cowboy_hats_20050411 Originally uploaded by omaciel. When not cranking out code for the Gnome or Mono projects, these guys like to do what every normal Open Source developer does when they have some free time: Hang out at the OK Corral.

Today I actually enjoyed work!!! Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to mention “work” and “enjoy” together? I haven’t done it since early 2002 when I worked for the now defunct Synaptic Pharmaceuticals!!! I spent most of the day working on a new VB.NET application for work (something very small and simple for XML generation) and my C# (soon to become Mono) rss reader. It feels absolutely great to be back in the groove of coding!

If you thought Google Maps was cool, wait ‘til you see this! It’s Craigslist on steroids!

This month’s Northern NJ Linux MeetUp meeting had the highest attendance so far since I became the organizer: 7, including myself and our guest speaker Mako. He was kind enough to accept my invitation to visit and tell us about his work with Ubuntu and Debian Linux. I think everyone had a good time! Mako seems to be a really nice guy and was more than willing to answer our questions.

It’s official!!! I have arranged for Benjamin Mako Hill, Debian and Ubuntu Linux package maintaner/contributer, to attend our next Northern New Jersey Meetup meeting this Monday 11th, 2005! I have asked him to talk about Ubuntu Linux and also his involvement with Debian. This should be a very interesting meeting for everyone and I urge everyone to show up! Make sure to reserve your spot so I have a good idea of how many people will be present.

Amazing upgrade to the already amazing Google Maps site. Don’t really know when it was implemented but you can now switch from the map view to a real satellite view, down to the street level! I can only imagine the day you’ll be able to have a live feed of traffic conditions via satellite on your web browser of choice!

I was really bad over this weekend… I not only had a cup of (gasp!) Star Bucks coffee but I also managed to convince my wife that we deserved a new flat LCD monitor to replace our existing 17-inch. We finally settled (well, actually I settled for it… she wasn’t too thrilled about it… hehe) for a 20.1-inch Sony model. Its UXGA 1600 x 1200 resolution is amazing!!! I have so much space on my screen now… I also managed to update the driver for my G-Force 5200 card adding the final touch to a great system.

Ha! Planet Gnome and Planet KDE have played their April Fools trick on me today. Apparently they’ve switched their DNS entries (or whatever it is that is required) so that people visiting Planet Gnome will be directed to Planet KDE (but the URL still says planet.gnome.org) and vice-versa! I refreshed my page a couple of times untill I realized what had happened! Good one guys! Update: Just noticed that Planet Debian has changed their Debian logo for an Ubuntu's.

I’m really loving this “war” between Google and Yahoo, battling to see who attracts more users. I think we, the “middle man,” will only gain in the end. Today Google announced they’re increasing everyone’s gmail account to a whopping 2GB!!! Also, they’ve added the ability to write emails using rich text features, such as: Bold, Italics, Underline, Select a special font, Font Size, Font Color, Background Color, Remove Formatting, Hyperlink Text, Numbered List, Bulleted List, Indent Less, Indent More, Quote Text, Left Align, Center Align, Right Align.

A few new entries to my daily reading list: Planet Perl Planet Gentoo Kernel Planet MAKE : Blog