Will April 28 Ever Get Here?

Disneyland happens April 28. Right about now I'm ready to get the #%*? out of here. Sorry if I offended you with my foul mouth but I feel like this trip is what I need to get out of my rut and just party for a week. Some good California sunshine would really hit the spot right now.

Thankfully the weather in Utah is starting to get a lot better. Combine that with daylight savings and I'm able to do more outdoor things that I haven't really been able to do for the last 4 months or so. Sometimes doing something as simple as going for a short walk after work helps to unwind and relax. I've gone bike riding up the canyon a few times and plan to do much more of that this summer. I'm really starting to feel a desire to work out more since exercise always helps me to feel better. I'm also looking for people that I can play tennis with so if you play then let me know. And of course, there's ultimate fir

For my aspirations as a closet sports writer, I've decided to start a sports blog separate from this one so I can have this as my general purpose blog since I know not everybody is a sports fan. I may do the same for a tech blog as well, haven't decided yet. You can find the blog at http://sportsblogyoudontread.blogspot.com. Also, I tend to tweet about sports news on my Twitter account at http://twitter.com/bpjftw. My latest post is about the NBA playoff push.

I don't think I've posted anything about my new blu ray player yet so here goes. I was kind of bugged by the slow boot times and lack of features on my Samsung so I upgraded to the LG BD390. I've read some good reviews on LG players, especially this one in particular and I really liked the feature set. I bought from Amazon for $290, so far I really like it. The price might seem a little high, but I just like to have nice things. These days you can find a good quality player in the $150 range, I just got greedy for features. I really like how this player boots up faster than my old Samsung, which seems to be something LG really works on as there are a lot of players that boot slow. I also like the fact that it can stream media from my computer. It also streams movies from Netflix, Vudu, and Roxio Cinema Now, although I haven't used those features yet.

In other news, Obamacare passed which I think could potentially be one of biggest disasters in the history of this country. I have serious concerns about what it's going to do to our economy and put our government so far into debt that we will start facing serious consequences because of it soon. Basically, I haven't been happy with anything the Obama administration has done so far. I'm of the belief that our government needs to undergo a major overhaul with the budget to cut wasteful spending, and Obama has done the complete opposite. He spent $2 trillion trying to fix the economy and unemployment hasn't improved since he's been in office. I've basically lost faith in the Obama administration doing anything right and I'm just hoping we can slow down the long term damage he does to this country before the 2012 election. Hopefully by that time people in this country won't be still under that spell that caused them to vote for him in the first place. I believed from day one that Obama has been telling people what they want to hear and masterminded getting influential people like Oprah and several others in the media to support him. But I don't think I need to rant about Obama anymore since I'm pretty sure most of the people who read this are probably against him anyway.

In other news, the iPad comes out soon. Not sure what I've said about it before, but I think it's basically a solution looking for a problem. I have a laptop and an iPhone, and I don't see the need for a device that basically has the same functionality as an iPhone in a bigger size that isn't much smaller than a laptop, and doesn't have a keyboard unless you buy their dock and then you've basically turned it into an iPod touch desktop computer. I suppose it could be useful if you travel a lot and want to take something for watching video and reading eBooks. Even in those cases, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just use a laptop. So far over 100,000 people have ordered this thing so I'm guessing it won't be a complete failure.

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Location:N 400 E,Orem,United States

Windows User's Guide To Macs

Not that I'm trying to push you in that direction, just trying to inform you of some things to look for if you are a Windows user and for whatever reason you find yourself using a Mac.

Keyboard and Shortcuts

One of the first things you may notice about Macs is how the keyboard is different from Windows. Instead of the Window key, they have the Command key (Apple key on older Macs). Also, the Command key on Macs is located next to the space bar where the Alt key usually is on Windows machines. If you use a Windows keyboard with a Mac, the Window key will act as the Command key by default.

Another thing that's different is the keyboard shortcuts. Many of the common Windows shortcuts with the Ctrl key are similar with the Command key on the Mac. Such as Cut (Command+X instead of Ctrl+X), Copy (Command+C instead of Ctrl+C), Paste (Command+V instead of Ctrl+V), and Select All (Command+A instead of Ctrl+A). A few differences include closing programs and windows where on the Mac you can usually quit a program with Command+Q instead of Alt+F4 and closing a window is Command+W instead of Ctrl+F4.

Launching Applications

Instead of a taskbar in Windows, Mac OS X has the dock. You can put icons for all of your frequently used programs here for easy access, and this is where you can see your active programs. An open program is indicated by a small blue dot underneath the icon. To find all of your programs, you can go to the Applications folder. In Snow Leopard, you can easily access it on the right side of the dock by clicking the folder icon with an A on it. You can open the Applications folder by clicking the Finder icon (smiley face on the left side of the dock) and then selecting Applications from the Go menu, or with the keyboard shortcut Command+Shift+A. You can also launch programs using Spotlight. If you click on the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner (or keyboard shortcut Command+Space Bar) you can simply type the name of the application you want to launch, similar to the Start menu search in Windows 7 and Vista.

Multitasking

When multitasking in OS X, you can easily access your open programs through the dock, or quickly switch between applications with the Command+Tab shortcut, similar to the Alt+Tab shortcut in Windows. You can also see thumbnails of your open windows by using Expose. By default, the F9 button brings up Expose, or if you have a Macbook with the media keys on it, you can bring it up by clicking the key with the icon containing three small boxes inside a bigger box (F3 on my Macbook Pro), or on the Macbooks with the multitouch track pad you can bring it up by swiping four fingers across the track pad. When you bring up Expose, you can simply click on the window you want to bring it to the front as the active window.

Another note on the media keys, by default the media keys on a Mac keyboard will be the default instead of the function keys. You can change this in System Preferences if you would prefer the function keys instead.

Applications

Several 3rd party applications have equivalent Mac versions that you can download or purchase (Firefox, Office). The Mac equivalent of Notepad is Textpad. The Mac equivalent of Control Panel is System Preferences. iTunes is the default media player instead of Windows Media Player. Safari is the default web browser instead of Internet Explorer. Mail is the default e-mail application, similar to Windows Mail or Outlook Express on older versions of Windows. Each Mac comes with the iLife suite, which include iPhoto for organizing a photo collection, iMovie for simple video editing, and iDVD for creating DVDs from your videos.

Multitouch Trackpad

More recent versions of the Macbook and Macbook Pro contain a multitouch trackpad with features to simplify use. For example, you can scroll by swiping two fingers across the trackpad or four fingers to bring up Expose as I mentioned earlier. For right click functionality, you can put two fingers on the trackpad and then click. Also, there is an option in System Preferences that allows you to click in the bottom right corner for right click functionality.

Fast Forward to Disneyland, I Threw It On The Ground, DURANTULA!

Disneyland

So a few of my friends are planning a trip to Disneyland at the end of April, and right about now I'm thinking I'd like to just hit the fast forward button on my life. Who knows, I may just go down there and decide to stay. I have a laptop, I can do my work from SoCal, right? The magical day appears to be April 28 for a 5 day visit.

So Many Things To Throw On The Ground

So Andy Samberg did this video for SNL called I Threw It On The Ground a few months ago and for some reason I can't stop talking about it. The first time I saw it, I was thinking this is just dumb, but then the magical line came up where he said "this ain't my dad, this is a cell phone!" Maybe I'm crazy for liking this video so much, you judge for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMLwUItWmYo

DURANTULA!

Ok, we're into the sports section now so you can stop reading if you're just not into that. I'd like if all of my friends who were sports fans would follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/bpjftw), as I often have a lot of opinions on sports that I tend to express on Facebook, but I'd like to be more sensitive to the general audience I have on there.

Let me just say this though, Kevin Durant may be the most under-appreciated athlete in all of professional sports. In a sport where all of the big name guys have huge egos like LeBron and Kobe, Durant goes about his business quietly and he appears to do things the right way. Unfortunately, since he plays in Oklahoma City, he doesn't get a lot of attention as the Thunder (formerly the Sonics) have not been any sort of factor in the NBA since the 90s when they were in Seattle. I've decided I kind of like the Thunder now, not as much as the Rockets or Suns, but I appreciate what they've got going which appears to be a roster full of good young talent and they all seem like good guys too. And of course, you really can't argue that nobody has a better nickname than DURANTULA!