Went to Casco Viejo for the first time today. It's one of the oldest parts of the city and sits right on the waterfront. I understand its appeal. It feels a lot like the French Quarter, just a lot less developed.

The architecture is colonial and striking in its faded grandeur, a bit like Havana. Lots of restoration going on, cute restaurants, gift shops, and galleries. And apartments from $1000 on up.

Bought my first umbrella (paraguas) yesterday and my first Panama hat today. Fashionable, eh?

         

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JULY_26_UPDATE.zip (433 KB)

Tech Cult has done a great job of identifying the major hitters in web.world and adding great background on each of them.

I went to Unity Church of the Hills yesterday and heard Colin Tipping, author of several books on radical forgiveness and radical manifestation.

He proposes some very "radical" approaches to how we live our lives. For example, he believes:

1. The Universe is perfection in action. Nothing, absolutely nothing is "wrong" in our world. Not George Bush, not $5.00/gallon gas, not the mortgage foreclosure debacle, not world hunger. No outs, no exceptions, the universe is rolling along exactly the way it should.
2. Only love is real. Whenever we feel emotions like hatred, guilt, fear, and sadness, the feeling is actually love distorted by the beliefs attached to the feeling. Every action is either an expression of love  or a call for love.
3. Everything happens for a reason. This is an extension of the idea of perfection and is the basic principle of his book, Radical Forgiveness. Things don't happen TO you; they happen FOR you.

His ideas resonate with those of The Course in Miracles, Byron Katie's The Work and other current popular authors.

That's not surprising since Truth, I believe, is and always has been, Truth. It's just that different voices express it in different ways. And that's good because we all react differently to different voices.

If I can't hear Truth from Tipping's message, I may hear it in Byron Katie's, and vice-versa, perhaps for you.

I just came across these cute photos of my friend, Jake, taken three summers ago. Jake is a great guy, with a warm and loving heart and soul.

       

Going in is not really going in. It is simply stopping to go out........and suddenly you find yourself in.......that's when meditation happens.   Osho

A U.S.B. Microphone for Podcasts, or Solo Side Projects

Once upon a time, all that singer-songwriters needed was a six-string and a dream. Now they could also use a G-Track U.S.B. microphone.

 

This $40 device connects directly to a PC or Mac and has headphone and line-in jacks on the bottom.

The line-in allows musicians to record instruments while singing or mix in other audio sources with live sound. Independent controls set the output volume as well as microphone and line-in sensitivity.

The microphone is compatible with both Windows and Apple's OS X, and it comes with Cakewalk's Sonar LE audio software for Windows.

The G-Track also works well as a podcasting microphone. The line-in system lets users record interviews directly to a laptop or desktop PC using standard sound-recording software.

The microphone is available at www.samsontech.com and in stores. Sadly, it will not improve pitch, timing or danceability. Those skills must be won through performing, practice and more expensive music-recording software.

Hard drives are fast becoming huge photo and video archives, but not everyone has the foresight or patience to install a backup system in case that drive takes a dive. Memorex eliminates the need for a dedicated backup program with its SimpleSave Photo & Video Backup DVDs, which include the necessary software right on the recordable disc.

The SimpleSave discs work with Windows 2000 and later and require a computer with a DVD burner.

Once the disc is inserted, the onboard software starts automatically and searches the PC for photo and video files. In addition to the common JPEG, MPEG, QuickTime and Windows Media Video files, the disc's program can recognize dozens of other picture and movie file formats.

A full list is available on the product's page at www.memorex.com.

A five-pack of SimpleSave discs sells for about $15 in retail stores.

Each DVD stores about 4.4 gigabytes of files and can be used only once. The backup program lets you know when one disc is full and when it's time to insert another.

J. D. BIERSDORFER

Cheerfulness is not only a good medicine, but it is food for mind and body. The cheerful life will fill every atom with new life, and it is to the faculties of the mind what sunshine is to the flowers and trees.

To be happy always is one of the greatest things that man can do, and there are few things that are more profitable in every sense of that term. No matter what comes, be glad; and live in the conviction that all things are working together for good to you.

He who follows faith may frequently go out upon the seeming void, but he always finds the solid rock, The reason is that faith has superior vision and goes instinctively to the very thing we desire to find. Faith does not expect things to come of themselves.