SeanDareOnline.com

Check the side bar for a new poll about the iPhone. Notice the textual emoticons associated with each answer.

- Sean

Jenn and I are each getting one. ‘Nuf said.

- Sean

I sometimes suffer from bouts of depression. They usually last anywhere from three to six weeks. You will notice that I have been absent from SeanDareOnline.com for a while and…well…you guessed it, I was depressed.

I sometimes wonder if I should go on some sort of happy pill. I understand that it will regulate my depression to a manageable level. On the flip side my depression comes in infrequent waves and isn’t debilitating. It feels more like I really tired and have no ambition or energy. I still make it to work but my drive to complete personal projects, like posting to my blog, seems to dry up during these times. I am curious what you my faithful readership think. Would you suggest I go on medication for depression? If so, would you recommend it to yourself if you felt like I do? I tell you it takes a lot to admit you are “broken” and that you need medical help. It isn’t as easy as it sounds.

All of this to say I am feeling better now and hope to pour out a steady stream of posts that have been bouncing around my head.

Stay tuned!

- Sean

Check out my new Window’s wallpaper!

Jenn says I put him there to scare people away who want to ask questions. I don’t understand what she means, I mean look at him! He’s so cute!

- Sean

As you get to know me you will find that I love primates. Especially gorillas. I am not sure what the following commercial has to do with chocolate, but the gorilla is really cool.

- Sean

As I was getting in the car this morning I heard my cell phone make the “new text message” chirp. After starting the engine I went fishing in my pocket for my trusty Nokia, no small feat for a guy my size. After writhing like a fish out of water in the front seat I finally pull the phone out and read the message. It was a forward about a gas strike proposed for today May 2nd. A gas strike is where you are urged, usually via email, not to purchase gas on a specific day in an effort to strike a blow to the oil companies. Now, in addition to email, the message is being sent via SMS messages on cell phones. It appears this myth knows no bounds.

First of all

Gas strikes don’t work. They can’t. Stop shaking your head and listen for a minute. Cars are symbols of freedom, power and prestige in our country. Everyone wants a car. Even our poor have cars. Cars are so ingrained in our culture that to not have one is considered absurd. In turn, if you have a car then you must buy gas. I know this statement sounds simple, but it doesn’t seem to be sinking in to popular thinking. I am amazed at how much rhetoric I hear about decreasing oil consumption while at the same time the number of cars purchased continues to rise year after year. More cars=more oil…it’s that simple

Not sure what purpose the Air Jelly will serve, but it is pretty fun to watch.

- Sean

Our Church owns a new MacBook Pro for presenting song lyrics and video’s during the service. As I am volunteering in this area I got to take the Mac home for a week to familiarize myself with the controls. After 10+ years as a Windoze…er…Windows user I decided to list the first three impressions I had of the Mac. Wouldn’t you know it all three are positive impressions.

Speed

I clicked on the Apple icon in the menu bar and chose “Shut Down” from the drop down list. A second later the ubiquitous “Do you really want to shut down?” window popped up in the middle of the desktop. I click “Yes” and start counting. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four…the screen goes blank. I lift the MacBook to my ear. I don’t hear anything. I move the mouse, nothing. I look for the light in the Apple logo on the cover, nothing. It is off. Really. OFF! Four seconds! My Dell, which is comparably equipped, except it is running XP Pro, takes something like 30 seconds to shut down! WOW!

I turn it back on, expecting it to take at least a minute. 21 seconds later the Mac has booted and I am opening Safari. TWENTY ONE SECONDS! My Dell takes two minutes! WOW again!

I can’t speak for the other bench marks, as I don’t own any benchmarking software, but the start up and shut down sequences are incredibly quick. If you are anything like me you get frustrated every time you turn Windows on or off, which you have to do frequently, because of the boot up and shut down times. You also know that you have to wait for a Windows machine to shut all the way down before you leave it because sometimes Windows freezes during shut down. I don’t like waiting around for a computer to finish shutting down, and with the Mac I don’t have to.

Installing Programs

Even though I didn’t install any programs to the MacBook itself, remember it isn’t mine, I did install some Mac versions of my favorite portable apps to my USB drive. In particular I added Portable versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, Keypass and Gimp (I later removed Gimp to free up some space) to my USB drive. The process was so simple that I didn’t think I had actually installed anything at first.

Here is how you install a portable app in the Mac world. 1. You download the program. 2. You copy the program to a specific folder on the USB Drive that the Mac thinks is a disk image (easy to set up), 3. Well…you’re done. That’s it. You don’t have to run an installer, you don’t have to choose a directory for the files out of a archaic list in the installer program, you don’t have to worry it was installed to the right place. Once you copy the files you are done. Finished. Kaput! Cool!

Backlighting

Unfortunately this feature isn’t available on all the Macs, only the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. When the ambient light drops a sensor on the Mac not only adjusts your screen brightness automatically, saving battery life, it also turns on the keyboard backlight! If you have ever used a laptop, or any computer for that matter, in a dark room you know how hard it is to see the keyboard. With the Mac you don’t have to worry, the keyboard lights up from underneath. The best part about the way Mac does this, compared to say Dell’s keyboard illumination, is how the backlighting eliminates shadows from your hands when you position them to type.

I can’t wait to get my own Mac. How about you? Will you look at a Mac the next time you are shopping for a PC?

- Sean

Found this gem while waiting for WordPress 2.5 to extract Saturday morning. My Dad and my Brother are engineers. Never owned a cat. The result? Laughed myself silly.

- Sean

Saturday

I woke up at 8:30am Saturday with the expectation that I would spend 2 hours updating my blog from WordPress 2.3 to Wordpress 2.5, then I would spend the rest of the morning writing about how easy it was. Instead I spent the next five and a half hours scratching and clawing my way through the WordPress 2.5 install. It wasn’t difficult per say, it was just looooooong. I left the process with a headache and no inclination to write.

One of the sure fire ways to rid myself of a headache is to take a nap, which I did starting around 1:00pm. Jenn and I woke up from the nap around 4:00. Had set up to hang out with Tom and Brandi Brown from 4:00 to whenever we all got tired, so needless to say we were running late. Got to Tom and Brandi’s around 6:00pm.

The four of us went to a small, family owned restaurant called The Pasta Bowl. The truly amazing thing about The Pasta Bowl is that the italian food served there is actually made by Italians. I can’t even begin to describe how fresh the food is, and how wonderful the staff is, at The Pasta Bowl. If you are in the mood for friendly authentic Italian food, and you aren’t up for the drive to The Hill, then you can’t do much better than The Pasta Bowl. Check out their website for more info.

After an amazing dinner we drove around for a bit then hung out at Tom and Brandi’s visiting until we all were yawning. Jenn and I finally crawled into bed around midnight.

Sunday

Woke up late…again. This time we didn’t make it to Church in time to set up. That frustrates me as we are still a portable church that has to set up and tear down every week and I don’t like letting the other members down. On the plus side I did get to sit at the back during the service and learn how to use the new MacBook Pro we use for putting music lyrics on the screen. Additionally I got permission to to take the MacBook home to learn how to use Pro Presenter. Unfortunately I couldn’t take it with me when we left church because they were still using it for a fellowship event after church. I had to make arrangements to pick it up later that evening.

After church it was off to Game Stop to pick up our pre ordered copy of Mario Kart for Wii, which we still haven’t played yet, and then off to Illinois for our friend’s son’s birthday party. We hung out, ate BBQ, watched the birthday boy open his presents, hung out again, then headed home. Had to stop by Jason K’s house to pick up the aforementioned Macbook Pro. Jason and his Wife Laura invited us to sit down and chat. We ended up spending a wonderful evening laughing and swapping stories with them. Didn’t fall asleep until almost 1:00am Monday morning.

All of that to say that my weekend was packed and I didn’t get a chance to do any writing. I will try to get something down tonight. I wonder if I will have time what with Mario Kart calling from the Wii in the living room.

- Sean