William Shatner’s Rocketman
You simply haven’t lived until you’ve seen William Shatner’s spoken word “interpretation” of the classic Elton John song Rocketman.
Wow. Just. Wow.
[via WWdN]
Tags: Shatner, William Shatner, Rocketman, Elton John, spoken word, Wil Wheaton
Scrubs - Guy Love
If you have a sense of humour, you need to watch this clip from last night’s episode of Scrubs.
Tags: Scrubs, Guy Love, Scrubs the Musical
Sponsored Post: SpamAid
Well, I’m somewhat surprised but pleasantly so that I’ve received another order for a review through ReviewMe. Given the vast number of bloggers out there that are likely to be willing to try to earn some money from their writing, I figured the likelihood of actually receiving another review offer would be very low. As I plan always to do, here’s my disclaimer before I get into the review:
I only accept reviews for products that I find interesting enough to write about genuinely. Since ReviewMe does not put any restrictions on the opinions expressed, I also plan to be completely honest about what I do or don’t like about the products I review.
Having written about software for quite some time, I’m always amazed that there can be really quality software software out there that seems to be flying under the radar, or at least flying under my radar. For me, it makes testing new software fun, since there’s always a decent chance that you’ll happen upon a real gem.
In my two days of using SpamAid, I’m already ready to call this one a gem. The offer for this review couldn’t have been more timely; I have been beta testing Microsoft’s Office 2007 suite, which includes Outlook 2007. Since the shipping version of Office 2007 has now been released, it doesn’t appear that any more Microsoft Updates are forthcoming to the beta version (which will expire any day now), and that includes updates to their relatively simple Junk Mail filter.
In the past month or so, I’d been experiencing more and more spam in my inbox; that is, spam that wasn’t getting caught by the Junk Mail filter. To be honest, I know that I’ve been getting lucky for quite some time now. In my experience the Junk Mail filter is nowhere near in the same class as a full-featured spam filter, but I was making do with it. I had finally come to the conclusion that I was wasting too much time manually filtering out the spam in my inbox and that I ought to find a better solution, when this review offer came my way.
At first I was hesitant; I knew nothing about SpamAid or the company that makes it, and I noticed that officially SpamAid is only currently supported under Microsoft Outlook 2000/XP/2003 while I’m currently running Outlook 2007. From what I know about Outlook and the various add-ons I’ve tried, I felt relatively comfortable testing SpamAid on Outlook 2007, and I have to say I haven’t experienced a single issue or bug that I could attribute to the unsupported setup I’m using. In fact, I haven’t seen a single issue or bug with the software whatsoever. I should be clear that I’m not suggesting using this software with an unsupported version of Outlook, but rather I’m impressed that SpamAid handled it better than I had any right to expect.
To fully test the spam filtering functionality SpamAid offers, I decided to turn off Outlook’s Junk Mail filter, as well as the various rules I’d manually set up to handle certain predictable types of spam that I happen to get. So far, the success rate has been extremely high. In the past two days, SpamAid has caught 72 spam messages, while only 3 slipped through into my inbox. This number stays fairly consistent with the claim of detecting spam with an accuracy of no less than 97%, and spam filters that make use of Bayesian algorithms as SpamAid does only get better the more they’re used. But far more important than the few that slipped through is the fact that none of the messages that have been caught by SpamAid have been false positives. That means that none of my real email was accidentally caught by SpamAid. Unfortunately, using Microsoft’s Junk Mail filter, I found that once every couple of days a legitimate email ended up in my Junk Mail folder.
Although there are lots of spam filtering products available, as I said earlier I think SpamAid is a bit of a gem. This is a hard thing to describe, but it just feels right in an intangible way. For example, the program offers settings to allow you to customize some of its behavior. The settings are practical and useful, and the developer has shown restraint in the sense that they’re not overwhelming. There are enough settings to allow the user to control crucial aspects of the software’s use, but not too many. In the world of spam filtering, the potential for exposing settings to the user is almost limitless, so the ability to only show the most needed options can make the difference between an okay user experience, and a fantastic one.
So far I’ve found nothing to dislike about SpamAid, and a whole lot to like. If you’re interested, SpamAid is available for a 30 day trial period, and a single user license costs $29 USD.
Playing ice hockey outside in Vancouver?
This is something I haven’t ever had the pleasure of doing in Vancouver before, play ice hockey outside! As we were headed to Science World on Sunday morning, we happened to drive past a field near our house and noticed that there were a bunch of people skating on a large patch of ice there. It turns out that the field had flooded just before we had a cold snap, and the resulting ice is both perfect for skating on, and totally safe, since it’s only about two inches off the ground.
So we decided to turn right around, bundle up, and head out on the ice. We had a blast passing a hockey ball around, taking Milo for quick zooms around in the stroller, and otherwise just enjoying each other’s company under a clear sky on ice! Thanks to Fran for having the foresight to bring the camera and capture the moment for us to remember. It was so much fun that yesterday I cut out of work at 4pm and headed home to get Josh, and we went back and spent another hour and a half on the ice. I felt like a kid again, playing until forced to go home due to the encroaching darkness.
Today we’re getting slushy snow and rain, so I fear our spontaneous ice rink’s time is already up. I’m really glad to have had the opportunity to lace them up outside though - I’m sure Josh is too young to appreciate how special that is in these here parts.
Note, click on the thumbnails to see full-sized images.
Tags: hockey, ice hockey, ice skating, Vancouver, outoor skating, frozen field
We’re back, take two
So the last time I restored this site on the new server, everything was working fine except for a specific post, which happened to be the most popular post on this site. Try as I might, I was unable to get the post to work, so I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and this new swanky theme, and I’m feeling pretty good about it. And (I believe) everything is again working fine.
Sorry if you left any comments here over the last week; unfortunately restoring the backup destroyed them.
Please let me know if you see anything broken on the site. And, welcome - again!
