QuickSilver

My Brother turned me on to Quicksilver, a competitor to LaunchBar... one of my favorite apps. I'm gonna give it a try for a while, because it has more features. Boing Boing has a comparison

Some Changes...

I got the dotted underline links back... thanks to Sir Robert.

Also, I'm going to start having a picture here at the top... as it says, it is the picture of an arbitrary amount of time.
If you see a picture you like and then I change it, you can see all of the pictures at http://dwightk.fotopages.com

Web Design

I'm not a professional web designer... I don't know anything about web standards (except that XML is newer and different than HTML, heck I don't even really know if those are standards) I haven't designed many websites... The ones I have designed aren't well designed. But...

Here are some web design faux pas that I see all the time.

1. Lots of different colors on a page.
Pick a color and match all the colors on the page to it... sometimes contrast is good, but not always, and not every 6th pixel.

2. Hard to understand Navigation
Don't make me mouse over to find out what a button does, Don't change from a button to a paragraph when I mouse over, Don't let people put banners on your site that look like they are Windows dialogue boxes, I have 2 grandmothers, they both use Windows, please, think of them (I know I know they are exactly who the banners target, but I can hope can't I?)

3. Lime Green
Don't use lime green, unless you wanna make a statement... and that statement is "I want my website to look poorly designed"

4. Low Color Depth
Lots of people have 32+bit color depth, and if your picture caters to them, it isn't leaving the 8 bit people behind... (although it is leaving the lynx people behind)

I'm sure there are other things... I'm sure real web designers will read this and not leave comments... whatever

Also, I know some people, and they like having me look at their sites to tell them what I think... Some of those people make changes based on my advice... If you want me to critique your page, I'd be glad to. (non-commercial sites please ;-)

Much better than Fotolog

Dwight's FotoPage - - Fotopages.com

Sure there is a catch, but I can't find it...

Upgrade Panther's Calculator:

From Macworld:

Add New Calculator Modes

Do you miss OS 9's Graphing Calculator? Well, you can bring it back to life in OS X 10.3 -- along with an expression input sheet and a hexadecimal calculator.

First, open the Applications folder and create a duplicate of the default Calculator application (this gives you a backup in case something goes wrong). Control-click on your duplicate Calculator and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. In the resulting Finder window, select the column-view mode (View: As Columns), and then go to Contents: Resources. From the Resources folder, drag the Graphing-2D.calcview, ExpressionSheet.calcview, and Hexadecimal.calcview folders into the PlugIns folder in the previous column

Launch your duplicate Calculator application. You should see three new options listed under the View menu: Expression Sheet, Graphing, and Hexadecimal. -- rg

Creeds

I posted this at the forums of the Emerging Church community in orkut, but if you aren't a member you can read it here:

What is a creed? or confession?

I have, at times, found myself thinking (not in so many words): "If I can just get a perfect creed..." and finishing with such ideas as: "... I will get into heaven alright" or "... I can make anyone believe"

At some points I even found myself thinking: "Why am I going to this church if I don't agree completely theologically with them?" or "How do I need to change my belief to come into accordance with my church?"

Which is not to say that I believe that everyone should just find their own way to God. Or that I think that I have no need of guidance from older and wiser christians (although I may have thought so many times.)

So... what really matters? How much can you change? Paul says in first Corinthians: "...Christ crucified..." Is that enough? What if I believe that Christ was crucified to stand in for my sins, but I don't know Jesus was fully god and fully man? What if I believe that Christ was crucified, but actively believe that he may have simply been a special guy? What if I believe that Jesus and God the Father are both God, but the Holy spirit isn't a separate person, and there is not a Trinity?

Who really cares?

Catty vs. Kitty -- Corner

Dialect Survey Results

Pretty close, but Kitty Wins... (note the north south division in this one)

(As everyone knows, Catty is right)

80.73% of the people in the U.S.

have no idea how to pronounce bowie knife.... weird

cDialect Survey Results

THE IMPACT OF ANONYMITY ON DISINHIBITIVE BEHAVIOR THROUGH COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

THE IMPACT OF ANONYMITY ON DISINHIBITIVE BEHAVIOR THROUGH COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AKA "Why people are dorks online" (link from Penny-Arcade

Get Fuzzy

I really like Get Fuzzy. This comic is about a cat that is against the ethical treatment of animals. (Nate Eagle turned me on to Get Fuzzy)

How much can we really trust Google?

Google & Privacy: "It seems that most love Google; I used to love it too. But now I just like it, and I'm slightly concerned about them too." (link from Nothing in Particular)

Not being paranoid, but what information are you willing to trust Google with? I have only had one bad experience with personal information on the internet... But this is something to think about.

Mark Cuban Weblog

Blog Maverick

Kinda cool

Pornstar Vampires: Confessions of a sinner

From Christdot:

Ahhh the life of a male pornstar...what could be better? Lying around all day getting paid for having sex with all kinds of hot women?! Sounds like any male fantasy! If youll just sign here at this dotted line, ill make it happen! No pen? Oh that's OK use blood.

Ben Davis Project

The Ben Davis Project was the worship band at beachreach. They were great. I got to talk with Jeff (the bass player) for an afternoon. They are all great guys, and they were pretty good at leading worship.

Orkut

I'm an orkut member now... If you are a friend, and want an invitation, just drop me a line. Also, if you are a friend, and you already have a membership, drop me a line, (or make me your friend)

More on MPFreaker

They have a beta5 version... it made it all the way through my library w/o crashing...

Unfortunately, it is only as good as the CDDB is, and I hate how so many people turn in tags w/ track names in the artist field... etc.

Augustine's Blog

Augustine's Blog

Beachreach 04

Check out the site: right here
(I'm running the site tonight)

MPFreaker

... is pretty cool... Get it here It goes through your iTunes library and fills in all the missing tags... and adds artwork.... automagically. I already paid my 20 bucks for it... it is so useful.

**EDIT**:
After using it for a while, I have been slightly brought back to the reality that this is beta software (luckily all 1.x updates are included in my fee) It crashes every once in a while. One hint I realized is to work with the music folder directly instead of iTunes playlists... It scans a folder of 6000+ MP3's in about a minute vs. a playlist of less than 6000 in about 30 minutes... This really helps when you are relaunching after every 300 or so files.

Interesting Article about The Passion of Christ

Link(via world net daily) "In Hollywood, in spite of what they will tell you, the controversy over 'The Passion of the Christ' has nothing to do with a fair representation of the final hours of the Savior. An industry that has, in part, spent the last half of the 20th century and most of the new millennium showing people getting their heads blown off, fornicating, using drugs and bashing Christianity is now gravely concerned about tarnishing the image of Jesus Christ? Either they're being reborn right before our eyes, or somebody got the drop on them. You decide."

Use any mic with your iPod

Link (via mac daily news)