Peter's Place

CIO Magazine has an article about a new tool from the folks at Google for the Firefox web browser (created by the Mozilla Foundation ) that synchronizes all of your personal information contained within the browser across different computers. For instance, say that you have a desktop computer at home, and a notebook (laptop) computer that you take with you when you travel. You run Firefox on both computers. For most people, the options/settings that would be on the desktop computer wouldn't be the same as the options/settings on the notebook, especially when you're talking about a web browsing application such as Firefox. With Google's new Firefox Extension , the version of Firefox on the desktop computer will have the same settings ( bookmarks , history, cookies , etc.) as the version on the notebook computer. While there have been other attempts at creating an extension that will synchronize a user's personal data within Firefox, those extensions relied on th...

OK, so I'm back on-line. I've found a somewhat more stable living environment. This very kind person (we'll call him " D ") has allowed me to crash in his living room for the outrageous fee of helping him learn more about computers. He's kind, caring, and we have a lot in common. He has a computer but, at the moment, because he's just moving into his apartment, he has only dial-up access. Actually, the dial-up access is something that my friend, Cody , provided for me, through his AOL account (Cody works for AOL Wireless ). So anyway, now that I'm online again, hopefully I'll be updating my blog a bit more frequently. Just as I logged in to work tonight and went to my personalized Google home page, I came across this story , about how some companies (like GM ) do get the " new media " (online media), and how other companies (like the New York Times ) just plain don't get it. I'm back -- at least, for the time being. More tech,...

I took some more pics of my car today. I'll probably need them for the insurance company. Thex won't be getting back to me until tuesday, due to the memorial day weekend holiday. From bad, to worse. I'll fill in some captions later. I've got to run now. A pic from afar. The lenses in camera phones aren't really that great, and you can see here that the sunshine kind of blurred the image a bit. A close-up of the branch/tree that remained lying across the hood of my car, which smashed my windshield. A forward-looking view of the same branch/tree that lies on the hood of my car, showing how it probably hit the front, made a nice hole in the front passenger fender, and damaged the light assembly, before rolling on the hood (denting the hood, of couse) and smashing the windshield. A close-up of the damage to the front passenger side of the car. You can see leaves and branches from the tree/branch that hit my car surronding the car in this area. Finally, a side shot, wher...

So i spent the night at a friend's apartment last night. Ok, so he might be more than a friend but it's too early to tell. So i wake up this afternoon and in out to my car (a 1995 Buick Park Avenue Ultra ) and find it sitting under a tree. Or more specifically, there's a tree lying on top of my car. Here's the tree lying on top of my car. Actually, I'm not really sure if it's a tree or just a really big branch. But there aren't really any other big trees that would have a branch this large for it to fall on top of my car. It's a very weird situation. Here's a view showing more of the background. The front of my car, which you can't see very well because of the sunlight's interference with my phone's camera lens. Some of the damage to the front of my car. Again, hard to see what's going on.

So, because the price of gasoline in the United States is at records highs, and the profits of oil companies are reaching record highs as well (for any type of company, and we're talking the profits here, not the gross income), people are starting to talk about organizing a boycott of gasoline. The article, as you'll note, states that there will be a boycott of United States gasoline for the entire weekend of July 4, 2006 . I'm all for it. So stock up before the weekend, and just stop buying. I mean, this is really getting rediculous. Three fucking dollars and Sixty fucking nine fucking cents per fucking gallon of gasoline is completely out of hand, especially considering that it costs about $0.06 (that's six cents) per gallon to get the oil out of the ground in the first place (yes yes yes, I know, all about the refining costs and what not, but that should put gas at around $1.50/gallon in today's prices. Of course, we all know not to buy gasoline from Exxon/Mob...

So I've met a few people lately, and I've helped them set up a blog on-line. The first person, Brian , I met while on a job. He seemed pretty cool and was very friendly. He had been wanting to set up a blog for a while but didn't know how to do it. I showed him how easy it was to set one up using Blogger's blogging service. He was up and running and creating his first post in about five minutes. Of course, being that I met him at work, he's a bit more computer literate than most. The only negative thing about meeting him was that, because of my depression, I had this recurring thought in my mind: I really don't have the energy to go through the process of meeting a new person, learning about them, etc. I'm sure this is a wonderful person, who's very kind, caring, consideration, fun to be around, could make a great friend. But I just don't have the energy to be dealing with meeting new people. The second person, Donna , is a bit more complicated but,...

There's this really great organization, called "Gay Pride Rockland." It's kind of like Heritage of Pride , the people who organize the NYC Pride festivities. But they go a bit beyond that, because they're sponsored by the Volunteer Counseling Services of Rockland County's Community Change Project . The director of the organization, Phyllis, shares my same last name. She's a sister, of course, but since we share the same surname, we're really related somehow. She's a really great person, very warm, caring, loving, and giving of herself. I used to be on the planning committee for Gay Pride Rockland, but then I had my car accident. I went to Gay Pride the year of my car accident, and I went again in 2004, but I wasn't able to make it there last year. At the moment, I can't recall the reason why I was unable to attend last year's pride event. Even though I'm not a Rockland County resident, I have a few friends who live in Rockland an...

While it's pleasing to note that one will not now lose one's job due to surfing the Internet (provided, of course, that such activities don't interfere with work productivity), I was a bit concerned about this part of the decision/ruling: Choudhri was not fired, but Spooner reprimanded him in a letter that will go into Choudhri's employee file. Given, that the employee in question (Choudhri) was found not to have slacked off of the work he was expected to do while he was found to have been surfing the 'net, I don't even think that he should have been reprimanded, especically given the ruling of the case that surfing the Internet must be afforded the same status as any other personal activity that is allowed at the workplace. Security Focus has an interesting article that, I think, portrays both the concerns of employers, as well as some of the reasoning behind why employees surf the 'net at work to begin with, and does a relatively good job at describing ...

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." Mark Twain

Lots of people ask me why I'm in pain. I tell them that I have "osteoarthritis" and they go, "Oh." I get the feeling that they don't quite understand exactly what OA is. While I was on the Celebrex web site, I found a very useful page that explains most of what OA is all about, and why it causes pain. Maybe this will help people understand at least some of my pain. Oh, by the way, I have very severe osteoarthritis in my right ankle, as well as severe diffuse osteopenia .

So now that I find out, that in addition to being kicked out of my house by my uncle keith, I'm not even allowed to go to the house anymore. So, I'm finally at my father's house. I got out of the hospital on Tuesday, and have been sleeping on various friend's couches since then. It's now Saturday, and I'm at my father's house. The first time I've been on a computer in about a month, give or take a few days. Internet withdrawal is not a fun thing. I don't have any money .... I took all the money out of my bank account before I left the hospital (it was only a few hundred dollars) and gave it to my friend Mike, who's a mechanic and is fixing my car, because the part that my car needs wound up costing a lot more, because he had to resort to getting it from the delaership instead of the discount parts store where he usually gets parts. So most of the money went to Mike. The rest of it, well, I lost about $50 because I left my wallet on a counter in ...

I just got out of the hospital. I'm feeling a little better. I'll do ok as long as I don't have to deal with uncle keith.