February 5, 2012 - 12:47
This past week there was a lot of controversy surrounding Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Komen had announced a change in policy that resulted in it no longer providing grants to Planned Parenthood. The Pro-Choice community was up in arms and many people threatened to stop participating in Komen events and donating any money to Komen because of that change. Many people expressed their outrage by donating to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood got more donations in two days than the grant that was being pulled for the current year from Komen.
I am pro-life so I was not upset with that policy change. I know it's easy for me as a man to say that I was not bothered by Komen pulling their funding from Planned Parentood. I do not hate Planned Parenthood. I do think that Abortion is wrong and I do not agree with those that practice it. I do however recognize that Planned Parenthood does provide other services that are needed by those without insurance. I do not agree with those that argued that those people would suffer though since the funding that Komen was going to pull was less than $1 Million dollars out of a $1 Billion budget.
I am walking in the Komen 3-Day again this year and I would have been walking even if they had not reversed there decission. Cancer is too big of a problem to just decide to stop fighing through a group because you don't agree with all it's policies and choices. There are people depending on the research and prevention that are provided by the funds that we raise through our walks. I am thankful for those that continue to support me each year.
January 9, 2012 - 22:24
I had been thinking off and on for some time that I did not need a personal laptop anymore and finally went ahead and sold my Macbook Pro. I do about 95% of my computing at my desk so it just didn't make sense for me to look at MacBooks again when I was ready to upgrade. I wanted something I could attach my own monitor and keyboard to but a Mac Pro was out of my budget. I settled on a Mac Mini. I decided to get the Server Version so that I could get the Quad Core i7 processor with hard drives that I could stripe for faster disk access. I have only had this setup for a couple days now but I am impressed with how well setup drives two monitors and everything runs very smoothly.
November 17, 2011 - 20:18
It's the week before Thanksgiving and it feels wierd not to be flying to San Diego to walk in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. I walked there the previous two years and really enjoyed the experience. The first year the weather was absolutely beautiful. It was 60's and sunny all three days. Last year the weather was not quite so nice. It rained for most of Days 2 and 3. That made the walk a litte more challenging but the weekend was still a good experience. I miss seeing the Ocean again this year. I live close to Lake Michigan so I get to see water often enough but it's just not the same.
I really enjoyed the Twin Cities this year but it was over so early in the year since it was before Labor Day. I just feel like I should be doing something this weekend and I am not. Actually it will be nice to have this weekend to get ready for Thanksgiving. I hope the walkers in San Diego have an awesome weekend to finish up the series for this year. Once that is done I will start more aggressive fund raising for my walk next year.
November 1, 2011 - 20:17
About a month ago I had posted about my intention to move my e-mail services over to Google Apps. I did move my e-mail over for a short time but decided to move back because I really didn't care for it. There were also a number of logistical reasons that I don't use it anymore and use my own VPS for e-mail. One of the biggest reasons is the ability for me to backup my data. With my VPS and CPANEL, I can very easily create a backup of my complete domain and download it to my computer to keep a backup. Backing up a domain of Google Apps Data is not as easy. Another reason that I am not using it anymore is because one of my original intentions to move was to see how well it worked so that I could eventually move my Church's e-mail over to Google Apps. That is not a possibility anymore since Google has revised their terms of service and excluded Churches from getting their free service like other non-profits do. I really do prefer the CPANEL interface to managing my e-mail accounts anyway.
September 12, 2011 - 20:16
I have been hosting my own e-mail for some time now but have decided that it's really not worth it for me at this time. I can continue to host my website on my VPS and host my e-mail using a personal domain on the low end google apps for free. There are some issues with hosting your own e-mail server that are just not worth it. Many ISP's and spam lists will blacklist IP ranges based on bad e-mails from a particiular host and even if your server is just one IP address in that range, they will blacklist. Using the G-Mail SMTP server makes it easier to send out e-mails. I also like the web interface of Gmail much better than the ones that came with my cpanel host. The biggest drawback with Google is the 10 account limit for free domains. Thankfully my needs are small enough.
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