The New Year first day

Our day started out around 7:30 am today when the phone rang next to the bed. US Security called and said "Arent you supposed to be at the County Office Building this morning James?" Groggily I said " not that I know about". The voice on the other end of the line says " He (as in Capt Bassett) wrote your name in the schedule this week" . I responded by saying that Capt Basset usually calls me and asks me if I want to work Saturdays since my only scheduled day is the 3 to 11 shift on Sundays. If they had called me and asked me if I wanted to work New Years Day I would have probably said no anyway. Thanks to the way the holidays fell this year with most of them falling on a weekend I really did not get any time off during the holidays. So, with that in mind I had already determined that I was not working New Years day.

I spent most of the morning installing software back on the home computer and configuring the computer some more. I installed Adobe Photo Shop 7, Mozilla Firefox, Pluck and Metacafe. I spent some time online chatting with friends via Yahoo and AOL IM. Katy and I ate breakfast out on the porch this morning while we waited on Kristina to come back from the youth getaway in Greer SC last night. At about 10:30 am Heather rolled up and dropped off Kristina so we spent time talking to Heather and her mom for about 30 min out in the driveway. They are doing such a wonderful job with the youth at our church. We have approximately 35 members in regular attendance and about 10 to 12 of those 35 are youth who are from the ages of 9 to 15. Heather is working on teaching the youth how to do drama and recently spent about 6 weeks getting ready to do a drama presentation for the church just before Christmas. Kristina was involved in the activities and I must say that she not only puts her heart and soul into what she is doing but she seems to be very talented in this area.

I had to stop what I was typing there for a second thanks to one of the C17 Transport carriers from the airport flying directly overhead. It seemed as if the darn monster plane was right on top of the treeline. Whew, that was TOO close for comfort and for some reason it seemed WAY TOO LOW for my comfort. I was puckered up waiting to hear the sounds of ripping metal as it tore our double wide trailer apart and carried us over into Chucks yard or whatever. Luckily for me and for the pilots they managed to clear the tress and now I can relax and continue with my thoughts. Where was I?

Oh yes, what we did today. Once the Glisson duo left the end of the hill down here in slumlord haven Katy and I headed over the Regal Cinema 18 theatre and watched Meet the Fockers. OMG that was TOO FUNNY. hahahahahaha I told Katy when we left the movie that I wonder how many families are somewhat like that one in a lot of ways. If you want to see a good movie that will make you laugh go see it. You wont be sorry.

We have landed back at the house and plan on snuggling up next to the TV to watch Law and Order Criminal Intent for the next two or three hours and then hopefully get a full nights rest where Katy nor I will wake up every two hours because of either the darn dogs or my cough that I can not seem to kick.

I hope you had a relaxing day today and that your new year started out peacefully.

God bless

The Christian Working Woman - Today's Broadcast

The Christian Working Woman - Today's Broadcast

For you working ladies out there that love Jesus...

Pluck: Search, Retrieve, Organize & Share the Web

Pluck: Search, Retrieve, Organize & Share the Web

This is a VERY cool tool that I found the other day. Check it out!!

My Daddy My Hero - Flash Presentation

Homeward Bound

A friend of mine sent this to me. I was told to have a box of Kleenex standing by and I have to say it will probably get to you.

AGB North America - Qtek 9090 (known as the Imate PDA2K)

AGB North America - Qtek 9090 (known as the Imate PDA2K)

Gosh, its ONLY 899.00 OMG... You can buy a laptop for less people... LOL..
Maybe by Christmas 2005 this baby will be more reasonable.

New Years Eve 2004

Well, this is the LAST day of 2004! Time flies when you are having fun and guess what folks? Out with the old and in with the new year. We can put our failures from this year behind us and look forward to using our lessons learned to practical use in 2005. This year was not one of our best financially speaking but as of October things started to get better. Hopefully things will stabilize nicely in 2005 and we can spend this new year playing catch up.

Our home computer is up and running without any problems. We still have some software to install but other than that it is very fast and running nicely. One of the things that XP does that W2k does not is that you can switch from one user profile to another without having to log off the first user. I sort of miss that but oh well.

Our plans for New Years eve is very simple. We are going to stay home with the family and just enjoy the fact that we have a place to live and that everyone is healthy. We have a LOT to be thankful for. Everytime I get on the Internet or listen to the news I am reminded of how much tragedy rages all around us. Most of us know about the tragedy that is happening half way around the world in India where 125000+ folks are missing or dead. The number just keeps rising. I can not even begin to fathom the depth of their grief and despair. It is nice to see that there has been a global response to the needs though. Hopefully life will be a little bit easier for the victims because of it. Life certainly will never be the same for them.

Our goals for 2005 are simple but they are not resolutions. You know how long new year resolutions last right? They last about as long as it takes you to break them. LOL...

Our goals to work towards are simple. Managing our finances better. That means to actually live within our budget and paying off some debt. Maintaining full time employment for both of us and getting stable. Katy is waiting on her emergency teaching certificate so she can pursue full time teaching positions in SC and I am working on my certifications so I can ultimately make more money in the long run. One of my goals personally is to lose some blubber through better eating habits and more exercise. Another one of my goals is to work on getting our mens ministry at church off the ground (out of the basement LOL) and doing something other than nothing.

Well, that is all for now. I pray that you have a safe new years eve and that you will have a prosperous and blessed new year in 2005.

Bring our Men and Women home from Iraq!!

How many men and women must die in this war? We (Americans) have sons, daughters, wives, husbands, fathers and mothers who have been committed to fight a war. Not only do Americans have a stake in this war but there are other countries that are involved. How many countries are unknown to me but I know that there are several allies that are there investing blood, sweat, tears and lots of money into this effort. My question to you is this. Is this turning into another Vietnam? I am starting to feel as if YES this is starting to turn into another political fiasco. No, I am not the type of person that is going to blame our men and women who are serving their country. However, I do feel that our government has made its statement, whatever that is and now it is time for us to come home and let the Iraqi's figure it out. I am not sure what IT is other than perhaps how to get along with one another and not be a host to teorrorist organizations who need a place of refuge or a place to train killers who will go all across the globe to slaughter innocents.

September 11, 2001 was a tragic and horrible event in the history of the world. Over 3000 men and women lost their lives in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. I understand that the US of A needed to respond in such a way to exact a penalty upon that person or people who committed this attrocity againgst humanity on our own soil. I think that we have given the terrorists of the world something to think about. If you kill our people on our own soil we will hunt you down like a rabid dog and we will kill you. Should we be killing innocent men, women and children at the same time we are hunting down those that are responsible? I guess that some folks would say that innocent lives being taken during war is just a casulty of war. I do not necessarily buy that mentality folks. How is it we have the technology that we have at our disposal yet we can not find one man? Why is it we have not found this Bin Laden character? I wonder if there are CNN reporters out there that could not find him? LOL Of course we can find him if we really want to. We have satellite technology that can take pictures of your dogs nose hair but we can not find one man who is known all over the world. Hogwash people, how stupid do they think we are anyway?

Lets surgically erase the problems we have in the middle east and then lets bring our troops and hardware home so that they can get back to the business of defending our soil and get back to their families where they belong. Amen ??

Good morning Sunshine

Ok, here we are all snug in our office chairs strapping ourselves in getting ready for another wonderful Monday morning at the office. NOT.... If you are like me you noticed that the roads were pretty empty this morning which means a LOT of folks are still on Christmas vacation. I for one am like the rest of the minority who have to make a showing at the shop/office/cubicle etc. Things are pretty dead here so I have time to completely start over on my home computer fiasco. Sigh.... Ready SET GO!!!! Deep breath...


Step 1, hook up PC and turn it on -Pray
Step 2, hook up 160 GB USB external Hard drive
Step 3, back up D drive data to external drive - should take several hours
Step 4, back up data on C drive to external drive - not as much as D drive
Step 5, insert Win98 System disk and reboot system
Step 6, blow away partitons on both C and D drives
Step 7, create new partitions on C and D drives
Step 8, format C and D drives with Fat32
Step 9, Insert Windows ME CD into cd drive and reboot
Step 10, install Windows ME on C drive with Fat32 partition - Pray
Step 11, verify all hardware is recognized and working
Step 12, use Microsoft Security CD and install all security updates since Feb 2004- Pray
Step 13, using Windows Update install any newer security updates- Pray
Step 14, install Anti Virus software and scan drive C - Pray
Step 15, begin installing necessary software - pray extra hard here
Step 16 restore data from external hard drive back to D drive
Step 17 configure MS Outlook with proper PST file for Katy - Pray
Step 18 configure MS Money with correct data file - Pray again
Step 19 if steps 1 through 19 blow up in my face despite prayer take PC CPU out to Ashley Phosphate rd and let multiple cars and trucks destory it beyond repair
Step 20 If I had to resort to step 19 figure out where I will live after Katy kicks me out of the house because of no Internet access

Back to reality again

I know that it is time to get back to reality because I am at my part time job working security here at the County Office Building in DT Charleston. It is REALLY cold here but atleast it has stopped raining. Last night we were under a winter storm advisory because a cold front was coming through and there was a trough of moisture coming from the gulf of Mexico and racing up the eastern seaboard.
Luckily for us the roads did not ice over here in the lowcountry but I am sure in the upstate of SC near the mountains or north of I-95 that folks saw some sleet, ice and some snow. When that happens here in the deep south the entire state just shuts down. People rarely know how to drive safely in good conditions much less when the roads become hazardous. I think that last week atleast two days of the week I 26 was shut down for several hours due to multiple car wrecks where folks turned their cars or trucks upside down on the freeway.

I have not heard back from either Bloglines or Blogger about the lapdance.com posts that Patty found. I am hopeful that someone can delete that garbage from my blog. Imagine the horror when Patty told me last night that I was advertising porn in my blog and I did not even know it. LOL... How scary is that folks? Its one thing when someone wants to advertise that sort of thing or talk about it but its quite something else when you are promoting christian/family values. Speaking of that I hope that you are not in the dark with regards to Internet porn. Just the other day at the shop a lady had brought in her laptop computer to be worked on. The laptop wound up getting spyware and other malware installed and was eating up all the system resources. When the customer came by to pick up her computer it was late in the afternoon and I was the only one in the office. We were standing at the front counter where I was checking the machine out and the customer was paying the bill when she asked me if she could ask me something but that it might make me mad. I told her to go ahead and ask the question because I doubt that I would be angry about it. The customer tells me that her daughters husband is involved in surfing porn on the Internet and that her daughter knows something is up because every time she walks past the computer he switches the screen to something else on the computer. In other words he is hiding what he is doing from her. The daughter has approached the husband and asked him to talk about it and of course he is in denial. Over the last 10+ years I have worked with several Intenret based ministries that work with men and women who are either addicted to porn or have become victims of this addiction through their relationships with someone that is.

Internet porn is a billion dollar industry and you no longer need to go searching for it , it will find you in the form of either spam mail OR an innocent web search via Google, Yahoo or whatever search engine you are on. There are porn sites out there that use meta tags that have the word Bible, God, Jesus and church. So, if you or your children are searching for something innocent and non adult in nature you might be surprised to know that the wrong result could pop up on your computer screen. So the question is not IF you run across porn on your Internet connected computer but WHAT you will do WHEN it happens. One of the problems with Internet porn OR gambling is that you can do these activities from the privacy of your own home behind locked doors and no one will be the wiser as to what you are doing. These types of activity become secret sins. Even for those husbands, wives, sons or daughters that are extremely alert they wont recognize credit card charges for porn or gambling because those companies disguise the charge to a company name that is very ambigous. That credit card charge could be something bad or it could be something innocent.

The problem with Internet porn and gambling is that it becomes an addiction. When the problem starts it could be very innocent and compeletly coincidental. In other words the son or daughter goes through the house and finds videos or magazines that they should not find and before you know it they have been introduced into a world that they should never have been invited into. We lock up our guns and unload them from our kids right? Why would you leave something laying around that our kids could get into that will cause them to start down the road with an ugly addiction. I dont care what it is folks. It can be Playboy magazines, cigarrettes, gambling , snuff, whatever. If you have it in your life and you are not careful before you know it your loved ones could get sucked into a very tangled web that can lead to major problems down the road. Like I said earlier, people become curious through different channels and for different reasons and they do not intend to become addicted but it happens. Web sites will offer you a TASTE of what they have to offer for as little as 1.00 to get you sucked in and before you know it you are paying a monthly service fee to get MORE and MORE and MORE of whatever it is that you are addicted to. If you are reading this and you are thinking OH MY perhaps there is a problem somewhere within your family there is HOPE and there are solutions available to you. The first thing you have to do is find out what is going on. Drag the behaviour and activities lovingly out into the light. You might have to exercise some tough love to get to the truth but nevertheless I encourage you to do it. There are online resources and offline resources that you can tap into that will educate you on what you need to know about whatever you are going through. So, do not feel alone or as if you are in a helpless or hopeless situation because you are not. If you have questions or need direction in these areas feel free to send me e-mail at moffittj@bellsouth.net and I will do everything that I can to point you in the right direction.

Well, today is the day after Christmas and before we know it we will be back to reality. The 9 to 5 grind will start up and we will find ourselves in bumper to bumper traffic with the rest of humanity.
We spend so much time getting ready for Christmas ( well some of us do I suppose) and then when it is all over we almost find outselves feeling a bit depressed that it is gone. Why cant Christmas last 11 months out of 12 anyway? Our pastor preached on this very topic today and he spoke about the Christmas story of the Grinch that stole Christmas. He compared Herod in the old testament with the Grinch. Both of them were not happy about others having fun and being festive. Both of them decided to do whatever it takes to KEEP people from experiencing joy and happiness because they were either threatened (Herod and the Christ child at birth) or did not want people to have fun (the Grinch). The moral of the story is that we can keep our focus on the reason for the season 356 days a year and we can have Christmas every day of the year. We can open up our hearts and let Jesus in and allow Him to be the Lord of all or we can be our own lord and become all wrapped up in the world around us and pursue the things of this world that are only temporal. How much money will make us happy? How many parties does it take to make us merry? How many or much of this or that will it take for us to find true peace, joy and happiness? I can assure you that there is a temporary attraction and fun with regards to the things of this world but once the newness has worn off and the consequences of engaging in these activities hits home the fun will end. I hope that there was a Christ in your Christmas season and that you spent some quality time with loved ones and remembered how awesome it was that Emanuel was born and placed in a manager with swaddling clothes.

Here is another thought for you while I am banging away at the keyboard. Are you going to live forever? We all assume that we will go to bed tonight in our own beds and that we will wake up when the alarm clock goes off in the morning. Tonight at work I was rudely awakened AGAIN to the fact that life is very precious and it is very temporary for us. I found out that a young lady that works for our company was involved in a motorcycle accident last week and died. I worked with this lady one shift and have only seen her one other time in passing in the parking garage during shift change.
This young lady was either 20 or 22 years of age. Her life was ended just last week, the week of Christmas 2004. She is gone, never to return to us in the life that we know now. I do not even know what her religious affiliation was or if she even attended church. So, of course, I find myself sitting here wondering about her eternal resting place hoping that Christ was her Lord and Savior.
Just this year I lost a friend of mine to cancer who worked over at the Historic Court Building. Carol Holland was younger than I am and she is gone. This morning at 7 am people in Asia were surprised by a 8.9 earthquake which produced a Tsunami tital wave that was 20 feet high. They are still counting the bodies but we are up to 11000 now. How many folks lose a loved one in the many wars that are going on over our entire globe? Gone , never to return. How tragic is that? Well, the point of all this is that none of us know when our time is up and when we will exit out of the life that we know now. I am not bringing all of this back to your attention because I am trying to be morose or morbid but I want to make sure that YOU and your loved ones are ready for that eventuality. Yes, I know, you are in good health and you do not engage in any behaviours or activities that will endanger you. Do you drive to work? Do you fly from one city to another? That list can go on but there are many ways in which our life can end and there is no way that any of us can figure out a way to keep the inevitable from happening. No matter what get smart and be ready. Be ready to face your creator every single day of your life and thank HIM that He has seen fit to give you that life to live. What is the saying? Life is Gods gift to us but what we do with that life is our gift back to God.

Happy Holidays

Windows XP SP1 Nightmares

Santa Claus has delivered the toys under the Christmas tree and is on his way back to the North Pole. The kids have just opened all their presents from under the tree and I am glad it is over. LOL... They were about to drive mom and dad crazy as they bounced all over the house yesterday in anticipation. I guess I have forgotten what a big deal it is for kids on Christmas. HoHoHo Merry Christmas to one and all. Now, lets talk about MY Christmas gift that the Grinch left for me last night.

Remember I told you that I was going to wipe the hard drive on the family computer and start all over from scratch? I started the process at 1 pm and it should have ENDED around 6pm. From the time I used FDISK to kill the original partition to installing all of the software. Well thanks to the Grinch (who else can I blame ?) he stole my Christmas JOY by causing me to have to work on the blasted computer up until around midnight. How special.... LOL

Lets see, the last time I babbled about this I had formatted the drive with NTFS version 5 and was installing XP Professional Service Pack 1. I managed to get the OS installed with no problems and ran all of the MS Security Updates from the Windows Update website including Service Pack 2. I installed the Anti Virus software and then noticed that I did not have any sound. We cant have that so I dove in with both feet and elbows and remembered that I need to install the correct driver to make the speakers work. That is when the hardware nightmare began.

At this point I did not realize that my motherboard chip set and plug in cards were not going to work with XP SP1. After fighting with the sound card drivers for 2 + hours and multiple reboots and BSOD with the sysaudio.sys error I finally decided to blow the partition away and start all over again. That was around 7 pm that I decided that. I figured that would be the fastest way to fix the problem. When I tried to install XP with SP1 on a fresh partition I was greeted by multiple BSOD's AGAIN. At this point I gave up and took the sound card out and tried the install on a fresh partition which resulted in a BSOD so I tried to disable all sound on the MB which caused another BSOD. I finally went to the Internet and searched on the sysaudio.sys error with XP SP1 and was greeted with numerous nightmare stories of how XP SP1 just does not play well with some hardware. Well folks, guess what? Such is the case in my computer. I finally installed Microsoft ME on the computer with NO problems. I have Internet access, sound and the whole works. I also was able to install Microsoft XP Home and have it in a dual boot configuration. Everything BUT sound works on XP Home. Go figure... I think that it is time to buy a new home pc that will enable me to use XP Pro and Service pack 2.

I guess it was about 12:04 am when I looked at the laptop and noticed that I had lost wireless connectivity. Sigh... I thought, what the heck is wrong now folks? LOL... Sure enough I did not have Internet connectivity and then I found out that our entire phone service was down, no dial tone no nothing. I called Bellsouth and of course they determined that I REALLY did have a problem on the line and that it would be Monday before someone could come look at it. At this point I just turned everything off and went to bed. What else could I destroy anyway? This morning when we awakened the dial tone magically had come back on the phone. I guess the Grinch left the building and took all the gremlins with him. Thank God for that. LOL...

Now that the christmas gifts are opened and the children have calmed down some I can focus on reconfiguring our home PC with all of the software I need to install and I need to put together a bicycle together for Justin. I just hope I dont destroy that as well. LOL

So, anyway what is the moral of this story you ask? If it is NOT broken, dont fix it. LOL

Merry Christmas....

The unthinkable

Yes, I just did the unthinkable or is the word unthunkable? LOL... I am spending my FREE time wisely this weekend since I have several days off and not much else to do. I blew away the partition on my hard drive , formatted C and reinstall XP Professional. Two years ago I did an upgrade on my system in which I went from a 866 mhz Gateway Motherboard/cpu and put in a 1.1 GHZ Celeron CPU and motherboard. I found out that when service pack 1 for XP came out that I could not install it because Microsoft found that my product key was not legitimate. That is right, the software running on my PC was considered pirated by Mickeysoft. Sigh.... So, obviously when service pack 2 came out I could not install it nor could I install some applications like PERCH which demands you be running a minimum of Service Pack 1 for XP. Service Packs are pushed out to the public by Microsoft so that WE can update their buggy software and hopefully be safe from the latest and greatest security holes that are being found each and every day.
Now that some of you have Service Pack 2 there are folks out there that are finding more and more security holes in Mickeysoft OS XP. Go figure.

So, thus far I have used FDISK to blow away the non dos partition and recreated a primary dos partition. I booted to the XP OS cd and let it format the primary partition NTFS5. NTFS version 5 allows you to encrypt your files and compress them which are the two extra attributes that NTFS version 4 did not allow you to do. NTFS5 formatted fine and the OS is up and running. I entered in the correct VALID OS Product Key and registered online with Mickeysoft without a problem. Now I will spend the next 6 hours installing ALL the other Mickeysoft Security Updates including Service Pack 2. Luckily for me I have the wireless laptop fired up so I can drivel what I am doing in my blog to keep me from falling asleep and give you something to do other than to eat that other cookie or potatoe chip that is in your hand. JUST PUT IT DOWN OK?? You dont need it. hahahahahaha

Once all the security updates are done I can do a fresh install of Microsoft Office XP and the other LIST of software that I can not live without like Microsoft Activesynch for my Pocket PC and Anti Virus software which is a must have for anyone running broadband which is ALWAYS ON.... Heck, even if you are not on the Internet you should have Anti Virus software and Spybot Search and Destroy installed on your computer.

Happy Holidays!!!

So much for pictures....

I just took some digital pictures to share with YOU but of course my HELLO application and bloogerspot has decided to take the day off and not cooperate. I have grown quite lazy with regards to sharing pictures on my blog because this app makes it quiet easy. I will be waiting for Hello to fix itself before I post the pictures. I doubt that I have the ability to post pictures here on Bloglines....

Well, here we sit, just hanging out, watching the lights on the tree blink and listening to Christmas music. I took the kids and the dogs out for a 2 mile walk in the freezing weather. Gosh, that was SO MUCH FUN... LOL NOT... I am catching up on some much needed technoid reading in some of my magazine subscriptions that I rarely have time to read. I will be sharing any choice things that I find later so stay tuned.

I am thinking about taking the kids bowling this afternoon to keep cabin fever from setting in. I have not been off of work from either of my two jobs for the last 16 days so this will be nice...

Perfect gift for your favorite couch potatoe

I saw this advertisement on TV tonight and almost fell over. If I had not been sitting on the floor already I would have probably wound up there as I was laughing. How about buying a Black and Decker Jar Opener for your favorite couch potatoe. I had flash backs of Jay Leno saying " How FAT are we Americans....." Have you seen the new Hardees Monster Burger commercial? I think that this burger has 4000 calories in one burger. Now we have Black and Decker Jar Openers as well? Does that mean we are REALLY that lazy now? LOL... God help us...

Bloglines Blog

Ok, for those of you that want to keep up with my BLOG here but do not want to figure out RSS readers etc I have started a new BLOG at Bloglines that will mirror this one. When I publish here and I have time I will publish it over at Bloglines as well. You never know, I might blog different content to both blogs just to keep you on your toes. LOL...

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/jcmoffitt

Merry Christmas



James Moffitt
http://www.jesus-connect.net/jcmoffitt
moffittj@bellsouth.net

Christmas 2004 is almost upon us....

I am trying to get into the Christmas spirit and for some reason it is just not working.
I am not sure WHAT the "christmas spirit" is supposed to be per sae or HOW to find it but I feel that it must have something to do with a feeling of JOY and PEACE and HAPPINESS.
One of the things about growing up into an adult is that you find out that Santa Claus really is not the magical fellow that the weatherman always finds on weather radar each Christmas Eve as he is making his way from the North to the South giving the hope filled children a reason to go to bed. Now I know that the reason that the parents want the children to go to bed is so that they can put together all those hard to configure toys and finally go to sleep themselves before being awakened by the kids bouncing off the walls.

I suppose that since the magic is gone for me that atleast my children can enjoy as much of the Christmas season that is possible. Justin at the age of 9 and Kristina at the age of 12 understand that there is no St Nick and that mommie and daddy had a rough year financially and thanks to Food Lion they will actually have a Christmas gift under the tree.
I am glad that this is possible but I HATE the fact that our kids are getting Christmas because of HDST and Food Lion. I am hopeful that mom and dad can have a much more propserous New Year in 2005 and that we can find ourselve able to play Mr and Mrs Claus next year.

I am very thankful that while I might not find myself eaten up with the Christmas spirit I still have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful that God is still God and that He is still in control of our ultimate destiny. I am glad that our family is in good health, together under one roof and that we are able to enjoy the basic needs of life which is a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food for our stomachs and a place to lay our heads at night. Once you get past the basic needs everything else is icing on the cake. Unfortunatley we live in a day and age that determines our worth and our happiness by how much junk we can accumulate and how much fun we can have. We find ourselves comparing one another with one another and falling miserably short in some areas and feeling like failures. If you never compare yourself to your neighbor or co worker and wonder why you have not achieved what they have or dont have what they have or look like they do then you are doing better than most folks. I sometimes find myself doing just that and it only causes me to be down in the dumps and feeling puny. So, instead of looking without I will chose to look within and just be thankful for where we are at.

The first two quarters of this year sucked financially but somehow we managed to survive it. October finds me with a better job in the I.T. industry which certainly took a LOT of pressure off the budget and still playing a major game of catch up. The year 2005 will find me filling my tiny little brain with semi useless computer jargon, acronyms and technology tidbits so that I can obtain little pieces of paper that show folks that I know NT stands for Nuclear Tomatoe. LOL... In the month of January I hope to take my A+ certification test and hopefully pass it the first time. The Network + will follow and then I will be diving off into the world of Citrix and Microsoft Server 2003. I just hope that I do not fry the last brain cell I have left. LOL...

Katy and the kids are on vacation until afte the 1st day of 2005 and I will probably plug along and not get any time off thanks to most of the holidays falling on the weekend anyway. The nice thing about that is that things have been a tad bit slow for me at work which has allowed me to catch my breath and do some studying.

My hope, wish and prayer for you is that you will take the time in the next four days to sit down and appreciate where you are at in life. If you have family take the time to reaquaint yourself with them. Sit down and talk to them, hug them and let them know that you appreciate them for who they are. Get in touch with long lost relatives and wish them a Merry Christmas. Yes, I know, people are not perfect and we all have to deal with our good and bad side. Just figure out a way to overlook the bad and highlight the good in the folks around you. Everyone will want to feel loved and appreciated this season and as I have said before this is not a happy time for everyone. There are folks out there that do everything that they can just to survive the holiday season. So, if you know someone that needs a friend and for someone to show that they know they are alive try to be that someone.

Happy Holidays and God bless

Wi-Fi Networking News: R.I.P. W.E.P.

Just when you think your Wireless Network is safe. How many of us take out the wireless access point, turn it on and have the mind set of "set it and forget it"? Some of us even go to the length of actually turning on WEP. This article shows us where that functionality while better than doing NOTHING does not mean that someone can not gain access to your data. How scary is that folks?
The good news is that even with WEP enabled there are things that you can do on your wireless network that will make it much more difficult to gain access to your wireless network.




Wi-Fi Networking News: R.I.P. W.E.P.

Zafi worm variant hides behind Christmas cheer - Computerworld

BEWARE of the WORM.... LOL...

Read this article, good stuff. Be aware of receiving this in your inbox and be sure to DELETE it and DO NOT open it.


Zafi worm variant hides behind Christmas cheer - Computerworld

How COLD is it??

It is 28 degrees F here in Goose Creek SC. Good grief Grady what the heck is going on? The Eskimos left the freezer door open and I cant google their e-mail address to REMIND them to close it. Brrrrrrrrrrrr

I have 6 minutes before West Wing comes on and we watch our favorite TV president and staff do their thing. The TV president has MS and in this next show it will show his symptoms accelerating to the point that he is almost paralyzed. Then there is something about a HUGE asteroid headed for earth. Say do what?? Oh, never mind, its only TV. LOL...

Not much new going on here. Work, eat , sleep, FREEZE, thaw out, work, eat sleep, FREEZE , thaw out. LOL...

Happy Holidays from our family to yours.

NASA - The 2004 Geminid Meteor Shower

NASA - The 2004 Geminid Meteor Shower

Calling all star gazers. I am usually up between 11:30 pm and midnight watching Jay Leno so this will be the perfect time for me to go outside and check this out. We do not live in the city per sae so hopefully I can see some comets that night. As for Katy and the kids they will already be fast asleep so I guess I will have to see this on my own. Maybe I will take some pictures with the camera. That would be cool huh?

Happy Star Gazing everyone!!

Thunderbird - Reclaim Your Inbox

Thunderbird - Reclaim Your Inbox

Check out Mozilla Thunderbird, I am. I am certainly not a Microsoft poster boy and if the truth were known most I.T. folks owe Microsoft for providing them with buggy code that allows us to have jobs. Heck, if everything just worked then no one would need us I.T. folks around to fix things, right? LOL... What about cars that never blow up or leave us stranded on the side of the road? Where would the auto mechanics go to work then? McDonalds?

Anyway, we live in an imperfect world and we are imperfect people so therefore the stuff that we create become direct decendants of our inability to create something perfect. Our imperfections are cloned right into our creations and therefore there will always be a niche for folks that know how to fix things.

Is Mozzilla Thunderbird or Mozilla Firefox browser 100 percent free from bugs or being exploited by some script kiddie? No, of course not. However, from a support stand point I will tell you that because Microsoft (Mickeysoft) is such a huge beast that has consumed such large amounts of market share and usage that there are way more folks targeting their software than Mozilla.

I have been using Firefox pre release version 1 for quite some time and I have to say that I love it. The problem with using a third party non Mickeysoft application is that MS Office applications and other non Mickeysoft apps will always default to Mickeysoft applications (such as IE) because all of MS Windows OS and apps are fully integrated. So, there will still be that time when you are surfing the web or whatever and Internet Exploder will show up as the default browser. There are also the plugins and extensions situation. When I am using Firefox and I happen across something juicy that I MUST share with YOU via my BLOG I can not click on the Blogger plugin that I have in IE to port the goodie straight into my blog. That means I have to cut and paste my URL from Firefox into IE so I can do that. I guess that is the downside to using different applications that dont have full integration and support from multiple vendors yet.

Ok, back to Mozilla Thunderbird as an e-mail client. One of the things that I absolutely LOVE is that it has a built in Newsgroup Reader and RSS reader. Yes, Netscape has a newsgroup reader but it does NOT have a RSS compatible reader. Outlook 2003 is supposed to have a newsgroup plug in but the instructions on HOW to make this work is so complicated and vague that even I can not make it happen. I spent about 30 min messing with it and finally decided that I would rather spend that time in Blogexpress reading RSS feeds instead of messing with the plugin for Outlook.

E-mail, Newsgroups, web browsing and RSS feeds are all tightly related to one another and I for one am happy that there are products out there like Thunderbird that allow you to have all of the same functionality in the same interface.

If I find something else that is neat or a nugget of information about Thunderbird that you need to know I will blog it for you.