I actually spent a bit of time today reading most of the comments on a Slashdot article titled Ask The MythBusters. In summary, they were looking for 10 questions to ask the MythBusters next week, which is sort of neat. There were some good questions, as well as some not so good questions, but one that stood out in my mind was:

Most restaurants seem to believe that ice is free, and therefore tend to overfill the ice to save money on soda. However, the energy required to freeze water to make ice should be considered — is the real cost of ice actually less than the cost of an equivalent volume of soda?

I just thought it was interesting, I have no idea the answer to that, but it’s fun to ponder.

Best Regards,
Matt Simpson

I have yet to figure out why every time I release a new version of ListMessenger, I always end up going to bed at a ridiculously late hour. It seems to me that no matter what I have completed and tested, there is always just that one more thing I want to get done. Either way, I slept soundly last night knowing that ListMessenger Pro 2.0.1 was out the door and there would be no more support issues for Internet Explorer and HTMLArea! ha. It made my day this morning when I read a post in the forum that said it now takes only a few seconds to queue 10,000 subscribers, much better than a few minutes in previous releases. I don’t know why I never knew about SQL’s INSERT SELECT query before, it’s been around forever. I guess it’s just one of those things you don’t know is there unless you need, and to my defense the documentation on the MySQL website is not so good.

What’s next in ListMessenger development? Well, I have to do ListMessenger Light 2.0.1 now, which shouldn’t take me too long to remove the Pro features… I assume I can do this in a night or so (so that really means a week). I also need to update the documentation and information on the actual listmessenger.com website as well, especially the demo. I have actually started to setup the new demo on it’s own sub-domain but I stopped last night because I was too tired to actually restrict the demo features. I would love to finish that tonight, but I have to finish that Microeconomics assignment that my professor so gracefully said he would accept on Wednesday in class from me.

I’ll blog about the new features I’m planning for ListMessenger 3.0 at a later date. Blogging about it seems to help straighten things out in my head as well. Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you 😉

Best Regards,
Matt Simpson

Although I work full time for Queen’s University, develop ListMessenger as a side business, teach part-time at St. Lawrence College during the winter semester and spend what I consider to be a lot of quality time with my wife, I thought this year that I should go back to school and taking some courses at Queen’s. So off I went, jumping through the hoops and finally landing in Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (honours) with a major in Applied Economics.
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Here’s the story: I arrive home from work late yesterday afternoon to find two new messages on the telephone. The first one was an automated message from “Credit Card Company A” (we’ll call it) stating that it was not a solicitation call and they believe there has been fraudulent activity on my wife’s’ credit card; needless to say I was concerned. The next call was from “Credit Card Company B”, this time a real person stating that my wife needed to call them right away; needles to say I was now very concerned.
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I’m working away here on a typical October, dreary, Monday afternoon with a hot Tim Hortons coffee, feeling a bit run down after my weekend adventure visiting the parents & in-laws in Exeter (the town in which I grew up and have a complex relationship with). It is nice to visit them and all my childhood friends, but it’s always nice to return to “my” town. Anyone who’s moved away from their childhood town knows what I’m talking about.
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I’ve tried several times over the past few years to actually get into this new fandangled “Social Internet” culture that has since exploded. I believe that I may have finally found a way to integrate all of these social applications into one environment. Flock [http://www.flock.com]. Flock indeed to Flock.

I can finally do everything in one application, with little effort. I know, I know, I could install extensions / plug-ins before, but I use two different computers, it was always a PIA. Lets face it, I’m lazy, you’re lazy, we’re all lazy. Everything we do and everything we build is to make our lives easier and more efficient. Flock seems to be what I’ve been waiting for.

Okay, I realize I’ve only been using Flock for one hour, so I’ll continue to update this blog on how I actually find it over the next few weeks / months. Until then, have a nice day.

I can honestly say that Graphic Design at SLC is a hard program. There are many sleepless nights, many times when you want to give up and many times you really hope that it will all be worth it in the end!

In first year, I thought Chuck was the devil, or at least good friends of the devil. He was a hard teacher, never repeated himself, always expected a lot, and didn’t seem that friendly. I remember one night when I decided to go to an I Mother Earth concert instead of doing my homework for his class. It was a crappy concert and I tried to do it when I got home at 3am, but it was less than half ass. Continue Reading…

Out of the mist once again rises Silentweb… haha, yeah right, but seriously thank-you to everyone who has been on my case for the past year, asking me when my site is going to be up and running again. It’s a good feeling to know that you have loyal visitors, some may say stalkers, who enjoy what I have to offer. Well you have probably noticed already that I don’t have any services listed up. “Awe, what happened to all your great free services” Dave from Baltimore asks. Well everyone, Silentweb will no longer be offering services at this site, but have no fear, I’ve created a site strictly dedicated to services. “Hurray” Dave from Baltimore responds. Yes, it’s true, but they are not all running yet, but they will be available soon from DigitalOrphans [http://www.digitalorphans.org].
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