Joe Enos - Blog

My Sweet Valentine

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:17:28 GMT

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In celebration of Valentine's Day, I'd like to describe the greatest love story ever: my own. The story tells of how I met what became the most important piece of my life, the object of my affection, and truly the most wonderful addition to my previously lonely life.

We met in November 2006, right after Thanksgiving. I'm not ashamed to admit that we were first introduced online, something that is becoming more and more accepted these days. We met in person just a few days later, and I knew from the second I laid eyes on my newest acquaintance that this would be the start of a beautiful relationship, and have had no doubts at all since then.

In our time together, we've shared a great many laughs, some drama, lots of movies, sporting events, and even an occasional music concert. We spend a lot of my free time together, and have grown closer and closer over the years, to the point where we're nearly inseparable.

Of course, like in any relationship, we've had our ups and downs. There have been a few times when I've been unhappy, and even frustrated, with what I've seen and heard. But no matter what disagreements we may have, we always emerge stronger than before. I feel that this is one of the most important aspects of our healthy relationship.

Another helpful tool in our relationship is the fact that we've always taken separate vacations. Not only would it be impractical for us to travel together, sometimes it's just good to spend a few days apart to reflect on your relationship. In addition, being apart makes coming home that much more special - returning home and seeing my true love after being gone for days is one of the most exhilarating feelings I've ever experienced.

Statistically speaking, our love won't last my entire lifetime. Things happen that are out of our control sometimes, and all good things do eventually come to an end. But I'm going to make sure I never take advantage of, and never abuse in any way, my Valentine. The time we do share together is some of the most important in my life, and will continue to be, for as long as we both live.

Happy Valentine's Day to my love, my Panasonic 52LCX66 LCD Projection 52" HDTV.

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SuperBowl XLIV Predictions: Tecmo SuperBowl Style

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:42:09 GMT

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Some people use Madden NFL to predict the outcome of the SuperBowl, but I'm a little behind the times when it comes to video games. My NFL game of choice: Tecmo Super Bowl on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

I set the game up as computer-vs-computer, Saints against the Colts, for an all-out winner-take-all event (You can't pick teams for the SuperBowl, so I had to just pick a preseason game - but I don't think the game knows the difference).

Here's the breakdown of how the game went:

New Orleans wins the toss and chooses to receive.

On the opening drive, running back Craig Heyward rushes in for the first touchdown of the game.

The Colts don't waste much time, and come right back to tie it at 7, following a touchdown by wide receiver Jessie Hester, from quarterback Jeff George.

Not to be outdone, the Saints retake the lead quickly with another rushing touchdown by Craig Heyward, and the score is 14-7 at the end of the first quarter.

Teams trade punts and turnovers in the second quarter, and the score remains 14-7 at halftime.

It's an exciting halftime show, starting with a skydiver jumping into the middle of the field, followed by the crowd joining in the wave, then cheerleaders doing their dance routine, and finally a single cheerleader thrown into the air and having somewhat of a wardrobe malfunction.

In the third quarter, the Colts receive, and charge down the field, topping off their drive with another touchdown from Jeff George to Jessie Hester, making the score 14-14.

After a quick 3-and-out, Colts running back Albert Bentley drives in for a touchdown, giving the Colts their first lead at 21-14.

Saints quarterback Steve Walsh takes this personally, and handles the next score himself, rushing in from 20 yards out to re-tie the score at 21, and taking us to the end of the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, running back Albert Bentley finds his way back into the end zone, and the Colts again lead by a touchdown, 28-21.

On their final drive of the game, the Saints march deep into Indianapolis territory, threatening to tie the game and take it into overtime. After three failed plays, they opt for a foolish running play on 4th and 9, falling several yards short of a first down, with only 20 seconds to go. The Colts run out the clock, ending the game, and becoming champions of SuperBowl XLIV.

With 209 passing yards, Jeff George is chosen as the SuperBowl MVP, and opts to go to DisneyLand.

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Google Chrome 4.0

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:15:11 GMT

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I've supported Mozilla Firefox for a long time. I'm not changing my opinion that Firefox is an amazing piece of technology, but it's time to switch my official favorite browser to the newest version of Google Chrome, version 4.0.

Chrome has made amazing leaps in the industry, starting in late 2008, and already being the browser of choice for a significant number of people across the world. Speed has obviously been Chrome's biggest selling point - application speed and javascript speed are significantly better than any of the other major browsers. With open-source code, and security and basic user-experience on par with the competition, Chrome already had what it takes to be great.

However, with version 4, Chrome introduced the Firefox-killer: extensions. Extensions are what made Firefox special, and Chrome is off to a great start. Firefox has over 5,000 extensions for a wide variety of customizations, from simple appearance to bookmark management, social networking integration, privacy, development, language support, blogging, download management, and dozens of other categories. Basically, if you want to do it online, chances are someone wrote a Firefox extension to help you. I personally have used many extensions in Firefox, and have found them to be invaluable. For example, Linkification converts plain-text URLs into clickable links, saving copy/paste time when saving a bunch of plain-text links. Video DownloadHelper will save nearly all Flash streaming videos (like YouTube or Today's Big Thing onto your disk to watch later, with a simple user interface. And developer tools like Web Developer and Firebug are very useful for developing and debugging web applications.

Chrome now has their own extensions, and while they may not number in the thousands just yet, they're well on their way. Installation couldn't be any easier - most are one-click, like with Firefox. More are being added all the time, so it's just a matter of time before they catch up with Firefox.

Chrome seems to lead the industry in HTML5 support. This support, combined with its fast javascript rendering, make it the perfect browser for new web demos, like the Browser Ball, Intergalactic Oddyssey, and Canvascape.

The speed, support, and especially the introduction of extensions, make Chrome the best of the browsers at this time. Of course, in this ever-changing market, that can change at any time. Firefox 4 or 5 might figure out how to imrpove their speed and get back on top. Who knows, maybe IE9 will even top it. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

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formspring.me

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:35:57 GMT

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I just came across what appears to be the newest "Me, Me, Me" site on the web, something called Formspring.me. This site allows you to answer anonymous questions from anyone, very easily and quickly. From what I've seen, it's just another way for people to share way too much information with the world. I found a review which sums it up nicely: Formspring.Me: The Sociopathic Crack Cocaine of Oversharing.

Not wanting to miss out on the next big thing, I signed up, and answered some of the random questions that it generated for me. As stupid as it sounds, it's actually kind of fun (I think I made this same observation about Twitter). So feel free to jump on and ask away if you want - it's all anonymous if you don't sign up yourself. I'm guessing this will just be one of those things that is fun for a few days until I get bored with it, but you never know...

http://www.formspring.me/jtenos

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2009 NFL Playoff Picks - Take 2

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:40:33 GMT

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Ok, so last week, I didn't have much luck in the first round of the playoffs - but I got one right, and that's the only one that matters.

Now that the second round is coming up, and the final 8-team bracket has been aligned, here's my next attempt at predictions for the rest of the playoffs:

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Star Trek Voyager: Nemesis

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:40:43 GMT

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Tonight I watched the Star Trek: Voyager episode called Nemesis. Kind of a dumb episode, but the dialogue really jumped out. Most of the episode took place on a Vori planet, where they speak English, with several words replaced with stupider versions. Of course, they don't really speak English, but blah blah universal translator blah blah suspension of disbelief etc.

The writers wanted to make sure that you understood what these words meant in their context, by saying them over and over and over and over again. Here's the breakdown of how often they used these words in less than 40 minutes of screen-time:

Nemesis [their specific enemy] (31 times)
Nullify [kill] (24 times)
Glimpse [see] (22 times)
Fathom [know/understand] (12 times)
New-light [dawn] (7 times)
Sphere [planet] (7 times)
Sharp [smart/clever] (7 times)
Drill [teach] (6 times)

I'm sure it's common to say one or two words over and over again in an episode, but this many just got ridiculous. Like: "How many will you nullify", "the Nemesis will nullify you", " never told an unkind word nor nullified an insect", "I'll nullify the beast", "Then the nemesis you nullified", "Your fleet colours will get us all nullified", and it just kept going on like that.

I've picked on Voyager once before - I don't mean to keep ripping on the show - it's really not bad, and got better toward the end of the series. But for some reason I enjoy nitpicking about this kind of thing.

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JTWeb 3.0

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:32:51 GMT

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I just released a new version of my website and blog. There were a lot of administrative changes that you won't see, but the major changes you will see are as follows:

Color scheme
The color scheme has gone from dark blue to dark red, and the blog entry background gradient is lighter, making the text easier to read. I was working on some fonts, but couldn't find a better set of fonts. I'm not saying that mine are the best choice, just that I am so unartistic that I can't find something better. I was also working on some animations like expanding pseudo-popup-windows, and although they worked very well in Chrome and adequately in Firefox, Safari, and Opera, Internet Exploder runs so slowly that I had to give up - the effects just looked like crap. Maybe I'll try some more ideas later, or maybe Microsoft will actually build a good browser someday that runs javascript fast (yeah, like that will happen).

Blog search
I've added the ability to search blog entries and comments for given text. With close to 150 blog entries, it may be hard to find old entries, even with the tags in place, so I figured it was time to introduce this function.

Comments awaiting moderation
When someone leaves a comment on a blog entry, unless it's coming from a trusted source, I have to approve the comment before it will appear. I added a feature so that if you leave a comment that is awaiting moderation, you'll see the comment yourself with a note telling you that it's awaiting moderation. This is one of many features that are in major blog providers like WordPress, that I'm incorporating into mine. In the future, look for things like OpenID integration, automated Facebook comment integration, and links to link-sharing sites.

Photos
There's a new page for my photos: http://www.jtenos.com/photos.aspx. This page allows me to organize my photos into albums. Right now there are only two albums: one from my vacation last summer, and one when I first got my cats. With this page and database solution, I can easily add more photos quickly without a lot of manual manipulation like I had to in the past.

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2009 NFL Playoff Picks

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:58:19 GMT

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Here is my complete set of predictions for the NFL playoffs:

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Dominos new pizza

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:39:23 GMT

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Video: The Pizza Turnaround

Tonight I tried the new Domino's Pizza that they've been advertising like crazy, described as "a completely new pizza reinvented from the crust up". They have changed everything from the crust to the cheese to the sauce, supposedly all for the better.

The advertising makes a big deal about the cheese, that it's "100% real mozzarella", which makes me wonder what it was before - they don't really say, but apparently it used to be some artificial crap. The new cheese, flavored with a little provolone, seems to work pretty well - I don't notice a huge difference with the new cheese - it's still nowhere near as good as Papa Murphy's, but it does seem to be a bit of an improvement over the old one.

The next big change was the sauce. Domino's describes the new sauce as sweeter and bolder, with new herbs, a little red pepper, and apparently some kind of sugar that provides the new sweetness. The sauce is definitely different - the sweetness reminds me a little of the Pizza Hut Pizza Mia, which is their sweeter alternative to their standard pizza. There's a tiny hint of the red pepper, definitely not overpowering, and just enough to give a little more flavor. I'd say the new Domino's sauce is good, but again it's not the freshest, and not as good as Papa Murphy's.

Probably the most noticeable change is with the original hand-tossed crust. From what I can tell, the thin and thick crusts have not changed, only the original. They seem to have been inspired by Hungry Howie's Pizza, a place famous for lots of flavored crusts. Unfortunately, Domino's didn't add multiple good crust options - they picked one flavor and went with it, and went with it, and went with it, then added more, then took it a step further, and after it was all over, doubled how much stuff they dumped onto the crust. It's definitely too much, and while it's not a bad flavor, I don't think it will work as a standard crust even if they did tone it down a little. I understand that they didn't want a boring, generic crust, but I don't think they have it right yet.

Overall, I found the new Domino's pizza to be different, but not significantly better. My ranking for national fast pizza chains remains as follows: Papa Murphy's, Shakey's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Hungry Howie's, Peter Piper Pizza, Domino's Pizza, and Little Caesars (although the $5 large pizza is the best when you only feel like spending 5 bucks).

Video: Avoid the Noid

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Social Networking

blog@jtenos.com (Joe Enos) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:36:08 GMT

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There are a lot of social networking sites out there, each with their own purpose and audience. To help you sort them all out, here's a handy guide with my interpretation of these sites as if they were physical locations (in no particular order):

Facebook: You're sitting at a large table with a lot of people, mostly friends and family, but also a few people you hardly know, or friends of friends. People make small talk, and fairly often a conversation is started that may involve a couple people or a large group of people. There are card games and board games going on that you can join in. There are also several tables around you with people you don't know, but who share common interests with you - you can slide over there and join those conversations as well.

Twitter: You are standing in a very large room full of people, some of whom you know, some you don't, and everyone is yelling things at random. Occasionally you hear something that interests you, but most of the time it's just people talking to hear themselves talk. You join in the fun by shouting about what you had for breakfast or how bad traffic was this morning, but no one is listening. Even though it sounds stupid, you enjoy it anyway.

MySpace: A large room is filled with amateur rock bands with groupies, all playing loud and obnoxious music. There's an aura of marijuana around the room, and the lights are flashing on and off, and changing color from white to red to orange to blue, and occasionally turn off completely. Aside from the "musicians" and their followers, there are a large number of pick-pockets and muggers, looking for people to attack, as well as shady characters looking to sell you "authentic" jewelry and electronics at a huge discount.

Delicious: There's a giant bulletin board where people write down their favorite places to go and tack it to the wall. You really only care about your own list, but once in a while you get curious and peek over at someone else's. You may notice that they like some of the same places you do, so you write down some of their places on your list and maybe try them out someday. Whenever you forget how to get somewhere, you stop here and look at your list.

LinkedIn: Everyone is wearing nice clothes, as if they are on a job interview. Business cards are constantly being passed out between current and former colleagues. You find groups of people in your profession to talk to, mostly about work. When you're happily employed, you don't come here very often, but when you're looking for work, you stop by quite a bit.

Classmates: You're walking down the street, and there are two doors: Door number one leads to a room where you can find your friends and family, play games, meet new people, and have all kinds of fun, all for free. Outside of door number two is a sign with people's names that you went to high school with, but if you want to see if they're inside, you have to pay the bouncer $40, and they kick you out after a year. Once inside, you realize that no one else is here - they all went to door number one. Guess which one Classmates is...

Friendster: A big empty room.

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