Just an FYI for all who read the site, I am back from the field and will be updating throughout the holiday weekend.

I had a number of things on my plate for an update today, but between having to work on Sunday and the need to get some rest before coming into work at 4:15 Monday morning mean that I have to resort to a placeholder post.

I’ve been extremely tired the past few weeks. In addition to getting to work at 5:00 am most days, I’ve not been able to catch up on my rest by sleeping in on the weekends. This is leaving me rather drained mentally, to the point where I struggle for words in my vocabulary when speaking aloud. They’re on the tip of my tongue, I just can’t say them. I know they’ll come back to me eventually, it’s just a matter of getting that rest.

I’ll be heading to the field again until sometime on Thursday. These trips are rather annoying because they break up whatever groove I happen to get in, writing-wise. I do my best to record thoughts as I have them out in the field, but there’s only so much I can do. I’m definitely going to be much more productive, and consequently happier, when I’m no longer concerned with such operations.

Leave a comment to let me know you’ve stopped by. With luck, I’ll see you all on Friday.

You know those online personality quizzes designed to fill the time between the first coffee break of the day and the first restroom break of the day? There’s one over at BBspot that has been there for several years, the Which OS Are You? Quiz. I’ve taken it several times over the years with varying results (usually Red Hat Linux or HP-UX), and while the format has never changed, it’s a rather fun one to re-visit occasionally. One of the questions on the test is “For software, nothing beats a…” with the following choices:

1. Good utility (think anti-virus software)
2. Killer game (self explanitory)
3. Program that does exactly what it should
4. Cryptic series of 1s and 0s

I’ve been expending quite a bit of effort this week customizing my Firefox, and that question from the test hasn’t been far from my thoughts the whole time. I originally remembered the third choice as “killer app,” meaning application, but the wording of it doesn’t diminish what I’m trying to express - that Firefox is simply one of the coolest applications out there.

Period.

Up until now, I’ve been running a fairly normal version of Firefox. I had one extension, Tab Mix Plus, installed, and the only theme I use is Brushed 0.9.9.7. My friend Chris has been talking about various extensions on and off for a few weeks, so I decided the other day to go check out what was available.

I wound up downloading an additional five extensions for both my personal and work computers.

SlimSearch is a very clever little add-on. Did you just read an article which mentioned a concept you’re a bit fuzzy on? Simply highlight any text in your browser, right click, and scroll down to the SlimSearch menu. You’ll have a variety of choices at your disposal - a standard Google search, a Google Images search, an Urban Dictionary search, a Wikipedia search - the choices are numerous. It might only save you a few seconds in load time and typing, but having the ability to open a reference in another tab while continuing on in the article seems pretty neat to me.

My second download was All-In-One Sidebar, an app that drew inspiration from my old browser of choice, Opera. AIW Sidebar allows you to control downloads, extensions, bookmarks (favorites for the IE crowd), themes, and much more. You can even view source code and other websites in the sidebar, a useful tool for web developers.

AIW Sidebar, in the spirit of Firefox, is very customizable and can be hidden to allow the user to view a website at his chosen browser size. Hearty thumbs up for the programmer who came up with it.

I read a large number of blogs and other websites on a daily basis, and sometimes it becomes quite confusing and daunting to catch them all. I have RSS feeds to the majority of my haunts, but I didn’t really have a way to organize them until I downloaded Wizz RSS News Reader.

Much more than simply devoted to news, Wizz RSS can be configured to organize and search for updates on all your RSS feeds. I’ve included a photo example to illustrate what I’m talking about:

A larger version (for the curious among you who want to see what I’m looking at without straining your eyes) is located here.

The first thing you’ll notice is my Brushed theme, a bit of a takeoff on some older Mac interfaces, specifically the pre-iTunes 5.0 “Brushed Metal” style. I like it for the compact buttons and monochrome look, as the standard Firefox theme is a bit to gaudy for my Bauhaus tastes.

Just beneath the address bar is a tool bar with a variety of controls for Wizz RSS. I can click any of them to configure some portion of my RSS feeds (Wizz RSS has integrated into AIW Sidebar, which you can see on the left margin of the browser window. Inside that sidebar are the RSS feeds, broken down into categories I’ve made myself.

At first I needed some adjustment to get used to the intrusion of the sidebar into my surfing area, but now I don’t really notice it that much, even when using my personal laptop, which doesn’t support as high a screen resolution as the brand-new gear at work.

I don’t need to keep the sidebar open, however, because Wizz RSS has integrated another nifty feature, the Watch List. If there are blogs or other sites which I’m particularly an avid fan of, I can simply add them to the “Watch List.” At a regular (and customizable) interval, Watch List checks to see if any of my watched sites have been updated. If so, the green border around the Watch List portion of the tool bar turns red. I can then right-click that part of the tool bar and view the updated items, which keeps me from constantly having to cruise by or hit F5 to refresh the sites in other tabs. Very invisible, yet oh so useful.

On the far right side of the same tool bar is ForecastFox, an add-on which displays the current and future weather conditions for just about any place imaginable. I’ve currently set it up to give me four different areas, Winona, Chicago, Camp Pendleton, and Ramadi, Iraq. Every minute ForecastFox cycles to one of the four specified areas and gives me the current weather, upcoming evening or morning forecast, and the next day forecast. The green circle is a mini Doppler radar, and if I put my mouse over it I can view the updated weather radar for the area. Pretty cool.

For those of you who are wondering, it’s scheduled to be 120 degrees Farenheit tomorrow in Ramadi. It’ll be hotter in August. Trust me.

The last add-on was Update Notifier, which automatically searches for updates for Firefox and any of my associated extensions. If there is something I need to upgrade, I’ll get an alert, saving me the energy of searching for new versions of my extensions or theme.

If you’re not using Firefox already (and I hope that only applies to a few of you), consider making the switch. The customizability and durability of Firefox ensures that you will have a personalized experience and will be less susceptible to online tomfoolery. Even something as minor as tabbed browsing or pop-up blocking will be light-years ahead of anything Internet Explorer is offering.

A Question

If anyone reading this is familiar with the Johnny Cash album “Last Gunfighter Ballad” (Columbia, 1977, catalog no. 34314), could you please let me know what you thought of it? My friend Tim asked after it (specifically, the title track), but I hadn’t heard of it until he brought it up.

Apparently Tommy Cash, Johnny’s younger brother, appears on the album as well.

The album isn’t listed on Amazon.com, leading me to believe it’s out of print. Hopefully one of the music aficionados that stop by here can expand on this.

Search Engine Results

Chris, who hosts my site, made mention of the fair number of hits I get for “carriage return” searches. This site currently comes up as the 14th result for a “carriage return” query on Google. MSN Search has lists this site as the 30th result, while Yahoo places it second, right after the mighty Wikipedia.

The above information is completely narcissistic and probably only amuses me, but after Chris mentioned it, I had to put it out there. If carriagereturn.org ever becomes available I might just purchase that and redirect it here.

Site Statistics

As I write tonight, I am closing in on 1000 visitors and 10,000 page views since I purchased the carterhayes.org domain. 1000 visitors is a fraction of what one of my favorite bloggers, Aaron Gleeman gets in a day, but for a no-name guy just throwing his unsolicited thoughts and opinions out there, and without any major blogroll exposure, it’s a significant landmark.

I’ll hit 10,000 page views before 1000 visitors (perhaps even today, if traffic is good). What that means is quite a few of you make the effort to stop by here and read what I’ve posted on a regular basis. You have my most heartfelt thanks for your readership. I can’t adequately express what your individual feedback and support means to me, but trust me when I say writing for this site, knowing someone will read it and perhaps take something away from it, is something I look forward to every week.

Upcoming WDN column

Though I’m certain 99% of you are already aware I’ve been invited to write for the Winona Daily News as an Op/Ed columnist, I thought it would be worth mentioning that my second column will run this Sunday.  It’s available online (just access the Opinion page) for those of you outside the Winona area (like me).

Today’s update will be rather brief. I spent most of the evening at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton with Sean, one of the guys I work with, Stephanie, his wife, and their three-hour old little boy, Erick Michael.

Erick was born at 3:34 Tuesday afternoon. He was 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces, 21 inches at birth. He’s the most mild-mannered newborn I’ve ever known (not insubstantial, given my five siblings and numerous cousins). During the three hours I was at the hospital, he didn’t cry at all. Not once. He also has a full head of dark brown hair and his mom’s elvish ears. Both momma and little one are doing quite well, and while we were there Sean changed his first diaper ever.

Of course, I took pictures to commemorate the event. What baby book is complete without pictures of Dad’s first diaper change?

My Uncle Kootch gave me a teddy bear when I was very little, and as soon as my car is back up and running (the fuel pump finally gave out last night) I’m going out to find one for Erick. As it is right now, any teddy bear I’d give him would probably dwarf him.

Erick also has the distinction of being the first child born to friends of mine. I’m very excited for both Sean and Stephanie, and I’m looking forward to visiting the little guy. He’s easy-going and willing to be held by anyone, only occasionally opening his squinty eyes and looking up for a few moments before going back to sleep.

Erick’s birth also brings the last nine months full circle for me, as I was at Sean and Stephanie’s house when Stephanie came out of the bathroom, waving a pregnancy test and yelling “Sean! Babies! In my tummy!” As special as that moment felt at the time, it’s even more wonderful now to see the three of them together. It seems ages that I’ve known them, and I’m sure to Stephanie it feels like she’s been pregnant for ages, but now there’s a very tangible and sweet-tempered little guy to show for all the waiting.

Welcome to the world, Erick Michael.

The weekend slipped away much too quickly, and I find myself struggling to update before I nod off. I’m due to be at work by 5:15 this morning, so a little shut-eye is going to be essential in determining how the day goes.

One of the most fortunate occurrences this weekend was discovering that Concord Music Group has put out a series of “Stax Profiles” compilations. I happened to pick up three of them during an impromptu stop at Barnes & Noble on Saturday night. My haul, which also included a Louis Prima collector series pressing, consisted of selected Stax recordings of Booker T. and the MGs, Little Milton, and Albert King.

Stax Records hasn’t existed as an independent entity for quite a long time (Fantasy Records bought the label in 1977, perhaps confirming my dad’s theory that music died in 1976), but the influence of the company is still felt today. Apart from the above mentioned artists, Stax, now owned by the Concord Music Group, has many important artists in its catalog, including Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, The Bar-Kays, Issac Hayes, Rufus Thomas, The Staple Singers, and The Emotions.

For anyone looking to flesh out a record collection with some excellent Memphis and Southern soul, Chicago blues, and early funk, these re-issues are great jumping-off point, especially since you can pick them up at Barnes & Noble right now for $7.99 apiece.

To be honest, I had quite a bit more to say today, but the spectre of 5:15am is hanging over me, so it’s going to have to wait until Wednesday.