News and Views

A few weeks ago I tried to take Apollo for a run on my bicycle. I had one hand holding the leash, and the other on the handlebars. Everything went fine until he saw a cat (or dog, or bird — I never knew what it was for sure). He took off running, pulling me […]

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Warning: This is a fairly technical discussion that will probably not be of interest to Mom. A few times lately I have struggled with people’s computers trying to find out why they are running so sluggishly. When no programs are running, Task Manager shows the CPU usage at 50% – 80%, though the process list […]

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There is a new version of Gaim available, but it’s no longer called “Gaim”. I think AOL was threatening to sue them because “Gaim” sounded too much like “AIM”. Anyway, the new version is called “Pidgin”, and it’s available here If you don’t know, Pidgin (Gaim) is a free, advertisement free replacement for several instant […]

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There’s a new version of Firefox web browser here. Bug and security fixes; no new features.

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There’s a new version of the Thunderbird email client available here; Version 2.0.0.0. I’ve just installed it and can’t say how stable it is yet. There are a few new features. For example, you can tag messages with different categories (Important, Later, etc.), there are custom folder display options, saved searches, and viewed message history, […]

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There is a new version (2.1) of WordPress that has some advantages over the previous versions. One significant improvement is that it is much better optimized in accessing the database, so it runs faster and has less impact on the server. Unfortunately, it requires a newer version of the database than we have installed. So […]

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Gisele, Derek and I went to “Body Worlds” this week. If you haven’t heard about this, it’s an exhibit of real human bodies that have undergone a process called “plastination”. Water and fats from body tissues are replaced with plastic “polymers”. The result is bodies completely preserved and natural looking in various poses and levels […]

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I installed Microsoft’s new OS, Vista, on a friend’s computer. Here are my impressions: General: With the short time I’ve used it, it doesn’t seem very revolutionary. It seems about as different from XP as XP is from Windows 2000. The interface is fancier, more colorful, but most features are the same as on XP, […]

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Devon got a 2007 Toyota Prius for an early graduation present. Pretty cool car; very high-tech. It is a hybrid, with both a gas engine and an electric motor. The combination gives almost double the gas mileage of an equivalent pure-gasoline engine car: 60 MPG city according to the EPA. It has other futuristic features, […]

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I bought my 65″ HDTV about a month ago, and have been enjoying it. A few days ago, as the “free-return” time came near, I started feeling that the image, though excellent on HD, was deficient on SD (Standard Definition – normal TV). The more I looked at it, the more I felt that there […]

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