Friday, May 21, 2004

Follow me...

...to San Diego! Tomorrow morning I leave for Microsoft Tech Ed 2004. All next week my blogging and picture posting will take place at http://teched.virden.org/. I was the primary developer for that blog app. It has some cool features. It supports image entries, so you can attach a picture to the blog (not just text). You'll start seeing that tomorrow I bet, when we get to our room after traveling. The batch uploading of pictures is slick. You can upload a zip and it thumbnails them and allows you to view all pictures that don't have entries yet. It reads exif and stores it in the database. Customizable CSS for everyone, too (click down all the names and see what everyone has chosen). It's a pretty cool app. I'm amazed at how much I got accomplished in one week. I guess, when you enjoy what you're doing (and especially when it benefits you), you're willing to be more dedicated.

Again, this blog will fall more or less silent for the next week. Check out the above link; There will be a lot of traffic there as everyone will post regularly.

Monday, May 17, 2004

New Camera, Part 5: First Pictures

Of the 168 photos I took today, I ended up touching up and keeping 14 of them. Check them out! My favorite is the close-up of the clover with the very narrow depth of field. Cool shot. Originals are available; feel free to ask. My fees are reasonable :p

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Encouraging Divisiveness

I came across this news story this weekend and I just thought it was terrible.

Vatican officials, in an official church document released Friday, discouraged marriage between Catholics and Muslims -- especially Catholic women and Muslim men.

When "a Catholic woman and a Muslim wish to marry," the document says, "bitter experience teaches us that a particularly careful and in-depth preparation is called for."

With the current world situation, I am forced to wonder why the Catholic Church would make an official statement that would help to drive a bigger wedge between Christianity and Islam than already exists. Aren't there enough problems with relations between the two religions? This kind of sentiment will only widen the gap and worsen already trying relations. The implications of this statement sadden me. We need to encourage tolerance and unity. We need to celebrate the similarities rather than dwell on the differences.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

New Camera, Part 2

I got an email from Best Buy today saying that my camera will ship today. It's coming second day, which means Saturday should be the Big Day. That's nice, since I'll be home to sign for the package. Wait, does UPS deliver second day on Saturdays? The tracking number isn't "live" yet, so I can't check online. Patience....

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

The Wrong War

A friend of mine made a comment about "the link between al Qaeda and Iraq." I about blew up at him. Then he clarified what he meant: that there was not a link before the war, but now there is. I was relieved to hear him say that. But I still feel compelled to write a bit about my feelings here.

After 9/11, both the FBI and CIA told Bush that Iraq did not sponsor al Qaeda and that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. But at the time of the war, 70% of the people in this nation believed that Iraq had something to do with it. Do you know why? Because that's exactly what the Administration wanted you to think! They didn't directly make the claim; they just talked about 9/11 and Iraq in the same breath to give the impression. The administration played on the patriotism and fear of the people after 9/11 and drove us into the wrong war. We should have gone after al Qaeda. We should have gone after their state support with diplomatic sanctions (Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the biggest supporters). Instead we're making their anti-America case stronger. Now we have Iraqi's being abused in prisons and Americans getting their heads cut off. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. And people keep dying.

Friday, May 07, 2004

Least Privilege Shortcut

I've been running as a Power User on this laptop for as long as I've had it. In all, there are no real problems. A few programs don't work, but you can always shift-right click -> Run As. Then it takes two clicks: one to select another user, then another to focus the password box. I've created a faster, less click solution. In the directory %USERPROFILE%\SendTo, create a batch file (I called it "Runas Administrator.bat") with one line in it: "runas /user:Administrator %1" (substitute your Administrator user name). Then, on any "runasable" file (exe, mmc, cpl, etc), you can just right click -> Send To -> Runas Administrator, type your password, done! I should have thought of this sooner!