Friday, August 31, 2007

FunkyThoughts: Naughy things not to do with your iPhone

Checkout the linked video. It combines two of my "favorite" new things tied together "BlendTech" and that new fancy iPhone thing. If you got a lot of $ to burn...Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/491

Thursday, August 30, 2007

A1 Race Tickets

Buy INDY AND NASCAR tickets today before your tickets are sold out.

Theres a few INDY tickets left, get them now!Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/362

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Hiding files in Jpg images (jpeg)

Here is a tutorial on how to hide files in Jpg's. Please note it isn't the most secure method, because the information is stored in plain text but it's still cool to play with. A simple solution to make this more secure, is to use encryption on the RAR file when your create it, but thats not the point of this tutorial :) The idea is to show how files can be 'slammed' together, to stop the average PC user from finding them.Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/315

Monday, August 27, 2007

Sixties San Francisco Posters and Memorabilia

Since most of the artwork of the sixties was throwaway, advertisting for concerts and various gatherings being the most common, its hard to find. Included here are posters, album covers and a few of the be-in, hippie and San Francisco happening flyers.. and, even, an R. Crumb Mr. Natural cover… enjoyRead More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/407

Useful Life Tips

Here are some great strategies I picked up that you may find helpful.

These tips present an overall strategy for coping and dealing with emotional conflicts. Inner tormoil can be created when a situtation occurs or you are about to make a decision and you are unsure, lack confidence, or are simply sad/angry/upset and are not sure how to improve your outlook.

To use this strategy follow each step in order, and ask yourself the 'critial thinking' questions assoicated. The 'root cause' of you problem likely revolves around one of the three items below (or some combination of these items). Continue to re-examine the questions until a plan is developed for resolution

1) Always be true to yourself

Remember when you were young, and someone told you about that little voice inside your head that tells you right from wrong.. (you know about the voice don't you?). Often times we find ourselves 'trapped' trying to figure out what is the "right" thing to do. We make seek advice from others and solicit opinions. (Sometimes, we get unsolicitied options as well). Although outside advice can be helpful (why else are you reading this). It is important never to fogot the little voice inside ourselfs. What it wants, what it believes is best, what it can live with.

You may find yourself sometimes arguing with your little voice. Trying to make excuses for why you "can't" or 'shouldn't do something. I can't stand the word "should" by the way, I think it needs expundged from our langauge, but I digress. Sometimes there is so much "noise" around us we can't even 'hear" what our inner voice is telling us. (or if you're like me there are so many voices, you don't know which one to listen too ;-))

Here are some strategies to re-discover your inner voice:

a) Sit in a quiet place alone. Pratice being by yourself, for 10-15 minutes alone each day without distractions. Ask yourself questions ("How do I feel about..." or just reflect on your day, or just try to clear you mind of distractions

b) Create a pro/con list. On a blank piece of paper right down your ideas "for" and "against" a certain decision or item you are trying to make. Often your inner voice will become clear as you are creating your list, or after you have created it, and take a look at what you've written. Important: make you list alone if you want to discover your own inner voice and elimate others

c) Imagine that you have made the decision (a). Walk yourself through the process, consider how you feel about it. Can you still look yourself in the mirror after making the decision. Are you beating yourself up about it. Are there things that maybe you hadn't considred. Sometimes you won't know these things until after you've made the decision, but then you can add it to you 'lessons learned about life' list for future reference.

One little "Test" -> When you are being true to yourself, you will find you are confident in your choice. You won't feel like you have to "defend" yourself. If other people question your decision you will find it easier to respond confidently and easily about your decision, without a hieightend emontional / stressfull state. You won't find yourself overly nervious or anxious. Often these feelings arise from not listenting to our inner voice, we are not being true to ourselves.

2) Communicate

Okay, so if we have decided we are being true to ourselfs. The next important question to ask ourselves would be: "Is there something missing communication/clarification that is causing me undue grief". Similar to being afriad of the dark, our minds can twist information to build a story that is bullsh... well let's just say less then accurate. One clue that there is a lack of communication is when we find ourselves going over a situation over and over in our minds and asking ourselves the question "Why did so and so do that, or Doesn't he realize when he did that it hurts me?", Perhaps we drift into the past and try to construct a reason why someone did something to us.

When this occurs, what is actually happening (normally), is that there is some lack of communication or clarification. We would like to say something to someone, or tell something to someone, but we have not. This is not to say we are holding in "telling someone off" and that we won't feel better until we do so. Rather, we have not constructed the words in an approperiate manner, or are holding off communicating our message, and again this causes an inner turmoil within us.

Key points to consider in communication:

To whom do I need to communicate this message? Am I requesting clarification of an event that had occured. Do I need to communicate my feelings to someone about something that is bother me? Am I avoiding communicating a message because I fear the consquences of the communication?

How do I frame the message? This is actually a 2 part question. In part a) we ask ourselves, what do we hope to accomplish by communicating the message, in part b) we ask ourselves, will this communication meet my goal?

A well framed message normally does the following:

1) Clarifies any mis-communication. Asks "when this event occured, was it your intention to.. [x]"

2) Explains feelings... When this event occured, I felt like....

3) States your pro-active approach for resolution: As I don't want to experiance this again, here's what I propose as my plan to cope with this issue...

In general, communication should not be aimed with the intent of modifying or changing the behavior of another. In a toxic environment your best defense is to remove yourself from the situation causing the issue. The only person you can be assured of changing is yourself..not others.


It is also important to note, that it is not necessarily the cast that you need to actually deliver the communication to a person. Sometimes, just the act of framing the conversation (writing it down). Allows your brain the ability to take a rest, and you can relax and stop thinking about things over and over. Sometimes actual communcation is not possible, reasonable, or even safe.

3) Take responsibility for your actions

In this area we may find ourselfs stuck in a "guilt loop". We may find ourselves replaying a situation over and over again, wishing we could change it, or asking why we reacted this way or that and wanting to fix it.

Every choice/decision we make will have consequences, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Often a mix of both good and bad. While it is important to reconize when we have made a mistake, it is equally important to admin "Oops, I screwed up" and develop a plan to move on with life. Everyone will make a mistake, and when this happens and we recognize it we can work on ways to improve in the future. However, if we are true to ourselves we can see, sitting around and mulling over the mistake solves nothing.

Making a bad decision is not to be equated with being a bad person. Otherwise we would all be "bad" people because everyone one of us has made a bad decision at one point on our life and will probably do so again in the future.

A big part of "taking responsibility" means choosing our response. We, as humans, have an amazing capacity to look at a situation and exercise our free will to choose our actions. Other animals act on instinct but we don't have to do this, we can choose to act differently then our instinct. This is not to say that we should hide our feelings or dis-regard them, rather we should recognize our feelings and accept them, we should recognize our instinct re-action and accept it. BUT we should also recognize that we can choose differently.

Another view of this is as follows:

1) The world acts on YOU -> This is the belief that things just 'HAPPEN' to you and there is nothing you can do about it. This belief subscribes you to the fact that you are not in control, that you are not responsible for your actions. Things happen and you re-act and there was no way to do otherwise.

2) YOU act on the world -> This is the definition of being responsible. With this philosophy you understand that things HAPPEN in the world, some of these things are in your control but many things are not. Nevertheless, you proactively choose your actions to a situation. You are in control, you have a plan and you are following your plan. You understand there will be obstacles, but you also have the confidence to know you can handle each new event as it happens and tackle it head on.

My favorite analogy was a story I read one time about a man at a carnival. This man had never before been on a roller coaster ride, and was trying to decide (get the courage) to go on. Armed with his trusty digital camera, he took snapshots from the ground of others riding on the roller coaster.

He noted, there were basically two types of people riding the coaster. Person A) held there arms out high and screamed in enjoyment as the roller coaster swished by, Person B) had an ongoing terrified look on their face the entire time. Person B often closed there eyes and it was obvious they could not wait for the ride to end.

The man thought to himself for a moment, and decided to board the roller coaster. He asked his wife to take a picture of him as he went by. She did this, and his picture was one of the excited passengers with his hands out wide and a huge smile on his face. When his wife asked him later what this was all about, he replied "Well, I figured I could either be a person A) and enjoy the experience or a person B) and be terrified. So I choose to be a person A) and I enjoyed every minute of it !!


Dislcaimer: I am not a pyschologist or any type of theripist. None of the advice I give be taken as an expert in the field. These are suggestions that were passed down to me (that I've modifed to fit my thinking), and I am passing them along in hopes they may help others

Sunday, August 26, 2007

TV Review: 24 - Jack Goes Rogue Blogcritics.org

Written by Victor Lana: Jack does a little babbling about a Presidential directive, and soon he is inside the gate where the nukes are waiting and he's got Chloe on the line ...Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/277

Ubuntu Mplayer resume posistion

I made a few edits to this perl script for my configuration, and have placed it here www.bwebcentral.com/projects/mplayer.zip to help others.

Basically, I was having problems getting the script to remember my position when playing full screen on my television. I spent several hours of my
life tweaking this to try and figure out why it wasn't remembering my screen saver. It seemed to be a combination of things including the fact that it
would not write to the same location as my videos.

One "key" thing I seem to have noticed is that it is VERY IMPORTANT to a) Press STOP and not BACK on the remote to save the position correctly and b) when changing the setup (command line) options in Myth-Front End Video Settings -> Player. use mplayer-resume.pl %s don't use any other options (espically -quiet) which seems to prevent the perl script form reading the image

Install:

Make sure the files are +x (execuatable, and copy the scripts to the same directory as mplayer (/usr/bin maybe)
Modify your player settings in Myth Front End Video player to mplayer-resumer.pl $s

Modify mplayer-g as desired. Currently it disables the gnome-screensaver because as much as I tried I could not get the config option to work with
.mplayer. If you want to be fancy you could test to seen if screen is enabled first. Otherwise if you don't have a screen saver, this script might turn
it on unexpectantly.

Enjoy !

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Coca-Cola 600

a six hundred mile (966 km) stock car race held annually at Lowe's Motor Speedway (formerly Charlotte Motor Speedway) in Charlotte, North Carolina on Memorial Day weekend.Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/378

Friday, August 24, 2007

Microsoft Surface Video. A whole new desktop experience

I've heard of this type of desktop interative interface before, but this video really shows some cool things that can be done with it.

I don't expect to see one under my Christmas tree anytime soon though :-(Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/445

Gender Biased Pricing

In this episode of Air Farce they debate the idea of gender based pricing.

I thought it was funny. I have never embedded real player stuff into a blog before though, so I'm not sure it it work work.

Let's find out ;-) You may need real player to get it to work



Disclaimer: I'm assuming it's okay to embed this, since it's freely downloadable from http://www.airfarce.com/video/050401.html

Hopefully I won't get any complaints, if so I'll remove it.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Free Webhosting from the Website Review | Website Review

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Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/546

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Take your mobile off the grid… (TreeHugger)

The environment, energy, and mobile phones?

One of the things that give me the most hope about the future is that we really haven’t begun to tap the potential for reducing the amount of energy we consume in our lives.Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/212

Monday, August 20, 2007

The Fish Game in Haight Ashbury Land | Old Hippie\'s Sixties Pad

2. You must hand in a joint to play the Avalon and the Fillmore. You get joints by landing on the squares marked score one joint. Keep score of joints.Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/409

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Duck and Cover

we still practiced Civil Defense drills, along with the fire drills causing some people to get a little confused at times, so it was made really clear to us when we were supposed to evacuate, and when we were to line up in the hallway and 'duck and cover'Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/332

An Ode to Cranky Geeks



One of my favorite podcasts is Cranky Geeks, hosted by John C Dvorak. This panel discusses various IT 'hot topics'

I love waiting for it to be downloaded each week, and I'm attaching my 'homage' to their show. Please remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

This podcast sums up every episode of cranky geeks so that you can be up to date with the latest episode. Enjoy !

Saying Hi to a Busker

If you get a chance to see a Busker festival, don't miss the opportunity. Busking is an form of street theater and it's awesome entertainment for the entire family. Buskers come from all over the world to preform, and they have some really amazing acts. It is live, and puts "America's got talent" to shame.

Busking is a way to bring entertainment to the people. Many buskers have been practicing their talent for years. Normally, at the end of a show is the famous passing of the hat. Often, this how buskers earn their back to school money..there is no set price/dontation, they just ask that your remember...it takes 5 of those little golden Canadian coins to make 1 US$, so please give generously.

The 21 buskers festival just concluded in Halifax, NS (Aug 12-18), so keep your eyes open for buskes in your area, or make sure you go visit them next year

www.buskers.ca

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Nascar Strictly Stock

The first NASCAR "Strictly Stock" race ever was held at Charlotte Speedway (not the Charlotte Motor Speedway) on June 19, 1949 Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/376

Getting a cork out of a bottle

Here's a cool trick to play on your friends, bet them you can't get the cork out of the bottle.

Watch this video and see how it's done. Shhh..keep it a secret LOL


Friday, August 17, 2007

ClamWin Free Antivirus. GNU GPL Free Software Open Source Virus and Spyware Scanner. Download Free Windows Antivirus. Stay Virus and Spyware Free with Free Software. - About ClamWin Free Antivirus

Unlike, AVG Software, ClamWin is an excellent free software solution for business. It does not have the same licensing limitations as AVG Software. ClamWin works well, though I find sometimes it identifies false positives (files that are not really a thread) and it does not have an on-demand scanning, but it is still an excellent alternative and it's free.Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/339

Looking for a baby name...why not use "@"

Found this funny article from reuters . Apparently a chinese couple recently had a baby and wanted to choose the name "@"

Aparantly, the symbol has a special meeting in Chineese "love him"..so the story goes. The articles do not say if they were legally allowed to use this name.

I think it would be a cool name to have, and although the baby may be teased later in life, I can't think off my head a nasty school rhyme that uses "@". My understanding is that it's not pronounced "AT" like the common email pronounciation.

...I suppose they could have tried to name the baby Coca-Cola

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

YouTube vs. Google Video vs. Revver

Something’s gone wrong at Chris Pirillo’s blog, because some of the major video sharing sites are engaged in an all out-brawl! To understand, just click play on all three videos, as quickly together as you canRead More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/240

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

San Francisco Sound - Quicksilver Messenger Service

Quicksilver released Quicksilver Messenger Service in 1968, followed by Happy Trails the following year. These two albums define a classic period in Quicksilver's career and are most strongly associated with their unique soundRead More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/406

Monday, August 13, 2007

ThePrizeBlog.com

A Free Updated List of Contests, Sweepstakes and Prizes Available Online!Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/168

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Bulgaria Number 1 Sports Site

Sport 1 - The Bulgarian Sports Portal
Sport 1 - Спортният сайт на България
Read More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/139

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Top Idiot Awards

Here are some funny stories about the dumb things people do. Good for a laugh, Hope you enjoy themRead More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/526

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Is reality TV Real?

From: Charlie Brooker. Don't believe everything you want on reality tv..here's a video that explains whyRead More...http://www.bwebcentral.com/blog/2/529

Friday, August 3, 2007

Is reality TV Real?

Here's an important lession about Reality TV, and...what's real about it and what's not



From: Charlie Brooker