Outlook on your desktop

I am constantly switching between email and my calendar while at work. For me I may have a full day of 30 min to 1 hour meetings, or some scattered throughout the day.

I saw this great tool called Outlook Desktop:

Michael Scrivo’s Personal Site – Outlook on the Desktop

Wow…What a great tool. It displays your calendar, tasks, email on your
desktop transparently. And, the applet is fully interactive. I
originally thought this would be a view only image, but its not!

Great job Michael.

Python Modules and Packages

This is one of those days where I had to look up something I knew to make sleep better tonight. Maybe the brain cell that stored this information is acting flaky or I expelled it one night at the bar. In any case it was time to review that tricky __init__.py along with Python modules and packages.

Netflix saves me money

Wow…how often is it that you receive a note, letter, email from a company that the price is going down…

	Dear Mark,Great news! We’re lowering the price of your 1 DVD out at-a-time plan to $8.99 a month plus applicable taxes. Now you can enjoy Netflix for less! You don’t need to do a thing – except pay less. Your membership will automatically move to the lower price and be reflected in your Membership Terms and Details. The lower price will take effect beginning with your statement on or after July 23, 2007. Your $8.99 plan not only gives you 1 DVD out at-a-time but you can also watch 9 hours of movies and TV episodes instantly on your PC each month – for no additional charge. Enjoy! Your friends at Netflix

Now if the electric, gas, water, garbage, car payments, mortgage companies would all fall in line and offer an amazing discount as well…

QT by Trolltech

Qt-Apps.org and Qt-Prop.org was launched back in April.  I’ve always been a fan of QT development since I wrote my first QT application for the iPAQ using QTEmbedded.

When is a Tattoo not a Tattoo?

I read this story and am a bit stunned how simple the solution for non-permanent tattoos really was. I’m not promoting or strongly against tattoos. To each his/her own. I do like the idea that a tattoo can be more easily removed if that someone happened to get a tattoo in Daytona Beach, Florida during Bike Week. I’m not releasing any names.

Researchers Develop Regret-Free Tattoo

I know…right now your thinking. Either way not me. But think about the applications. Movie stars can get tattoos for their next role. And one day when/if it is affordable enough, younger teenagers will get them at a younger age too, because…well they are not permanent. Don’t agree? Yeah, well I never thought I would of heard young girls getting breast implants in high school either. It wasn’t around when I was in high school…and I’m not that old!

Fair tax rally

A rally was held in Georgia in support of Fair Tax, a move to rid the United States of the annual cumbersome tax return due April 15th each year. Sen. Saxby Chambliss went on to point out it would take nearly 10 years of rallying to get such a change.

Whenever I look back at the end of a new year and go, wow that went fast.  I will count down the years for this fair tax.  I can be hopeful that our children one day will have a better government system in favor of the citizens who are honest workers.

Gizmo vs Skype on Linux

I have been working hard on a project with a colleague of mine who lives about six hours from me. Initially we spent a lot of time talking on our cell phones. But talking on cell phones some times in a house ends up plaguing you with disconnects.

We decided to use a voice over IP product. I was leaning towards Gizmo, and he wanted to use Skype. He wanted to use Skype because all of the people he knew or needed to talk to were already on Skype and it was yet another application he had to install and run on his computer.

Django’s newforms

I was working through a file upload form using Django’s newforms. I wanted a file upload field with a custom size attribute similar to:

<input id=”id_file” type=”file” name=”file” size=”45″ />

The problem was trying to figure out how to specify the “size” attribute. Finally after wasting enough time I googled and found Ben’s blog posting. It seems Ben also was frustrated in trying to figure out how this worked. This is very new stuff (newforms), but I hope the Django authors get the documentation fleshed out a bit more sooner than later. BTW…the documenation page on newforms is here.

Here is a sample of my file input form field with a size specified:

file = forms.Field(label=”Resume File”, required=True, widget=forms.FileInput({‘size’: 45}) )

XBOX 360 continues Microsoft true legacy by producing a new lemon

I happened to see this article…

Xbox 360 Repairs Will Cost Microsoft $1B

…and I can’t help but to wonder.

Transformers

Went and watched the movie Transformers with my son today. I haven’t read a single review on the movie, but I have to admit, I loved it. It reminded me of when the Transformers first came out or I first began playing with them as a kid.

I’m no kid anymore…but yes they do have items in there for the dads taking their sons. Did I mention Megan Fox? Wow…

The one liners, ill-fated moves on the pretty girl, parents embarrassing their teenage son…the list goes on. Ahhh…it was a flashback to the past. Plenty of laughter in the audience.