My wife and I were excited to hear about this year’s rebate checks. Before you get all angry and start telling me how this is really an advance on next year’s credits and stuff, don’t. I don’t care if it is from this year or next. I really don’t care if it is my money or the government’s money. All I care about is the fact that I am going to get $2400.00 tomorrow. We are planning on taking a second honeymoon with the “extra” funds this year. We had a crazy first few years of marriage, which we are very thankful for now, and one of our mis-adventures was our honeymoon.
We had many conversations and planning sessions and finally determined, I believe, that we are either going to find an all-inclusive vacation package to some exotic location in the sun, or take a trip to the Big Apple. Since I have been to the beach before, granted it was not quite as tropical or exotic as the resorts we have been looking at, I am much more interested in New York. My boss is from Syracuse and he frequents the city a good bit. He has given me some insider’s tips of places to go and stay, but I wanted to know if any of my readers any good suggestions. If we were to stay somewhere at around $230.00 a night and fly at a good rate my only concern would be that I have no idea how much a cab around the city would cost and I have no idea how much an average retaurant would cost. I am not talking about an expensive Italian restaurant.
Any ides you have would be much appreciated and may help me plan my trip accordingly. Thank you in advance for your advice and pointers. The fact that this trip will give us some much needed time to ourselves (we have 4 children) will alone make it fun.
Filed under: Entertainment, Personal by Philip Williams
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If you were to stand by the proverbial water cooler this morning, you would most likely overhear many conversations linked to the current state of the economy. Some would complain of high gas prices. Others would speak of money lost in the stock market. You might even overhear someone having a conversation about an impending mortgage forclosure. So, how bad is this present economy? Well, for those of you who know me, I am not a financial advisor or economist. Therefore, all I can tell you is that things will get better. This is America. Do not forget that America has had times of great prosperity in her past and she has also had times of despair, but this nation knows how to rebound.
Americans are a resilient people. We have met great odds to arrive at our current place in the world. We see what we want and we get it. When we came to this great land, our pioneer families faced a wild, harsh, un-tamed land. They conquered and tamed it and made it into the wonderful contry that it is now. Sure, we made some mistakes in our early formative years, but who doesn’t. At our heart, America is good and kind. We make mistakes, but we eventually correct them and become even greater.
I would encourage you today to see how America has changed the world. We are not perfect, but we have contributed to global knowledge in areas such as technology, medicine, and education. We have made a difference in the world and will continue to do just that. I am sure that we may go through a time of financial hardship, but those who endured the great depression might have some advice to give us on how to survive. One thing that the great depression did for this country was to bring it closer. Friends and relatives had to share and depend on one another. Maybe a depression would not be such a bad thing. It might just be a small reminder of the fact that Americans should be closer.
Filed under: Concerns, Personal, Politics, business by Philip Williams
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My wife is currently putting together a book on Lulu.com. Lulu is a very interesting site that allows an un-published author to simply create a quality book. It is kind of like Build-A-Bear for books. Lulu allows an author to self-publish very easily and then to make that body of work public or keep it only for private use. For any of you who may be authors in the waiting, this might just be the new toy for you. Lulu has been around for a few years so it should work well.
It is interesting that she found this site for her project. Self-publishing is not a new concept, but it used to consist of writing your work and then hiring a publisher to proof it and print it. You paid for all costs and you had to order a specific number of books at a set price. Lulu allows you to do everything from laying out your book to customizing colors and bindings. You can order just the number of books that you need.
I found it interesting that my wife happened upon this site because I had already been considering writing a book myself. I have for the last few years wanted to write a book that delved into the use of technology in ministry. There are many ways that technology can be used to change the world we live in and turn others towards Christ, but some churches have made some mistakes and others do not know where to look to learn how to best utilize the technological advances of the last few years.
Filed under: Entertainment, Interesting Links, Personal by Philip Williams
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Yeah, you guessed it. I got hacked. My site was owned by “733t H4X0r” and was used as some sort of reference for a bunch of gambling sites. I will do some more research to determine who it was that just so cool and had the talent to do this. I do have access logs so I will change the site password and block every IP address that access the site within the time period of the incident if I have to. I don’t want to affect my readers my doing that, but I may have to take drastic measures.
I will say that if nothing else, this was an interesting occurrence. The hacker decided to keep me out of my own site with an htaccess file. He was actually denying anyone from viewing the pages. He also changed my index.php file to not work correctly. Luckily, he destroyed nothing long term. So, readers, keep visiting and I will rid us of this nuissance.
Filed under: Concerns, Personal, Site News, humorous by Philip Williams
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I wanted to let you in on a secret you may not know. There is a free and open source drive/system encryption package for your operating system. Yes, the same kind of drive encryption that is being pushed out in corporate environments to protect “road warriors”. The point of the software being the protection of sensitive data on a hard drive, or removable media.
TrueCrypt is available for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. Some of you are already salivating. Before we go much further, I want you to see a list of the features available with TrueCrypt:
Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.
Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).
Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:
1) Hidden volume (steganography – more information may be found here).
2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).
Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.
I recently installed TrueCrypt on my wife’s laptop. I wanted to make sure that if it was stolen, no one could recover her personal information. I actually have the system encrypted. She has to enter a password before Windows even starts booting. This decrypts her system so that she can use it and streap pokertournois poker onlinecomment télécharger jeu de pokerpoker en ligne gratuites texasgagner poker en lignetelechargement jeu pokerpoker gratuites Macle jeu poker gratuites françaisjeu de poker en lignecasino poker texas holdemtelecharger poker comdirect pokercomment jouer o pokerpoker a telecharger gratuitementregle jeu pokerforum poker en lignejouer online poker tourjouer au poker gratuitementjeux gratuites poker texasjeux 7 card studtexas holdem flashpoker comjouer de pokeracheter jeu pokerla règle de jeu pokerle poker téléchargement gratuitesgagner poker internetpoker gratuites gagnerpoker en ligne 3domaha holdemjouer poker texas holdemworld poker tours,world poker,world championship pokerpoker en ligne sur Macpoker ligne gratuitespoker 3dmeilleur jeu pokerpoker en virtuelpoker school onlinepoker en ligne bonustelecharger jeu poker texasworld class pokerapprendre jouer au pokerjouer o poker gratuites7 card stud gratuitesjouer poker omaha gratuitesjeu video poker gratuitesstud poker onlinecomparatif poker onlinejouer poker tour gratuitesjeu poker gratuites Mac then when she shuts down, everything is encrypted again. I hope to write another article soon where I give a list of software available for securing laptops. If anyone is interested, let me know so I can look into hardware security as well.
Filed under: Linux, Open Source, Security, business by Philip Williams
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Some of us in Prattville, Alabama are thankful that we were protected during a tornado yesterday afternoon. There was a lot of destruction and homes were lost. At this time, no casulties have been discovered. I hope this continues to hold true. The video below is coverage from a news agency north of Prattville, but it is good video. The first part of the video is a weatherman, James Spann, who is the weather guy on the nationally syndicated radio show, Rick and Bubba. The video that follows is from a helicopter surveying the damage. The east side of town was the hardest hit.
Here is a link to the damage:
Montgomery Advertiser (local paper)
Filed under: Concerns, Personal, Tv, Video by Philip Williams
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This is hilarious. I once was a part of a similar scheme. A co-worker had just been given a raise and a new position. Her new position would normally have been caused her to be relocated across town. However, do to her longevity within her current department, they let her keep her office. When she took a week long vacation, we decided to make things interesting.
She was the kind that keeps stuffed animals on the furniture and pictures on the wall. She collected pigs. She had decorated her office in everything pig. She had pig pictures on the wall, stuffed pigs on the desk and credenza, a pig rug, and pig decorations hanging in a twelfth stroy window. She was also a very picky person. No one touched her pigs and the touching of a pig could bring death to the offender. So, we often, in the vale of the early moring darkness, would enter her office and rearrange the pigs. On this one occaison, we did so much more.
It was early one Monday morning when we entered the dark office. The door creeked as we peeked inside to see what the situation was. Sure enough, the office was empty and and we quickly began our task. While one of us carefully packed away the pigs in care, others took down pictures and trimmings. My boss completely emtied furniture drawers and removed all small pieces of furniture and other decorations. We removed all stickers from the Windows and completely removed all of the office computer equipment. Then, with the help of departments close by, we moved her furniture in to one big pile on the far end of the room and put up a note to the office decorator detailing which furniture needed to be taken to storage. We shut and locked the office door and put the boxes full of our co-workers stuff in a closet. On the door we left a note, with a very corporate feel, that read as follows: This office has been moved across town to the {something another} building.
This was a very fun exercise and truly made us all feel good inside. We were lucky that this co-worker enjoyed office pranks and this made her feel truly loved. You always had to watch your back.
Filed under: Video, humorous by Philip Williams
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