Citizen of Earth

Hallelujah Time

Hallelujah, the angels sing a heavenly chorus - we finally have the Internet at home! After a painful six weeks of waiting for the Internet to come, the sweaty installation specialists came to the building and ran a cord up flat #5. "Vwa-la!" - it was working in less than a hour. And best of all, it's very fast and reliable. I think I'll get that SkypeIn phone number I've been dreaming about.

New Blogs

Allow me to introduce two new blogs. One has been started by my brother Kyle, the other by an old Swedish friend Martin Moberg. I met Martin while attending the University of Karlstad, in Sweden, some years ago. Martin and I share a very odd coincidence: we have the same initials and were born on exactly the same day. A new baby boy just popped out of his girlfriends (very Swedish, marriage comes later!) stomach, so be sure you have a look.

My brother Kyle is taking part in a summer-long internship in Cairo Egypt. He is doing his best to help bring understanding and friendship between the cultures of the middle-east and the west, certainly a worthy cause. Martin and I, on the other hand, are just trying to enjoy life. Click on their names to see their blogs.

My blog is hurting, I know. Our saga of getting the Internet installed at are humble home continues. It is a bleak and painful process. But I  am happy to say that we have been enjoying some great trips to our neighboring countries over the past two weekends. We just came back from a - fantastically interesting by day, decadent by night - vacation to Krakow Poland. More details and many pictures coming soon.

Call me...no, Skype me

I used Skype for the first time today, it was amazing! I'm serious, it was the clearest telephone conversation I've ever had in my life. Talked to my friend Filup in Sweden for a long time and it was completely free! All I needed was a $20 head-set (Altec AHS-202), that I picked up from the local computer store, plugged it in to the sound card, installed the free Skype software. This will literally save me hundreds on telephone bills when I move to europe. Technology sure is nice...occassionally.
If you happen to be one of our friends, and want to call me or Jessica in Europe sometime, my skype name is markmcgaa. Just remember I'll be seven hours later then Minnesota.

Sick Nerd

Ever since I caught the flu last Friday, I've been laying around the house like a sick dog. At least I don't have to go to work. :-) I've been spending a good deal of this time making sure my two computers don't get sick.

I'm seeing more and more commercials on TV that are selling to the fear people feel when they hear the words spy-ware, computer virus and identity theft. Understandably, most of us just want an easy solution when it comes to keeping our computers free of this crap. Too many turn to expensive, often inadequate software (Norton, McAfee, and - allow me to cringe, AOL) with the assumption, that since they're paying money, everything should be fine.

The simple truth is, you don't need to spend a dime to keep your computer running great and stay protected from all the nasty stuff that's waiting to make it act...as sick as me. But, you do have to spend a little time; it's like checking the oil on an old car- there will always be a bunch of lazy turds that would rather prematurely destroy their motor, than pop the hood and look at an oil dipstick once in awhile.

I dedicated hours of research to get past the commercial interests involved and find out the general consensus on computer protection and optimization among the techi/guru crowd. I thought I'd add some of those links and suggestions here. Hopefully I'll save someone - the kind of person that checks their oil - a little time figuring out a strategy.

I'm running completely free, easy to use and effective software: Sygate firewall, AVG virus protection, SyncBack file backup, Mozilla browser and JV16 as a registry tuning tool. For Spy-ware protection, I'm using Spybot Search and Destroy, Lavasoft Ad-aware and SpyBlaster.
Now, my machines are running much better than ever before.

Here's a website that tells it like it is; intent to share knowledge, instead of the normal "let's get there money" theme. Link: PC Help Mobile.

Great unbiased security forum: Link: Castle Cops

Going Public

Like anything else computer related, blogs have a steep learning curve. I've been working hard to get this one up to par, design-wise, and I think it's finally starting to look pretty good. I had never even seen a blog until a friend created one about two months. On my old website, www.mcgaa.com, I have a few things to figure out, like how to best share my video clips with friends. I've captured some interesting clips (a random fight in a Minneapolis bar, etc.) with my tiny Canon sd200. But, I think It's about time to re-create that old website and move it to another host soon. I'm just now finding out, Yahoo Business hosting is lame for many reasons.

Well, I think it's time to make it this blog public. I've only let a few friends see it so far. I'll open it up to the world now and see what happens.

Reality Online

So, I'm out of a job. What do you do when your out of a job? Relax for a bit...then start thinking of many ways to make your next income! Dreaming is probably a better word for what I've been doing. Too many of us stop dreaming as we get older. Instead, we create boundaries for our own abilities and forget to use skills that are inherent in all of us as children. Children live in the moment: without any concern to the past or future. They see their potential as limitless, and have a strong ability for creative ideas. These skills should be blended with the practicality and wisdom we gain as adults.

Enough philosophy, back to dreaming. I would like to travel around the world to different cultures, having adventures and getting paid to write about the people and places for an audience of loyal followers. I would be a journalist and a photographer, but the difference would be the exclusion of managment and corporate goals that exist between the audience and the writer in mainstream media.  Of course, I would need to collect either donations or ad sponsorship. In return, I would provide my audience with great entertainment, cultural perspective, a way to interact with me, and a way to live vicariously through my adventures. The venture would provide me with a great source of inspiration for my writing and photography.

I suppose it is remotely possible. Look at the huge audience that reality TV draws in. Why not Reality Online!

It would probally be best to give the audience the option to influence my next destination or event. I could do this is a number of ways: present an on-line vote with a number of choices representing different places or events, or by accepting a reasonable donation to go on a specific assignment that could be followed in a blog. 

An assignment could entail a number of things: photograph and write about an event in country X, scout for land in a emerging economy, search for someone's great Uncle Vladamir in Romania, etc. I imagine it would cost less than $100 a day. In fact, I would'nt be surprised if someone is already doing this somewhere with a blog..??

Well, it's called dreaming for a reason. In the meantime, I've got a few websites to design and a few overseas jobs to pursue.  Maybe I should visit my friend in Hawaii for a few months - it's getting a little cold here in Minnesota (-10 F. !).