My Recommendations

I thought I would lay some more foundation by explaining the links I placed under Recommendations on the right. --------->

Disclaimer: These links are subject to change, so if they are not the same when you view this article, well I'm sorry about your damn luck.

These are things that matter to me for one reason or another, either due to my career in tech support or for other reasons. They are things I recommend to people in my life on a regular basis. I highly recommend you check them out / download them and try them out.

The first 2 are my Twitter and Facebook, these are obviously self-serving links for anyone that cares to check them out.

The next one takes you to a page where BP has video streaming of their efforts to cap the oil catastrophe that they caused in the Gulf of Mexico. Check it out and you will see the repair work underway as the ROV's attempt to cap the oil spill. I'm not some tree hugger or anything like that, but I think that this is one of the events that define current history, and that we need to stay conscious of this as time and events progess and the fallout from it occurs. I wonder what will change as a result of all this? Only time will tell.

Then there's my software recommendations:

Ubuntu - do you just use your computer for basic things such as email, streaming video (Youtube and other such sites), social networking (Facebook, Myspace, etc), instant messaging, things of that nature? Do you have problems with viruses? Then try Ubuntu! You'll never have another virus again! It's not just that it's better than Windows, but also most viruses do not target Linux users. You'll never be a victim of a drive-by download again. It comes with a free equivalent to Microsoft Office called Open Office, and has a lot of other software that integrates it with your various messaging/email/social network accounts for instant access to everything that matters to you online.

Mozilla Firefox - Are you still using Internet Explorer for personal web browsing? Then you fail at life. Everyone in the know uses Mozilla Firefox. It's a much safer browser than Internet Explorer, especially when paired with the No-Script plugin. Download it and check it out today!

Google Chrome - Sometimes you just want a fast browser to get on the internet quickly, do something, and get off again. Maybe you just want to post a Facebook update and have 12 other non-computer things to do, so you just want to fire it up, get it done, and move on with life. Google Chrome is the browser for you. Based on Webkit, it's the fastest browser ever, for when you just need to get it done now.

Other recommendations:

Sirius Satellite Radio - I have it, it's great, and well worth the cost. If you live in an area deprived of culture and/or music (like me), it's a great value. Uncensored radio at it's best, commercial free, and if you like talk radio, they have Howard Stern.

Zenni Optical - One of my friends found this site, and when he showed it to me I thought it was a fly-by-night pyramid scheme. Even when I was convinced that they were legit, I still had my doubts. $8 prescription glasses, for both the lens and frame? Yeah, right. They had to be either a scam or junk or both. I was proved wrong, however, when one of my friends ordered some prescription glasses from there and not only was he not robbed, but they arrived, were the right prescription and were actually pretty decent. The lenses were plastic instead of glass, and the frames were OK (not the best quality ever, yet better than reading and sun glass frames), and I was pleasantly surprised. I ordered some glasses from them after that, and will never get them from anywhere else as long as they stay awesome. Apparently, they are based out of California, and they get them from their warehouse in China. I don't care if my glasses are made by underpaid Chinese sweatshop workers, hell, getting that's the American way! Cheap glasses rock!

NewEgg - This is the most awesome site ever to get computer parts from. If you need more memory/RAM for your computer, or more hard drive space, you want to upgrade your video card or maybe you just want to build your own computer, NewEgg's the shiznit! Everyone talks up Tiger Direct, and I would suggest that you go to them to get your computer monitors and displays as they have a better return policy than NewEgg, but for everything else NewEgg beats them. Are you looking at a motherboard/CPU combo at Tiger Direct and thinking, "Man, that's an awesome deal!"? Look up the same exact hardware at NewEgg, and you can probably find it $20 cheaper there.

Also, there's one other site I currently recommend that's not on my list. I would put it there but this is a fairly transitory/temporary thing. They are down there right now on Nikumaroro Island (formerly Gardner Island; here it is on Google Earth) in a little Pacific island nation called Kiribati on an expedition looking for evidence to support their theory that Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan crashed there way back in 1937, and died as castaways (no volleyball named Wilson was there to help keep them sane LoLz). They are posting daily updates, and it's looking more and more like they did crash there. It's really awesome! I hope they find what they're looking for, but don't expect any physical remains more than DNA, as (supposedly) the British navy picked up her skeleton (if it was her) back in 1940, misidentified the remains, and they have since been lost since (I'm sure if there were records they were destroyed in WWII during the bombing of London by the Nazis). But hell, DNA and a relevant part of the plane wreck would be neat! This is cool stuff, and well worth keeping tabs on.

My list of recommended links will be updated from time to time, so check back to see more awesomeness as time progresses.