Lately, I have been toying with the idea of purchasing an iPod. I have a fairly large collection of music, which my laptop is perfect for at work, but I have been intrigued by the idea of being able to listen to "podcasts" wherever I am. Not that I can't have them downloaded to my PC and listen that way, but it's just intriguing, and it's a toy.
One thing that has spurred this back to the forefront of my thoughts is that last week, Leo Laporte starting getting together with a few of his collegues from The Screen Savers and producing a weekly podcast where they just talk about the latest technology. Again, this is available for download, but what fun is that.
I have also toyed with the idea of joining Audible where I can download "books on tape", but in a digital format, and one of their offers is for $100 off the purchase of an iPod if you join for a year. That still leaves me with the $200 price tag for the 20GB version, but more manageable than the $300.
I also have a long list of books that I would love to read, I just can't find the time to read them in and amongst spending time with my family, at work, and sleeping. This would give me the opportunity to "read" these books on my commute to work, as well as just any other "down" time I would have during the day, including while working.
It's tempting. Anyone want to contribute to the fund?
This year again, I will be participating in the American Cancer Societies annual fundraising event, the Relay for Life at Lancaster Catholic Highschool. The ACS has set up a website where you can donate safely and securely. Take a moment to give a few dollars to a great cause and help the Lancaster relay reach their goal this year. You can donate here.
Reporting Application Errors by Email by Sean C. Sullivan -- Even if your application logs an error to a local file, the developer doesn't know there's a problem until a user notices it and sends the log file back. It can be more useful for apps to email their own error messages back. And as Sean C. Sullivan explains, it's not hard to do with either log4j or java.util.logging.
I have a new fasciniation with video games right now. Blame my friends that went out and bought a few PS2 games. Here is a quick list of those that I now must own and waste my idle time playing. All are for PS2, and I do have a birthday and father's day coming up :)
Super Monkey Ball
Katamar Damaci
Lego Star Wars the Video Game
ThinkGeek.com had an April Fools page up on their site last Friday. One of the items they had was a T-shirt with the phrase "Fake Ghostlike Photons" printed on it. The description said it was an anagram, but did not mention what the anagram was. I have been racking my brain for the past few days over this one, and the anagram solvers don't seem to help that I have found. Now, you might say this is an April fools joke, but I checked, and this shirt is sold year round. Any ideas?