New Professional edge website and 500!

Professional edge, the company that I work for has a new website. It is much prettier than the old one and has lots of good information. Check it out at www.professionaledge.com.

By the way this is my 500th post on this blog. Thats pretty incredible if you think about it. That is 931 days ago so I'm averaging just over a post every two days. I hope that is enough for everyone.

Pans Amazing Labyrinth of Grace

Okay, the title is a mix of a couple of movies and I'll explain why, kind of. Saturday morning I started to read a book called "A Practical View of Christianity" by William Wilberforce, written in 1797. Yes, that is 1797 not 1997. Never heard of Wilberforce? Neither had I until started reading the book. I read through the introduction by Charles Colson. It told the story of Wilburforce and how he worked in Parliament in England to end Slavery at the end of the 18th century. What is fascinating about him is that he tried for about 10 years to get it done but got nowhere because of the political power of the slave trading companies. He decided the way to fix the problem was to improve people's morality through Christianity first and then their outrage would force the politicians to abolish slavery. And it worked. He wrote the book "A Practical View of Christianity" which basically explains how the "Cultural Christianity" of the day was different than "Real Christianity" and encouraged people to be convicted about what was true and not. He realized that the way to change society was through its morals, instead of trying to beat the politicians.

So I started reading that in the morning and went out to see Pan's Labyrinth with Ryanna in the evening. I had heard that it was good and wanted to check it out. The first preview that showed up was about a guy at the end of the 18th century in Parliament who was trying to abolish slavery through convicting the populace of England. I thought, hmm, I think I've heard this story before. And sure enough, it was about William Wilberforce. The movie's title is "Amazing Grace" because Wilberforce was a friend of John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace. It comes out February 23rd and I'm really excited to see it.

So... Pan's Labyrinth. Turns out it is a Spanish movie subtitled in English but that doesn't bother me since I lived over seas for so many years. The movie is really beautiful and strange in that it is a mix of the attempt to suppress the anti Franco rebellion in Spain in 1944 and a fairytale. It actually works though and Ryanna and I really enjoyed the movie.

Pop Up Messages on Windows

Now that I've had to move back to Windows for my work environment, I've had to get used to it again. One of the things that has really struck me is how often things pop up demanding my attention. Networking is constantly telling me something, as is MSN Messenger which I don't use but haven't gotten around to turning off. Security updates and settings are constantly popping up as well.

One of the things on the new Windows Vista is that it pops things up WAY more often. Practically any time you run something it asks if you really want to run it. Change a setting, are you sure? I really feel Apple got it right on their system. It asks me when I know it should but not every time. The reason why the Windows approach is bad is that people get used to clicking "OK" every time so when they shouldn't, they don't know any better.

Hopefully there is a way to turn off all this incessant second guessing by the operating system.

Weather

It snowed here in Texas a few days ago. Hard to believe, huh? The weather was actually below freezing for a few days and there was lots of ice on the roads which caused a lot of accidents. Of course this is an excuse for me to put a picture of my car on the internet.

First look at Windows Vista

I went in to work today and in the mail was our new version of Windows Vista for development and trial. I was installing VMWare so I fired up Vista in it to try it out.

The first thing I noticed is that it is a lot shinier. Notice I didn't say prettier, I said shinier. Everything looks like they put a lot of time into trying to make it look better but it turns out looking like a bad winamp skin. I mean, black for a the taskbar color? And whats up with the goofy shaped start button.

Overall I wasn't impressed. I bet that part of my impression was due to the fact that I've been using Mac OS X for the last year and a half. I didn't really see anything great about it except that some stuff was simplified and streamlined a little. Of course that just means I have to relearn a bunch of stuff. Most of the annoying things about the windows paradigm are still there. Oh, and it was really slow. Probably because it was running in a virtual machine but the host machine was no slouch.

So, should you upgrade to Vista? I haven't used it much but from everything I've read and seen so far, don't bother yet. In fact, don't bother until you get a new computer. And when you get a new computer, get a mac. I promise you won't regret it.

My Next Phone

About 4 years ago when I was out buying my first cellphone (yes, I was a little late), I knew what I wanted out of a phone. I was looking for more than just a phone, I wanted a phone that also had internet and could connect to regular wireless (like a laptop) as well. I looked at all sorts of phones, some of which kind of had the functionality but none really worked that well.

I ended up going with a moderately nice phone that had bluetooth but none of the features I was looking for. They just didn't exist yet. Well...

Apple (my favorite company!) just released what WILL be my next phone. Imagine a device that is a combination of an iPod, miniature laptop, cellphone and camera all combined into a device the size of an iPod with a touchscreen interface and really well integrated. How cool is that? Now I just have to justify it to Ryanna...

New Car?

Yesterday I loaned my car to my dad since his was in the shop (someone hit him going down the alley). I needed the van to take the dog for a walk in the woods and he and mom wanted to check out Ben's new apartment. On the way up there there was a wreck so the traffic was stop and go for an hour. During that time a lady ran into the back of my car. Luckily she wasn't going very fast but there was still a little damage to the bumper. So much for my new car.

Getting Settled in the New Job

I've been working for a couple of days now at my new job and I'm starting to almost feel like I have a clue what is going on. When I was teaching in Bandung, I had a grey Dell Inspiron 5100 that weighed a ton. I can't complain too much about the laptop seeing as I bought it and many more like it as IT Director. When I left though, I wasn't sad to see it go. I bought a sleek little Macintosh Powerbook 12" and have absolutely loved it ever since.

At my new job I got my laptop from them today since I will be doing MS Visual Studio and .Net development. Lo and behold, it is a grey Dell Inspiron 5100 almost identical to my last one. Oh well, I guess I wasn't the only person who bought a bunch of them. I'll be keeping my Mac for personal use though.

New Car

So I picked up a new car a couple days ago. It is a silver 2003 Honda Accord with less than 40,000 miles on it. I really like the car since it is a standard and drives really nice. I looked at the VW Jetta but decided not to get it for several reasons. I'd don't have to drive around my parents van anymore.

Happy New Year Everyone!