Well, we just purchased a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS Digital ELPH, and I like it almost as much as the D70.

Obviously the D70 has better glass and is all-around a better camera; however, I like the Canon almost as much for the following reasons…

Recently, Microsoft released Remote Desktop 6. There are some nice improvements that make the upgrade worthwhile; however, there is 1 new feature that bugs the shit out of me daily and it’s the reason I’m blogging today.

The spyware epidemic

I’m bringing this blog to you today in the hopes that it helps you understand what’s happening with spyware and what you can do to remove it from your system if you’ve become infected.

I’ve been seeing tons of spyware problems with my customer’s and friend’s computers. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing, but somewhere within their websurfing, a spyware situation arises, and they’ve allowed it into their system. I’m 98% certain that that’s the only way spyware can get into their system; whether it’s installing a program, clicking a malicious link or navigating through warning messages without reading and understanding the ramifications of their answer. The pictures to the left are just an example of what can happen if spyware becomes entrenched within your operating system; I took pictures with my camera instead of capturing screenshots using software because I didn’t want to copy anything from that computer, not even a screenshot. That computer was a sinking tuna boat and, to this day, it’s still the only computer I’ve not been able to fix without wiping Windows and starting over. I should point out that it may save some time to wipe a computer and then reinstall the operating system, but you’re almost guaranteed to lose something important.

Since the site is hosted on a new server, I thought I would also completely change the layout of the site. Here’s what’s changed…

Our baby Madeline is now 10 months old and she has 6 teeth. She has been keeping us very busy as she’s now crawling and almost walking. Daryl and I have adjusted to having Madeline in our care and we’re getting used to sleeping again now that Madeline is sleeping through the night… which is very nice! Although there’s been some talk of ordering another rug rat in the not-so-distant future; so we’re not going to get too used to our current sleeping lifestyle. 2006 was a busy year for babies! Matt & Mia had a little boy named Marcello, then Dale & Jane had a little boy named Xander, then Chris and Amy had a little boy named Mason. It’s pretty sweet that they’re all the same age and get to grow up together. We don’t have a ton of pics yet with Xander and Mason but hopefully I’ll get back to using my camera again and share some pics here.

Since August we’ve spent lots of time with family and friends. Traveled to Phoenix for Christmas, traveled to Sea Ranch for Thanksgiving, and spent numerous weekends with friends.

As many of you know, my server died in December taking down this site (no big deal) and all of my business sites (very big deal!) My company ordered a new server and I spent the majority of December and early January reconfiguring all of our sites and the new server. I swore I would never reinstall a web server’s software again so I included a RAID array in the server (stuff is immediately backed up on a 2nd drive at all times). Then after my server was back, the hardware that connects the server to all the internets started having problems.

The website and server are now working properly; however, the speed of this site will be intermittently slow until I resolve the internet connection issue - so be patient if viewing the Gallery. I’m happy to have notched a shitload of experience under my belt with all of the server stuff I did.

Hope you’re all doing well and Daryl, Madeline and I would like to wish you the best in 2007.