Busy, busy, busy! ZDog out on his own. We went with him to get an apartment; quite an adventure for him as it is his first place! He is now on his own and has even asked me for some advice…maybe I’m getting smarter??!
Breezomatic is back at Kirkwood pursuing her Culinary Arts degree. She likes the classes and I think she will like her social life more this year. She will have a good friend of hers from high school as one of her roommates and another good friend going to school there and living just a few short blocks away.
My brother Michael and his wife are coming to visit this week. He lives in Colorado and doesn’t get back here too often. He and his wife will be arriving here on Thursday and returning to their home on Monday. Ought to be a nice visit.
My dad will have his annual Labor Day party. This year actually has a theme: the Decadent Decade Party. Seems there are enough people that are celebrating decade-type birthdays (30-40-50-60-70 and 80) that Judy coined the name for the party. Sounds like a good time in the making. What with family, friends, LOTS and LOTS of food, plenty of beer and soda, home-grown jammin’ bluegrass music (not my favorite, but definitely good to listen to in person) we ought to be partying from about noon Sunday until some time early Monday.
Hopefully when the weather starts to get bad I’ll have more time to regularly post, but for now it will have to be this kind of hit-or-miss stuff that it has been lately.

A quick explanation here. I use a lot of freeware and open-source software. I used to use shareware as well. I also have a very few commercial software packages on my computer. Each one is different in its own way. I had a co-worker (who works in tech support) who didn’t know the difference between freeware and shareware. YIKES! All of us in tech support should know the difference IMHO. Here is a brief explanation of these different types of software:
Commercial software is software that you buy either on line or in a store. It usually has you enter a registration code of some kind when installing. This registration code is usually within the box that the software is packaged in. The installation will not continue without a registration code. It also usually comes with a printed manual (of varying degrees of help) and sometimes even comes with technichal support for the program, either on line or phone support. When you go to WalMart and buy software, this is what you are buying. There are ways around the registration; there are many crack sites where you can pick up codes of commercial software (of course, this is illegal). Typically this software is the most expensive of its type, but not always. Some people seem to think that commercial software is always the best solution — I am not among those people.
Shareware is software that you can download from various sources: the internet, some commercial CDs, etc. It can be called trial software as you get to try the software before you buy it. The supposition is that you will either like the software and send the author their money or you will not like the software and remove it from your computer. In my experience, the software is usually kept and not paid for. The most famous of these programs is WinZip; how many of you downloaded the program and continue to click the “I Agree” button after your official trial period? Quite a few, I’d guess. There are many ways to get around the so-called nag screens (pay for my software or this screen will come up each time!) the most common is like the commercial software: go to a crack site and get a code (of course, again, this is illegal). Sometimes shareware is deliberately crippled commercial software; crippled in hopes that you will buy the more expensive commercial product instead of the shareware. You can get shareware at many web sites, among them Web Attack and CNet’s Download.com.
Freeware is software that is just that: free. There are no shareware notice screens for you to get annoyed with. My favorite site for freeware is NoNags (called that because there are no nag screens in freeware). There are no fees to pay. I have a lot of freeware on my computer. Freeware serves a purpose in that it usually isn’t the complete multi-purpose suite of products but something that is single-purpose and quite specific. The author of the program usually writes it becaus they need this specific task and don’t like the way commercial software does the task. Sometimes freeware can fall into categories like careware or adware. Careware is free software where the author would like an email or a postcard, just to know you care about the software and like it. Adware is software that is ad supported; it usually has a banner somewhere on the screen with advertisements. I personally avoid adware; there are enough ads on the internet, why download software with ads?
Open Source is software that is free, like freeware, but also supplies you with the source code. For me this isn’t really a great advantage of open source. However, if I were a programmer, this would be a good thing. If I wanted to change a small part of some open source program, I could since I get the source code with the compiled program itself. Open source programs are gaining ground every day in all areas. If there is a commercial software package or shareware package or even freeware package, chances are there is a work-alike in open source software. Sourceforge is one of the larger web sited dedicated to open source software.
I don’t rely on any one type of software. I have some commercial software, some shareware, some freeware and some open source. I am leaning more and more toward freeware and open source simply because the products are getting quite good and I don’t want to spend the money for commercial software (and I hate the nag screens in shareware). Choose for yourself which you want to use, but do the research first.

My goodness. Looks like I am going to have to change my necessary freeware items! I just downloaded and installed the open-source IM, GAIM. From it’s web site:
GAIM is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
Gaim users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time. Gaim supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer, away messages, typing notification, and MSN window closing notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, and more.
Gaim runs on a number of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Qtopia (Sharp Zaurus and iPaq).
I have used Trillian for quite some time now, but it has recently gone the shareware route and I don’t think they will be keeping up the free version as well. At least that is the path that most programs that go from freeware to shareware have taken.

Well, it’s been too long since I did this, but here I go: The Friday Five.

1. How much time do you spend online each day?
Well, as with most things YMMV (your mileage may vary). Lately after work it has been pretty nice outside so I have been doing outside things then. At work, I am on line up to 4 hours per day; usually searching for a driver or on the MSKB to get answers to questions. Once the weather goes bad, I will probably spend up to 3 hours per day on line in the evenings.

2. What is your browser homepage set to?
At work it is our company intranet Sharepoint portal. (I know – BORING, but it’s company policy). At home it is my personal Yahoo! page.

3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
At work we (in the support area) use Intranet Chat; it is a serverless chat client that works on a single subnet. However, this may change as we may be getting company-wide IM using MSN IM. At home, I use Trillian because I chat with folks on different IM clients and Trillian brings them all into one program.

4. Where was your first webpage located?
My first web page was at work; the HON INDUSTRIES HelpDesk web site. My first attempt was a bit lame, but as I learned it became much better. It has since become a unified intranet helpdesk site with help on our standard applications software as well as a portal for printer drivers and certain company-wide applications software links. You can’t get there from the internet as it is behind our company firewall.

5. How long have you had your current website?
My current web site I have had for about a year. My blog site I have had for about 10 months.

Once again, it looks like I have been on vacation. No, I haven’t. It’s just been so nice out that I end up spending time and energy outside and not inside on the computer. I just had this one thing I needed to get out.
Today was our anniversary. KC and I have been married 25 years. Yeah, it sounds like a long time but I don’t see it that way. I see it as another step along the way of our lives together. Yes, it is an accomplishment in today’s society, what with the divorce rate hovering near 50%, but I hope to make it another 25 (at least!).
We celebrated by going out to supper tonight at the Olive Garden. KC and I both enjoy Italian food and there is an Olive Garden in the Quad Cities. Seemed like a good fit. It was an enjoyable evening; we talked a lot about the upcoming months; with ZDog out on his own and Breezomatic going back to school, we set some tentative fall plans.
What, you say? ONLY going out to supper? Well, we couldn’t do much else. KC can’t take any vacation now as it is a contract year where she works and she has been told that there will be no August vacations. We are going to celebrate in February; looks like Cancun! In the mean time we will be happy with enjoying each other’s company and getting great eats!

Yesterday and the day before were the Iowa Sales Tax Holiday; the state sales tax (7%) is not charged on certain goods purchased on those two days. It is intended to help retailers sell their wares in back-to-school sales. For the most part it works. Sales tax is not charged on clothes and footwear. Isn’t it funny how people come out in droves to save 7%? It reminds me of one of the old cartoons made to look something like a newsreel/believe-it-or-not show. They show a store with nylons marked at $4; then they mark the price to $3.95 and folks are jumping over one another to purchase a pair of nylons. Jeez.
I didn’t buy anything over this Sales Tax Holiday. Not that I couldn’t use some new clothes, especially for work, but I didn’t want to fight the crowds in stores that usually have a limited supply of my size if they have my size at all.
I suppose if I had many kids going to school that it would be a time to save up all my purchases for and then go out and spend mega-bucks to get the kids’ school clothes for school. Hey, check out the site and see what is exempt and what is taxed; they have an extensive list.

Why is it that I can get Yahoo! or Blogger or pretty much ANY web site faster than I can get my own blog on Machlink? I don’t think there is an answer to this, I was just asking…..

BLOGGER: “And in the Darkness Blog Them. Now there’s One BlogThis! to support nearly every browser regardless of OS.” And I have it installed on the Links bar of Mozilla! What a tool!

Wow, Busy Mom has a great entry. Check it out! I have used nearly all of the entries she has here. Jeez, am I predictable or what?