I still have 2 GMail accounts to give away. If you are still looking for one just e-mail me at ssegraves [at] badice dot com.

Talking with some photography students and a coworker I have come under the impression that the Canon AE-1 is arguably one of the best cameras ever made. From ease of use to the quality in which the pictures are taken, the AE-1 is at the top of the list.

Since it is an older model I have been searching Ebay for people selling their used ones. I have come across a lot for sale but I am somewhat unwilling to commit to one. Do I go digital? Or do I use a tried and true method for taking pictures?

I am looking for two PC’s now, one to replace my current one and one for work. I am looking into getting a new workstation for programming at work, my bosses have told me that the current one just isn’t cutting it.

At home I just need a new PC because mine doesn’t have any “umph”. I still want a laptop but I would also like a desktop, now I just need to figure out exactly what I want. I don’t need the most high-end machine out there but it would be great to get something decent that would be upgradeable in the future (my current computer isn’t very upgradeable).

So I will be spending my free time looking up prices and specs on new computers.

Just for the record, I really do not enjoy phone meetings. I don’t enjoy long phone conversations for that matter, unless it’s someone I really want to talk to.

This morning was a meeting with another client on the east coast who we have been doing some programming for. He’s a smart guy but he doesn’t understand the concept of being billed for new development and fixing bugs. If there’s a bug in the work we have done for him, we fix it, no problem. However, when he wants a feature completely changed or something new added that means billable hours.

I am not sure if he understands that we cannot make exceptions for him and bend the rules, so I basically had to stop him and tell him that the things he was asking for were all billable. That cleared the air right away and the rest of the phone conversations went over well.

I am still making decisions as to how I want to get music in the future. I am torn between iTunes because of its ease of use and just buying music at the store and ripping it. The AAC format that Apple has decided to encode their music in is not compatible with WinAmp (my music player of choice) and that is a huge downside. WinAmp too has its own share of downfalls. You can no longer rip CDs to MP3 format without paying WinAmp $14.95, a small amount of money, but it still defeats the purpose.

So lately I have been messing with different rippers and encoders to see which one I like best. I’ll let you all know when I make a decision.

We are in for another one of God’s light shows tonight. There is a storm headed this way from just south of Amarillo and from here (about 120 miles away) you can see most of it.

It is amazing to see huge storm clouds lit up by lightning at night. You see nothing and then a bolt of lightning and you see a huge mass of a cloud. If I had a digital camera I would take some pictures and share them.

Development at work is going very well. Tomorrow we should finish up our work on one aspect of the project and we will start discussing the way to move forward to port our work to the other sub-companies of this bank. We are trying our best to keep the sites molded together on the front and in the database aspect. My co-worker (Andrew) is a really good database designer and has done a spectacular job laying out the current database so all that lays ahead is planning to extend the database to even more companies. Should go well but we’ll see.

Well, I finally got my computer back all fixed up. They put in a cheap 250 Watt Power Supply so I may have to go buy a new one of those. Since my computer is running two harddrives and an extra CD-RW I eat up more power and the 250W doesn’t cut it. I am thinking a 400W will do just fine, but we’ll see.

I’m just happy that I have it back…

Well the article that Segars Communications is featured in was released this morning. The Avalanche Journal ran the story on the front of its “Vista” section. You can read the full article here.

I personally cannot believe they quoted me as saying, “I like messing with new stuff”… I don’t remember saying that, ever.

Finally was able to get the database restored and it doesn’t look like anything was lost.

I am still waiting to get my computer back but I am drooling over the Asus S5Ne. I am torn between that computer and a 15″ Powerbook.

Both are really cool computers but you can’t beat the 2.2lb weight of the Asus and the Powerbook’s screen size is a big plus… Decisions, decisions… I guess it all comes down to what I want to do with it, which is simple, programming. Most of the programming I do can be done on either one but I would need to relearn the OS itself if I bought the Powerbook. I would also need to relearn the tools…

The tough choices life throws our way.

Keep on the lookout for anything suspicious when browsing websites because it looks like there is a new virus/trojan out that is causing havoc. This Yahoo! News story gives more insight to the virus and what it is doing. Another one focuses on the financial implications.

The way it looks now is that this virus is shutting sites down and installing malicious code on a users computer to get bank account numbers, credit card info, etc.

If you go to a site and are asked to download anything before continuing, do not do it. This thing is nasty and I haven’t seen any updates by Symantec as of yet.