I'm in Portland for three days attending OSCON. We have a booth in the exhibit hall this year for recruiting purposes, not at all how I want to spend my free time. On the plus side, I now have new shirts to replace the shredded ones my wife keeps trying to throw out. One of the best talks so far has been by Audrey Tang who gave a lightning talk on ppencode, it's fast paced, flashy and at the same entertaining.

On a side note, I ran into an old friend from college that was working the EFF booth, small world. I've been a member for a couple years now, you should be too.

Update: Friday, July 28, 2006 OSCON is now over and it was a blast. A lot of good was accomplished. I probably won't get into it. Although, I will need to put together a presentation for the Business when I get back. Maybe I'll post it here.

We took Brooke on her first trip this past weekend. We had our reservations, but Brooke surprised us and was on her best behavior. She couldn't have been more behaved. She didn't cry on the plane, she didn't cry in the car and she pretty much let everyone hold her. She also had a great time with Leland and the rest family. Thanks Kevin and Minnie for a great weekend.

Two years finally came and I was able to take advantage of Verizon's "New Every Two" feature to get a new phone, one that works. I opted for the RAZR.

This issue won't go away and it shouldn't. Being a 100+ mile a day commuter in Southern California, I can safely say that most bad drivers are the ones on their cell phones. Studies show it's just as bad as drinking and driving. I'm not a fan of Arnie, but we really need this law passed.

"Schwarzenegger Calls for Banning Hand-Held Cellphone Use While Driving"

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday condemned one of the most prototypical Los Angeles driving practices — grasping a steering wheel with one hand and a cellphone with the other — and gave a strong boost to legislative efforts to outlaw hand-held mobile phones throughout California.
Full Story

I've been reading up on Bluetooth headsets, because my wife opted for the Prius without Bluetooth. The Motorola HS850 Bluetooth Headset seems like the better buy.

• USB Charger
• Small, light weight and comfortable
• 8 Hour talk time/200 Hours standby
• No wind noise
• Can be worn on both ears

Update Saturday, July 29, 2006: The HS850 was a bit of a disappointment once I started using it. The range was piss poor. Putting the phone in my pocket caused the headset to snap, crackle and pop. Good for cereal, not so good for phone conversations. I had to put the phone right next to the headset for the reception to clear-up.

I'm evaluating different blogging software. I found a nice simple blogging package, called appropriately enough, the Simple PHP Blog (Donation Ware). It's file based, so no database needed. Although, from the looks of the code, it can be made to work with a database; it has a decent abstraction layer. I believe in the next release, the files will be XML and not delimited. On the plus side, it seems very fast and efficient. I like the DHTML, expanding blocks, too bad it doesn't save the state and you can't move them around by dragging them. On the minus side, it does not support RSS feed blocks and search engine friendly URLs. But, I've already hacked it to do both. I do really mean hacked, the links are not abstracted, yet, so I've had to make changes to a lot of files.


Next up: Movable Type.

Visit Store Appeal: http://www.storeappeal.com/. Buy something and make yourself happy.

Weight: 19.12lbs.
Height : 27.5"

Taken on: May 30, 2006. Take a look at her other Milestones.

Weight: 19.07lbs.
Height : 27.3"

If your baby needs a little help walking, crawling, rolling or you just need to preoccupy them while you get some work done. You might want to take a look at these items.

Well it's been a month since I tore my achilles tendon and now it's time to go back to work. At least it'll stop me from shopping online, so says my wife. The Dr. recently suited me with a walking cast, which actually hurt more than the injury itself. I think I prefer to work at home, meetings are such a drag. This might get my foot in the door, pun intended, to telecommuting on a regular basis.

Mother's Day is right around the corner. This digital picture frame would be the perfect gift. Need a digital camera for your new digital picture frame? Try out this Canan SD630, it's 6MP in a slim case. An excellent upgrade for the SD400 or great Father's Day Gift.

Weight: 17.13lbs (75%-90%)
Height : 27" (75%-90%)

I just watched "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices" by Robert Greenwald. It's a great documentary, that really brings home what big business is really all about. I've been boycotting Wal-Mart for a few years now and it's been hard to convince other people to do the same. But, with this movie, it became a whole lot easier. Get a copy for yourself.

We recently got the RAZR phone for Verizon. It's pretty impressive. Small and compact. Even at one bar it seems to work pretty well. It has bluetooth, which works with OSX with some third party help. The charger and data port is a USB 2.0 port, so you can just plug it into your computer to charge. The software isn't that great, but functional. I'm not sure what the battery life is really like, but my wife has had it for two days and has not had to charge it yet. The buttons are a little small for my giant thumb, I've already got a blister from just entering phone numbers.