Don’t Wash Your Bluetooth Headset With Your Laundry

Sunday my phone needed a charge. When this happens I plug my iPhone into the computer and put on my headset so I can walk around my house and still talk. The headset was bugging me that day so I put it in my shirt pocket. I proceeded to eat lunch and naturally spilled on my shirt. Since Sunday is a laundry day in my house, I dropped the shirt into the washing machine with the next load.
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Has Apple Influenced AT&T’s Customer Service?

I have been a fan of Apple for a while. I don’t consider myself a fan boy as while I do get wrapped up when Steve Jobs is pitching new wares, I easily see through the RDF after his presentations. But one of the reasons I like Apple so much is that when something goes wrong they are ready and willing to help fix it. I haven’t had any major calamities requiring losing a computer for weeks to a repair facility, but I have had a number of issues requiring Genius Bar attention and it has been easy to deal with.
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A day at the museum

Milwaukee has an excellent art museum. Little people know that on Wednesdays the museum is free for Milwaukee residents. I took my 9 and 10 year old this week and we had a blast viewing and discussing all the great works. Milwaukee has pieces from ancient Egypt and Greece to Kansinsky, Lichtenstein, Picasso and Warhol. If you haven’t been there in a while check it out soon.

photo

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The iPhone’s Achilles Heel

Many probably don’t consider this, but I had to this weekend. Over the holiday weekend, my phone performed as needed until Sunday when I went to call my tennis loving mother about the epic battle between Nadal and Federer at Wimbeldon. My call appeared to go through as I could see the little timer counting my time connected, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing. Upon further examination, I didn’t hear any of the little clicks either. It rang, but that was the only audio coming out. I thought for sure my phone was dying.

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Launch of Firefox 3…and the unfortunate death of Firebug

If you haven’t been paying attention to the interwebs lately, this has been a big week for the browser wars. Opera 9.5 launched as well as Firefox 3.  I have been a fan of Firefox for a long time and recently have become a huge fan of the extension Firebug for it.

In my current work environment we are building Java web applications and while I can and do run them locally, it can take a while to put the build up, take it down, modify it and put it back up. Since most of my work is front end focused I spend a lot of time in Firebug testing things before taking the build down to update.

When Firefox 3 launched on Tuesday, I diligently downloaded and installed it. I played around with it a little and saw that Firebug wasn’t updated for it yet. So I packed it away and pulled out Firefox 2 and got back to work. Then I started having tabbing issues. I have had to restart my PC three times because my tab button on my keyboard stops working in Firefox 2. Additionally, if I am in Firebug’s CSS live editing window  and highlight a property it automatically deletes the property when I tab out. Becoming increasingly frustrated I dug around and saw they now have Firebug updated for Firefox 3 but in a beta format (although is it beta 3). so like a good little boy, I installed the new extension and booted Firefox 2 back up.

One of the beautiful things about Firebug is the ability to turn on and off various properties. However in the new beta on Firefox 3 this is causing the entire browser to crash. So here I come Firefox 2, wait what is this…the new beta is incompatible with Firefox 2 BUT deletes the old version on install. Come on guys, if you are going to not be functional, you can at least not touch my previous install.

By the way, what is with Firefox 3 not importing all my bookmarks from Firefox 2 on install? It captured my IE and Opera ones, but ignored the ones I actually use.

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Quotes

I wish more people would follow these rules. Life is about experience, yet so many of us work so hard to shut ourselves off from the experience.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. – Buddha

Of course it goes without saying that even this comes from Buddha, it to should be subject to its own logic and only be taken once experienced.

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Short Listed for Schmap.com California Edition

Cleveland National Forest 

I just received a notification from Schmap.com saying they want to use my Cleveland National Forest image for an upcoming edition of the application. The terms look ok even though there is no pay. They do link to my Flickr account and only use a thumbnail, so I will use the publicity.

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Quote: From the Venerable Theodor Geisel

I read AmidaBuddha.org daily. It is always refreshing to learn something new or to see how others view the world. Sometimes I am inspired and other times I am confused and contemplative of the quotes they produce. Typically they will quote a great Buddhist author or teacher. Occasionally the reference people like Einstein. Today we have one from one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. He is an author and illustrator that everyone in my generation grew up with. He has a musical that was produced about his work. And there have been several very successful conversions of his work into movies on both the large and small screens.

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere… If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good. – Dr. Seuss, One Fish two fish red fish blue fish, 1960

For me this quote touches base with something the Dalai Lama said yesterday in his speech at Colgate University. Everything can be viewed from different perspectives. In some of these perspectives the situation or object is good and others it is bad. If you take the time and practice to release yourself from the fears and preconceptions you have about all the time and carefully examine everything from all possible angles, you will be able to enjoy more things.

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Quote: Live from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Speaking on happiness at Colgate University this afternoon, His Holiness the Dalai Lama ended his speech with the following quote which points to the underlying root of what will bring peace to this world.

All religious traditions have the same potential, therefore we must respect all tradition. -Dalai Lama

Take respect in each other and each person’s traditions. If you don’t understand them, ask for explanations. Do not argue, but with permission you can discuss the differences between your traditions and theirs. If we work on this as a planet, we can achieve greater things than we already have.

Update

During his Q&A section the Dalai Lama was asked what can be done from the spiritual person to help those without spirituality. He made a very poingant case for leading by example, but most of:

Unless the non-spiritual person asks to be taught about Buddhadharma, do not teach Buddhadharma.

He further explained, that while this is the Buddhist way, it is a truth that all people regardless of religion should follow. This received a very loud round of applause from the audience at Colgate University. For more information and hopefully a link to access the recorded webcast, check out Colgate’s website.

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Green Website for a Day, Green for Life

Happy Earth Day! I thought I would take a few moments to detail those things that I have been working hard on this year to do in order to contribute to a greener world. I am not going to preach on global warming as I think we are only beginning to understand what is happening.

This past year I have been conscious of everything that I do and its effect on my surroundings. As such I have take the following actions and I encourage you to take similar ones for yourself.
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