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A cathartic calamity

Please excuse me, this post may seem even more self indulgent than previously thought possible. I have to admit, not having a regular job has been agreeing with me. My brain has been turning over at such a high rate of revolutions that slipping it into gear has proven difficult.

An Aquarian’s brain you see is always having thoughts and ideas. On a good day a vulcan mind meld with an Aquarian could render Spock positively brain stricken. Having a regular job and routine has kept my brain in check but now I appear to have lost the brake pedal.

So let us digress immediately. Let me share some of the things that have been mulling about my head. Share my burden, who knows you might like it.

Online Auction Websites.

To complete stage one of my personal plan it is necessary for me to auction a fair amount of of household items. This has not been without considerable effort. Not being a fan of wheeling and dealing. I can only rationally deduce that;

auctioning more than 4 items concurrently is soul destroying.

exhibit a, enjoy this profound question tendered to me.

“hello i wanna knw can you drop it off adn is there are try. thank p“

Please leave my blog if if that means something to you.

I am managing however. There is a treasure trove of items available right here.

Easily offended people, please note that the adult dvds for sale are merely some clever marketing on my behalf. I know how the internet works. Also if you are easily offended please close the door on the way out.

The practicality of Wizard Robes when touring the world.

When I turned 30 I commissioned the work of a very talented designer for a designer Wizard robe. My previous job did not lend it self very well to Wizardry. To confound things I have been reliably informed by the most reliable person in my life that a Wizards robe is not a very practical thing to take backpacking.

Luckily I have a trump card. I am reliably unpractical. I shall take my Wizards robe with me. If I run out of clean underwear, I can wear my Wizards robe whilst they dry.

What will you do for money?

Sometimes just sometimes my conscience feels brave enough to ask me this. Sometimes my conscience takes the form of boring people who are immune to my spells. I do have my manifesto to fall back upon of course. I am not worried, from writing this very post I know I do not have a future in sales and feel at home in a wizards robe. If that isn’t income security I do not know what is.

Absorbing news can be hazardous to your health

I digest a lot of current affairs and opinion. I love listening to National radio because in between the commentary and interviews one gets to listen to people involved in the arts. However the world is entering a decidedly morose phase. In fact it was with some merriment that one of the h0sts announced today “it w0uld have been nice to have been a caveman and be unplugged from the media”

I do look forward to disconnecting myself from the news. Ignorance is bliss. Especially when one is in a Wizards robe.

The photos arms race

Facebook is a fascinating place to while away y0ur days. There is always something to look at or read. However the sheer amount of photos that go up every second make me wonder if I need a photographer following me about. You see given my considerable literary largess I feel obligated to be my own public relations department. Everyone knows that a picture is worth a thousand words and I am falling behind!

Thats it for now. I actually wrote this lying in bed. Quite often right before I go to sleep my mind is most active. Hopefully we have tired it out for a night.

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Firefox 3.0

Today fellow luminaries of the internet we are going to talk about Firefox 3.0. Please be aware, I have been holed up at home for the last week so the inspiration levels have been lacking. Funny story though, I leapt out of the house to get some filing boxes yesterday and the checkout attendant commented on how good my nails looked. Of course she wasn’t going to comment on my slippers and pyjama pants. But guess what? I was colour coordinated.

Anyway, Firefox 3.0 came out of beta today and it seems like a wholesome well adjusted browser. I have successfully updated my EEE-PC with it and I like it. It has plenty of neat things going for it. I like the new look and it feels a bit more robust. Using a browser on a small screened machine like the EEE-PC means every pixel is important.

Let me show a few screens of what you do when you have a EEE-PC.

This first picture is my standard desktop.

That is a screen size of 800×480. I hide my task bar when I am not using it. I have a few icons on my desktop but its reasonably spartan.

This is how I use Firefox at the moment.

I hide the file.edit,view menus.

I use an add on called personal menu which places all of my menus into some buttons on the right hand side.

If you look at my bookmarks bar you will see that only the icons are shown unless I mouse over them. This is done with an add on called smart bookmarks bar

Bewarned if you are going to upgrade to Firefox 3.0 you will lose your bookmarks. Make a backup of them first. Note, you might find some of your favourite addons are not compatible with Firefox 3.0 yet.

Blogwise. I have been going back and rewriting previous posts. Anna is acting as an editor for my writing as well. I have been known to rush things out the door before. I think I was a factory worker in wartime russia during a past life.

Thanks for the kind words loyal fans. In the space of 24 hours I have had one person email saying how much they enjoy reading my blog. I have also had another person email saying they enjoyed not reading my blog but also voiced support at the same time.

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Add this!

Sometimes its nice to blow other peoples trumpets, just ask monica.

Bad joke I know but its early and I have discovered a useful tool for anyone who has a website. This is also a clever post to data mine some information out of you. See I am hip with the nerds!

Anyway, I have been doing some research on adding a bookmark button to my blog. Some of you, it would appear have memories like mutilated swiss cheese. If you do some googling you can be swiftly innundated with HTML code and Javascript and all manner of complicated, ugly solutions.

I wanted an elegant solution that was easy, powerful and good looking. I wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger. I found addthis.

Let me take a breather from my torrent of jokes. I am literally dieing from laughter.

» Easy Bookmarking & Sharing
» Spreads Your Content
» Removes Clutter
» Fast and Reliable
» Easily Customizable
» For Websites and Blogs
» Completely Free

Sounds good. It is good. In fact if you look to your left you will see my new addthis button. If you sign up for an addthis account you will get free statistics and tracking of who is bookmarking your blog.

Perhaps a not so subtle hint!

I am interested in people who are reading my blog who might have complimentary blogs for me to read. Let me know.

Enjoy your Tuesday everybody!

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You need Balls to Paint your Nails

Seriously. Imagine the rush of euphoria, when just 5 minutes ago it dawned upon me that I can freely paint my nails once more. Painting my nails has in the past served me well. Now, if you are not horrified at this thought then read on.

– I have incredible hands. They are probably my defining feature. Painting the nails on my hands serves to enhance a beautiful sight.

-Painting ones nails is calming. Its a nice thing to do for yourself. The fumes are positively stimulating in a stifling way.

-Once you paint your nails as a man you automatically filter and amicably antagonize boring people. Let me expand upon this.
* Women with poor nails feel threatened and otherwise confused
* Men with issues are confounded by a tall man, with a full head of hair who has radiantly good nails.

-I love primary colours. I am not fashionable in the slightest. I have only one rule. Only a fool breaks the 3 colour rule. Painting my nails in bright primary colours serves to reinforce my only rule of fashion.

-There is some skill in painting nails. Its not easy. If you do a good job of painting your nails, you immediately garner respect from other nail painters.

See. There is method in my madness. Now excuse me. I must paint my nails.

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The Problem with Leaving…

…Is that you have to leave. “Hang on a second, you haven’t actually gone anywhere Dan?” Ah but I have, my mind has wandered. My chi has left the building. My nights are spent dreaming my future. My work induced nightmares have ceased.

4 score years ago -well four years ago but four score sounds more impressive- I proudly proclaimed after weathering the most monstrous moving malaise; “The next time we move it will be overseas!” and this is largely true.

We are moving overseas but to parts unknown. Some of you will recognise the immense satisfaction in not having a physical address. I would put it right up there with being naked, and it is slightly more socially acceptable. Homeless and naked? Well the mind boggles but I will leave that for a future blog.

To have no fixed address you must first rid yourself of your abode. We have sold our house but the internal workings of our house must be distributed amongst our extended tribe. Things have to be dispersed in a logical sequence. Otherwise you might find you have a perfectly functioning tv but no DVD player(apparently, so I have heard)

If you don’t have a fixed address you should not have a fixed job. But be warned. If you do not have a job you might find it tricky to deal with banks and other such institutions. This is nothing a well placed business card can not fix.

If you do not have a fixed address, receiving mail will be challenging. Get friendly with a tree, or other such object which has strong roots and is not going anywhere. Families are great for this. Just make sure it is not a family of snails.

Closing off accounts for various services takes patience. Take the time to settle your accounts before closing them. If you do not, you may find it hard(again so I have heard)

Saying goodbye to everyone is hard as well. Especially when people say goodbye and they do not know who you are. Again use your business card.

Thankfully people are very understanding of the tumultuous times one faces when having no fixed address. This is why the vagabonds and rogues that frequent built up areas; to curse and imbibe chemicals of dubious efficacy are given so much respect. Imagine if they were naked as well.

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Why should you read this stuff?

It appears less than 100% of the internet enabled, English speaking population of this planet are reading my blog at regular intervals. I have set myself lofty goals for the future and increasing my blog adoption rate is a part of this.

Now you are reading this stuff, so are not part of the problem. You are part of my loyal army. We will change the world, one person at at time. I have given this quandary a fair amount of thought this morning in between household chores and speaking with my multitude of personal advisors.

We have mapped out a few strategies which should keep us on target during our campaign.

-Bookmark, Favourite & commit to memory this website address.
-Casually bring up in conversation the url. eg.

Person “Hey Did you see the game last night?”
You “Nah http://youneedtoreadthisstuff.blogspot.com/”

-Visit this blog on other peoples computers and bookmark it for them.
-Print out choice articles and leave them in prominent places.
-Always, always add the url to the what is hot lists that adorn magazines.
-Use my blog as a source for reference material when writing Scientific journals, press releases & books.
-I am not a fan of tattoos or tagging but feel free to tastefully introduce people the wonderment that is my url. Maybe a large, well placed but endearingly casual blimp?

See it is easy. We are halfway there. Yes we can!

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Business Card Swapping

The humble business card is a useful tool. It adds padding to any cashless wallet. It can be folded to create hard origami creations. It can be used as a shiny but ineffectual way of getting your details to someone you admire. In a pinch they can be used to help start a fire. During the 84 stock market crash, brokers were seen adorning themselves in business cards after they had to sell everything.

During my adult working career I have always had a business card. I lie slightly in that I did not have a business card when I took a sabbatical to tend my parents farm for a year. Show me a farmer that has a business card and I will show you a twat.

Anyway in just over a week I shall be unemployed. I have no plans for immediate reemployment. But I decided I needed a business card to tout my future plans for myself. Using all the resourcefulness of a person with two hands I found a website that I could order business cards and promptly ordered 200. These are plastic coated and should not pose a fire risk.

Cool huh! Now my intelligent design(er) readers; of which there are a few, are probably saying tisk tisk at this moment. But a writer has no time to curry favor with designers. We write and things happen. So consider this paragraph as an invitational korma. Do better than I in a timely fashion and I shall be suitably impressed.

Anyway my plan is this. When I meet a suitably interesting, inspiring and intelligent person. I shall present my card. When I meet a person be smitten, breath taken or conclusively capitulated I shall present my card.

Then I got really thinking. What if I presented other peoples cards in addition to my own? What if I asked for multiple cards? This could be a virus of circulating important details the universe has never seen.

Are you not happy you read my blog?

The next time you see me give me your cards!

additional notes

My cards turning up yesterday. They look great.

I used vistaprint.co.nz

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Horseplay?

So there I was taking a 40minute break from poolside living, endless banquet food and dial a drink. It was 7am in the morning, not an altogether disagreeable time for healthy pursuits. I was feeling pretty good with myself when I spied this sign.

Obviously 4/5 recommendations are pretty self explanatory for someone who has visited a place of exercise whilst staying at a hotel. But the third warning is particularly humorous. Horseplay? horseplay conjours up quite a few unsavory gym activities in my minds eye

  • Equine themed roleplay
  • Racing, betting & over the top clothing
  • Overenthusiastic, spastic & plastic commentated proceedings
  • Stirruped, spurred and cropped nonsense

Obviously one should never overestimate the the intelligence of its patrons, even when they are attempting conscience easing healthiness.

More thought provoking writing incoming. I have been waylaid by self serving indulgence….

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Tech Tools for Traveling

I have been researching ways to increase the worldwide infection rate of my smile inducing & thought provoking writing. I have learned with some effort that a moderately successful method is to create link bait.

That is, provide a list of useful links and tools that people will find whilst searching the web and hopelessly smitten with my mind and measure they will return. Hopefully with a friend.

My modest preamble is merely a transparent way of announcing my intentions. In an election year it is important to use the word transparent at least once a day.

Probably a good place to start is talking about my old systems and ways of doing things.

HARDWARE

At home or at work I have had the luxury of

  • A lot of Storage
  • A lot of Memory
  • A lot of screen real estate
  • Reliable Fast Internet

I am a fan of technology. I like my toys. The thought of traveling with out an outlet for my fingers is mildly terrifying.

I knew from lugging my laptop and assorted goodies around New Zealand that small was going to be the order of the day. The MacBook Air beckoned but the single usb port and lack of standard connectors was a turn off.

As alluded to earlier I settled with an EEE-PC but I have been challenged with the following

  • Limited Storage (4gb ssd 4gb HDSD)
  • Limited Memory (512mb ram)
  • Small 7inch Screen


First thing I did was upgrade the ram inside the EEE-PC with a 1gig stick. I may pick up a 2gig chip when I my wife is using it regularly. Form strategic alliances before purchasing tech additions.

I picked up an 8gib Sandisk SDHD card. $53 thank you very much.

I picked up Targus Ultra Portable USB optical mouse with retractable cable. The retractable cable is the clincher. When using a laptop in funny positions having a mouse cable that is only as long as it needs to be is perfect.

I already use a 4gig memory stick. I have ordered a 16gig memory stick which should be able to carry a bit of media on it.

I have my eyes on one of these as elegant way of adding bluetooth to my eee-pc but I think I can manage with out it for now

That is about it for hardware. A backpackers mantra is to not have anything that you won’t mind getting stolen. Somewhat cynical but also somewhat wise.

Software

Having a 4gigabyte system drive poses some interesting challenges. Thankfully there are some fantastic resources for a EEE-PC user. I would recommend all of these if you looking to trim some of the fat off your PC.

Guide on how to get Windows XP down to a 573mb install

  • Uses an iso creation tool called nLite

Xpy

Patch windows holes and nuances. There is a vista version available as well.

Nod32

Sound antivirus software which has served me well. Runs fine on EEE-PC as well!

Xpize

Great way to give XP a new look if you are pining for Vista. It also has some great readability features which are a godsend with a 7inch screen

Turn off your swap file

If you are packing a gig of ram and have followed some of my advice you probably don’t need a swap file anymore. Get rid of it.

If it can run off a flash drive let it

portable apps is a great resource.

I am currently running

portablefirefox

portable version of the ever popular firefox. More firefox goodies later!

free download manager

Very smart file download manager intergrates with flashgot. Will get to that later! Also has a file upload component

foxit a pox upon adobe and the crappy way they handle pdf. Get foxit and free your pc!

skype

Cheap long distance phone calls

pidgin

Why limit yourself to one messaging program when you can

  • AIM
  • Bonjour
  • Gadu-Gadu
  • Google Talk
  • Groupwise
  • ICQ
  • IRC
  • MSN
  • MySpaceIM
  • QQ
  • SILC
  • SIMPLE
  • Sametime
  • XMPP
  • Yahoo!
  • Zephyr

All from inside one small program.

If you can, do it on the web with the web

The web is everywhere. It follows you around. If you save things on the web then they are relatively safe. With a bit of thought you can move most of your goodies onto the web and do a lot of you work from inside an internet browser.

First things first. Sign up for a webmail account from google. Unless you are incredibly paranoid you probably already have a free account from a big provider. They all offer great things for free. Some of the best features of Google include.

Communicate, show & share

Blogger Blogger
Share your life online with a blog — it’s fast, easy, and free
Calendar Calendar
Organize your schedule and share events with friends
Docs Docs
Create and share your projects online and access them from anywhere
Gmail Gmail
Fast, searchable email with less spam
Groups Groups
Create mailing lists and discussion groups
Orkut Orkut
Meet new people and stay in touch with friends
Picasa Picasa
Find, edit and share your photos
Picasa Reader
Get all your blogs and news feeds fast
SketchUp SketchUp
Build 3D models quickly and easily
Talk Talk
IM and call your friends through your computer
Translate Translate
View web pages in other languages
YouTube YouTube
Watch, upload and share videos

One more to add to that list. I have been using

iGoogleiGoogle
Add news, games and more to the Google homepage

For a while as a portal. It is a pretty easy way to setup a webdesktop from which you can start your internet session from.

One of the best benefits of using the web in such a way is that you can move documents, media and even large files online. This has given me more confidence in leaving behind all of my storage.

Google Docs can store important docs, spreadsheets and even presentations.

Picasa can store up to a gigabyte of photos

Firefox add on gspace is very clever way of using your gmail account like hard drive. Mine is six gigabytes and counting.

Flashgot is a great firefox add on for downloading things from the web. It also integrates with free download manager that you installed before.

Yet to be tested on the EEE but…..

If you are like me and subscribe to a few RSS feeds. Do a bit of social networking and often run a few instances of your browser and screeds of tabs.

Flock browser is for you! A bit hard to explain but think of the mother ship browser which pulls everything together in one very slick package.

Go visit the website it has won screeds of awards and comes with my double thumb salute!

Ok thats about me for now. I will do some revisions in the future and add things as they come to mind. I expect once I get on the road I will have a few more insights to share. Feel free to add your suggestions as comments!

Resources

EEEUSER
Google
me

Post Australian Sojourn update

Right so we traversed the tasman. Soaked up the sun and hunkered down for the wet.

My mobile geek system worked well and I have a few ideas for refinements.

Use usb charging cables if at all possible. Did you know most phones and gadgets can be charged with a usb cable? This is a great space efficient way to keep your tech tools juiced up and it means you don’t need to worry about universal adapters and bulky ac adapters.

Work offline. Work offline. Work offline. I burned through quite a lot of bandwidth and money doing stuff online. It is counter productive and expensive. Use the web for backing up or showing off your work when it is ready.

I have found this tool invaluable. HTTrack lets you mirror favourite websites to storage for offline browsing. Download your favourite travel websites before you start traveling and use them off line.

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I will be what I write

As alluded to earlier I have experimented with a wide variety self improvement reagents and disciplines during my time on earth. But one of the most effective and easiest to forget lessons is.

Things that are written down happen.

This is the closest thing to magic I know. It is simple but its simplicity belies the fact that most people do not have the time to write down what they want to have happen. And if they did have the time, they would not know what to write.

Swirling around in the cauldron of my mind. A right royal carnival of colossall calamity has sat silently waiting for me to take the time to write down what I wish to happen.

Consider this blog the moment I uncorked the genie bottle. Broke pandoras box. Lay it all on the table. To quote the erstwhile George Clinton from the 1990 Period piece House Party

“I did it, two tears in a bucket, fuck it, lets take it to the stage”

To juxtapose the planning from rocketry and my writing. I shall lay out the future in a series of stages

Stage One

Store important Artifacts

It is hard to know where I will be in a years time. But even superman has a retreat where his best treasures are kept safe from prying eyes.

Celebrate Friendships

I love all of my wonderful and varied friendships. I do not have the time to see everyone in the capacity that I would like but it will be nice to celebrate them all in one place before we blast off

Leave things in order

Loose ends will be tied. Affairs taken care of. Discombobulations ceased. Maybe a small ceremonial burning of choice chaff

Stage Two

Leave New Zealand

This is where things get a bit loose. Imagine if you will a snowball rolling in multiple directions at once. Getting larger and larger. Traveling at differing speeds, pausing to contemplate and maybe to add to this very blog entry.

Every continent must be accounted for.

But if we must be specific

Thailand
Cambodia
Laos
Vietnam
India
Spain
Italy
Greece
Croatia

Should keep me on my feet for a few months

Stage 3

Write every day.

It is easy to write at the moment. This is because the sun via Gemini is washing over my cranium with thoughtful Gemini like impulses. But writing is a discipline and with some gumption I will develop my writing muscles so I can write like this in my sleep or upside down in a pinch.

Rewrite when I can not write

When my neural strata is spent I shall rewrite past writing with the ferocity of an antagonised ant eater.

Do some good in the world

The world needs a bit of help. I would like to help it. I do not know what I will do but I will do it.

Stage 4

If I get to stage 4 and I have not found a way to help the world through writing and traveling. I will probably need to find employment so I can do some more traveling. I will find a job that both interests me and allows me to work on stage 3.

And that is that. Why did I not write this earlier? Probably because I wasn’t ready too and therein lies my trick.

Kazzam.




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