I’m sure the world doesn’t need another glowing review of the latest Pixar film, WALL•E, so I’m not going to make this a full-fledged review. But I did want to make a few comments. I saw a digitally projected showing last night… and it really is a fantastically enjoyable movie. WALL•E caters to the children with cute characters, amazing visuals, and a little slapstick, without leaving out the adults by providing us with an intelligent script and a smart social commentary. It’s an absolutely excellent film and I imagine that I’ll enjoy it even more on the second viewing, because there is so much happening on screen that I couldn’t take it all in at once. The story of WALL•E is directly about love, self-sacrifice, teamwork, innocence, and responsibility. Indirectly it’s about consequences, personal restraint, and the negative impact humans are having on the environment. There are a lot of situations in this film that could spark some valuable and educational conversations with your children. It would be easy to talk about the importance of being healthy and active instead of lounging around all day. You could talk about the sense of duty that the robots felt during the film, and when their commitment to their directive was overridden by love and compassion. Kids might wonder about how Earth ended up in the terrible condition pictured in the film, which could begin a discussion about respect for our planet and our own personal responsibility in keeping God’s gift of Earth in good health. WALL•E is a brilliant and beautiful film. Take the kids, I think you’ll have a good time and maybe, some good conversations.

Mudbubble.com has some fantastic illustrations, animations, and Flash tutorials. I’m really inspired by their animated characters. Check out mudbubble.com.

Normally if a shirt has a logo, name, or product on it, I’ll steer clear. However, these Star Wars themed wearables might make me re-evaluate my position on branded clothing. The Boba Fett hoodie is my favorite, but it appears to have been discontinued.

The following article was first published March 28, 2006:
Wow, I just checked my stats and there are a LOT of people hitting my Blog looking for a solution to their WinSoftware WinFixer problem. Well, I had the same evil adware infection and I solved it using the Vundo.exe utility created by Atribune. I found his magic bullet after days of searching and I was so pleased with the result that I sent him a wad of dough through PayPal. Seriously, that stupid WinSoftware adware was driving me insane, and Atribune’s free utility took care of it for me. I thought it was worth $20 considering the guy helped me maintain my sanity. Here’s a description of the symptoms that I experienced and the information I was able to gain about this evil adware: (more…)

As I mentioned in my previous post, Kelly and I attended a funeral on Wednesday. Her grandfather passed away. He was an 85 year old, WWII veteran and was married for 60 years. I helped Kelly create a memory board and slide show presentation from the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of photos that her grandmother kept in boxes. A group of the photos were dated between Spring of 1945 and Winter of 1946, but many of the dates, as well as the stories behind the photos, were gone with her grandfather. As her grandmother looked at the photos we’d selected for the slide show, she told stories about the photos; when they were taken, who was in them, and what was going on at the time. She had information that was unique and added value and understanding to many of the family photos. But some of them were a bit of a mystery to her and her memory failed her on others, where she couldn’t recall where they were or who was in the photo. Several times she caught herself preparing to ask her husband of 60 years about a photo, only to remember that he was gone. (more…)

I’ve just returned from a very long weekend, which included a funeral this afternoon. I’ll write more about all of that later. For now, I’ve spent the last 20 minutes getting the code to work for my email link in the sidebar. Now you can email me directly from the Blog page if you’d like. I also spent another 20 minutes fixing all of the remaining broken links, which means that the refit of my Blog is finally starting to take shape. I believe I’ve gotten all of my links to work now. If you spot anything, use the “Contact” link in the sidebar to let me know. I am going to try to get the database, which contains the last four years of Blog posts, back online. My previous attempts weren’t successful, but since I hate the thought of losing four years of posts, I’m going to try a few more ideas. I plan a few changes for the Blog too. Those wallpapers really need to go! They’re all 1024 x 768, which is a rather small standard resolution for newer monitors. I haven’t decided what to use as a replacement for the wallpaper images yet, but I’m considering the use of modules from Flickr or iMeem, but iMeem has had legal troubles lately, requiring them to truncate all songs that have not been specifically covered in some sort of license agreement. Which means that many of the songs have been chopped down to only a few seconds in length. I’ll decide on something soon, and you’ll begin to see those new items in the sidebar within the next several days.

Because this is my first day back, some things may not work properly. I know the email and a few other links need work.

Have you been wondering where my Blog has been? My former web hosting service, called PagesGarden, switched owners and the quality of the service became unbearable. They allowed the domain name that I used for all of my Blog content to expire, despite the fact that I paid them three times to have it renewed. They never renewed the domain name. Consequently, they then held my domain name captive due to a complete lack of communication on their part. Whatever you do, avoid PagesGarden at all costs. They are the worst web hosting company I’ve ever encountered. They took my money three times, which PayPal confirmed, but never renewed my domain. I urgently tried to contact them over the next few months, but they never replied or resolved the problem. I even tried calling their headquarters in Malaysia several times, but the phone was never answered, despite my attempts to call during local Malaysian business hours. During all of the months I was trying to contact them to resolve the problem, I continued to receive warnings that my domain had expired and my account would be deleted. The links in their “warning” emails didn’t work. They wouldn’t reply to my emails. They wouldn’t answer their phone. They kept taking my money without giving me credit. PagesGarden is managed by thieves, and I strongly suggest never doing business with them. Eventually, my domain expired and they held onto the name for another 90 days or so before releasing it. By then it had been reserved by a squatter at a price I can’t justify paying.

So, now I’m posting new entries. Hundreds of my previous blog entries, articles, and reviews may never make it back online. My strong suggestion: never do business with PagesGarden!