That’s one of three “Sayings from Chairman (Steve) Jobs,” just prior to forming the “Macintosh Division” with over 80 employees in 1983.

I’ve never been a Mac owner, never even used one, but I admire what Jobs has done over the years and would salute him if given the chance. I don’t consider myself a pirate but it sounds like a great idea to live by.

More:
Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories: Pirate Flag

Last Saturday I started feeling the tickle in my sinuses that was telling me either this is allergies or you’re catching another cold — and as usual I just drank some tea and hoped it would go away. By dinner time I knew I had a cold, or worse, the flu — it was that fast. As some of my friends know, I just got over the flu in mid-December. I ran to Walgreens in the middle of the night to buy some Airborne Formula but it was already too late to stop it.

So, after a few days of fever, coughing, sniffling, and hacking, I dropped some of my Airborne in a cup of warm water and came across this Fresno Bee article by Joan Obra (free online membership required with the Fresno Bee is required to read it). Some of her advice is too late for me this time but hopefully it will help one of you avoid a wintery virus. It’s advice that I’m going to take to heart and do my best to follow for as long as I can. I’ll let you know next winter if it worked or not… :)

Here’s another good article, Natural Health Prevention for Colds and Flu. This one is from WebMD and you don’t need a membership just to read it! :)

Every year I consider putting my Christmas wish list on the Net so all my friends can see what I want. I’ve always been hesitant to list things because it makes me feel like I’m asking for things. If someone feels compelled to give me a gift at Christmas then I think people know me well enough to find something or be creative enough to make something that I will like. On the other hand, I wander around aimlessly the last week before Christmas, going crazy, trying to think of unique gifts for my family and friends. So here’s a secret: I’m not picky and I’m happy just to know that I was on someone’s mind when Christmas was here. I’m more suprised at what ideas people come up with on their own, but for the one’s like me, that go crazy on the last day, here is a list of things that I either need or have been wanting:

Inexpensive items:

• gift certificates are always good. :D
• dishes (plates, bowls, glasses — no coffe mugs please!)
• kitchen things (wok or stir-fry pan, strainer, any kind of food processors or juicers)
• bathroom things
• home things (potted plants, crafts, particularly Asian or Buddhist designs)
• clothing (shoes, pants, …sweaters)

If you’re feeling generous: ;)

• bedroom things (pillows, bed dressings)
• DVD player that will play DVD-R or RW discs (my old one only plays store-bought DVDs)
• new or used TV with an integrated S-video input to connect my laptop

If you’re feeling creative and just want ideas:

• SciFi (Star Trek, Star Wars)
• Supernatural (vampires, myths, medievel, Egypt, Africa)
• Buddhism
• Technology
• Music (anything but country)

Things I already have:

• Furniture, VCR, TV
• Coffee maker, blender, toaster, microwave
• Iron, blowdryer, hair/beard clippers

I’ll try to update this list as I think of things. I enjoy company more than anything so if you want to get away with a simple gift just come by some night and visit with me for an hour or two. :)

Merry Christmas,
Terry

What happens when you mix Mentos with a 2-liter bottle of soda? It erupts if done correctly — possibly up to 18 feet in the air. I’m sitting happy knowing that I don’t really like Mentos but wondering what this stuff would do to my stomach…

Check out this science experiment.

Terry

I’ve been using Skype at work for a while to talk long distance with our company’s programmer in the UK and it seems to work pretty good so far. Today I came across this article on LA Times website that announces that Skype now does video too, and better than it’s competitors…

Video Phone Calling is Starting to Look Better

I don’t run Skype all the time, but if you want to add me to your Skype buddy list I’m “probasix” there, just as I am on Yahoo, AIM, and MSN.

Terry

I came across this link on CNet. You get to input your favorite caffeinated drink, your weight, and the page will tell you how many you can ingest before the caffeine will stop your life.

Check it out here:

http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine/

Joan and I are finally on our trip back East! Finally we got our schedules coordinated and made it all the way out here to visit her friends Gary and Sharyl. We’re staying at their home in Media, PA — a cute two-story house in a little town full of trees and flowers. I’ve been taking pictures with Gary’s digital camera whenever I can and you can find most of them here:

http://probasix.com/back_east/

http://probasix.com/backeast/ (new central link to access both formats)

Enjoy the pics! There’s more to come as we take more along the way (Washington, D.C., on Friday, Jim Thorpe on Saturday). Check back to the link above for updates as we get to the end of the week (flying back via Frontier Airlines on Sunday).

PEACE.
Terry

Update (10/16/05): We’re back and all the pictures are available now. There are two formats: one shows the “best of” with a summary and short descriptions for some of the them; the second is a complete online album of ALL the pictures but without any summaries or descriptions. Also, the pictures are now scaled down and are “dialup friendly” so it won’t take forever to load if you’ve got a slow connection!

Finally, Opera has released my favorite Web browser as a free app! They even removed the banner ads now that they’ve got backing from the big guys (like Google and eBay). I’ve been using (and paying for) Opera since about version 5. Something to keep in mind is that it’s so simple to use that you never realize the power you’re sitting on until you go through one of the tutorials or check out the keyboard shortcuts or the mouse gestures. I still tend to use a combination of keyboard and mouse, but as most of my friends know I never learned to love my mouse, so I tend to like the keyboarding shortcuts more. However, there are times when I’m just browsing, reading news, looking at pictures, etc., and it’s nice to just sit back and without touching the keyboard or even moving the mouse more than an inch on your mousepad you can open new windows, close the ones you’re done with, go back in history, move forward, even go to a ‘Next’ link without having to move the mouse all the way to the bottom of the page.

One of my favorite things has been the F12 key:

With a quick click you can turn off sound, GIF animation, Java, disable javascript or your plugins, enable or disable your cookies, popups, or change the identity of your browser when you come across those rebel sites that only allow IE users. The funny thing is that this has always been a great browser, one of the first to offer true tab browsing and the first one I know of to have a built-in ability to block pop-ups.

Firefox is also an excellent browser and I’ve been using it equally, especially at work, because it was free and because of it’s simplicity and compatibility with plug-ins I use in the office (by the way, they just released 1.07 about three days ago and if you’re a loyal user you should upgrade soon). I won’t abandon Firefox, but Opera is still my favorite, particularly now that it’s FREE…

From W2Knews™:

Free Opera. Great Move, And No Ads.

This week, Opera Software announced the release of version 8.5 of its web browser, available on Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s Mac OSX, Linux, FreeBSD, and Sun Solaris. The latest version is downloadable at no cost and without banner ads. Their revenues are generated via third parties such as Google and eBay and have grown more than the money they make from ads, so they now believe they can gain wider adoption by making their browser freely available for users. In fact, they want to beat Firefox which is the No. 2 player with 8.3% (Redmond’s share being 86.3%). Here is the download:
http://www.w2knews.com/050926ED-Opera

This is funny, but you have to be somewhat familiar with Unix commands to really get it.

$ mv /var/opt/dictators/spiderhole/saddam /opt/jail
$ cd /opt/USA
$ cp -Rp Democracy /middle_east/Iraq
$ cd /middle_east/Iraq/Democracy
$ ./install
Install Error: Install failed. See install_log for details.
$ more install_log
Installed failed!
Prerequisite packages missing
Conflicting package Wahhabism found in /midde_east/Saudi_Arabia
Packages Church and State must be installed separately
File System /PeakOil nearing capacity
Please read the install guide to properly plan your installation.
$

See the whole of it here: Sun Ray Blog

Back in April I blogged about Part 1 of a two-part article on “30 must-have PC skills” by Anthony Dhanendran of Computeractive. Not so suprisingly I forgot about it and never blogged or mentioned the link to Part 2. Well, anyway, below are links to both articles at the vnu network and I highly recommend checking them out. If you’re new to PCs or you’re still a novice you need to read these articles because they outline the things you should know. Print them out if it helps, circle the things you don’t understand and ask someone or look it up somewhere. If you have an assistant that always there to answer your every question or do your job for you then maybe you could skip them. And maybe your assistant will call in sick one day. These are survival skills if you own a PC, or you’re going to own one, and you want to be able to do things for yourself.

30 must-have PC skills – Part 1
30 must-have PC skills – Part 2