Bit-Shift.Net

So here I am again, wide awake at 12:30am on a Saturday night. This is what I get for napping in the afternoon....but I digress.

I was chatting with my boss, Greg Hughes, about blogging and activity, and I decided to log into my Google analytics site, since its been a while since I've checked. And much to my surprise I have a fair number of visits from international locals. Amazing, people in other countries actually read the stuff I write. How cool is that? And I'm not talking about a visit from Canada, although I do have a few of those, but actually a decent spread of hits from around the world, all continents are accounted for.

When I first started this whole blogging thing it was just a place for me to talk about things that caught my attention and things going on in my life. Never actually thought anyone would read. The internet is a very powerful tool and allows my thoughts to reach the largest audience possible. BTW, that screen shot was taken with the cropper tool I mentioned here.

The screen shot in the previous blog post was created using a cool little app written in C# called Cropper. It allows you to capture any part of the screen simply by dragging the opaque window around and hitting enter. The interface is very simple and intuitive to use. The software allows you to output to various file formats in a folder you specify or output directly to a printer. As someone that also creates documentation for work complete with screenshots, this is MUCH better than the "print screen/paint route".

Highly recommended. Grag it here.

I am the proud owner of a 30GB iPod video. This is one of the few devices that the more I use it the happier I am with it. I take it snowboarding, to work, listen to it in traffic. Its awesome.

<rant>This evening I plugged my iPod in to charge and iTunes informed me there is a new firmware version, version 1.1. Great, so I go download it and run the installer and tell it to update my iPod. Anyone else see the contradiction in that message? Nothing went wrong mind you and the new support for the iPod radio remote and bug fixes went fine, just put some thought into your wording Apple. </rant>

Some friends pointed me in the direction of this website. It is the home of an artist who decided to build his own digital camera...out of cardboard, duct tape and a flat bed scanner. What he discovered led to some really amazing photos I especially, like the photos of the Audi TT. The cameras have gone through several iterations and his current model combines some old world tech with high tech innovation. Check it out and be amazed. View the site here.

I'll burn for this one for sure, but this is the Best Blonde Joke Ever!!

http://www.greghughes.net/rant/IllGoToHellForThisForSure.aspx

I'm sure you have all heard the jokes or urban legends about the VHS tape on how to setup your VCR or the CD-ROM on how to setup your computer. Today while checking the weather and snow conditions at Mt Hood Meadows I noticed something equally as amusing and pointless. On the front page for http://www.skihood.com there is a section that lists the weeks specials (see picture). Notice the last line on where to go for details. Isn't that were I already am?!? I wonder if who ever posted that comment really gave it any thought or was it written up in the spur of the moment at 4am after 3 cups of coffee.

For more details go to www.bit-shift.net, and click on an ad :)

For anyone who is interested I have ZERO invitations available for the beta of Windows Live Messenger, aka MSN Messeneger 8.0. This is part of the new Live Family of application Microsoft is putting out.

The new version of messenger contains alot of cool enhancements like folder sharing and a slick new UI that looks like some really talanted artists that think like first graders were let loose with a stack of crayons ( I mean that in a nice way).

If your interested, send me an email at the link on the left and please tell me which email address you'd like the invitation sent to and maybe a little bit about yourself.

Its first come first serve, get'em while their hot!

I've been a increasingly less satisfied customer of Verizon Wireless for just over a year now. My main gripe with Verizon is their lack of coverage in areas where all my friends had good to excellent service (this went both ways, but usually ended up on the non-Verizon side). The biggest frustration was when I started snowboarding. Verizon has HORRIBLE service at Mt Hood Meadows. Case in point: I had become separated and was trying to contact my compatriots one very clear and sunny day at the mountain. I figured I'd get really good reception if I went as high as I could, which just so happens to be Cascade Express. So there I stand with miles of visibility and pretty good signal reception showing on the phone, granted it was analog signal but hey... I dialed the number and hit send, then I waited. Silence... After about 5 seconds the phone would beep loudly and display an error simple stating call failed. What the hell...I turn off the phone and turn it back on. Try again, same result. Then I fiddle with the roaming options, again no dice. At this point I was getting pretty frustrated and decided that I'd had enough.

I have a friend with T-Mobile and she is the only person I snowboard with that consistently gets good service at the mountain so I decided to give them a try. And sure enough, first day on the mountain with my new phone during a pretty heavy snowfall I get a call. Sweet!! Its from a pet grooming shop saying my dog is ready to pick up. Thats great, but I don't own a dog. Oh Well. My new phone works at the mountain, mission accomplished.

Oh ya, which phone did I buy you ask? The Samsung t-809. This phone hit store shelves around the second week of December and from the reading I did on various cell phones on sites such as Gizmodo and Engadget, everyone was in agreement that this phone was awesome and they were all going to buy it when it became available. They were right. The screen on this phone is absolutely gorgeous. Paired with the 1.3MegaPixel camera makes for some pretty decent phone pictures. The phone also supports Micro SD cards. If you haven't seen them, they fit on the tip of our finger. The phone also has bluetooth support, quad band GSM, SMS, MMS, and a host of other features. And did I mention the screen is amazing!

Check out more specs here.

I hope you all had a great new year, personally I had the best new years day EVER. As usual, I woke up early and headed up to the mountain with friends. The weather had been poor for the past few days and I was worried about what the conditions would be like. When my friends and I arrived at the mountain we were greeted by short lift lines and 6 inches of fresh powder. The combination of fresh snow and few people made for the best day of snowboarding so far this season. The only downside was it was snowing pretty heavily for most of the morning which made visibility really bad, at times less than 25 feet, which may seem like alot until your flying through the trees at high rates of speed. It was an awesome day.

But I digress... A lot has happened over the past year, many things I'm very thankful for. The first major event that happened in 2005 was my college car broke down, so I bought my Audi A6. I have a grown up job, time for a grown up car, right? I love this car, its fun to drive, comfortable and great for taking groups up to the mountain, to name a few. Doesn't get the greatest gas mileage, but oh well.

The next two events happened in close proximity to each other. First, after nine months working for The CLM Group, Inc I gave my notice and went to work for Corillian Corp., a company which provides internet banking platforms. I work in Corillian's security department, a very satisfying and exciting job, in which I'm learning a great deal about defensive programming and software security. The next event was a trip to Vancouver, BC with my co-worker Philippe. It had been almost 20 years since I had been to Vancouver, and I didn't remember much from my last trip since I was 6 at that time. We did lots of walking and sight seeing, took lots of pictures and saw some interesting things, like a guy stacking rocks.

And of course, I had a birthday. I turned 26 this year. Nothing terribly exciting about turning 26. My insurance didn't go down, I can already drink, vote and see R rated movies... but it was a good birthday none the less because I'm still here and with my and I got a free trip around the sun, heh. For my birthday my mother got me a gift certificate rather than giving me cash like normal because I would spend cash on sky diving and she just can't have that. What are mothers for except to, among other things, continually worry about their children.

Thats pretty much all the blog worthy events for this year. I'm very optimistic about the coming year, several events I'm looking forward too. I already have a trip planned to Las Vegas for a friends birthday. As my mother was wishing me a happy new year she mentioned that she hopes I find my wife this year. She's out there and I'm looking forward to seeing her ;)

Happy New Year Everyone!