Every Day is a Winding Road...

The holiday shopping season is upon us and we could all use a giggle to keep our spirits soaring (especially if you have not started your Christmas shopping, like me). For my monthly Digital Photography and Editing column at Suite101, I published my take-off on 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, retitled 'Twas the Night Before Black Friday. Check it out.

Special thanks to my hubbie John and my bromide Kristian Rex for inspiration and editing.

Happy Thanksgiving all -- and may the shopping season be easy on your wallet as well as your spirits!
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Apparently other people are happy switching to Firefox as well. Here's a review that recently appeared in eWeek: Firefox 1.0 lives up to Hype by Jim Paroza. And here's another article that just appeared at RedNova.com: Firefox Browser Alternative to Microsoft (AP Service). The second article gives you an idea of how Firefox is different from Explorer.

Unfortunately, however -- I have had to report a Forefox bug to Mozilla this week. If you are reading my blog on Internet Explorer you can see links to my blog history in the left margin. If you are reading my blog in Firefox (and/or Mozilla), there's something funky going on with it that is causing the links that are supposed to be in the left margin to be at the very bottom of the current window. I hope they fix it soon -- I don't want to eat my words!
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I've had it with Spyware and security flaws. I hereby vow to never use Microsoft's Internet Explorer on my PC again (unless, of course, a site specifically requires it and I cannot view it otherwise). Microsoft hasn't made a significant upgrade to their browser in years and consistently allows Spyware to invade my PC and I am tired of it. I have switched to the free Mozilla FireFox browser and I suggest that you look into switching as well. (And no worries -- you can take all of your Favorites from Explorer with you.)
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Last month I was appointed the new Contributing Editor for Suite 101's Digital Photography and Editing topic. This means I get to publish a monthly column and manage the discussion board for the topic.

They've published two of my articles so far:

• Testing 1-2-3: Putting Your New Digital Camera through its Paces


• Of Megawhozits and Pixawhatzils

Prior to my taking over, there were two other editors, so anything on the site written before 10-1-04 was written by one of them. (There are some great tips in these articles, so just because they are "older," doesn't mean you should skip them!) Unfortunately, the previous editor didn't publish on a regular basis, so the discussion board traffic sorta of withered away. I am trying to breathe some new life into it and have the topic become more active. So, if you are a digital shutterbug (or want to be), please consider this an invitation to participate! (Access to Suite101's topics is free, by the way.)
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Gadget freak that I am, I am teaching a new FREE course at the CNET Help site: PDAs, Cell Phones, and More. Here's the description from their website:

Whether you already own one or not, you'll be amazed at the variety of fun and practical ways that you can use a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or other pocket digital device in your life. In this course, you'll learn how to choose and take full advantage of your device. We'll explore the many uses of such devices from the basic tasks of scheduling and taking notes to more advanced features such as watching movies and communicating wirelessly.

Check out the site -- they offer a number of really good FREE courses. The courses usually run between 2-4 weeks, and are open 24/7 -- which means you read the lessons, do the exercises, and participate in the discussion board whenever it's convenient for YOU. The discussion board is where I interact with students, answering questions, posing questions, giving guidance, etc. If you have never tried online learning, you can't go wrong with a free course!

NOTE: If you do sign up for the course as a result of reading this blog, please let me know by sending me an e-mail.
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Vote FOR somebody. Vote AGAINST somebody. Whatever. Just VOTE today.
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