Today my parents sent me this email that was displaying an actual moose being used for logging. Now I could see where this is more eco-friendly than the machinery but just how much time did it take to train this animal to do this job? People say that moose are actually easier to train that a horse however if that were the case wouldn’t we be using moose more than we are?

People have said that they have seen people using moose for tasks like this in Canada. I would love to see a moose trained to do this, maybe even train them for riding.  I think this is pretty cool, I meanI have never seen a moose used for anything significant like this however it does make sense since they are very strong animals.  Seems they are pretty smart too.

Well it was not as bad as I anticipated. I will be out for a few days but right now I am feeling ok. It’s probably because my jaw is still numb from whatever it is that they used. I will tell you it is messy, you bleed a lot and well it’s just not fun.

I am not looking forward to drinking my foods but that is what I have to do. Tomato Soup, Pudding, Yogurt, Scrambled Eggs, etc. are about all I can eat. I WANT THE PRIME RIB!

Oh not to mention they said no smoking for 10 days, you’re kidding right That is the only rule they have given me that I will not follow, I know it can lead to dry socket but I am only having a couple a day as opposed to the pack I am used to. Anyway I hope to be better by Wednsday, we’ll see.

Over the past few days I have really been in agony with one of my teeth.  I went to the dentist today to get it extracted only to come home with pain pills, antibiotics and an appointment for Monday.  I have to get all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed Monday morning.  I am going to be out of work for a few days.  I am going to take this time to do A LOT of reading.  Mainly on my list is the new book I got that is all about using Google Maps and creating interactive maps for your visitors to use.

I picked this book up tonight and it has been a very interesting read.  I am on page 87 already which seems rather fast but the content is direct and to the point with many code examples and screen shots of what the outcome is.  At this point I have to rate this book an 8 on a scale of 1-10.

As most of my readers know I have started to do postings for PayPerPost and only post content that I feel is relevant to the site. However one thing I wanted to share with you is that PayPerPost does more than just run the PayPerPost site. They also run a site called RockStartup.com reality tv where they post video’s of things that take place while they are at work. Things that take place can vary from meetings, to weigh-in’s. Yes you heard me right weigh-in’s. They have started a contest in the office where the person who loses the most weight get’s a prize. They are taking video and updating everyone with what is going on at PayPerPost via the RockStartup.com website.

PayPerPost is asking all of the Postie’s what their favorite episode is and I would have to say episode 9. I love the fact that Ted get’s “reverse” Postie Patrolled. I have seen video’s before where they go to a Postie and have them do a scavenger hunt in exchange for a prize. If they found everything on the list they would get the prize. This time however a few of the Postie’s visited Ted unannounced at the PayPerPost headquarters and surprised him with a treasure hunt of his own. Gotta love it when a company creates enough buzz for users to come out and see you like that.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle If you are planning to go to Canada you should make sure you can get across the border before you plan the entire trip just to be sent back to the states. Seriously they are sending people back to the states who were charged with marijuana possession back in 1975. The article states this

Since their rowdy days in the ’70s, they have created and sold a publishing company, purchased extensive real estate holdings and own a $3 million getaway home in Lake Tahoe.

They were still denied entrance into Canada. Now I understand tightening down security since 9/11 but this is going WAY TOO FAR! Something as simple as stealing something 20 years ago (in your college days) and you will be denied access. Now if the crime you committed happened more than 5 years ago you can file to have it wiped from your record but WHY should you have to do that? I could see them stating certain levels of severity in the last 5 years will make it so you cannot cross the border but stealing a bag of chips? Come on get real here!

Canadian attorney David Lesperance, an expert on customs and immigration, says he had a client who was involved in a fraternity prank 20 years ago. He was on a scavenger hunt, and the assignment was to steal something from a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. He got caught, paid a small fine and was ordered to sweep the police station parking lot.

He thought it was all forgotten. And it was, until he tried to cross the border.

There are several US newspapers reporting this but you can read more at the San Francisco Chronicle and the Canadian Consulate’s Web site

Being in Vermont and so close to the Canadian border I wonder if I could get over the border. I am not sure if I have anything on my record from that long ago or not. I hope work doesn’t involve going to Canada, if so I will need to make some phone calls to find out if I need to clear anything up.

About an hour ago I received an e-mail telling me that a new beta version of Tubular was released. I was inclined to check this version out as soon as possible because they were talking about how they have been rewriting the video component to use Perian rather than the flash YouTube player. This change was going to fix several issues when it came to video playback.

This new method of video playback was also supposed to fix the issue of crashing Tubular when you were attempting to play a video that was rated for adult viewing only. When you are on YouTube it will prompt you to say yes that you want to continue viewing but in Tubular it would just cause problems. I have yet to see any issues with the new player aside from the obvious. You have to completely load the video before you can start watching it. If you are attempting to watch a rather large video this can take quite a bit of time. I hate to wait!

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If you run a blog you might have though about starting a blog email mailing list. Maybe you want to keep your visitors informed on a monthly basis what you have posted on your site. Maybe you want to start up a list where you send out tutorials or how-to’s. There is a website I found today called Zookoda.com that will allow you to do just that. You can start up mailing lists, where you can customize how the email looks 100%. You can also set the confirm and thank you pages to be pages on your site.

If all you would like to do is notify your readers about the new content on your site, you can setup broadcasts that will automatically go out at a set interval. It will notify all of the users in the list about the content you have added since the last broadcast. This is nice but I really do not see too many people taking advantage of that over RSS. The one part I do love however is the ability to have a mailing list FREE of cost. That’s right Zookoda is a 100% free site to use. I also love the ability to 100% customize how the email will look because I would want it to look similar to my site’s theme rather than some canned look.

Keep your eyes open on this site, I am going to start up a few mailing lists, one for Monthly PHP Tips and another for Monthly Mac Tips. If the response is good enough I will start up a more frequent mailing list that will offer much more than a tip

Preparing for the new job I have been taking some time to look into the Google Maps API.  I must say that they make it VERY easy to do the basics such as plotting some addresses on the maps.  They even offer a geo-coding service now so you can just send it the address and it will tell you the latitude and longitude.  This is very nice because most other services on the net charge for this data.

I have started messing around with it and one thing that I found to be really useful is a Java-Script utility called Clusterer, this utility will allow you to plot all of your points on the map however it will consolidate them into clusters if you will. If you would like to see this in action you can check out the demo they have setup.  The large purple balloons are the clusters, when you zoom in the clusters will break into the individual points.

The task at hand will be to plot all of the conference attendee’s onto a map, the issue is that there could be hundreds, maybe even thousands of addresses plotted on the map.  When you get this many balloons on the map it really looks cluttered.  I found this clustering solution and have yet to look into the marker manager that Google offers in their API.  I am waiting for the book I ordered to get here.  I bought the book Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional, yes it’s a long title but the reviews are good.  The book is due to be here today and since I am having teeth pulled on Monday I will have plenty of time to read.  Once I am better I will make a post on here reviewing the book.

Tonight I was once again browsing around at different web-hosts and it seems that things are really getting competitive. Some are offering free software when you sign-up with them Concentric however is offering a FREE Blackberry! You did not hear me wrong, yes a free Blackberry device just for registering with them. You might be saying yea but that’s only if you pay for like 10 years up front. Nope sorry it’s not. I read the terms and conditions and all you have to do is get ANY shared hosting plan with them.

Now keep in mind that if you read the terms you MUST sign-up for a new cell contract with Concentric’s partners in order to qualify for the FREE Blackberry. I am not sure how they are doing it but I do not know of any other cell phone provider that will give you a free Blackberry for writing a new contract. If you want something else for a phone you can also get a discounted rate on the Treo 650. You can get that phone for $139 that beats the $350 i paid for mine with a 2 year contract!!!

As I said I have the Treo 650 and I am waiting for the iPhone (maybe they should offer that free hehe) however if I had seen this before I got my Treo 650 I would have jumped at it. This is a great deal. Back on point now… The hosting prices don’t seem half bad. Although I have seen cheaper packages out there, they seem to be reliable from what I hear. No I did not just hear that from anyone, it is a friend of mine who actually does have an account with them. Maybe I will switch to them when my time is up with Lunar Pages… How I wish I hadn’t paid for 2 years.

There is no catch… Well you do have to be good with graphics design. iLounge is holdong a wallpaper contest and if you are the lucky grand prize winner you could walk away with a FREE iPhone.

The rules are simple: create a high-resolution (1600 wide x 1200 tall) piece of desktop wallpaper featuring any current iPod model – the second-generation iPod shuffle, the second-generation iPod nano, or the fifth-generation iPod (with video) – plus the iLounge.com name. Other than the iLounge name and the image of the iPod, the work must be entirely your original creation, and created for this contest. Photographs and artwork are both acceptable, however, art is strongly preferred. We’ll pick our three favorite pieces of wallpaper to win one of the following three prizes.

Now iLounge will pay for the costs of the iPhone however the cell phone contract is your responsibility. There will be a total of 3 winners choosen for this contest so fire up your copy of Photoshop and get to work. This makes me wish that I was good with graphic design. Here are the prizes:

Grand Prize: One Apple iPhone* ($499, 4GB). We’ll help one lucky winner buy Apple’s combination cell phone, widescreen iPod, and Internet device – we’ll supply the funds for the iPhone; the cell phone contract is your responsibility.

Second Prize: One Apple TV ($299, 40GB). Enjoy iTunes-managed audio, video, and photo content on your widescreen TV with the new Apple TV device.

Third Prize: One iPod nano ($199, 4GB) and one iPod shuffle ($79, 1GB) in the winner’s choice of colors.

You can get more details on the iLounge Wallpaper Contest page.