Author Archives: Boomer

About Boomer

Applications engineer with a specialization in microscopes and computer integration of microscopes. Presently living in Orlando Florida. My focus is in fluorescence, bright field, dark field, polarized light, confocal and spectroscopy applications. I am also fluent in electron microscopy (SEM and TEM).

Apple Memorial Wallpaper

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I have a whole house full of Apple gear, we started with an iMac back around 2003, then an iPod shuffle, to now having 5 Macs in the house, two iPhones, Apple TV and I don’t know how many iPods. Oh, and an iPad & iPad2. Apple built some amazing equipment over the years with Steve at the helm; it’s odd to miss a guy I never met, but I am sure glad he stuck to his ideas, and gathered some of the best, and brightest, around him to make some of the most elegant, and refined, computing machines in the world.

I quick made a apple spinning wheel memorial desktop wall paper.

RIP Steve Jobs and thank you.

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A friend wrote a book check it out on the Kindle

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The younger brother of an old friend wrote a book about two brothers and how they related to each other and their friends. Try the book out on Amazon link below. The book is called Running with Vince and follows the two brothers on a five day journey from New Hampshire to their mother’s house in Maryland.

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How Pumpkin Pies Are made email

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This morning a friend sent me this email. My wife says this is why she does’t eat pumpkin pie.

From my father… this scares me, but also made the start of my weekend kinda funny. hope it gives you a good laugh :)

How Pumpkin Pies Are Made

I needed a good laugh today and this did it!
I will NEVER look at pumpkin pie the same way again!!

Thanks Steve!

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A True Map of Florida joke email

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Man, this summer and spring has been tough on the joke spam. I am not sure if it is the economy, or the oil spill in the gulf, or the World Cup, but we have gotten, like, zero spam emails for quite some time. What’s up people? Cheer up and send us some spam!

Luckily a friend of ours who lives/lived in Florida sent us this one the other day. I should preface that we now live in Florida so it is ok for us to laugh at our state again; we actually lived here and moved away, but recently moved back again.

Here is the email:

Subject: Finally, a true map of Florida

Finally, a true map of Florida that explains this weird, but wonderful state



You know you’re a Floridian if….

Socks are only for bowling.

You never use an umbrella because you know the rain will be over in five minutes.

A good parking place has nothing to do with distance from the store, but everything to do with shade.

Your winter coat is made of denim.

You can tell the difference between fire ant bites and mosquito bites.

You’re younger than thirty but some of your friends are over 65.

Anything under 70 degrees is chilly.

You’ve driven through Yeehaw Junction.

You know that no other grocery store can compare to Publix.

Every other house in your neighborhood had blue roofs in 2004-2005.

You know that anything under a Category 3 just isn’t worth waking up for.

You dread love bug season.

You are on a first name basis with the Hurricane list. They aren’t Hurricane Charley or Hurricane Frances. You know them as Andrew, Charley ,
Frances , Ivan, Jeanne & Wilma…Irene…Cheryl…Rita Mary..Alison

You know what a snowbird is and when they’ll leave.

You think a six-foot alligator is actually pretty average.

‘Down South’ means Key West

Flip-flops are everyday wear. Shoes are for business meetings and church, but you HAVE worn flip flops to church before.

You have a drawer full of bathing suits, and one sweatshirt.

You get annoyed at the tourists who feed seagulls.

A mountain is any hill 100 feet above sea level.

You know the four seasons really are: Hurricane season, love bug season, tourist season and summer.

You’ve hosted a hurricane party.

You can pronounce Okeechobee, Kissimmee, Withlacoochee , Thonotosassa and Micanopy.

You understand why it’s better to have a friend with a boat, than have a boat yourself.

You were 25 when you first met someone who couldn’t swim.

You’ve worn shorts and used the A/C on Christmas and New Years.

You recognize Miami-Dade as ‘Northern Cuba’

You not only forward this but you understand it (–we posted it here instead 0f spamming our pals)

Thanks Gina! We missed your email joke spam! Gina noted that she was surprised that Sopchoppy and Mt. Trashmore didn’t make the list!

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My friends have gone Kilt crazy

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I am on Facebook, and photos popped this week of my friends up in Tallahassee, FL all dressed up in kilts. Yup kilts. They decided to have a cigar and kilt night at the pub they frequent up there. We looked into kilts for me in the past, but never purchased one; they can get pricey. Cigar and kilt night spiked my interest again, so I asked them where they are getting them from and they said Alt.Lilt. I went and checked out the website and they have kilts for boys and skirts for women also and a decent set of kilt options for men.

My friends say they do a great job making the kilts. We knew of another shop on the web called Utilikilt. If you are in the market for a kilt check either place out.

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Remove Nero Scout

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Just a quick note to me. This actually works without breaking Nero 7 on Windows XP SP3.

Here’s how to disable Nero Scout:

open command window

After it comes up, run the command:

regsvr32 /u “%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Ahead\Lib\MediaLibraryNSE.dll”

Nero 7 is way cool, but Nero Scout is just annoying.

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Fun Free Virtual Drive Software for Windows 7

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For nearly ever, ok, since 2005, I have been using Nero to make digital backups of my program CDs and DVDs and then using Nero image drive to mount them and reinstall the software after a drive crash. This has been an extremely reliable way of efficiently managing software for work and home, if all the drive images are in one safe place like a networked hard drive, then I spend less time searching for discs in a CD case, and more time rebuilding systems. In most cases, a total rebuild of a system after a crash is about 3hours.

With the advent of Windows 7, which is extremely popular over Vista around here, we ran into trouble where Nero stopped being useful. In a mad dash to find a quick fix we came across this software from Slysoft.com, their program called Virtual CloneDrive works perfectly on Windows 7 for us, and the best part is, it is free! If you are looking for a solution for system support for Windows 7, this may be useful, it is around here.

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We decided to try the iPad

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We have a pretty decent home network, we pretty much have a computer in every room of the house. The problem is computing is getting more and more sociable. I mean, we as a family like to sit around and talk and be on the computer at the same time and watch TV or watch the kid play. I have a laptop, a Apple MacBook Pro 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (15.4-inch) but it is not kid friendly, it has all our cool software on it and it is already finicky with LED banks not lighting on the display from time to time. Since it is not on warranty any more, the easy solution is to just let the adults work on it. We also have a couple old G4 Mac Minis, the Apple Mac mini (G4 – 1.42GHz) and the Apple Mac mini (G4 – 1.5GHz). The 1.42GHz G4 Mini is our home file server runs quietly in the basement all by itself. The 1.5GHz G4 is in our family room tucked away in a corner near our entertainment center. The problem with our setup is that there is a partial wall separating the entertainment center from the family room, and that partial wall acts as a barrier during conversations. There is a whole lot of “what, I missed that” and “can you say that again” going on as we speak across the room. Missing words during conversations happens but sometimes it helps to have proper flow and cadence during communication. We could have moved all the computers into one room but that would look messy and we are trying to sell our house. Other options we’ve done in the past involved moving chairs around my desk to view items on the MacBook Pro, or huddle around our 1.42GHz G4 Mini. We even sat around my laptop on the couch until the kid kicked it by accident. The wife has been complaining lately that the mini in the family room is slow, which it is, but it works fine like most Apple products it is like a toaster, you plug it in and it works until the day you decide you need a different color toaster. It has just enough memory to run OS 10.5.8 and the software we like, Office 2004 for example, and safari and email. It also video conferences with an old iSight camera.

We are happy but as a family we want to have a bit more utility, this is where the iPad comes in. It really doesn’t have any moving parts which makes it kid friendly and we found that most of the time we are searching the web, checking email and taking care of bills on the little mini. We can do all of that with the iPad, and now we can all cozy up on the couch, and do little activities together and be sociable as a family without missing words. With the exception of not having a built in camera, it is nearly a perfect consumer item for a busy modern family. It is simple yet powerful. I like that we can all be comfortable anywhere in the house and still monitor what our child does on the Internet.

Setup was easy, just plug it into a computer that has the latest iTunes, 9.1 (79) so far, and follow on the screen instructions and you are done. My six year old son could run the thing on his own after that. I am very interested in seeing how this style of computing takes off. Someday maybe a 42 inch wall mounted system with all of our favorite movies on it.

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Funny little email came in today

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A friend sent me this email. Little did she know that I have seen this before in Florida. My half brother Dan took me fishing and we had to drive past a bunch of lazy alligators. I voiced some concern, because he said we were going to wade waste deep, in brackish water, to get to the fish. Dan said not to worry about the alligators, it’s the sting rays that we should worry about… Sting rays?

Here is the Email:

Subject: FW: Florida Road Sign

There were comments along the spam path like “I bet the alligators put up the sign”.

Thanks Cate.

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