If you don't already know, Troy, NY is being considered by Google to offer it's high-speed internet service that will hopefully help Troy become one of the first 'internet cities' thanks to Google. With all the internet companies and RPI, Troy is a prime candidate for receiving the beta version of Google's internet. If you're interested, you can visit Troygle.org for more information to find out why Troy hopes to be one of the first cities to be supplied with Google's pipe into the internet.

I've been using my new GPS unit for a few weeks now and I can finally say something about it. It may not be the best one money can buy (I bought it for $130 on Newegg) but it's definitely something I recommend to anyone looking for a cheap but reliable option. Yes, it has pissed me off in the way that it's set by default to take the shortest distance and only searches for cities in the state that you're currently in, but changing these settings can make it into a solid unit that will direct you where you need to go.

I did learn that taking route 1 in Jersey is not the best option to get to Philly. Use 95 instead no matter how many miles you might save. I spent a good 25 minutes on route 1 figuring out how much of a horrible way it was to go and getting back to 95. I should have set the the Garmin to use the quickest time option. If you're still interested, here's a full review of the 205W.

A Arithmetic	N Nguyen
B Bollywood	O Oaxaca
C Czar	P Pterodactyl
D Djibouti	Q Qatar
E Eye	R Rzeszow
F Fesuvius	S Szechuan
G Gnat	T Tsunami
H Hmong	U Ust-Njukzha
I I (me)	V Vesuvius
J Juchem	W Wreath
K Knoxville	X Xerxes
L Lhasa	Y Ytterbium
M Mbasa	Z Zsa Zsa

I find it a bit strange how there aren't too many free and open-source solutions for editing video yet. I found a few like Jahshaka and Virtual Dub, but they don't offer too many features like the paid programs do. By using a couple different ones you could probably edit a video into something you like but it would take so much time that you would be better off using a trial version or paying the $50-100 for a reliable editor. I guess we'll have to wait and see if there's interest in the subject for all those open-source developers out there.

In another note, there seems to be a plethora of free open-source solutions when it comes to editing photos. I suppose it's just so popular and easy that any developer or company can produce advanced software to make professional tools available for anyone to use for free (GIMP is a good example). From what I've seen, anywhere you look there's another website or freely downloadable program to edit your photos anyway you want. For an example, this article covers (and reviews) the best free photo editing software tools that are available today - apparently there are enough to pick out the best 10 programs from who knows how many there really are.

Hot Boxing a Car

My friend gets a lot of flak for his 94 Plymouth Acclaim (or as he calls it, his Acc). Somebody even scratched 'Diby's HotBox' on it. Well, my friends decided it should be made into a real Hot Box, and no, not the normal kind of hot box you maybe thinking of. This hot box was to be 100% pure cardboard to improve upon the Acclaim's aerodynamics, heat resistance, and structural integrity. It took about 4 hours to complete the project on an afternoon our friend, Deibert (aka Diby) had been out of town for a baseball game. What could be better than coming back to discover your friends have Rick Rolled your car? We think he'll love it once he sees our improvments.

And we put some nice drawings of some of his favorite stuff (Pabst, NASCAR), and some stuff he hates (namely the Yankees and Jeter).

The 'envy green' monster and all it's glory

Driver's side if you can't tell

Passenger side (before artwork)
The blue marker didn't hold up after this


Deibert hates the yankees

Even ordered custom NY plates

And stating the obvious, Diby got 553 Summed

Update on my Procrastination List from last year;

Brett's Procrastination (Not-to-do) List

1. Put my web skills to work and create a nice website for myself.
2. Get a physical.
3. Put together that closet organizer I bought in December.
4. Visit Anuj in India.
5. Play curling.
6. Learn to ice skate.
7. Start a gourmet take out style pasta bar with Steve.
8. Make my official 'procrastination list'

3 out of 8 ain't so bad. I think that should be my new motto, if I had one. Maybe #9 is get a motto. 3 out of 9 would be better. It's more easy to be reduced in proper terms like 1/3 or .3333. Either way, I'm pretty good at not doing stuff.

So I remembered today that I had a blog. Apparently it's been over a year since I remembered I had a blog. I think I may be in the later stages of Alzheimer's. The stage that basically kills you.

Anyway, the reason I remembered is that I had something extremely important to make public. I I wish I had my own site to post it on but unfortunately I am way too lazy to do such a thing. Today at work our VPN (virtual private network) connection was down. I asked a part-time co-worker Will if he could fix the issue. He needed to remote desktop onto my laptop so he could see our network and use my Cisco SDM client to fix the connection. Halfway through the task, Will wanted to tell me something. We were using GoToMeeting for the desktop connection which takes over your entire desktop, leaving Skype, IM, or any other chat program in the background. He realized it would be silly to use the built in chat feature in GoToMeeting so instead opened up Notepad on my machine. He typed in what he wanted to tell me, and then I replied back using Notepad. After a second, I realized that we may be the first people to use Notepad as an instant message application. I then thought that at some point in the history of remote connections, someone has done the same. Kinda ruins the feeling. Still funny though.

After Will fixed up the VPN, he wanted to test it out. He then opened up a command line window to find out if the 10.0.0.21 addy resolved correctly to our remote servers. It did, and at the next prompt, he typed 'booyah' to prove to me it worked. I responded with 'mad skilz, son' to only realize that we were definitely the first people to use the Windows command line prompt to chat. History in the making, folks. I plan to have my keyboard and a screenshot in the computer section of the Smithsonian one day.