Use your domain with a dynamic DNS service

Interested how to use *your* domain with a dynamic dns service? It's so easy. Create a new CNAME that points to the dynamic dns name.

Change the icon for PcHelpWare, et al

Looking to customize PCHelpWare for yourself?

There's documentation online, but the change of icon doesn't exactly work in Vista/Windows 7. There's a program that can help, though: IcoFX. Just grab PcHelpWare.sfx, and briefly change it to PcHelpWare.exe, then in IcoFX, go to Tools, Resource Editor, and open the newly named PcHelpWare.exe (open folder icon). Highlight the yellow Uvnc icon, then click the Change icon button and point it to the icon of choice. Click save, then close. Rename the PcHelpWare.exe to PcHelpWare.sfx and now your PcHelpWare app will be branded with your new icon.

YUI3 accordion

I had the hardest time trying to override the label color in YUI3-accordion.
It turns out that !important was used in the default style, so I had to !important again to overwrite it. (I didn't want/need black on a dark background).

Changing the channel about TV Remote Control

Imagine if the remote control you're using to watch television isn't a control-only device. If you have Slingbox, you know you can control what you're watching on a remote device, but the idea is to watch that "on the go." What if the idea of Slingbox meshed with the idea of Google TV/Boxee?

Further, what if the device you already have -- an iPad, a netbook, a notebook -- is the new remote control for your HTPC? Sure, it can happen with apps like GoToMyPC or LogMeIn or VNC, but what if the device is more interactive and knows what's on the display?

If you can take away the interface from interfering with what you see on TV (the channel changing notifications, the programming guide, even the commercials) and then present that on the control device, you now have an almost perfect environment for both content consumers and advertisers.

While I understand ads aren't the favorite thing, imagine if the remote could log into a resource like Hulu or Netflix or Facebook to provide you with relevant ad content on the remote so that the large screen content doesn't get interrupted by ads?

The remote control interface, meanwhile, is contained on the remote device, completely. Fully interactive with the viewing device, and the remote *knows* what's on the viewing device. Yes, you can still use the remote device for small simultaneous viewing of what's on the big screen, but all the interactive content is on the remote. Press, click, swipe, touch to change channel, check the IMDB listing for what's on the TV, tweet about what you're watching, do all the other stuff the big screen is trying to do for Google TV.

If done right, this is a two-device media center that changes the way you change the channel. The question won't be "Where's the remote?" You're already using it.

Hope is empty without action

The idea of Hope is audacious. When first I heard on a radio talk show about hope being useless, I felt, "How dare you! That's rather heretical talk, there." Of course, not in so many words. But then, I realized that the point is about those that sit on their hands and hope for a better something. Yes, yes. God is our Hope and Salvation. Got it. But our hope being in the Lord or a Presidential candidate isn't quite enough. Yes, I know. That's rather heretical talk, there. It isn't quite enough because if it was all, nothing would be accomplished. Churches built, lives saved, good works being accomplished -- these things require a slight bit more than simply hoping that they'll come to pass.

No, the idea of Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest of these is Love -- this idea is about the only one of these things that actually requires action: Love.

So, as we get all worked up about climate change (weather happens!), change one can believe in (dooty occurs!) and the great new hope, remember to start with one step in front of the other. Being paralyzed with hope or faith or life leads you nowhere. I wonder ... is that worse than change?

"Change you can believe in" is a stupid slogan.

Why not say, "Poop will happen!" "Tomorrow will come! Count on it!"

"Change you can believe in" is one of the blandest rally cries of all time. It is the epitome of the horribleness of the word "change." It's amazing to me that this is the political slogan of a highly popular candidate. "Hey, I'm for change! The candidate's for change. I believe he can make change!"

Some people think Christians are stupid because they believe in the intangible. Tell me, oh ye who do not believe in God, what makes "change" believable? I tell you what: I believe in change. I believe that things that happen in the next moment will be different from the things that are, now. Change I can believe in? I don't have to rally around a presidential candidate to bring about change. If the rally cry were "Toward a better future", *that* I can hang my hat on.

What if I believe that the change will be demonstratively bad? Heck, the candidate isn't telling me that the change I can believe in is a Good Thing. I'm supposed to fill in the blanks, right? What if I believe in a good change and it goes bad? Oh, that's politics for you. And lawyer-speak: "I never told you what kind of change in my slogan. You only *assumed* it was going to be change for the better."

Yeah. I believe I need a new slogan. Care to change it?

Is it climate change? or Global Warming?

One of the things I keep tucked away in the back of my brain from a time management conference is that "Change" is a bad word. Change is a bad word *on its own* because it indicates movement but not direction. Change is, in mathematical terms, half of the designation of a vector. In order for change itself to be of value, it must be accompanied by direction.

The conversion of wording from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change" is indicative of the "bad word" that "change" is. The Global Warming pundits have tried to convince people that it exists, and have convinced people who might otherwise deny the existence of God, with criteria that they would decry if applied to the existence of God, they would accept whole-heartedly in the case of "Global Warming." Even the points made by Al Gore have been denied by his own graphs. Some esteemed scientists have indicated that, if anything, earth is in a Global Cooling.

So, now, we are inundated by the rather bland scare-term "Climate Change." First, it uses the ambiguous term "Change" (cooler, perhaps? warmer?) and then ignores completely the fact that climates change regardless of human intervention. They just tend to do that. If indeed we're in a climate cooling period for the last ten years (or 12 months?), what are we trying to prevent? And by what means are we humans expected to prevent it?