I’m not sure what I’ll do with my blog. I feel like trying to include some more software development information if I can…it’s something to write about at least and I feel like giving back to the community.

So, what’s been going on? Well, we had  a great Christmas and 2009 started out pretty well inspite of The Great Depression II. I’m very fortunate that the Ag industry is holding strong.

Jayden has been learning all the time and is becoming the little man.  He loves to figure out how everything works. He also loves talking your ear off once he gets going. He also knows how to use pause on the DVR. It’s sad he won’t even know what a VCR was. (Actually, it’s a good thing the VCR is dead. ) Jayden got to make a pirate box to put his pull-ups into and have the pirates visit with a bunch of treasure. We’re so glad that he’s doing pretty well in making it through the night without a pull-up. He still wakes up wet occasionally, but he’s getting there.

Josie is a daddy’s girl. It’s not uncommon to hear her tell me, “I need you” and then proceed to try and get you to drop whatever you were doing and pick her up. I don’t mind. She’s my little Princess, Tinkerbell or Cinderella depending on the day. One day we tried to straighten her hair, but I told Kim that I never wanted it straighted again…unless Josie does it herself when she’s a teenager. She did not look like our little Josie at all.

Kim has been feeding her facebook “addication” and has hooked up with quite a few people from her past. It’s pretty cool to think we can reconnect with people in such an easy method.

Well, there you have it.  The start to 2009.

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.

Yesterday we took our annual trip to Howell’s Tree Farm to get the kids their pumpkins and to have some fun playing with all the stuff they have setup. While there we also saw Amy and Zach Larson so that was cool. It had rained the night before and it was pretty muddy, but we had a good time anyway and washed our shoes when we got home.

More pictures can be seen at the Halloween 2007 Picture Set.

Jayden now asks for a Dewski whenever Kim goes into Quicktrip or Kum & Go to get her fountain Dew. I’d say that’s a pretty good accomplishment. He’s almost there with using the peddles on his trike and bike. If only he were there with potty training. We’re hoping that a switch will flip and he’ll want to finally use his “big-boy scibbies”. He talks about everyone else using the potty, but still no go. He still has the occasional melt down, but, knock on wood, they don’t seem as frequent as before. He’s also looking forward to his birthday and now asks for things for it.

Josie has started to walk on her own. She does mostly walking now instead of crawling. It’s fun to watch her make her tiny steps. She’s kind of wobbly at times, but is doing a pretty good job so far. She’s also good at getting into trouble. It won’t be uncommon to turn your back for a second and find her standing on top of the kid’s picnic table. She is learning a lot fast. She’s also good at being a Daddy’s girl.

House painting is done for the most part. I painted the back last week so the “normal” areas to paint are done. I’ll probably try and get the garage door and the concrete part of the foundation done sometime before it snows. I also have to make a cover for the sandbox. I’m tired of looking at the blue tarp that covers it now.

Aside from the kids being sick, we painted our living room a couple of weeks ago. We were sick of the poorly painted yellow that the old owners had. Funny it took us about 4 years to get it painted.

Update: Well, it appears that Josie has croup and Jayden has ear infection. At least Jayden already had it once so now we know what to do with Josie. Josie seems to be doing better after they gave her a steroid shot. Jayden’s at least eating some cereal now.

Last weekend we had Christmas on the Wagner side. We all had a good time and watched the normal movie, “Christmas Vacation”. We all got some good presents and more presents.
Yesterday Kim and the kids hung out with Emily and Mady. The kids exchanged gifts and apparently Jayden wanted to keep opening gifts…even though there weren’t anymore. So, I think Jayden is getting the hang of Christmas or at least the gift part. haha.

Josie has been growing a bit…not as fast as Jayden did at her age, but still growing. She had her 6 month checkup yesterday and was a whole 12 pounds. She’s starting to sit up on her own now. She’ll sit for about a minute then fall over.

Don’t forget to good and if you need help tracking Santa be sure to visit the Santa Tracking Site.

Merry Christmas!

Jayden has been busy being a big brother. He does pretty good with Josie, but at his age, just doesn’t grasp being gentle. He’s also showing his being 2 a bit more. He knows what he wants and can have the occasional meltdown if he doesn’t get his way. He LOVES the new Car’s movie that just came out on DVD. He sat through the whole thing watching it when we got it and now wants to watch it all the time. I think Thomas the Tank Engine is getting jealous as he’s starting to fade in the background. But, he still loves trains so Thomas shouldn’t feel too bad.

Josie’s been having fun in her bouncy seat. She just loves it. She’s also started to roll over on her own from her stomach to her back. It’s amazing to see how much different she is from Jayden. She’s way ahead of Jayden. She likes to try different foods and usually drinks her whole 6 oz. of milk within 15 minutes. She also has found her voice and likes to “talk”. I hope it’s not a sign of the future when she gets a cell phone.

Kim has been keeping herself busy (most of the time…but she gets bored staying at home) being Mom. She does a great job keeping everything ship-shape in spite of Jayden’s use of the living room as the play area. At least Jayden likes to organize his cars. He usually has them all lined up all straight and tidy. Kim’s also getting everything ready (shopping) for Christmas which helps keep her mind occupied. She continues to read lots of books. I think she reads one a week. Too bad I didn’t have more time to read. Oh well, maybe when I retire.

About three weeks ago I was driving our Focus in a parking lot and heard a weird noise coming from the front. Hmm. Brakes? Sure enough, the brakes were getting bad. I only heard the noise about 2 times and didn’t think they were that bad, but as you can see from the picture, they were almost metal against metal. So, Zach found me a good place to order them online and because he’d just replaced his brakes in his Focus, helped change my brakes this week. What a difference that can make. They are a lot better and shouldn’t make my wheels dirty as I ordered the ceramic pads. w00t!

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.