The Good Life... a weblog about life, technology, and the Opera Web browser

Also celebrating a March birthday, 0(zero)format turned one yesterday. Following their example, I wanted to note that, according to Atomz, I've published 77869 words since this site began as Tim's Blog a year ago.

My sister just called me (from Syracuse) and asked me to look up the two names of He-man's tiger. I guess that's what I get for bragging that I can find anything on the Internet.

Sometimes I find myself spending hours on a single post. It's not writer's block that makes the minutes tick away, but my perfectionism. I often proofread my posts two or three times, making small adjustments here and there. I find myself writing fewer and fewer long posts due to the enormous amount of time it takes to write them. Hopefully I'll be able to speed things up with practice.

Now if I could just devote that much attention to my school work....

That's right, today is Stranger, yet...'s first birthday. The site isn't that different from the way it was originally: I'm still using the same template, I'm still writing about the same mix of techie and Christian things, and I'm still as neurotic as I ever. Some things have gotten better and I hope it's made the experience better. Got any suggestions to help things improve? I always have an open ear.

Want to see how far the site has really come? Check out the first post.

I don't have a large readership, but that doesn't bug me. Most of the people that do read my site consistently are my friends: Trina, Helen, and Jackie immediately come to mind. If there are others, thanks. I'm glad that I've been able to entertain you this past year and I hope I can continue to do so for as long as I keep this thing going. So, here's to the future and whatever it may bring. Cheers.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Stranger.

For some reason, my site seems to be inaccessbile at the moment. Let's see if we can figure out how to fix it....

Update: 'twas a server problem. If you're reading this, then it's fixed.

I ran across a couple free software titles over the past week, though I haven't tried them yet:

• Cygwin is a Unix-style command interface for the Windows environment, including many Unix tools.
• Xenu's Link Sleuth is a spider program designed to find broken links on web pages. The program should be particularly helpful for this site.

Since I'm an unemployed college student, I'm usually looking for low-cost computer software. And what's more low-cost than free? So, here are some free software titles that I'm already using:

• Leech FTP is the best FTP program I've ever used. It queues downloads, copies links from the clipboard, and has a great interface. The only real drawback is that development of the program has been discontinued, as the developer focuses on a more fully featured downloading client, BitBeamer.
• PuTTY is simply a great telnet client. It keeps an address book, works with SSH, and is highly configurable.
• VNC allows you to remotely connect to any Unix-based or Windows computer (and possibly others too)where the VNC server is running. I often use it in my room to work on the Linux systems on campus or, on occasion, to work on the system in my room from other computers around campus. Note: this program can easily be used to freak out unsuspecting roommates.
• AbiWord is a developing replacement for Microsoft Word. It still has some bugs to work out, but it works fairly well as a replacement right now. It easily reads and writes most Microsoft Word documents. Also check out Open Office for a Microsoft Office alternative.

Those are most of the obscure free apps I use. One that needs no introduction is WinAmp. If you don't mind ads, also check out Opera, Eudora, and ACDSee. You don't have to pay a lot for a great program.