Christmas cards. I have grown to hate them! But not because of the season, or what they represent, but because of the shear amount of time I put in to the blasted things this year!

If you're one of the lucky few that received a Christmas card from me this season, you may have noticed that the message was printed on the card instead of written. Now I must admit, I find the note typed on paper and placed in the card rather impersonal, so I figured I'd actually print the message in the card itself. For multiple reasons actually. One, it is now a legible note. Two, I can type way faster than I can write. Three, I can say actually what I want to say and then make sure I didn't spell anything wrong or screw up the grammar. And four, I just thought it would be a neat thing to try with my new OpenOffice 3.0 Suite on my Linux OS. However you're wondering why I didn't sign the thing, well read on my friend.

A few weeks I went out the local Hallmark at the Logan Valley Mall to buy my Christmas cards. Later the next week I measured the cards for width and height and built a nice little template in Writer (comparable to Word for you Microsoft junkies) and started typing away. I had ten letters typed out in about 1.5 hours, which by writing would have taken probably about 2.0 hours, but they would have had way more errors in them. So my next job was to print them all out. I stuck the card in the printer, clicked the print button and watched the card get sucked into the printer like a wet noodle in the mouth of a child. Suddenly I got the message on my printer that read, "PAPER TOO SMALL." I tried it again. Same message. Now I had printed out items much smaller than this before. So I stuck in a full letter size paper and clicked print again. It worked flawlessly. Like the stupid stubborn-head I can be, I stuffed the card back in the printer and hit print again. Again, to my surprise (why I was surprised is still a mystery) the printer told me, "PAPER TOO SMALL." Now keep in mind, when I'm in Linux and printing, typically my printer locks up every print attempt and I have to reboot it and wait two minutes for the darn thing to load up.

So my next step was to make my Writer template a little smaller. I took off half an inch from the template, stuck my card back in, and got the same result. I stuck the letter size paper in, and it printed. So I took off another half inch, and clicked print. Suddenly ink started to flow! Oh the excitement I felt! For I only wasted another hour getting to this point. But wouldn't you know it, when the card was ejected, the printer had inserted an extra inch of margin forcing my note into the crease of the card. The words, "why I outta" came to mind along with a mental image of my fist shaking feverishly at the laughing printer. I stuck in another letter sized paper. It printed, but with the extra inch of margin. Now at this point I should have just accepted my losses, printed the notes on regular paper, cut them out, and stuck them in the card. But no, I was determined! I decided the night was spent and was determined to print the blasted cards the next evening.

Now it's the next night. I decided I'd attack this thing form a different side. I logged into my Google Docs account and attempted to print a card from there. I spent about an hour just trying to figure out how to design something 4.5" x 10.25" in size. Ultimately I gave up on that angle. My faith in Linux was gone. I booted into my Microsoft Windows Vista environment where my printer never locks up! And since my original files were in OpenOffice format I had to download and install OpenOffice 3.0 for my Windows environment or else, well there was no else, I am too cheap to pay for Microsoft Office. So I installed the app, opened my file, clicked print, and guess what the printer told me. "PAPER TOO SMALL."Oooh I was hot! But still, I was determined.

I opened my print settings and and suddenly realized how absent minded I was. Of course the paper was too small! The printer was set for a paper letter size! So I set out to change the paper size to the proper setting. Wouldn't you know it, I could not for the life of me figure out how to set up a custom paper size. I'm a frickin ' Computer Engineer for crying out loud! I could build a computer from integrated circuits (a pretty slow and basic one at that, but still) if I so chose to! So I searched thru what seemed like 100+ paper sizes and found one that was closest to my card. With mental fingers crossed, I opened the document, inserted the card in the printer, clicked print, selected the close-matching paper size and clicked print once again. The printer started. And finally, 5+ hours (accumulated time) after I started my Christmas card writing, I was printing text on the cards! The text still wasn't where I wanted it position-wise, but I was willing to accept that.

Now as if things couldn't get worse, they do. Usually I print addresses on sticky labels and then stick those on the envelopes. Can you tell? I REALLY despise writing things by hand. It is so inefficient.Anywho , I spent some time updating addresses and whatnot and got my template prepared for printing. Now my label template in done in Word on my laptop which I know will not fail me thanks to years of doing this. However, I had to get this right on the first print because I only had one sheet of labels left. If I screwed up, I was hand writing addresses or going to the store to buy new labels (even less efficient). So I set my my addresses up in an order of most efficiency and saved label space and clicked print. I watched the labels get sucked into the printer when suddenly I realized, I needed to print JUST page 4, not all of the pages! Suddenly the words, "Son of a . . . " came to mind with a mental image of me shooting myself in the head. I watched shamefully as the label page was tossed out of the printed filled with the incorrect addresses as expected. Then, glass-eyed I watched as the remaining 3 pages (that were not label paper) were tossed out with the final page having my addresses on them. Again I was defeated.

So once again I shamefully took my cards out when I got home that evening and started handwriting all the addresses on the envelopes. I joylessly stuffed the cards in their envelopes, licked the disgusting glue and piled them in the center of the table. It was my stack of shame. I failed my Christmas card efficiency process. But if only this was the end of my story.

Earlier today I was recapping this story in it's entirety to a colleague at work when suddenly, mid-story, I realized that in my frustration and disappointment when addressing my envelopes I completely and utterly forgot to sign the cards. But it was too late. The cards were in the mailbox with the flag up, over 40 miles away. Truly, shamefully, opprobriously a failed life moment. I could barely finish my story to my colleague I was so distraught and disgraced at this realization.

So to those of you who received a typed, unsigned Christmas card from me, I apologize. If you'd like, you can write "return to sender," on the envelope, place it back in the mail and I will sign it, put new postage on it and resend it. Or, if you'd prefer you can just sign it in my place. Again I truly apologize for this Christmas card catastrophe and hope that you won't hold it against me. For those of you that read this and didn't get a Christmas card from me, well consider yourself fortunate and have a merry Christmas anyway.

If you’re not a modern computer programmer or would prefer not to be totally confused, then you may want to skip this post. But recently I’ve had a wild thought about what we as physical, and spiritual beings actually are, and in order to explain it, I need to use a little programming knowledge (and a diagram might come in handy too, but I doubt I'll have time for that).

Not too many people would disagree with the statement that we as beings have physical (bodies) and metaphysical (minds and/or souls) entities. To simplify the example I’ll assume the mind and soul are one and the same, but by no means should you limit the thought process to that.

First, let’s talk a little about Object Orientation or OO as it is abbreviated. This of course is a programming term where we model our programming code after real world objects. Our objects have properties, methods, constructors, etc, that define what the object actually is, and how it will act within itself and with other objects. Now when we create an instance of an object, we assign that instance a variable and create some room in memory for the object to be housed. Of course the memory can be allocated well before the creation of the variable if so chosen. When we access the object we access it thru the variable assigned to it. Where things get a little confusing is in understanding that the variable itself is not the object, but just a “pointer”, or reference to the object. The actual object resides in memory and cannot be accessed (safely anyway) without the reference variable. Now when things get even more complicated is when we want to make a copy of the object. We can’t just make a new variable and assign it to the same object. If we did that we would just be making a new reference to the exact same object, not a new object. The object would now have two variables accessing it. To make a second object that is the same as the first, we would have to first create a new instance of the object with a new reference, and then assign it all the same properties as the first.

Let's put this is 5th grader talk. I have a ball (the object) that I clear out room for and place on the floor (in memory). The ball has numerous properties, such as temperature, density, color, material, etc. The ball also has actions (methods) it can do such as deflate, bounce, etc. Now since I am a 5th grader and in a pen so I don't damage the rest of the house, I can only play with the ball (that is outside my pen) using a stick (the reference variable). I can't interact with the ball in any other way but with the stick. If I want a second ball just like the first, I can't just make a copy of the stick. If I do, all I get is two sticks that interact with the exact same ball. However, if I want a copy of the ball, I need to create a brand new ball, and then copy the properties of the first ball to the second. I then need to make the second stick to interact with the second ball.

So what the flip does this have to do with our physical and metaphysical selves? Well, let’s pretend for a minute that all minds since the dawn of time reside in a single repository out in some unseeable dimension. Think of it as a godly hash table if you will. These minds have properties such as personalities, thoughts, and feelings (which in themselves would be their own objects), but also constructors that are used to create the mind, as well as methods that let them interact with other minds. When the minds are created, they are assigned a body, or reference if you will. And we can interact with other minds safely thru our bodies.

Now comes the fun part; understanding how this can work. Let’s look at identical twins. Indeed they look like the same person, but truly their minds are different. They are copies of each other. However, we’ve all heard stories about twins liking the same things, thinking the same thoughts, even sensing each other's pain! What if their bodies weren’t pointing to different minds, but to the same one? One mind, two bodies. One object, two references. Now of course we know this isn’t the case because the twin’s bodies can act independently of each other, but if the properties of the mind were made up of other objects, such as thoughts, feelings, pain, experiences, why couldn’t there be references to those properties, and not new ones? Think of it in our ball analogy. A property of the ball is mass. Mass is indeed it's own object made up of all kinds of fun still like the base unit for mass. Let call that a kilogram. If for whatever reason wesuddenly define a kilogram to be something other than what it is today, we would want the ball's mass to follow suit. The ball's mass wouldn't still be the old mass, but would be the newly defined mass automatically. Hence, the ball's mass is a reference to mass, and not a copy of it.

If the world does indeed exist in this fashion, it makes perfect sense. Let’s take a look at love. People say than when we love another, we take that person with us wherever we go (not in the physical sense of course). They become a part of us in a sense. What if love creates references to the other minds or parts of minds? This would explain why we can know what the other person is thinking, or feeling without having to ask. It truly is a direct connection. Psychics may be gaining access to this mind repository in an unsafe manner, or hacking into it. This is how they would know what they know (assuming they aren’t just darn good observers) without actually interacting with anyone.

I could probably write a book on this whole matter, but I’ll leave you with one more thought. In programming when we are done with our variables, or references that access the objects, we destroy them. However, the object itself doesn’t get destroyed until the Garbage Collector comes around and re-allocates the memory, at which time the object is completely disposed of. When programming, we typically don’t control the Garbage Collector; it does what it does, when it needs to do it.

There are some pretty neat technological ideas going on here in 2008. I think by the end of the year you'll be pretty impressed at what is being manufactured these days. Just to give you a hint at what's in the works, and what's to come, here are some of my favorite tech-stuff.

The days of Digital Rights Management (DRM) are over! It took some time, but the consumer finally won out (for once). ITunes and Amazon to name a few have been offering DRM-free music for quite some time now (at an increased rate of course), but the last major music supplier to go DRM-free, Sony, did so today. What does this mean for you? Well you don't have to worry about the songs you download not working on all your music gear anymore. If you download from iTunes, you can play that song on any device, and any computer. If you download from Amazon or NBC, play it anywhere. What a concept right? This gives companies new freedom at what they can offer you. Not to mention it gives you the ability to easily share that music you download legally with your buddies. This hasn't really been a hassle if you've been downloading music and videos illegally for the past few years, but who would have guessed less governmental control was what consumers wanted? Oh right, consumers (For safety sake, I don't condone illegal music downloading)!

Another cool thing making its way into 2008 is the new open standard for cable communications. While currently the FCC is not to thrilled about this (why, I have no idea) cable companies such as Comcast are eager to jump on board. This standard has actually been in the works since 1997! What does this mean for you? A whole bunch of new gadgets that's what! No longer will your DVR be specific to your cable company. TVs will now be able to have DVRs built into them and who knows what other fancy-pants interactive devices companies like Panasonic and LG will come up with. Panasonic hopes to have out a little portable DVR player by the end of this year. This would be a device you plug into your cable outlet, select what shows you want to record, record the shows, unplug the device and take it on the go with a little built-in 8.5" LCD screen. All without having to deal with that pesky cable service (of course you'll need video broadcast thru a cable company for this to work, it just doesn't matter which one).

Finally be prepared for some über-fast PCs to be making their way to dealers by the end of this year. Intel has been hard at work with multi-core processors (even more than the current 2 or 4 you can get now) and new-style transistors so they can cram even more processing power into the same chip, and have it work without as much heat dissipation. While these new processors will no doubt be costly, they will drive the price of current processors down. This is good for me because I always buy year old processors. No point in spending all that money for something that will be of date in a few months. There has also been some breakthroughs in flash storage capacities so expect giant sized wee little storage cards in the next couple years too. One really cool one has a built-in Wi-Fi so once you take your pictures, you're computer starts to download it wirelessly. Seriously doesn't that kick butt or what?

AI, or artificial intelligence, in your home is still a far cry from happening. Don't get me wrong though, it will happen whether you like the idea or not. And to be honest, I think you're going to like it once it happens. Most people associate AI with robots and androids and I know a lot of people that wouldn't want a robot in their homes. But really, all AI is is the ability for a computer to learn. And whether you want to admit it or not, computers are EVERYWHERE! Even in your home. Your TV, Cable/Satellite box, vacuum cleaner, even your coffee maker, they are all micro computers. Basically these days, anything that is electronic is a computer.

Let's take a closer look at your coffee pot shall we. What do you do to make coffee? You measure the water out, put it in the back of the pot, put the grounded up coffee in, and turn that bad boy on. The coffee pot does the rest. Inside that little coffee pot is a microprocessor that turns the water pump on, turns the burner on and then shuts the water pump off when all the water is gone from the reservoir. In a sense, the coffee pot is programmed to do its thing when you tell it to go. It abides by its original program and will never deviate (unless of course something mechanical breaks, but even then the coffee pot will continue to execute its program, it just appears it's not working). I bet your coffee pot even has a timer so you can set it all up the night before and have fresh coffee waiting for you the next morning. Ooooh I love when that happens.

But what if your coffee pot was an AI coffee pot? Probably named the AICP3000, this motha trucka would truly be the most fantastic coffee maker ever! Like I said be before, the whole concept of AI is a learning computer. The AICP3000 would study your coffee drinking habits and change its internal programming, all by its mechanical, err computational little self, to better serve you. Maybe it would learn that on the weekends it needs to make the coffee two hours later than normal to allow for you and the hubby to have your weekend morning "romp." Maybe it would then learn that it also needs to make coffee when there is company over for dinner. It can learn that you usually let the pot sit for hours with the heat still on and a quarter of an inch of coffee still in the pot so it turns the heat off and flushes more water into the pot to keep that disgusting layer of tar from building up, especially since you don't actually wash the thing you just rinse it out. Heck it can even learn how many times to fill the pot up before you stop drinking for the day.

And AI doesn't have to stop with the coffee pot. How fantastic would it be if everything electronic could learn? Your car could start itself and warm up during the cold days, and learn what your favorite radio stations are at certain times of the day and switch to them automatically. Your TV could learn what types of TV shows you like to watch. Your shower could know what time to turn the water on each day and to what temperature. It's not just for robots and science fiction anymore. Computer code that modifies computer code. It's a reality! A world of AI is just around the corner and my guess is that it will be just like the Internet, once we have it for a little while we'll never know how we ever survived without it! I guess potentially this blog could write itself too . . . I don't like that.

It's no secret, I'm a Google fanatic! I love Google, not only because it is the second largest number named by man (ten to the hundredth power, trumped only by the mind-numbing, ultra perplexing, google-plex, or 10 to the googleth power [that's a 10 with a google zeros by the way]), but because the company makes fantastic web applications. Google has quite the monopoly right now on the Internet. Snatching up other sites such as YouTube for nothing less than 2 billion dollars. All this from a website that started as a simple search engine only to explode into the mammoth Internet hierarchy it is today thanks to a few patented search algorithms that not only returned what you were looking for, but advertisements as well. Google is now capable of doing just about all your normal computer needs. Anything from from writing text documents to, email, the handling your photo album. All with the mighty backbone of the Google Search Engine that seems to only get better. Anywho , I'm rambling on here, but the purpose of this entry is to fill you in on some of my favorite Google applications. So without further adieu, here's:

Captain Jimmy's Top Five Flippin' Favorite Google Web Apps!

5. Gmail - If you've been living anywhere near the planet Earth and the Internet the past few years you should have heard of Google's wonderful email application. I jumped on this bandwagon way back when, in its first year of beta testing, (allowing me to get one kick-a** email address). The major bummer here is that it is still in beta testing and you need a referral to sign up (call me, I'll let you in). What I really like about the thing is how it keeps all your email conversations as one email. No longer will you see countless emails with the same subject to the same person over and over. It all automatically is kept organized as one expandable email. How brilliant of an idea was that?! More brilliant that my readers' that's for sure (unless of course they work for Google and created that concept but I doubt they would be reading this blog).

4. Blogger - Duh. You're looking at the thing right now. Allowing you to edit any part of the HTML template (which I love to do because I'm a giant nerd), Blogger takes the cake in my book when it comes to blogs (or web logs for you Internet lingo impaired). The site autosaves your entries when you're writing them and even lets you add labels. Xanga seems like it's specialized for friends to chat and give props (an incredibly stupid and thick concept if you ask me) and any other site just isn't that well known. The name is easy to remember: Blogger. Rhymes with Frogger, which ironically might just be one of the most inspirational video games ever. Coincidence? I think NOT!

3. Docs & Spreadsheets - Mwaa haa haa! Death to Microsoft is what this app says. Throw your crappy Word and Excel packages out the Window (pun intended [idiot Microsoft makes the Windows operating system!]). Sure Docs & Spreadsheets may not be as powerful, or able to read your previous Word and Excel docs, but what this app lacks in features (that the common user never uses anyway) it makes up for in usability. You save to the web so no matter where you go, there's your stuff. No CD, thumb drive, or any other storage device necessary to carry around. Autosaves every 30 seconds or so and lets you share with friends. Is your mouth watering too? I only wish it would let Firefox override its own spell checker.

2. Google Calendar - You can flush Outlook down the pooper! Especially since you trashed its email functionality when you signed up for Gmail. Google Calendars not only makes it easy to have countless calendars at your fingertips, but also lets you so very easily share your calendars with others, something quite foreign to Outlook users (the easy part is what's foreign). A nice little bonus is the automatic text message reminder that it can send to your mobile before your event. And the best part is you can search and display calendars for anything! Mine shows me my personal schedule, birthdays, phases of the moon, national holidays, the AVP Tour schedule and even times and descriptions of new episodes of The Office. If this mother trucker doesn't make you wet your pants, then perhaps you should have a few beers!

1. Picasa - Forget Flickr, Yahoo Photos, Facebook, and the beta Riya that should have taken off, but became stupid Like.com instead. Picasa is, in The Captain's genius opinion, the best photo management site out there. There's a nice little desktop app that makes managing and uploading photos a snap. They may only give you 1 GB (and counting!) of photo space, but they let you reduce your photos resolution to fit more photos on your site. You can pay if you'd like more space, but if you're like me and like free and to keep those hi-res photos all to your greedy little self then 1 GB will do you for a very long time. Tag photos, write witty captions, heck you can even create Flash-like slideshows to stick on your MySpace page. Share, organize photos anyway you want, even order prints. My favorite part: you can post your camera's video clips as well. Stick that up Flickr's pipe and smoke it!

Of course Google has a crap load more that The Captain's top 5. Stuff as great as Google Earth, YouTube, iGoogle, Google Notepad, the list goes on. Check out Google Labs to see and test what's in the works. The best part is if you sign up for one service, you've signed up for all of them. It's like the universal user ID that you've always wanted but never made love to. I'm telling you now, the day Google makes GoogleOS is the day that Microsoft will lose its nasty little grip on the PC realm. If you want the mecca Internet experience then Google is the way to go. There may not be any greater Internet experience. Except maybe for my online banking. Did you know I can see a picture of any check I write?! Any check at all!

Unless you're living in 1987, which I know approximate 32% of The Cove is, you've probably seen the commercials that pit Mac (i.e., Warren P. Cheswick from Ed) up against PC (i.e., some stocky quirky fellow). I, being a computer engineer and all, find these commercials to be highly amusing. In case you didn't know, I'm a PC junkie. I don't care much for Macs. I'm not saying Macs aren't good, I personally would just never buy one. I find the commercials amusing because usually the concepts Mac likes to brag about aren't entirely true. Take for instance the commercial I just saw tonight. PC is spinning a big wheel with the six different versions of the new Microsoft Windows Vista OS to determine which OS he should acquire. Mac implies that his OS already has everything one needs so there is no reason to have to choose, nor is there an option to choose. While, yes, Vista comes in many flavors depending on what you do with your PC, I can guarantee Mac OS is not going to have everything you need (unless of course you want exactly what they have which could still be the case with your selected version of Vista). The second commercial I enjoy is an older one. It's the one where Mac and PC are talking about the latest digital cameras. Mac states that all one has to do is plug it in, and boom it works. PC says that might not be the case with him. The facts here are as follows: 1) Pretty much all digital cameras you can plug into a computer are USB and simply appear as a new hard drive. No software needed unless you're using a Windows OS from the 90's (or the dreaded ME in which case, if you are still using, you should be shot). 2) If the camera uses some kind of brand new technology, newer than the OS, you're going to have to install new drivers whether your computer is a fruit or not. 3) If you dropped a lot of cash on your camera it probably uses Firewire instead of USB which is normally not standard on a PC (which is probably what Mac is exactly referring to hear), however this concept falls thru the floor if #2 is true.

My other favorite is when Mac wants to show PC his latest art project and all PC wants to do is calculate how much time they just wasted. I have no argument for it, I just find it entirely humorous! My main point throughout this entire post though is this. Who exactly is Apple marketing to here? Not my dad. He doesn't understand any of the Get A Mac commercials. And when I start to explain them to him he tunes (pun intended [iTunes you idiot, it's made by Apple]) me out. Those are the kind of people that Mac should be targeting. People that what something simple and straightforward. People that aren't interested in upgrading hard drives and processors and video cards. People that don't want to play kick a** games or download music illegally. Macs are for people that want to easily edit their home movies or pictures, easily listen to and download/edit music, or surf the net in a very simple, one button mouse fashion. My guess is only 25% of people understand the Get A Mac commercials and 90% of those people are actually PC junkies like me.

The world doesn't understand computers my friend. The world doesn't seem to want to understand computers. People just want them to do what they want them to do. The question you just need to ask yourself is what is it you actually want it to do? I want mine to lecture me on flower pedals and the 1950 Jaguar Roadster. I would also like it to give me a neck massage from time to time, but sometimes that's asking just a little too much apparently.