A new neighborhood

So it's been a few months again since my last post. But this time I have a good excuse - I moved to a new neighborhood!

I've been in San Francisco now for almost 2 years, most of that spent at one place near Japan Town and Hayes Valley. That place definitely had some nice aspects, and the neighborhoods were not bad, in fact I thought living near downtown was really the way to go. So when we started looking for new digs due to mold problems and a lack of natural light in the old place and ultimately found a great place in the Inner Richmond, I figured we'd be settling as far as the neighborhood was concerned, at least in relation to our old one. But it turns out I'm way more into Inner Richmond than Hayes Valley, Japantown, Downtown, or just about anywhere else I've spent much time in SF!

Read on to find out why the Inner Richmond rules (and where to go if you find yourself here)...

The 5 day week

It's holiday time again, and this year both Christmas and New Years Day fall on a Friday, making for a nice 3 day weekend (or more, depending on where you work). But as we all know it's not like this every year. Some years Christmas will be on a Tuesday, for example, and then you have to come back to work for 3 more days. It's just not really in the Christmas spirit, right? Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but it's a minor annoyance at the least that the day of Christmas changes every year.

This got me thinking about holidays in general though, and how they all fall on different days every year. Not to mention birthdays, anniversaries, trash days, and on and on. And then it came to me: What if our weeks evenly divided the days in our year? What if every day fell on the same date, year after year? What about... a 5 day week?

OK, big revelation, right? But's the thing - we take a 7 day week for granted, but does it really make sense? And is this the only problem with our existing system? Maybe not...

A small update - some projects start rolling

More than 2 months since my last post, but I'll try not to make that the norm. Right now I've got some big posts waiting in the wings that I just can't seem to polish up and post, but once I get those out of the way I hope to be in a more regular posting habit. I'm trying to build up a decent body of posts before I start publishing this URL anywhere and actually get anyone reading.

In the meantime I'm pleased to say a couple of my projects have either gotten started, or taken an interesting turn recently. One of them I can't really say much about just yet, but it's going to be pretty cool for software publishers, and open source projects in particular. The other I haven't mentioned yet, but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time, a software benchmarking website currently found at http://www.3dspeedmachine.com/

Fixing Windows 7 - Part 1

Preamble:

As this is the first part of this series, and of my software recommendations/reviews, I thought I'd explain how I plan to approach these. As you will come to discover if you keep reading this blog, I have a rather long form style. To put it bluntly, I'm long winded, verbose. Hopefully some of you will like this, but I don't expect everyone to. So for the reviews I thought I would cut to the chase, putting the name of the software, its purpose, and the highlights of features right at the top. I invite you to read the rest of the post, which will explain my recommendation, but if all you're looking for are the highlights, you'll be able to get them right away. Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions for how to improve the format.

Software: Free Commander (and other 3rd party file managers)

Function: File Manager

Replaces: Windows Explorer

Cost: Free

Why: If you dislike the Windows 7 file manager like I do, this allows you to go back to XP-style explorer, with more traditional (and useful) search functionality, dual-pane interface, and lots of other useful features.

*Update*: See below for some further comments after extended use of FreeCommander on Win7.

To begin with...

I originally "started" this blog over a year ago with a rather lengthy post on my frustration with the new "widescreen" display craze, but it turns out I tried to say too much at once and never really finished. So now I'm starting simpler, and actually, well, starting.

So I'm going to post my thoughts from time to time, on technology, philosophy, travel, photography, and anything else that seems worth sharing. Above all this will be a chronicle of opinion and editorial, as most blogs are. So if you like the way I think, I hope you'll want to keep reading.

Occasionally odd, often personal things will assert themselves - my strong views on toilet paper quality for example - who knows. I hope you'll enjoy the less technical side of me too, but if not there will always be tags to filter with.

And so, without further ado, the first post is born!