Libby loves to tap-tap-tap on computer keyboards. She insisted on sitting at my computer for a good ten minutes today just babbling away to herself and hitting keys. Yup - just like her old man.

The best browser ever, Mozilla Firefox, has released it’s latest version and it’s amazing! I’ve been using it since beta release 1.0 ad have been impressed with how fast and brilliant it is.

You can download the browser for free here. Please: if you are currently using Internet Explorer, do yourself a favor and install Firefox. You won’t be disappointed.

Dear Mr. Microsoft,

I have a few gripes:

• Outlook sucks. If I click “Reply”, but then decide not to reply and close the window, it still marks the message as being replied to. That’s stupid.
• Also in Outlook, when I am composing a new message you like to save my drafts in the Inbox, even though there is a beautifully labeled (and empty) “Drafts” folder right next to it. That’s just bad form, good buddy. Thanks Matt!
• Why, for the sake of sweaty donkey balls, does Windows limit the total path length of every file on my computer to 256 characters. What the hell is wrong with you Windows?
• Explorer doesn’t allow me to create/rename files that begin with a period. I can think of numerous programs that use this naming convention (”.project”, “.cvsignore”, “.classpath”, etc). However, when I ask Explorer to create or rename a file to begin with a period it tells me: “You must type a file name.” Well I did, dumbass. The file name is “.project”. Just because it starts with a period doesn’t make it an invalid file name. Even your sorry excuse for a command prompt allows me to create/rename files that begin with a period. Stop being such a douche, Explorer.
• Hey Explorer, I’m not done with you yet! How about when I am renaming a file and accidentally make a mistake (such as including an invalid character or typing the same name as an existing file). Do you keep what I have entered so far and allow me to fix my error? Oh no, my friend. You declare that if a single character was mistyped then ALL of my changes must be erased and forgotten. Yeah, good decision there chief.
• And finally I come to cornbread. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.

love,
Mike

Now that the fourth season is well underway I was excited to see this kick-ass picture of the Battlestar Galactica cast posing for “The Last Supper” (click for bigger):


(via flikr)

I know it’s bad form to post three times in one day but I MUST celebrate what just happened…

I GOT A Wii!!

I am so unbelievably excited, it’s difficult to describe. I just can’t wait for it to arrive… should be here in a few days.

Circuit City still had a few left when I checked out (a co-worker was trying to get one too). Thanks to WiiTracker for the tipoff.

Oh, your monitor looks dirty. Click here for a quick screen cleaning:

I’m not a big fan of Microsoft’s software or business practices, but you’ve gotta admit Bill has a great sense of humor:

Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip

I use Fortes’ excellent Post Levels Plugin on this site. The latest release of WordPress (version 2.3.x) broke this plugin, so I took it upon myself to fix it (since Fortes is currently unavailable).

You can download the updated version here:
Post Levels 1.1.2

If you are curious, the problem was due to a regular expression that was not expecting the SQL “FROM” clause to use an alias for the “wp_posts” table. My solution, which is a bit hacky, was to insert expressions to create and then properly handle this alias. I wish a better solution exists, but to my knowledge WordPress doesn’t expose these SQL statements through hooks.

Please let me know if you have any issues.

At least the movie will be better than Star Wars Episode I.

I’ve been dabbling in buying lots through Liquidation.com and then re-selling most of the items through eBay. So far this little capitalist “experiment” is going ok: profit margins are not big, but then again I get to keep the stuff I don’t sell.

The last lot I purchased had a bunch of headphones, so I’ve been able to sample a wide range of brands and types. I have but one thing to say: I am loving wireless headphones. I can plug the base into my computer, dance all around the house, and still hear the music (much to Shannon’s embarrassment). I’m definitely keeping one of these.

It’s not like wireless headphones are a new idea - where have I been for the past few years? Maybe I need to have my nerd card revoked.