digitalBush

As some of you know, I have created a couple of jQuery plugins.  It appears that some people are taking notice and it's driving traffic to my site.  It's kind of neat to see the hits grow on a daily basis.  It's a dorky thing to be proud of, but at least I know when I post a blog entry someone who is not in my family will read it.

While I'm at it, I should update everyone on my projects.I've been inundated with side work lately, but I do have a few things to roll out in the very near future.  I will be releasing a revision to my Masked Input Plugin that addresses a few bugs.  I think this may actually be the 1.0 release!  I will also be releasing a watermarking plugin that provides inline help for data entry.  I've already found a use for it in one of my side projects.

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to share.  The grand am I was driving finally died.  It was a POS, but it got decent gas mileage and transported me to and from work (sometimes).  I am now the proud owner of an '07 Grand Prix.  Once again, I've been busy, so no pictures yet, but I will post some later.

Okay, I just wanted to put this out there for those of you who don't know.  If someone happens to be running power tools (especially those that cut things), it is not a good idea to scream their name to get their attention.  Generally, it is way better to wait until they are finished.  This rule does not apply if their is some kind of emergency.  Said emergency had better be damn important; important enough to justify the power tool operator being horribly disfigured. 

Thankfully nothing happened to me, but someone who shall remain anonymous scared the wee out of me last night while I was cutting some steel with die grinder.  Nothing says "Hey Josh, come look at this" like 10,000 RPM of spinning cutoff wheel being loose in my hands.  Also, their reason for needing me was not life threatening and could have waited the 30 seconds it would have taken me to finish.  This concludes my power tool safety lesson for the day, you will now be returned to your scheduled programming.

I just wanted to take a second to talk about a few tech things I've signed up for and how they have affected my life.  This may be old news to some of you, but since I'm a late adopter, it's news to me. 

• TiVo - We got this a couple of years ago.  It allows me to record all kinds of television and watch it when I want to.  Also, it allows me to blow past the commercials.  It's networked with my PCs and allows me to share music, pictures and video with them. 
• Roomba - I was skeptical on this one, but after I saw this at a friends house, we had one shortly thereafter.  It vacuums the house while we are gone during the day.  I come home and empty the dirt it picked up.  The dog hates it, but that's another story.
• iPod - I just recently bought a 30G video iPod.  This little gizmo has enhanced my 10 hours/week of commute time significantly.  Also, I now have tunes when I'm running.  It's way easier to run with music!
• Netflix - We also just got this.  Movies magically come to my mailbox.  I watch them and put them back.  Three days later another movie comes.  We did the 2-at-a-time for $14.95.  If you rent movies at all, this is well worth it.  No more driving to the video store just to find out that they are sold out of the movie you want.