So it’s been snowing here pretty much non-stop for the past two weeks. While I occasionally enjoy shoveling snow, it’s getting a bit tedious. It’s also thoroughly annoying that other homeowners in the area don’t shovel their sidewalks. Come on people, I’m walkin’ here!

And that light half-rain, half-snow BS that was coming down last night… that needs to go away and not come back. Driving around with that freezing on my windshield is no bueno.

I thought global warming was supposed to make the North Pole a balmy 75°F year-round. What happened Mr. Gore?

Ok, so bite me. I haven’t updated this beast of a blog with posts in forever and a day.* That will change… starting, now!

This super-awesome girl I know resurrected her blog with a ‘New Year’s Resolutions for 2010′ post, so I guess I will do the same. I’ve never been one for resolutions but this is a new decade, so it’s as good a time to start as any. Roll the list!

1. Do more than 30 minutes of exercise 3 times per week. I’m currently doing simple calisthenics in the morning everyday, but they take less than 5 minutes and are hardly a workout.
2. Be more spontaneous — a little spontaneity never hurt anyone. Will planning to be more spontaneous cause a temporal rift in the space-time continuum? I hope not.
3. Read more for pleasure. Reading about current events too often makes me too pessimistic. I would like to find a good fiction series to delve into.
4. Become more proactive about maintaining friendships. This means calling distant friends/relatives and bugging people to hang out more. Going for beers is a good time.
5. Start writing/painting/drawing/playing more. Note to self: Start blogging more often. Start a journal. Learn a new instrument (Rock Band doesn’t count).

Ok, there. It’s out on the Internet for all the world to see. That means it’s true and I have to abide by it.

Note to self: Fix CSS up in here. It looks like sh*t.

* I have been a good site admin and have been upgrading the WP backend regularly.

Sadly, Fedora Core 8 doesn’t ship a packaged version of Thunderbird (2.0.0.9 as of this writing) that includes movemail capabilities. Movemail is the account type (in Thunderbird) that allows you to read mail from your local system (in /var/spool/mail/[username]). If you run cron jobs, you should be getting emails about the status of those jobs in your local mail directory. Instead of having to read them through the command line, I wanted to read them through Thunderbird. Here’s a step-by-step on how to get it working:

1. Download movemail.rdf from the Mozilla repository. This includes the account type ‘Movemail’.
2. Save a copy of movemail.rdf to /usr/lib[64]/thunderbird-2.0.0.9/isp
3. Run the following: chmod 777 /var/spool/mail
4. Restart Thunderbird
5. In Thunderbird when adding a new account, select Movemail as the type, and follow the directions as usual.

All done! Hopefully, future versions of the Thunderbird package in Fedora’s repo. will be updated to include movemail, but until then, this works.

Are you looking to write a great paper for one of your classes? Maybe you need to submit a polished, impeccable proposal to your boss? It can help to know the proper ways to use punctuation. Here is a helpful list of the most common punctuation and their uses. This list is more useful than your 6th grade English class.

read more | digg story

Are humans inept when it comes to learning from history’s mistakes? This article draws parallels between the fall of the Roman empire and the current fear-based political agenda of the United States. Is the US doomed to destroy itself from within like Rome?

read more | digg story

What do you get when you mix a hippie with Andre 3000 in the desert? A great cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya. We’ve been checking out the best of the best for our new Southern Arizona guide that should be out later this week and came across this amazing video of Mat Weddle from the local band Obadiah Parker playing in Tempe, Arizona. Enjoy.

Trackback: http://tripcart.typepad.com/tri…utkast_in_a.html
Digg: http://digg.com/video…of_outkast_s_hey_ya

Browse the web safer, faster and smarter! By automatically checking for spelling errors and fraudulent domain names, OpenDNS helps protect against phishing, identity theft and will speed up your internet connection! Use OpenDNS for your computer or network! Get started in 2 minutes with no software to install!

read more | digg story

While browsing one of my favorite tech-news sites, Digg.com, I found out that PREI has plans to demolish the old Bell Labs Holmdel Research Facility. While I am not old enough to have been a direct part of the historic research which was conducted at the facility, I am directly indebted to the men and women who did groundbreaking work there. Without them, I probably would not be pursuing a degree in Computer Science.

I first learned of the Holmdel Facility in my Networks class sophomore year. We learned all about cellphone technologies, network protocols, topologies and interfaces, as well as encryption algorithms. All these things were pioneered in the Holmdel Facility. Without that facility and the people inside, technology would not be what it is today. Hell, I might not be writing this entry on my blog if it weren’t for the folks in the Holmdel facility.

I think it is important that PREI looks past the financial gains which may be had at the expense of the destruction of one of the birthplaces of computing. Surely there is a fate more suited to such a historic site. It has been suggested that the site be converted into a technology and computing museum, or used to house offices for new technology companies. Sadly, this is probably a fate the site will never see.

Link: http://www.engadget.com/20…ace-of-the/

Programmers are procrastinators. Get in, get some coffee water, check the mailbox, read the RSS feeds, read the news, check out latest articles on techie websites, browse through political discussions on the designated sections of the programming forums. Rinse and repeat to make sure nothing is missed. Go to lunch. Come back, stare at the IDE for a few minutes. Check the mailbox. Get some coffee water. Before you know it, the day is over.

My job description to a T.

If it weren’t already obvious, I’m a geek.

198 (I’m not joking either!)