Vox Lucens

We’re back.  Actually, we’ve been back for a while, setting up our home and digging out of boxes and piled desks.

I really like saying “we” and “our home.”

We had just a wonderful wedding, thanks to the tireless effort of my bride and countless willing and able helpers, and had an excellent trip home, managing to avoid a blizzard one day and survive 90 degree heat two days later.

But most importantly of all, my best friend is now also my wife.

(With a huge thanks to Kelly for these pictures and the ones we have yet to see!)

…but I have to admit I like the looks of this.

One of the joys of having both my work and personal e-mail accounts plastered all over the Internet is that I get lots of spam.  Spambots just love people like me, I’m afraid - more interested in letting people get in touch with me than in protecting my contact data.

But that gives me the chance to kind of watch the spam trends.  Recently, there was a deluge of Russian spam - kind of pointless, as I don’t read Russian.  There was also a spate of spam in which the subject line was “Re: [random number here].”  Also rather pointless, as there was absolutely nothing that would even remotely encourage me to read (even assuming I did want to re-finance my mortgage or purchase medications through an unsolicited bulk message).

But the best spam trend of all is occurring right now.  The spammers are sending me tons of e-mail with fake news headlines.  Some of them have been startling–

Beijing Olympics Cancelled

UK Prime Minister Forced to Quit

Man Killed by Flying Cocktail Glass

Others, more entertainingly, have been random bordering on hilarious–

Paris Hilton Considered for Mother Teresa Role

Obama Converts to Judaism!

Playing Poker Prevents Alzheimer’s Disease

Many of the latter have caused me to snort rather violently before compulsively hitting the “delete” key.  But I really sat up and noticed when I was perusing the CNN headlines on my iGoogle home page, and dismissed one of them as being spammishly amusing.  It took me a good 10 seconds, and a number of re-reads, to realize this was actually supposed to be a news headline.

“Bush Peace Dream Iffy for ‘08, Olmert Says”

What?!?!?!  We’re not going to have peace in the Middle East in the next four months?  After centuries of conflict, I’m shocked that our leaders can’t solve the world’s problems in the upcoming weeks.  Thank goodness CNN is there to report to us on their shortcomings!

I think I’m going back to reading my spam now.

After getting the top of my head wickedly burned a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I don’t want that to happen again. So, as annoying and weird as it may be, I decided to put sunscreen on through my hair.

And I discovered that sunscreen is a more than adequate substitute for hair gel. It’s even lighter and less stiff, while holding the hair in place quite nicely. I only hope it also keeps me from getting burned…

I’m weird.

Remember Free Rice? I find it absolutely amazing what ad revenue can do in today’s Internet world. Here’s another one: Search Kindly.

If you’re going to search, why not Search Kindly?

With all the photography stuff I’ve been doing lately, I’ve done a ton of online searching for free tools to do things I need done. If you’ve ever tried that, you know that there are about a million “free” options that don’t give you what they promise–a demo, perhaps, or a limited version, or just plain nothing, in a few rather blatant instances of false advertising.

But you search far enough, and you will probably find what you need! At least, that has been my experience. Here are the tools I’ve found to be very helpful–and do exactly what they promise.

• Visualizer Photo Resize. You ever had to e-mail a ton of photos–each of which is a huge file? This handy little program will batch resize them, without altering your originals, and save the resized versions in the directory you indicate. E-mail away!
• Lupas Rename 2000. All cameras have naming protocols. My D40 saves everything as “DSC_[number].” It is possible to change the naming protocol, but that’s a pain. This tool will allow you to take a whole directory and rename it according to the protocols you choose.
• Picture Shark 1.0. I’ve been thinking about watermarking my online pictures for quite some time. It’s not complete protection from photo theft, but it helps. And this program works admirably, with a little fiddling, giving the results you can now see on my online pictures.

Anyone have other suggestions on freeware?