DanRochman.com

Just a random quick-post to let people know I’m still alive, and to break a dry spell that’s gone on way too long. Work has been crazy-busy (but otherwise good), and my Mom and her boyfriend (did I mention that my mother has a boyfriend?) were out here for a visit on Mother’s Day weekend, and well, it’s just been so busy all around that I haven’t had much time to post. Granted, these little posts take almost no time - but something in me just hates little posts. Why write 100 words when 10,000 will do? Wait, maybe that’s not right…

Quick Windows freeware tip of the day: Taskbar Shuffle, recently released by a kind and clever geek named Jay Elaraj, is something I’ve been seeking for years. It’s simple, elegant, and free (although a donation might be in order if you like it as much as I do). Most people don’t seem to care about the order of their task bar items - actually, I figure most people have never noticed that there’s a thing called a task bar down at the bottom of their screen. But I’m funny that way. I usually have a LOT of apps open, I hate grouping taskbar items, and I’ve always wondered why the OS doesn’t let you order them.

Quick my-life-in-video update: I’ve been playing around with YouTube a bit, and I’ve decided that I’m loving it. In general, I’m pretty obsessive about hosting all of my own apps and content: I run my own web server and mail server, and I host my own blog and photo gallery, all behind my own (homebuilt) firewall appliance. Aside from the fact that doing so helps me hone skills that I use at work every day, and gives me some much-needed geek cred (uh, kidding), I really love having the total control, the virtually unlimited storage and bandwidth, and the knowledge that I won’t have to re-post everything whenever the outfit that’s hosting my stuff shuts down for lack of a business model. All that said, many of these services seem to be doing a killer job of hosting content - for free, no less - and seem to be around for the long-ish haul. And since video handily takes the biggest toll on storage and bandwidth, it seemed like a good place for me to start experimenting with letting someone else host some of my content for me. So, I shot some low-res video clips of the Fire Arts Expo the other night, uploaded them to YouTube, and grouped them into a playlist. So far, the whole experience has been very, very sweet. The only downside is that no one clip can exceed 10 minutes in duration or 100 MB in file size - but I might look into their Director program, which is also free, and which lets you blow past those limits. Sweet bonus: If you’re actually browsing my site (as opposed to just consuming the feed), there’s a good chance that you can watch the playlist via an embedded Flash player right below this paragraph.