Battlestar Galactica Battlestar Galactica. Yep, I'm a fan. One of the best shows on TV. The series is currently at Season 2, Episode 14. It's not too late to jump in.

Yahoo! Mail Beta The new Yahoo! Mail Beta is nothing short of fantastic. It has the look and feel of a real GUI. It's light years ahead of Hotmail and Gmail.

Myths about the Challenger Shuttle Disaster Seven Myths about the Challenger Shuttle Disaster - "It didn't explode, the crew didn't die instantly and it wasn't inevitable."

Going the Distance...Star Wars Style Going the Distance - This is pretty good. Cake and Star Wars combined.

'The Office' to Return for Third Season USA Today: "After a slow ratings start, the offbeat comedy has blossomed in its second season into a key player in NBC's efforts to rebuild its Thursday comedy franchise. The show also has earned a bonus: a 22-episode third season." Giddy-Up! The last two episodes have been fantastic. Dwight might become the next Kramer, if the writing holds up.

American Idol Confession: I only watch American Idol when they feature the really lame contestants. I could care less about people who can actually sing. Talented musicians/singers are a dime a dozen. However, people who think they can sing and are willing to publicly humiliate themselves on national television - that's entertainment.

XP On Your Thumb Drive I followed these instructions and successfully put BartPE on my thumb drive. This is a marvelous new tool. Please note that this will only work on newer machines, which have sufficient memory and have the ability to boot from a USB device.

DSL Xtreme I realize this announcement is very 2003, but here goes. Today I upgraded to BellSouth's DSL Xtreme. The speed is 3 Mbps down by 384 Kbps up. This change represents a $5 price increase, but a 100 percent bandwidth increase. (A few more Google Ad clicks should pay for it!)

Free Credit Report Your Access to Free Credit Reports - From the FTC's website: "The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion - to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months. The FCRA promotes the accuracy and privacy of information in the files of the nation's consumer reporting companies. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, enforces the FCRA with respect to consumer reporting companies. The three nationwide consumer reporting companies have set up a central website, a toll-free telephone number, and a mailing address through which you can order your free annual report. To order, got to annualcreditreport.com."

Firefly: Season 2? Is there a Season 2 of Firefly coming? Maybe.

How to Get Great Sleep Psychology Today: How to Get Great Sleep.

DirectX: December 2005 Update I just found out that a new version of DirectX was released last month. You can get it here.

New Photos I've uploaded a few new photos to the gallery.

Gold, Jerry! Gold! It doesn't get much better than this.

'Lost' Finally a decent Lost episode.

DivX Play Bundle 6.1.1 New Freeware: DivX Play Bundle for Windows 2000/XP 6.1.1.

Windows XP SP3 - Late 2007 According to BetaNews, SP3 for Windows XP won't be available until late 2007.

Borders Coupon Borders Coupon: 20 Percent Off of One Book.

What Goes Around... Blazing Mouse Sets Fire to House - Sweet.

Ugh Yes, there are things worse than death.

Cat Photo Another great cat photo at Flickr, and another.

Techno Joe's Techno Joe's - Computer technology support and training information. Check it out.

Mac Users Too Smug Over Security BBC: Mac Users 'Too Smug' Over Security. (via Digg) Here is my favorite quote: "It would certainly be wonderful if the Macintosh computer and its operating system were immune to attack but this is just wishful thinking. Mac OS is certainly a lot better than Windows, but being better isn't nearly enough."

'24' Starts with a Bang If you don't want to read any spoilers, don't click the read more link. Everyone else, follow me inside... ...This is what I like about '24'. They don't mind killing off MAJOR characters to move the story along. Wow. Palmer and Michelle getting killed? Heavy. Now we know how Jack gets back into the story. I'm now wondering how many episodes it will take to get Jack working directly for CTU again. In the past, Palmer was his go-to person. Now, who? They portray the current president as an idiot. Also, the President's top advisor is a bad guy. Ouch.

Top 100 Free Downloads for XP Top 100 Free Downloads for XP - What a list! Bookmark this one.

Ski Dubai Ski Dubai - According to the Washington Post, Ski Dubai is a $275 million wonderland with five sloping runs and a chairlift reaching diagonally into the misty expanse 25 stories above. It features a quarter-pipe for snowboarders. Looks really awesome.

Desktop Linux Update Dave Rosenberg: "Over the past 18 months, we have seen growth in desktop Linux usage, spurred by new more user-friendly distros like Ubuntu and new versions of Firefox and OpenOffice. But the holy grail -- business users -- are still few and far between." Yes, and may I add that many 'business' users need a technician to hold their hand to navigate Windows XP. Moving a large office from XP to Linux would be a nightmare, in my opinion.

Colts Choke in the Playoffs (Again) It must really suck to be a Colts fan. They always seem to choke in the playoffs. They do amazing things all season, only to lose when it really counts. It would have been nice to see them go all the way. I guess I'm hoping that either the Steelers or Broncos will win the Super Bowl. I don't really have a horse in this race.

Cringely on Apple Cringely's 2006 Prediction for Apple: "Here's how I believe it will work. Apple won't offer versions of OS X for generic Intel hardware because the drivers and the support obligation would be too huge. But just as you can buy a shrink-wrapped copy of 10.4 for your iMac, they'll gladly sell you a shrink-wrapped Intel version intended for an Intel Mac, but of course YOU CAN PUT IT ON ANY MACHINE YOU LIKE. The key here is to offer no guarantees and only limited support, patterned on the kind you get for most Open Source packages -- a web site, forums, download section. and a wiki. Apple will help users help themselves. With two to three engineers and some outreach to hackers and hardware makers, Apple could put together an unofficial program that could easily attract two to three million Windows users per year to migrate their old machines to the new OS. Imagine the profit margins of three engineers effectively generating $300-plus million per year in sales."

HassleMe Need a reminder to do something? Visit HassleMe to signup to be hassled via email. If you're not using a calendar program, this is not a bad idea.

'24' Returns Tonight!


The new season of '24' starts tonight. This is pretty much the show to watch.

More New Photos


More new baby photos here.

Game Boy Micro Ad Funniest thing I've seen in weeks: Nintendo Game Boy Micro Ad. It's PG-13, I suppose, and it does require QuickTime.

Best Places to Work Austin is #3 on the list of Forbes' list of Best Places for Business and Careers.

Filesharing: Facts and Myths Slyck: Filesharing: The Facts and the Myths.

Hattiesburg Station May Pull 'Book of Daniel' Local News: A Hattiesburg, MS station may be the next one to drop the new 'Daniel' television show.

New Baby Photos


I've uploaded a few new baby photos over at DonnyBroome.com, so take a look.

Clockr Clockr - Neato.

Intel Macs: XP or No XP? I guess we still don't know for sure.

Bart's PE Builder 3.1.9 Bart's PE Builder 3.1.9 - A new version of this excellent tool has been released. It allows you to build a Live Windows CD.

Mint 1.26 I've updated to Mint 1.26.

XP Won't Run on Intel MacBook, iMac Beta News: XP Won't Run on Intel MacBook, iMac. I suppose the only reason I would want to dual-boot a Mac is to run PC games. Otherwise, what a waste to pay 4 million dollars for a Mac, only to put Windows on it. Yes, it's true, I cannot hide my disdain for the elitist Mac culture. I have no such disdain for the Linux culture - at least their superior OS is free and you can put it on whatever hardware you'd like. Even if I were tempted to switch to Mac, and I'm not, the elitist snobbery would drive me back to Microsoft.

Soderbergh Does a DVD-Theater Release Combo Soderbergh Does a DVD-Theater Release Combo - Soderbergh's new film, Bubble, will be released at the theater and on DVD at the same time. This is a first.

Landing the Job Landing the Job - A blog with tips for IT professionals seeking employment.

Lost: S2 E10 I wasn't impressed. Bring on the A-story.

Digg.com Digg.com - An excellent technology news weblog. Is Digg the next/new Slashdot? Kottke answers.

Serenity Sequel? SciFi: Serenity Might Fly Again? DVD sales of Serenity are very strong.

Lost Update Will 'Lost' have a satisfying ending? Probably not. Figures. Money trumps story - almost always.

Cheetah Burner Cheetah Burner - This comes highly recommended from a coworker of mine. Personally, I've just installed it and I'm in the process of testing it and forming an opinion. Note to website operators: You can get a free license for this software by linking to their site. This is, in fact, how I obtained my license.

GasBuddy.com GasBuddy.com - Find cheap gas in your city. (Via Scot Finnie's latest Newsletter.)

Osama Dead? Michael Ledeen says so: "And, according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Iranians who reported this note that this year's message in conjunction with the Muslim Haj came from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the first time."

Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring - I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.

Dow Jones Via Drudge, at one point today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was above 11,000 for the first time since pre-9/11.

New Home DVD Player My home DVD player was dying on me (it was almost five years old), so I replaced it with this: Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player. This unit will play video files of almost any format. I can burn AVI or MPEG files to a CD-RW or DVD+RW disc and play them. In the past, I had to convert such files to DVD format.

Sleeping Beauty


Click for larger view.

Pecan Coffee Cake This morning's breakfast: Sara Lee Pecan Coffee Cake.

Great Cat Photos Two geat cat photos from Flickr: Cat Photo 1, Cat Photo 2.

PerfectDraft Via On Tap, one of the best beer blogs on the web, I give you PerfectDraft, the draft beer dispenser for your home.

Best Albums of 2005 Pitchfork Media: Best Albums of 2005. I have to seriously question their number two pick.

Process Explorer Chad tell us all about a nifty piece of freeware for Windows XP: Process Explorer. Cool. (Direct Download Link)

New Microsoft Patch Get the new Microsoft Patch now!

Borders Coupon Borders Coupon: 30 Percent Off One Book.

New Windows Vista Homepage Introduing Windows Vista - I'm particularly interested in what is being called Windows Imaging Format, which you can read about here.

Mark Steyn Mark Steyn: It's the Demography, Stupid. "Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries."

DRM Sucks (Weekly Update?) Read all about the DRM used with Coldplay's new CD.

Video Bill O'Reilly vs. David Letterman

Five Best Brooklyn Restaurants New York Magazine: Five Best Brooklyn Restauarants.

The Island The Island - Now available on DVD. This movie bombed at the box office, and I can't figure out why. It's a great action/scifi thriller that will impress you. It also features one of the best car chase/crash sequences I've seen in many months. The critics got it wrong on this one.

Study: SUVs No Safer for Kids "New research indicates that, as far as children are concerned, SUVs' benefits of size are offset by their increased risk of rolling over, making them no safer than ordinary passenger cars. According to a study conducted by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Companies, rollover crashes occurred twice as frequently in SUVs as in passenger cars and children were three times more likely to be injured in a rollover crash than in a non-rollover accident, according to a statement from the hospital."

NearlyClever.com NearlyClever.com - "Solutions and ideas for computer administrators."

Last Best Chance I received my free copy of the movie Last Best Chance on DVD and I watched it. I would recommend it for it's informational value more than its cinematic value. In short, the premise is that there is a LOT of nuclear material around the globe that's not really being guarded.

Google PC Google PC to hit Wal-Mart shelves? "Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap -- perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars."

Sparks! I've installed a new pepper for Mint: Sparks!

Free Online File Storage/Sending Creative Guy has compiled an excellent list of free sites that will allow you to send/store large files.

SpywareBlaster 3.5.1 A new version of SpywareBlaster is available for download.