Dave Johnson on open web technologies, social software and software development
Dave Johnson in General
11:16AM Nov 19, 2005
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Dave Johnson in General
08:17AM Jul 14, 2005
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I'm back to work after a week of JavaOne and week of summer-shutdown imposed vacation. What did I do on my vacation? After returning from JavaOne, I joined the rest of the family at the grandparent's new beach/golf house close to Topsail Island, NC. I tried my best to avoid work. I did pretty well and that's not as easy as it sounds; I first starting working on Roller during a summer vacation at Ocracoke Island.
I forced myself to take a break. I did the beach thing: dragged beach chairs and umbrellas around, covered my body in sunblock, built sand-drip castles, etc. I showed the boys the original three Star Wars films. I saw The War of the Worlds, which was surprisingly good in a summer fun movie kind of way. I read Freakonomics, also good. That was great; I needed a break. Now I'm back, the older boys are in all-day camp at the YMCA, I'm ready to get back into Roller 2.0 group blogging work.
Dave Johnson in General
05:56AM Jul 11, 2005
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(Raleigh, NC) Fireworks over the North Ridge Country Club, as seen from my driveway and taken with my Treo 650. Not the greatest picture, but it shows how close they are to my house.
Dave Johnson in General
07:06PM Jul 03, 2005
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I convinced Andi that Alex(8) and Linus(7) are old enough for the Star Wars films. So, this past weekend we watched episides I, II and III. We started with Episode 1.1: The Phantom Edit, a fan-edited version of the film that includes much less Jar Jar than before. They boys thought they could have cut more; I kid you not. I thought the Phantom Edit was a little too fuzzy to enjoy. I guess that's because it was created from a VHS copy of the film.
I think the boys enjoyed Episode II: Attack of the Clones more than Episode I, but there was a little too much kissing. It's funny to see the kids cringe when Anakin and Padme get all mushy.
It was Andi's birthday on Sunday, so she took Alex and Linus to Episode III and I stayed home with the little Leo. They enjoyed it the most of the three, but Linus was a little disturbed when he saw what happened to Anakin. I don't think he was really traumatized, at least not as bad as he was on The Mummy (whatever you do, do NOT mention The Mummy to Linus).
I wonder what they're going to think of the original films. Will they see IV and V as the awesome classics that I know them to be, or dated and dull after the orgy of special effects they've just gone through in the prequels.
Dave Johnson in General
05:37PM Jun 20, 2005
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Today, I set up a new computer for the kids. I took the new 2.8Ghz Celeron box that had been serving as my Linux file-server and swapped it with the old 450Mhz P3 box that the kids were using. I was a little surprised how easy it was to make the switch. I just took the hard-drive out of the Celeron and put it in the P3 and Linux came right back up.
I set up Windows XP Home on the Celeron box and installed the important software (Warcraft and SimCity 3000) for the kids. I would have preferred something other than Windows, but we have quite an investment in games and educational software for Windows.
I also added a wireless adapter. So now, for the first time, the kids computer is on-line. I didn't setup any parental controls or filtering software and I'm not really sure what to do about "internet safety." The boys are 7 and 8 and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to go looking for trouble quite yet, but I am a little worried that Google will send them to a site of ill-repute or some horrible porn-spam message will land in their inbox. If you've got kids around that age on-line, I'd love to hear what you do to protect them from porn-spam and other internet threats.
Dave Johnson in General
07:27PM Jun 12, 2005
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Dave Johnson in General
04:15AM May 25, 2005
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Dave Johnson in General
05:46AM May 19, 2005
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Is of course, coming back. We just got back from a short trip down to Stone Mountain, Georgia for a family re-union centered about my grandmother's 90th birthday celebrations. It was great spending time with the small family. When we gather together for a re-union, it almost feels like a big family. The kids loved the Stone Mountain train, the cable-car up to the top, and jumping from rock to rock all the way down. I wasn't expecting much from "redneck Rushmore" but the Marriot resort there is very nice as is the rest of the park. I might actually go back there someday.
Anyhow, upon my return I find that my blog has been down all day (due to a misconfiguration on my part) and, as usual, one of my office computers is freaking out. When I leave town, I power down the computers in my office (a Sun box, a low-end Linux box, and a Windows machine. No matter what, everytime I return, one computer won't start up correctly. This time it is the Windows box. The symptom: on start-up it boots Redhat Linux and I didn't even know I had Redhat on that box. Oh well.
In other news... I was supposed to finish Blogs, Wikis, and Feeds chapters 14 and 15 this weekend (you can probably guess how that went). Back to work...
Dave Johnson in General
01:20PM Mar 21, 2005
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You can't say goodbye to Leo without going through this routine:
HugIt's a little inconvenient at pre-school drop off, but I love it.
Dave Johnson in General
02:36PM Mar 03, 2005
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She doesn't know it yet, but Andi's getting a Mac mini. The kids can have the old Windows box, but we'll have to disconnect it from the net so they can use it safely ;-)
Dave Johnson in General
09:18AM Jan 12, 2005
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Dave Johnson in General
04:48AM Dec 24, 2004
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CookieCulture: Don't ask me how but Shatner and Folds really pulled it off here. A smart sincere album that's funny in the right places.
Cookie hasn't learned the art of linking so here ya go Has Been, William Shatner
Dave Johnson in General
09:44AM Dec 04, 2004
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Dave Johnson in General
05:20PM Nov 25, 2004
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I should rename this contrived little blogging crutch to Saturday photo. I never seem to get to it until 11:30 Friday night. This week, another photo taken by my father. The photo is a view from the Snowbird Mountain Inn in North Carolina.
Dave Johnson in General
07:53PM Oct 08, 2004
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I missed a couple of Friday photos, so today I have two for you. Both from the soccer double header last weekend. Alex and Linus had back to back games and my dad was there with his telephoto. First, here is Alex seconds before scoring a goal:
Linus didn't score a goal during his game, but here is a shot of him playing goalie.
Those boys are about as sad as can be today. We just learned that the stray cat we took in last year has stomach cancer. Luna was the sweetest cat. She got along great with my three loud and rowdy boys because she was totally deaf. We will be having another one of those tear-filled back-yard burials again tomorrow. Sigh.
Dave Johnson in General
01:43PM Oct 01, 2004
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Our home improvement projects are finally complete including our new screened-in porch. Screens are a must here in Raleigh where swarming mosquitoes will literally eat you alive within minutes of your walking outside. We've been enjoying the bug free living for about a month now. Two big ceiling fans make it comfortable even in August.
Dave Johnson in General
05:57PM Sep 03, 2004
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Over the past couple of years, I've been scanning my photo collection using a HP slide/negative scanner. My dad, who is an excellent photographer, has been scanning his collection as well. So, to add a little life to this tired old blog, I'm going to start taking advantage of my .Mac account (no longer active) and posting each week a photo from my collection or my dad's collection. Here is the first one:
Jamaican carwash - My old VM Golf in the carwash close to Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Dave Johnson in General
07:00PM Aug 27, 2004
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Yep, that's what Dads worry about. Thanks for reading. I think that fulfils my quota for random nonsense this week.
Dave Johnson in General
05:09PM Jul 06, 2004
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Whenever I'm away from my boys, even for a couple of days, I find that when we are re-united, the little guys look like they've each grown a year. Andi sent me the picture below and, sure enough, Leo (who just turned 2) is looking like such a big boy and not the baby that he was only the week before.
JavaOne is fun, but I miss that little guy (and you guys too, Alex and Linus).
Dave Johnson in General
06:14PM Jun 30, 2004
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