I have always preferred to run everything on this site locally, without relying on third-party services. On a few occasions in 2009, I lightened up on this policy and expanded a few things outside my control.

Most notably, I migrated the photograph gallery to Flickr, started using Google Reader to publish shared links of interest ("Linkage") and began providing RSS feeds through FeedBurner. Overall, I have been pleased enough with these arrangements.

Flickr
While I continue to worry about the future of Flickr under Yahoo!, my experience there has been excellent. Although my primary motive was to reduce the overhead in managing the gallery and costs of hosting, the unanticipated result has been the far-wider audience my pictures have received worldwide.

I am no fan of the JavaScript or Flash only options for displaying recent uploads. Making mass edits is still far more cumbersome now; previously I could download the database, make batch updates and upload. I was also so frustrated by Flickr's outdated built-in Creative Commons license that I now just link to the license here. But so long as the service remains essentially the same, I will continue to pay for a Pro subscription and keep my images on Flickr.

Google Reader
Since I was already using Google Reader as my RSS aggregator, using its sharing feature to publish Linkage was a logical progression. I enjoyed the fact that this content could be viewed as a list in the sidebar, on a stand-alone page with images and via RSS.

Yesterday I learned of Google's plans to "clean things up" as they said, referring to the discontinuation of sharing, following and friending inside Reader. Instead, new Google+ integration is designed to take over. By forcing this change, the usefulness of this product for me has just gone to zero.

Mozilla Thunderbird, my first choice as an alternative RSS reader, has so far proven to meet my needs. I did not find any add-ons to share feeds from Thunderbird, so I will now be posting Linkage on Twitter. This works immediately, the only issue being that my script does not yet interpret the newish Twitter shortlinks (e.g. http://t.co/AkgyGG0v). With that fixed, I think this will work out fine. UPDATE: this issue has been resolved.

FeedBurner
Finally, I have decided that the cons outweigh the pros with regard to using FeedBurner. I had originally sought the compatibility features and web front-end, but I find that my site's feeds are often delayed for no reason. RSS is ubiquitous and while Chrome still mysteriously has no internal means of displaying feeds, the other four major browsers now do.

I hate that it may be a hassle for those two or three subscribers to update their feed software, but think it is better to cut this cord before I have an even more compelling reason to do so.

For the past few months, I have been developing a new website for the Second Judicial Circuit Guardian ad Litem Program. Serving Franklin, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty and Wakulla counties in northwest Florida, the program is part of a statewide coalition of volunteers, community partners and professional staff. Guardians ad litem are court-appointed volunteers who protect the rights of and advocate for the best interests of a child involved in a court proceeding, frequently as a result of alleged abuse or neglect.

I could not be working pro bono for a nicer group of people or a better organization. The work the program does is important and so are their fundraising, recruitment and training efforts. My greatest hope is that the new website will help the program better meet their mission, improve overall efficiency when dealing with volunteers and the public, more efficiently provide information and increase the program's online profile.

The people I have met are extremely friendly and a pleasure to work with, a trait that should not be uncommon but my experience says differently (see Clients From Hell). Special thanks to Deborah Moore, Leigh Merritt and Stacey Burns for making the entire process fun and painless.

It has been a challenging but extremely fun project. With my current day job workload—among other duties, I am an assistant project manager on the massive data center consolidation project for the Florida Department of Transportation—I have been working on the website nearly every weeknight and weekend. Although it has been an exhausting time, getting this website built and online as quickly as possible has been a driving force.

In addition to significantly improving my PHP programming, WordPress theme development and regular expression skills, this project has rekindled in me a powerful urge to work for good. I last felt this way when I was running a small law office ten years ago. Going home each day with the knowledge that my day's work made a tangible difference in someone's life was a wonderful reward. In the near future, I shall investigate what opportunities may be available for me at not-for-profit organizations. Because you never know—and I would like to have that feeling regularly again.

Please take a few moments to check out the website and learn about the program. I would love to hear any feedback you may have.

Fifty-six seconds after informing Captain Bruce McCandless II (CAPCOM) of his intent to take humanity's first photographs on the lunar surface during extravehicular activity, Neil Armstrong adjusted the settings on his 70mm Hasselblad—loaded with Kodak Ektachrome SO168 160ASA color film, Magazine 40/S—and snapped a series of photos for a panorama starting with this one. The result is AS11-40-5850 "Lunar Surface with Lunar Module Strut" shot by Armstrong just west of the Lunar Module ladder looking east-southeast.

You can watch video of this sequence, learn more about Apollo 11 photography and panoramas, browse the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal including the entire mission image library and read the official transcripts.

Are you a fan of the brilliant British television comedy The IT Crowd by Graham Linehan? Do you frequently feel the need to vent because of impossible users, clients or people in general? I think it is important these two demographics have an appropriate outlet and since I enjoy efficiency, how about a twofer?

As if that was not entertaining enough, Pam made a request for a version including her favorite Moss quote. Who am I to refuse a request like that?

The sound clips are available to download via the Reynholm Industries logo on each page. I might be up for another one; suggest your favorite Jen Barber quotes and I can complete what may as well be a trifecta.

2011-07-09 — I rewrote things using HTML5, jQuery and jPlayer for better platform and browser interoperability. I did not find a Jen quote but I did find another of Moss appropriate for this impromptu YTMND inspired project.

2011-07-10 — Taking Pam up on her suggestions in the comments, I found a great albeit longer quote from Jen and also added Douglas Reynholm to the mix. Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to present to you…

2011-07-16 — This one is for Marc by email request.

2011-09-12 — This amusing addition is for Marta in San Jose, California via Marc by SMS request.

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.