Matt’s Blog > 2007 > June

Firefox plugin of the day: PicLens will let you launch a nice full-screen gallery of images from within Firefox, from many common sites. It seems to preload them, too, so moving between them is nice and fast.

Kyle responded to one of my e-mails the other day, at about 5:30 am. (Kyle has a ‘real’ job this summer.) We concluded that that is what the real world is like: waking up at times that are a couple hours after we’d normally be going to bed.
I don’t think I like the real world.
Also, [...]

Are any of you guys familiar with Body for Life? It’s kind of like Getting Things Done in that it has a slightly creepy cult-like following. It also seems almost too good to be true. But I’ve read so many positive reviews that I picked up a copy. Currently I’m just reading it, not doing [...]

Do you ever have a nonsensical thought, but take way too long to realize that it doesn’t make any sense?
I just got some ice from the freezer, and noticed out of the corner of my eye that the tub of ice cream in there says, “Runs UNIX!” I thought it was really cool to see [...]

(I’ve put asterisks after a few words/phrases, and added a sort of glossary to the end.)
Tonight I left for work a bit early, and decided to bowl a game. I think the thing that separates bowlers from people who bowl sometimes is that bowlers just have an urge to move their arm. Even if there [...]

Before putting any laptop into ‘long-term storage’ (or throwing it in the basement to forget about for five years), write the username/password on it.
We’re going through the basement decided what to keep and what to toss (before July 1st, when the town will charge $10 for each device we drop off), and I’m struggling to [...]

There’s a new consignment gallery in town that I’ve been meaning to check out for a while. Tonight they hosted a speaker on a topic that interested me, so my mom and I dropped in.
In addition to some cool lamps and a few swords, they have a case full of watches, bearing a sign: “All [...]

For many, many years the ham radio to have was Icom’s 781. (I think it actually cost a bit less, but there was a saying, “Just add a zero to it and you have the price.”) Among the hardcore contesters, it was sort of like Photoshop: incredibly expensive, and yet ubiquitous.
The 781 is no more, [...]

As much as I respect the “old way” of ham radio, I’m continually amazed at the new developments, and just plain interesting things people come up with.
Australian ham VK2DJG posted about Aircraft Enhanced SSB: bouncing VHF radio signals off of airplanes. It’s sort of like the way most long-distance ham contacts are made, via sky [...]

I ended up making some progress in the General Class study manual, and also spent some more time on the radio. I spent some time on 6 Meters (the only ham band that I have permission to use which really stands a shot at DX (long-distance) communications). I could hear some great stuff, including a [...]