Doing Things Differently

Ok, since I don’t really talk to many of you, but I have a few stalkers, I thought I’d share what my new diet is all about: getting back to how I used to be when I was younger.

Simple, I never really ate much junk food and ate pretty healthy until my rebelliousness kicked in and then I began down that bad path of eating junk food and drinking a TON of Sugary drinks.

I have never really been a fan of beef and pork, so going vegetarian simply meant cutting out the little I did eat, and getting rid of Chicken (a staple of my previous diet) and replacing it with Soy-based products and other Legumes and vegetables.

So far so good, I’ve gotten rid of 98% of the junk in my diet, only slipping once or twice by having something in a social setting (but, its not really like I’m binging, it’s usually just something small).  Also, I now drink my 2 litres of water a day, and the occasional cup of pure green tea (no sugar), along with some milk in my morning cereal.

For breakfast, I often eat a bowl of Raisin Bran or Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds before I leave for work, then eat a individual fruit and fibre yogurt when I arrive.  I often wash this down with a cup of Green Tea, just to get my body going for the day.

For lunch, I either eat leftovers from the night before, or have some frozen vegetarian entrees from Licks stored in the work freezer.  These often contain some of the nutrients I would lack without meat in my diet [and help me so I don’t need to take pills].  I then follow this up with an afternoon fruit such as an apple, pear, orange or banana.  Again, this can be followed by a cup of Green Tea, just to keep things going well for the afternoon.

When I get home from work, I start preparing dinner which ranges from a basic Salad, to a hamburger (often without the added carbs of a bun), pasta and sauce with extra veggies, or something else I whip together.  If I still feel hungry before 8pm, I will follow this up with a really sweet fruit such as pineapple or kiwi, which helps me make it the last couple of hours I’m awake and through the night.

So far, it hasn’t been so bad and most people are accepting of my new diet.  When I’m invited out, I try and stick to vegetarian meals, and have been eating a lot of firm tofu which really isn’t as bad as everyone always says it is.

I begin my exercise regime this week, which will help me lose a bit of weight and hopefully tone my stomach up a bit. Right now, I really don’t miss the junk, but I don’t know if I’ll be saying the same thing after I start working out.  Hopefully I’m able to stick with this diet since I’m starting to feel healthier physically (not just mentally).

Oh, and, the thing that’s probably helping the most:  I have been sleeping my 8 hours a night

Right now, I’m just working on my demo for our new Sharepoint site that is going live, and I was playing around with Windows Media Player when I remembered how good my old music player used to be.

That’s when I decided to look it up, and see what ever happened to the program that was always overshadowed by the monstrosity that was WinAmp and Windows Media Player.

It appears that a couple of years ago, Lycos (yes, they do still exist) ended production of the cool little player and relinked the Sonique site to their attempt at a music site.

Some of the things that made Sonique so nice were the Freeform skins and its support for a vast amount of file types, including the Open Source OGG Vorbis. Back then, there were fears about the intentions of the owner of the MP3 patents, so most of my music was transcoded to Vorbis.  Unfortunately, not many commercial players support Vorbis tracks, so I was stuck going back to MP3.

Another cool feature was the ability to play around with the pitch and timing of a song.  Nothing beats making Britney Spears into a chipmunk.

If you want to play around with this neat little player, you can find some of the old versions at The Museum of Sonique

This week has been a pretty big geekfest since I am trying to save money, I have been spending more time playing with some web services.

Unfortunately, some need to wait until my camera has a new battery before I can really go all out. (Specifically Flickr, Blurb, and Moo)

This week I also started using Twitter and Last.FM to add to my list of geeky things I do.

Beyond that, Facebook now imports my blog as Notes, adds my Diggs to my news feed, grabs my pictures from Flickr, posts my shows from Joost, uses my Twitter status in place of its own, and much more.  In all reality, if someone were to want to stalk me… I guess they’d really only have to go to Facebook.

Oh well.

If you are stalking me, and you feel like you want to buy me something, head over to Zappos and buy me a pair of the shoes below… the import fee is a little too high for my liking.

Btw, that screen capture was taken by the Jing Project created by Tech Smith.  It’s an awesome little tool, to say the least!

I will write a little review of everything I mentioned here when I get a bit more time to play with everything, but right now, everything seems pretty cool.

I graduated from Durham College’s Computer Systems Technology program over 3 years ago and have been working for a software company since.  With that said, I still think the 3 years spent at Durham were a complete waste of time and here’s why:

According to a recent Network World article, some of the skills taught at the college are a little, well, outdated.

Not to offend anyone, but in 2004, VB6 was already starting to be replaced by C# and VB.NET.  With the .NET Framework 1.0 released in 2001, and 1.1 in 2003, VB6’s days were numbered.  In 2005, the .NET Framework 2.0 release all but put the nails in VB6s coffin.

Our ‘database’ class was a joke, using an old version of Microsoft Access.  Not that access is a bad program, and I’m sure there are tons of general ideas that you can take from it… but it doesn’t hold up against the needs of today and the ease-of-use that is SQL.

Also, learning about Netware was a joke.  Often the demos didn’t work properly and the labs couldn’t be completed.  Then, add in the fact that we then had to manage properly dual-booting a machine with a single physical disk and you’re just looking for problems.

Next up, is our Hardware oriented classes that revolved around OLD IBM Compatible PCs, and the out-dated iMacs.  In these courses, there was no USB, Firewire, AGP, etc.  Heck, I’m surprised these had PCI devices and not some nice old ISA and EISA boards.

I also remember a big chunk of our CISCO classes being on IPX/SPX, and how they worked.  Ugh, big waste of time considering 90% of the world is using TCP/IP.

Needless to say, I was always a tech rebel and was always using the latest greatest and was always one step ahead of the trend.  It did me good, but I’m afraid all the others I graduated with were left so far behind they’ll need to go back to school just to catch up.

*sigh*

So, I was out playing pool at one of my favourite places in town, and since they don’t have Interac, I tried to put our charges onto my Visa.  Well, it turns out, somebody else had already maxed my card so the payment was declined.

So, I called my friends at Visa and we went over the charges I could see on the web, and the ones I couldn’t.  All the charges I could see, were correct, but there was $600 worth of charges I could not see, and over $500 of that was done by someone that was not me.

Needless to say, we then had to verify that I truly did not make the charges and that they truly were fraudulent.

Then comes the really bad part, in order to stop further charges, my Visa had to be cancelled and I have to call everyone that automatically debits from my Visa to tell them there will be a new number.  For most people, the list is small.  But, I am not most people, and I now need to make a few dozen phone calls.

I’ll give you all an update when I have more information.  For now, how my card was compromised and apparently duplicated is beyond me.

Billing Change, originally uploaded by Just2BDifferent.

On Monday, my sister switched out our Internet account from the fastest internet connection available, to the slowest internet connection available.

Well, 3 days later, and we have now maxed out the account.

Great….

So, anyone know any nice houses in the area so I can move out already?

During Video-On-Trial on MuchMusic, I saw the beginning of what seems to be a viral ad… one that is badly done, but is getting publication, so it is filling its purpose to say the least.

Here are some things where the person looks like they tried to act like they are what they say they are:

• They reference the Skull billboards, which were really just a paid ad campaign.
• They try to show off an email they received; the window being showed is an outgoing email.  Which, they then put a name in the TO box and blacked it out.  If it were just a copy to a new window, you wouldn’t put in information and then black it out.
• Their hack is supposedly set up via a ‘hidden’ Wireless network connection, but, it is obvious that these additions to the show have been done to the original, not via a network hack.
• The ‘hidden’ network could always sniffed and manipulated, which would then put this ‘hack’ at great risk.
• The site owner is encouraging videos be sent to him to be broadcast, which shows that this is a possible advertiser.

When I get more details, I’ll keep you updated.  Until then, Phreak615, you are on watch.  Want to challenge me?  Track me down the next time TO2600 is in Oshawa.

Quick note: Chef Gordon Ramsay will be doing book signings on April 27th and April 28th in Toronto to promote his new book “Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food”

I’m trying to find someone to come with me to Burlington for the signing on April 27th. 

If you want to come, feel free to send me a message and we’ll arrange a group of people to drive up there together.

More information available at http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Gordon-Ramsays-Fast-Food-Recipes-Gordon-Ramsay/9781554700646-item.html

Over the last few days, I have been having some REALLY weird cravings, which isn’t really like me.  Now, I’m not really a big fan of meat, and mostly eat Chicken if I get the choice, or a meat alternative.

Well, recently I was reminiscing about past road trips and I got a craving for a Boca Burger (http://www.bocaburger.com).  Unfortunately, Boca Burgers aren’t available outside of the US and I can’t get any brought in, unfortunately, because they are classified as being vegetables.

So, instead of being able to find a Boca Burger, I went for the next best thing: Licks Nature Burger.  I did a little searching and found the site (http://www.lickshomeburgers.com/) and noticed that the Whitby location (20 min from my place) is reopening this Wednesday, April 16th!

Needless to say, I will be there ordering my Nature Burger and Nature Coney Fries.  Ok, not really the healthiest thing to order, but it’s just so good.

So, if you’re in the mood for some good food, feel free to send me a message and find out when I’ll be heading to the restaurant and join me for a good veggie burger.

Museum 121, originally uploaded by Just2BDifferent.

So far, the day has been about as boring as this display at the ROM.

Although I’ve been quite busy at work, I haven’t really done any ‘work’ and have just been fixing the mistakes made by co-workers last week.

Ugh, have I ever stated how much I hate Mondays?