Running with Scissors

Attention all of you Flash MX 2004 users – Macromedia has released a free update that will upgrade you to version 7.2.

Get it here.

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/special/7_2updater/?trackingid=DMJA_ACDT

Macromedia has come out with a new version of FlashPaper – this software converts printed documents that are scanned in into something very similar to a Acrobat .PDF file. However, it converts it into a Flash document, which means you do need the Flash plug-in for your browser to see it, but this is much more available on the average person’s computer than the Acrobat Reader, which is a larger and more involved download and installation. Here are some examples, and here is a demo presentation.

Another advantage of a FlashPaper document is that you can imbed them directly into a HTML document and your FlashPaper document is visible to the user without having to click on it or launch an external program as you do with Acrobat Reader.

More good news – it also converts documents to .pdf. This means that you can CREATE .pdf documents with FlashPaper 2 in addition to .swf Flash files.

All this at a lower cost than the full version of Acrobat. Academic Superstore is selling it for $79 each, or a 10-pack 2 year subscription for around $290.

So, for $29 dollars you have the ability to create FlashPaper docs AND .PDF.

I also think the FlashPaper reader is a simpler layout and easier to use than Acrobat. You can cut and paste text from FlashPaper docs, and to zoom in or out on a document. I also like the ability to imbed a document directly in the page, or have it open in its own Flash window.

Downside – FlashPaper 2 is a Windows only application to create documents, but the output created will work on any browser/platform that can playback Flash.

Certainly worth investigating… get the 30-day trial here.

If you follow baseball even a little, you probably have heard the stories of players who have these superstitions.

They won’t change their socks while the team is on a winning streak. They use the same batting helmet for years, and don’t let the equipment manager clean the pine tar off of it. They follow some sort of daily ritual that includes hopping on one foot and chanting nursery rhymes… (OK, so I made the last one up, but it is not actually too far fetched.)

I think some of that was starting to rub off on me as I watched Orioles games on TV this season. I was beginning to think that I was causing them to lose by watching them because every time I turned on the game, I would get to witness the opposing team go on a scoring binge and get every lucky bounce and favorable call from the ump, our pitchers melt down and walk in runs, or our fielders commit stupid errors and mental mistakes.

This just didn’t happen once or twice either. It seemed if I turned on the game, it turned for the worse. I even started to experiment by turning it off, and just checking the score to see if things improved -and many times they did. I would have my wife check the score for me so I wouldn’t initiate the curse. It was strange since I rarely have the time to watch the whole game – I usually just get to see an inning or two. But sure enough, when I would read about the game in the paper the next day, the downfall for the O’s was many times the part that I watched. So – this was a bit freaky.

Of course, this makes no rational sense, but isn’t that the definition of superstition?

I started to come out of this way of thinking when the O’s recently went on a winning streak – I watched some of those games. They got timely hits which I had not witnessed in recent months. They got good pitching which I had not seen in some time. They even got the occasional lucky break. I guess my curse was released. Of course, I’m more rational now about the whole curse and superstition thing – it was just silly.

The O’s went on to win 8 games in a row, and just lost to the Angels last night. It has been a fun time to be an O’s fan.

But deep down, I’m a little glad they lost – my socks were getting really itchy.

A few weeks back, the hard drive to my laptop failed. Totally crashed.

The computer started acting a bit strange a few days prior, so I backed up some things as a precaution. I thought I may have gotten a virus from the way things were acting up, but then it just decided it would not boot.

Even though I had backed up files, it has still been a long process to get everything back up and running. You would not believe how many bookmarks/favorites I had, but I forgot to back those up. It also takes a while to find the software and keycodes needed to reinstall apps, not to mention things like Ghost Images that were too large to backup – those are just gone. And those little freeware apps and utilities that you happen to stumble across that add functionality to your computer are hard to find the second time around.

So I have been in the happy place of trying to rebuild my computer, adding apps as I need them, and Googling around the world trying to rebuild my bookmarks.

However, I learned some things:

1. I am ordering a USB 2/Firewire external hard drive to back up my entire laptop hard drive.
2. A good list of bookmarks is like gold.
3. I had too many bookmarks.
4. Barry, Pam, Gardner and Dell were extremely responsive in helping me get back up and running.
5. I really love server based applications like WebMail and Blogging – I didn’t have to reinstall those apps and could still keep working while my computer was getting repaired. :]
6. I had no excuse not to get things done while my computer was down because of web based apps like WebMail and Blogging. :[

Well, the O’s swept a 4 game series vs. the Texas Rangers who came to Baltimore sitting at first place in their division. Now they leave in second…

The Orioles have won 7 in a row. It has been a long time since they have had such a winning streak (1999).

It has been great to watch BJ Surhoff play. He just turned 40 last week, and has really been a spark for the team since he returned from an injury two weeks ago. He has been my favorite Oriole for a long time, and it is good to see the old man showing the youngsters how it is done.