Author: Tony

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Merry Happy Christmas Birthday

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve celebrated both Matthew’s birthday and Christmas. We had Matthew’s birthday party was on December 17. He had a great time and got lots of presents. Here he is enjoying some cake:

Matthew and cake

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture of him sticking his whole mouth on the cake, but you can see the results pretty good in this shot.

Christmas also went really well this year. I think Matthew got one of everything. Here he is with some of his gifts:

Matthew and gifts

He was obviously a very good boy.

It looks like this will be the last post of the year. Check back tomorrow for some New Year’s Resolutions…

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Christmas Eve

If you haven’t done so already, now might be a good time to think about taking care of your Christmas shopping…

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Snow Day

It looks like I got my wish – today’s a snow day. I think I wanted it worse than the kids.

I’m going to try to spend some time today working on a movie of Matthew’s first year. Hopefully I’ll have some clips to post here soon.

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Let It Snow

Well, actually it’s more like sleet, but I’ll take what I can get…

Another benefit of working for a school district – snow days. I hope I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.

Oh well, I’m off to make some hot cocoa.

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Links

Here are some of the interesting things I’ve been looking at online lately:

X-Men 3 – I can’t wait to see this movie. The teaser trailer is up at Apple.com. Also, USA Today has a nice picture gallery. Kelsey Grammer makes a very nice beast.

Try Ruby! – I’ve been following the Ruby programming language for a while now. This web site lets you try your hand at programming in Ruby right in the browser. This is a great demonstration of the power of this language.

Pandora – This is a really slick site that helps you discover new music. Just tell them a few of the bands that you like and they’ll play songs that you might also like. If you don’t like something, just tell them and they’ll never play it again. It works pretty well for me.

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Giving Thanks for a Week

Well, it turns out our furnace problem was actually more than just a dirty filter. The flame sensor was going out so about half the time the furnace would just turn itself off. We got it fixed first thing Friday morning, but not before a mostly sleepless Thursday night.

The good news is, we get the entire week off for Thanksgiving this year. Now that is something to really be thankful for.

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Change Your Filter

This is a public service announcement from Tony and Paige:

Now’s a great time to change (or clean) the filter on your furnace. The weather’s getting a little colder outside and you’ll be wanting to keep warm.

If you don’t keep the filter clean, your furnace will probably get too hot and shut itself down. How do I know all of these things?

We woke up cold this morning.

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Bloggers Make a Difference

I talked a lot yesterday about Sony’s new copy protected CDs that basically install a virus on your Windows computer. This has been a pretty hot topic on a lot of weblogs for over a week.

According to News.com, Sony announced today that they are halting production of CDs using this technology.

I guess if enough people complain loud enough it can still make a difference…

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Sony Virus

There’s a new virus infecting Windows computers these days. It hides itself deep within your computer and is almost impossible to remove without completely reloading Windows. Even worse, it also opens up your computer to further maliscious attacks.

So what’s different this time? This virus is installed on purpose when you try to play certain CDs that you have legally purchased from Sony on your Windows computer. Molly Wood at Cnet.com has a lot more coverage on this story.

What can you do? First off, don’t buy any CDs with this technology. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a list of infected CDs. I can’t imagine that anyone reading this site would be interested in listening to any of those CDs (with the possible exception of Trey Anastasio),

If you’ve already purchased one of these CDs and played it on your Windwos computer, you can contact Sony for uninstall instructions. Also, the Anti-Spyware program PestPatrol can detect this threat. They will hopefully have a removal tool available soon.

A class action lawsuit has been filed in California and another will be filed in New York according to Brian Krebs at the Wastington Post. I’m sure everyone who purchased one of these CDs will get a few cents out of the settlement.

All I can say is thank Jobs I have a Mac now. Malicious programs like this have no effect on my computer. After working on Windows computers all day, it’s so nice to go home to a computer that just works.

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Wanna Trade?

One Red Paperclip is the blog of a guy named Kyle MacDonald. His plan is to trade his red paperclip for a house. Or an island. Or a house on an island.

Yes, he’s serious. And he’s made pretty good progress. So far he’s traded the paperclip for a pen, then pen for a cabinet knob, the knob for a coleman stove, and the stove for a (red) generator.

He’s been at this since July 12. Contact him if you have something better than a generator that you’d like to trade. He’ll even travel to you to make the trade.

But you’d better hurry, he’s going to be on TV tonight. And after that he’s traveling to New York City.

Why can’t I ever think of crazy things like this to make myself rich and famous?