• Year: Month:

12/31/07

Yesterday, my brother and I saw the Movie "Aliens vs Predator: Requiem" - it was a very good movie. The movie finally started after 20 minutes of advertisements, and another 20 minutes of previews and on top of that - the ads didn't start until 3:30pm, I think someone forgot to hit the play button.

 

I'll be going back to working my normal hours on the 2nd, my vacation has been nice though. We'll have lots of work to finish up and many new designs are coming too!

 

My regular desktop computer "Sony Vaio" is doing much better now, but I'm not going to trust it with my valuable files and information. It's been running good with any errors, but I am researching everything about the Macs.

 

It's a tough choice, but I have narrowed my results down to either the Mac Pro or the iMac.

• I have a dilemma...
  • purchase the iMac
    • pros
      • price
      • more workspace
      • less wires (if everything wireless - keyboard, mouse, internet, printer)
      • weight (20lbs lighter than Mac Pro)
      • up to 1TB of internal storage
      • up to 4GB of RAM
    • cons
      • expansion
      • gaming
      • video card
      • surround sound
  • purchase the Mac Pro
    • pros
      • expansion
      • use existing parts from current machine to save money
      • easy installation of ram, hard drives, and pci cards
      • gaming
      • Xeon Processor
      • up to 32gb of RAM
      • up to 3TB of internal storage
      • surround sound
    • cons
      • price
      • weight

 

I may wait a few months and see if Apple releases any new updates to its product line. What model do you think I should chose?

 

12/27/07

After a small vacation, it was great! Photographs from my christmas, will be added at the end of the month as usual.

 

In other news, there is a brand-new gallery! Make sure to bookmark it too! This gallery features...

• password protected galleries
• rating system (requires registration - *free)
• commenting (requires registration - *free)
• rss feed
• slideshows
• bigger photographs coming soon
• and much more...

**More updates coming soon to the gallery,

stay tuned**

 

The what's new section has been moved. To see what's new, visit the release notes section.

 

12/26/07

I got another good night sleep, once I woke up though, we began packing and then had to leave. We are rushing to leave before 9am, but that didn't happen, but we then were able to leave about 9:45am - its only a 15minute difference. As a ritual, we stopped to Krispy Kream doughnuts and got a dozen of regular glazed with 2 milks. We have now arrived on the highway I-75 and traveling back home to Traverse City, Michigan.

 

The weather in Traverse City is much better then down in Sterling Heights, Michigan. As we were coming home, we had to drive through miles and miles of thick fog, which made driving conditions difficult.

 

When we came home and I went on a photo shoot and then did some work, but nothing too exhausting.

 

12/25/07

Its Christmas Day, Merry Christmas to all! We will be eating dinner with our other relatives. The gifts I got from the Wooden Gallery, those people will get their presents. I got another good night sleep, had some starbucks coffee with ham and eggs for breakfast - yummy! Now soon, we'll be leaving to go to the other party!

 

We left for the other party and arrived - we were about the last to arrive, but that's okay. We met with everyone and said "hello, merry christmas". A little while later, we all sat down and got ready to eat dinner. Photos coming soon...

 

With my dinner, I had a wine cooler (which was very good). After dinner, we sat on the couches and chairs and passed out the gifts. My grandma and aunt, got the most gifts and left with garbage bag full's. Everyone that I gave my gifts, there were all in shock and/or amazed with what they received - that made me feel good! After my second wine cooler, I got really tired. We watched a few movies "Cars", "Frosty the Snowman", and "Toy Story 1". We then left and arrived back at our grandmas house, where we will be leaving tomorrow!

 

12/24/07

I got a wonderful night sleep, I was very tired yesterday. In the morning, I woke up feeling energized and awake. While traversing around my grandmas house, I was finally able to find a hot-spot (that's always nice). For breakfast this morning, I had a bowl of cereal with a few pieces of ham. Since I was able to find a hot-spot, I got some work done, checked my email and the usual odds and ends. We are now waiting for the other guests to arrive, my aunt Kathy, cousin David and Jenny.

 

That so called nice bottle of champagne turned out to be a flop. It was so old, it was suppose to be clear, but this was carmel color and smelled funny - that sucked! We also had another bottle of champagne but that was bad too. Photos coming soon...

 

Ever since we got to our grandmas house, I have been experiencing weird events. It seems as if someone is standing behind me - almost like looking over my shoulder, its very freaky! I look back and no one is there, but a few months ago, my grandpa died, and this is home where he lived! His spirit is most likely visiting us, but it feels awkward.

 

12/23/07

Today we are traveling downstate, the weather is nice and not much traffic. We arrived at our grandmas house and it's freezing down here. It seems to be warmer up north, and the price of gas is about the same. We had KFC for dinner tonight, it was good. After looking though all the liquor in the bar in basement, I found a drink for tomorrow - a nice bottle of champagne!

 

12/22/07

Today is the day, that our part of the family exchanges gifts. About 3pm, all of us went for dinner at Outback Steakhouse. My brother got the ribeye 12oz., my dad got the 8oz center cut, my mom got tilapia, and I got the same as my dad, but with different sides. When we got home, we shortly opened presents even our cat Beni. Here is what I got...

1. Ipod Touch 8gb
2. TomTom One SE GPS Navigation
3. Candy
4. NOW 25 (music cd, added to my collection)
5. Gift Certificates

After we opened our presents, my mom and dad watched a movie called "Bug", then at 9pm we watched "Hallowed Grounds", but overall it was a boring movie.

 

12/22/07 - Emergency Backup 2 of 2

If you began reading about the first post, if not please read to understand this one. I haven't done anything to my computer for this to happen, it's a wonderful machine. Here are the specs on it...

• Sony Vaio
• Dual-Core Pentium D
• 3.0Ghz
• 2Gb of RAM
• about 1TB of storage (3 internal RAID drives - 150gb, 150gb, 250gb, 500gb)
• ATI 1600 Pro 512Mb Video Card
• Creative 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Card
• TV Tuner
• Liquid-Cooled
• 2 drives (CD-RW/CD-R/DVD-RW-+ = burnable drive, then DVD-ROM drive)

 

When I had the emergency back-up finished, or so I thought. I started up my windows pc along side of my mac, there began a blue screen with checking my drives for consistency, it had to do this process for 3 drives. After the checking finished, it had to restart and then I thought, hey its done - well when it started to check them again, I freaked out again! What in the world is going on, I manually shut it off again, and popped up again - this time I skipped the process. Finally, the computer got me to the normal screen, where I could do something. On my windows PC, everything on Drive K: 500GB, was "CORRUPTED", then on the external drive 500GB (which I transferred from the windows pc is now "MISSING"), that's great! These were not so important files, but were important to me! I simply hate MICROSOFT WINDOWS now!!

 

Looks like I'll be buying a new computer soon! I told myself, I am not going to spend anymore on this computer, if it breaks or dies "I WILL NOT FIX IT!" That's microsoft for you, hey even look at the quality of the XBOX360, many users are even having problems with it, even ours - we had to send it in for repairs. It plays and then freezes and also ruins the discs you put in it.

 

Anyway's, I am not getting another windows pc, in a few months - I will purchase a MACINTOSH, I love my MacBook. Now that my windows pc has become unstable, I have only been using it for playing games, MACINTOSH is the way to go!!

 

12/22/07 - Emergency Backup 1 of 2

Since the start of the week, I have been noticing that my main computer has been acting different, from the constant window errors to my disc drives failing and then today my harddrives lost data. I keep my machines virus and spyware free, but somehow in between something happens. I am somewhat knowledge with the ins and outs of computers like the installation of video cards, audio cards, harddrives, ram and so on.

 

This morning, while installing a game that I haven't played in a while (it worked fine before and it was a good game) it got to a point where a video was going to play, windows pop-up an error, which was odd - then at about 98% complete, the computer froze... shut-off, then started to make weird noises and was taking a long time to start up. I began freaking out!

 

I had to manually shut it off again and then turned it back on, and it worked for this time. I then began an emergency backup of all my important files. I was able to backup most of my huge photograph collection from years of 2003-2007 and current, my documents, also able to get my sws photo shoots, wooden gallery files, and some miscellaneous files. I couldn't burn any of the data on disc, because my burning drive stopped working earlier this week, piece of crap!

 

I was lucky and transferred all my data to my MacBook and then transferred to another external drive. On my windows pc, I started to back-up another huge collection of files onto another external harddrive. On my windows pc, internally I have about 1TB of storage then with 3 external harddrives with a total of 850Gb. This emergency back was a very great idea on my part, because later in the day, it only got worse!

 

12/21/07

This week has been crazy, problems began at 7:30am monday morning, people complaining about their email, when 99% of the time, its the users fault. All of sudden our host started to block some of our web sites, maybe for malicious possible activity. Today though, we didn't have many issues, which was wonderful.

 

For the past couple days, I have been searching for an ticket application that we can install and configure and that's easy to use. Many of the ticketing applications are either complicated, cost hundreds of dollars, or not compatible with our server. After the continuous hours of research, we finally installed a ticket system on our web site to help replace the phone calls and tremendous amount of emails with issues. This system should help us out a lot, and plus it's easy to use and manage.

 

I did some last minute shopping - sort of. I visited Mike DesForges at the Wooden Gallery, where I was able to purchase 5 pieces of framed photography and artwork at wholesale price. I purchase these and will give them to certain relatives: 2 uncles, 2 aunt, and 1 grandma. We were able to wrap most of them and for the others, we placed in big garbage bags.

 

12/20/07

Could things get any worse, we have been having server issues for the whole week it seems. We switched server maintenance companies, they help us with what I don't know how to fix. The new company that we use is located right in Michigan too, "MNX Solutions". MNX so far has quick responsive help and understands the problems we are experiencing.

 

12/18/07

Last night I had to work later and then today I worked from 9:30am until 6:30pm. I went on a photo-shoot today, that was a change and it was chilly outside. Anyway's, we are super busy, that's good though!

 

At work, we have a huge list with about 10 new clients that we need to start working on, so many new designs will be coming soon. On the left side under "Newest Designs" you can see the latest with the option of viewing all of them for 2007.

 

Don't forget to visit the archives pages, to see what you might have missed. Sometimes, I may skip a few days on updating this main page (for example: you can find yesterdays post below), but you'll be able to find it in the archives.

 

12/17/07

After some thought, I maybe expanding my site (time is unknown). By this meaning... The overall width shall be stretched out a little bit further. Right now, the maximum width is 750px and I am planning to expand it to a range of 850px - 1000px.

 

12/16/07

Well, its been a few days since my last post. I have been really busy and haven't been able to post with working and going to the gym and being really tired.

 

Last night Sci-Fi, featured a new movie called "Showdown at Area 51". Every saturday Sci-Fi features a new movie (usually from 9pm until 11pm). I've been watching their featured movies every saturday for the past 6 months. Next weeks movie called "Hallowed Grounds", looks to be good.

 

12/15/07

Today was a good day, I woke up around 9:15am, did the usual stuff. I finally went downtown and got my hair cut, it was beginning to get long and annoying. There is a place in downtown Traverse City called "Burrones" and they have affordable prices compared to the rest. After my hair cut, I drove around and did some remaining christmas shopping, picked up a couple gift certificates, went to the bank to cash a check, then went home.

 

12/11/07

We sure have been busy at work, but that's good compared to others who are struggling. Even though at work, many of our clients are wanting to quit (which in my opinion is due to the loss of business to produce any income "Michigan's worst economy"). Word has it, that this is the beginning, in 2008 Michigan's economy is supposed to be the worst. We'll have to wait and see what happens, hey - maybe it'll turn around.

 

Many people are getting their hours cut at work or either losing their jobs, and plus with the way Michigan's economy is doing - many people are leaving the state to find work.

 

12/9/07

Yesterday, was an exciting day - towards mid-day we took our family portrait around this time of year. We were able to get Beni in the shot too, which was nice. The photograph is available in the "Photo of the Moment" (located on the left side).

 

Later in the evening, my brother, dad, and myself went out to the boxing event at the Leelanau Sands Casino. We arrived about 5:00pm, then had ate the restaurant, and then went to the event. We didn't have ringside seats this time, but the seats were close enough - not bad for general seating. This time, I had my DSLR and I took about 680 shots. In the end, I kept about 100 of them.

 

12/6/07

This morning at work, a client was supposed to meet with us around 11am, but when the time came - he didn't show. Not even a phone call to tell us that he couldn't make it. Oh well, what ya gonna do! It was a good day though, not too many demanding phone calls.

 

12/5/07

Another busy day at work, we have one big project just about done, and now we can start on the other projects. It has become slow at the office, but we have plenty of work still. We got another new client today, which is a referral by myself (one of my clients), America's Carpet Barn is now a client of SWS.

 

I did some shopping today with birthday money and purchased:

• ink for my printer
• wireless keyboard for my mac (and for my future mac desktop computer)

Reasons for switching to a Mac include (my opinion and others):

• no viruses
• no adware
• no spyware
• no hackers
• no blue screen of death
• no annoying windows errors
• easy to use
• quiet (compared to other computers I have used)
  • on my sony vaio laptop, very loud fan
  • my current sony vaio desktop, annoying vibration from the drives and plastic
• less wires
• windows operating system runs better on a mac
• and so much more...

 

12/4/07

Work was good, we were busy. After work, I went home for dinner and then went to the gym. When I arrived at the gym, the parking lot was filled and I knew there wouldn't have been any lockers available. At this time about 6:30pm, it's the most busy, in my opinion. So, for a while I drove around and tried to see if Tom was home - but nope. Then I traveled back to the gym and the big crowd had left, which was nice. I got my workout in and I was a happy camper.

 

When I left the gym and went back home, I did some work and then watched the final episode of "Tinman". This was a very good show.

 

12/3/07

Today was a good day, except for the nasty driving conditions. As I got closer to the office, the roads were icy and slick, not to mention that the office driveway wasn't plowed. Anyway's, I drove right through the deep snow and made my own parking space - I love my Murano!

 

Last night, I watched the new television miniseries of "Tinman", its similar to the old movie of The Wizard of Oz, but with a twist. The episode last night, was good and there is going to be another one tonight.

 

I went back to the gym again, and hopefully will go tomorrow too. I worked out on my arms, shoulders, back, and stomach (abs everyday).

 

12/2/07

Here is what is looks like after the storm... We have a ruler on our back deck and we got about 9 inches of snow during the night. Our county is still under the winter storm warning until tonight.

 

Have you missed a theme on my site?... That's no problem, the solution has arrived! Now you can see all the themes that have been used on my web site.

 

Also, I did some thinking and it's final. The notices at the bottom of this page "What's New", these will stay active for the current month. That way, when someone visits my site, they can see what's been happening this month.

 

12/1/07

As I say every month, there will be new photographs posted from the prior month and guess what, it's that time! Visit the gallery for updates, click here.

 

We are supposed to be getting a snow storm tonight and all day tomorrow and so far - its starting. The weathermen estimated 5-14 inches with about 2 inches per hour with blizzard like conditions.