We’re returning from California tomorrow. We were on vacation, supposedly, but the horrendous heat (causing over 100 deaths) and dealing with my wife’s grandfather’s continuing health problems really sapped that relaxing feeling.
I am so looking forward to the 20 degree temperatures at home!
I just finished one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in a long time, reminding me what an incredible author Dan Simmons is. Ilium is one of those books you can’t put down yet hate turning each page because it takes you closer to the end (but, luckily, there is a sequel — Olympus). It’s an intelligently written book set in the future and the past with characters from Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. If you’re familiar with either of those works, you’ll probably enjoy the book more than I did (being semi-literate, I haven’t read Homer or much Shakespeare 
). Simmons also keeps three parallel threads going through the novel — a technique that I particularly like.
I first read Dan Simmons’ Phases of Gravity about an ex-astronaut struggling for meaning in his life ever since walking on the moon. I barely remember it, but now I want to read it again.
It’s not often that software has this kind of power over me, but Outlook really makes me feel stupid sometimes.
My wife and I share an email account. We have this unwritten protocol where one of us might reply to an email and leave the original one in the InBox for the other’s information. Outlook screws up this workflow because of a small bug.
My wife likes to open emails in a separate window and then reply from there. She often leaves the email window open. What happens then or, rather, what doesn’t happen then is Outlook doesn’t update the email shown in the InBox with the new status. In other words, the email in the main Outlook window doesn’t get marked with the “Replied” graphic until the email window is closed. When I come and look at the email, it looks like no reply has been sent.
Naturally, I reply.
If my wife and I said the same thing, I feel mildly stupid. But, if we say contradictory things, I feel like a complete idiot.
Thanks, Microsoft Outlook!
I have 5 instant messenger accounts (AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Google, and Skype).
I have 6 different email accounts (more if you count aliases).
I have 3 phone numbers.
Crazy.
I have been waiting for this service for a long time. A (free) synchronized news reader service. I’ve always liked Bloglines, but have been frustrated by it because it doesn’t sync with my desktop news reader (NetNewsWire) that I prefer to use if I’m at my primary computer.
NewsGator also syncs the read/unread state of each individual post. It’s brilliant and with NetNewsWire, synchronizing happens seamlessly.
It syncs with NewsGator’s other products (some of which are for Windows).