I've heard it said in many conversations, blog entries, and articles that people automate tasks because they're lazy. I disagree. Often, this "laziness" is in the context of programmers writing scripts to do some mundane operation over and over. They're supposedly lazy because they don't want to do the task themselves.

PicViewer is a Windows 32-bit program that lets you scan through a bunch of graphic files (.JPG, .BMP, .ICO, etc.). It has a full screen mode in which the background is black and the cursor is hidden. In this mode, the spacebar or arrow keys step through each of the graphic files in the directory thus making it easy to give a slide show. A movie mode has been added to provide automated naviation. The pictures can be scaled to fit the window or shown in full-size mode with scrollbars if needed. Command-line parameters can start in a given directory, initiate movie mode, etc.

Have you ever wondered what a Blog is? OK, that term may be an every day verb/noun by now. But what about DHTML or Landing Page or Reciprocol Link? Do you know what a Spider does? Have your heard of ODP or know what your Page Rank is?

All these terms and more are listed on the Glossary of Web Terms.

I recently had a discussion with a fellow developer who sees a new feature in Delphi as opening a possible security hole in the application. The Welcome Page in Delphi 2005 and 2006 is an embedded web browser that views a local HTML file. This file has some JavaScript code that calls ActiveX objects to load Delphi projects and such, but mostly is a great collection of resources for the over-burdened programmer trying to remember where everything is.

I had no idea infections could cause a sunburn-like rash, but that's what happened on my stomach after going home from my appendectomy. I thought a heat-lamp had been too strong on me during surgery or something. Anyway, my bandages were leaking and not looking good, so Saturday morning, my wife drove me to the hospital again and I checked myself in for post-appendectomy check up. I figured I'd be waiting in the lobby for her to come pick me back up. Wrong. The appendix was so bad when it was removed, there was actually very good possibility of infection--why hadn't I been told that when I left just days before? I guess the surgeon always likes to think positive. Anyway, it looks like I'll be in just as long this time as last.

Well, let's turn that sad face from the last entry upside down! Or, at least make the best of my current situation.

Well, as I get more and more into content management systems, one client has determined which one will be the one I get intimate with first: Drupal. It is a highly rated one (see Open Source CMS) and has lots of configurability--themes and modules. (For comparison with other CMSs, also check out CMS Matrix.)

Well, I'm trying out a new way of building web sites--using a CMS (content management system). It's pretty cool, but there will be some customization, of course, to get it to do everything I want it to. However, it adds lots of features I did not have time to put into my current site. Features such as aggregated RSS News feeds, and out-of-the-box support for blogging, which is something I've thought about doing, but just never had the time to implement.