Open Source Day - Nobody told me!

Just found this post on Tech Republic - one of my favorite sites for tech news and info. I subscribe to a few of the newsletters, including MS Office, and of course, Linux and Open Source.

Software Freedom Day

Sept. 19 was Open Source day which, like all great things open source, was kept a great big secret! NARF! The problem with free software, open source, Linux and the like are not the help and support mechanisms (those are great) or the interfaces (getting much better, but not perfectly polished like the big names). The biggest problem is awareness. If people don't know that options exist, how can we expect them to use them? Imagine that no one knew there was another car manufacturer besides GM? Cereal other than Kelloggs? Phones other than an iPhone (such blasphemy!)?

Check out the post, and if you can, download and burn the disc. It won't cost you anything........

Happy Birthday Rooster

Yesterday was The Rooster's birthday, so of course we went fishing for a few minutes. We made a quick run over to a small county park where the panfish are usually biting. He had one on the beach before I even got my rod rigged up, but then it was pretty slow. They just weren't biting. We saw a good looking Brown Trout cruising around, but couldn't tempt it.

We did find a spot at the end though that held this sunny and a bluegill - both over 7 inches. Not a bad take for panfish around here.

A good birthday present, except he didn't get to keep it.  :)

Let the dough start rolling in.....

Finally got AdSense enabled for my other blog. Now I can start to be a bit more proactive in promoting it. I have been keeping a low profile on it at the start, as I wanted to have a chance to earn from visitors. Now that the ads are active, I can push it a little bit more.

Don't get me wrong, it is not all about the money. I put the ads on there in an attempt to bring in some income, and if it turns into a new job for me that requires me to take my family fishing/camping/hiking and to claim all the expenses on my income tax, so be it. :)

I did pass the url on to two other sites - PPFF and Friends of Ridley Creek. Both are non-profits geared toward promoting and protecting state forests and parks, and I received a nice message back from the PPFF, which I hope turns into an opportunity as well.

It's funny - blogging started for me as a hands on, anyone can do it exercise in my intro class, and has turned into a fun activity that I hope I can turn into a job. Who'd-a-thunk-it?!?

(Furry) Friends

Amazingly, without the help of social networking, I recently came back into contact with a former co-worker from almost 10 years ago. The last time we spoke, she mentioned a local wildlife rescue that she has some contact with, and I told her about our experience with Pinkie, the baby squirrel, and the difficulty we had in finding someone to take him. From that experience, my daughter has expressed a desire to volunteer at a rescue center.

Rocky Springs Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Broadway, NJ is the name of the center, and everything I have found out about the center and it's director, Donna Fox, is amazing. Along with rave reviews from my friend, hackettstownlife had excellent references to them. Along with working as an RN, somewhere along the line, Donna has created and patented a special garment, the Cuddle N Carry at Cinderooz.com. The shirt has a built in pocket for carrying around baby and small pets the want to be close to you for warmth and comfort while leaving you free to move and hands-free. Really cool idea and invention. They are auctioning one off to benefit a shelter in New Orleans (yes, they still need help down there).

If you would like to help, check out GoodSearch. It is a charitable service from Yahoo that makes donations to the charity of your choice every time you search. With all of the hoopla about search engines, isn't it nice to use one that is doing something good? I am changing my search box as soon as I wrap up this post.

Be nice.

The Phillies magic number is .........26! Time for their September magic.