Okay, now for the real pain with Zunes. Microsoft did update the Zune software and underlying firmware which is great. I do like the fact that they can upgrade the Zune to be a newer version, but in my eyes, it was a PR stunt and they wanted to get something, anything no matter what it consisted of, out there for the Christmas shopping rush. They may have upgraded the whole thing, but they left out the critical pieces (Forum Entry). Unlike the iPod, the rating system is limited to a heart, a broken heart, or not rated. There isn’t a smart/auto play list, only the playlist that you create by dragging the song to the playlist. For some people, this may be enough.

For a power user like me, having the smart play list found in the iPod is a must. I have 6 smart play lists which excludes songs from other smart playlists and includes into a playlist based on the rating of a song. For example, I have one name 1-No Kids. It’s the primary one that I use and as you can probably guess from the name, it excludes Kids music. It also excludes slow music (that’s in another playlist – 6-Good 4 Soul). The reason I use a number is that it sorts the playlists so that I can easily go to a play list while on the road with the iPod. I also have playlists based on ratings. 2-Best Stuff, 3-Great Stuff, 4-Good Stuff; each having songs included based on the 5 star rating scale.

One thing that I got used with my iPod using it as a hard drive. I didn’t store a lot on it, but it came in handy when I wanted to copy something from my work computer to take home and work on. The Zune doesn’t give you an option to even try and access it as a hard drive. Yes, there were hacks out there, but why fight it. The iPod just worked right out of the box. Who cares how you market a device, you shouldn’t restrict a user in the use of the device.

Lastly, the odd thing about the Zune website is that you have to go to zune.net instead of zune.com. You’d think Microsoft could at least buy zune.com and forward it to zune.net.

Welp, off to listen to my video iPod that I traded the Zune for on Craig’s List.

I’m glad…
I made the move as it will give me an opportunity to get more for the money. Most notably, I’ll again have SSH access (Shieldhost turned it off saying, “It isn’t secure.”). FTP is about as open as you can get and is the only alternative they gave for accessing your files online. For those of you who aren’t computer savvy or know what I’m even talking about, it’s about equivalent to sending a pay check in the mail without the envelope. Whereas, SSH everything is encrypted (Sending the check through Paypal). In addition to the whole SSH access, Shieldhost has been lagging on support (see Cedric’s article). It takes them a while to get back to you if you have problems. I am fortunate that I didn’t have the problems that Cedric did, but I did have some issues with Shieldhost (but, they are cheap…that’s one point that I’ll give them).

Some other features…
of Site5 include the ability to setup source control with either cvs or subversion. I’ve been working on some free lance web projects and having source control on the web server is something I’ve wanted for quite a while. I’m used to having source control at work and it would be a nice to have feature. Additionally, I am also pleased that they support RubyOnRails. I’m very new to it, but from what demos and documentation I’ve seen, I think it will speed up my web development and maybe organize things even further. I currently develop mostly PHP sites(outside of my real job which consists of Java, .Net, and a few other languages/environments). For PHP I’m using an open source framework called CodeIgniter which is based on the MVC approach, as is RubyOnRails.

Now for the good stuff…
Here’s the kicker part of the whole Site5 deal. I can get a MultiSite account (Yes, more than just a domain pointer). You can have up to 6 domains on the first MultiSite plan and they all have an independent “control panel”. You can add users to each site and they won’t be able to see the other sites that you have on the main account. You can also maintain all sites from the main account. All this for $8.25 a month if paid annually, or $6.21 a month if paid in 2 year increments. This is all through their promotion and after the time you pay for (1 year or 2 years), the price goes up, but you can always switch to the shared account. More details can be found at their MultiSite Webhosting Specials page.

I know…
this sounds like an advertisement, but I’ve done my research in hosts and Site5 has to be the best one that I’ve found. They are truly setup to succeed and in turn help you succeed. They have a ton of support listed through-out their FAQ pages as well as their knowledge base and forums.

I’ve also been doing a kind of social experiment at work. We use a multitude of chat clients and such and decided to try and live without the main one used by our “little” group, namely, IRC. I decided to do it in part because sometimes the conversations get a little heated. Communication in a chat program is entirely different than that of person-to-person. You don’t really get the true feeling of a conversation (missing body language and the vibe that you get from talking with someone in person). It’s understandable why parents are worried about their kids being bullied from online sources. So, without the IRC client going, it’s been rather quiet. It’s hard to believe how much a person can get tied to modern technology (although IRC has been around for quite a while). Yeah, I could just go 5 steps and talk to the rest of my co-workers, but seems like social experiences are different these days. People don’t talk one-on-one like they used to, or at least it seems that way. Without IRC, I can be working and not even talk to my co-workers all day. I may have to go back and join the IRC chat. I feel alienated from the rest of the gang.

Anyway, enjoy the new look and hopefully you won’t find too many things broken.

With this small fortune that we found at Wal-mart, we went to some garage sales with Kim’s parents this weekend. I managed to find a computer for a dollar. It’s not much of a computer but I thought I’d play around with it. Jayden was all excited he got to ride in Grandma’s Avalanche. We’d ask him if he wanted to ride in the car, but he’d shake his head and say in his little voice, “No.”

Baby number two is making Kim’s life miserable. It seems that it’s already started to drop some as Kim was feeling less then great over the weekend. Hopefully it stays in the oven at least another 2-4 weeks so it’s not born too early.

Oh yeah, and I still have a job and haven’t been “re-assigned”. Hopefully it’ll continue that way. We’ll all find out more after another meeting this morning.

In other news, Jayden’s been getting more teeth. He’s been working on getting his molars in the back already. This weekend when he was eating it looked like he was trying to swallow his food with-out even “chewing” it. Kim figured out Tuesday that he’s getting his back teeth and rather than feel more pain he was swallowing the food almost whole. He’s also now walking with us holding one of his hands…so won’t be long and he’ll be tearing around the house on his feet instead of his butt.

On to other news…this last weekend Kim, Jayden, Kim’s Mom and Niece and I traveled to the Omaha Zoo. We had a good time and Jayden also enjoyed it a lot too. He loved to watch the fish and sharks go overhead at the aquarium, but, he had to be close to Grandma’s side.

Jayden’s been showing some more signs of his increased knowledge of what’s going on around him. He’s started to give waves to people. If he’s done eating or doesn’t like something he’s started to conveniently drop his food on the floor. :/ He’s also starting to like water more as Kim’s been up with him this week in Ames at Camp. Today he didn’t mind at all being in the pool. This next week he’ll be helping Kim get ready for his big one year birthday party on Saturday so that’ll keep things hop’n next week.

Check out his pictures in his 11 month gallery.

To give you an update on Jayden. He’s now 7+ months old and is getting more “grown” up everyday. He’s sitting up in shopping carts by himself and has graduated to a bigger car seat. He likes to play in water and likes to wear his shades outside. Pictures of Jayen at 7 months. He also likes to visit the farm and see the baby calves. While we were up at the farm this last weekend we also celebrated my Grandfather’s 80th birthday. It was pretty cool. My Grandmother had kept some items that my Great Grandmother had kept for my Grandpa. One of those items was a speach that he had written for school and then his first baby tooth. Kind of neat to be able to hang on to something like that for 80 years.

Kim’s doing great now that she gets to go outside and play with Jayden. She’s looking forward to working for Campfire USA for about 2 weeks here in the Spring.

So, today I ordered our first Dell. I decided to try the Dell Outlet or Refurbished route as they’re cheap. The price of computers these days is so cheap it’s hardly worth spending a ton of money on stuff that’s outdated the minute it leaves the factory. I never thought I’d be buying a pre-built system. Every computer that I’ve owned, except my first one, has been one that I’ve built. My first one was a 33 MHz 16 MB or ram Gateway 2000 (yes, that was before they changed their name to just Gateway). The “new” one is a Dimension 2400, 2.4 MHz with 256 MB of ram and cost $159 plus the rip off shipping of $99. I think my first computer was around $2,500. Luckily, I had my old 233 MHz PC that has FreeBSD installed on it up and running so that Kim could at least surf a little bit while at home. It’s amazing how much our society relies on computers to get ordinary day-to-day activities accomplished.