Seconded for mp3tag.de. That app seriously rocks!

Best eulogy I've seen today found here[^]:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
printf("goodbye, dad\n");
return 0;
}

Here's another example of Outlook suckage -- Email to a friend requesting an important document. Twelve exchanges with him on this particular topic. Exactly one email sent to the Junk E-Mail -- the one containing the document I was waiting for. :confused: Unfortunately, none of the other emails mentioned the attachment in the junked one, so I only discovered I'd gotten what I asked for a couple DAYS afterward... (I get enough junk mail that I don't regularly monitor that folder, and it's always bold because there's unread mail in it.) Why on earth would Outlook decide mail from a valid sender to one person -- me -- is junk??? HEY OUTLOOK, STOP TRYING TO BE SMARTER THAN ME! :mad:

Odd. Even the iPhone feels like it's vibrating when it's clearly not...

Very nicely done! Have you uploaded anything to Grooveshark yet?

Hmmm... something doesn't make sense to me... If I shoot using a small aperture, yes, I get a large depth of field. The smaller the aperture, the longer the depth of field, at least until you start getting into diffraction-limited resolution of the lens. The problem with presuming this camera is using a small aperture (which is what I initially thought) is that there's no information in a small aperture picture to indicate which elements are foreground and which are background. Faux tilt-shift pictures tend to work best when there's a smooth transition from foreground to background without overlapping elements. If the elements overlap, then you need to do quite a bit of lassoing to mask the element so that the blur effect is applied properly. Which brings me back to the original imponderable -- how does the sensor/image/software know what is in the foreground and what is in the background so that it can adjust the focus properly? The Wikipedia article about Light Fields[^] describes moving cameras, robotic controlled cameras, arrays of cameras, and a Plenoptic camera[^] using an array of microlenses to capture the light field. Must. Ponder. This. More.

So, what text did you specify to trigger the music? I'd love to chat with you about the app -- what's your cellphone number? :cool:

I'm not as big of a fan of the keyboard. I kinda have to mash on the caps lock to get it to engage. And it took me a while to get used to having the metal grid around all the keys. For a while, I was typing near the edge of the keys and having my finger run into the grid before the keystroke registered. I've gotten used to that by now. The biggie for me though is that I constantly get confused between the function of the CTRL key on Windows and the COMMAND key on the Mac. For instance, CTRL-T opens a new tab in FireFox on the PC, but you have to hit COMMAND-T on the Mac. Also the Mac doesn't have a "Delete" key, so I'm finding my text editing is a bit strained. On the other hand, I think they nailed it with the new Magic Trackpad. Multi-finger gestures and I've gotten quite comfortable with cursor positioning, left-click, right-click, scrolling, paging, etc. This is the way trackpads were meant to behave. I've had to sit down with a Win laptop, with the old-style trackpads that have a couple physical buttons, and couldn't stand it! I got a Magic Mouse when I first bought the machine. It works, and it works well, but I'm finding I'm not using it very much -- the onboard trackpad is just that good, and it's not terribly convenient from the couch. I picked up the Apple Blutooth keyboard and Magic Trackpad so I can control the laptop when it's plugged into my TV, and the keyboard also works with my iPod Touch and the iPhone, and it should work with an iPad as well (assuming they're all running iOS 4.x -- I forget which version of the OS included BT drivers). The usefulness of the keyboard on all the iOS devices balances out the things I'm less satisfied with.

Option 1 - Bootcamp will let you boot to either OSX or WinWhatever, so you pick your OS for the session and run it. Pros: Win is running native and it's fast. Cons: You just bought a really expensive set of hardware to run Windoze, and you can only run one OS at a time (I think -- this is not how I've got my system set up). Option 2 - VMware (or Parallels) will let you run your Windows instance as a virtual machine. Two options there as well: 2a - Boot the win system and run all apps internally to the Windows session (this is the way I run mine, using VMware). 2b - run each app virtually so it looks like it's running by itself, but is really running in a VM. Pros: Both OS's are running at the same time, so you can use whatever you want from each, as you need it. Cons: The Win instance is virtualized and definitely runs slower than it could if it were running native. I was able to launch Steam and COD:BO in the virtual, but it was totally unplayable (seconds per frame!). But graphics-intensive stuff can be somewhat of a problem on VMs. That said, I've been a Windows user/admin for most of my career, and this is my first foray into using my own OSX machine. I've also been running a Fedora Core instance with Oracle 11g in another VM, and I've been able to have both the Oracle and WinXP systems running at the same time, essentially giving me a little heterogeneous "network" with Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX all running at the same time. There's some more info over at StackOverflow on running VS on a Mac you might find useful as well.

Sadly, you're hijacking the OPs question by making a negative statement that's totally irrelevant...

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

I have not used the articulating screen on the DSLR bodies (I shoot currently with the 40D, and it wasn't available on these), but when I had my little G2, I LOVED it! Overhead shots, low angle shots, and the occasional family/self-portrait made it very much worth the little bit extra.

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

That is a fantastic lens, but it's "as expensive as L", and heavy to boot. If you're just starting out with a DSLR get the 50mm f/1.8 -- it's cheap and fast.

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

Get the Extension List Dumper add-on to get detailed information on all your add-ons:

Application: Firefox 3.5.2 (20090729225027)
Operating System: WINNT (x86-msvc)

Total number of items: 21

• ColorfulTabs 3.9.3
  http://binaryturf.com/
  Firefox 3.0b2 - 3.5.*
  Colorful Tabs colors every tab in a different color and
  makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the
  overall appeal of the interface.
• CustomizeGoogle 0.76
  http://www.customizegoogle.com/
  Firefox 1.0 - 3.6a1pre
  Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam.
• Delicious Bookmarks 2.1.062
  http://delicious.com
  Firefox 2.0 - 3.5.*
  Access your bookmarks wherever you go and keep them
  organized no matter how many you have.
• Download Statusbar 0.9.6.5
  http://downloadstatusbar.mozdev.org/
  Firefox 3.0a8 - 3.6a1pre
  View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar
• DownThemAll! 1.1.4
  http://downthemall.net/
  Firefox 3.0 - 3.5.*
  The mass downloader for Firefox.
• Extended Statusbar 1.5.4
  http://kondor.etf.bg.ac.yu/~kustodian/mozilla/esb
  Firefox 2.0 - 3.6a1pre
  A Statusbar with speed, percentage, time and loaded size
  (similar to Opera's one).
• Extension List Dumper 1.14.4
  http://sogame.awardspace.com/
  Firefox 1.5 - 3.5.*
  Dumps a list of the installed extensions.
• FEBE 6.2
  (Disabled)
  http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions
  Firefox 3.0b1 - 3.5.*
  Backup your Firefox data
• Flagfox 3.3.15
  (Disabled)
  http://flagfox.net/
  Firefox 2.0 - 3.6a2pre
  Displays a flag depicting the location of the current server
• Fusebox 5 Reload 1.01
  http://cecf1.unh.edu/fusebox
  Firefox 0.7 - 3.5.*
  Reloads the current Fusebox (Version 5) application via
  right-click or Tools menu.
• IE Tab 1.5.20090525
  (Disabled)
  https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1419
  Firefox 3.0 - 3.6a1pre
  Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.
• Java Console 6.0.04
  Firefox 1.0 - 5.0+
• Java Console 6.0.06
  Firefox 1.0 - 5.0+
• Java Console 5.0.17
  Firefox 1.0 - 5.0+
• Java Console 6.0.12
  Firefox 1.0 - 5.0+
• Java Quick Starter 1.0
  (Disabled)
  Firefox 1.5 - *
• Live HTTP headers 0.15
  (Disabled)
  Firefox 0.8 - 3.5.*
  View HTTP headers of a page and while browsing.
• NoScript 1.9.8.7
  http://noscript.net
  Firefox 1.5 - 3.7a1pre
  Extra protection for your Firefox: NoScript allows
  JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted
  domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web
  site). This whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach
  pre

In a company I used to work for, the salary cuts were announced about 3 weeks before the layoffs commenced. They used a sliding scale: senior execs took the biggest whack, and office admin types the least -- I think mine about about 25% or something like that. Severance was 1 week pay per year of service. But, the severance packages were calculated using the "new and improved" salaries! :wtf: Not saying it's going to happen where you are, but as others have noted, keep your ear to the ground and get that resume up to date! Hope your situation turns out alright... -matt

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

Obviously, it's important to her that you wear a ring. Principle: unless you have a compelling reason to do things differently than your spouse wants, prefer to do things their way. Perhaps you can offset your unhappiness about wearing a ring with taking joy in your bride's happiness that you are wearing one... Shop around for something thin if the bulk of it is annoying. You will get used to it in pretty short order. Of course, safety first -- when working around electricity, heavy work with your hands, playing conga drums, etc., the ring comes off (mine goes into my coinpurse for safekeeping). Otherwise it's on my finger. -matt

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

Ditto on the Strobist stuff... Lots of good advice there. For white balance, you can get an 18% grey lens cloth and toss it in frame for the first shot (after selecting a specific white balance like Daylight for the lamps you're using), then white balance using the cloth in the first frame and apply those settings to the rest of the shots from that session. Don't use the automatic white-balance setting, since the camera will probably compensate differently each frame. Another good cloth to use is a white terrycloth rag -- it's somewhat useful as a white-point, and also helps you keep from blowing the highlights (if you can see details in the rag, you didn't overexpose). For a little bit of case, you can pick up an external flash and an optical trigger that you can fire using the on-camera flash on the S3. This will give you consistent color light. Also, since you're on a tripod, keep the ISO low, bump up the f-stop so your Depth of Field is sufficient, and use the delayed shutter so there's no camera shake. -matt

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

Check out PasswordSafe[^]. It's primarily Windows, but there are related projects for other OS's. It was designed by Bruce Schneier[^], a recognized security expert in the industry.

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

Thirded... (is that a word even?) Also, check out the photography-on-the.net forums[^] in particular, the ones on small compact digitals and G-series digitals. As others have noted, both Canon and Nikon make top of the line products. I've gone with the Canon line and haven't been disappointed (G2, 10D, 40D). What's your budget? You may be able to get into a last-generation DSLR and pick up a nice prime lens or two for some of the higher end compacts. Are you even interested in going with a DSLR? -matt

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

There's no place like 127.0.0.1 I use the hosts file[^] provided by MVPS.org. Update it every couple months, and it'll effectively "block" most of the ad I used to otherwise see. -matt

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com

I just custom-built, parts from NewEgg. Got up to speed on equipment from a few places, including: EggXpert System Builds forum[^] and 2008 PC Builder's Bible[^] My final machine was a bit more, but that's because I'm doing photo work, and wanted redundancy on storage, so went with a 3-disk RAID5. If I could figure out how to publish my wish list on NewEgg, I'd send you a link to let you see what I got :confused: -- it was around $1500, but could be trimmed down quite a bit pretty easily. Specs in short then: ASUS P5Q Deluxe MoBo CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 case (it's huge and heavy, but oh-so-quiet) eVGA GeForce GTX 260 Gamestream 700W power supply Intel Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz CPU XIGMATEK 120mm CPU cooler Corsair 4GB 1066MHz DDR2 RAM - 2 sticks Seagate Barracuda 750GB SATA - 3 disks LG Lightscribe SATA DVD+-R Saitek Eclipse illuminated keyboard The GPU came with FarCry2, and it plays buttery-smooth with all the display settings turned all the way up on a 1280x1024 monitor. I've got MS FlightSim X on the way for Christmas and I can't wait to see how it plays! -matt

Matt Newby President, Matt Newby Enterprises, Inc. matt@mattnewby.com