Black Friday and new hosts!
The wonderful Thanksgiving feast being over, the day after is celebrated across the land with a fit of shopping frenzy aptly named "Black Friday". Retailers chop their margins razor thin to move their inventory, and attract customers by the droves for the holiday blowout extravaganza. If one is canny and spry, one can end up with an amazing deal to write home about (and perhaps resell the commodities purchased, at a premium elsewhere).
Wanting to be canny instead with my money, I perused the pre-sale flyers with a blase attitude and because I was looking for nothing in particular, none of the deals or bargains really spoke to me. As it turns out, I wasn’t looking hard enough.
The real gems to be found were tucked away in forums where the ever vigilant community posted and re-posted deals and bargains from all over the country. Being a member of one such community, I have been monitoring a specific site all day for a live web cast hawking gadgets and accessories, proceeds from the sales of which go to the Susan G. Komen’s charity for the cure. For a good cause, and for gadgets galore, I will loosen my purse strings. Here are some of the deals that have been offered thus far:
* $150 ~ Acer Aspire One
* $500 ~ SONY ALL-IN-ONE DESKTOP JS155J/P
* $50 ~ CU Audio Unlimited Wireless Speakers
* $1 ~ DiscGear Pink CD Cases
* $50 ~ Microsoft Pink Zune
* $10 ~ Memorex 100-Pack DVD+R
* $25 ~ SAMSUNG WEP350 Bluetooth Headset
* $300 ~ HP LaserJet
* $20 ~ Kensington Notebook Case
* $40 ~ Patriot 32gb USB2.0 Flash Drive ~ PINK-8213
* $12 ~ Centon 8gb Waterproof USB 2.0 Flash Drive
* $40 ~ Interlink Presentation Remote
* $10 ~ Blackberry 8300 charging pod
Yes you are reading the prices right… everything is nearly 50% off! I didn’t believe it at first, but a few calls and a few orders later (one of which actually worked out), I am a believer. Well, stay tuned for what else I manage to buy this day.
One of the other deals I found this day – a new domain and hosting solution. Three years for a linux hosted domain with unlimited bandwidth and space all for a princely sum of $45 dollars. Three years for that price, I really lucked out. More to follow!
Unison – backing up and restoring the app
It is common knowledge that after Tally reintroduced me to the world of NNTP, I have come to depend on News for my very life. An endless source of latest distros and what not, the NNTP experience can be as good as, or as horrid as your News Reader.
For ages I had relied on Outlook Express on XP for my needs, and graduated to Newsleecher on Vista. By far the best news reader for that platform. But on OSX one is usually stymied. There were quite a few freeware solutions from the days of Carbon and OS 9, which quite frankly look just horrible on Leopard. Enter Unison by Panic. Quite frankly the best app out there for News reading/downloading for any platform. The UI is a lesson in how to do things right, living it up in true OSX tradition. One can view the news in threaded view, or files view or if the fancy be, in the Image cluster view. Intuitive and quite straightforward and yet wrought in this, is a lesson in usability. Available as a limited time free trail, it is a software well worth the money.
Recently though, needing to restore my Mac, I needed to backup my number of favorite Newsgroups which I bookmark and check from time to time. I contacted Panic support, and got a quick reply. Turns out it is very straightforward indeed (but of course). All one needs to do before a system restore on a Mac is to back up the App folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Unison and the prefs list file found in ~/Library/Preferences/com.panic.unison.plist. Restore the same after a reformat and Tim’s your uncle.
OSX and Trophy wives
Overheard in a conversation this afternoon. “OS X now that’s like a trophy wife. She doesn’t cook or clean, do anything useful with her time, and throws hissy fits, but you keep her around… because oh look, so pretty”. Pretty much sums it up. Shame on me, swinging from one extreme to the other. Oh well, it is time for some Vista love, and I am back to formatting my computer, to go back to x86. Blast you x64 Vista.
Back to the basics
In a move sure to shock the legions, Tim moved, fully and completely back to Windows Vista. Shocked onlookers were observed remarking “This is a temporary reversal, he’ll be back”, while others in the sphere were seen thumb-in-mouth, curled up in the fetal position, muttering “what will become of us”. Yes, things were sure stirred up by Tim.
Living it up in Indiana!
A beautiful Sunday afternoon finds us in Indiana, visiting Rissa’s sister in good ol’ Anderson. We’ve been here since Thursday and my the time has really flown by! It is just so great seeing the lil’ kiddos again – one would swear they grow each time we see them (though it may be just weeks apart). The lil’ one has expanded her lexicon, and grown just geometrically cuter! She loves her uncle Tim and aunt Rissa and is the apple of our eyes.
Anderson, a town that saw its heyday in the early part of the twentieth century, is a quiet, sleepy town with friendly people and a very laid back feel to the place. The town gained fame towards the end of the nineteenth century when natural gas was found here. Industries moved in and the town bloomed. In 1912 however, the natural gas reserves were exhausted and the industries relocated elsewhere. (Information courtesy Anderson, IN public plaques)
We went trick or treating on Friday with our lil’ kids dressed as the Colts (the local Football team). By the time we were done, their buckets runneth over, full of candy. Lil Ella was just the cutest, unwilling to let go of the booty – although she’d squeal if she saw us digging into their candy as we sit this afternoon watching TV. Saturday saw us at the local Nazarene church at a charity event dinner – an all you can eat Chicken and Fish Fry. A packed place – quite a good turnout indeed. It was so entertaining to behold Sam and Jen greet nearly every parish member by name. It made me cognizant of the fact that a close parish can serve to be such a great support group. Good stuff – stuff I’ve basically just heard and/or read about.
This evening we are having an early Thanksgiving dinner – my first turkey Thanksgiving dinner with the family. We had a brief preview last night, and the verdict – delicious! There’s just so much to be thankful for this year – Thanksgiving with my new family. It is an honor to be a part of our close-knit group.
