Last summer, I purchased a new computer, right away I had to swap the new keyboard that came with it (HP Pavilion) with my previous worn down IBM keyboard. Well in October, the keyboard wasn’t working so well so I hunted through the house till I found a keyboard I could live with. Oddly, it’s a HP corporate keyboard from about 10 years ago. It works ok, I am typing on it as we speak, but a couple keys aren’t as reliable as they should be. So last week I went to Microcenter and purchased a $30 Microsoft Keyboard. It was the cheapest keyboard that had a normal keyboard layout with the 2 key wide backspace key. It also had the normal 6 keys between the mail keys and the numeric pad. Many keyboards are starting to re-engineer the 6 keys (insert, home, page up, delete, end and page down) in non standard ways. If you’re a programmer like me, that completely sucks. Some of the keyboards have a 2 key sized delete key and have removed the insert button completely. I don’t know what keyboard designers are thinking lately!

I used to always buy IBM brand keyboards but since they left the desktop/laptop computer market, they no longer sell keyboards. Oh how does that suck! In my opinion, IBM made the best keyboards.

So I’ve been trying out a Microsoft keyboard out for about 5 days and quickly came to hate it. I finally disconnected it and plan on returning it. It did have softer key action, which was keeping my wrists from getting tired. Now I am using this old HP keyboard, my wrists feel like someone stuffed rocks in them.

So the last keyboard I used that I really liked was the Dell Multimedia Keyboard pictured. This and its non multimedia variant were pretty well designed keyboards, the keys were where they should be and the space in front of the keyboard allowed you to add your own wrist pad.

There’s a few other little things about this keyboard I like. First, the mute button is on the right hand side. The Microsoft keyboard had the mute button on the left, which doesn’t help me at all. The volume control is an actual dial on the Dell, which doesn’t matter for me because I usually use the windows controls for that anyway. It makes a nice holder for my wedding ring when I feel the need to take the ring off while working.

So today, I ordered a new Dell USB Multimedia Keyboard. With shipping it was about $33.

What kind of keyboard are you using? Are you as picky as me as far as key placement?

Heather made Buckeyes! Peanut butter and chocolate has to be the best combination ever thought of.

This recipe was pretty simple. The tricky part was melting the chocolate. Heather came up with a creative setup, she took a spaghetti pot, flipped over the strainer lid and then put a glass bowl on top of the strainer with the chocolate in the bowl. It worked perfectly! No need to invest money for a double boiler when you’re married to a genius!

Here’s a picture of a Buckeye compared to a Reese’s miniature peanut butter cup. There’s a lot of peanut butter in a Buckeye!

Okay, you got me. I use the slogan “I love cheese” a lot. Here’s why:

Link: The Power of Cheese Commercial

The commercial dates back to the 1998/2000 elections and was used for the “Ahh, the power of cheese” series of commercials. Check out the actor who plays “Hayes for President”, he later was president in the TV show 24 a few seasons back.

And in all honesty, I do love cheese except for a couple specific cheeses, such as Feta and any cheese that’s moldy except for Parmesan. Parmesan is supposed to be moldy, right?

Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/2of2ws

Last night, Heather and I went out to dinner for Valentines Day. When we got home, the dog was extra hyper running all over the house. So a few hours go by and I went to the kitchen to get an oatmeal cookie. They’re gone! I searched around the kitchen thinking I put them somewhere else. I ended up finding them in the living room with only a few crumbs remaining. These cookies were in the new packaging with the rip away top, somehow Ty knew how to pull back the top and get into the packaging. There wasn’t a rip/tear with his teeth anywhere. That explains why he was so hyper.

So this morning, I woke up to the most awful stink. It’s the dog’s farts! I took him on his morning walk and everything came out as normal. Then 3 hours later, the dog is barking, biting my pant leg and pull me away from the computer. So I took him out, and within minutes he did his business. Man it was nasty. Luckily it went on a sheet of snow, I just scooped it all up with the snow and put it in the bag.

Now here is the funny part. After he was done, he ran across the sidewalk where there was a lot of snow, backed up slightly, then sat right down with his butt directly in the snow (pictured above). What ever that oatmeal did, it either made his butt itchy or on fire. Never the less, it was the funniest thing I’ve seen. And he kept getting up and doing it again!

Unfortunately, I don’t think he is done, He still has gas and is acting strange. Hopefully this taught him never to eat my cookies.

If you’re looking for clean and simple resource or reference on the Rewrite Module in Apache, look no further. This page is the most useful and to the point resource on the subject I have come across to date.

Module Rewrite – URL Rewriting Guide

If you are looking for a cheat sheet, check out AddedBytes (previously I Love Jack Daniels)’ mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet for a Rewrite Module cheat sheet as well as others.

I’m proud to announce that podcastFAQ.com is now available. podcastFAQ.com aims to be the starting point for podcasters and enthusiasts looking for information relevant to the industry.

The web site came from conversations Brian Yuhnke and I had following my visit to PodCamp Arizona. Many session speakers referred to tuns of web sites for podcasters to go to for information on specific topics. At the end of the day, I had about 40 different web sites to check out and they weren’t organized very well. About the same time, Rob Safuto left RawVoice which put the documentation responsibilities on the rest of the RawVoice team. After a few chat and phone conversations with Brian, we came to the conclusion that a wiki would be the ideal way to get the site started.

Once we discussed the idea with the rest of the RawVoice team, everyone at RawVoice went to work taking our own scattered documents and organizing them into the site you see today. As we were developing this web site, Todd Cochrane found the ideal domain name in his portfolio of registered domains, podcastFAQ.com.

As we developed and organized the content, we quickly discovered that we had a lot of missing information. To keep with the feel of the industry, we decided to make the home page of the site as honest as possible to encourage others to contact us with ideas and content.

We made a soft launch of the site last week to members of Blubrry, PodcasterNews and Tech Podcasts Network. Everyone has been very supportive of the site and it’s unbelievable how much content we’ve received already.

If you’re a podcaster or interested in learning about podcasting, please check out podcastFAQ.com. If you have some ideas for content or suggestions, please feel free to fill out the contact form. Your help will make the site better for everyone!