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Hey folks, DDN just re-introduced their free Domino hosting service. It looks like it will be good for those people that want to post a blog, or have something small for test purposes on the web. Check out the info here.

Congratulations to one of my life-long best friends, Tim Daly, and his wife Jen on the birth of their son Aidan. He arrived around 4AM today. 7 pounds 13 ounces is the only info so far. CONGRATS on the new little Miami Dolphin fan 🙂

Well, I officially started my new employment today as a Notes Admin/Developer. I work for a major exhibit service vendor. They do everything exhibit related. They design, build, set-up and tear-down exhibits at trade shows. They also store and ship these things, as well as support brand management for clients. It’s a very cool company. It’s actually nice to do IT for a non-IT company for a change.

There are two main things that I really like about this place so far. The first is how committed they are to the Lotus platform. Full-on email, collaboration, instant messaging, and some really intensely cool web development that you would never know was Domino. They are also looking to do some really cool stuff in the future with things like RFID tracking tied to a Domino warehouse app they want to build. I’m going to get back to some hard-core coding, and I’m looking forward to it.

The second thing is the people. They are so damn friendly 🙂 I’m really not used to that. That’s not to say there weren’t good people at my last company, there were a core of people there that I will love forever, but it’s not the same as this place. Maybe it’s because right now there’s less stress, who knows. Either way, it’s a good thing.

I’ll keep you updated on how it’s going once I get into a good groove. Just need to get up-to-speed on everything. Time to play “learn all about your new job” again. I hate that game… hehe.

I forgot about the funniest part of my trip to Fry’s. As we entered the store, I was pretty astounded by the place. As I was initially looking around my wife said:

Would you like to push the shopping cart so you can hide your painful erection?

There’s no wonder I love that woman! 🙂

No, I unfortunately haven’t slept with Jennifer Love Hewitt. The promised land in question was the new Fry’s Electronics in Downers Grove, IL. Now this is the first Fry’s I know of in the Chicagoland area. I had heard of this mythical beast from west coast friends before, but I had no idea the magnitude and geekiness this place really conveyed.

For those of you that don’t know, Fry’s is like taking the best parts of Best Buy, Circuit City, Comp USA (which I will never have to shop at again!), Radio Shack and your high-end audio/video dealer. Mix those up in a blender, and then add extra geekiness, more in-depth computer coverage, and a couple of Red Bulls. You now have Fry’s.

One of the examples I have to give you is that there was a wall of motherboards. Not a little section, not a small glass case, but a WALL OF MOTHERBOARDS. Each one was bolted to the wall, so you could actually see everything on it. All of the sockets, slots etc. There must have been at least twenty plus models to choose from too. If you want to build your own PC, this is the place.

Modders will have a field day as well. Pretty much every little custom component you could want was available. Liquid cooling solutions, Check. Fans with LED’s, Check. Rotary Cutting tools, Check. Cold Cathode tubes, Check. This place was truly geek nirvana. They even had an entire Apple section with every current product and pretty much every accessory you could think of. I picked up my iTrip there.

So needless to say, if you are in Chicagoland, check out Fry’s. You will NOT be disappointed in the sheer quantity and quality of products they carry. I may never have to shop anywhere else again!

Dear MSN Hotmail Member:

MSN Hotmail Member Services

WOO HOO. Anti-virus? 10 MB attachments? 250 MB inbox? I cannot contain my excitement… 🙂 Even though I’m not fond of Hotmail, this is nice to see that GMail has caused the market to freak out. The thing I really think is interesting is that in a communication from Microsoft’s Action Pack Business Partner thingy, they asked that we use a real email address and not ones of free services such as Hotmail. Classic.

Apparently a flaw has been found in Mozilla Firefox, and there’s already a fix! Since us Domino bloggers all seem to be fond of Firefox, I thought I’d pass this along. Get patching!

(via Nick Bradbury)

Well I’ve finally succumbed to gadget lust and joined the shiny, happy Apple elite and bought myself an iPod. With the new job, I’ll be in the car a couple of hours a day, so I thought it was time to start bringing my music with me 🙂

One thing I always thought about Apple products is that they just WORKED. Apple stuff is supposed to have an ease of use that anyone can jump right in. Well that may be the case generally, but the install of the iPod sucked. Not user friendly at all, it locked up my uber machine several times, and it choked while installing when it figured out that I had a new version of iTunes than the one it wanted. I had to uninstall/reinstall several times before I finally got it working. THEN, the iPod itself locked up in the doc, and when I removed it, it changed the menus to Japanese Kanji characters… [sigh]

Well I fixed that finally too, and now everything supposedly is fine. All I know is that I had a rock solid machine that never crashed until I hooked this thing up to it… Apple might rock when connecting to Apple products, but when connecting to Windows, it’s anything BUT the experience I was expecting…

Well, it’s been an interesting couple of days. For some reason, my immune system KNOWS when I want to have time off and relax, because it decides to take a break too. You see, I almost never get sick during a work week. If I get sick, it’s usually over a weekend, or holiday break, or vacation. Now that I have a new job starting on the 12th, my body decided it would be a good time to get a nasty cold/loss of voice. UGH.

So, I decide to live with this and go to my in-laws 4th of July party (on the 3rd.) I felt like hell, but it was an annual thing and always a lot of fun. So we trucked the whole family down to the river to enjoy a day of fun, food and fireworks. I got set up on two grills cooking one full of brats and the other full of italian sausage. Things were going well, until the mother-in-law informed me that my eldest had gotten sick all over the upstairs bathroom.

Needless to say, we decided to call it a day and head home. We didn’t want our daughter infecting the multitudes of other kids in the area. I got to cook all of the food, but not eat any of it. Like I said, best laid plans…

So, on to the actual 4th of July, we all basically laid around the house sick and taking numerous naps. Jen and I were heading to bed around 9:30 when we noticed all the fireworks going off outside. We went out on the deck and saw fireworks going off in every direction. It was pretty cool.

I know this sounds wierd, but even though I can hate what our government does sometimes, I love this country as a whole. For my foreign readers (and I have quite a few surprisingly) please don’t be offended that I love my country in spite of my government. The people here in the US are mostly decent, nice human beings. It really upsets me that the arrogance of a few can tarnish that reputation.

No matter what, I’m proud to be an American, and I stand here on this fourth of July, watching the fireworks, and I realize that there’s no place I’d rather be.

Go out today and find a participating comic shop that is celebrating Free Comic Book Day. You’ll get a cool bag of comic books from various publishers, all FREE. I took my nephew and he got a kid appropriate bag, and I got an adult bag. Very cool stuff, and it only happens once a year. Get to your nearest store TODAY!