp (http://www.meetthegimp.org) and I mentioned how great it would be if someone did one on InkScape and guess what!? I found one!

Meet Screencasters... (http://screencasters.heathenx.org)

-P

Miro and Podcasting

MythTV is great. I've finally started to get things working and we're going to move so my plan is to finish shortly after the move.

However, not everything can be found on TV. Yes, you can download your favorite shows from through Bittorrent but I was thinking more along the lines of Podcasts.

There's quite a few of them and I've been using Miro (use to be called Democracy) to subscribe to a few of them. The ones that I JUST found and think is great is called "Meet The GIMP" (http://meetthegimp.org/) and deals with the Open Source application GIMP. Finally someone has started to show how to use GIMP. I've wanted to learn how to use it but since I'm not really a great graphics artist I haven't spend a lot of time playing with the application's features to see how they work. However, this RSS feed got me interested!

Now if they only had one for InkScape, I think I'd be all set!

-P

Sickness Sucks

It's amazing that I am once again writing about being sick. It's been a while since my last post and I just thought I'd write something quickly. Both my son and I were sick again. I was actually sick for a longer period of time (and I'm still not completely over it.)

However, I've been reading quite a bit about modern medicine and some of the new medications and advancements coming down the line. I've also watched a video from TED (http://www.ted.com) about regenerative medicine. It's a speech given by Alan Russell and it's quite amazing to watch. (http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/142)

I also saw a few other videos including one of Jennifer Lin ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/46) a pianist that... well can compose "on the fly" and is quite amazing.

Enjoy.

Thursday, 20 September 2007

Kids and illness

I hate being sick. I especially hate it when my son or daughter get sick. It's worse when my 5 year-old son gets sick because of his age. He started with a cough. We went to the doctor and they gave him antibiotics, which I think was the right thing to do in this case. I thought he'd get better, but today I found out that he's been throwing up. I don't think it's the antibiotics because he's had the same one before.

Well, hearing he's throwing up is one thing... seeing him throwing up when he has practically nothing in his stomach and he's in pain is another. I feel helpless.

Now my daughter is also starting to get sick. She has flu like symptoms and it's the right season for it, so I'm not surprised. As long as hers doesn't get worse I think she'll be fine. She'll probably get to miss a day or two of school, which is fine too since she's a bright kid. At least her I can give something for the symptoms.

Still...

Did I mention I hate it when my kids are sick?

-P

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

MythTV strikes again

Not everyone has heard of MythTV, however I am surprised how MOST geeks (and I mean it in the nicest way possible - I'm one of you) have.

For those that don't know what it is: MythTV is an Open Sourced application that with the correct hardware, will record TV shows. http://www.mythtv.org/

It's a really neat application that I have been keeping an eye on for a while now and I'm in the process of deploying an installation at home.

The main issue is hardware compatibility with Linux. The Linux TV team is doing a great job of getting hardware to be compatible and developing those drivers that aren't being made by the people that know the hardware the best... the hardware manufacturers.

However, I vow to get this box up and running soon and I'll post a screen capture for you.

-P

Sunday, 9 September 2007

16 hour work days

I had a 16 hour work day on Thursday. You want to know the sad bit? I use to have those more often and I miss them! Yes, that's right. I actually enjoyed working for such a long period of time. I know I'm not alone, but I also know there's a lot of people out there that don't enjoy working those long hours.

However, at the end, when I got home. I felt that I had accomplished something and that it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Now what other industries are there were people have to work for such long periods of time? I'm guessing Doctors.

The other day I read something interesting about how most people in other industries don't go home to continue "working" - a lot of people in the tech industry will go home and sit at their computer. They may update their website or their blog or test some code or something like that... However, you won't see a neurosurgeon go home to test something on their cat.

Well, it's time to go to bed.

-P

Tuesday, 4 September 2007

First post!

The purpose of this Blog is to remind me of items, blogs, posts, links and tips that I find useful in not only at work, but also at home.

I've been doing so many things during my career that it's sometimes is impossible to keep track of everything. How do you do it when the world's knowledge doubles ever five years (that's a current estimate.) Granted, I don't know it all, but I feel that I know a lot.

I have friends that know a lot too and I'm constantly amazed and what I don't know and I learn every day. Yes, every day I learn something new.

Anyway, I digress, as I mentioned: this blog will help me remember the things I've learned and have to store outside my head! :)

-P