It's almost 2010, and in the spirit of New Year's resolutions, I've decided to try this blogging thing again. Yes, it's been a long time. I've been absent from the blogosphere for almost two years. With Twitter, Facebook and the hundreds of other social networking sites out there, blogs lost some of their lustre for me. Why spend time writing a post when you can just Twitter the info in 160 characters or less to your friends? But I've missed the longer format of the blog post. Here, I can write more leisurely and at greater length about what I'm thinking or doing. Maybe I'm just long-winded, but tweets and FB updates don't give me enough room to expand on an idea and really express myself—like reading the teaser on the back cover and never the book.

I thought if I started acting like a real developer, maybe it would improve my code. So, I decided to install and start using MAMP on my Mac to develop locally. Mind you, this programming stuff doesn't come naturally to me. I had to ask a few questions now and then of some of my developer friends, but eventually I sort of got it working. Now I've got another problem with MAMP. Somehow it's causing very strange problems in Adium, my IM client.

It's been a good, long while since I wrote a blog post. Between work and family, there just hasn't been time. I've been super busy for months now, but not without some benefits.

They didn't make it here in time for the holidays, but my little people didn't seem to care. Our XOs from One Laptop Per Child arrived today and were instant hits. The kids played for hours, checking out all the cool features—chat, Internet, writing, music, drawing, and the still/video camera. Mom was more impressed than she'd anticipated.

In the spirit of the holiday season, play a word game, have some fun and give a gift, all at the same time. FreeRice is more than a fun online vocabulary game. For each word definition you get right, you're donating 20 grains of rice to the United Nation's World Food Program...