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GitHub as Blogging Platform Testing GitHub as Blogging Platform

M's First Soccer Practice

2010-05-01 00:00:00 -0400

Emma had her first soccer practice today. It was a beautiful morning for it - well into the 70's by the time we left, I believe. I was happy to see how friendly the coaches were and patient with the children. I think this will be a good first introduction to soccer. More importantly, it will keep her active and healthy. Its great for my health too. With the exception of having to be on the field by 8:30, I get a lot of enjoyment out of watching the kids.

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LaLa Music Service to be Discontinued May 31

2010-04-30 00:00:00 -0400

Cross-posted from my Macinrpise blog:
http://macinprise.iduprey.com/lala-music-service-to-be-discontinued-may-31

Boats and Turtles...

2010-04-25 00:00:00 -0400

Emma asked a great question this week, "Why do boats float?"  I said "Great question!"  Then I started to ramble about buoyancy and realized I had no coherent explanation myself.  So I googled it, then she and I performed experiments.  In a nutshell, the way I explained it to her is:

  1. Things put in water displace the water.  (Good examples were of her in the bath tub.)
  2. For something to float, it must displace the same amount of water, in weight, as itself.
 
I attempted to demonstrate the buoyant force be putting a large measuring cup of water on our scale and showed that if I pushed a smaller bowl into the cup flat side down, it displaced more water and caused more buoyant force than if I put it in edge first, letting the water enter the bowl.  This was reinforced by the numbers on the scale.  I think this was largely lost on her.  Then we took 2 pennies and weighed them - 1/8 oz.  I asked her if we put them in the water, would they float.  She said no.  Then I let her test it out.  They sank.  I then tried to get her to figure out a way to make them float.. I rambled on about melting them down and making a shape that would displace more water that I don't think she got.  Then we used some aluminum foil and played around with making boats to see which shapes, etc. would work and which didn't and talked about why.  Its too early to tell, but maybe she got it.  We also talked about the guy who figured out why boats float - Archimedes.  What fun she had in mutilating his name.  :)

Emma also offered to help me out at work.  I asked her if she could program and she said no, so I offered to teach her.  She had her first Logo lesson this weekend.  Logo was the first language I was introduced to in Elementary school - on an Apple II.  I only had a few lessons before they stopped for some reason, but I remember the excitement I had for programming even back then...  

Here is a house we made:

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She was mostly interested in seeing the pictures *I* could make rather making her own, but its a start.  I introduced "functions" (making your own commands) and "variables" - there's a powerful concept to grok early on!  She really enjoyed the "box" function I created along with the repeat command to iteratively draw the boxes.  She insisted on printing those to take to class.  :)
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These pictures were made with ACSLogo for the Mac.  Its a great free program.  I have to admit, I was still playing with it well after Emma had run off to play with her friends.

The gods Must Be Angry: "More from Eyjafjallajokull - The Big Picture"

2010-04-23 00:00:00 -0400

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via boston.com

The gods must be angry! This article has some really stunning photos.

Skype - A Great Way to Chat

2010-04-11 00:00:00 -0400

Many of us at work started using Skype to IM and to be able to look at each other while we talk.  Skype allows voice, video chats and even allows you to share your desktop.  While the desktop sharing is not so useful due to the visual quality, its just fine for lossy video and sound.  The encrypted chats are a nice alternative to our internal, and proprietary, chat system which barely supports Macs.  (Nearly half our group is using Macs now.)  We still use WebEx for our larger meetings, presentations etc which also supports video and desktop sharing.  With Web-Ex the desktop sharing is actually useable and you can have more than a two-way video conference.  I believe WebEx supports up to four.?  We also have a professional video/telepresence solution called LifeSize.  

I'm thinking of getting my relatives to use Skype now too.  It is so easy to connect with full voice and video.  Skype is free to use so that cost of entry is a download and install.

As with e-mail, the web, and all your other Internet facing apps, there is an element of spam and phishing and other hazards to look out for.  Just this morning I had a chat message from "Request Support" that indicated I had a "Windows" problem that needed my attention.  Funny, because I don't use Windows anywhere!

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I was a little surprised that I got this message because I thought that I had set permissions to only allow IM's from people in my contact list.  I hadn't!  So the first thing I did was change that:

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The next thing I did was right click on "Request Support" and blocked them and I checked "Report abuse from this person": 

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Out of curiosity, in a sandboxed environment, I went the the web site this phishing scam was trying to get me to go to:

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It produced a window that looked like a genuine Windows scanner of some sort, faked progress, then reported I had all sorts serious problems.  Then they dump you to a "shopping cart" etc. etc.  Nothing notable, really, just be ware that Skype has the same pitfalls the rest of the 'Net has.  Set your permissions accordingly and you will be insulated from much of it.  As always don't click links from strangers!

Feel free to add me to your Skype list!