Tail-light Rants...EverNote...and other things...So, I was driving home from work the other day and got behind a vehicle that had some darkened/smoked taillights. These were custom add-ons. To be more accurate, I suspect that the taillights had smoked covers over them. Now, I am all for everyone's right to customize their car so it reflects their personality or sense of individuality. But with one limitation. It must be street-legal and safe! So, I am behind this car, with a safe following distance and it breaks--but I couldn't tell 'cause the lights were smoked out too dark. This goes on for several miles, with me leaving increasing distance between our cars. Finally, at a light I was able to pull right up behind it and could--dimly-see the red brake-lights lit underneath the smoked out covers. If it was midnight, I might have been able to seem them a little bit brighter. Excessively-smoked out lights should be illegal. Actually, they probably are.
Then again, I'm so anal-retentive, when I gas up my car, I get the station's windshield wiper squeege and actually scub down my taillights to remove the dirt/dust just so they will be brighter to other drivers. Lavie just adores the newer Nissan Altima's with their crystal tail-lights. She was kinda crushed when the new 2002 Altimas came out with that look, and we couldn't afford a new one (she did get a new custom 2001 Altima--but never lets me forget that they don't have the same tail-lights). Just to make things worse, our neighbor recently bought a wicked-looking 2005 Nissan Altima SE-R. Great. Now I have to live with Lavie's parked next to that one. It really hurts.
Down here in Texas, many multi-lane roads have a center turning lane. It is commonly used by stupid drivers as a merging lane. You know, traffic is to heavy to make a 90 degree merge from a side entry so the driver pulls across the lane into that one and then drives in it until they can merge? Anyway, that's illegal too. So I was going down a 4 lane (2-in each direction) road in Houston--with no center turning lane. Then this pickup is trying to make a left turn but traffic that way is too heavy. So since there isn't any oncoming traffic in the other lane he makes a left turn into one of the oncoming lanes and drives about a 1/8 mile the wrong way until he can merge into the traffic. I couldn't believe that one. Geesh.
On to better things....
While I was camped out in hotel, chillin with me 'bro, he was showing me his cool Sony Viao laptop. Pretty. Widescreen LCD. Slim. Light. Cool. Dude didn't have a cat-v cable in his bag though so he couldn't connect to the hotel internet. Luckly geeky bother that I am had one in the trunk of my car. Score! So he has just about every single Microsoft Office application there is (except a beta version of Longhorn/Vista). One of the applications he was playing with was OneNote. I was really impressed. When I got back home, being the cheap (free) IT guy I am, I decided to see if there was an opensource alternative. Nope. But I did find this free version called EverNote. It isn't as featured as OneNote, but it is pretty close. And it comes in a free version. (Have I mentioned I really like OpenOffice as a Microsoft Office suite alternative?)
Other organizational applications (free) of note:
Then again, I'm so anal-retentive, when I gas up my car, I get the station's windshield wiper squeege and actually scub down my taillights to remove the dirt/dust just so they will be brighter to other drivers. Lavie just adores the newer Nissan Altima's with their crystal tail-lights. She was kinda crushed when the new 2002 Altimas came out with that look, and we couldn't afford a new one (she did get a new custom 2001 Altima--but never lets me forget that they don't have the same tail-lights). Just to make things worse, our neighbor recently bought a wicked-looking 2005 Nissan Altima SE-R. Great. Now I have to live with Lavie's parked next to that one. It really hurts.
Down here in Texas, many multi-lane roads have a center turning lane. It is commonly used by stupid drivers as a merging lane. You know, traffic is to heavy to make a 90 degree merge from a side entry so the driver pulls across the lane into that one and then drives in it until they can merge? Anyway, that's illegal too. So I was going down a 4 lane (2-in each direction) road in Houston--with no center turning lane. Then this pickup is trying to make a left turn but traffic that way is too heavy. So since there isn't any oncoming traffic in the other lane he makes a left turn into one of the oncoming lanes and drives about a 1/8 mile the wrong way until he can merge into the traffic. I couldn't believe that one. Geesh.
On to better things....
While I was camped out in hotel, chillin with me 'bro, he was showing me his cool Sony Viao laptop. Pretty. Widescreen LCD. Slim. Light. Cool. Dude didn't have a cat-v cable in his bag though so he couldn't connect to the hotel internet. Luckly geeky bother that I am had one in the trunk of my car. Score! So he has just about every single Microsoft Office application there is (except a beta version of Longhorn/Vista). One of the applications he was playing with was OneNote. I was really impressed. When I got back home, being the cheap (free) IT guy I am, I decided to see if there was an opensource alternative. Nope. But I did find this free version called EverNote. It isn't as featured as OneNote, but it is pretty close. And it comes in a free version. (Have I mentioned I really like OpenOffice as a Microsoft Office suite alternative?)
Other organizational applications (free) of note:
- Rainlendar A customizable calendar that resides on your desktop.
- Contact A cool address book.
- NeoMem Store and organize all kinds of information in a cross between a word processor and database.
- Chaos Manager An appointment manager, a calendar, a contact list and a notebook.
- EssentialPIM A scheduler, contact manager, and outliner.
- PocketMod This is cool. It is a flash-based pocket organizer generator.
Other thing I have been playing with is Firefox 1.5 Beta (Deer Park). I finally got brave enough to try it. I downloaded and installed it in a seperate program directory just to avoid screwing up my current release version of Firefox. I really like it. Pros: rearrangable window tabs. Cons: almost none of the extensions work right now. I am using it full time at work and am very happy with it. I wouldn't reccommend most people try it out yet, unless you know what you are doing or are a die-hard Firefox user. The lack of current extension support is a real drawback--but on the otherhand, I have been using it heavily for a week and haven't locked it up or crashed it yet!
Piro and Seraphim have opened up some new products in their MegaGear Store. Neat. Christmas is coming up! I like this gear. I guess I'll find out if family members like this gear too! Lavie looks styling in her "Darkly Cute" t-shirt! Now if I just didn't have to explain what it means to all her family members....
While I'm thinking about holiday gifts....how about that iPod Nano? Ars did a iPod Nano-Review & Destruction review. It is pretty cool. I'll take a black one please. Apple also released a nice version of iTunes (v5) get that update here. I really like the improved interface. It does sport a cleaner look.
Finally, here is a new desktop wallpaper site. I had been searching a long time for some Windows XP sky/grass desktop images I've seen on some Linux builds. It had them and then some more. I've had download issues with this site and FireFox. No problems with IE so I guess they just aren't Firefox friendly. Oh well. I'm using this one on both my desktop pc and laptop at work right now. I really like that blue background color with my floating/shadowed XP laptop settings. And my Rainlendar app looks cool on it as well.
Piro and Seraphim have opened up some new products in their MegaGear Store. Neat. Christmas is coming up! I like this gear. I guess I'll find out if family members like this gear too! Lavie looks styling in her "Darkly Cute" t-shirt! Now if I just didn't have to explain what it means to all her family members....
While I'm thinking about holiday gifts....how about that iPod Nano? Ars did a iPod Nano-Review & Destruction review. It is pretty cool. I'll take a black one please. Apple also released a nice version of iTunes (v5) get that update here. I really like the improved interface. It does sport a cleaner look.
Finally, here is a new desktop wallpaper site. I had been searching a long time for some Windows XP sky/grass desktop images I've seen on some Linux builds. It had them and then some more. I've had download issues with this site and FireFox. No problems with IE so I guess they just aren't Firefox friendly. Oh well. I'm using this one on both my desktop pc and laptop at work right now. I really like that blue background color with my floating/shadowed XP laptop settings. And my Rainlendar app looks cool on it as well.
See you in the skies.
--Claus
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