Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Month: December 2006 (page 1 of 2)

Adobe Flash 9 for MacBook Pro

December 23, 2006 / / 3 Comments

Last week all my flash applications suddenly quit working. I tried several times to update flash, but with no success. I would download the player, click install, and upon completing installation it would send me back to a page requesting that I update. A mad circle. Felt like I was stuck in some twisted online merry go round. Unfortunately, I’ve been working on so many side projects (like antiquing a nativity set) that I didn’t have time to track down a solution.

Last night while I was sitting up in the middle of the night, I thought hey this would be a good chance to solve this. After a fe searches, I landed on Versiontracker with better troubleshooting advice than the Adobe troubleshooting section. If you have this problem with an Intel-based mac, here’s the advice I picked uu from Jim Kessler:

I’ve been working on a client’s machine where “you don’t have the Flash plug-in installed” appeared after installation and redirection to:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about/index.html

Uninstalling and reinstalling had no effect. The solution? Repairing permissions with Disk Utlility. Then I ran the uninstaller (look on the Flash Player Support Center), and reran the installer, and everything worked.

BTW, check out versiontracker either way. It provides daily updates on software/freeware suff with comments (and troubleshooting tips).

The Christmas Spirit

December 21, 2006 / / 1 Comment

I posted some more advent stuff over at Floydville this week. Here’s an excerpt from the latest:

Each year, I hear at least one person say, “Are you in the Christmas spirit?” Or another might say, “I just don’t feel like Christmas this year.” Year after year the refrain rolls on. I’m not always sure what the “Christmas spirit” is or feels like. But I think it has something to do with the anticipation and wonder experienced by many children.

Of course, most children live in a state of wonder from moment to moment. They might spend hours playing with their Christmas toys or they might spend hours playing with the boxes that held the Christmas toys.

Unfortunately most adults live in a world divorced from wonder, so naturally the Christmas spirit might seem elusive. Just as the anticipation of the tooth fairy, the hopes of finding a leprechaun, or the delight of a refrigerator box might also seem elusive.

Read the rest

Google Checkout – Short Term Loss for Long Term Payoff

December 20, 2006 / / 0 Comments

NYT offers an interesting update on Google Checkout.

Here are my highlights: Aggressively pursuing merchants, Google Checkout waived transaction fees in November (through the end of 2007), and it has also been Checkout users $10 off $30 purchases at many e-commerce sites and, in some cases, $20 off $50 orders. In fact, Google is prepared to lose money on every transaction for the next year. Why?

They see long term payoffs in expanding their base of advertising.

 “It’s a way to incentivize more merchants to join our network,” said Benjamin Ling, a product manager for Checkout. “We want everyone who sells online to be a Google advertiser.”

The advantages for merchants include current savings, and a model that helps merchants generate more sales leads by increasing click-through rates.

Read the article at NYT.

Santa Spreads Cheer in Jewish Neighborhood

December 20, 2006 / / 1 Comment

20santa2_lg.jpg

NY Times tells the tale today of a Santa celebrating the season with Jewish families in Hollywood. Apparantly, Marie Loomis-Shrier, a Jewish lady, loves Christmas displays and fills her yard with lights, candy canes, snow, and Santa. Sitting on her porch, Santa exclaims, “What is this Hanukkah you speak of?”

A Vision of the Peaceable Kingdom

December 14, 2006 / / 0 Comments

What a treasure from Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation:

The marvelous vision of the peaceable Kingdom, in which all violence has been overcome and all men, women, and children live in loving unity with nature, calls for its realisation in our day-to-day lives. Instead of being an escapist dream, it challenges us to anticipate what it promises. Every time we forgive our neighbor, every time we make a child smile, every time we show compassion to a suffering person, every time we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to tame or wild animals, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for peace and justice among peoples and nations we are making the vision come true.

We must remind one another constantly of the vision. Whenever it comes alive in us we will find new energy to live it out, right where we are. Instead of making us escape real life, this beautiful vision gets us involved.

Danger Will Robinson….Bad Barbie On the Loose!

December 12, 2006 / / 1 Comment

Hide your children, put away the pets! ABC reports that a new Barbie has some strange quirk: push her button the wrong way and she may call your child a slut! Yikes-a-hooty! I think your safer with a sock doll.

Web 2.0 Advent Calendar

December 11, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Celebrate advent and learn more about new web technologies at the same time. Check out hte Web 2.0 Advent Calendar. And while you’re at it, why not spend a little time with an Advent Calendar about Advent.

Also check out these advent calendars:

An Episcopal Diocese of Washington Advent calendar with interesting art, meditatins, and opportunities to help the needy.

Electric December offers a mutli-media advent calendar with dreams for improving our world.

Find out a little Christmas history at the New York Carver’s Advent Calendar.

Beliefnet offers an Advent calendar with meditations and interesting links.

Easy Bake Make Your Own Mashup

December 8, 2006 / / 0 Comments

if you’re like me, you’d rather leech onto someone else’s brainpower, than try to do too much figuring out yourself. Some when it comes to technology that allows me to create quite painlessly (from a mental sense), I’m on board! Like ning, openkracow is a open source site that shares code and make creating applications fairly simply. This site is focused on craiting masup. Pretty cool.

Another Twist on Social Searching

December 8, 2006 / / 3 Comments

I’ve explored a few different social searching sites, but nothing really grabbed me or made me feel like I was missing something if I didn’t use them. Not sure if this one will be any different, but it has some interesting features. Searchles allows you to connect with other folks who are doing similar search and post those searches to a common pool. Sort of a social my delicious I guess. You can search tags and groups to find like minded searchers. And the idea behind it is that people may find potential networking parnters for business, creative projects, etc. I notice several business groups on their, so this might have some interesting possiblitites. Time will tell.

Discover Musical Soul Mates

December 8, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Uplay me promises to track your listening preferences and connect you with other people who listen to the same music. Could be interesting, could be freaky.

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