of Blogs and Backgrounds at 4:06 PM

Recently all of my friends have been getting backgrounds from www.thecutestblogontheblock.com (with the exception of a few). I have done this as well and I have a little technical wisdom to offer on the subject.

Basically, I liked my background, but I didn't like the little blue box in the upper left hand corner. So, I checked out the HTML source code and it's actually pretty easy to remove.

Alrighty, when you copy the source code from www.thecutestblogontheblock.com, you get something like this:

So here's what you do; just remove everything that's inside this red rectangle that I've added to this picture:

once it's done, your code should look like this:

Just save the gadget it's in and you're in business!

Hope this was helpful! :-)

-Graydon L

Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in... at 1:07 PM

Here's a funny new ad from Microsoft. Starring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates.

Now if I could only figure out what Microsoft is advertising...

-Graydon L

Our Computers... Have Issues at 7:10 PM

In our home, we have several computers. Jonny and I share one in the office, it used to be Mom's but she got a new one (that computer #2). Mom has one, it's in the dining room/kitchen area thingy. Dad has 3... a personal laptop, a work laptop, and a formerly work laptop gone personal.

Anyway, Jonny and I had to install a new CD drive in Mom's computer but in the process somehow killed the keyboard and mouse. To make matters worse, none of our other old keyboards would work! We did however find a USB mouse that worked.

So there we were, with two computers and only a single mouse between them. Ouch.

Well, at first we didn't have a clue what to do and I figured we'd just have to buy two new keyboards and a new mouse. But eventually my incredibly amazing oversized brain came up with an idea: "what if they're not working because you have to plug them in when the computer is turned off?" So we try it... and it works! I almost leaped for joy! I thought I'd have to share a mouse with Mom and use the stupid "on-screen keyboard" that comes with windows for the rest of my life!

Alright, so that's my little update, I still can't wait to get my braces off!

Hope y'all like the background!

-Graydon L

Google ScetchUp at 10:12 PM

Well, I've checked out Google ScetchUp, and I must say, It's a lot of fun! you can do sooooo much with it! Here's a couple screen shots I took of some models I made:

This was a test to do with creating objects with transparency, I think it turned out quite nicely. I call this model "the hologram thingy"

This is my very first "serious" model. I actually had the idea in my head and I put it on the screen. since then I've learned more about the tools and I think I would have done this differently, but I still think it's pretty cool! I call this one "the Grand Cannon Defense Turret"

And then I made this scale model of a Boeing 747... you, uh... don't believe me huh? Oh, Phooey. No, I didn't make this one, I downloaded it from Google's Vast array of user-created models. If you can think of it, Google has a 3D model!

Well, That's my quick update of what I've been doing lately!

Oh, and one more thing! I get my braces off in 3 weeks! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

:-D (that's me... braces-less)

-Graydon L

The Quiz!! at 6:13 PM

According to Melissa, I have to copy and paste this "quiz" into a post.

Here goes!

My Favorites:

Movie: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (extended version)

Movie Character: Legolas

Book: Rebels Keep

Book Character: Duncan McKieth

Jane Austen Novel: N/A

Jane Austen Movie/Mini Series: N/A

Jane Austen Character: N/A

Poet: Shel Silverstien

Poem: Zebra Question

Type of Music: COUNTRY!!!!

Song: Bob That Head by Rascal Flatts

Quote: "It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes" -Joseph Stalin

Costume that you own: my camouflage airsoft gear

School Subject: History

Book of the Bible: Hmm... probably Exodus or Joshua

Bible Character: It's practically impossible to pick one.

Bible Verse: Joshua 24:15 "... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"

Historical Time Period: oh, Gee... I can't pick one, but my three favorite are 1800-1815 (covering the Napoleonic wars), 1850-1865 (covering all thing Ft. Nisqually and the American Civil war), and 1903-1969 (from the Wright brothers first flight to the Apollo 11 mission, also enveloping both world wars)

Website: Yahoo, Blogger, Google, or GL's Highlights :-)

Hobbies: Airsoft, drawing, computer stuff, eating, sleeping etc.

Animal: what guy in his right mind wouldn't pick a T-Rex!

-Graydon L

Yet another LEGO creation at 5:26 PM

Well, here's yet another of my LEGO creations. I started out making a car with different flaps and retractable wing etc. that could house secret weapons :-) But it kinda ended up turning into another transformer. 

check it out:

A nice typical-car-angle shot.

Before the transformation...

...and after :-)

I didn't remove any pieces in between the times when I took those pictures, I just folded, flopped, and maneuvered the different components on their hinges to shrink the car down to almost half it's original width.

-Graydon L

the Urban Wild at 3:56 PM

Well, as you know, I don't exactly live way out in the sticks... But I still get my share of wildlife!

This is one of the Praying Mantises that we released about a month ago. He's about twice the size of when I last posted about them.

No, he's not going to eat my finger.

This is my Venus fly trap that Mom bought for me last week. I've had a lot of fun watching it eat bugs and stuff!

And just today Jonny and I found a 6-7 inch Garter snake! We've seen lots of other large snakes, but it's still cool to find one again.

-Graydon L

Google's Latest Cool Stuff at 7:35 PM

Here's a little project I put together about Google's new Earth program, Enjoy!

Thank you Google for writing this absolutely amazing program!

I've also just downloaded another new Google program for designing 3D objects, but I have yet to try it out. Maybe on Monday... ;-)

-Graydon L

Lipstick in Politics at 8:48 PM

Recently we've been hearing a lot about lipstick on the political scene, and I thought it would be fun to put up all the videos I could find of politicians referring to lipstick in they're speeches. Here's what I found:

listed in chronological order

Recently, because of this statement by Sen. Obama, A lot of people think (given the fact that Sarah Palin does wear lipstick) he was calling her a pig.

Personally, I think that's ridiculous. It's a common phrase, it's funny, and it illustrates the point Obama is trying to get across.

What do you think?

-Graydon L

SRM - Google Chrome at 10:21 PM

Well, I know It's supposed to be movie review Monday, but this week I'm doing something a bit differently: Software Review Monday.

Google Chrome Beta

Created by: Google

Features: Multiple tabs, startup page showing your most visited pages, simplistic and "Vista-like" design, user friendly interface, open source code, fully customizable.

Overview: In this fast new Browser from Google has, in my mind, created something beautiful. A simple, easy to learn, and stylish design let you see more of the web page you're visiting, and less of the browser you using to see it. It is in the Google designers terms, the "invisible browser".

Genre: Browser, Beta test, free download

My Take: While no where near Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox when it comes to task bars, search fields, and little buttons with cool icons, Chrome allows you to do everything that IE and Firefox allows and even more. 

At first, I saw it as weak and small, but over time, I have come to know the true potential of this powerful browser. Lets take a look at some features:

Tabs: sure, you may not think that tabs are a big deal, but with Chrome, they are a very important part of your Internet browsing. In IE for example, if you are surfing the web with several tabs open, and you run across a corrupted file on the web page you are visiting and IE crashes, you lose everything you had open, not only the tabs in the instance of IE you are running, but all other instances as well. With chrome, each tab is in it's own little world completely separate from the other tabs, so if for some reason it has to shut down, you only lose that one tab. Also, if you are loading a video in one tab, that loading isn't going to be slowed down if all-of-a-sudden, you have 23 new monsters to kill in the game you are playing in a different tab.

The Search Field: Not only does this bad boy let you search, and type in addresses, but you can chose which search engine you want it to be powered by! Also, when you start typing, it shows you search suggestions, already visited web pages, the most popular searches matching what you have typed so far, and what web pages are in your favorites!

Unrivaled Speed: As you know, IE has been released and re-released over and over again; there are more versions than I can count on both hands! Because of this, it just keeps getting clunkier and clunkier. Also, when the first version was created it was designed for just looking at web pages... people in today's Internet aren't just looking at web pages; they're watching videos, playing games, listening to music, and downloading files. Google Chrome was designed from the bottom up for these purposes in particular, while IE still has code in it written years ago. Because of it's In-The-Now "construction" it features speed unrivaled by any other browser I've seen. It's also a very small, lightweight program that doesn't take a lot of juice to run, making it even faster still.

These three features are only part of the many things you get with chrome, others include the ability to view the source code and even modify it, and HTML and JavaScript editor, and many easy to understand options menus. for example, in IE, the options window has several tabs labeled "General", "security", "privacy", "content", "connections", "programs" and "advanced". In Chrome they are "basic", "minor tweaks" and "under-the-hood". Now which list would you rather have?

Overall, Chrome is better for the average Joe, the techno-peasant, and the computer programmer. I would chose it over Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox any day.

Overall: 10 out of 10

__________________________________________________

One more thing, I've been really cluttering the sidebar recently, and I'm getting rid of my "Free Software I Recommend" element, But I want you all to be able to still see the links and short descriptions. Here, in this post, they shall live on in infamy :-)

GTK's GIMP 2.4
This amazing photo editing software, is really quite powerful, and compared to other photo editing softwares, is pretty easy to use as well.

Wisdom-Soft's ScreenHunter
Fast, Easy, and powerful screen capture program offering great quality and 3 modes of capture. Upgradable to "Paid" and "Pro" versions for $20 and $30.

YoYo Games' Game Maker
Although a little hard to get used to at first, this fantastic GML (game maker language) editing software. YoYoGames.com also offers several easy-to-use tutorials!

Google's Google Earth 4.3
If you have used Google Earth before, you will absolutely adore the latest version of it. all new 3d buildings, and you can click on some landmarks for more info! Upgradable to "Plus" and "Pro" versions for $20 and $400.

If you have any cool software for me to try out, shoot me an email or leave a comment with a link!
(it's OK if the link doesn't work, I'll just copy and paste it into my browser)

-Graydon L

What do YOU want changed? at 10:30 PM

OK, I know I haven't posted in a while, but I ask that you please forgive me, I was just recently at the Christian Heritage Father-Son retreat and naturally, I wasn't able to bring my desktop computer with me, nor any of my other accessories that go with it (yup, the speakers, sub woofer, ergonomic keyboard, laser mouse, printer, modem, router, Kleenex box, and all my many desk plants all had to stay)

Anyway, lets get back on track here. Basically, My blog feels boring... downright boring.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting more than a little annoyed looking at that dumb profile picture every time I log in.

Over the next little while, I want to hear EVERYTHING you have to say about my blog... no really!

I want to tell me what you ABSOLUTELY HATE about this little corner of the Internet!

You think the sidebar is cluttered... TELL ME! You think I'm a dork... TELL ME! (well, Melissa doesn't need to, she tells me that all the time anyway) You think I use bold, italics ,colors and sizing too much... TELL ME!

If you are thinking anything about this blog, I want to hear it!

You can email me, talk to me in person, or better yet, comment so that everyone can see your input! Go to it, lets hear some noise!!!!!

Also, on a side note, you may notice that there is a new sidebar element I just put up called My Followers. This is a simple yet fun little tracker that allows people to say which blogs they read. You don't have to run a blog to participate, all you need is a blogger account. Just log in to your dashboard and you can add blogs you read by URL. It's that easy! If the owners of the blogs you follow put up this element, your name and profile image appears there! Of course, you can choose to be anonymous in this, but I don't see why you would.

Thanks for your participation! LET'S HEAR IT!!!!!!

-Graydon L

The Door to my Room at 6:01 PM

Every once in a while, I make a new sign for the door to my room, this is my latest concoction :-)

hope you can read it :-I

Also, I would like to direct your attention to the sidebar of the blog, there are two new elements I would like you to view; the NASA Picture of the Day, and a new poll right below it. I have allowed you to select multiple answers simply because it's almost imposible to select one as the best of all of the answers I could think up :-)

-Graydon L