http://www.cocomment.com/comments/paschott Copyright 2007 coComment.com 2009-11-22T06:19:58.229+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/images/logo4rss.gif http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2439997&comment_id=63004348 Anonymous We do some small backups but not enough. We really need to do more. As for losing data, I've definitely had crashes. The worst was when I was using a disk compression program and lost my compressed drive with all of my work and code the night before I had a big project due. Needless to say I got a pretty poor grade on that project. 2009-03-03T23:38:53.855+01:00 2009-03-03T23:38:53.855+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2435479&comment_id=61749430 Peter System Shock still stands as one of my favorites, though not sure if it's a true FPS game. I liked the fact that there was something of an actual plot. :) 2009-02-26T23:31:57.393+01:00 2009-02-26T23:31:57.393+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2434078&comment_id=61515547 Peter "Drivers often wait several years to switch out a pair of wipers that went bad after only six to 12 months." I can see a little beyond that, but several years? I'll change mine when they don't seem to be doing their job, but generally once every year to 18 months. I think the hot, dry conditions factor against me a little. 2009-02-26T00:09:00.842+01:00 2009-02-26T00:09:00.842+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2433810&comment_id=61455815 Peter Biggest suggestions for me - ability to sync the information off of the device without requiring Active Sync. You've made a lot of progress with eWallet, but how about syncing with something like RTM or similar List web services for ListPro? What about just being able to sync it to an FTP share of some sort? I rarely directly connect my device anymore unless I absolutely have to. As for future apps - how about something for Twiitter that supports a pretty decent array of functionality? Facebook? There are some pretty good possibilities there, but can't say for sure what they'd be. I'd have to look ahead to what WM 6.5 is providing, but you'll probably want to take those considerations into account as well. It might help if you give us a hint on your general direction so we're not telling you that we would like app XYZ when you just don't have anywhere close to the necessary people/resources to pull it off. :) 2009-02-25T19:07:22.668+01:00 2009-02-25T19:07:22.668+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2432531&comment_id=61189640 Anonymous Cool - I could definitely use a new keyboard. Thanks for the opportunity to win. 2009-02-24T18:16:11.841+01:00 2009-02-24T18:16:11.841+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2431629&comment_id=60950991 Peter Glad to hear that there's still something to look forward to on the WM front. I still prefer it to the iPhone - partly due to what I have invested, but also because it offers a little more freedom on my part. I'm really glad to hear that there are some UI changes coming. That's one thing that the iPhone really showed - how far MS was lagging in Mobile UIs. Looking forward to what you've got coming in the future for WM. 2009-02-23T22:19:24.122+01:00 2009-02-23T22:19:24.122+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2428549&comment_id=60298817 paschott Chase, I'll have a post in the future about our experience with the WEC project mentioned in my post. It was a learning curve for us, but probably one of the easiest CMS installs I've seen - especially tailored for churches. I'd start there, but look at other possibilities as well. For my part, I'm more interested in handing content control over to people who really know that content. Any good CMS will let you do that. wvpv - I hear you on that one. I actually have to check the status of our Backup Domain Controller. I think our servers are currently P3's, but we have a decent RAID 5 attached to it so at least have some redundancy going. :) 2009-02-21T20:19:45.523+01:00 2009-02-21T20:19:45.523+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2428549&comment_id=60036822 paschott Thanks for the feedback. At times it does seem to feel like the "small church" guys are all alone. I follow a lot of the bigger church tech names, but once they start talking "new SAN" or "Server Farm", it's really hard to keep up. My terms tend to be "external USB" and "donated boxes". :) 2009-02-20T22:06:54.623+01:00 2009-02-20T22:06:54.623+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2427093&comment_id=59784667 Account Congratulations on the kid to come and thank you for the personal look into your family. Also, thank you for giving us an insight into kid-oriented gaming. It's definitely a challenge finding a good game for my daughter. 2009-02-19T19:44:51.982+01:00 2009-02-19T19:44:51.982+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2425973&comment_id=59517077 paschott Carl, I agree that this is a great idea. Besides sending them to the Twitter @Church_Tech, please submit them to the forums @ forum.churchtechmatters.com for the time being. We can see about setting up some other form of ranking system, but even just the general discussions in the forum will give us some idea of what's popular and what needs to be addressed. -Peter Schott CTM Contributor (to be - still editing :) http://twitter.com/paschott 2009-02-18T19:48:23.428+01:00 2009-02-18T19:48:23.428+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2374606&comment_id=55125565 Account Any way we can get a list of all of these games or is that up at your site? It's hard to tell from just the video. I appreciate the run-down, but it went by really quickly and was hard to keep track of everything. I would also like to look some of these up so I could try to track them down. 2009-02-02T23:58:25.453+01:00 2009-02-02T23:58:25.453+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2363407&comment_id=54213396 Peter Depends on what we have handy, but generally we have a frozen meal tucked away for busy times - either some dinner/casserole or frozen pizzas. When we don't have that handy we scrounge. :) Ideally we try to make enough of dishes that we have leftovers we can use. 2009-01-29T06:16:09.404+01:00 2009-01-29T06:16:09.404+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2357123&comment_id=53854451 Anonymous Favorite character from Sesame Street? I think I definitely date myself by saying that it was probably Mr. Hooper (Hooper). I enjoy the Muppets, but liked them more in the variety show format. 2009-01-27T04:51:31.971+01:00 2009-01-27T04:51:31.971+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2295972&comment_id=51543589 Anonymous Castlevania II - the only one I've ever wanted to replay - mostly because I could. (I was never a great Castlevania player to start with - the RPG/Adventure aspect saved me in that game.) 2009-01-21T09:07:26.711+01:00 2009-01-21T09:07:26.711+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2319837&comment_id=51375070 Peter Sounds intriguing, but as you noted, you can sync eWallet anywhere. I guess the main advantage of a web app tied to my main wallet would be that if my PDA died or I left it behind, or ... I could then access my data on the web. However, I think I'd be suffering from some withdrawal symptoms if I had to do without my PDA for that long. :) As for web apps - it just depends. Some really are designed to be mainly used while you're in one location and those can be cool. A lot of the better ones have some basic offline functionality. It just depends on the app. While I generally like the idea of having my data always available, I can see a lot of benefits of having someone else maintain the infrastructure and worry about penetration testing. I know that I personally don't have the knowledge to adequately secure any server I would put online so am quite glad to leave that to professionals. Sounds cool, though, so I'll have to really start looking at it soon. 2009-01-21T04:48:07.415+01:00 2009-01-21T04:48:07.415+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2295972&comment_id=51144200 Anonymous Castlevania II - one of the games that I played through a couple of times. 2009-01-20T22:32:15.544+01:00 2009-01-20T22:32:15.544+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2311093&comment_id=50478629 Peter Can't hurt to enter, though I don't expect to win. 2009-01-20T00:01:30.563+01:00 2009-01-20T00:01:30.563+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2295972&comment_id=49703769 Anonymous I really enjoyed Castlevania II. The RPG elements and a chance to actually survive the game really helped with that. I had a lot of trouble trying to play the original past a certain point because I kept dying and just didn't want to go on. I didn't feel that way about II and kind of liked the story idea which wasn't really there in the original. 2009-01-17T01:16:48.433+01:00 2009-01-17T01:16:48.433+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2258854&comment_id=48522532 Account Very nicely done. Good to know that the show can continue even when the founder is out. Personally, I appreciate the kid perspective because it helps me find games that my kid would enjoy and be able to play. Thanks, Melody. 2009-01-11T14:24:51.481+01:00 2009-01-11T14:24:51.481+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2201919&comment_id=46393388 Anonymous Looking forward to an updated Flash Player myself. It's pretty lame right now that a lot of sites I'd like to use just won't work because of the version of Flash. Admittedly, I'd probably use it the most for streaming video of some sort, but I tend to skip it for the most part because the Flash player is old. Wasn't there a rumor going around that the browser will be updated this year? 2009-01-02T23:20:40.375+01:00 2009-01-02T23:20:40.375+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2098796&comment_id=42824869 Peter Good review - I appreciate the candor, which seems so unusual from iPhone users. While I'll admit to preferring WM over the iPhone, I agree with a lot of what you had to say. Of course, I don't mind some of the shortcomings of WM too much. I just wish MS had caught on to the whole visually appealing thing sooner. :) 2008-12-15T19:33:58.735+01:00 2008-12-15T19:33:58.735+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2067845&comment_id=41375656 Peter Schott You may want to consider differential backups instead of full backups, even though 600 MB isn't a lot to back up at one time. You probably have a pretty small set of changes and that would keep the backup size relatively small. Restore is "restore full", then "restore differential". I'd consider transactional backups in some environments because it can be really helpful to get back to a time just before you made a pretty big mistake. Not that I know anything about that. :-D Glad that you've got something working for you, though. 2008-12-10T20:58:29.077+01:00 2008-12-10T20:58:29.077+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2067041&comment_id=41354348 Peter Schott First thing I'd check - make sure you're doing transaction log backups. That should be enough to clear this out. Second thing - change your log "auto-grow" settings from 10% to 100MB or some other fixed number. 10% of 80GB is a pretty significant growth. :) If you're doing all of that, check for something generating a LOT of activity. I can't think what that would be, but from the description, it sounds like you're not actually doing transaction log backups and as a result your log file will just keep growing. Full Database backups do not clear out the transaction log. If all you need are full backups, consider switching to Simple recovery mode. You may want to do that now, issue a CHECKPOINT against the server, then try to shrink the log file to something a little more reasonably sized. Get a full backup. Then either switch to Full again with scheduled transaction log backups or leave it at Simple and get full and differential backups. 2008-12-10T18:34:01.495+01:00 2008-12-10T18:34:01.495+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=2055676&comment_id=40790791 Peter My daughter seemed to enjoy playing with NeoPets and she likes games - this would probably be a winner with her. I appreciate the chance to win. 2008-12-08T20:12:53.429+01:00 2008-12-08T20:12:53.429+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1875479&comment_id=32308984 Peter Our daughter got started on a "shopping trip" to "buy" her clean clothes and then put them away when my wife was doing laundry. That worked pretty well. Taking dishes to the sink, of course. Pick up toys, books, clothes. For the baby in the house, help out in reasonable ways - bring diapers, bottles, wash rags, etc. Our daughter helped put things in the dryer, too, but that was a tough one at times just because she was so meticulous. :) We did the dishwasher thing as well. She still does that now. 2008-10-21T19:36:21.866+02:00 2008-10-21T19:36:21.866+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1858564&comment_id=32093519 Peter Well, we'd probably use it for signs, posters, banners, greeting cards, and business cards. It's kind of hard to limit it down. We have an older version of the product and it's one of the most heavily used pieces of software that we own. Only drawback I've found is there were some pre-made borders in a very early release that don't seem to be in later versions, but a lot of the newer features more than make up for that (at least to me - my wife differs a little). Thank you for the opportunity to win. 2008-10-15T21:45:24.166+02:00 2008-10-15T21:45:24.166+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1835473&comment_id=31814341 Peter Diaper Genie/Champ - it was useful for us because we don't really have an outdoors area we can stash the dirty diapers. Not essential, but useful. We also put a changing pad on top of the dresser, but I think this dresser was a great height for that pad and my wife & me. I pretty much agree - none of these are essential/must have items. We didn't have a rocker and got by okay. We had multiple strollers, but generally just used one. We had a full size high chair and it was useful to put the little ones in and sometimes let them nap, but we could have gotten by with something else. We used lotion when appropriate, but no other time. I think we were given a sample of Dreft, used it up, then just used our normal detergent at 1/2 strength or something. We didn't have any sensitive babies in our care. @Lucie - we started a "no presents" birthday policy for our daughter. For her first birthday we insisted that if people felt a need to bring something that they bring a box of cereal for the local food pantry. After the party, my daughter brought that cereal in. We've kept that going ever since. Family can give a small number of presents, but we try to limit that to a small amount and focus on giving to others. We still have a party and celebrate, but it's nice not to focus on toys and such at the time. 2008-10-08T15:42:48.377+02:00 2008-10-08T15:42:48.377+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1775518&comment_id=31179177 Peter Excellent points, Jim. I know that several people in my company follow some of our customers' tweets. I don't really have the time to devote to that and limit my scope quite a bit. I have enough distractions as it is without adding something else that would greatly fragment my time/attention. Checked the URL - no issues for me, though I had my sound turned up a bit and got hit by that chord. :) My biggest issue is that I can see the potential in social networking, but don't really want to invest a whole lot of extra time in that. It's hard to strike the right balance. I also know that I need to spend more time actually blogging (like just doing it once a week would be an improvement). I haven't so far. May be worth just starting, even if I don't have much to say. Thanks for the thoughts, Jim. Time to do some more introspection. 2008-09-17T07:19:53.076+02:00 2008-09-17T07:19:53.076+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1763371&comment_id=31056453 Anonymous While not always true, a lot of these pop up all too often. Awesome video and I really appreciate the laugh. 2008-09-12T17:41:33.592+02:00 2008-09-12T17:41:33.592+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1611508&comment_id=30493016 Peter This sounds like a great book. Gotta check that out. As for a tip - we do a chore chart that helps us teach the value of your work for the money you get. We then split that money - 20% savings, 10% to God, the rest is up to you. Since this normally only works out to ~ $1.50/week, it's not too bad. We also set up the days with quarters so we actually encourage at least $.25 each for savings and church. We've also tried to discourage materialism on special occasions, though that is much easier said than done. For birthdays we encourage donations for the food pantry that she then delivers. 2008-08-20T22:34:34.372+02:00 2008-08-20T22:34:34.372+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1611490&comment_id=30492952 Peter Definitely big fans of Veggietales (both adults and daughter). Sounds like this one is a winner. Thank you for the opportunity to win. 2008-08-20T22:30:42.534+02:00 2008-08-20T22:30:42.534+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1559559&comment_id=30024818 Peter S Charizard, probably. Tough choice and hard to remember. Hope you were talking about the game creatures and not the game versions themselves. Seems there are almost as many games as there are Pokemon in the games. :) 2008-08-05T18:51:55.732+02:00 2008-08-05T18:51:55.732+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1540623&comment_id=29369663 Peter Also stumbled this one. 2008-07-30T22:42:47.821+02:00 2008-07-30T22:42:47.821+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1540623&comment_id=29369008 Peter Well, I actually liked this one - saw it reviewed the other day. I'd probably get it in Berry for my daughter. :) If I had to choose a different one, it would probably be the Classmate Junior in Pink for my daughter (possibly light blue - she's fickle) I also like their messenger bag, but I'm partial to that style myself. 2008-07-30T22:39:10.946+02:00 2008-07-30T22:39:10.946+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1532416&comment_id=29006539 Peter Sounds like something we'd be able to use at our house. Guess it's time to give them another look. 2008-07-28T22:52:59.132+02:00 2008-07-28T22:52:59.132+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1530089&comment_id=28995643 Peter S Probably 5 times or so, but mostly through the RSS feed. 2008-07-28T03:38:18.375+02:00 2008-07-28T03:38:18.375+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1518966&comment_id=28907592 Peter Agreed with Michael - the increase in people requesting info for fast food and/or pizza places does not indicate anything other than the fact that people are trying to find them because they don't remember the number or know where the nearest location is. I'd also be curious if they correlated this with internet searches as well. Now that we have mobile internet and free 411 services, why would they concentrate purely on regular 411 services? I rarely ever use 411 and will use a free one when given a chance just because the cost for the paid services are a little over the top. 2008-07-23T19:20:22.443+02:00 2008-07-23T19:20:22.443+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1500892&comment_id=28734634 Peter My daughter swells up like crazy if she's bitten by a mosquito. This would be quite helpful for us. 2008-07-16T23:37:00.888+02:00 2008-07-16T23:37:00.888+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1500717&comment_id=28734321 Peter S Unless the hardware built in to the Wii supports the high capacity SD cards, a software patch isn't going to help. We'd need USB something or other to support more storage than 2 GB at a time. It also wouldn't help with the speed issues for SD cards that would allow us to run games and such from them. 2008-07-16T22:10:33.185+02:00 2008-07-16T22:10:33.185+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1500634&comment_id=28734097 Peter I think my favorite was the couple who were told they were having a boy. Yep, certain - 100%. They then had a baby girl. THAT was a surprise. We opted not to know and picked out clothes/themes to fit either gender and had names ready to go for either case. We still had a bit of confusion when my wife swears someone told her that we had a boy, even when I had pics of the baby to prove the opposite (long story on that one, involving an emergency c-section and anesthetic). 2008-07-16T21:15:33.264+02:00 2008-07-16T21:15:33.264+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1482916&comment_id=28449284 Peter Cool giveaway. Thank you for the opportunity to win. 2008-07-07T20:41:15.250+02:00 2008-07-07T20:41:15.250+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1478388&comment_id=28326367 Peter S Golden Sun 3? That does sound cool. I think the thunder was stolen a little when news of Chrono Trigger leaked out. I am definitely looking forward to that. 2008-07-04T18:50:33.398+02:00 2008-07-04T18:50:33.398+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1477376&comment_id=28295899 Peter S Sad, but glad that I got a different flash cart for my Homebrew playing. Still can't get/understand that Yahtzee game, though. :P 2008-07-04T01:10:15.042+02:00 2008-07-04T01:10:15.042+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1476575&comment_id=28286203 Peter My daughter would probably appreciate this, though I'd have to play with her to help at some points. 2008-07-03T16:51:12.147+02:00 2008-07-03T16:51:12.147+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1440123&comment_id=27276615 Peter S 11 channels altogether at the moment. 2 Wiiware games, 1 VC Game, and a handful of other channels. I tend to be somewhat frugal with my purchases so I just don't have a lot of entries. I'd love to see a "DVD" channel, an updated Browser with Flash support for modern sites, and an "External Storage" channel. :) (OK, so that last one wouldn't really be a channel, but still hoping....) I could see something for the Netflix idea, but it's more of a streaming media thing than a particular brand to me. I know that I can use Orb from my PC with some hacking, but the quality is a little low for my tastes. xVid or DivX streaming would be cool to me. That would allow me to turn the Wii into a set-top streaming box for media on my PC. 2008-06-15T01:47:15.283+02:00 2008-06-15T01:47:15.283+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1417699&comment_id=27045545 Peter I'm not even going to try for a caption - I just like the pics. Lee - awesome and I feel like that in regular life. Marc - Nice! I love the pic! (Though it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense outside of this context.) As for the others - well, 'nuff said already. 2008-06-03T18:11:58.672+02:00 2008-06-03T18:11:58.672+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1362441&comment_id=25809649 Peter As for the cause, I'd tend to point towards our marketing industry. It's amazing how much stuff we "need" now. I can compare our daughter with some friends' kids. My daughter doesn't tend to want a whole lot in the way of toys. She can go through a toy store and exclaim that something is cool or not cool, but it really doesn't line up with the current marketing pushes. My friends just recently got cable. Their kids now whine a little more going through toy stores than they used to and are less content with what they have. We're not immune to it as adults, but I know I've purposely limited my media usage to avoid a lot of advertising targeted at getting me to be less satisfied with my life. Add in the fact that our house doesn't have a garage (it was converted to a living space) and the attic isn't convenient to access, and you have a house that's just not convenient to start accumulating stuff. We actually helped a friend clean out their storage unit so they could stop paying the monthly cost by buying their piano (which we had kind of wanted anyway). 2008-04-25T17:18:43.558+02:00 2008-04-25T17:18:43.558+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1278255&comment_id=24582290 Peter I'd agree that the trend of a printed paper is spiraling downwards, but I don't think it's a fast trend. There are a lot of people who prefer it because it's easily portable and relatively cheap (and includes special features - comics, stats, crosswords, etc) that aren't as easily available elsewhere. However, I'd say the trust level is declining because where once the traditional news outlets really concentrated on News, now they concentrate primarily on propaganda. They have to sell their stories. Watch how most newspapers put good stories about Conservatives somewhere inside the paper, but the worst stories make front page news, even if unsubstantiated. From CBS' story with the false documents (that were easily verifiable) to the recent NYT piece on McCain (with no verifiable sources or facts), they want to paint as bad a picture as possible for Conservatives. I prefer Fox News for a lot of things, but they have a bias towards a favorable image of conservatives, though I think it's less pronounced than the Liberal bias of most mainstream media. With that in mind, I rarely read through a regular newspaper without wondering what the real story is. Once you lose that trust level, it's hard to regain. Tell me the news, the facts, don't spin the facts one way or another - just give me all of the information. And if you find out that you were wrong on a really "important" story, don't bury the correction in the middle of the paper or in some lame 5-second clip in the News broadcast. Personally, my main reason for getting a paper weekly is to get the coupons from them. There's still not a better way to pick up coupons without a newspaper. When I do that, I also read the comics :). 2008-03-02T18:07:57.860+01:00 2008-03-02T18:07:57.860+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1269523&comment_id=24421019 Peter S I think this is something that my daughter and I would both appreciate. From what I can see, the NDS may be just about her speed right now for gaming and the mind puzzles in Prof Layton seem to be pretty cool. 2008-02-25T16:47:05.062+01:00 2008-02-25T16:47:05.062+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=paschott&conv=1234432&comment_id=23946380 Peter I like the idea of doing this and I agree that it's a pain. I've switched e-mail addresses several times and remembering which one I used is always tricky. Perhaps a way to merge accounts would be useful? Something that looks up Last name, First name, and perhaps a product to try to tie things together. If all else fails, add in some basic address lookups. At that point, you could probably provide some profile options for people to manage their addresses and merge their own information. Behind the scenes, perhaps some joining table that takes that profile and ties it to one or more e-mail addresses and purchases. Relatively easy to manipulate so the link ties back to one profile. Probably the best examples of how NOT to do it can be found at www.thedailywtf.com. I know I've see some great "smart" systems there in the past. :-) The only real concern I have with the smart system you mention is that you need some form of undo or a check that won't let John Smith from Scottsdale, AZ merge his record with John Smith from Phoenix, AZ without some extra precautions. The undo is useful when people accidentally merge something they shouldn't have (I know this from painful experience). 2008-02-07T18:45:56.214+01:00 2008-02-07T18:45:56.214+01:00