I Never Promised You an Organic Garden

Matt and I are trying a new experiment. We are starting “unplugged” Monday evenings. We are going to leave the computers, TV, and Wii turned off all evening. Instead, we are going to do things like read, knit, play racquetball, work in the garden, or go for walks. It should be interesting. Especially seeing as we are both quite addicted to our computers. Giving up the TV for one night a week, especially with Tivo, will be no hardship, but not checking our email, Facebook, RSS feeds, instant messengers, etc. is going to require quite a bit more self control.

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As promised in an earlier blog post, I have created a photo album of some of my favorite Wii playing photos.  I will add more photos over time, so don’t be surprised if you see yourself or one of your friends.  There are some quite entertaining photos, so check them out!

I have added a new feature to my blog in the form of a photo gallery.  It integrates my Picasa Web Album right into the blog and displays all my public photos.   There is a link to the photo gallery on the top right of every page.  Check it out!

I am also working on a new homepage for my site and hope to launch it soon.

I originally posted this entry about Prism on the Summersault Weblog, but because I think it is such a great program, I want to share it here as well:

I recently found a neat little application that has been useful both at work and in my at-home computing. It is called Prism, and what it does is allow you to run your favorite web applications (Remember the Milk, Facebook, Google Calendar, etc.) as if they were desktop applications. Because it was built on the Firefox engine, it will run any web applications you can run in your Firefox browser.
Prism is still currently considered a prototype because it is under development by Mozilla Labs, but it seems to function quite well. I used it to access our VOIP-powered phone call routing panel at work and my Remember the Milk to-do list at home. It has resulted in a significant reduction of frustration caused by misplaced or closed browser windows and reduces the time it takes to reach my information because it is available at the click of a button on my desktop.

Getting Prism
Prism is very easy to use and available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux users. To start using Prism, simply download the appropriate version and install it on your computer. (Eventually, Mozilla hopes to integrate Prism into Firefox so you don’t even have to download and install a new program, but for now, it is still necessary.)

Once Prism is installed, start the program, and it will display an Install Web Application window.
Enter the URL of the application you want to use, a name for the application , and the locations you would like shortcuts to appear. Then click OK , and Prism will create shortcuts in the locations you specified and start the application.

For anyone who regularly uses web applications as a part of their work flow or daily life, Prism is a great solution for bridging the gap between web applications and desktop applications.

Since two full months have pasted since I made my New Year’s Goals, I thought it would be appropriate to check in and update everyone on my progress. This is probably more helpful for me in keeping myself held accountable for completing my goals than for anyone else.

Just as a reminder, here are my goals:

1) Blog twice a week - this is something I have been neglecting.

2) Go to the gym twice a week - I really need to get back in shape. If nothing else, I need to keep from gaining more weight and not being able to fit into my bride’s maid dress this May.

3) Start recycling at home - Matt and I are actually working on this one together so hopefully it will happen. We need to start with the first sub-goal of calling and ordering recycling services.

4) Learn Javascript - This is a somewhat work related goal, but I definitely want to accomplish it. It will definitely require some sub-goals to complete, but I know it is attainable.

How am I doing?

#1: This has been going pretty well. It was hard to come up with things to blog about to start with, but now that I have been doing it for two months, I often find myself blogging more than twice a week. I have also set to work on refining my blog some and using some of the more useful WordPress plugins.

#2: This is not going as well as I had hoped, but Matt and I have taken up playing racquetball. We are playing at least once a week, often twice a week, but we don’t get in any weight training time. It is definitely good cardio, but we need to work harder to do more.

#3: This is going great!! We have been doing extremely well with this, and it has been very fulfilling. It also has the added bonus of allowing us to use less trash bags.

#4 I have barely started to scratch the surface when it comes to learning JavaScript. I have finished two chapters of O’Reilly’s Learning JavaScript, and I feel like I have a better idea of what is going on but definitely don’t know how to start from scratch.

All in all I, think I am doing well.

Do you have any goals for the new year, and how are they going?

A Connecticut federal judge has ruled that the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) “making available” theory, in which they claim than individuals are breaking copyright law simply by making files available to download on file sharing websites, is insufficient because

““without actual distribution of copies…. there is no violation [of] the distribution right.” 4 William F. Patry, Patry on Copyright § 13:9 (2007); see also id. N. 10 (collecting cases); Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146, 1162 (9th Cir. 2007).”

Now the RIAA must prove that “actual dissemination” of a copy took place in order to accuse someone of distributing copyrighted music; a much more difficult task. This is a small but important victory for all the people the RIAA has been suing without cause and with reckless abandon. And after the RIAA’s recent attempts to force colleges to provide deterrents and “alternatives” to peer-to-peer piracy or run the risk of losing all federal financial aid for their students, it is nice to see someone reining them in.

After doing some looking around in WordPress, I realized that I had my blog setup to require people to register for a username and password to post a comment.  Since this can be quite a deterrent  for some people, I have turned this off . Now anyone who would like can post comments  without the trouble of registering.

Comment Away!

We have made a good start toward actually accomplishing at least one of our New Year’s Goals. We have set up a special can to put recyclable items in, and we have called to order a canister for recycling pickup. It is something we have been wanting to do for a long time now but have been putting off for one reason or another.

It is definitely a promising start. Hopefully we will be as good at completing or keeping up with the others.

I had to bring back my “Happy Thoughts” post to mention a new version release of Picasa for Linux. (Thanks to Life Hacker and Matthew for showing me this information.) Google has finally released (in beta for now) a new version for Linux that is not only much more stable, but also allows you to upload photos to your Picasa web album quickly and easily from within Picasa.  For me this is great because I have family members who do not use Facebook or any of the other social networking sites, and this is an easy way for them to see my photos online.

I also love Picasa’s photo organization features.  I know a lot of people swear by Flickr, but I love the unified local and remote experience of Picasa.

If you are looking for something fun to do on Saturday or an alternative to Christmas shopping at the mall, head over to the Clear Creek Co-Op for their Annual Alternative Holiday Bazaar.

The festivities start at 9am and last until 5pm. There will be lots of local artisans, hot tea, and live music. I will be there selling the fabulous jewelry that Emily and I made.

Stop by, check things out, and buy some jewelry!