openswitch

This has been an eventful year for me. I started my new job at SouthSide Baptist Church early in 2005. I quietly started this blog with Movable Type then switched it over to Wordpress. Thank you to everyone who helped me get this blog up and running. From the awesome tech support at AQHost to my friends who advised me along the way.

In 2006 I’d like to learn more about how to design my blog to make it more aesthetically pleasing. That’s really my only computer related goal.

Are there any new year’s goals that y’all have?

Wow, this is an eclectic group of questions.

1. What is your favorite thing to do on a sunny day?

2. Would you rather be put in jail for 15 years or have all your teeth pulled out?

3. Would you rather have your cell phone ring function set on “Air horn” or “Taser”?

4. Would you rather be able to give change for a dollar by putting it in your mouth or be able to style your hair by instructing it vocally?

5. What are the top 3 computer programs you can’t live without?

Youngsters today don’t know how to properly honk anymore. All they do is wave at you or cut you off or tailgate. But I promise, honking is a much more effective and satisfying means of communicating your emotions to other motorists. Not to mention the fact that it won’t drive up your insurance; no one ever got a ticket for honking. Here’s a short list of the basic honks with which you should familiarize yourself:

One Tap: This is the equivalent of “hey, here I am.” It’s a honk used to make someone aware of your position in space. I use this one when I’m driving around looking for a parking space and encounter a car backing up that doesn’t see me.

Two Tap: This is the “hey, how are you doing?” honk. This is a friendly honk. I do this one when I see someone I know and want to impress them with my honking skills. Though you must be certain to keep the Two Taps short and abrupt lest they be mistaken for the Medium Press.

Three Tap: This isn’t really a valid honk but I still hear it used sometimes. A three tap honk should be replaced by the two tap or the medium press, which ever one best fits the situation.

Medium Press: This honk borders on expressing anger or frustration and is probably my most used honk. If I encounter a person that obviously doesn’t know how to drive (i.e. putting on make-up while driving) but hasn’t offended me personally I’ll throw down a Medium Press honk.

Extended Press: This honk is clearly a sign of anger. While I personally don’t incorporate “sign language” with my honking, some people do. The “sign language” I see most commonly associated with the Extended Press is “The Bird” sign. If I get dangerously cut off or run off the road I’ll use the Extended Press.

Extended Press followed by a seizure-like mixture of any of the above, while using “sign language”: This honk communicates extreme dislike and frustration at another driver. In certain areas this honk is followed by someone pulling a gun. I’ve personally never crossed the line from Extended Press to EPFBCMOAOTAWUSL though I have seen other people do it.

So now that you’re equipped with the basic honks, I encourage you to use them wisely. But most of all, use them.

Just one more reason everyone should be using FireFox: Internet Explorer sucks. You can’t ignore the facts:

MSIE is 98% unsafe. There were only 7 days in 2004 without an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole. (This is very bad.)

Firefox is 15% unsafe. There were 56 days with an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole. 30 of those days were a Mac hole that only affected Mac users. Windows Firefox was 7% unsafe. (This is very good.)

Over Christmas vacation I converted my mom from IE to FireFox. She was amazed at how fast it loaded web pages. But that’s only one reason to switch over. Give it a try, it’s free.

[via A Laundry List of Hand-Wringing Apologies]

del.icio.us seems to be on the fritz again so I disabled my “Just a Link” section for a little while until del.icio.us is able to get back on its feet. I got scared for a minute, I thought my plugin was wigging out again but then I went to the del.icio.us site and realized their whole system is down.

In other news, today was our last day of vacation in Chicago. We head back to balmy Georgia tomorrow morning around 5AM central time. We’ll be taking I65 South from Chicago all the way through Indiana to Louisville Nashville. There we’ll hop on 24 East until we hit I75 South. Then I75 South will bring us right back to Atlanta. I wonder how many of my reader’s homes I’ll be driving near? I’m bracing myself mentally for the 13 hour drive. I hope Thomas is able to handle the drive home as well as he did the drive up here.

If I’ll be driving near any of your homes let me know.

Fanciful. Great movie for middle age children. Lots of realistic action, graphics rendering and peril may scare very small children. I found myself getting frustrated at times because there seemed to be too many “rabbit trail” stories which branched out from the main plot. That, for me, detracted the rating of this movie. However, the superb way in which the “rabbit trails” were told redeemed them a bit. Great story telling. Wonderful graphics. Encouraging message.

Now that the Christmas frenzy has ended we’ve been able to spend some time with my parents here in Chicago. As much as I love Christmas eve and day, I truly savor the relaxation in which I’m able to bask after it’s all over. Today, a vital part of the relaxation agenda was lunch at Portillo?s. Portillo?s is a restaurant that as far as I can tell only has locations in the Chicago-land area. They serve a fairly wide variety of food including, but not limited to, Itallian beef, Polish sausage, ribs and fries. However, their flagship, their cremè de la cremè is their Chicago style hot dog. Here’s a picture of mine. It looks a little rough but what it lacks in visual aesthetics it makes up for in taste.

A true hot dog is a work of art for the palate. It involves a genuine Vienna hot dog, a poppy seed bun and a handful of other ingredients. Not just anyone can make it correctly. It takes skill, patience and perseverance. For your edification here’s a link for how to make a Chicago hot dog. Now, you too, can be a carnivorous snob.

If you’re ever fortunate enough to visit Chicago I highly recommend you eat at least once at Portillo?s. Along with Uno’s Pizzeria, Portillo?s embodies the taste of Chicago.

It’s Christmas eve, good night world. Santa, I swear I’ve been good this year…mostly. Please don’t overlook my house tonight! Thomas, sleep well. Tomorrow you’ll get to open even more presents! My wife, I love you with everything I have. Have a merry Christmas eve. Gentle reader, may you sleep well tonight also. I hope you dream of sugar plums, peace on earth and good will towards all men. Waking to the smell of love and warmth with your families.

Jesus, thank you for loving me to the fullest extent possible. For giving it all and never faltering. This Christmas my prayer is that I will be a sanctuary where your Spirit dwells and from which your light may shine for all the world to see.

Merry Christmas.

As you may or may not know, I was born and raised in the Chicagoland area. My wife, son and I are visiting my parents (who live in Chicago) for Christmas. Man, I forgot how cold it gets up here! I’m taking lots and lots of pictures that I’ll be able to post as I get the chance. Though I’ll probably not be posting as much as I’d like because I want to spend as much time as possible with my family, I’m sure you understand. But I’m not going to leave without giving you one visual of our 13(!) hour drive from Atlanta to Chicago. Here’s a picture of Thomas after sitting for 10 hours straight in his car seat. I’m amazed he was in such a good mood. Though it does look as if he’s about to throw that sippy cup at my head.

I don’t mean to insult anyone, but recently I’ve been wondering how in the world AOL has stayed in business all these years. They started out providing a (moderately decent) dial-up service for people to connect to the internet back in the late 80s. Then, they got HUGE in the early 90s and arguably made their fortune with the words “You’ve Got Mail.” Nowadays, however, many people are ditching their dial-up for broadband. Good for us, bad for AOL because broadband is not available through AOL, it’s only available through a cable or phone provider (and possibly satellite?) AOL is loosing customers so it has to offer a new service.

What is this service exactly? I wanted to know, so I called AOL and inquired just how AOL for broadband works. What they said was this: I would basically keep my current cable or DSL provider and continue to pay them the normal connection fee of $xx.xx per month. Then, I would be charged an additional fee from AOL of $9.95 per month to use their services. The services include their “anti spam”, “anti spy-ware”, “anti virus” protection and an AOL email address. While I’m sure the services they offer are good, all that stuff is available elsewhere for free.

Why, after ditching dial-up and getting broadband, do people continue to fork their money over to AOL? Don’t they realize that once they have broadband they no longer have to pay AOL to connect to the internet? Maybe they want to keep their AOL email address, who knows. I suspect the main reason people stay with AOL is brand familiarity; the same reason people stay with Internet Explorer instead of switching over to a faster, safer and prettier browser: FireFox.

Let’s stop the insanity and start saving money. If you have broadband and are still paying AOL call them right now and cancel. Then, install this list of FREE programs on your PC that will offer you every bit of “protection” that you get with AOL:

• Surf the net with FireFox (note their awesome themes.)
• Protect yourself from spy-ware with Ad-Aware SE Personal.
• Double up on that spy-ware protection, use Spybot

  Search & Destroy too.

• Scan your computer for viruses with AVG Personal Anti-virus.
• AOL’s E-mail doesn’t hold a candle to Yahoo! E-mail (note that it provides spam and virus protection for FREE.)

These programs are simply my personal favorites. There are many more free programs available for download at Download.com.

This was a public service announcement courtesy of Open Switch

P.S.-If this entry just convinced you to ditch AOL, feel free to donate the $119.40 you just saved over the next year to the Red Cross. Lord knows they need it.