Anyways, fantastic show if you’re in the market for some great entertainment. Completely character driven and very rated R.

On a side note, I truly believe that HBO is what Hollywood should be. On to The Wire.

700MHz ARM11
128MB of SDRAM
OpenGL ES 2.0
1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
Composite and HDMI video output
USB 2.0
SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
General-purpose I/O
Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

Read more: cnet News

Today, it just got a lot easier.

Watch the full episode. See more The Buddha.

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
–Albert Einstein

I had a lot of fun doing this little project. You can check out the step by step instructions here.

If this series is even half as good as the book, it will be fantastic. HBO tends to go all out too, so my hopes are high. More @ Inside Game of Thrones

My next 30 day challenge will be to sit and meditate everyday for at least 20 minutes. I’ve done 14 consecutive days before, but never 30. My meditation practices in the past have always been spotty, a day here and a day there, but I really want to make it a daily practice. (see below)

While I’m here, I also want to post some of my New Years resolutions, goals, and to-dos in this post. Better late than never, right? Here goes.

1. I’ll begin with my reading list. Some of these authors / philosophers I’ve already read, but I’d like to delve deeper into their works and worlds. My list includes Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Emerson, D.T. Suzuki, and a dash of Plato (specifically The Last Days of Socrates). On the tech side of things, I have a few networking security books I’d like you have a look at as well.

2. Speaking of tech, 2011 will be the year that I become proficient in Linux. I’ve always run dual boot systems (Windows and some flavor of Linux), but I’ve never really committed to learning the OS. Over the last week I’ve installed Arch Linux on four of my computers, each with its very own desktop environment –but it’s the command line that will get most of my attention. On a related topic, I also decided to learn the Vi(m) editor.

3. I’d like to compete in another triathlon. I’d also like to run some 10K races this year (Meg?). (Quick note on my Vibrams: I’m loving them and I don’t think I could ever go back.)

4. I’d like to go camping more. A lot more. I’d like to go to Acadia again.

5. Study Buddhism. (see D.T. Suzuki above). Meditate on a daily basis.

6. Write, write, write! Poetry, fiction, blog posts, whatever. My goal is at least 500 words a day.

7. Code, code, code! Python, C++, Lua, whatever. I have an ever growing list a projects (Arduino). I plan on tackling some of them this year.

8. I’d like to be able to hold a conversation in Russian. I’m pretty close, but I’m not quite there yet. I need to push myself to that next level.

9. I have a few personal traits I’d like to work on this year too. The first is to master empathy, the second is to finish what I start, and the third is to get out of my comfort zone, often. I think those are all pretty self-explanatory.

10. AND FINALLY, I’d like to be a little more hands on this year –a more practice, less theory kind of approach. Whether it be carpentry, electronics, metalwork, cooking, fly fishing, etc…, it’s time to put the books down and get busy. I just finished building my new workbench (well, one just like that), so I’m ready to get my hands dirty.

Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD on Vimeo.

HBO is creating a show based on the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin, A Game of Thrones being the first novel in that series. From what I gather, each novel will be one full season.

In NanoNews, I broke the 25,000 word mark yesterday with only 25,000 more words to go. Halfway there!

So what’s my novel about? It’s complicated. I can tell you that it falls squarely in the fantasy genre. At least I think it does. It takes place in another world, there are various types of humanoid races each possessing a unique ability (although I won’t go as far as to call in magic), there are great battles, lots of deep lore… so yeah, fantasy, right? As I write this fantasy story, this story that’s been kicking around inside my head for years, I realized that I have no idea what I’m doing. The story is crystal clear in my mind, but when I try to convert my brain waves into written words, I quickly realize that I am at a loss for those very words. Then I realized why. I never read fantasy. I read sci-fi, classic literature, history, science, philosophy… everything but fantasy. This became clear to me when I tried to describe various parts of a soldiers armor or the weapons they carried or the ancient watchtower overlooking the sea. I didn’t have the right words. Sure I could do a little research, but it’s more than that. I’m lacking the proper tone in my story that one expects to find when reading fantasy. So that’s when I decided, five minutes ago, to throw some fantasy into my literary mix.

I just finished reading Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan, and Mother Night (which I may elaborate on in another post). I still have Breakfast of Champions and Slaughter House Five on deck, but I’ve decided to put them on the back burner and take a sharp detour into the realm of fantasy. By the way, I cheated in the middle of my Vonnegut spree and read How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Definitive Book of Body Language. Both were fantastic. Sorry Kurt, I’ll get back to you shortly.

Game of Thrones by George R R Martin is the fantasy title I have chosen to help hone my fantastical story telling skills. It’s part of his highly acclaimed A Song of Ice and Fire series and, from what I understand, is extremely well written and epic in scope. It also looks pretty damn cool.

Finally, I want to throw out links to two podcasts I’ve been listening to for the last three or four months which have been invaluable to me as a new writer, I Should Be Writing and Writing Excuses. Check them out and may they be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

Yesterday I finished my first public 30 day challenge; 750 words a day, everyday, for 30 days. 22,500 words in total. I wrote short stories mostly, but I also did a lot of free writing, which was equal parts comical, enlightening, scary, and intriguing. Now that I’ve successfully hit the 22,500 word mark, my sights are set on a new target, NaNoWriMo, also know as National Novel Writing Month. From November 1st to November 30th, write 50,000 words. Piece of cake. The rules are pretty simple:

* Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
* Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
* Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
* Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
* Write multiple words (not the same word repeated 50,000 times).
* Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

Right. So this October I’ll be busy brainstorming, outlining, and shadowboxing to “Eye of the Tiger” in preparation of the literary maelstrom lurking on the horizon. I’ll also be reading Vonnegut, carving pumpkins, and saying goodbye to my friends and family. See you again in December!

Hemingway once said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” I don’t think I’ll be doing much editing come November. Cheers.

My plan is simple; I will pick one author at a time and read their work. Most likely not all of their work (at least not this time around), but definitely their most influential works, perhaps with a few obscure titles thrown in for good measure. The first author on my long and illustrious list, if you haven’t guessed it already, is (was) Ernest Hemingway. Here’s how it went:

The Old Man and The Sea – My first real venture into the mind of the man who is Hemingway. There’s a good chance I read this little novella in high school, but there’s an equally good chance that I didn’t. What I am sure of, however, is that I really enjoyed the salty tale this time through, and Hemingway’s fantastic portrayal of his protagonist, Santiago. Living in the Northeast, with the Atlantic Ocean at my door step, I could almost taste the salty air on my lips as I read this. A must read –even if you think you read it in high school, but can’t quite remember…

A Farewell To Arms – This was my second adventure down Hemingway Lane. Alas, it was my least favorite. I’m no literary critic and I don’t play one on my blog, but honestly, I never connected fully with this work. With that said, I still enjoyed it for the most part, and I think it was a good introduction to the simplistic and straight forward prose that Hemingway is so famous for.

The Sun Also Rises – This book grabbed me right from the beginning and never let go. This was Hemingway’s first novel that he ever wrote and, from what I understand, it’s considered to be one of the best “first novels” of all time. I can’t speak to that, but I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hemingway’s portrayal of Paris nightlife is fantastic, as well as the festival in Pamplona, but the characters and their wandering lifestyle are what kept me coming back for more. Hemingway’s novels are said to be the voice of the Lost Generation; this may be why I can relate. I truly think that Generation X may be a lost generation itself. Maybe I should go to Pamplona.

For Whom the Bell Tolls – All of Hemingway’s books that I’ve read thus far pale in comparison to this one. Admittedly, it took me a little while to get into the groove of it, but once I did I was absolutely mesmerized. There were a few scenes between Robert and Maria that actually gave me goosebumps. And of course, El Sordo’s last stand was riveting and emotional. Pablo, Pilar, Robert(o), Maria, and the rest of the band were some of the most fascinating characters that I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway – I picked up this book when I was on vacation in Maine, near Belfast, in a great little book store called Left Bank Books. I only read three of the short stories in this book, including one of Hemingway’s most famous, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Although I really enjoyed reading them, I decided to put the book down for the time being and focus solely on novels and novellas. For one of my upcoming author selections, I plan on cheating a bit and I will read short stories from a handful of authors, such as Hemingway, Salinger, Chekhov, Wolff, Munro, Asimov, etc…

So as I said, Hemingway, check. Vonnegut on deck. I’ve already started reading Cat’s Cradle. From there I will move to The Siren’s of Titan, Mother Night, Breakfast of Champions, and finally Slaughterhouse 5. If I am missing any “must reads” by either of these two authors, by all means chime in. Until then, happy reading.

I’ve been doing 30 day challenges for eons now. It all started with a little plan I devised called “The okTober Project”, which is just a fancy name for a 30 day challenge that took place in October –I was pretty dramatic back then. I can’t remember all the specifics, but the list of items I had to accomplish in 30 days was mind-numbing. Over the years, the oKtober Project spread into other months. I also stopped overloading myself with an obscene amount of objectives and settled on just a few, well thought out goals per challenge. I’ve taken it one step further recently, limiting myself to one goal per 30 day challenge. This way I can focus and not get too overwhelmed.

The first challenge making its debut in my shiny new 30 Day category, will be to write 750 words per day, everyday, for 30 days. I won’t lie to you, I’m slightly terrified. I got the idea from a great website called, believe it or not, 750words.com. Here’s what the creator of that site has to say:

I’ve long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist’s Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in “long hand”, typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It’s about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day.

So it begins. From September 1st, which happens to be today, to September 30th, I shall write –and I shall write hard! It won’t be pretty, I won’t win any awards, I might even cry a little, but I shall prevail. There’s little to no chance that anyone will see what I write, so don’t ask (how Salinger of me). I’ll post progress updates to my twitter account from time to time. When the challenge is over, I will post a full recount of my 30 days and hopefully I will be 22,500 words the richer, but until that day….I write!

“Call me Ishmael” –wait, has that been used already?

Nevertheless, I lost my account once and I could lose it again. This time, however, I will be ready. You see, I’m that guy who always preaches backup, backup, backup, and never actually backs anything up. But that was the old me. The ignorant me. The hypocritical me!

Let me show you how I’ve changed and maybe, just maybe, I can inspire you to follow in my footsteps and become, as I have, a born again backuper.

The first thing I did was choose a backup location on my home computer (I split my time pretty evenly between my home PC, work PC, and laptop). I made a folder on my F drive called My Files. I recommend not using the same physical hard drive as your operating system, if possible. If you don’t have multiple hard drives, then C:\My Files will do just fine. Everything I want to backup will live in this folder and its subfolders.

Before I get into the intricacies of my ultimate data loss prevention plan, allow me to divulge to you my backup tool of choice. It’s called Carbonite and it’s $54.95 per year. I know, I know, it’s not free, but it’s good –and when it comes to my data, I want good. I don’t want to turn this post into a Carbonite commercial, but I will tell you that Carbonite offers unlimited backup space (I’m pushing 90 gigabytes already), runs in the background so you never know it’s there, and has all the security bells and whistles you could want, including good encryption to and from their servers. The backup / restore options are very user friendly too.

Still here? Good. Let’s get back to business. Inside the My Files folder are the subfolders My Audio, My Backup, My Documents, My Dropbox, My eBooks, My Music, My Photos, My Stuff, and My Videos. Your folders can be completely different, depending on what you want to backup. I will go over some of these folders in a little more detail, but first, look at the picture to the right. You will see either a red or green circle on each folder. The circles tell you that those particular folders have been chosen for backup by Carbonite. The colors tell you whether or not they’ve actually been backed up yet; green means yes and red means no. Carbonite constantly monitors these folders for changes and when it sees that a file has been added or modified, it flags it for backup. This is key because, as you will see, these folders are in a constant state of flux.

Most of the subfolders in My Files are just the standard My Documents folders in Windows. I simply moved their default location to My Files. You can learn how to do that here.

Most of the Folders are self-explanatory. My Documents contain my documents, My Videos contain my videos, etc… My iTunes library is in My Music folder, so anything I add to iTunes will be placed there. Like I said, most of these are pretty obvious, but there are a couple of folders that I would like to go over in a little more detail.

You may notice that My Dropbox resides in the My Files folder. Again, I just moved its default location, which can easily be done from the Dropbox preferences menu. I’ve talked about Dropbox before, here and here. It’s a special folder that syncs its contents to all of your other computers that have Dropbox installed on them. Now, here’s the beautiful part; let’s say that I’m on vacation with my laptop when inspiration strikes. Perhaps I write a 5000 word short story or maybe I took some fantastic photos of a once in a lifetime event. Whatever it may be, I may not feel safe with the file(s) sitting on my laptop, so I simply drop them into My Dropbox folder and off they go to all my computers. That is a decent backup in and of itself, but now it goes a step further because, once those files reach my home PC, Carbonite grabs them and backs them up to their servers. Redundancy is the name of the game in the realm of backups.

The My Backup folder is probably the most important folder in My Files. This folder consists of Cameron, Contacts, Documents, Email, Evernote, Lightroom, and WordPress. Let me go through them one by one.

• The first folder, Cameron, is a folder containing little things that my daughter has done over the years (videos, drawings, poems, etc…).
• The next folder is Contacts, where I backup all of my contacts from my Gmail account. (Tip: My Gmail contacts are also synced with my Blackberry and imported into Thunderbird for redundancy.)
• The next folder is Documents where I store mostly old documents that I can’t bring myself to delete and that I would never need quick access to.
• Then comes Email. Here’s how this works, I made sure IMAP was enabled for my Gmail account (Settings >> Forwarding and POP/IMAP). I then configured Thunderbird, which is Mozilla’s email client, to download all email from my Gmail account. The next step is important; I changed the default location of my email profile in Thunderbird to the F:\My Files\My Backups\Email folder. You can learn how to do this here. The email profile contains all of the downloaded email, as well as all future email. All I do now is leave Thunderbird running in the background to retrieve all of my email; Carbonite does the rest.
• The Evernote folder contains the database for all of my Evernote entries (mentioned here). Evernote, like Dropbox, syncs to all of my computers and to Evernote’s own servers. Moving the database to My Files and having Carbonite back them up just adds one more layer of protection.
• My Lightroom folder contains the database to all the changes made to my Photographs (which reside in F:\My Files\My Photos). I lost this file once and I never want to lose it again. You can tell Adobe Lightroom to backup to any directory that you would like.
• And lastly, there is the WordPress folder which houses the database and other files for this little blog. The latest version of Worpress, however, allows me schedule an automated backup which then emails me a copy, which then gets retrieved by Thunderbird and backed up by Carbonite. Isn’t this fun? So in all reality, I don’t really need this folder. But if I haven’t mentioned it before, I like redundancy.

That pretty much wraps it up, …so far. This is sort of a work in progress. Two things I didn’t mention were my Google Calendar and my Google Docs. I haven’t found a good, automated way to back either of these up yet, so I do it manually from work every so often. You can learn how to do this here. I then take the files and plop them into my Dropbox folder at work. From there, they are whisked away to my home PC and then, …well, you know the rest of the story.

“Backup, backup, backup,” I say.

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