The fight is close to home for me. I have suffered from General Anxiety until the age of 30, when I took up long-distance running and began to have my anxiety under-control. Growing up, I always began the day with this intense worry feeling in my guts that something was going to go wrong and I worried about everything. I didn’t know that what I had was anxiety until I went back to school to study psychology. Ironically, that was a year after I began running and discovered that I could control my worries.

Wayne certainly deserves to be applauded.

The other thing about OpenDNS is that it is fast, fast, fast — for me, it makes web surfing noticeably faster than using the default DNS servers I get from Comcast.

I have noticed this ‘speed’ boost as well as what appears to be a quicker consumption of DNS changes than that of my ISP, Cox Communications.

This is in addition to the management and security features offered through OpenDNS, including those mentioned by Rob Griffiths:

Consumer Reports touted Firefox or Opera over Safari because of the built-in anti-phishing tools in those first two browsers; Safari has no such built-in capability. There is, however, a free service you can use that will give every browser on your Mac a full set of anti-phishing tools (and additional tools, if you choose to use them). This service is called OpenDNS, and it’s a free replacement for your Internet service provider’s (ISP) domain name servers.

Which is to say using OpenDNS would be a worthwhile option for anyone using a browser.

That’s it.

Why the sudden motivation? Quite honestly I had just grown tired of the site not representing its owner, me. A redesign has been long overdue and I hope to gradually revive the aging design and functionality. Granted, I also need to toss in some much needed content.

My newest hurdle is figuring out how to incorporate more of the development projects I have been working on over the past few years into what is a largely design-based sampling of work. My focus, after-all, has shifted far more into the realm of software engineering than before.

For now, I'm just pleased that I took the relatively few hours it required to get this much done.

If How the West Was Won sounded any huger, we’d each only get to listen to it once, then we’d die. Huge.

Start with “Immigrant Song.” Hammer of the Gods, indeed.

Mmm… Good stuff.

In postwar America, everything pointed to a bright, shiny future. Sheer optimism and opulence informed everything from automobile design to architecture, infusing design with larger-than-life planes and curves. Storefront design of the era is particularly indicative of this phenomenon…

In terms of traffic, Tokyo station is the center of Tokyo. That’s why Google (which is slowly becoming a metaphor of the Internet itself) has moved from Shinjuku to Tokyo Station. Google continues to push new modules into the main lines in an attempt to occupy the center circle.

This all, of course, fits nicely in with Google’s terms for participating in AdSense. As such, those who are ‘found guilty’ have little recourse or options for legal action. Any money one has earned as a part of the program is funneled back to the advertising participants, regardless of whether a dime of it was legitimately accrued.

It is certainly understandable that Google wants to minimize fraudulent clicks so as to protect its advertisers’ investments and its own reputation. The advertisers who participate in the AdSense program are already taking a gamble that click-throughs will lead to a purchase or other such monetary gain. Google has a responsibility to see that these investments made are not being abused.

But it appears that Google has become overzealous in its crackdown on click-fraud. There is a level of expectation when it comes to false positives in a system of this magnitude. The problem is in how Google is approaching possible abuses of the system. Sites with suspected, invalid clicks are given only one notice, that their AdSense account has been canceled. What is absent in this communication is any information on appealing the decision. There are ways to attempt an appeal, but such attempts rarely appear to be met with anything short of rejection.

As was mentioned prior, and what appears to be the greatest disservice to its customer base, Google will not provide information (or evidence) as to how the clicks in question were determined to be invalid, nor will any be given as to aid the account holder in determining where said clicks occurred or originated from. Thus, even if an AdSense participant is innocent of any involvement in the supposed click-fraud, there is little that can be done on their part to prove that innocence.

Oddly enough, the information that Google requests when one does attempt to appeal an account cancellation is comprised of the very details that Google is already in possession of.

Google may certainly have lived up to its mantra of “do no evil”, but the manner in which it has done so might have more to do with how it walks the line between ‘evil’ and basic customer disservice.

[Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I previously been a participant of Google’s AdSense program. The opinion expressed here is purely as a close observer of how the policies involved can negatively impact those, likely, rare cases of “innocence”.]

The last animated children's movie, save for anything from 'those lamp guys', that I thoroughly enjoyed was 'The Lion King'. There have been a few computer animated films that were charming enough, but none that prompted an investment in future viewings (namely on DVD).

That statement is now thankfully incorrect. Last night we rounded up the ruggers and trotted them off to see a film that would surely make a desecration out of our childhood memories. Laughter abounded during the movie, coming from young and old alike, with more sincerity than I've heard come from an audience in awhile. There were no funny moments hinged on the sounds of bodily functions, no questionable phrases (save for a nicely done reference to a popular dismissal), and a main character who is allowed to be himself sans any attempts at making him hip.

The story is not extravagant, nor is it a tacked on. It is quite simply a classic retelling of the original. Scenes from the past are easily noticeable and fit into this story as well as they did the originals. The animation itself was, in a word, beautiful. The colors were lush and vivid, using a palette that was likely rather simple. There are no gratuitous rendered scenes like in so many other animated movies. Lest I forget the voice actors, who, despite some of their other work, did an excellent job at giving voice to characters in manner that felt true.

'Curious George' is a respectful and wonderfully created tribute to the unintentionally troublesome monkey many of us grew to love as children, and now our children can do the same.

Mother and daughter are now happily home and resting. The siblings are restless with elation over their new sister and the homecoming of mom and dad. Father is enjoying the freedom of boxers again, and wondering if there is such a thing as holding the baby too much.

We thank all of you who came to visit and those who wished they could have. Many thanks to the talented and caring staff at the Stillwater Medical Center, except for whomever is task with keeping the soda machine stocked.

*Donations for a lifetime supply of sleeping pills and pure caffeine will now be gladly accepted.

She was too excited about the day's events to care about anything other than doing her best, which, unquestionably, she did. Stacked against girls twice her size, she also placed sixth in the softball throw.

So excited she was that, upon calling one of her grandmothers, she could only manage to say was, "I got a win!" That is the spirit that makes these events worth any hassles they may impose. In fact, we all came away as winners.