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No, not the Discovery Channel program about planes crashing – there’s nothing happy about that. The OTHER May Day, the pagan celebration of the first day of summer (which would make the original summer solstice of June 25 – now June 21 – midsummer).

Since those wacky Christians took over, May Day has been changed to celebrate all types of things – none of them much fun. A concise and hopefully fairly accurate of the history of this day is available at Wikipedia, natch.

May Day History

Its a very sad day here. Comedian George Carlin, 71, died of heart failure yesterday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

Full Story

I had a bit of a heart attack tonight when I went to empty my Recycle Bin and was asked if I wanted to delete ‘WINDOWS’ !

WTF?

After calling 911 and being revived, I searched Google and – to my disbelief – I found out what probably had caused it. This comes from gremlinkurst at Footslog’s Web Boards.

ONE last little tidbit on this: I have discovered how to reproduce this error with 100% success, although I cannot determine whether or not this is the only way that this error can occur. This ‘WINDOWS’ In The Recycle Bin bug is created when one attempts to delete any file that is either legitimately open/in use (i.e., with full knowledge and consent of user) or in use by some other application or process transparent to the user. ALWAYS.

So, not to worry. If this happens to you, it fix itself on a reboot. If you do not wish to reboot; create at text document, send it to the recycle bin, EXPLORE the recycle bin, and delete the text document. You’re recyle bin icon should then return to normal. Worked for me.

You can read the full discussion here.

I’ve always considered McAfee anti-virus (and all the other garbage that program installs) to be a complete piece of junk. Now they’e gone and managed to make it even worse. McAfee’s new 2007 software blocks many popular advertising companies, removing their ads from millions of websites, included but not limited to:

AdBrite.com
AvnAds.com
AdEngage.com
Etology.com
and many others…

Google is NOT blocked even though they deliver the same content (in the same way) as the other advertising companies, yet dozens of other legitimate companies are blocked by default. In addition, McAfee will NOT install if you have AdAware installed – you actually need to uninstall AdAware otherwise McAfee won’t install.

FTP Uploads don’t work with McAfee installed. Files get partially uploaded and stop (and error out). Shutting down or disabling McAfee and the Firewall option did not fix this problem (using IpSwitch) Uninstalling McAfee was the only solution to the problem. It may be software specific but we were unable to fix this problem.

Websites load significantly slower. Websites (on high speed) now take longer to load because McAfee scans every single file that is loaded.

Finally, it has become near impossible to close down McAfee while your system is running. There is no “exit” option when you right click. You can disable it (which is now more difficult than ever) but it is not easy to shut it down temporarily for any purpose.

Save yourself the trouble and grief, and use a real, non-intrusive anti-virus and spyware blocker.

AVG Anti Virus
Kapersky Anti Virus

AdAware
SpyBot S&D

CCleaner
Ewido

I haven’t been posting recently as I haven’t had the time – or desire, for that matter. Within the last month, my wife’s brother-in-law hung himself, her uncle died and just this past week a good friend’s wife finally succommed to her six year battle with cancer.

I just returned from the service. Hearing my friend speak of his late wife brought back so many memories, memories of how close I was to that family. And regrets of how we’ve grown apart. But we’re still here, and we’ve been making small steps (even from before her passing) to stay in touch. They’re wonderful friends, and I am a bloody idiot for letting us grow apart. A sad, bloody idiot. Obviously I’m not solely to blame, but as I did nothing more than sit and watch us grow apart, its a burden I’m obligated to carry.

I am glad that we got to spend some time together before she left us. Its a shame that it takes a funeral to reconnect with people who are still alive.

Good news happened during this brief period, as well. My wife and I moved into a new house. Not new, per se, but new for us. A lovely little 1 1/2 story with a huge yard a very short distance from the Scarborough Bluffs.

My wife’s best friend had her fourth child last week. A lovely, healthy baby girl.

My beautiful daughter graduated from high school, receiving the Governer General of Canada’s award in the proccess.

Good time, bad times. Such is life.

Sometimes, aimlessly surfing the internet has given me some very powerful personal moments – and they always come unexpectedly. While browsing YouTube today, I came across a brief comment from the mother of the young man mentioned in the title of this post. I know neither of them, but I could sense the crushing grief this woman is under while reading her note – which couldn’t have been more than thirty words.

There is little more traumatizing than losing a child. It is something I can not even imagine. My heart goes out to this family.

Taylor Burgstahler was born in New York on February 28, 1988 and passed away in a tragic drowning accident on July 17, 2005 at the age of 17 in Arizona. Taylor was passionate about athletics, and donated much of his time to the youth basketball program at the Boys and Girls Club of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Set up in his memory, The Taylor Fund gives underprivileged children and developing athletes the chance to interact first-hand with players from the Pheonix Suns of the NBA, and the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA in a positive, learning environment. Donations are welcome.

Seeing and reading about promising, beautiful young people who are taken needlessly from us by random, tragic, and horrific events is an almost daily occurence – at least where I live. Many have had sponsorship funds set up in their names to help other children who may not have the means to reach their full potential. In these times – when it seems that there is so much wrong with today’s youth – realize that the vast majority of our children are smart and beautiful, and when they’re taken away from us its a great, terrible loss.

Love your children, spend time with them. Laugh with them. And if you have any spare money or time, consider making a donation or volunteering to a youth group in your area. Help keep alive the spirit of a young person who would have made our future so much brighter.

Thank you.

Although I’m still pissed off by Google’s recent update, I’ll forgive them a bit for their new tool Google Calendar. A very smooth tool that lets you create and share (if you choose) a variety of calendars and agendas, you’ll probably want to make a free Google account (if you don’t already have one) to take advantage of this.

Google Calendar

I will never purchase another copy of The Globe and Mail newspaper because of the ceaseless telephone spam they subject me to. I’m not the only one they’ve been harrassing, either. These pieces of crap constantly call my house and, when I DO answer the phone, there’s no-one on the other end. I’ve no idea how this hang-up technique is supposed to sell newspapers – its a very effective deterrent.

416-924-0280 is the main number they call from. Feel free to do with it what you want. Write it on bathroom walls, leave flyers at your favourite crack house, whatever.

Personally, I generally don’t answer “Unknown Name” or generic “Long Distance” calls until I’m ready to kill someone. If your name doesn’t come up on my phone, I’m guessing you have something to hide. Therefore you’re not to be trusted and you should politely fuck the hell off.

More about Globe and Mail phone spam
Also See: 800 Notes: 416-924-0280

A friend of mine who’s a website designer and Photoshop “guru” has started a site with useful and easy Photoshop tips to help you get the most out of the program without spending the rest of your life studying it.

His most recent tutorial consists of step by step instructions on how to watermark your images using Photoshop, and past topics include Easy 3D text, Eliminating Red Eye, Cutouts, and others.

He’s also a heck of a guitar player.

Mark Tiarra’s Photoshop Tips

Love them or hate them, Microsoft always has something new up their sleeve. Windows Live Local is their new Virtual Earth technolgy preview and – while its limited at the moment to downtown Seattle, WA. and San Francisco, CA – it looks to me like they’ll be soon giving Google Earth a run for its money.

While you can type in an address in Google Earth and take a virtual tour from your starting point to your destination, Windows Local Live lets you walk the route at street level. Windows Local Live won’t just show you how to get there, it’ll walk you right to the front door.

Check out this greatly reduced-in-size screen cap. I willing to bet Bill has a shitload of these trucks driving down major American city streets.