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In the Market for a New Media Player

For a long time I have been fed up with ITunes, in my opinion (at least the windows version) is one of the biggest pieces of bloatware I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I have also tried the much loved Winamp. While this program does every thing I want a media player
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A Father’s Wish

Yesterday after work, I heard about the bombings in Boston and at first, I was in shock in a similar fashion as I was when I heard about the attacks of 9/11. However, this time I did not think it was radio joke as my first thought. It was not again, someone has brought violence
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Comment on the Atlanta Cheating Scandal

I am a teacher and work very hard to help raise the test scores, confidence and knowledge of my students using a variety of means, however I will would never turn to cheating. I am a firm believer that if anyone is going to do something they need to do it “the right way” or
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In the Market for a New Media Player

May 1, 2013 in Technology & Computing

For a long time I have been fed up with ITunes, in my opinion (at least the windows version) is one of the biggest pieces of bloatware I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I have also tried the much loved Winamp. While this program does every thing I want a media player to do it, its lack of style and refinement in the user-interface makes it a very hard program to use on a daily basis. So I am going to ask my readers, any suggestions for other media players on a Windows PC that meet the following requirements:

  • RIP Music/Video to major common formats
  • Import playlists from major media players
  • Download CD & Track information
  • Organize Music & Video libraries based on a defined structure
  • Playlist generator based on song music style

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A Father’s Wish

April 16, 2013 in Manliness

Image Courtesy of news.discovery.com

Image Courtesy of news.discovery.com

Yesterday after work, I heard about the bombings in Boston and at first, I was in shock in a similar fashion as I was when I heard about the attacks of 9/11. However, this time I did not think it was radio joke as my first thought. It was not again, someone has brought violence to the shores of our country. My heart goes out to those injured by the bombing and to everyone associated with such a horrible event; it is another instance in our country’s history that will be unfortunately galvanized into our countries psyche forever. This event has also made realize that I have accepted that events like this are possibility anywhere in our country and at anytime. My wife and I made a plan for what happens to our family if something like occurs to us or near our family; it started as a joke to use, but turned in a deep and meaningful conversation. I hope that my son never has to know a tragedy like this, but then I think how naïve that is. The world truly is a different place, my parents and grandparents knew events like this, but they were far from them and disconnected, I hope the same for my son. As I personally knew people associated with 9/11, it is a father’s hope that his child never knows such a thing even if it is just a simple wish.

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Comment on the Atlanta Cheating Scandal

March 30, 2013 in Class Management, Education

Originally Found: wikimedia.org

Originally Found: wikimedia.org

I am a teacher and work very hard to help raise the test scores, confidence and knowledge of my students using a variety of means, however I will would never turn to cheating. I am a firm believer that if anyone is going to do something they need to do it “the right way” or “do a better job”, this is one of the most fundamental beliefs that drives my classroom.  I am a teacher with high expectations and will always push my students to meet those expectations regardless of how creative I have to be to motivate my students. However, like so many things there is a limit and cheating is one of those limits for me and should be for everyone. It is better to help a foe be the best that they can be then beat them rather than cheat. This philosophy stands regardless if the foe is a creative block, a test or a competing team, it makes your victory so much sweeter. The Atlanta Cheating Scandal has served one purpose and that is to galvanize a greater negative view of the American educational system and teachers in the public’s mind. We are already an industry/profession that is under attack for lack of performance on standardized states and international ranking. Those of us that are good, upstanding educators at all levels must declare this cheating behavior as unacceptable in any form. This is not just to set a good example for our students who will be the future workforce, but also to the country’s parents and society.

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Spring has Sprung

March 30, 2013 in Uncategorized

So it looks like spring is here-ish, I know it is probably going to be a couple more weeks before spring is in full swing, but I can start planning some of my summer projects. It is going to be a busy summer since I have a couple of projects left over from last year that need to be finished up. However, I have to add to that list about five new major projects, I am hoping I will have the time and money to get it all done.

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The Sequestration 2013

March 10, 2013 in Government

Those of you reading this that know me personally will attest that on many political topics I have both republican and democratic views depending on the topic, but like thing I am learning more and more his that our federal government is failing us completely! They knew this financial crisis was knocking on the door and rather than actually solving the problem, they played political games and we the middle-class will be left to pick up the pieces. In the weeks before the sequestration both parties presented bills that could have avoided the current deep budget cuts to a variety of programs, but politics got in the way of those bills passing. While I doing agree with all the parts of any of the packages, they should have been passed in some form to keep our country stable. I say anyone who voted these packages down should be votes out of office as soon as possible. Government is for the people by the people, they are not aristocrats deciding the peasants fates.

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Fed up with Hosting Company

February 3, 2013 in Technology & Computing

Therefore, all of my websites have been down for the past two days and this is the third multi-day outage since the beginning of the year. I can understand that a company does have outages, but to have three outages in less than two months in unacceptable. Therefore, I am going to start shopping around for a new hosting company.

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New Bluetooth Keyboard

December 26, 2012 in Technology & Computing

I am writing this posting using a new Bluetooth keyboard that i was recently given for my birthday (no I am not saying which birthday though), intially I thought the keyboard was a bit flimsy as it is super light on second thought though I can see how many people would like this fact. Personally I like things with a bit more heft and strength to them, I do think that so far writing a posting with this keyboard has been pretty enjoyable. My real only complaint has to do with the software that I am using rather than they keyboard that I am using to type up this post. I am using a free program called QuickOffice that I have used for a long time, it has been a while since I have actually used the program to do any writing and that was limited at best. Since I am hoping to get some writing done with this while I am at work, I am going to have to explore the program a bit deeper and see how I actually like it. While I am thinking about it, I am going to have to see if this will work with my phone as well on those odd occasions where I need to write a couple of sentences on my phone. If it does work, this bluetooth keyboard will be the latest device that gets added to my usual bag of tricks.

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Jewish Christmas 2012

December 25, 2012 in Uncategorized

So it is officially Jewish Christmas and I am planning my day, which means getting some laundry done and decided what kind of Chinese food to order tonight. This is how my family spends our Christmas and getting caught up on house chores, going to the movies and ordering Chinese food. Since we don’t really celebrate the present craziness, we have had to find other things to for Christmas day when almost everything is shutdown. This year, we aren’t heading to friend’s or family’s place to celebrate Christmas, which we often do in most years. So we will celebrate in my family’s traditional way.

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FRC 2013 Season

December 15, 2012 in Education

My FIRST Robotics team once again is getting set to head into another build season, this year Is a bit different because we are rushing to everything prepped since we didn’t think we would competing this season due to financial problems. But in the 11th hour, we found a funding source and were able to register for this season, now we have to get all of our equipment prepped and materials ordered. I am hoping it will be a fun season.

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Sleepless in Detroit

December 10, 2012 in Uncategorized

Last night I was up excessively late and then could not fall asleep, it took its toll on me today as I was dragging all day at work. I have been on this insomnia bout again lately, though I have not been on one this strange in a long time. I often feel like my low-level sleep deprivation is taking a turn for the worse lately. It seems my thoughts are much more jumbled lately and my brain just is not working as fast as it normally does.

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