So they totally ripped-off our annual counter-terrorism simulation. No big deal. Frankly, IndyLaw, we’re flattered. Even if you pretty much copied us on everything from your fake CNN site right down to what you named your live video feed.
But hey, it’s cool—until you allude that yours might be the first counter-terrorism simulation of its kind.
Not cool, IndyLaw. Not cool.
In any case, the real first-of-its-kind simulation (started in 2007) is coming again in 2010, and it’s going to be excellent.
Actually, we’ve been talking a lot lately about all we have to be grateful for. I’m grateful now to have a publishing platform for it! This list isn’t complete… there’s not room on the internet for all we are grateful for. But these are the high-lights.
1. We’re grateful for each other. Cheesy, we know. But we feel really lucky to have each other and to be friends AND in love. It doesn’t get any better.
2. We’re grateful to be pregnant. A comment made by a friend the other day made me realize that I was taking this for granted. So many people want to be pregnant but perhaps can’t. I am SO blessed to have a healthy baby on the way.
3. We’re grateful for the Savior. He’s the anchor of our lives, the reason we do the things we do and why we choose to live how we live. We’re grateful to know He lives and loves us.
4. We’re grateful to both have jobs we love. Not many people can love going to work like we can.
5. We’re grateful for the examples of wonderful parents. We’ve both been loved by so many wonderful parents. Thank you.
6. We’re grateful for our friends. We have some AMAZING friends. Thank you all for being so wonderful to us. You bring us movies, go places with us, cook and eat out with us, sit by us at church, help us win trivia games, go the extra mile for us, let us use your laundry, feed us, talk sense into Katrina, listen to our problems and offer better solutions, teach us to relax, introduce us to new ideas….AND SO MUCH MORE! Thank you thank you thank you.
7. We’re grateful to be healthy. What more can we say? It’s something we take for granted, but we’re really lucky that we are healthy.
In a fit of psychotic domesticity this afternoon, I looked at the bag of apples and thought, I’d like to make a pie.
Bad idea.
What followed was an epic battle between me and the pie.
Round One: I made a crust using Betty’s recipe. Then put it in the fridge to cool while I peeled and cut apples. Looked good to me! Score- me:1, pie:0
Round Two: I began peeling apples into, what I thought, was a good place for them to go: an old paper sack. But apple peels don’t go where directed. I got more peels on the floor than in the sack! AND, then when I was taking out the core, that was popping all over the stinking place and getting under the fridge and all over the floor… Bleh. Score- me:1, pie:2
The floor, also known as a battle ground.
Round 3: Having finally peeled all the apples and put them in a bowl, I added the appropriate seasonings and stirred. Setting this aside, I pulled the crust dough out of the fridge and began to roll. I just have 2 words for this process: EPIC FAIL. Sigh. Score- me:1, pie: 5
Round 4: Assembling the dang pie! After all this mess, I still think I can manage what Betty calls a “lattice top”. She makes it look so easy! So, here I go, rolling out dough, cutting it up, putting it on the pie… And it is BREAKING all over the place! Dang it! But, it ended up looking mostly ok in the end. So, there were points scored by both of us here. Score- me:3, pie:8
The counter after the crust escapades.
Unbaked pie is winning. Dang it.
Ok, deep breath here. Close to done!
Round 5: Baking commences. It smells awfully good as I’m cleaning up the floor and the counter and vacuuming under the fridge. I’m hoping for some tasty pie here! I watch carefully and pull it out on time, nice and golden on top. Looks good! Burned my thumb, but hey… acceptable losses of war. Score- me:5, pie:9
Round 6: Sudden death, also known as tasting. Double points for this round! I could win here… C’mon….But ALAS! A mediocre pie at best. Drat. Crust is too crumbly and not very tasty, apples not sweet or tart, too much filling. Dang. Points to the pie.
Let’s face it—there are way too many different types of cables. I get asked fairly often what they’re all for, and do we even need them all? It’s really not as complicated as it seems—sort of. Anyway, let’s get to work and untangle that mess behind your TV!
Before we get too deep into it, we need to define the terms digital and analog.
Digital? Analog? Huh?
You’re probably already pretty familiar with these, even if you might not be familiar with the terms. Digital is the language of computers, everything is transmitted in ones and zeros. When it comes to certain applications like video, digital allows us to get much higher quality than the alternative.
Analog is different from digital in that it is a wave form, a steady flow of signal. The way the signals or waves change as they move dictates what happens on our screens or comes out of our radios.
Though it might seem like it, analog is not necessarily inferior to digital. Each has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation. But when it comes to video, digital is king!
On to the cables!
Now that we’ve got that cleared up, check out this chart. It shows the most common video cables and ranks them by the quality of video you’ll get by using them.
In addition to those, there’s a couple more that don’t quite fit into a set place on the Scale of Awesomeness:
Now, there’s something else you should know. Some people/retailers will try to convince you that you need to spend a great deal on “high quality” cables. While it is true that you want good ones, they should never cost you an arm and a leg. A great place to get cables at actually reasonable prices is www.monoprice.com.
Okay, so the thing about downloading a file is that you usually know that you downloaded it. Because you did that. You downloaded it. Intentionally. On purpose. And now, when you open it, Windows or OSX feels that it needs to remind you that you downloaded it.
Goodness, I find that annoying–especially when it’s my own file or script that I created, or it’s a Microsoft program that Windows is telling you to be careful of, because who knows where a file like that could have come from?
Alright, enough ranting. Let’s get rid of those messages.
Windows
This should work in XP, but I’ve only tested it in Vista and Windows 7.
1. Open the Control Panel, and choose Internet Options
2. Under the Security tab, click the button labeled Custom Level. In the box that appears, scroll down until you find a section called Miscellaneous
3. Find Launching applications and unsafe files and set it to Enable (not secure)
Windows and Internet Explorer will now freak out as if you’ve just agreed to download every virus ever created. Let’s fix that, too.
4. In the system tray (bottom right corner of screen) click on Open the Action Center. There will be a box about security issues and a link about not giving you warnings. Click that link.
5. Now go to Start, Run, and type in gpedit.msc
6. Under the Computer Configuration list, choose the Administrative Templates folder, then Windows Components, and Internet Explorer
7. Search through the list and find Turn off the Security Settings Check. Set that to Enabled.
Mac OSX:
I’ve tested this on both Leopard and Snow Leopard
1. Downloadthis script by Henrik Nyh, and save it to: ~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts. (Create the folder if you don’t have it already.)
2. Now go to wherever you save your files. (Usually the Downloads folder. I use the Desktop.) Right-click on that folder and choose Configure Folder Actions. (This may be under More > Configure Folder Actions.)
3. Make sure Enable Folder Actions is checked, then click Attach, and choose the Unquarantine script you saved earlier.
It’s simpler than the Windows fix, but it only applies to the folders you attach that script to. So if you save anywhere else, you’ll get nagged again.
Let me finish by saying that I understand the theoretical merits of these warnings. And I’m sure they’re useful for some people. What I see happening where I work is a whole bunch of people desensitized to warning messages in general because they’re exposed to so many of them. I myself have reflexively clicked right through several actually important message boxes because I’ve been trained to see any little box in the middle of the screen as a waste of my time. By disabling these file warnings on all of my computers, I hope to un-train myself to think that, and actually pay attention to the ones I still get.
Sometimes, you just wish you could list your WP pages more like posts. I wanted not just a list of them, but with some kind of excerpt. Here’s how I did it:
<?php $thePages=$wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_type = ‘page’ ORDER BY menu_order",‘OBJECT’);
<!– HTML markup goes here –>
<h3><?phpecho"$pageData->post_title";?></h3>
<p><?phpecho"$pageData->post_content";?></p> <?phpendforeach;endif;?>
Naturally, this custom loop is showing the whole page content, and not just a traditional excerpt. I wasn’t able to get excerpts to work, but the full content was just fine for what I was working on. It would not be terribly difficult to use the PHP strlen(); function to limit the post content and simulate an excerpt.
Recently, we had some problems setting up some network printers on computers running 64-bit Vista. We could connect to the print server, but making connections to the individual printers gave us this error. Good times.
The workaround was to add the printer manually, as a local printer. To do this: Go to Control Panel > Printers > Add Printer. Then add a new local printer, using a local port. (Not TCP/IP.) For the name, put in the whole path. This will be something like: \\YourPrintServer\ThePrintersName
Now it will ask you about drivers. (Make sure you have downloaded the 64-bit drivers for your printer.) Choose Have Disk…, and browse to where you saved them. With luck, it will now ask you for what you want to call the printer on your local computer, and you’re done!
This fix worked for every computer we ran into this error for. Good luck!
So, just got back from what was probably one of the best vacations in my life. I was 25 ft. away from real-life gray whales. I flew a 1942 WWII plane along a beach. It was incredible.
Though as awesome as that was, I believe my favorite part was spending an entire day on the beach building sand castles with my sweet, sweet wife. Here’s the short version:
The Kingdom By The Sea
Once upon a time, there was a small castle. The rulers were wise and industrious, and the tiny kingdom began to prosper. The castle soon became a very large fortress with several buildings on the inner court. The princess even had her own tower with bridges to other parts. But it didn’t stop there. A massive wall was constructed, as well as a temple and a city gate. But what would a castle be without a proper kingdom? Roads, highways, villages, churches, mid-, low-, and high-income housing districts were constructed. There were even lakeside shorefront properties and timeshares. Pretty much everything.
As the kingdom grew, it was necessary to build towers and inns along the roads to protect the people, as well as another fort on the western border. And all the while, the castle became larger and more beautiful. A large crab shell was mounted above the city gate as a symbol of the People of the Shell.
Their prophets foretold a coming doom by flood and waves, but no one believed them. They just kept on building and building. Our kingdom is too great too be destroyed, the rulers said. (Besides, the tide wasn’t going to come in for hours!)
It wasn’t until it was too late that the council decided to take action. (They had lost contact with the western kingdoms, and there were reports of massive, incoming waves of destruction.) So they built a giant wall and levy system around the entire kingdom to protect it from the water! And it worked! For a while, it directed the waves around the outside, and a feast was held in honor of the king!
But, as the sun began to set, our poor kingdom was slowly overcome by water, even as their engineers tried to reinforce the levies. The waves were just too much! A giant monster jellyfish even landed on top of the high income suburbs!
We were very proud of that castle, though. Even as we were forced to leave for our next destination before it got too late, its walls were still standing, even though the entire kingdom around it had been washed away.
Can you see why I adore my wife? I can. I’m going to remember that day for a very, very long time.
