Free Hogg

Free Hogg (WordPress.com)

2005-11-29T20:43:00.000-06:00

Click on the link above to go to the new blog.

Last post and Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-22T13:32:00.000-06:00

This should be the last post from the Blogger version of Free Hogg. The new blog is at http://freehogg.wordpress.com. I hope that everyone has a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving.

I'm moving. WordPress, here I come

2005-11-22T10:53:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty new to blogging and when I decided to start, I jumped on the Blogger bandwagon since it's pretty popular. Well, unbeknownst to me, Blogger sucks. Since WordPress is free now (and I'll only use a free blog service until I'm no longer a poor college student), I'm packing up my stuff and heading on over. I don't know how many regular readers I have, but I'm sorry for any inconvenience. Give me a little bit to get it up and running and I'll see you there.

OpenCD 3.1

2005-11-21T22:10:00.000-06:00

The OpenCD 3.1 has been released. This is an excellent resource for free, open source software, especially for people who are new to open source software and want to find some really great apps. It includes programs like Firefox, OpenOffice.org, the GIMP, and a personal favorite of mine Notepad2.

diggdot.us - The coolest tech news site ever

2005-11-21T14:04:00.000-06:00

The latest and greatest thing to happen to online news is diggdot.us. It's a site that combines the powers of Digg, Slashdot, and del.icio.us/popular into one site. They just got their rss feed up yesterday, so get over there and subscribe.

It's almost here! Firefox 1.5 RC3 released

2005-11-18T11:01:00.000-06:00

Get the latest update to Mozilla Firefox 1.5. The word on the street is that we're just 11 days away from the final release.

43 Things and 43 Places

2005-11-16T14:46:00.000-06:00

I learned about two really cool sites today: 43 Things and 43 Places. They're sites where you can list your goals and places that you want to go, respectively. Also, you can tell what you've already done, and where you've already been, also respectively.

Check out my Things and Places.

Google Base. Why?

2005-11-16T13:11:00.000-06:00

Can someone help me out? I looked at the new Google Base, and was left scratching my head. What exactly is the purpose and/or point of this new service? Maybe one of you has better insight than I do.

Google Analytics could beat up your dad

2005-11-16T09:10:00.000-06:00

Google Analytics so far in my experience (besides it telling me that I didn't put the code in my page) is pretty sweet. I haven't checked out all of the features and I don't really plan to since I'm mainly just using it as a hit counting service (which isn't really its main purpose). I don't need all of those bells and whistles, but they're still cool. I have been using Site Meter, and it's got a lot of the same services (world map, referring sites, daily hits/views, etc.) but Google just does it much better.

Google Analytics isn't analyzing

2005-11-15T10:50:00.000-06:00

Google has come out with a free service called Analytics, as I'm sure many of you already know. Well, if you have trouble with it, you're not alone. I've been trying for the past several minutes to get this thing to work, all to no avail. For some reason, it won't recognize that I have added its script to my page, even though when I view the source, I can clearly see it there. Oh well, maybe they'll fix it, maybe not.

First snow of the year

2005-11-15T10:43:00.000-06:00

Right as I am typing this, Kansas City is having the first snow of the year! Too bad it's too warm for it to stick. I guess I'll have to wait to go sledding.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC2 is available

2005-11-11T12:31:00.000-06:00

The lastest and greatest update to the best web browser ever is available. You can get it on the Mozilla web site. Asa says that if no problems are found, then this is it, the final release of version 1.5. So, check it out and let them know if there's any problems.

See you on Monday.

Happy Veteran's Day

2005-11-11T11:55:00.000-06:00

I want to wish all veterans a happy Veteran's Day and let everyone know that I support our troops and our country.

Trying out Linux #2: Ubuntu

2005-11-11T11:33:00.000-06:00

At the recommendation of Jeff, I'm going to ditch my SuSE Linux and try out Ubuntu Linux. I'm hoping that it is a little bit more user friendly as far as adding and removing software since I'm only a quasi-geek and don't always enjoy doing things the hard way. I'll let you know what I think about it in the near future.

Ubuntu is a registered trademark of Canonical Ltd.

Major electronics company build Linux alliance

2005-11-10T14:39:00.000-06:00

CNN reports:

Three of the world's biggest electronics companies -- IBM, Sony and Philips -- have joined forces with the two largest Linux software distributors to create a company for sharing Linux patents, royalty-free.

This is huge for software developers. Basically these companies (plus Red Hat and Novell) are going to buy up a bunch of software patents and then let people use them without having to pay royalties. This allows people to continue to develop open source software without the risk of patent or legal difficulties.

For all you coffee lovers

2005-11-10T14:13:00.000-06:00

Ian at Gullible.info had this little tasty tidbit of information today:

To save energy, small coffee bean growers dry out their beans in the sun. As a result, the average ten pound bag of "indie" coffee contains around three teaspoons of insect matter and bird droppings.

Mmmm, make mine a "venti."

Flock web browser 0.4.10

2005-11-09T13:21:00.000-06:00

The guys over at Flock have a new build of their web browser available. Version 0.4.10 is available for all you daring souls who want to play with it. Definitely not ready for the masses, but maybe fun for some of us dorks out there. They've even already got a decent list of extensions.

Flock and Flock icon are trademarks of Flock Inc.

All better

2005-11-08T14:51:00.000-06:00

Don't worry! Everything is ok! I figured it out. When you start a comment tag, it's usually a good idea to end it.

I screwed it up!

2005-11-08T14:48:00.000-06:00

I was editing my template and apparently really screwed something up! I'll have it fixed asap. Sorry!

Google AdSense Referrals

2005-11-07T09:50:00.000-06:00

Google has added a new service to AdSense. Now you can add buttons (as I have already) that allow people to either download Mozilla Firefox with the Google Toolbar, or sign up for AdSense themselves. Google pays up to $1 for every person that clicks on your button and successfully installs Firefox with Google Toolbar.

The other option they have is to refer people to AdSense. According to the AdSense website, "when a publisher that signed up for AdSense through your referral earns their initial $100.00 and is eligible for payout, we'll credit your account with $100.00." That sounds pretty sweet to me.

So if you don't have AdSense or Firefox, sign up/download it with my buttons on the sidebar. You'll be forever appreciated.

Google Desktop 2

2005-11-04T14:05:00.000-06:00

Google Desktop 2 has come out of the beta stage. I think it's a very nice program. It runs on hardly any memory which is nice. I have it installed on my Windows XP system and use it mostly for its desktop searching capabilities. It indexes your files when your computer is idle and then you can search for them just like you would a web search. It also has a bunch of other stuff which can be pretty useful too, Gmail, weather, stocks, news, etc.

By the way, Google has set up a blog for the Google Desktop: Inside Google Desktop. I'm not certain why you need a blog for something like this, but whatever.

Yahoo! Maps are new and improved

2005-11-04T10:57:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! just came out with a new and improved version of their Maps service. It is just in the beta stage, but it seems to be a pretty legitimate service. It is run in Flash, so you need that to use it. One cool feature is that you can have multiple destinations on your driving directions. It incorporates a local search so when I entered in the address of my university, it gave its name and phone number. Overall, I'd have to say that it's better than Google's maps, with the only thing it's lacking is the satellite images.

Firefox 1.5 RC1 released

2005-11-02T11:24:00.000-06:00

The closest thing to the new version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser has been released. Head on over to Mozilla to download it, or if you're already running the beta you should be able to automatically update. If you haven't made the switch from Internet Explorer, I highly recommend that you do and know that you will not be disappointed.

Asa Dotzler said that there will be at least one more release candidate before the final version of Firefox 1.5 comes out.

Firefox usage up to 11.5%

2005-11-01T13:40:00.000-06:00

Asa Dotzler's weblog says that Firefox usage is up to 11.5% worldwide and 14% in the U.S.

Old template scrapped

2005-10-31T16:19:00.000-06:00

I decided to scrap the old template that I had been working on. I just decided that I didn't like it's organization and layout. So, I took the easy way out and just did some small tweaks to the Rounders template from the folks at Blogger.

Flickr

2005-10-31T14:29:00.000-06:00

Flickr is my new favorite discovery of the week. It is a service run by Yahoo! that lets you share photos on the web, make albums, post photos to your blog, etc. It works really well from what I have seen even though it is still in beta.

How much is your blog worth?

2005-10-27T13:34:00.000-05:00

Find out how much your blog is worth.

Inspired by Tristan Louis' research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc, I've created this little applet using Technorati's API which computes and displays your blog's worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.
- Dane Carlson

The GNOME desktop on SUSE Linux is a go

2005-10-26T13:15:00.000-05:00

I finally got SUSE Linux working on my laptop yesterday. I'm not sure what I did differently, but it's working. I'm running the GNOME desktop environment. It took my a while to figure out how to install something, but I got OpenOffice.org 2.0 up and running.

I have del.icio.us

2005-10-25T11:25:00.000-05:00

In recent days I have discovered something cool. I'm sure most of you already know about del.icio.us. I had heard of it but never paid much attention. It's a bookmarking system that allows you to organize your bookmarks with tags, and then share them on the internet. I just replaced my blogroll with a del.icio.us linkroll and I like it better for one it's more customizable so it fits with the style of my blog.

My favorites

OpenOffice.org 2.0

2005-10-24T09:44:00.000-05:00

OpenOffice.org 2.0 recently was released. I have had lots of personal experience with this office suite and it's good stuff. If you want a free way to stick it to Microsoft, this is it. It can do everything (that I know of) that MS Office can, but without costing you mucho dinero. Also, it supports the new OpenDocument XML file format. Check it out.

Firefox gets 100 million downloads

2005-10-21T18:04:00.000-05:00

Spread Firefox

No luck with Linux, but I got the Flock web browser

2005-10-21T12:58:00.000-05:00

I still haven't had any luck with getting the display to come up on my newly installed SUSE Linux, I can tell it's working (it plays the intro sound) but nothing on the screen.

In better news, I got an e-mail today that told me I could download a developer preview of the new web browser Flock. It puts a big emphasis on blogging and del.icio.us social bookmarks. It was written (at least in part) by one of the main guys that did Mozilla Firefox. I'll check it out for a few days and let you know what it's like.

Having trouble installing SUSE Linux

2005-10-20T10:59:00.000-05:00

After spending several hours downloading, burning and installing, I still have yet to run SuSE Linux on my laptop. I have it all installed on my newly partitioned hard drive, but it didn't recognize my monitor so I don't have any display. Maybe tonight I can get it fixed.

The header images look wrong, I know. I'll get that soon.

Taking the Linux plunge

2005-10-18T18:42:00.000-05:00

I did some research today on Linux today. I became interested in it after having a lot of success with other open source projects. So, tomorrow, I'm going to download it and start running it along side Windows and play around with it a little bit. I decided on Novell's version SUSE. I'll let you know how it goes. Most of the information I got came from linux.org. The SUSE Linux can be found at opensuse.org.

By the way, sorry about those two graphics at the bottom that aren't loading. I'll have that fixed tomorrow.

Blog design is done, I think

2005-10-17T11:09:00.000-05:00

Ok, I think I'm ready to start going with this thing now that I have the layout set up. So, the first official post should be coming soon. Enjoy.

Under Construction

2005-10-07T16:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, everyone. Here's the first unofficial post to Free Hogg. I'm working on the layout and everything still so when I have all of that finished I'll start posting regularly. Let me know if you think you have any good ideas for my blog. I hope you like what is to come.