Monday, March 26, 2007

You Tube

How many video sites can the Internet support? Another question is how many video sites can a video end up being posted too?

Have you seen the latest YouTube wannabe?



Soapbox, by you know who.

May Issue - Winding Road

The May issue of Winding Road Magazine is out. You might notice that they are utilizing Olive Software now. You can still download the issue in PDF format.



Winding Road Issue 20.

Hey Winding Road, just my two cents worth, don't get rid of the PDF format. Thanks.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Babysitter's Car

When I was a kid I had a babysitter that drove a Mach 1. It looked much the same as this one except as I remember it she had Cragars on hers and it may have just been the size of the wheels she had on the back, but it appeared to be a bit jacked up. It was a nice car. I believe it had the 351 Cleveland engine.



Ford GT

Are you looking for some Ford GT wallpaper?



My son came into the house and said that he had just driven by Ford on his way home from the store and asked if Ford had a new car out. I asked why. He said that he just saw a car they were taking off of a truck at the Ford dealership that looked like a Lamborghini or something. I asked him if it was a Ford GT. He said that he didn't know what one of those looked like, so I showed him a picture of one and he said that is what it was. I guess that means my Ford GT is in. HA!

Friday, March 23, 2007

Driver License Photo causes some to leave.

I guess our state population will be going down.

Missouri To Mennonite Drivers: Our Way Or No Highway

Some Mennonites leaving Missouri over license-photo law.

Ferrari


I would be happy taking any of the Ferrari's feaured in this video for a drive.

OUCH!


George, George, George of the Jungle, watch out for that pole.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Just curious

Just curious, when was the last time you used one of these sites/search engines?

Alexa
http://www.alexa.com/

AlltheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/

AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com

AOL
http://search.aol.com/aolcom/webhome

Ask
http://www.ask.com/

Brainboost
http://www.brainboost.com/

Clusty
http://clusty.com/

Dmoz
http://dmoz.org/

Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com/

Exalead
http://www.exalead.com/search

Excite
http://www.excite.com

Fazzle
http://www.fazzle.com/

Findspot
http://www.findspot.com/

Gigablast
http://www.gigablast.com/

Go
http://www.go.com/

Grokker
http://www.grokker.com/

Hotbot
http://www.hotbot.com

IceRocket
http://www.icerocket.com/

Infospot
http://www.infospot.co.uk/

Infospot
http://www.info.com/

Ixquick
http://www.ixquick.com/

Kartoo
http://www.kartoo.com/

Lexxe
http://www.lexxe.com/

LookSmart
http://search.looksmart.com/

Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/

Mamma
http://www.mamma.com/

MetaCrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com/

MozDex
http://www.mozdex.com/

Myriad Search
http://www.myriadsearch.com/

Netscape
http://channels.netscape.com/search/default.jsp

Quintura
http://www.quintura.com/

Ujiko
http://www.ujiko.com/

Vivisimo
http://vivisimo.com/

Webcrawler
http://www.webcrawler.com/

Windows Live Search (MSN Search)
http://www.live.com/

WiseNut
http://www.wisenut.com/

YahooSearch
http://search.yahoo.com/

DOT and FFA ban upgrades

DOT Bans Upgrades. Upgrades for upgrades sake may not be good, but getting to the point where you can't upgrade anything because a critical app has not been upgraded and no longer can be isn't so good either.

I think the upgrade game is a tricky one. As is the question as to whether or not to carry maintenance/software assurance on software. It is a lot like insurance. If you have an accident you are probably happy that you have insurance, if you don't you are kind of sad that you just threw away good money.

If the number of upgrades in a maintenance window are such that upgrading would have been cheaper, you just made the wrong choice. If there were enough upgrades then maybe you didn't. You also have to play the game as to whether or not you can do an upgrade or if the licensing is such that you would have to purchase full licenses all over again.

The interdependencies between one application in an environment and another can make the game harder to play. In the government arena having IT staff (and staff in general) get smaller and smaller means that research and development in regards to upgrades is usually less and less. You are down to a staff that is tasked with keeping the day to day going on what it has to work with and does not have time to work with the latest and greatest, thus finding themselves in a sink or swim scenario when upgrade time comes.

Not to say that one cannot make a financial reason for swapping things out on the basis of the cost of the software itself, but it seems that training and staff experience are not weighed into the scenario.

If you simply add other environments, then you add additional variables into the support mix. I am not saying buy only Microsoft and only stay with Microsoft, I am just saying look at your options and implement them intelligently or you won't be gaining anything.

Of course, as a CIO, not spending money reflects well on you to upper management, but if you are the CIO that inherits a shop that hasn't done upgrades for an extended period of time upper management won't be so happy when you bring the bill to bring things to current levels.

I have a cold and am simply rambling at this point. Feel free to throw in your own thoughts.

Friday, March 09, 2007

IBM Omnifind Yahoo! Edition

Might have to look at this one a bit closer.




  • OmniFind Yahoo! Edition lets you search all your intranet content, your local and remote file systems -- up to 500,000 documents -- and the Web, all with a familiar interface right out of the box.
  • Empower employees to rapidly find the information they need from inside the enterprise and the public Web.
  • Unify information from disparate sources via the familiar, easy-to-use Yahoo! Search interface.
  • Reduce support costs with intuitive search-based access to product and service information while improving customers satisfaction.
  • Install and customize a search solution in minutes with user-friendly yet powerful administration capabilities.
  • Experience immediate ROI with no up-front investment.
  • Maintain flexibility for future growth with IBM’s comprehensive Information Management portfolio.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Missouri's New License Plate - The Bluebird Wins

Today the Missouri Department of Revenue announced the results of their online voting for Missouri's next license plate design.

The Bluebird won.


Elements from 3 designs

Daylight Savings Time - More from Microsoft

Are you ready for DST?

Friday, March 02, 2007

XPS - XML Paper Specification

Have you heard about XPS?  As you can easily create XPS files yourself they could catch on pretty quick, giving Adobe some competition.  Of course, lacking the fillable functionality of a PDF, they can't take the place of them.

The XML Paper Specification (XPS) makes modern documents possible for all. Simply put, XPS describes electronic paper in a way that can be read by hardware, read by software, and read by humans. With XPS, documents print better, can be shared easier, be archived with confidence, and are more secure.

Microsoft has integrated XPS-based technologies into the 2007 Microsoft Office system and the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system, but XPS itself is platform independent, openly published, and available royalty-free. Microsoft is using XPS to bring additional document value to its customers, its partners, and the computing industry.

Still running XP and not on Vista yet?  Don't worry you can download what you need to view and generate XPS files here or pick up a copy of Office 2007 and get the add-in that lets you save files to PDF or XPS formats. 


Thursday, March 01, 2007

Are you looking for something that will read your ISO images?

Look no further.

You can download the Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel package. I believe I read that it is suppose to be able to handle DVD ISO images as well, but I know that I had problems with the couple that I tried.

With the same ISO images I had problems with using Microsoft's tool, I was able to open them just fine with MagicISO's Virtual CD/DVD-ROM software MagicDisc.

Excerpt from site:


MagicDisc is freeware. It is very helpful utility designed for creating and managing virtual CD drives and CD/DVD discs. For anyone who deals with CD-based programs – it is a MUST. MagicDisc allows you to use almost all CD/DVD image without burning them onto CD or DVD in order to easily access your favorite games, music, or software programs ---- It works like a real CD/DVD-ROM: You can run programs, play games, or listen to music from your virtual CD-ROM.