Dress up your doll with drag and drop

There are lots of ways to create a character online -- you can participate in role playing games, create an alternative identity and roam around in chat rooms and on MySpace, or you could get involved with Dress Up Games and Dollmakers at TheDollPalace.com. TheDollPalace has all kinds of tools you can use to build your own dolls and avatars. The tools are easy to use -- choose a style, drag and drop some clothes and accessories, then save your doll. You can use it in contests on the site or as an avatar in chat rooms or on MySpace. The tools all run in your browser, so there's nothing to download. You can also share stories about your dolls or get help from other doll makers in the discussion boards.

Beta Blogger allows blogging from Google Docs

I use Google Docs quite a bit as well as Google Reader. I noticed today that it's now possible to blog from Google Docs to Beta Blogger. That's very nice! Google Reader must be next. I don't want to say I had this idea myself, but I did...

Wedding favors that burn

Do someone a real favor and give some candle wedding favors at your next wedding. Giftsandotherwise.com have got some nice candles to choose from, and when everyone else is getting chocolates or flowers, you'll stand out by giving a fabulous candle. The Champagne Gel Candle would be my first choice. It's unique and it looks great. My only concern is that when Uncle Joe has had a little too much to drink, he might mistake it for a real glass of champagne and end up sucking down some candle wax and a wick and need to have his stomach pumped. That won't happen with the Palm Tree Candle which will add a nice tropical feeling to the table. However, the same kind of faux-pas could happen with the Wedding Sampler Chocolate Candles, which look like real chocolate but taste like real candles if you actually eat one. Whatever kind of wedding favor candle you'd like, check out Giftsandotherwise.com.

Blogger Beta funny business

When I publish or delete a post in the Blogger Beta, it says "Sorry we were unable to complete your request" but it actually did complete my request. Not a good thing for the user. Incorrect feedback leads to more clicking and publishing and deleting.

Cal loses, no BCS

Cal lost to Arizona in a close one, 24-20. It looked like they were going to win with about 2:18 left when they had a touchdown called back because the guy stepped out of bounds. After that, they moved the ball a little bit but ended up giving it up on an interception. Too bad. They are 8-2 now, and face USC next week in a game that should still decide the Pac-10 title. They were ranked 8th today but that is going to change. Maybe if they beat USC they can get back into the top 10, but with so many 1 loss teams it may be tough.

What the fuchsia?

Ever wonder what exactly a fuchsia is? If you are like me, you thought it was a color and you probably couldn't even spell it right. Treedazzled has lots of fuchsias and things related to fuschia. A fuschia is actually a very nice flower, as you will find out if you check out the fuchsia books on TreeDazzled. Enlighten yourself about fuchsias on this nice looking website with all you ever need to know about fuchsias.

Shine a flashlight on that

Every home can use some flashlights for emergencies like earthquakes, hurricanes, and power outages. It's good to have a few handy just in case. OpticsPlanet.net has lots of flashlights, including headlamps, pocket models, LED flashlights and more. They carry top brands like SureFire, StreamLight and Pelican and they offer free shipping on orders over $29.95 via UPS.

All the flashlights are discounted and with such a great selection, you can find what you need. OpticsPlanet also carries all kinds of other stuff like binoculars and cameras and more, but flashlights are great as holiday gifts. Check out the selection of Maglites, those small and high quality flashlights which are very solid and shock resistant and come in a range of sizes. Keep a few of them handy for the next earthquake here in California or the next time your power goes out. Or maybe you need something more heavy duty like the SureFire L5 Lumamax LED CombatLight Flashlight L5-HA-WH which goes for $189 but lasts for thousands of hours. Take that one on your next trek into the wilderness and you won't have to worry about getting back home safely.

Flashlights are great tools and you may not notice them until you really need one, but plan ahead and check out what they have at OpticsPlanet.net before it's winter.

Looking for a tablet PC?

Tablet PC Reviews

I almost bought a tablet PC about 2 years ago but waited too long and missed out on a great deal. Tablets have some nice features and have really improved their battery life and performance. Tablet PC Reviews is a site which stays on top of developments in the tablet PC world. They have reviews on tablet PCs like the HP Compaq TC4400 which is currently the most popular tablet on the site. Reviews are extremely thorough, with complete specs, lots of large photos and performance testing. If you need to compare tablets, this is the place to go. There is even a page devoted to deals on tablets. Overall, Tablet PC Reviews is an excellent source of information about tablets. If I do decide to get a tablet, I'll check out this site before I buy one.

Backing up the blog and website

After enduring the latest outage with Vizaweb -- 36 hours -- I realize how essential it is to have a weekly backup of everything on my site. There's no automated way to do it that I know about, although there must be some way to do that. I'm going to have to back up things myself every week at least because the pain I would have to go through without a backup would be too much. It has made me realize how important it is to have a reliable host. Vizaweb has generally been fine but they often don't respond to email and don't communicate well. That's not a good thing when it's not working.

ViaTalk for Voice over IP phone service

Voice over IP services are popping up all over the place and they sure offer better deals than I get with my local phone service which is rock bottom and gives me nothing other than the ability to call people in about a 20 mile radius for $16 a month. The ViaTalk service costs about the same -- $15.95 a month, with 6 months free -- but they offer so much more. Included are unlimited calls in the US and Canada (I don't know anyone in Canada, but I could make some friends), callerID, call waiting, and more. Unlimited calls for $15.95 is a nice deal even if you are using your cell phone for long distance. The service is available in all 50 United States, in 2200 metro markets. My market isn't one of them, but that might change as they expand. You can check to see if ViaTalk is in your location by using this page with a handy map. The complete list of services, and it is a pretty long list, can be seen here.

The quality of VOIP has really improved to the point where, for me at least, it is indistinguishable from standard phone service and much better than my cell reception.

School Board changes

Maybe people just don't think educators are the right people for a school board. None of the educators in the race won. The winners were a fire captain, the owner of a business which sells fire fighting equipment, and an accountant. Each is a parent, which may be the motivation for most people to be on the school board. I think I need to start attending the meetings and getting involved at more than my local school level.

PE.com has a wrap up on the victory by fire captain Vince O'Neal.

Supersize your videoconferencing with LifeSize

I've used a few videoconferencing systems and they can vary in terms of the quality and ease of use they offer. LifeSize.com has some very nicely designed Video Conferencing Equipment which offers very high quality audio and video. The video is 1280 x 720 pixels at 30 frames per second, which is excellent. You can set up a demo of their product to check it out or read more about it on their site.
Video Conferencing System

Nothing here any longer

Post removed.

Vizweb dead in the water this time?

Vizaweb's DNS servers got hacked again. Second time in two months. The last time they were out for 3 days. So far, it's about one day, so no email and no access to my sites. I should have learned my lesson and switched to another provider. If I can get to my stuff this time, I will do that. My old Quicktopic discussion on Vizaweb is still active. I hope this isn't a permanent outage, but it also doesn't seem like they learned anything from the last time since there has been no communication from them at all. People who didn't leave last time are probably thinking harder about it now. I know I am. They promised some compensation for the last outage but have not delivered and there has been very little in the way of communication.

Bull Riding is no bull

If you can get PBR Finals Tickets -- to the Professional Bull Riders World Finals, you are in for a wild ride. Bull riding is a crazy sport, with lots of action and the potential for some serious hurts put on the riders by the bulls. Those bulls are huge and they move fast, so even though the riders only have to stay on for a short period of time, it is very difficult to do that. That's one of the reasons why I leave the bull riding to the professionals and don't try to do it myself. If you can get a seat close to the ring, you will hear the grunts and groans and almost feel the pain of the riders.

Adriano Moraes from Brazil won the title this year of biggest prize winner, with more than a million dollars for riding bulls, which is no bull. The finals were held in Las Vegas over the past couple of weeks at the Thomas and Mack Center and at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. Start planning for next year's finals now so you don't miss out. Bull riding is a real spectacle with some crazy stuff going on. I like to watch the clowns who run out and try to distract the bulls while the riders get out of harm's way. That is not an easy job. Don't be a rodeo clown, get out and watch an event like the Houston Rodeo, which is coming up February 27 - March 18th at the Reliant Center. Rodeo Houston is the world's largest rodeo event and has more than a million spectators, so Professional Bull Riders tickets may be hard to get.

Rumsfeld Force Quit

This image is a nice summary of Bush throwing Rumsfeld to the lions. If I was betting on the next person to leave, I would go with Dick Cheney who was equally as hard line as Rumsfeld and also seemed to never admit a mistake. However, he's the Vice President and they almost never quit, so he's probably not going anywhere. I bet his wife isn't calling up Nancy Pelosi for a lunch date, however. Maybe Karl Rove should quit. Or at least explain what he meant when he said to the NPR reporter about the polls before the elections that you have "your math", but I have "the math" and my math says it's going to be a Republican victory. Not quite.

Free free free

If you like free stuff, and who doesn't, Freebie Fanatic has you covered. The site has a huge list of categories of free stuff and links to places with free stuff like free education stuff, free food stuff, clothing for free and more. Lots of stuff is free! There's a section on computer freebies and one for free wedding stuff. How about some free audio books to keep yourself occupied when you're not busy searching the web for freebies? Maybe some free Metamucil to keep yourself regular if you aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables? You might even get the fruits and vegetables for free if you get lucky. How about a free trade magazine like InfoWorld?

School Board results disappointing

My Vizaweb site has disappeared again, so I've got no place to blog but here.

The Temecula Valley School Board race had a disappointing outcome. Two incumbents were re-elected and one new person joined the board. Top vote getter only got 4813 votes, which seems very low in a city with close to 100,000 people. I guess not too many people get involved in the School Board race. The disturbing thing for me is that the people who had the new ideas, at least from my perspective, did not do well at all. In fact, the guy whose platform was to recover money lost to children of illegal aliens and to void any curriculum not meeting his standards got more votes than the people who were pushing more art and music in the curriculum and more parental involvement. Also, the people who are actually working in the field of education did not get elected.

Bob Brown does support arts and music and he was re-elected, and so does Vince O'Neal, who was the only newcomer elected, so maybe people didn't overlook that entirely.

Candidate's positions were summarized here.

One real disappointing thing was that I got one of those automated phone calls for 3 of the candidates. Unfortunately, it came this afternoon, 18 hours after voting ended.

Not just for inventors

Are you an inventor or maybe just someone who likes inventions? Or maybe you're a business owner who would like to license an invention for sale or as part of another product. If you'd like to keep up with what's happening in the world of inventions, the Invent-Tech Network is a website for inventors and all things related to inventions. The home page is where you will find the
Invention Blog from Invent-Tech, a source of breaking news, updates on what's happening with the Invent-Tech Network, and the latest on new inventions, trade shows, and licensing agreements. The blog is updated frequently by Juan. C. Blanco, Invent-Tech's Director of Product Licensing. Juan writes about his experiences at invention related trade shows and the ins and outs of licensing inventions to third parties. Trade show buzz is one of the blog categories, so if you'd like to see all the invention trade shows, Juan has you covered pretty well. He even includes photos from some of the events. If you read his blog entries, you get an idea of what kinds of things companies are looking for -- toys, health and beauty products, automotive products. Someone's got to come up with new product ideas, and that might be you.

Juan's blog also highlights inventors in the news. He links to stories about inventors and their products, things like The Golf Training Aid, invented to help golfers improve their putting skills. Or how about the Car Recorder, a device to help elminate confusion during traffic accidents. For people who like to customize their cars, you can read about the Esrever Rims or Parallel Tires, which help you parallel park. You won't need to buy that high priced Lexus to let your car park itself. Juan's got lots of interesting stuff about inventors and their inventions on his blog. Check it out to see when the next licensed product by Invent-Tech hits store shelves. Maybe it will be an idea you came up with!

Vizaweb disappears yet again

I probably should have learned my lesson with the first outage with Vizaweb, my web provider. That lasted 3 days or so and was highlighted by a real lack of communication from Vizaweb. They still have never followed through on their promise to compensate users in some way for the outage. That's fine, but today my email is not working through vizaweb today, my website is not accessible, and vizaweb.com is also not responding. This may be the final signal that I need to relocate...

Dippy Chick stuff

Dippy Chick is a company started by Christine Hanisco a couple of years ago in New Hampshire to sell dip mixes and "Squirrel Bait" snacks. Both products are gluten free. Christine and her sons have Celiac Disease, which means they get sick if they eat gluten (a protein in wheat, barley, rye and some other grains). It can be difficult to find gluten free products, so this is a nice option for people who need them.

Christine also donates to various charities, so it's an all around good thing to shop on her site.

Top 10 Web 2.0 lies

SFGate has a top ten list -- the Top 10 Lies of Web 2.0. My favorites:

#4 Online advertising will pay for everything. As if click fraud is any kind of a threat.

#5 These sites are so easy, my mother could use them. And they're so geeky, she has no interest in even trying.

but of course, the real problem is that

#2 This is not a bubble. Hot parties, overheated PR pitches, and five or six dozen social networking sites are just healthy indicators of a new boom.

It seems to be getting a little crowded with all these free sites to share photos, make videos, record you voice and pay for everything with Google Ads. Some of them are not going to last.

Use your voice over and over

If you make your living with your voice, and not just by using it to yell at your kids, but to actually speak clearly and articulate your words properly while you read something someone else has written, Voice123.com may be for you. Voice123.com specializes in voice overs for all kinds of voice over project. If you are a voice talent who is looking for work doing voice overs, they've got job listings for lots of interesting work -- business podcasts, commercials for radio, tv, and the Internet, documentaries, audiobooks, and even voicemail recordings. Employers are looking for old, young, and middle aged men and women who speak English, Czech, and Spanish. Speaking French might help too, because you never know when someone's going to need something for the Quebec market or for some kind of food commercial where you need a French accent to say it right. If you are a voice over talent, you can also register on the site and get automatically notified when projects which fit your talents come available. You don't pay Voice123.com to list your services -- the client pays you directly. They've even got a voice auditioning system called SmartCast which will help match you up with potential jobs. Check out the testimonials from satisfied voice over job seekers looking to do voice overs.

Weird hot weather

It was really hot here today. Over 90 degrees is pretty hot, especially in November. I hope this doesn't last too long as I was starting to enjoy the cooler weather. We get enough heat from April to September, it's time for a break.

Save money on your home purchase in Dallas

Buying a home is an expensive proposition, and considering the money you are going to put into it, saving a few bucks on the deal can be a nice thing. AlCan Realty Partners, LLC offers buyers a 1.5% rebate on their purchase of a home in the Dallas Real Estate market. You get the 1.5% cash rebate at closing, so on a $350,000 home, you would get back $5250, which is a nice amount. Buy yourself a hot tub with that or pay for a couple of months at Stanford for your child. Better yet, send your child to Rice University over in Houston, where it's free. If you are interested in Dallas Real Estate check out the buyer rebate program at AlCan, while YouCan.

Fremont A's not such a good idea?

Ray Ratto's not onboard with the A's moving out of Oakland. His story is that they would rather move to San Jose, but because that city has lots of political problems, it would take way too long to build a downtown stadium there, making Fremont the next best choice. Actually, he says Oakland would be the second choice, but they have the same problems as San Jose and can't make a move fast enough. Fremont has no downtown, says Ray, just sprawl, but they are eager for the stadium and that's that.

Read about your family name

If your family name is Roosevelt or Gates, you may already know the history and origins of your name. For other people though, learning about your family name could be an exciting piece of history.

Our Name in History creates a personalized book about your name, with information about the origin, literacy statistics, Civil War allegiance and distribution of the name throughout the United States. Every book is custom-printed and personalized for you when you order it.

2nd test

another one

Oakland A's moving to Fremont

It looks like the A's will finally get out of Oakland. SFGate says they are going to Fremont to a new ballpark on land now owned by Cisco. Will they become the Fremont A's? I doubt it. Maybe they'll stay as the Oakland A's or become the Bay Area A's. They deserve better than they've gotten in Oakland -- many winning seasons and very few fans. There are more people in the south Bay who will go to games in Fremont, speaking from the experience of living in San Jose. More money, more people should mean a better stadium and better team.

S3 and OpenFount InfoMirror

If you are buying some online storage using Amazon.com's S3, take a look at Openfount InfoMirror. It's a system which provides online backup, file sharing, data synchronization, and file mirroring application all in one, at a reasonable price compared to the alternatives, which can be pricey if you've ever checked them out. OpenFount even has iTunes backup so you can save all your music quickly and easily. Check out the screencast. OpenFount InfoMirror is an AJAX application, so it runs on any platform. You can compare prices with similar services using this handy chart. The site also has a blog if you want to track what they are doing, and some nice screencasts so you can see how things work even if you don't have an S3 account yet.

Soccer playoffs start tonight

They don't waste any time between the end of the season and the playoffs. The season ended Saturday and the playoffs start tonight in the under 10 division. 4 games, 8 teams. The winners play Wednesday and then the final is Saturday. So after a 10 week season of one game per week on Saturdays, you play 3 games in a week, two of them at night and have no time to practice. It should be exciting anyway.

Waiting on the MacBook Pro

I started to get impatient last week waiting for my MacBook Pro to arrive at work. I've been using an old no-name Windows computer and my 12" Powerbook G4 to get my work done. The problem is that I can't put the Powerbook on the network unless I use wireless and I can only do that outside. So I've been doing some work on the Windows PC and other work outside. There's some other software and hardware I'm also waiting on and it's making it a pain to get some things done. The IT department told me the MacBook Pro won't ship until Nov. 16th, which means another two weeks without it...What's taking so long? by then I will have been on the job 6 weeks without the right equipment to do my work.

Heritage Cities in England

England has a very rich and long history, which makes it an interesting place for the traveller who wants to do a little more than be a tourist. Heritagecities.com is a new website with information about Britain's Heritage Cities. These include Bath, Brighton, Chester, Oxford, Stratfort and York. With more than 5,000 buildings listed as architecturally meritorious, Bath UK is an exciting place to visit, one of the finest cities in Europe. Brighton, made famous for me in Graham Green's Brighton Rock, is a coastal city with a great beachfront and lots of shopping. I have been there myself and enjoyed it. Oxford is known for architecture and the world famous university. I've also been there and although it was a little rainy, it's a place worth visiting.

Heritagecities.com is a colorful and informative website. Illustrated with lots of photos and full of useful and practical information, it's a great place to check out before you plan your visit to the UK.

PS3 in ten days

SFGate has a long article about the new Playstation 3, coming to the U.S. on November 17th. At $499 and $599, it's very expensive. Sony hopes that people will appreciate the fact that it includes a Blu-Ray DVD player, which currently sells for around $1000. I don't know about that since those players should start dropping in price quickly and the PS3 probably won't drop too fast. With a limited supply available, the price will stay high and they will be for sale on eBay at even more than list price since so many people won't be able to get them. I have seen only one review of a PS3 game and it wasn't very positive. The game didn't take much advantage of the 1080p resolution. I'm sure there will be some great games eventually, but I think we will wait before buying the PS3. At least I'm hoping we will wait...

I have had a few loans

The big loans I've had are a mortgage, second mortgage, refinance as well as car loans. In the case of the car loans, the price is a little too high for a payday loan or personal checks, at least for me. I don't have that kind of money available. I usually set things up ahead of time with my credit union on the loan and then if I'm buying my car at a dealer, I see if they can do better. Many times they can, but they also may have some contingencies which they don't always cover in great detail. One guy lied and told me I had to take some accessories on the car or I couldn't get the lowest loan rate. It wasn't legal to do that, I found out later. Once you get the loan, you may need lots of checks to pay it each month, and checks in the mail is a good way to get checks at a nice price. You can order personal checks online and save yourself some money when you need to make payments on your loan.

Athletes and their political contributions

I was surprised by the listings on newsMeat about the political donations made by athletes and people in the sports world. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that so many people with lots of money give their money to Republicans, but some of the choices surprised me a little. Peyton Manning supports that guy Corker in Tennessee, okay, but golfer Paul Azinger gave $4200 to the Katherine Harris for Senate campaign in Florida? That doesn't qualify as good judgement in my book.

It's an interesting website which tracks all contributions greater than $200 since 1977.

An engaging website about diamonds

Engagement Rings are something most people don't think about too often, but around the end of the year holidays might be one of those times. With something as important as an engagement ring, it's a good idea to look around and see what's available in your price range and to have a good idea of what you want to do before you get talked into more ring than you can afford. DiamondsUSA.com is a nice website with lots of information about engagement rings as well as other diamond jewelry. They will help you find a good deal and they can also help educate you on the process of buying diamonds.

portable tablet using a Mac Mini

I've been thinking about buying a Mac Mini to use as a home entertainment center, but I think I'm going to wait until January and MacWorld to see what else comes along. Something I never thought of was using a Mac Mini as a portable computer. Peter Green has rigged up a touch screen with his mini and built a stand. It looks nice and he's got a battery which will run it for 3 hours. He's got photos on his own site and there is an article about it on TUAW.

Help with Federal Grants

Some people complain that the U.S. government is always giving away too much money for all kinds of stuff. Why not check it out and get your fair share? You can find federal grants and loans at FederalGrantswire.com, a free service which helps you find grants by type, name, Federal Agency or by subject area. Check out the Department of Education grants, for example.

YouTube and the elections

The LA Times has an interesting item today which doesn't seem to be online. It's called Sticky Tapes and it lists 6 politicians who have been impacted by videos posted to YouTube. George Allen, Joe Lieberman, Bob Corker, Tramm Hudson, and Conrad Burns are the people involved and they've had both positive and negative results from videos posted either by themselves or by opponents. Allen has some serious problems thanks to his videotaped attack of a staff member of his opponent. It will be interesting to see if he loses after the ugly stuff about him came out. It may or may not be enough.