Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce my engagement to Dr. Anastasia Foufas. I proposed Sunday, June 20th, at Halibut Point State Park in Rockport.
She said Yes!
Click here for a couple of full-sized pictures of the happy couple.
Update: For those who want a close-up of the ring, here’s a picture of the style from the designer’s web site. It’s quite lovely
Filed under Personal Notes
Because some people are unbelievably insensitive, all comments on this site will now be fully moderated. I’m not sure if the post in question (now deleted, obviously) was malicious or just completely thoughtless, but congratulations on spoiling things for everyone!
Filed under This Site
Apple has announced an arrangement they’ve made with BMW, to “integrate” the iPod into BMW cars. A cool concept, but the implementation is a bit weak.
Basically, you pay $150 - PLUS installation - to have a little dock-type cable run into your glove compartment. You then just sort of chuck your iPod in there (check out how pathetic this looks on the Apple page), and you use the BMW’s CD changer controls to select between and jump around within 5 playlists that you have to set up in advance. The 6th “CD” accesses your whole library. But if you’ve got 20 or 40 gigabytes in there, that’s a lot of “next… next… next… next…” to listen to ZZ Top.
There’s not a whole lot of innovation here… You’re just turning your iPod into a virtual CD changer. There’s zero reason why this couldn’t be done with any other car on the market. But “iPod your Civic” doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?
Filed under Gear and Gadgets
Major news update in the world of Chausse-dom. Can’t tell you right now… Stay tuned 
Filed under Personal Notes
As you can see by the tabs in the upper right, I’m beginning to expand the web site to contain non-weblog content. This content is divided into “Work” and “Life”. And while the two frequently overlap, the general guideline is this: if it involves computer programming, it goes into “Work”, otherwise it goes into “Life”.
And on another topic related to this site… Chausse.org is not a democracy. It is not a public forum. It is my home on the web. By allowing comments regarding my posts, I am, in effect, leaving the front door of my virtual home unlocked. I do this because I believe that friends and strangers may have interesting and relevant things to say, and I’d like them to feel welcome to do so at any time.
However, like with my real home, if you come in simply to insult my other guests, make irrelevant comments, or just generally behave immaturely, you are not welcome. Your posts will be deleted without further comment.
Filed under This Site
Apple’s new AirPort Express is quite cool indeed. On one hand, it’s a tiny 802.11g WiFi base station in the form factor of power supply. That’s cool, in itself. But then it’s also a gadget you plug into your stereo, so you can play tunes from your WiFi enabled computer (Mac OR PC) on your PC, without any connection from the computer.
Two things I’m thinking about…
1. Let’s say you live in a big apartment building, and several people have unencrypted AirPorts Express. Wouldn’t you be able to play your music on someone else’s stereo?
2. (iPod + WiFi + AirTunes) + (Airport Express + Stereo) would = The Total Shizzle.
Just think about it… If iPods had WiFi, and everyone had Airport Express, you just could bring your iPod anywhere, and have the music come out of whatever stereo is nearby, with no cable in sight. Yum.
Filed under Gear and Gadgets
I’m not a huge Michael Moore nut. I think he distorts things to achieve his goals as much as his targets do. However, based on the trailer, Fahrenheit 9/11 looks like something that pretty much every American should see, especially the 70% of us moronic enough to think that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Twin Towers tragedy, and the even bigger morons who made them believe that.
Filed under Personal Notes
Someone stole the driver’s side rear view mirror off of my three month old SUV. There were no scrapes, broken glass, or any indication that there was an accident. There was simply NO mirror in the mirror housing, and the mirror housing was folded INWARD, toward the car (perhaps to hide the damage). Needless to say, this sucks. I went to the dealer to get the price to repair it, and now I know why someone would be interested in stealing a driver’s side mirror…
*grumble*
Filed under Personal Notes
If you’re a mostly-Windows web person looking to take the leap into the world of LAMP (Linux, Apache, mySQL, PHP) web development, but wanting to stick with Windows (thereby making it WAMP programming, I guess), I heartily recommend EasyPHP.
EasyPHP takes away all the configuration pain usually associated with Open Source tools, and wraps up everything you need in a simple Installshield-type installer. A few clicks and you have Apache, PHP, and mySQL all running on your system, with a handy system tray icon to access the configuration settings for all three. Note that although it can be configured for English, it was originally developed in French, so you’ll come across some language oddities here and there, but these are easy to get around.
Filed under Web Development
There’s a comic shop moving into my neighborhood. Specifically, between where I park my car, and my front door. That is, I’ll walk by it every single weekday. I kicked my comic book habit* back in 1997. I hope I don’t fall off the wagon.
Lord, lead me not into fandom, but deliver me from geekhood.
Amen.
Filed under Personal Notes
Do not adjust your browser - welcome to the new Chausse.org! Or, at least, part of it. Right now, there is only the blog. Other content will come on board shortly. I’m going to give the new blog system time to settle in first.
The new site is powered by WordPress, meaning there is all kinds of new bloggity goodness built-in. It’s got “TrackBack”, RSS feeds for comments, post categories (I’ll have to retroactively categorize…), some newfangled “RDF” functionality, and more!
I hope you enjoy the new design. It’s amazing how hard it is to intentionally design a very simple layout.
Filed under This Site