Archive for August, 2006

From Portland

Published
by
Austen
on August 25, 2006
in Life
. 3 Comments

I’m posting this from our hotel in Portland, Maine. We’ve been stopping for a day or two in this city for the last few years. It’s really great, we’re at the Portland Regency Hotel which is very, very nice. Unfortuanally, as I mentioned before, I can’t supply any pictures because my camera can’t connect to the computers here.

We leave for Driftwood Inn tommorow afternoon on Bailey Island, about an hour drive away. And that’s nothing compared to the 6 hour drive to Portland from New York City.

Sorry about the brief post, but I don’t know what else to say… except that I miss DVR. We have decent T.V. in the room, but you can’t pause, rewind, fastforward, replay. Still, we caught a couple of episodes of The Office (best comedy show ever) on T.V. last night.

Going to Maine!

Published
by
Austen
on August 24, 2006
in Life and Photos
. 0 Comments

Well, we’re about to leave for our annual trip to Driftwood Inn in Bailey Island, Maine. I’ll try to post at least once using the limited internet access, but don’t get your hopes up to high. And I won’t be able to post any pictures until I come back, unfortunally. But for now, check out these pictures that I took two years ago.

fd’s Flickr Toys

Published
by
Austen
on August 23, 2006
in Photos
. 3 Comments

I just got my flickr photographer badge over at fd’s flickr toys (click on Badge Maker.) Unofficial, but cool. Any flickr user should get one. And it’s high quality enough to do a decent-sized print.

The site has some other pretty awesome things like this:

Oh, and my favorite:

Huge-nosed Alex

Published
by
Austen
on August 23, 2006
in Photos
. 0 Comments

Here’s a little thing that I did a couple of days ago. It’s actually quite mean because it’s a great picture of Alex, a REALLY great picture, actually. And I liquify it. I love liquifying to no end. Yes, I’m still using photoshop elements, at least for the major stuff because I know it better, and because there aren’t any bugs or anything. I’m only using Gimpshop to play around with, nothing else.

Solo Trip Upstate

Published
by
Austen
on August 22, 2006
in Life and Photos
. 0 Comments

107 nerve-racking, mind-bending, arm-twisting, neck-breaking, cute-ishing photos are now online from my solo trip upstate this past weekend. I took the train (ALONE!) to white plains and then drove up with Elo, Andrew, Vance, and Lulu, to stay for three nights at their upstate house, and even had to company of Irvey and Kevin for a day or two. Oh - and Elo’s birthday was on Sunday. Happy birthday Elo! Oh, and it was also her twin brother Alex’s birthday. Oh, and I think Warren’s birthday was monday, I know - 3 siblings, all have birthdays within days of each other, even though two of them are twins of each other. But still.

Anyway, I think that the photos are pretty good, especially the ones of Vance and Lulu. Again, check them out here and as usual, enjoy.

More Open Source

Published
by
Austen
on August 16, 2006
in Life and Other
. 2 Comments

Well, after downloading “the basics” I’ve started looking around for more open source software. Here’s some of what I’ve found, downloaded, and loved:

FeedReader

A plain ‘n simple RSS feed aggregator that supports both RSS and Atom formats, and works on Windows 98 and above. It’s pretty much perfect. Although it’s a bit slow (as most RSS aggregators are) it works fine.

Media Player Classic

Yet another “plain ‘n simple” program that looks nice and simple, like the older versions of windows media player but can play just about any file that there is out there, including quicktime.

I’ll update this with more later, but I got both of these from this great website for windows open source programs, which also has a macintosh counterpart.

Open Source Alternatives

Published
by
Austen
on August 16, 2006
in Life and Other
. 3 Comments

Today I FINALLY decided to enter the world of Open Source. If something is open source, it means that it’s a program that you can download, but you can also view all of the code used to make that program, and you are free to edit and do what you want with it. Because of this, all open source programs are free. That’s right F-R-E-E. EF AR EY EY. Firefox is probably the biggest open source program out there. And if you think Firefox is great, get this: Firefox is a free program very similar to another free program - internet explorer. Now how about a free program very similar to a $600 program??? Sounds like a good deal, huh? Oh - and it’s actually legal!!!

In case you didn’t realize, I was reffering to Gimpshop, which takes another open source image manipulating program, called The Gimp, and reorganizes it and changes some names to make it look very similar to the industry standard, Adobe Photoshop which costs the same amount of money as this computer. Sound to good to be true? Maybe. The only downside is it’s not an EXACT REPLICA of Photoshop, but still, after a bit of playing around - if you know Photoshop - you’ll get the hang of it. Oh - and it’s for PCs AND Macs.

But that’s not the only Open Source program out there - there’s much more! Another very popular “Open Source Alternative” is OpenOffice.org. Which is very, VERY similar to Microsoft Office. That’s right, you can get a Word alternative, a Powerpoint alternative, an Excel alternative, even a Paint alternative! Plus a program to do math equations, and a program to (I think) store databases - all in one download! And it’s doesn’t cost $100! It’s 100% free! (Except for your kind heart donating some of your extra cash (about $700) to them for being such nice people. Oh, and just as before: Mac and PC.

And the best thing about these popular Open Source programs is that, well first off they’re all free, but second off that they have “spin-offs” of people using that same source code and adding extra features, integrating better, and doing so much more! (Some examples are Flock and previously mentioned Gimpshop.)

Now I’ve just scraped the edges of the Open Source community, there is SOOO much more out there. SOOO much more. I recommend starting at SourceForge.net which hosts just about everything open source. Enjoy, and don’t let the beta bugs bite.

Bubble Wrap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Published
by
Austen
on August 15, 2006
in Life
. 1 Comment

Wohoo!!! I love this game!!!