Jim’s Random Thoughts

I know this is a week too late but at least I didn’t forget to post all together. This time around the camp was held at Cal State Fullerton and was once again well attended. There was quite an abundance of .NET sessions and also WPF sessions. I attended both days, all sessions. I even went to the Geek Dinner Sat night and ate some nice free food, drank some cold free beer and listened to two excellent free bands! DO you see a repeating theme for the Geek Dinner? It was free to the attendees and well worth every penny. The bands were Killola and Sound Cake. If you didn’t get out to Fullerton for this Code Camp, I suggest that you make an effort and attend the next one in San Diego. Check out the Code Camp website at www.SoCalCodeCamp.com

If you are not aware of it by now, CodeGear is having another CodeRage all week long. It was kicked off this morning with the keynote speech by Jim Douglass. So far the experience is quite different from the first CR. This time around they seem to have the audio/visual part under control and I have not seen nor heard of any problems with the presentations so far. So go to the CodeGear web site and sign up for the remainder of the week and catch as many free presentations as possible.

I’m sure that everyone out there has heard of Facebook, but how many of you are actually members? I jumped in just for a little fun and quickly learned how much fun it can really be. Once you join, there are thousands of groups that you can join to discuss the various topics. There are games to play, quiz’s to take and compare your results to your friends. You can search for long lost friends from school. Loads of stuff! So if you decide to give it a try, look me up and add me as a friend. Mention that you learned of Facebook through my Blog and I’ll add you to my friends list. Look for Jim Hunter in the Orange County, CA group or look for Jim Hunter in the GotGemstones group (a much smaller group to look through). See you on Facebook!

On a recent trip back from San Diego, where I got to see first hand the complete devastation that the recent fires caused, I was behind a Toyota pickup truck heading North on the 15 freeway. We were not in a burn area at the time but we were in an area with nothing but dry brush along the side of the road. Mind you, at the time it was about a week removed from the massive fires that killed people and burned over 2,000 homes. So what did I see get thrown from the truck? Yes, you guessed it, a freaking lit cigarette! I wanted to run the truck off the road. How could this person be so stupid and inconsiderate as to throw a lit object out the window in a High Fire Danger area? I think it stems from habit. They are used to always doing it, using our planet as their ash tray. I think this is the single rudest thing anyone can do. Who do they think is going to pick it up? Why isn’t there someplace we can report these people so they get fined?

Well, for me there is a place and you are reading it. The trucks license plate was CA 3P37061, it was dark dray in color. So if you know this person, kindly ask them to STOP THROWING LIT CIGARETTES OUT THE DAMN WINDOW!

This is just my opinion, yours may vary.

I would like to publicly thank all the firefighters and other emergency personnel that have assisted in putting out all the fires that have cropped up here in Southern California. I was directly effected as the fires came to within 200 yards of my office and we were evacuated three days in a row due to the fire and dense smoke it created. I have friends that were also evacuated in San Diego but at this time they have all been lucky and the fire missed their homes. But as yo all know there were all too many people that lost everything they had in the fires and I want to send my prayers to them all and let them know that we are thinking about you and hope that things get better very soon for you. And as for the person or people that started the fires, I hope that you get caught quickly. I know I was one of the 1000+ people that called in tips in order to bring this person to justice.

So everyone still not in their homes, God bless and I pray for a quick resolve to your issues.

While I was out looking at some species flowers tonight I ran across this rather unwanted guest in the garden. I had seen it before but was never able to fully identify it until tonight. It was kind enough to keep still long enough for me to snap a few pictures. Can anyone guess what it is? Well needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled to see it. I usually leave the spiders alone to help reduce the other pests in the garden and to feed the lizards that I have wandering around. But since this was a Black Widow I was compelled to reduce the spider population by one, I apologize to anyone that might think this was cruel (I spend too much time with my fingers in and around where this was and I can’t afford to get bit by this thing). So here it is, my unwanted garden guest, the Black Widow…

  This is the time of year when all your seed pods are getting ripe. It doesn’t matter if you live in the country or live in a busy city like I do, you are going to be subject to rats eating away at your seed pods. You see, we aren’t the only ones that think that the ripe red pods are so tasty. Last year I lost most of my pods to the little furry creatures. The only way that I know of to fix the problem is to get rid of the creatures. Now, I’m not going to tell you how to get rid of them, you can choose your own methods. But if you wake up one morning and find that the huge ripe pod you saw the day before is now gone, you can bet it was the work of a rat on the loose. So keep an eye out and if you start to see them disapear, start picking them a little earlier so that you don’t loose the precious seeds.

 Today is a sad day for me, I found out that Madeline French, the wife of George French, passed away 2 weeks ago. I was not close with her but I have known her for many years. She always had a smile when you would see her. I missed her this year at the San Diego Epiphyllum Society Annaul Mothers Day Show as she was too ill to make the show. Madeline will be missed by many as she touched the hearts of everyone she met. My prayers go out to George and his entire family. Madeline was a truly wonderful person.

“Queen of the Night” is a slang name given to the species epiphyllum oxypetalum. This is in the cacti family and related to the Christmas and Easter cacti and also the species Rhipsalis. Oxypetalum is an easy plant to identify by is unique flowers. They form pointing downward then about 3 days before blooming the flower starts to point upward towards the sky. The night it is going to open, the flower bud resembles a ‘Dutchmans Pipe’ which is also another slang name given to this flower. This is perhaps the most fragrant flower in the Epiphyllum world (which includes all the epi hybrids as well). When in full bloom, the flower can be smelled from many yards away. Sadly, this flower opens around 10pm and is faded by 10am the next morning. This is true with most of the Epihyllum species.

To learn more about Epiphyllums, check out www.GotEpis.com

If you are a developer and are looking for a clean and easy way to keep your files backed up, look no more. The answer is SecondCopy. It is a file backup program that does a whole lot more. You can keep as many changes as you like in the file history. What this means is that if you are editing a file and over the past few days have made many changes only to discover that none of them work, you can revert to a previous version of the file. You can have SecondCopy keep two directories synced, so changes to one directory will get echoed to the other directory. One of the recent additions to the program allow you to use an FTP site as one of the directories. With this, you can use a cheap hosting company as your secure off-site storage (see my review of DreamHost.com). It works like a champ. Setting profiles up is quick and easy. You can create as many profiles as you like and you can have each one run when you want it to. I find nothing bad that I can say about this software. I have been using it for almost 10 years, or since just after it was created.

Recently Second Copy won People’s Choice Award for the Best Overall Utility, for the 6th time! You can get Second Copy from www.centered.com