Similar to geocaching is a pastime called letter boxing: Letterboxing North America - Getting Started: "Letterboxing is an intriguing “treasure hunt” style outdoor activity. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and post clues to finding the box online on one of several Web sites. However, clues to finding some of the most highly-sought boxes are (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on July 1, 2009 01:28 PM

The Wasp Prince pt.4Originally uploaded by aknacerIt happened once again. Only this time my son came to the rescue. My mother-in-law, who is great BTW, was having computer problems. She is not computer savvy so computer problems can mean almost anything. This time, it meant that there was a boatload of malware on her computer. Not viruses mind you, but tracking cookies, and all other sorts (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on June 26, 2009 02:43 PM

We all have moments of poor judgment, even presidents. Yet, somehow, when it shows up on YouTube it is funny. Now if it just had the Benny Hill music. (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on June 23, 2009 10:26 AM

Nethax: "Nethax is an ajax implementation of said best video game ever made. It was created to help introduce the game to the legions of children who have no idea what a 'shell account' is. The creator also hopes it will allow him to play the game from work."What is NethackFrom the land before 3DFX, before VGA graphics and DOOM, before the IBM PC, way back in the dark ages of Unixland, there was (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on June 19, 2009 02:36 PM

I subscribe to All-Pro Dad and an article on the Sound of Romance came the other day and it is worth sharing:"How's this for romancing your wife... do you have a song that you specifically remember her by? It could be a song that was playing when you first saw her or the song you two first danced to. There's no doubt that music plays a special role in all of our lives and this is especially (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on June 19, 2009 10:10 AM

I came across this video with a bunch of ideas for keeping the flame burning. Check it out:Marriage Romance - How to Keep Romance Alive in Your Marriage Video - About.com: "Sometimes even the most passionate relationships can feel like they're losing heat, but with just a little bit of rekindling, you'll have those flames burnin' once again. Learn simple ways you can add more romance to your (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on June 18, 2009 03:22 PM

A&W Restaurants are celebrating 90 years by giving away free root beer floats. Take your sweetie on a date this Friday for free. Maybe bring the kids for a family night. Krispy Kreme also gives away free doughnuts to kids with A's on their report cards. This varies by location so give them a call to find out for sure. Doughnuts and root beer floats, what could be better? (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on June 16, 2009 09:10 AM

A friend of mine sent me this. It is a benchmark of a bunch of languages. Turns out Java 1.4 was not so bad after all. Square root of x divided by zero: The speed, size and dependability of programming languages: "The Computer Language Benchmarks Game is a collection of 1368 programs, consisting of 19 benchmark reimplemented across 72 programming languages. It is a fantastic resource if you are trying to compare programming languages quantitatively. Which, oddly, very few people seems to be interested in doing."

by Matthew O. Smith on June 1, 2009 01:20 PM

A Stairway to ParadiseOriginally uploaded by ClaraDonA brunette, a redhead, and a blonde were on their way to Heaven.God told them that the stairway to Heaven was 1000 steps, and that on every 5th step He would tell them a joke. He told them not to laugh at any of the jokes along the way or else they would not be able to enter Heaven.The brunette went first and started laughing on the 45th step, (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on May 22, 2009 09:48 AM

For the geeky crowd, we proudly present One Div Zero: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages: "A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages". For example1972 - Dennis Ritchie invents a powerful gun that shoots both forward and backward simultaneously. Not satisfied with the number of deaths and permanent maimings from that invention he (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on May 20, 2009 07:38 AM

Michael Webb has been writing for a long time on the subject of romance and has a free eBook: 101RomanticIdeas.pdf. There are some great ideas, some fun idea and some interesting ideas. Check it out and let me know which ideas you try and how they worked out. (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on May 1, 2009 12:47 PM

Holy Java Blog: "Developing portlets for Liferay in Eclipse In this blog I'd like to tell you how to use Eclipse with Liferay to develop portlets with the ability to change a class or a JSP in Eclipse and have that immediatelly reflected on the server (hot deployment)."

A good look at Liferay and Eclipse.

by Matthew O. Smith on April 23, 2009 09:32 AM

I have been using Xubuntu 9.04 Beta on an older laptop with much happiness. It is lightweight and snappier on the older hardware.

by Matthew O. Smith on April 9, 2009 07:31 AM

jbox.dk - Quotations on simplicity in software design: "Quotations on simplicity in software design"

This is a great collection of quotes.

by Matthew O. Smith on April 6, 2009 08:02 AM

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by Matthew O. Smith on April 2, 2009 07:48 PM

Conficker Eye Chart: "Conficker Eye Chart"There has been a lot of talk around about the conficker work but not a lot of helpful information. The conficker eye chart can quickly show if you have a problem. (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on April 2, 2009 02:57 PM

Whilst reading dzone, I came across an article, Five tips for successfully deploying Maven, that highlights some good ideas for working with maven. While all 5 ideas are worth the time to read, the 4th idea intrigued me most because I have always found the maven documentation difficult to find and navigate. Quoting the 4th idea:

4 Use the documentation

Well, duh. But a weak point of Maven in the eyes of many people is the lack of documentation and the sometimes poorly organized information. There are a few good points of reference though, that you can spread around you team by setting up links on the Wiki for example:

• The Definitive Guide to Maven: a free book from Sonatype, available both as HTML and PDF. Good for the beginner, and sometimes as a reference. If you don't know where to start, start here.
  
  
• The plugin list: a comprehensive list to the official plugins, with links to each project page and JIRA subsection. Most of the core functionality is actually performed by one of these plugins, and you can learn a lot by studying things like the resources plugin documentation.
  
  
• The POM reference: for the slightly more advanced user. Every element in the POM is explained. Don't forget to specify the XSD information in your POM file to get the most help from your XML editor.

These are 3 great links for maven documentation. I must admit I didn't even know about the first 2 and the 3 is great to have a link to as well. By getting a better understanding of how maven wants things to work, it is easier to work with it instead of against it.

by Matthew O. Smith on April 2, 2009 10:26 AM

I hate JavaScript. Let there be no confusion about that. Every line of JavaScript adds another point of failure to my project. Even if it works in all browsers today, one can never be sure about tomorrow. I use it very sparingly.

Today, one of my coworkers did a presentation on jQuery. He did a great job of presenting it. What really impressed me was the simplicity and of course the cross-browser support. The supported browsers as of today are: IE 6.0+, FF 2+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.0+, Chrome. While we still have some IE 5.0 customers out there, this is a confidence inspiring list.

The basic usage is simple enough:

1. Select one or more elements
2. Perform some action on said elements.

Selecting elements is done with CSS selectors wrapped in a $() like $('input[type=text]') which will find all text fields. Of course, there can be $('#id') and $('.class') as well as more complex $('div div') which gives nested divs.

Actions can be things like toggle, load and hover. Toggle changes from hidden to shown and back again. Load does an AJAX call and hover is an event handler for a mouse hover. There are lots of actions that can be performed and they are documented as well.

His demo mostly focused on creating a JavaScript drop down list using jQuery. He did a good job of showing the benefits without going overboard. One of the great points was that by moving the javascript out of the tags, the web page would work quite well with JavaScript disabled. Of course there are other issues but this is a great one to overcome as it is important for customers to have a positive experience even in a non-JavaScript browser. Looking at the site it looks like there are also some interesting form validation options as well.

Also of note, it is supported natively by Liferay.

Definitely worth a look.

by Matthew O. Smith on April 1, 2009 10:44 AM

There are some great things popping up now that March is over and April has begun:GMail announces their new Autopilot programSee a shrimp running on a treadmillDon't miss a classic article on the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, video here.If you find other interesting events for today, feel free to add them to the comments (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on April 1, 2009 07:10 AM

I have recently installed Xubuntu and am giving it a try at home. One of the children was using Abiword to do a paper and wanted a "watermark" like Microsoft Word has. Using new or different software is always frustrating. For example, moving to Word 2007 was most frustrating.

Unfortunately, there is no watermark in Abiword. Instead, it is called a "Page Background" which is found under the "Format" menu. Arguably, calling it a watermark is not correct but it is what we are used to calling the background image. Doing a Google search for "abiword watermark" didn't find anything useful. Hopefully this simple posting will make it easier for the next guy.

by Matthew O. Smith on March 31, 2009 06:34 PM

I sure hope they get the price down or something. This would be awesome!Tesla unveils groundbreaking electric car: "LOS ANGELES (AFP) – US automaker Tesla Motors unveiled its state-of-the-art five-seat sedan here Thursday, billed as the world's first mass-produced, highway-capable electric car.Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said the company, which last year released a breakthrough two-seater (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on March 27, 2009 10:18 AM

Check out the Seasonal Fun Depot: Valentine's Day Freebies: "Valentine's Day Freebies" They have free coupons to print and other fun things. (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on February 3, 2009 10:18 PM

Jan 20th is Inauguration Day and what could be better for you and your sweetie than a free doughnut. clipped from www.news-record.comKrispy Kreme to offer free doughnut on Inauguration DayNever has patriotism been this sweet.Krispy Kreme Doughnuts announced this morning that it will offer a free doughnut of (more...)

by Matthew O. Smith on January 14, 2009 11:16 AM

clipped from www.cio.com Running an Effective Code Review Code reviews can be a frustrating waste of time, but they can be a worthwhile experience that contributes to team-building, improves the software, and oh yeah... is also fun.

by Matthew O. Smith on January 8, 2009 09:59 AM

Three times a day, Cleverly puts the 42nd page of a book up. There is a wide variety of subjects and a single page can be enough to completely catch you attention. Check out a sample: Wisdom from the 42nd Page: Holes

by Matthew O. Smith on July 22, 2008 08:01 AM

PortletWork: Testing Portlets with Jetty, Pluto and JWebUnit: "After my last two entries, I've gotten some questions about using pluto embedded in jetty to create automated integration tests for JSR 168 portlets. Using the maven-jetty-plugin for running the portlets is great for fast, iterative development. But it can't be used to run automated integration tests. Remembering an excellent article from Johannes Brodwall's blog about integration testing with Jetty and JWebUnit, I wanted to extend his approach to use the embedded jetty-pluto setup I have created. This turned out to be to be quite easy."

by Matthew O. Smith on May 15, 2008 10:36 AM

27.SEP.07Bryan Alan Baird 27.SEP.07Claudia A. Pope 27.SEP.07Duane Hymas Hansen 27.SEP.07Glen Johnson Behling 27.SEP.07Marie Moss Peacock 27.SEP.07Tina Sherlin Fuller Webb 25.SEP.07Glenn Eugene Ray 25.SEP.07Mary Hogge Blackhurst 25.SEP.07Mary Rae Kelvington Selin 25.SEP.07Melvin Hess Pederson 25.SEP.07Ronald K. Devereaux 25.SEP.07Scott Reid 20.SEP.07Paul D. Seiger 20.SEP.07Kay Rich Butters 18. (more...)

by Matt on December 11, 2007 04:56 AM

Quake triggers tsunami in Indonesia - Yahoo! News: "JAKARTA, Indonesia - A powerful earthquake shook Indonesia on Wednesday, killing 10 people, injuring at least 100 and triggering a small tsunami that hit one city on the island of Sumatra, authorities said."

by Matt on September 12, 2007 10:37 AM

My Father's Mother. Ethel Brown's Father's Mother when she was 65 years old, she died at the age of 83. Her name is Grandmother Mary Cook Brown Gillespie. She was born in 1823 so the picture was taken about 1888.

by Matt on April 10, 2007 07:56 PM

From a recent game I had against Tim, comes this board position. I was white and not in a very enviable position with Queen, Bishop and Knight all being under attack. Turns out to be a nice White to move and mate in two puzzle.

Post in the comments your answer. Remember, no cheating.

by Matt on March 16, 2007 07:19 AM

2 Therefore let us go up; let us be strong like unto Moses; for he truly spake unto the waters of the Red Sea and they divided hither and thither, and our fathers came through, out of captivity, on dry ground, and the armies of Pharaoh did follow and were drowned in the waters of the Red Sea.

Nephi continues to encourage his brothers by reminding of the story of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. The story illustrates several points that directly relate to Nephi and his brothers returning to Jerusalem to get the brass plates from Laban.

First, that God was able to defeat the army of Pharaoh. Laman and Lemuel were justifiably frightened of Laban's guards. They were just 4 young men against trained soldiers. They really would not stand a chance of overcoming by force. Laban had also proved that he was greedy and bloodthirsty and had no problem ordering their death.

In many ways Laban's actions paralleled those of Pharaoh. Both were greedy, bloodthirsty and had little regard for human life. Both commanded an overwhelming army. Both were acting against the will of the Lord. Both armies were defeated without a sword needing to be raised. God did the fighting.

The story reminded the brothers that God will fight the battles of his servants.

Second, God commands the elements. Laban was able to command many men, but he had no control over the elements. Laban might command an army, yet god could destroy that army. The arm of God is mightier than the arm of man. We should put out trust in the arm of God.

Lastly, that they should have faith.

by Matt on February 6, 2007 09:00 AM

by Matt on November 6, 2006 06:38 AM

by Matt on October 26, 2006 12:17 AM

What better than a site where you can get ll this stuf free! Second Thoughts: "# FREE PRE-SHAVE # FREE ANT DEATH # FREE CALENDAR # FREE SHOELACES # FREE MAGAZINE # ONE YEAR OF SECOND THOUGHTS # BUY 1 GET 1 LUNCH # FREE HEALTH BAR # FREE POSTER # FREE MAGAZINE" (more...)

by Matt on January 16, 2006 11:39 AM

As sewer is starting out in Tcl, I've included a link to the Tcl Chatroom for getting help in developing sewer.

Also on Usenet, the comp.lang.tcl newsgroup. One of the most exceedingly helpful & friendly newsgroups on all of Usenet.

by Matt on November 10, 2005 08:34 AM