As many of you know, I've become a Food Network junkie.  One of the newer shows is a show called Ace of Cakes.  His cakes are amazing.  At the very least, the Food Network inspires you to at least try to be a better cook.  It was my friend Debbie's birthday on Sunday, so I decided to try my hand at decorating a cake.  I'll never be a Duff from the show, but I don't think it turned out too bad.

Before icing...Can you see Tigger?

Have a great Day Internet... 

I'm almost done with the playground.  The twisty slide got installed, the climbing wall and most of the railings.  I just need to finish the railings and put the roof on.  The construction will be done at that point.  Then I'll want to seal it and put pea gravel in for the base.  At least now Alex can enjoy it fully.  I'm running out of Summer as well, so I need to finish it so I can seal it for winter.

That's what I did the whole weekend other than sleep and eat.  How was your weekend?

So why do I have photo's of plastic eggs you wonder.  It's because it's getting close to the time for the chickens to start laying eggs.  They don't know where to lay eggs, so the plastic ones act as a guide.  "Hey chicken, I know I'm a fake egg...but your brain is small...so don't contemplate it...just sit on me until my plastic self hatches a plastic chicken"  As funny as that sounds, that's how it works.  If not, the chickens may be content to just lay their eggs on the ground.  I rather them lay their eggs up high in their nesting boxes where I can just lift the top and grab their eggs.  For those that want eggs, I'll let you know when I'll have some available.

In other news, one of the hens is starting to look like a rooster.  You can just see "her" head poking through the photo on the right side of the photo...hmmm

Have a great day Internet.  :)

Remember how I was talking about a new cool tool that I couldn't talk about yet?  Well now I can.  I've been using a new blogging tool called Windows Live Writer.  It has spell check so no more copying blog posts from Word.  Yes, it works with blogs other than Windows Live Spaces including Blogspot.  You should give it a try.  I like it

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/9/a/f9a19f2d-cec4-4a25-9b0b-eb9655ea7561/Writer.msi 

I've linked the team blog below.

Quote

Introducing Windows Live Writer

Welcome to the Windows Live Writer team blog! We are excited to announce that the Beta version of Windows Live Writer is available for download today.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service. 

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.

Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience. Some of the ones we are most excited about include:

WYSIWYG Authoring

The first thing to notice about Writer is that it enables true WYSIWYG blog authoring. You can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it. Writer knows the styles of your blog such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles. 

Writer also includes other views including HTML source-code editing and web preview mode.

Now you don’t have to waste time going through the process of publishing, refreshing, previewing, and tweaking your post to get it looking the way you want. It’s all right there in Writer as you create your post.

Photo Publishing

Writer makes inserting, customizing, and uploading photos to your blog a snap. You can insert a photo into your post by browsing image thumbnails through the “Insert Picture” dialog or by copying and pasting from a web page.

Once you’ve inserted the picture, Writer provides contextual editing tools to modify size, text wrapping, borders, and apply graphic effects. Writer also allows you specify a smaller thumbnail to that will link to a larger image for detailed viewing.

Photos can be either uploaded directly to your weblog provider (if they support the newMediaObject API) or to an FTP server.

Map Publishing

Whether you are blogging about a vacation or a political conflict, maps are a great help in engaging the imagination of your readers. You can do this using Writer's ability to insert a Windows Live Local map directly into a post.

Even better is that the map can be customized directly within Writer - including changing the view to show road, aerial or bird's eye detail and by adding pushpins (including custom links and/or photos for each pushpin).

When readers click on the map they get a larger view on the Windows Live Local site.

Writer SDK

Already thinking of other cool stuff you want to insert into your blog? Good!

The Windows Live Writer SDK allows developers to extend the capabilities of Writer to publish additional content types. Examples of content types that can be added include:

1. Images from online photo publishing sites
2. Embedded video or audio players
3. Product thumbnails and/or links from e-commerce sites
4. Tags from tagging services

We can't wait to see all the things people cook up with the SDK!  

Compatibility

Writer is a great client for Windows Live Spaces but also works with other weblogs including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress (and many others).

Writer supports RSD (Really Simple Discoverability), the Metaweblog API, and the Movable Type API.

We want Writer to work well with every blogging service out there. If you can’t get Writer to work with your blog, we want to know.

Stay Tuned

We will continue to post updates and other information on the product to this Space in the coming weeks. Please subscribe to our RSS feed or visit again soon to get the most current information on Windows Live Writer.

J.J. Allaire,
Windows Live Writer

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As long as it's nice out, I'm going to work more on the playground.  I want to get the swings up and finish the two towers on the right.  The wood that holds the swings up is a 12 foot 4 by 6.  I can carry it, but I'm not good enough to hold the whole thing with one hand and screw it in with the other.  I'm thinking it's a good excuse to use the tractor.  :)  I can put it on the bucket and raise it to the right height.  I'm not sure what I'll do if that plan doesn't work.  I'm sure I can do something with duct tape, dental floss and a stick of gum.  /Note to self stock-up on gum.  :P

Have a great day and a great weekend Internet.  :)

I went to lunch with friends yesterday over at the Red-west campus cafe.  They now have Ivars upstairs, so I went to try it out.  I got a crab ceasar salad which was actually pretty good.  I'm not sure it's worth $9 though. 

As I'm standing there to pay for my salad, I look over and there is a new cabinet full of stuff you'd find in a hotel store.  Toothpaste, cough drops, toilet paper...WHAT???  Toilet Paper?  What does it mean when your company is trying to sell you toilet paper?  Will they start making us buy our own?  It was Charmin so maybe they are concerned with our sensitive rears.  But if that was the case, why not just supply it in all the restrooms.  Maybe it's for when you sit down and realize too late that there is no more toilet paper.   But really?  Who wants to see me wander down the hall with my shorts around my ankles heading to the cafe to buy toilet paper?

Things to ponder...Have a great day Internet!

Anyone know if dental floss conducts electricity? 

The motherboard on my computer has a small fan that cools the Northbridge chip.  It's always been the noisiest fan.  I've bought everything I can to keep my computer as silent as possible.  I've got a huge Zalman fan on my CPU.  Anyways, I had the computer open the other day to work on Julie's hard drive.  It had dust everywhere so I blew it out with compressed air.  That little Northbridge fan did not like that at all.  It got noisier and noisier.  I looked online and found a Zalman heatsink.   Heatsink=no noise.  All the reviews said it kept the Northbridge chip cool just fine.

I ordered one and it came last night.  I could have sworn the description said you could fasten it with the loops on the motherboard.  This one required holes to screw it in the motherboard.  Not to be outsmarted I took the old fan apart and tried to use the wire clip that held the fan down.  No such luck.  I tried to fasten the heatsink to the motherboard with the fan clip and it snapped.   No problem I thought.  I'll just create another with bailing wire.  That became tougher than I thought it would be.  Then worried that if my new John fashioned clip were to hit the wrong thing, I may have a small fire and a broken computer.  I abandoned the bailing wire idea and came up with the idea of tying it down.  I asked Julie for some thick thread.  As I was going through the different kinds of thread possibilities, I came up with tying it down with dental floss.  It's strong and should do the trick.  So now my computer is held together by dental floss until my new heatsink arrives.  I'm glad they are cheap.  The first one I bought was only $5.

Have a great day Internet.  :)

I think I've posted about my family before but I got an e-mail from my dad today that I'm going to pass along for those that are interested.  My grandfather worked on a little computer called UNIVAC 1.  It's now in a little museum called the Smithsonian.  I sarcastically use the word little because both are HUGE.  I tried to see it when I went back east, but sadly that section of the museum was closed.  I hope to see it some day.

So when my dad got in to computers he was just following in his father's footsteps.  He worked at a place called Burroughs in the 1960's.  Burroughs eventually merged with Sperry to become Unisys.  My dad sent me a link today about Burroughs in the 1960's and mentioned that these were the people that taught him about computers.  I thought it was interesting so I thought I'd pass it along.  I wonder if Alex will also work in the computer industry.

http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/B5000-AlgolRWaychoff.html

I'm testing a new application today.   I can't tell you anything about it other than I think you'll all love using it.  As soon as there is a public beta I'll let you know.

How do you like the new Live Spaces?  I'm enjoying it so far.  If you want to be added to my friends list below, e-mail me and let me know.  :)

I plan on working on Alex's playground this weekend.  I'll take some photo's as I'm working.  I got the last tower standing last weekend.  It still needs a floor and walls, but at least it's standing.

Have a great weekend Internet.  :)