autorefresh mozilla firefox

Sometimes I need a page or tab to refresh in my Firefox Browser. I’m running Firefox 2.0.0.7 in an XP environment. I did a quick search and it turns out there’s a nifty little add-on called ReloadEvery compliments of by Jaap Haitsma. I installed the ReloadEvery add-on and it’s just what I was looking for. It reloads pages at an interval you select from the drop down menu or you can set a custom refresh/reload rate. You can also access the ReloadEvery menu by right clicking the web page. Cool!

backup!

I've noticed a ton of Chrysler 300's on the road lately. The company I work for 'develops' and sells parking aids and cameras, but I'm not sure if they have noticed that the Chrysler 300 accessory market could be huge for our product because of the stout rear end of the vehicle. I used to ride with a lady to real estate class who drove a Chrysler 300 - it was her company car. She was also in sales and told me that the company she worked for required their employees take a defensive driving class to raise awareness of accidents that happen while in reverse. Not only the danger of backing into a post or another vehicle, but backing into or over a person. This is not uncommon, especially when the salesperson is constantly in and out of parking lots.

Sounds like a lead to me...

multitasking...

I love to watch the food network, but it can be dangerous to your waistline if you have the time to recreate these dishes. If you're the master multitasker like Rachel Ray, you'd have no problem whipping up a 5 course meal in 30 minutes with your berndes cookware while you host a talk show, a reality mini-show and manage 20 or so other food network endeavors.

She makes my head spin.
My version of multitasking is dialing the phone while at the same time asking, "So, What kind of pizza do you guys want me to order?"

buy low, sell high...

Year before last, I did quite a bit of business on ebay buying wholesale clothing and reselling the pieces individually. I made some decent profit on the lots I'd buy then bust up into individual auctions, and I moved all the stock I had in less than a month. I wish I had more time [and a little more cashflow] to be able to delve into that more, but I'm pretty stretched right now; I don't know how many more directions I can be pulled in before I snap...

TPS Reports not included...

I loved the movie Office Space and like many, my favorite character was Milton and his prized possession - his red, Swingline stapler. Now, for all you cubicle dwellers out there, you can own your own red Swingline stapler from thinkgeek.com. Remember, TPS Reports, as stated in the ad, are not included...

pirate party

Tomorrow, I'm going to a Pirate themed party hosted by some friends of mine. Every year, they throw a party with a different theme and this year, it's a Pirate Treasure Hunt. I will be Aretha Lamaze, the captain of the black team and my ship, The Raging Hormone. Yes, we chose that name when we thought it would be guys vs. girls. It appears there'll be more girls than guys there, so the "Hormone" will apply to the Estrogen and Testosterone alike - men have hormones, too.

I went to a local thrift store today and picked up a black vest, some black pants, a pair of chunky black lace up the back boots, and some black material to cut up and tie in various places to make my costume look ragged. I also bought a black tablecloth at the dollar store and am hoping to make that into a sash and/or boot covers.

It should be a fun evening with some good matey's.

tip!

If you're surfing the web and the webpage has a text that's too small for you to read without squinting or pulling out the coke bottle glasses, then this tip's for you...

Hold down the Control Key CTRL, then roll the wheel on your mouse down to make the text on the webpage larger. Or, if you want to make it smaller, then do the same but roll the wheel up to make the text smaller.

Dude, I've got a Dell!

I bought a Dell computer for my home about 3 years ago and I've been a happily satisfied Dell customer ever since. I have used a Dell PC at work for about 10 years and the quality is great. When I ordered my PC, I upgraded several of the options like the hard drive storage, the RAM and the processor type since I was going to be using it for some memory intense programs. It's been a great computer; so far, so good.

As far as my work PC goes, they must have been having a huge pc sale because I just got upgraded to a brand new Dell Optiplex 745 PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, DVD/CD burner, and a 19" wide screen flat panel monitor to boot. The last upgrade I got was over 5 years ago and let me just tell you, this Dell is screamin' fast...

I'm lovin' it!

happy birthday smiley?

Seems there's some controversy over when the emoticon, or commonly known, smiley was born. Some credit a professor at Carnegie Mellon University as the creator of the smiley in 1982. Others say the emoticon was penned, not keyed, in the 60's appearing in an issue of Reader's Digest. You can read more about the debut of the smiley controversy here...

this is cool...

Well, it's actually hot, too. It's fire glass and you can use it to spice up your natural gas fireplace. Featured on HGTV, fire glass comes in a rainbow of colors you can mix and match to add some pop to your old dingy, dull fireplace. Get rid of those old gas logs and give your fireplace or fire pit a new look.

let there be light...

My brother from another mother who lives in Chucktown has a beautiful home there. When we visited over Labor Day weekend, I found it funny that I could hardly find an outlet to plug in my laptop. This man has enough lamps, lights, recessed lights, backlights and outdoor lighting in the backyard by the pool to land a small aircraft - he cannot stand a dark house. I guess if the bulb in the lighthouse ever burns out, he could probably sub for it for a few days...

tv: sopranos

It's almost October and according to what I've seen, the final episodes of The Sopranos will be out on DVD so I can finally see what happened to Tony and the gang - or rather, what didn't happen. I've been trying to steer clear of anything spoiler related to the finale which was especially difficult just after it aired. In the mean time, I can reminisce by watching clips from the past...

Remember when Christopher went through drug rehabilitation after his intervention?

burn, baby, burn...

Who would be opposed to burning fat while you work? Not me! I stumbled upon a product today that promotes thermogenesis without loss of sleep or the jitters.

fucoTHIN is an all-natural concentrate with fucoxanthin levels 250-500% higher than wild seaweed. fucoTHIN contains the the first marine algae-derived ingredient with clinically proven thermogenic effect. fucoTHIN supports the metabolism or breakdown of fat in white adipose tissue, including belly fat. When consumed, it does not stimulate the central nervous system nor will not cause jitters or lost sleep.

Thermogenesis is simiply a process where the body increases its metabolic rate, requiring utilization of internal stores of energy, such as fat. So, if I take this Garden of Life product, it should increase my metabolism thus burn fat.

Interesting...

Garden of Life offers a complete line of whole food organic vitamins and natural health supplements to meet your body's everyday demands. Your body was designed to consume whole foods that contain necessary vitamins and minerals. By combining the best of nature and science, Garden of Life line of products offers you a path to healthy living through organic innovations.

Of course, as with any weight loss product, you should check with your doctor and include a healthy diet and exercise routine.

now that's cheap...

I was browsing through the BestBuy circular for this week to see what was on sale. Why is it that you see unbelievable deals on stuff when you don't have the extra cash to buy it? I couldn't believe how cheap the jump or flash drives and memory cards are getting. They're advertising a USB jump drive with 4GB of memory for $39.99 and they're also advertising an SD memory card for $24.99. Best thing is those are in-store prices - no mail-in rebates! Now, if I could just get some cashflow going...

got gmail?

Google mail is a powerful web mail client that I've been using since last year. It's very user-friendly and offers a spacious (nearly 3 gigabytes) inbox. I just happened across this video of clips submitted by gmail fans in a collaborative effort with Google to make this neat video...

online vacation rentals in pigeon forge

Several years ago, my whole family met at a Pigeon Forge cabin rental for Christmas. I've always wanted to go back there during a little warmer weather since the cabin we stayed in had a huge piece of land with a trout stream, horse stable, and beautiful scenery all around. It was just too cold when we went to be able to get out and explore and enjoy it all. There's some really nice rentals online, but I can't find that particular cabin. I wonder if it's still for rent?

speaking of work...

Not only was I evicted from my office this year, but once again was passed over and not invited to go with the group I work with to the annual Vegas trade show. I know I work in Quality, but wouldn't it be advantageous to have a QA rep at the show to absorb customer feedback and use that information to improve products and services? Nah, that would make too much sense.

I've never been to Vegas, never been in a casino (at least not a legal one), and have never seen the bright lights of the big city. I wonder where they'll stay? The Excalibur Las Vegas sure looks nice. I wonder if they have an Elvis impersonator on site?

I suppose I'm just bitter, but they say they dread going before they leave, but when they come back, they talk about all their fun and make little inside jokes to each other during meetings that no one else gets. They have to speak in code about their excursion since what goes on the road, stays on the road and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Take me with you - I won't tell...

my office...

Well, I call it my office, but it's actually a cube. I used to have a nice office with a roof over my head and a door that opened and closed and locked, but back in February, I was evicted from my office and moved to a cube with no roof and no door. I was the only person who had an office that was moved into a cube when the powers that be decided to close off one side of the building to reduce energy expenses; boy, that did a lot for my morale. I did manage to take my office furniture with me - a modular unit that dropped right into my cube, so I may not have my roof or door anymore, but at least I have a pimped out nice cube to dwell in for my 40 hours...

business idea

I was looking around doing some research and ran across an Arizona luxury real estate website with some beautiful, mac-daddy homes, rather mansions, for sale. I noticed on one of the listings that the photos were not sized to fit where they were supposed to; they were way too large and I wondered why they don't offer virtual tours of these million dollar homes. Being a geek and a real estate agent makes me notice these things more. I'm not working for an agency yet, but plan to sell real estate once our situation will allow me to quit my job to learn the ropes of the real estate business. I am wondering if in the mean time, I could offer up my services to create virtual tours or take digital photos of properties for agencies in my area...

high tech bed & breakfast

Jimmy's always wanted to take a little trip and just drive somewhere, anywhere, and stay in a nice, quiet bed and breakfast. Now, I don't mind that at all, but most of them don't have WiFi capability that I'd need to be able to communicate with the outside world.

NOTE To ALL Bed and Breakfast Establishments:

Recent surveys have shown that one of the most prized amenities in today's vacation market is free high-speed internet service. Offering free wireless internet service to your bed and breakfast guests can often set your establishment apart from the rest.

It's probably only a $25/month investment and shouldn't be any more difficult than installing a home wireless network.

get your photos back!

I haven't had this happen to me [knock on wood], but I've read about others who've experienced memory card failure losing all their pictures stored on the device. I know some people who have large memory cards and don't always download their photos to their PC or back them up which can be dangerous.

I read about a photographer who returned from a shoot and found he had a corrupt memory card. He actually used the program to recover the photos [all of them]. Sweet! I thought I'd share this useful information since so many people use these devices now. The photo recovery program is called PhotoRescue and was designed to undelete, unerase and recover pictures, images, photos and files lost on corrupted, erased or damaged compact flash, smartmedia, memory sticks, mmd, XD, multimedia or secure digital memory cards when other solutions fail. And, it's available for the PC and Mac OS X.

I take a lot of pictures and hope this won't happen to me, but this is very good to know and hopefully it will help someone else recover their priceless memories...

dvd vending machines

What a neat idea, huh? You can buy groceries and rent a DVD in the same store without filling out a membership. I love the idea of being able to browse the latest selection of new DVD's without making a trip to the local brick and mortar video store. All I have to do is check out what's available in the DVD kiosk at the grocery store (which I'm in nearly every day).

I've been doing some market research on these DVD vending machine kiosks because I'd love to buy one or two. It's a fairly cheap franchise opportunity which one can delve into without having to front a ton of money and quit your job to operate the business. Sounds pretty painless and could be a quick return on investment opportunity - just what I've been looking for to supplement my salary and move towards getting away from working for 'the man'...

surveillance audit

Our surveillance audit for ISO9000:2001 is coming up on the 13th & 14th, so it's getting down to crunch time as far as getting things ready. I say crunch time, but really it's just getting the normal things done that we do on a daily basis. I used to have a boss who went all chaotic prior to the audit, working countless overtime hours going over reams and reams of documentation, attending meeting after meeting to make sure everyone knew what to do.

For the past 3 years, my current boss and I have handled the audit and the prep. I've found that the best way to prepare for the audit is to practice what you preach year-round. Don't try to bypass the system, just follow procedure and promote that to others. My old boss was one of the worst for bypassing the system to get things done, then crucifying others if they were caught doing the same.

So, there will be no Chinese fire drill, no Seagull management here; just a walk-through of the facility and a brief internal audit (which we have to do anyway).

It's simple; do what you say you do and you'll be fine.