Technological wonders...

Here I sit, in the passenger seat of our 2006 Kia Sedona LX minivan, on our way to Birmingham, typing this blog post on my computer (I'm taking a break from the manual flowcharting of the Matlab code that I'm tasked to convert to C# since I was unable to locate a good auto-Matlab-flowcharter to use as a starting point). When I'm done, I will post this to my blog, courtesy of my phone's internet connection. Now, I'm not on 3G or anything (it's T-Mobile, and they don't have much in the way of 3G, although it's coming), nor do I even have their "smartphone internet plan" (which is something like $20 or $30 per month). No, I'm using the old T-Zones WAP (wireless access protocol) internet, on EDGE speed, via my Nokia E-71 phone and JoikuSpot light (that is, the free version). It's $5.99/month (too bad I didn't get in when it was $2.99). The Nokia does a great job of passing the "internet" requests over the T-Zones (or T-Mobile WAP) settings, even though I don't have "real" access to the internet (in fact, I've only found one application that doesn't seem to work over the T-Zones connections, and that's Google Talk via Pidgin). All-in-all, I'm pretty pleased with my setup so far (despite the "slow" internet speed - almost like being on dial-up again!).

Just thought I'd throw that out there for your reading pleasure. Back to work...

First Post of March!

Ok, the first LBD post of March. I realized it's been a while... sorry about that. Friday we got our van (2006 Kia Sedona LX... not a lot of options on it, but that helped keep the price down - and it has the room we, a family of 6, need). Saturday was the AWANA Grand Prix (pinewood derby race) - we set up scaffolding at the end of the track, and I'm up there along with the announcer - I'm running the software I wrote to interact with the timer to keep track of the various heats and proclaim the winner of each category, although I'm pretty much rewriting it for next year. Sunday was church, of course, and I was pretty tired from the Grand Prix (and a rough week the week before). Monday (yesterday) I took off 1/2 day from work, spending it running around doing errands and stuff (wasn't really "off time" - just not at work), and then worked a bit late. Today we had the first day of a major customer demo/presentation, and I'm just overall fairly beat. Oh, and I still haven't fixed my Lexus yet... still borrowing a car from a family at our church to use for going back & forth to work.

Anyway, I thought I ought to at least put something out here, even if it's boring. Sorry about that. Also, I'm testing something on my blog page (I put the link there in case you're reading it in e-mail or on a reader or something) - over on the right hand side, you'll see "My WIMZI" - that's something that will let you contact me via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) - that is, when I'm signed into my GMail account, anyway. That's where I do my IMing... through the Google Talk portion of GMail. And it will pull in my AIM connections, and connect to AIM, and you can now talk to my AIM account via my blog page. Cool, eh? Maybe.

I've also added the "Google Talk Chatback" thing (over to the left)... that's probably cooler than the AIM one, although it does pop up a new window (but that's probably a better interface anyway). Actually, I think I'd prefer you use that one... and I'll probably pull the AIM Wimzi off the blog page before too long (it takes up more room than the Google chatback one).

For those who may have missed it, Gary Gygax died today (Tuesday, 3/4/08). You may be familiar with that name if you've played Dungeons & Dragons (I'm neither endorsing nor condemning the game here - you'll have to make up your own mind), as he's the co-creator of the game (I think his name is cool... "Gygax"!). The guy had 6 children... that's even more than I have!

Ah, well... I'm a bit tired, think I may go to bed soon...