This week three years ago, I spent nine days in Japan. Staying in Sagamigaoka, Zama Kanagawa, I explored the Tokyo metropolitan area and rode Tokaido Shinkansen Hikari across the beautiful country to spend a day in Hiroshima.

Since then, the Japanese people have held a special place in my heart for my trip enlightened me to a culture with which I have much respect. My heart is with them again now.

I can be quite particular about things, so when I find a product I like I am apt to purchase it repeatedly. The last few times I purchased shoes, I got two pairs and kept one pair boxed for the future. In the case of my favorite hand soap, I venture to Bath & Body Works annually around Christmastime and buy an ample supply, usually with an excellent coupon Mom finds for me.

This past year however, my visit to the West Town Corners store in Altamonte Springs went quite differently. In addition to changing packaging and labels—apparently on all their products—they decided to discontinue several of the scents I enjoyed including my longtime favorite Moonlight Path.

I was pissed. We drove to the nearby Altamonte Mall location and discovered the same thing. Based on my search online, it was no longer offered online either; the page describing Moonlight Path was removed from the site. I purchased no soap this past holiday season and am now down to the last few bottles in my reserve. Two of them are Moonlight Path and I am admittedly a little reluctant to open them.

By the way, does anyone reading this article have access to a molecular analyzer? I would like for someone to reverse engineer the formula and produce Moonlight Path hand soap just for me.

I contacted Bath & Body Works via the form on their website and gave them an abridged version of the above, sans the remark about reverse engineering their product. It did not take long for them to respond, but the news was not good for the Moonlight Pathers.

Dear David,

Thank you for your email regarding the availability of the Anti-Bacterial Hand Soap in the Moonlight Path fragrance line.

We regret to inform you that we do not currently offer this fragrance. We understand your disappointment in discovering that your favorite fragrance is not currently part of our product line.

As an alternate suggestion, we recommend the Sweet Pea Anti-Bacterial Hand Soap. This scent consists of delicately scented petals of the sweet pea flower, blended with pear, loganberry, and fresh green rhubarb. To view this collection on our web site, please click on the link below [here] or copy and paste the URL into the address line of your browser.

Be sure to visit our web site periodically as we often bring back discontinued fragrances as part of our Classics program. To view our current offerings, please click on the link below: [here]

Customer feedback regarding our products and services is always welcomed and appreciated. We strive for excellence in both our merchandise and our customer experience, and we continually evaluate current and future trends, as well as customer response and reaction. Your opinion matters to us and will be part of the ongoing assessment of our web site offerings.

We appreciate your interest in our products. Please visit our site regularly for exciting new products and great gift ideas.

The chill of winter is still here but an Island Escape is waiting! Our three new Signature Collection scents will put you in a tropical state of mind; shop now by clicking here.

Sincerely,

Kim C.
Customer Service Specialist
Bath & Body Works Direct

I suppose I appreciate their Sweet Pea recommendation, but I really doubt it will be anywhere near as good. I am still too aggravated to venture in and try a few bottles. If and when I do, I will try to keep an open mind about Sweet Pea.

If not, they will lose a customer and I will once again be on the search for the best hand soap. Any recommendations?

UPDATE: 10 June 2011 — It is official, Moonlight Path Anti-Bacterial Deep Cleansing Hand Soap is once again available!

UPDATE: 05 July 2011 — Now that I have purchased and tried it, I can report that the scent, viscosity and color are all different. I still like it but it is not the same.

UPDATE: 23 July 2011 — Related article: "The Moonlight Permutation"

Recently Claire and I decided it was finally time for another day trip adventure. Our past four outings had been a success but we put things on hiatus for her second pregnancy. In early January, she suggested the Pebble Hill Plantation, 1251 US Highway 319 South in nearby Thomasville, Georgia. That sounded good to me, so on Saturday, 12 February at around 0945 we were on our way, cinnamon scones in hand, to the 3,000-acre facility.

We arrived shortly after they opened and I could tell that the sunlight and temperature would be perfect for walking around and taking pictures. The main drive from the highway is a cozy, canopy road that winds around the structures to a parking lot at the Stable Complex (1928) and visitor center. Upon our arrival inside, the gentleman working the register greeted us and explained the fees. We each paid the basic $5 grounds access fee and added the main house tour for $10.

After looking at some of the historical artifacts on display, we were ushered into an adjoining room to watch a short film about the plantation and the people who operated it during its 153 year history (1825–1978) before opening as a museum in October 1983. This room contained a vintage American Sterilizer Co. (AMSCO) of Erie, Pennsylvania safe-sized walk-in sterilizer, something that I had never seen before. After the film, it was time to meet the docent for our tour of the main house (1914/1936).

Unfortunately, photography is prohibited on the house tour so I do not have any images from inside (see PHP Photo Galleries). The tour itself was interesting and covered the history of the building and the legacy of strong female mistresses who obviously ran the show back in the day. The house contains an absolute plethora of objects from the 19th and early 20th century including various equine artworks and awards, 33 John James Audubon lithographs and a photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the property during one of several visits here with his wife.

At the end of the hour-long tour, we exited the main house and were now free to roam the grounds at our leisure and take photographs. We wandered from the trellis to Carriage Circle and explored the Tennis Court, Family Cemetery (1827) and Family Cemetery addition (1932). Moving south, we saw the Swimming Pool (1920), Bath House (1922), Arbor Tunnel and Maze. Moving around the house from the east wing to the front porch and eventually the west wing guest entrance, we next went to some of the other structures on the property.

The oldest building at Pebble Hill is the Log Cabin School (1901), which has on its roof a neat statue of a cat sitting watch. Inside the schoolroom and playroom are the furniture and toys of the various children who lived here. It also contains a vintage Fire-Gun No. 1 fire extinguisher by American-LaFrance Foamite Corporation of Elmira, New York. Moving on, we saw the Overflow Cottage (1916/17), Kitchen Garden and Shed (1917) and The Waldorf (1929).

The main floor of The Waldorf, built as the plantation laundry complete with living quarters, kitchen and dining room, houses some additional vintage equipment of interest. I enjoyed the "Wheel to Fire" mobile firefighting apparatus by O.J. Childs Co. of Utica, New York, the Tip Top Value cast iron stove and range (~1905–1920) by Southern Stove Works, Inc. of Richmond, Virginia and The Great Majestic cast iron stove and range (~1920) by Majestic Manufacturing Co. of St. Louis, Missouri.

The Dog Hospital (1929) felt eerie and abandoned in the way things were arranged. It was almost as if a dog was going to appear and run up to us. Incidentally, I managed to capture one of my favorite pictures from the trip here. Next door, we passed the Firehouse (1929) and Nurse's Station (1929) before walking the main road around the horse paddock and Stable Complex.

Twelve horses and mules live on the plantation today and several of them came up to us once we got closer. After visiting with a few of the curious horses, we walked inside through the Stable Complex to see the horse and cow barns, Tack Room, Dairy and Carriage Room. Already at the courtyard near the exit and having spent two hours wandering around, we decided that it was time for lunch and that the other buildings on-site could wait for another time.

We left the plantation and continued north on US 319 into downtown Thomasville. After parking on the street, we walked up and down Broad Street looking for a good place to eat, finally settling on Jonah's Fish & Grits, 109 East Jackson Street. The restaurant contains a bit of religious artwork and some text on the menu about their namesake, but it was not intrusive. Claire ordered the Shrimp and Grits ($7.50) and I got the Fish and Chips ($7.80) with a cup of Grouper Chowder ($3.80), all of which were quite delicious.

We returned to Claire's house where her three-year-old Elliot wanted to spend some time with me. After a thorough review of his favorite Transformers and Toy Story action figures, Elliot decided it was time to color. Armed with some of his Sesame Street coloring books, we sat at the dining room table and colored together for twenty or thirty minutes. It was an interesting experience for me, not being particularly comfortable with children, but one I think we both enjoyed.

Day Trips with Claire Smith

The Georgia Plantation | The Florida Caverns Trip
The Big Bend Photo Trip

Photographs  Pebble Hill Plantation | Florida Caverns State Park
Tallahassee Antiques Museum | Big Bend Photo Trip | October Day Out

I was working in my virtual Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard environment the other day and needed to transfer a file to my host system. I was amused to discover that the icon assigned to both my notebook and server was a large, beige CRT with a Windows blue screen of death displayed. This may be old news to the rest of the world, but it was new to me.

Back in June 2007, Wired Gadget Lab posted a screenshot of the then-beta OS X 10.5 Leopard containing the icon that they termed an Easter egg. Author Charlie Sorrel ended the brief post by stating, "I hope this makes it into the final release, but somehow I doubt it." It did make it in and when Leopard was released on 26 October 2007, the icon drew some additional attention.

Anil Dash found the icon distasteful and categorized it as passive-aggressive by Apple and lame. Engadget published instructions on how to change the icon to something "a little less condescending." Chris Owens read those instructions and decided to make his own icon to replace the one he termed "a little tasteless." Whether or not it is tasteless or passive-aggressive, I found it amusing even as a livelong PC and Windows owner.

While it is undeniably true that Windows has had a history of stability issues, these problems have been corrected in Windows 7 and are now a thing of the past. In the eleven months I have owned my ThinkPad W500 running Windows 7 64-bit, I have experienced solid performance without any blue screens. Sure, there has been an odd occasional issue, but none has crashed the operating system nor has it caused any.

I was not able to get the Windows network map to display the Mac, possibly due to the nature of hardware emulation, so I cannot be certain what icon would display. Having combed through the available icon libraries including shell32.dll, imageres.dll and DDORes.dll, I am however confident that no sarcastic icons exist. At least publicly, who knows what Microsoft engineers have running on their systems. Perhaps it is an icon of an Apple LCD and Sad Mac.

When I got a BlackBerry in July 2010, one of the things I decided to try was Twitter. Up to that point, I had never really understood its purpose but it has proven amusing in the intervening 6 months and 24 days.

At first, I followed anyone I was familiar with but found the deluge of irrelevancy too much to handle on the phone. I trimmed that list down to friends, news sources and a few others, none of whom tweet excessively. I also found Twitter particularly fun during group events like the Orlando Predators game and DragonCon 2010.

I never imagined that I would use Twitter for any official purpose until last Saturday night. While driving east on Apalachee Parkway, I noticed the newly installed red light traffic camera capturing the eastbound approach was taking pictures of everyone passing through the intersection, myself included, despite the green light.

While I was considering my action later at home, I remembered that the City of Tallahassee's official traffic account, @COTTraffic, had posted when that camera was activated. I looked up that tweet and decided to reply with my story.

They replied at 0742 Monday morning saying, "I'm not sure but will check on that and let u know. Thanks for the info!" They replied again today at 1630.

This is excellent customer service and I am sure that is due in part to the nature of social media. I was able to target my message to the appropriate recipient, or someone who could get in touch with the correct parties quickly, and at no time had to explain and re-explain my situation to a series of people who have no idea what I am talking about. I should note that this comment is meant generally, as I have no real experience dealing with the city.

I replied almost immediately.

To those behind the keyboard at @COTTraffic, well done!

It was not that long ago technicians had to carry a toolkit complete with 3.5" diskettes and later, burned CDs of utilities, drivers and anti-virus software to on-site computer service calls. In addition to that, I had a little book with computer beep codes, common IRQs, DLL descriptions and other technical details. Years before that in 1992, I received a Compaq Prolinea i386 desktop for Christmas and with it a Star Micronics color dot-matrix printer. To resolve an issue with it, I had to telephone Star long distance and have them mail me a diskette with updated drivers.

The purpose of this anamnesis is to celebrate the fact that the internet has made the above mostly obsolete. Search engines and knowledgebases make error codes and troubleshooting techniques easy to look up and learn. Tools and utilities written by individuals are frequently better than official offerings from major tech companies and are freely available to download. Drivers are easy to locate and obtain but now frequently install automatically.

In the interest of sharing with and helping others, I have compiled this list of thirty-six favorite applications, tools and utilities. Some are useful for daily or regular use while others may only apply to specific situations and are good to have in your arsenal. Most of this software is free, though I do own licenses for the four non-free products listed.

	7-Zip by Igor Pavlov	Free | Download
7-Zip is probably the best file compression tool around. Filled with useful features and integrating nicely into context menus, 7-Zip handles packing and unpacking 7 formats like ZIP, GZIP and TAR as well as unpacking 24 formats such as CAB, DMG, ISO and MSI. The best feature is the high compression ratio 7-Zip format itself, which I use almost exclusively.
	Adobe PDF Preview Handler Fix by Leo Davidson	Free | Download
If your Adobe PDF preview handlers are not working as expected, a known issue may be the cause. This small tool will update the registry and allow the preview handler to work in a 64-bit environment. Adobe apparently fixed the bug last year but I still found it necessary to use this tool.
	AMP Font Viewer by Alberto Martinez Perez	Free | Download
AMP Font Viewer is a font manager and browsing tool for installed and non-installed fonts. It has features for installing and removing fonts from the system and organizing samples and previews. I use AMP to browse my over 11,000 file font collection over the LAN.
	Audacity by Dominic Mazzoni	Free | Download
Audacity is a simple yet powerful audio editor capable of working with MP3, WAV, AIFF and OGG formats. In addition to the standard editing tools, Audacity contains a large effects library with many useful tools. It is perfect for cleaning up noisy clips, making ring tones and cropping music files.
	Audiograbber by Jackie Franck	Free | Download
Before CD ripping software was commonplace there was Audiograbber. It features a straightforward interface and a full set of configurable options. Audiograbber can query freedb and encode ripped content using any codecs installed on the system including Fraunhofer MPEG Pro.
	Bulkr by Prakash Bajracharya	$24.95 | Download
Bulkr is a lightweight backup solution for Flickr built on Adobe Air. It includes bulk download options for sets, the ability to write EXIF titles, tags and descriptions to downloaded photos or save that data as plain text. Geotag support is planned for the next version. The trial is partially functional.
	CCleaner by Piriform	Free | Download
CCleaner is a fast and simple way to delete unnecessary files, clean-up system areas and repair common registry issues. It can scrub browser cache and history, purge most recently used lists, delete old System Restore checkpoints and more. The portable version is a perfect addition to your USB stick.
	CDBurnerXP by Canneverbe Limited	Free | Download
Native support may have improved with Windows 7, but I still prefer CDBurnerXP for all my CD and DVD burning needs. It creates ISOs, data and audio discs, includes support for making boot discs and has a complete set of options and tools. If you dislike Roxio and the like, CDBurnerXP is for you.
	Cobian Backup by Luis Cobian	Free | Download
Cobian Backup is perfect for my automated (as a service) and on-demand backup needs, providing the functionality of professional backup suites without the cost and overhead. Features include e-mailed status logs, timestamp separated backups, pre/post-backup events, selection masks, Volume Shadow Copy support and 7-Zip compression.
	Console by Marko Bozikovic	Free | Download
If you do a lot of command-line work, the lack of customizability with cmd.exe has surely frustrated you. Console can be used with any command-line interpreter like PowerShell and gives complete control over the interface including size, transparency, font, cursor, icon, keyboard shortcuts, window styles and tabs.
	FileZilla by Tim Kosse	Free | Download
FileZilla is a cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with all the common bells and whistles like site management and a transfer queue. Synchronized local/remote directory browsing and file edit monitoring have appreciably increased my productivity; I now consider these features must-have.
	Flash Renamer by RL Vision	$19.95 | Download
As the developer states, Flash Renamer is "the program of choice when you need a fast and intuitive way to rename multiple files." Advanced functions include replace, set casing, add and remove, read MP3 tags, counter and re-number. The trial is fully functional with delay screens.
	foobar2000 by Peter Pawlowski	Free | Download
A simple and stable audio player, foobar2000 is my solution to a problem with VLC Media Player that causes unfortunate WAV playback issues. As such, this application is perfect for quickly sampling files of any length. It also includes more advanced features, but I have limited experience with them.
	Hugin by Pablo d'Angelo	Free | Download
Hugin is an impressive photograph stitching tool running PanoTools, Enblend and Enfuse. Automatic control point assignment, fast previewing and advanced options make the panorama process fun and functional. To see what is possible, check out the composite images I created with Hugin.
	IcoFX by Attila Kovrig	Free | Download
IcoFX is a feature packed icon editor supporting resolutions up to 256×256, Windows and OS X icons, libraries, transparency, EXE/DLL extraction, image conversion, effects, filters, import, export and more. It is easy to edit existing icons or create custom ones from scratch.
	KeePass Password Safe by Dominik Reichl	Free | Download
With KeePass it is simple to maintain a secure profile of strong account credentials. Lightweight and customizable, it includes template-based password generation, secure copy/paste handling, plugin support and third-party ports for BlackBerry, iPhone, etcetera.
	KeyTweak by Travis Krumsick	Free | Download
KeyTweak is a keyboard remapping tool. The half teach mode allows you to push a keyboard key and have its scan code auto-detected for easy substitution. This is the perfect utility for customizing your keyboard and adding missing functions like the Windows key.
	MetaEditor by Pavel Kirth	Free | Download
MetaEditor is designed to work with EXIF, IPTC, GPS and XMP metadata in JPEG, TIFF and PNG images. It features lossless save, tag export, data stripping and batch functions. Of the EXIF tools I have tried, MetaEditor has the broadest support for the most number of tags.
	Mp3tag by Florian Heidenreich	Free | Download
Mp3tag is a deluxe universal tag editor supporting seven tag and fourteen audio formats, file renaming based on tags, tag auto-fill based on file names, cover art, export, playlist generation and album database querying. I made a donation to the author because Mp3tag is so useful.
	MyDefrag by Jeroen Kessels	Free | Download
Running on the Windows defragmentation API, MyDefrag offers customizable optimization routines, file zoning, command-line and scripting support, scheduling, full portability and a screen saver. Solid-state drives cannot be defragmented but MyDefrag is a must-have for all hard disk drives.
	POP Peeper by Jeff Meier	Free | Download
POP Peeper is an e-mail notification client supporting POP3, IMAP, SSL, common third-party mail services (GMail, Hotmail, etcetera), unlimited accounts and alerts such as tray icon count/color, audio and dialogue box. I use POP Pepper to administer my spam mailbox and other accounts.
	ResThief by Peter Stuer	Free | Download
At a whopping 20 KB, ResThief is a simple tool to extract resources like icons, bitmaps, text files and sounds from binary files. When you drop an EXE, DLL or other binary into the window, ResThief will extract all the file's resources into a folder.
	ShellExView by Nir Sofer	Free | Download
ShellExView is a utility that displays all the Windows shell extensions installed on your system and provides an easy way to disable and enable each one.
	ShellMenuNew by Nir Sofer	Free | Download
ShellMenuNew is a utility that displays all the menu items in the Windows Explorer "New" context menu on your system and provides an easy way to disable and enable each one.
	ShellMenuView by Nir Sofer	Free | Download
ShellMenuView is a utility that displays all the special and third-party menu items in the Windows Explorer context menu on your system and provides an easy way to disable and enable each one.
	Sysinternals Suite by Mark Russinovich	Free | Download
From the legacy of Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, Sysinternals Suite contains some of the best applications to manage, diagnose and troubleshoot Windows. Among its 67 utilities are Autoruns, Junction, Process Monitor, PsExec, ShellRunas and Whois. Must-have for any Windows admin.
	TextPad by Keith MacDonald	$27.00 | Download
TextPad is an advanced text editing program packed with features like casing, indenting, find and replace in single or multiple files, clip libraries, customizable document classes with independent configurations, macros and spell check. This is my default editor of choice.
	TreeSize Free by Joachim Marder	Free | Download
A simple disk space tool, TreeSize Free is a watered down version of the Pro version but remains quite useful. It displays the contents of drives in a logical hierarchy, sorted by size and with other visual indicators. It is useful for identifying space hogs and otherwise cleaning-up files.
	TweakPNG by Jason Summers	Free | Download
TweakPNG is a low-level tool for analyzing and modifying PNG chunks. It can be useful when needing to do things like delete the gAMA chunk to compensate for the PNG color issue in Internet Explorer.
	Types by E. Strunnikov	Free | Download
Types is a simple utility to control Windows file type associations, their classes, actions, icons and other settings. An optional context menu is also available to make updating a specific file type easy.
	VirtualBox by Oracle	Free | Download
VirtualBox is a professional, cross-platform and open source virtualization package. VMs can be created for multiple flavors of Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, BSD and OS/2. Other features include robust hardware emulation, snapshots and enhanced host/guest integration. Check out a screenshot of my OS X and Windows 3.1 VMs.
	VLC Media Player by VideoLAN	Free | Download
VLC Media Player is capable of playing audio and video files of practically any format and encoded with any codec. The only problem I have is with the playback of short WAV files—solved by using foobar2000—otherwise it has played everything I have tried including DVD ISO.
	What's running on that server? by Woodstone	Free | Download
What's Running is a simple application to query server ports by hostname or IP. It includes FTP, POP3, SMTP, NNTP and HTTP protocols but also accepts the input any port number for querying.
	Win7 Library Tool by Peter Horsley	Free | Download
Windows 7 libraries are convenient but annoyingly restrictive. This tool overcomes those limitations by allowing you to add network and other non-indexed locations to libraries, change library icons and backup your library customizations. Must-have for Windows 7.
	WordWeb Pro by Antony Lewis	$19.00+ | Download
WordWeb Pro is a dictionary and thesaurus with enhanced cross-reference features. The free version is a great application, but I upgraded for additional resources like the Oxford Dictionary of English, anagrams, pattern searches and system-wide hotkey lookup.
	X-Mouse Button Control by Phillip Gibbons	Free | Download
X-Mouse Button Control is a mouse remapping tool. Supporting five buttons, this software works where IntelliPoint and MouseWare fail—notably 64-bit systems with older mouse hardware like my MX700—giving you control over the buttons functions. It also supports application-specific configurations and making the scroll wheel scroll the window under the cursor (very handy).

Post a comment if you have experiences with or questions about any of the above, or would like to contribute your own must-have tools and applications.