Some stats and facts.

First, I guess X-Men 3: The Last Stand broke most of the box office records last weekend. And that was without any of my help, I've yet to see it- but will soon.

This blog started two weeks ago (first real post on Tues May 16th). Through yesterday (exactly two weeks), there have been: 242 unique visitors and 404 page views.

Thanks to all for taking time to visit! Uh, if there is irony in the number 404, I had to look at page loading errors; there were 194 page view errors! I dunno what that's about, if some peeps are closing before page loads/caches or what. Mostly it's through atom, so all you RSS readers, let me know if you have problems. Your feedback is welcome anytime.

I check stats to see what browsers and OS peeps use, but I don't get any personal info, so not to worry. Seems visitors hail from Alaska to harvard.edu. I'm pleased to see Firefox 1.5 is the hands down winner of browsers (75 visitors). So, I hope some found the extensions list helpful. For the 34 combined that use IE 5.5 or 6.0, well... 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed recommend FF for their patients that chew gum (huh?).

My flickr pics (I signed up on April 28th) have been viewed a total of 637 times now. The panoramic shot of SBC- AT&T- Advertising Space Available here___! Park shot (above) is most viewed at 130 times. Second is supermacro poppy at 107 views.

I like these Japanese manhole cover pics. Thanks Tee Low for the link.

If you ever wondered what you'd do if you were sweatin' money out your glands, well... Here's why you should have more than one exotic car- even if you can only drive one at a time. Geez, seventeen and driving a Ferrari Enzo?

I'd like to hear from you. Your comments would help me to d3velop this blog into more of what people are interested in. How I built my own PC for 1/3 of its retail price? Product reviews? More of the gibberish I've been writing (really?). Upcoming events in the SF area? Internet deals? Just give me a shout. Cheers.

more pics uploaded to flickr

I've just uploaded a new batch of pics to my flickr galleries.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/prodesma/

Personally, having only THREE free galleries makes for one very jumbled gallery of randomness.
Then, I have a floral and plant gallery.
The last gallery is of dogs and other critters.

New pics include more photos of Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, flowers, plants, architecture, some panoramic shots, and a couple photo stitch pics.

Comments, input, or criticism is always welcome. I would love to hear from you, via feedback, comments on flickr, or comments here. Cheers.

Things you NEED

Hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday weekend here (in the U.S.!). If I might be so bold as to say you need to get some new acts into your life, well this would definitely be my short list.

Okay, it maybe isn't so short.
First, if you're not viewing this in Mozilla Firefox (v. 1.5.0.3), well you should be. I reckon it's about as good as a browser gets. Why, it's the extensions of course! I've just reformatted my hard drives (to RAID 1 for 2 x 250 GB HDD's if you must know) and re-installed everything to rid myself of my pesky, dubious software aforementioned (last post). This install included a bunch of Firefox extensions that I just don't understand how peeps live without. We're talking quality-of-life- altering goodness, fo sho'.

Get 'em all at Mozilla; but being the nice guy I am (ha ha), I've included the links so you needn't sift through a Mo-zillion pages of add-ons. (Gee, there isn't even a "donate" button on my blog... I should really have that looked at).

1) Foxy Tunes: puts your fave music player (whichever that is) into teeny controls right on the bottom R corner of your browser window. Gee, how convenient.
2) PDF download: You can choose whether you want to open a .pdf file with a new browser tab or download it, with lots of customizable options.
3) Download Statusbar: View and manage d/l's from a tidy statusbar and stop the huge d/l window from clusterf*$@ing your screen. Even shows d/l status in teeny window at lower L of browser window.
4) Tab X: puts an itty 'close' button on each tab so you can quickly close tabs in your FF browser. Gee, this is fast and delicious.
5) IE View: for those sites that just don't happen in FF (like rei.com as an example), you can choose with a r-click to open in IE or 'always open this page in IE'. Simple really.
6) Resize Search Box: I dunno why this isn't included in the FF features, basically adds a 'resize' tool to your nav bar so, you can see more of what you type in the Google search box. One of my faves, works like a charm.
Okay, all the above I've used for some time already, and work gr-rrrrreat! No crashes, no freezes. Just lots oodles of tidiness and helpfulness-est-es.
7) Map This: just l-click drag over an address (street and city) and r-click selction to open a new tab with a Google map of the addy. My gahd! this works! Brilliant I say!
8) MeasureIt: I know what you're thinking... Actually, it puts a little button on the bottom L of your browser window. click it to measure pixel width and height of anything anywhere on a webpage. Great for website developers. Will definitely be instrumental in my site designing.
9) Mouse Gestures: A simple move of the mouse (with a r-click) and you can now navigate to a previous page, forward, or open a duplicate page in a new window and oh-so-much more (view available gestures here). If you spend time power searching Google (or just online in general), then this should-be a must-have for the in-the-knows.

All these extensions are working well for me, no problems. None of them may have a cape on, but I think they're just super. I give my personal assurance that you will have tons of viewing pleasure and your life will become a bliss-filled reality if you use these extensions regularly. Really.

The site is DiscountMags. The reason you visit is because they have Wired for $1.99/year, US News & World Report for $8.97/year, Consumer Reports for $14.99... okay, you get the idea. The good news (like that isn't already?!) is they do NOT auto renew your suscriptions. The hard part? They don't have everything. But you know... You can't have everything right? I mean, where would you put it? lol

Okay, you (like everyone else) believe that computer techies can't have a sense of humor, right? Well, not that I would know or be able to claim my savy-ness to qualify into that category (gee, my domain does have l33t, huh?)... but here are some jokes in a forum for my DFI motherboard. Some are better than others, and I do NOT suggest this humor is for everyone. But still...

Have a better one.

snappy new pics up.

I've just posted some new (er... some old photos too) up on my flickr account here. The good news is I've finally been able to uninstall my not-so-good Adobe app's. Thanks goes completely to Your Uninstaller 2006 (free version for 21 days). It worked when not even deleting registry keys in command line worked! Yay.

Okay, that means I'll have my work cut out for me in the coming week. Lots of pics to take and edit. Lots of items going on eBay for sale. Big push for all new content on all my sites and domains. Sheesh. No wonder, it's past 3 am an' I'm notta sleepin yet.

I found a really good site for tweaking XP, it's called... umm. I forget... Oh yeah, tweakXP. Luckily I don't think anybody is reading this, so I can dispense with the legal disclaimer for saying that I 've had the idea in my head to run Mac OS X on my new fangled PC.

Okay, last thing today. I just got a Dell $100 voucher on eBay for $68. Add a $35 off coupon for $0.99 and I figure I could take those odds toVegas (spend $69 and get $135). Now, if only Dell will drop the S3 IS camera price to $399.20 again, I'd be down like Charlie Brown. So, I did the math (yeah, I know, scary thought who'da thunk it?) and the current Dell $424.15 price totals $460.20 with tax.

$460.20-135 = $325.20; which I'd add back my $1 + $68 and MY TOTAL is $395.20. Wow, that's $110 less than Costco's total price. If Dell goes back to 20% off ($399.20) then I'd pay $368.13. Here's to hoping anyways.

Oh, for any interested parties, here are some box office numbers:
- Mission Impossible 3 took in $107 mil in its first 3 weeks.
- Da Vinci Code took in $102 mil in its first week.
Just for the record, I think X3 might break the box office record for opening weekend.
- Spider-Man is #1 with a 3-day gross of $114 mil, Star Wars III had a 4-day gross of $108 mil. Only Shrek 2 and the third Harry Potter film were among the other films that made it over $100 million in weekend grosses (and Shrek 2 includes a 5-day gross).

You read it here. X-Men: The Last Stand will be gi-ga-normous methinks. Between $105 and $120 m's is my guess for the four day weekend... Now, time for my long blink.

Some kewl links.

Here are a few of the sites I'm visiting of late. First, I'm gonna put Netflix on my b-i-g no-no list. Why? It's called throttling and it blows. So, the good news is we seem to have a choice. There's Greencine, but I can't love how their movies are organized on their site. There is Quikfliks which has a system called Rapid Return that I appreciate, but it costs more per month (justifiably so). There is Intelliflix, which would be a clear frontrunner, if I haven't read so many reviewers saying they take over a week for dvd's to arrive. Intelliflix has a Superpass pre-pay plan that ends up costing less than $12/month for 3-at-a-time. Geez, I wish someone could point me in the right direction for a great value and reliable service. I just want an option to Netflix, so I can stop using them. Some site reviews here and here.

If you're into films, you should already have these two sites bookmarked, the-numbers and imdb. The-numbers gives info on the budget of Hollywood films, how much principal actors got paid, and what the box office returns were like. Internet Movie Data Base (sites are related, I believe) offers info into full cast and crew, and photos of your fave stars with detailed bios.

Prolly the only blog I check regularly is this one: Neville's Financial Blog. Props to this highly motivated business student in Texas. He's been covered in the Wall Street Journal and other media. He seriously knows how to get his foot in the door and writes candidly about all his goings on, even offering his bank account balances to the viewers.

If you're on a Mac, you might like this site: rad-e8. This one-man show, Sascha, offers up plenty of tasty Mac icons and desktop images for your enjoyment. Forget about iconfactory for your new Intel Duo Mac icons.

If you're finding you just don't have anything to occupy your day, you can visit an interesting blog here, he writes mostly about computers and technology- and even develops some Mac-based app's. I also like this inversion photoset on flickr, Chris Lombardi. For addiction-based site-browsing, you can't do without StumbleUpon. They have kewl sites and photos and content that users (free membership) post up as links and places. You can spend hours browsing, I swear!

Dog owners (yes!), this should already be known to you, dog-friendly and CitySearch. Dog-friendly has listings for everything from beaches to resorts all across this expansive US of A. CitySearch has lots of local happenings that our four-legged friends can gleefully attend with us. There is a great event at Zazie in Cole Valley, Bring Your Doggy to Dinner on Monday nights. IMHO, it's one of the best outdoor patios in SF.

Here's a review of Zazie, from another site I like, Yelp! Kinda like CitySearch; but I think it to be less biased. As I said in an earlier post, CS seems to favor those places that pay for advertising with them. Yelp! seems more user-based, which is a very good thing.

Oh, lastly... If you think you've got it in good with your camera, you could take some money back from Microsoft. They are having a Future Pro Photographer Contest with a top prize of $20,000 cash (more info). Entries due by May 31st so get snapping!

Dubious Activities... and SF Happenings

My Random House Webster's dictionary defines dubious as: "of doubtful quality; questionable; and also of uncertain outcome." Well, there you have it.

I'm going through an ordeal of having bought a probably pirated copy of Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium and Macromedia Studio 8 for graphics and web applications last year (for $650 total). This was through a site I thought reputable ReRoSoft. I thought I was getting a legal OEM version (without retail packaging or tech support). Well, I was WRONG. Going through a fraud claim/dispute with my credit card company really sucks raw eggs... through a thin straw.

Lately, my Photoshop, Illustrator, and other programs have opened with an error message saying, "The registration code you entered is invalid. Please check to make sure you entered your code properly. This program must now close." Yuck.

Well, now after purchasing yet another copy for an additional $680, I'm not able to un-install the old copies that don't work. Well, no pics on flickr and less work for me... That must mean I should be out playing golf! Ha ha.

Not much happening this weekend I know of. Just tonite, Beck is in town. Wow, If I Had a Million Dollars... Oh, there is the Evita sing-a-long at the Castro. Gee, somehow I missed the Sound of Music sing-a-long, the Mary Poppins sing-a-long and every other one they've e-v-e-r had. Coincidence? I think not. But if that's your thing, get your go-girl power (even the guys) and go harmonize.

Okay, here's a deal. Get 50 free song downloads with no obligation (okay, you gotta register, but can cancel anytime) from emusic.

Then there's always A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books. Yes, they just sold their web domain (a veritable gold-mine as former bookstore.com) for an undisclosed amount. Yes, the partners are trying to sell the business. But they still have an average of 6 book signings/events a week during the summer. Calvin Trillin will be there next Friday, June 2 at 7 pm. He wrote the bestseller in verse, Obviously on He Sails and now is on tour for his new book of "insightful poems about George W. Bush's presidency" in A Heckuva Job.

I can't believe this one. Amazon has a pre-release price on the new Apple MacBook 13.3" 1.83 GHz Intel Duo laptop for $999 + free shipping (after $100 rebate). Granted I've put Amazon on my "black list" for bad returns and service issues of late (see ratings here and here), and I've switched from Apple to a PC. But hey, it's a great deal anyways.

Internet Deals...Where to go to get hooked up

To date, it seems I've had 518 views on my flickr account encompassing a stingy 13 photos at the moment. Believe it or not, my own views don't count, this is other viewers only. I've just received my new copies of Adobe CS2 Premium Suite and Adobe/Macromedia Studio 8, so I'll be able to tweak some more snaps and upload them this weekend? I need to downsize the pics so I stay in the upload bandwidth limit for flickr.

I also have been testing my new rechargeable batteries out. I'll talk more about them after I have more time using them. Finally, Simon at dpreview has posted his Canon S3 IS review and it's about what I'd expect... Maybe would have liked to hear a little more positive comments on the 400 ISO and improved low-light focusing, oh well. I also need to learn how the live histogram is helpful to sooo many people. Dell has the S3 for $399 thanks to Deals of America, and Costco now has it for $449.99 with their industry-leading 6 month return policy.

This might be a good time to list a few internet deal-watching sites. None of these deals will last, but are examples of what you might find: such as Pirates of the Carribean 2-disc Special Edition DVD for $7.99 (w/ free shipping!) and a PNY 2 GB USB 2.0 flash drive for $38. SlickDeals and Overstock have tons of stuff, I have a hard time sifting through how many things they offer. For electronics, these guys at GottaDeal have a lot, including special Target coupons. Possibly the best overall site is DealCatcher, they pretty much list all those I've mentioned so far. Plus they have deals on flowers and Comcast, among many offers. While they all do basically the same thing (scour the internet for deals and refer peeps from comments sent in), SuperCoupon is another. I just don't like the site layout much, I find it less readable than the others; and they all have much of the same deals listed.

Last word about deals: if you search for a great deal, you can research a retailer's ratings at ResellerRatings. I've had enough experiences trying to save a few $ and ended up with a world of headaches (and phone calls, e-mails, and wasted energy). Epinions is another great site to check product ratings and reseller ratings. Lastly, there is the ever-large PriceGrabber ratings, which I trust substantially LESS than others, but still holds some merit especially in larger numbers of votes.

On another topic, I keep gravitating to the music group Aes Dana and their sounds. I found a site I can download (for $9) their first album Aftermath, which they only pressed 300 cd's of through Ultimae. I so want Aftermath #5 on my website for a looped track, I think it is even more perfect than I would've imagined possible. Don't worry, I wouldn't ever do it without the group/label's permission. They are also on lots of compilations at Shopsonic. Some nice sounds, but with 9 second clips... geez... Don't be afraid to let me hear anything you know. Their 2nd album, Memory Shell is there too.

What's this all about anyways?

I'm still sorting out what I really am going to be blogging about.

I guess it's actually quite simple. After years of experience, it appears that I may be somewhat of a perfectionist. Ha ha. No... really. I figure I can share:

- comments on: things I use, places I buy from, and whatever.
- comments on things that bother me or things I like.
- interesting things I come across on the internet. Things like deals and coupons that might save you money on things you want. Or a kewl site to check out. Or a news article.
- I can update whomever (you, why ever are you reading this again?: ) on my happenings like: my paintings, my photography, my other work, like Prodesma (promotional goods), and EcoTwelve venture (eco-friendly products)

I'll start off by listing a few sites I currently am often using.

- woot is a kewl site that offers a great new deal every day. Yesterday (W 5/18/06) they had refurbished Western Digital 250 GB Caviar hard drives- same drives I currently have 3 of in my custom PC build- for only $49.99 each. Included a 6 month warranty. They sold out early in the day. Today (R 5/19/06) they offered an RCA 5 dvd-changer Home Theater system (HTIB for those in the know) including 5 speakers subwoofer and remote, for only $69.99 + $5 shipping. Worth checking daily in case they offer a product you might want or need.

- dpreview is THE authoritative site for digital photography info, forums, and reviews. Since having the Canon S2 IS digital camera, I can hardly stop myself from visiting to learn all about the amazing feature set and how to best take advantage of this awesome camera.

- flickr is an intresting site with extensive photo gallries and you can sign up for a free account. It may not be bettr than smugmug, snapfish, ophoto/kodakgallery, or shutterfly; but I like it plenty. I've found some great gallries through the interestingness feature, like this gallery. I also have a couple photos up, using my common screen name prodesma. Gee, have you noticed, this dropping the "e" before "r's" is getting engrained in my tiny brain.

- Daily Candy is a great source for goings on in SF. Sometimes I forget to look at the site, to find I've missed an event I would have liked to go to. Like, this SA 5/20/06 there's the underground denim sale.

- PriceRunner is my new fave comparison shopping site. I've gravitated to PriceGrabber for a long time, but I'm finding PR has more retailers for some items. I think PG is kinda like CitySearch, which biases listings more towards paying e-tailers. I'm also disappointed that PG doesn't have an "observation list" for questionable or dubious retailers, that's just bad business... for everyone.

I'll discuss product reviews, more great internet deals sites, and service related issues each in more specific in-depth blogs in the future... Assuming that I keep up with the blogging stuff.

tap...tap.. uh... hello... Is this thing on?

Hello world. So, I decided it was time for me to try starting a blog. I guess I’m not usually accused of being short on words. So here is my maiden blog.