Latest Entries »


We still buy oil from countries that hate us. In fact, in many ways, we are at their mercy when it comes to oil.

We have a great neighbor to the north, more than happy to sell us their oil at a reasonable price, relieving somewhat, our dependence on our current unholy alliance with the Middle East and South America. In fact, they have proposed to build a pipeline to bring it directly to our refineries. This project, called the Keystone Pipeline, would not only benefit us with cheaper, friendlier oil from a very stable partner, it would also generate thousands of much needed jobs at a time when jobs are needed so very badly in our country.

The only thing currently standing in the way of this pipeline being constructed is our President and the “debt” he owes to the ecology / green energy activists that helped get him elected. These people and their ideology would have us (and HAVE had us, remember Solyndra?) invest in technologies such as solar cells and wind farms that are NOT yet capable of supplying our energy needs at reasonable prices. Rather than investing in our own oil exploration, our President made $2 billion available to Brazil to further THEIR oil exploration. It’s as if he wants everyone BUT the USA and the US economy to prosper. So, once again, OUR LEADER (if you can even call him that any more) is standing in the way of progress we need to make our country energy independent. He’s standing in the way of much needed jobs (while at the same time he rails in public about how unemployment insurance benefits CREATE jobs…WTF???)

Pardon me for saying so, but this is just insane. Partisan politics and ideology are at the core of the President’s beliefs and actions about this project, and he’s just plain WRONG.

Mr. President and Washington, it’s time to get off your collective asses and DO THE RIGHT THING for USA. No excuses, no quarter, no bullshit! Get the HELL out of the way and let our country get healthy and become great again! Let the Keystone Pipeline construction begin NOW!

Steve Jobs

I must admit, that throughout most of my technical career, I have wielded the swords and carried the banners of the Microsoft Windows side of the Crusade.  It was that, after all, a bloody, holy war pitting the more expensive, elitist Apple Computer products against the commoditized and much more accepted by business, IBM PC products.  Such is the absurdity of youth.  So easy, it is, to fall prey to the “religious wars”, so easy to ally oneself with where one’s bread is buttered and so easy to ignore true genius of Steve Jobs as it was being unveiled.

I guess it’s the ability I have now in my somewhat older years, to actually stop and pay attention and see what’s happened for the first time.  No one can question that not only was Steve Jobs an amazing visionary who could see what the consumer wanted before they even knew it themselves, but he was also a shrewd businessman who built his business into one of the most profitable corporations ever.  Steve and his company transformed multiple industries as they shaped a better future for us.   And I, for one, am grateful, and more than just a little humbled and embarrassed by my prior stance on his contributions.

But maybe what’s even more important to me is to have learned something recently about how Steve Jobs lived his life.  Quoting  Steve’s Commencement Address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005,

 When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like, “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.”  Since then… I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”  And whenever the answer has been “no”  for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.  Your time is limited…  Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition…  Everything else is secondary.

Beyond all the great technology, and the tremendous business leadership and the monumental changes in industry he brought about, and beyond the quiet charity he gave, Steve stands up as an example of what’s important in life and how to live it.  Maybe it struck me so hard because Steve passed away at roughly my current age, I’m not sure.

Thank you Steve, for all you did in creating Apple and for setting a standard that is unmatched in the tech industry.  And thank you, for reminding me what life is supposed to be for, and setting an example of how great that can be.  And thank you, Steve, for reminding me to follow my heart and my intuition!  I’ll never forget you for that!

Apparently ME!   I think I owe you a bit of explanation…

This summer has been an incredibly busy time.  In the last four months, I have worked on five different major projects simultaneously. (Geez, I think I need some interns to help me out here.  Any volunteers?)   I have actually made substantial progress on all these things (though only a couple are actually visible at this time.

EventDroid – This is my Android / Honeycomb based application for Eventful events (www.eventful.com).  I hope to actually release this for beta test before the end of the year, probably after moving it to Ice Cream Sandwich.

FlashWords – This project has undergone some serious redesign to make it a more widely useful system of teaching tools.  A choice of whether to implement this completely in HTML5 or some combination of other technologies is still being weighed.

HotTrax Radio Chrome App – This is an all new, HTML5 single page, dynamic interface for HotTrax Radio listeners.  It should debut in the Chrome App Store in the next month or so.

HotTrax Radio’s Website Update – Occasionally, we need to spruce up and make more functional the website for HotTrax Radio.  This time around, I have taken a more hands on approach to this, while having to learn Joomla along the way.  We’ve cleaned up the site a lot, gotten rid of most of the outdated content, discontinued some of the streams that were hardly every used, integrated a newly built chat client system, implemented a new play button and more fully integrated our new popup player.  Many many thanks to Jim Woollard without whose help we’d never have gotten done as much as we did.

HotTrax MusicMix – Our newest channel at HotTrax Radio has just made its debut and required substantial reworking of some of the station’s internal systems.  Besides being a great help on the website, Jim Woollard is also the channel manager of HotTrax MusicMix.

As you can probably tell, it’s been a busy and sometimes stressful summer so far, and as Fall approaches, I have my doubts that it will slack off any.  Oh well, I suppose it keeps me out of trouble! 😀

There’s nothing quite as fun as teaching one’s self using incomplete examples and texts that are somewhat less than helpful in explaining the concepts involved. Thus has been my techy life for the last week or so. Case in point, Fragments in Android 3.0! I get the concept (I think!), now the only question is whether or not I will GET the implementation!! I’m sure that it’s probably just an oversight here or there on my part, but it’s sure not easy to find.

Onward and upward!!

After a day of letting things settle out after the transition, I am very pleased to announce HotTrax new channel “HotTrax Pulse” !  This new channel replaces HotTrax Live and is focused predominantly on the Adult Contemporary genre.   Like all HotTrax channels, HotTrax Pulse will be streaming great current hits 24 hours a day.  If you enjoy this sort of music, please give it a listen and let me know what you think!  You can tune in HERE.

My very sincere thanks to DJs Ace, Figgis, and Pandamonium, all of whom were instrumental in getting this transition done in a timely fashion!!

For a few days this past week, I actually thought I would get away with having a birthday over which my radio friends did not make a big deal!

I could not have been more wrong!  Last night, during Bad Karma’s show, once again my radio family showed me their love by giving me a fantastic online birthday party!  You would think by now that I would expect it (and in truth, I sorta did) but when it didn’t happen on the weekend OF my birthday, I thought maybe I’d gotten away clean.  Once again they outfoxed me and surprised me with a six hour gala of my favorite music and recorded personal greetings.

These parties are always tremendous fun, but I must admit that they make me just a little uncomfortable.  I suppose it’s because I am a more outwardly emotional person than I am comfortable with being.  Normally that’s not much of a problem at all, but I find all the personal greetings and well wishes choke me up and bring the tears pretty easily.

Yeah, I know… I should just suck it up and live with it.  After all, no one would go out of their way to make me feel uncomfortable on purpose.  I guess I am just one of those people for whom certain things penetrate deep within me.  I suppose that puts me in relatively good company, given our new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, seems to have the same affliction!  Wow, I actually have something in common with one of the few politicians for whom I have some respect.

ANYWAY, I want to thank each and every one of my friends for all the love and support they give me, and for all they do for our station! You are all,

Simply the Best!

After bemoaning my own obsession with technically oriented web video (watching it morning, noon and night…yeah.. that’s obsessive!), and making that admission to my lovely north Texas lady, I was given a new tagline for my blog!  Now all I need is a bullet proof permission to use… 😀

I wonder if there’s a 12 step program for this…

You may or may not know that I am a Chrome fanatic!  I know several of you out there are too!  I think you’re gonna love this…