Let Us Begin

Here are some links to various places of interest in the Portable Apps genre:

First my ever growing list of PortableApps links at del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/DecoyFlyer/PortableApps

Next I give you several of my favorites:

• PortableApps.com
• TheInfoBox.com
• PenDriveLinux.com
• The Portable Freeware Collection
• Wikipedia's Portable Apps List

I have played with a U3 device, but have found that I prefer the flexibility of the PortableApps Suite at portableapps.com. Among other features, it allows you to add any program you put in the applications folder to the "start menu" it has for a launcher.

I will get into more detail another time, but for now check out the links, and remember i have not tested all of the programs they have, so use them at your own risk.

A New Direction For CRS...

OK, Both of you who have read this...

You are as aware as I am that I don't post here as much as I could, but that is about to change. I have finally picked a direction to go with CRS.

First let me say, I have two addition blogs now, Decoy's Poetry & Just a Decoy . They will go in the different directions this one has in the past, freeing this one up to go in a more Techno Geek sort of direction.

I will focus this blog on my tech experiments & interests, which currently are focussed on playing with portable, self contained, computer aplications & Linux live-CDs.There will be reviews, recommendations, warnings & anything else that comes to mind, as I play with my USB Flash Drives.

VMK no BS Forum

Well I know I have again been slow to post, but, here I am again...

Part of my excuse for this time is that I have been moving the VMK no BS Forums over to a dedicated location. ProBoards was great as a free host, but users couldn't find us when they lost the link and threads were disappearing from time to time. I even had a user that thought he was banned, though I banned no-one.

So we have moved to: www.vmknobs.com things are going and growing well.

If you are not partial to Childish BS, but do like VMK, come check us out and sign up.

Disturbing Headline

I receive email alerts from various "news" services on a daily basis and most get little to no reaction on my part. It may be, "Who cares?", "Oh, how sad he died.", "Whatever?" or on rare occasions, "OMG!!! That is terrible!!!" But, most often that is it.

I got the one below yesterday:

U.S. and France agree the main points of a resolution to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah

My first, very brief thought was, "Hey they agreed on something.", then I had a light go on... The U.S. & France? OK... Well most often an agreement to end fighting is between the fighting parties, so why are these two negotiating to end the hostility between Israel & Hezbollah?

I understand that the U.S. and Israel are allies & the fact that France may align with Hezbollah is not all that shocking, however do either of these "proxies" really speak for or control the actual combatants? I think not!!

If this works though it will be an interesting precedent. I then being an ally and supporter of Coca-Cola, could negotiate with some Pepsi drinker out there, and put an end to the "Cola-Wars" once and for all. Cat and dog owners could negotiate an end to the fueding between these animals. And perhaps most exiting of all morticians and doctors could negotiate to put and end to death!!! (I for one don't think I want to live forever, in a world this messed up.)

If Israel & Hezbollah agree to the main points of a resolution to end the hostilities, that would be news... This is just more political posturing by two countries who will scarcely affect the final outcome.

Why is "Full Disclosure" NO Disclosure?

When buying or trying to refinance a home, our governmental friends have decided that the consumer MUST have, "Full Disclosure" of everything that may, might or will happen.

On the surface this seems like a good thing, they have to tell you that there is a garbage dump a mile away that makes it stink or that there is an earthquake fault running through the back yard. They also have to tell you about all the fees, insurance options and interest adjustments.

Great They can hide nothing!!!! Woo Hoo we win!!! Or so some politician somewhere must be thinking. However, they are sadly mistaken in their thoughts.

The dishonest people will always find a way to sneak something past and now they can do it in plain sight. All they have really done is create a mountain of paperwork so large, that even the honest people struggle to find and point out all the really important items being disclosed.

It used to be that the needed one and two page forms that could be read, understood & completed by the buyer. Now we have enough forms, disclaimers & disclosure statements to make a speed reading lawyer's day go by. No "regular person" has the time or understanding needed to really digest it all, thus it is scanned at best and misunderstood or skipped too often.

So, we are back at least to where we were on the disclosure issue from the standpoint of the consumer being informed. The difference now is that the consumer has no recourse when they have a legitimate complaint as it would now go like this:

Consumer: "There is toxic waste bubbling up in my back yard."

Company: "Yes, that happens every few years."

Consumer: "Nobody informed me of that."

Company: "We most certainly did. It is in the 3rd sentence of the fourth paragraph on addendum A3 of page 357 in packet X, 'Disclosure of Unimportant Things We Encourage You to Sign Without Reading', I see here that you signed it."

Consumer: "But this seems an important thing that should have been highlighted."

Company: "Perhaps, however, as you have already purchased the home, you may feel different when you sell it. Have a nice day & thank you for calling"

VMK no BS Forum

For those of you who have not yet heard, Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom [VMK] is a free multiplayer online game. It is themed as their parks are, and is an obvious marketing program... But, it rocks!!!

Though it was aimed at the 8-13 age range, there are a large number of ancient Disney fans that play as well. I am one of them. There are several forums and discussion boards that are devoted to VMK, and most Disney forums have a section devoted to it. I have made many great friends in these places, however most of them have become over run with... (Gasp!!!) The originally targeted market for the game.

So I, and several of the other ancient VMK players decided that there was need for a forum where the childish BS would not reign, and about a month ago VMKnoBS was born.

If you have wandered here from one of the other forums, and are at least 18 and not prone to childish BS, come check it out & join if you wish.

Click Here to go:VMKnoBS Forum

Welcome Technorati

As you will likely soon discern, I have a brain that is going too many places at once, to truly produce the results I would like to see here. I eventually hope to post some of my poetry, links to things I find useful or interesting and my normal miscellaneous rants & vents. I hope you enjoy the ride, as I live it out.

Meebo & MeeboMe

Meebo is a nifty little web app that lets you IM in AIM, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, MSN, IRC & Jabber all in one webpage. You can even create an account to save your preferences if you like. It is not required however, and there are various ways to protect your privacy if you feel the need.

Today they added a feature called MeeboMe, that creates a widget for use on any webpage you may want to install it on. "What is a widget?" Some of you may wonder...


This will be my first place to test it, but the idea is that any of you, can IM me from here. Just type into that widget and you appear on my contacts list. I believe it should even let you change your nickname if you don't want to be anonymous.

So June is Gone

And July is following quickly.

I have a new Forum I started for adults who enjoy VMK, Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom VMK no BS Forum It is going well so far, and growing faster than I ever thought it would. I am fortunate that there have been several volunteers to help me run it.

I also am about to launch a new "Real World" business, more details to follow in the coming days.

I hope to get back to blogging more regularly, but am not going to make false promises here and now. (Maybe later...)

Oh Wow!!!

I almost missed Blogging in May...

Whew that was close. Perhaps in June it will be more informative.

Will You Be Shopping On Monday?

If you are an American Citizen, or an alien of the legal variety, do your part to support the businesses that are open Monday. Thank them for hiring only workers who have not tried to short-cut, or cheat the system.

It might also be a good day to look for a job, as there may be many businesse who have new vacancies to fill on Tuesday.

See Ya Soon.

Of Penguins & Snakes

I have once again started 'playing' with Linux, and you would expect of me, (If you know me), I have been exploring it to the fullest extent able. I have burned no less than 28 distros to CD/DVD & also tried several of the BSD flavors as well.

So, at the moment my laptop has, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora & the dreaded M$ Windblow$ XP installed. I hope to eventually pick one distro that meets my needs and start moving friends, family and clients to it, without the fear of being unable to support them hanging over me.

Ubuntu is so far the most promising, but the latest version does not play well with the touch pad on my laptop. Of course none of my users, has a laptop so this is of little consequence to them.

I also decided, it was high time to learn to program again, as the dusty old memories of basic on an Apple 2e were of little use in accomplishing anything I want done these days. So after a bit of research, I have discovered the joy that is Python.

What a wonderful language, easy to write, easy to read and yet amazingly powerful. I have learned the basics, the minimal basic mind you, in about a week. That has been enough to truly start a hunger in me to 'learn it all', (yes, I know this is not possible), that I my write or modify programs that others will find as useful as I do. That said, here is a quick and very standard example of Python, the universal first program written by an student in any language:

#hello world
print 'hello world'

The line starting with # is a comment, then next line is the entire program needed to have Python print hello world to the screen. Even my grandma would be able to read that.

Well enough for now. TTFN!!

Life Never Stops

Well... Until death anyway.

So, again time has passed at an alarming rate and my intentions of writing here, on a regular basis, have gone the way of the Dodo.

Yet, here I am now.

And why? Well... I don't really know, but let's take advantage of it while we can.

My nephew, is doing pretty well, and does not appear to have the heart defect, most often the cause of early death, found in many with DiGeorges Syndrome. Praise the Lord!!

Life is still hectic, VMK is still a time consumer, blogs still do not write themselves and I am likely still the only one reading this anyway.

If you get a chance, visit this site:

http://www.northamericanpatriot.com/provictory/

Sums it up pretty well to me!!!

I have other news to report, but I will do it in other posts, perhaps as soon as I finish this one.

Only time will tell.