One of my favorite bands is The Sharp Things, out of New York City. They play kind of a new-Baroque Rock that's fun to dance to. Like most serious artists who are trying to define a new space, their style can't really be pigeonholed, but the way I think of it is Motown meets Pet Sounds, under the supervision of J. S. Bach. Listen for yourself; I think you'll enjoy it. You can hear some free downloads on their site, and buy their albums on iTunes. They're running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $2500 to produce their next recording. I like the idea; pledge $20 now and get the recordings when they have it completed. More power to them, and I wish them well. Read more »

From here on out, I am not using the word Windows any more when referring to a computer operating system - it shall be known simply as "W". Reminds me of a former President that messed a lot of things up, just like how W has messed things up over the years. About time for a name change.

I wanted to display a summary of recent items from a data feed in a block, using the titles as links to view the entire article. After evaluating different ways of grabbing feeds, I decided on the Aggregation module, because it offered most of the features I needed, with the least aggregation <g>. But it didn't have the block feature I wanted, so I built my own module to do so, called Aggregation Block.

It's pretty simple; there is an admin page that looks for any feeds you've added, and allows you to expose it as a block. You can add a custom title, and limit the number of items displayed. Nothing fancy, just does the job.

You can see it on my Electronovelty site, which I use it to pull in Drupal articles from Glatzland. Read more »

Sure, Apple can seem arrogant at times, but usually can get away with it, based on the "it ain't bragging if it's true" logic in their world of reality distortion fields. But when Steve Jobs made his condescending remarks last month, suggestion their hardware problem was the result of users being too stupid to know how to hold a cell phone properly, the emperor's clothes were entering severe unraveling mode.

My feeling was mostly one of disappointment. I've been using Apple products since the days of the Apple II, and have the greatest respect for both their imaginative engineering and no-compromises approach to usability and beautiful design. But you can't piss on your users too long and get away with it. Read more »

After Angel's two kids were born last month, I had hoped things would wind down... but Galena had other plans. These two popped out, a boy and a girl, and are doing well. They are so darned adorable at this age, but already have that mischievous look in their eyes. Goats are great for weed control and producing milk, but are so destructive they always seem to be a losing proposition to me. It's like they sit around all day thinking of things to destroy. I'll enjoy them for the time being, at least!