There are some downsides. iWeb was a wonderful tool for creating web sites. The integration of iPhoto, iWeb, and .mac, made it real easy to put a sophisticated and complex gallery of photo albums up on the web. I will also miss the nifty mini-slideshow widgets iPhoto could produce (I have kept a couple cause I like them so much).

However it was really really slow. If you were using Internet Explorer as your browser (you really should get Safari or FireFox), or were connecting through DSL or (God forbid) dial-up, well then, you probably gave up on my family site. I apologize for that. That’s what, after a bit of research, led be to SmugMug. You have to pay for the service, but it is a very small yearly amount for the ‘standard’ level service. Sure there are free sites like Flickr out there, but your viewers have to put up with advertisements, and a not as nice interface. Plus SmugMug is really fast. If you are ever interested in using their service, I can get you five dollars off by using coupon code zUHZEirkZ6UDQ in the ‘Referred by’ field on the signup form.

SmugMug gives me unlimited photo storage, so besides now having private backups of all my pics, the public galleries contain many more pictures than before. Also if you see a photo of mine you truly like, besides downloading it for free, you can pay to have it professionally printed ($0.19 for a 4×6), you can even have it made into a mug, an apron, a ceramic tile, keychain, or a slew of other choices. Just so you know, the prices are reasonable because I’ve chosen not to recieve any proceeds from these sales.

So in closing, there have been allot of behind the scene changes on our web sites, plus I had to notch up security in response to a hacking attempt. If you find anything broken, a link not going were it is suppose to, a missing picture symbol, an out right error message, please email me and let me know so I can fix it. Thanks for reading hernandezlife.com

P.S. For the family-only galleries, the password is the same and you no longer need a userid.

Click photos to go to gallery.

Ten Of My Very Favorite Photographs

]]> http://hernandezlife.com/2008/01/31/5-bucks-off-smugmug/feed/ 3 http://hernandezlife.com/2008/01/22/why-everyone-needs-air/ http://hernandezlife.com/2008/01/22/why-everyone-needs-air/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:14:05 +0000 Rick http://www.hernandezlife.com/archive/2008/01/22/why-everyone-needs-air/

Click on the Comic for a larger version.

MacGyver would have loved it.

Comic from The Joy of Tech via Geek Culture


If you don’t know about the MacBook Air (MBA), shame on you, and click here.

After sleeping for a few hours we spent the day relaxing at the home of my parents (Pete & Elsa) and sister (also Elsa), but that evening we went out to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Never saw an Indian Hard Rock before (to tell the truth it is not on reservation land and there is big controversy over it’s existence). The casino itself is nice, but only offers slot machines & various flavors of poker. Dad & I gambled (and lost) while the girls walked around the shops (they said it was like a nice looking, outdoor, high-end mall). The one restaurant we visited was a real disappointment, with one of the worst examples of service I’d ever experienced, plus the food was ranged from bad to just OK, and over-priced. Still we all had a good time.

The next day saw us visiting a Catholic Charities pre-school/day care center that my sister was once in charge of, and is now just one of many she administers. She has done wonders with these schools and I am very proud of her.

Later that afternoon we visited El Palacio de los Jugos (Palace of the Juices (sounds better than Juice Palace)). If you like fresh juices, this place is amazing, we bought Mango, Tamarind, Guanabana (soursop), Coconut, and Pina-colada (Coconut & pineapple juices mixed). In fact we went back at least twice more during the trip to get more.

A lot of time was spent in my sister’s private enclosed side yard (Phaedra & my smoking section) that she fixed up nicely with comfortable chairs, flowering plants and an avocado tree. This photo was of a small lizard poking its’ head out of the air-conditioning unit in her yard. Glad I wasn’t there when the compressor fan turned on.

Next day Phaedra, my mother, sister, and I, went to an amazing place called Corral Castle. You can read it’s story and a link to my pictures of it in my posting “What depression can do for you…“.

That night I wanted to take everyone out to someplace nice, but different, so I looked up on Zagat, and found Ortanique on the Mile, a fantastic, if a bit pricey, Caribbean restaurant. I have to say, it may very well have been the best food, and dining experience, I have ever had. We tried West Indian Curried Crab Cakes, a 3 cheese plate, Pan Sautéed Bahamian Black Grouper, Black Angus Beef Tenderloin, and a West Indian Style Bouillabaisse. Highly recommend it if you’re in Miami, on the Miracle Mile (and can afford $90+ a person).

Next day, besides going to a chintzy street craft fair, Espanola Way Market, we visited Miami Ink, walked South Beach, and got tattoos. More of that in my post “So we went to Miami Ink…“.

During the evenings we also spent time in my folk’s beautifully landscaped & decorated back yard, with a beach and dock on the (aforementioned, alligator-free) lake.

The next day, Christmas Eve Day, and Phaedra’s birthday, were spent shopping (the girls anyway) at Macy’s (Phaedra made out well with birthday gift cards from my family), while my dad & I went out to Miccosukee Casino (we lost again). That night we had a dinner at home in Phaedra’s honor, composed of turkey & stuffing, spinach mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie, oven roasted asparagus, and cranberries. My father got Phaedra drunk with a sour-apple martini. We topped the night off with a birthday cake and gift giving.

Finally the event that brought us here. Christmas morning. A time of wonder and delight for all. After a breakfast of my wife’s world famous (at least in our small world) cheese soufflé, we got to the presents. This is a picture of what they looked like before we started.

The ripping, the tearing, paper & ribbons being uncaringly torn limb from limb. Oh my God, the horror of it all. No, only kidding, we had lots of fun, and lots of gifts for all. In fact, Phaedra & I had to leave some of our clothes behind (to be mailed) just so we could make room in our luggage for all that we received (and shopped for).

This is what the aftermath looked like. Oh the humanity of it all…

That was our trip. Phaedra & I had a great, and relaxing, time. We both very much want to thank my parents, and my sister, heartily, for their hospitality. We flew back at 9:30 p.m. Christmas Day, got in to Newark around 1 a.m. the next day, to the house by 2, bed by 3:30. Slept for a long long while, and then went to Eva & Anthony’s for Christmas leftovers, but that’s yet another post.

You can see the other 30 odd photos I took of our visit down south under trips on my photo page, or just click here.

Click any of the pictures above for larger versions

P.S. You may have noticed (or not) that the dates of the last few (and next) postings don’t match when they popped up on my blog. It’s because I mostly wrote them on that day, but had not had a chance to finalize the text (read spellcheck), or upload the pictures till now.

Sunday night Phaedra and I went out with Eva and Anthony to celebrate Anthony & my birthday. We went to a restaurant in Englishtown NJ that has risen from the ashes, Peking Pavilion.
It is an awesome “Chinese Fusion” restaurant that burned down just before New Year 2007, and has returned with a vengeance. I can truthfully say it is some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever had. We started off with Steak Egg rolls, Creamy Spicy Shrimp on Scallion Pancakes, Chicken Corn Soup, & Asparagus & Crab soup. The main meal was Lobster Fried Rice, Basil Beef, Grand Marnier Shrimp, and a Salmon dish I didn’t try. Desert was Apple-Pie for Anthony and Flaming Bananas for the rest of us. Peking Pavilion also has some interesting drinks; we all liked he Lychee Martinis, the Pair-tinie and the Coconut Mojito. A bit expensive, but overall an excellent restaurant.

Click either of the pictures for larger versions

Well I’ve made the switch from Tiger to Leopard, and I can say I love it. Time Machine is awesome, the switch from a 32 bit OS to a 64 bit one makes every thin run real fast, plus a whole bunch of other improvements. The only casualties so far were a couple of beloved mail plugins, Letterbox and HTTPMAIL. At least I know Letterbox will be updated for 10.5 soon.

Stacks doesn’t do much for me, but I like the “glass shelf” appearance of the dock. Spaces has already become very useful for me, and the combination of “quick look”, “cover flow” and a much speedier Spotlight (now with boolean operators & saved searches), makes finding files a pleasure. Many pundits have criticized the transparency of the menu bar, but I like the aesthetics of it.

iCal has seen some nice improvements, iChat is a blast (now with much better audio clarity), and I really like what they’ve done with the new Safari with a cool find feature and the ability to “clip” a portion of a webpage and turn it into a widget. Mail, Preview, Front Row, and DVD Player have all seen improvements. The built in Dictionary now supports entries from Wikipedia. If you use Photo Booth, Parental Controls, Image Capture, VPN, Terminal, or just about any other feature you can think of in Mac OS X, you’ll find at least some changes. So are 300-plus new features worth $129? Yes, and more!

This quarter alone Apple shipped over 10.5 million iPods, along with 1.5 million Macs and 1.1 million iPhones. When I first heard of the iPod I thought, who needs to carry 1,000 songs with them, now my iTunes library holds well over 5000 songs, not to mention a bunch of movies, TV shows, music videos and podcasts. The iPod has truly changed my personal daily entertainment. In the morning I listen to environmental sounds on the bus ride in to work so I can drown out other noises and sleep. All day long I’m perusing my music library, and on the ride home from work I usually either listen to an audio book, or watch a video podcast or 2.

Happy Birthday iPod. Here’s to another 10 glorious years. Hopefully by then you will have reached three quarters of a billion sales.

Click picture to enlarge

UPDATE: Sorry, seems I can’t count. The iPod is 6 years old today, not 5. To make it up, here’s a video of that day, six years ago.

(Warning: Non-techies just skip this blog entry altogether.)

Here is version, oh let’s say… 2.1, of my website. Basically I’ve moved from hosting my website on .mac (Apple’s servers) to running it on a shared server at HostMonster. Besides going from 10 gigabytes disk storage to 300 gigs, this gives me much more control server side like, perl, PHP, mySQL, Linux Shell Access, CRON jobs and more. All that let’s me put together a slicker website.

The other big change is that my blog (what your reading right now) is now a WordPress blog. Again this gives me greater control over things. Among other thing you can register so you will receive email notices of new blog entries (posts), archives are now segregated by month, and posts can have categories. Another nice feature, for me anyway, is that I can submit these postings from anywhere. In fact, I’m writing this right now, on my iPhone, while traveling on an express bus (x4) somewhere in Brooklyn on my way to work in Manhattan.

In addition the afore mentioned company also saw to generously update my storage from 1 gigabyte to 10 gigs. Also I became the proud owner of a new domain, hernandezlife.com. I had to take this opportunity to recreate our site with more interactive elements, and hopefully make it a more uber fun site. Please post a comment and let me know what you think. Being a new site, there a bound to be a few features bugs about, let me know if you find those too. Thanks for visiting!