OS Quiz

Here's a nice little quiz I found via Digg to tell you which OS you would be if you were an OS. They've got some other quizzes too. Check them out.

I'm Slackware Linux.

A Few Links Of Note

Just doing my part to get the word out that there is still some tech programming out there... even after the sad and unnecessary demise of TechTV.

First, some of the former personalities on what must be called the "flagship" show of TechTV, The Screen Savers, have begun getting together on Sundays to create a podcast called This Week in Tech (TWiT for short).

Next we have the leader of the crew himself, Leo Laporte. He's pretty much everywhere, on TWiT, on the radio, on podcasts and on Call For Help Canada.

Patrick Norton has a blog that he never updates, but has been posting to his blog on the TWiT website. He also has an RSS Feed that pretty much posts everything he writes for ExtremeTech.com and ExtremeiPod.

Kevin Rose, who went on to be a personality on the new (and now former) Screen Savers and it's evil twin Attack Of The Show, just announced on his blog that he will be leaving G4 and devoting all of his time to his new show Systm and his first video project, thebroken, with hopefully even more to come.

I say great work, guys. It's nice to know that you are all still out doing your best to bring the tech to the masses.

Audit My PC

Just found this website, AuditMyPC.com, via Digg.com. Looks like a decent little site for checking various things about your PC, including a spyware scan and a test to see if your popup blocker is working as well as it should. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I work on PC's a little bit in my spare time. I'll be using this site in the near future to see if it lives up to my expectations.

Gaming Bits

Check out this pic of the controller for the new Playstation 3. Is this butt ugly or what?

I myself just purchased an original Xbox about a month back. I find if I stay about a generation behind with gaming consoles, it's just as much fun and a whole lot cheaper. Now I can get most of the games that everyone was raving about 6 months ago for about half the price. And by the time I'm finished with them, the games that are hot now will be $20... maybe even less with the Xbox 360 just over the horizon.

Speaking of games, I can't wait for the release of the new game, Destroy All Humans. I've been waiting for this thing since I read about it last fall in a gaming mag. It looks to be a nice twist on the old alien invasion movies of the 50's. This time you get to play the alien. I think it's due to be released sometime next month. I probably won't wait for this one to make it to the bargain bin.

How Did It Go In?

Ok, this is crazy. Now we've got this website dedicated to trying to figure out how Tiger's ball dropped on the 16th hole in the final round at the 2005 Masters. And I thought I had too much time on my hands. I have to admit, though, it's pretty funny.

Tin Cup Revisited

Here's a nice post on Snopes.com that will remind everyone who has seen the movie of a famous scene from Tin Cup.

Spyware: Out Of Control

This spyware stuff is out of control.  I would even go so far as to say that it's currently a bigger problem than viruses.  I make a few extra bucks every now and then by doing the odd computer repair, and in the past 6 months to a year, the bulk of my repairs have been concentrated on the removal of spyware.

The problem is that, while a lot of people out there have probably heard of spyware, they don't worry about it as much as they worry about viruses.  We've all heard for years about the dangers of viruses and what they can do to your system, and most of the PC's I work on have some type of antivirus program installed (even if it's not updated).  But with spyware, people seem to look at it as more of an annoyance than a danger.

This may be true for the most part, but it will be nice when the word finally gets out about the adverse effect spyware can have on general PC performance.  When people finally realize that spyware is a big part of why their PC is "slowing down", maybe they will be more willing to be proactive about stopping it.  One thing I would welcome would be to see the Dell's of the world start to include anti-spyware programs on new PC's with 3 or 6 month trials, the same way they do with anti-virus programs now.

I just purchased Spy Sweeper for my own system, and so far, I'm pretty impressed.  I didn't have a big presence of spyware on my system.  I purchased it mostly for testing purposes, to be able to recommend it to some of my clients.  But I did have a few pieces on my system that the program was able to find and clean.

Let's Go Kipper!!

Looks like Kip Henley, the winner of the Golf Channel's Big Break II, is set to play his first Nationwide Tour event this week in the Henrico County Open. For those who don't know, Big Break is the Golf Channel's reality game show where 10 men (or women) compete for a few exemptions on their respective tours.

I always liked Kip on the show, but didn't really respect his game until the final episode when he edged out one of the favorites, Don Donatello. He showed he has gained a lot of knowledge about the game in his 40+ years. I hope he does well. If he makes the cut it will be one more step towards his goal of making it on the PGA Tour.

New Direction

Starting today, I'm planning on moving this blog in a somewhat different direction. No, that's probably not entirely accurate. I still plan on talking a lot about golf here. It's just that I would like to be able to incorporate some of my other interests, as well as the occasional post about my life in general. In short, I'm going to be talking about whatever the heck floats my boat at any given time.

That was actually the intention when I started this thing a little less than a year ago, but before I knew it, I was focusing mostly on golf. I guess I was taken in by the title "Rub Of The Green", but in fact, as I alluded to in my first post ever, just because it's a golf term, doesn't mean it has to be ONLY a golf term.

I'm working right now on an acceptable way to implement categories into this blog, to give it a little bit of organization when I do start talking about anything and everything. I've been working on a couple of methods over the past couple of weeks, but nothing satisfies me so far. So I guess for the time being I'll be throwing everything together in a big hodgepodge of tech, golf, life and... golf.

Stay tuned...

Tournament Results

Well, my big tournament has come and gone. We all had a pretty good day. We shot 9 under, which for four high handicappers isn't too bad. Our previous best had been 7 under. We had gotten to 7 under with 5 holes to play. We figured then we would easily be able to beat our previous best, since 4 of our final five were birdie holes. Things didn't work out exactly as planned. We parred the next 4, but managed to eagle the final hole to get it to 9 under, which is a nice way to finish up. We did bogey one hole, which left us a little bitter in the end.

When we first came in, we had heard we were tied for the lead. But our shot at glory was brief. The next team to finish posted 10 or 11 under, I don't know for sure which. We left after finding out we had been beaten, so I'm not sure of the final winning score.

Oh, yeah, and my cart broke down 6 holes into the round.

I'm There

As of this morning, I have reached my 200 lb. pre-tournament weight loss goal. I still have some weight to lose, but it feels good to have reached another goal.

Next up: Get down to 195 by my birthday. I've got about 2 1/2 weeks to get there.

Stay tuned…

Too Close For Comfort

This is nuts. I'm 3 days away from the tournament I've been talking about for the past 2 weeks and, to quote Roy McAvoy, "my swing feels like an unfolding lawn chair".

Is it all in my head? Probably so. Is there anything I can do about it? Probably not.

The only thing I've got going for me is memories of playing well in other scramble-format competitions through the years. Sure, it's all because I don't have as much pressure on me, and maybe that means I'm a choker, but at this point I don't feel the need to delve into that territory. I just want to make sure I get through Saturday without making a fool of myself.

One thing is good. I feel like I'm putting as well as I have in a while. My big problem with putting has always been speed, especially on longer putts. For some reason, the speed of our local greens seem to be to my liking right now. As anyone who has played scrambles knows, a decent putter can contribute a lot in that format. You can hit the ball like a drunk all day long, and if you can putt, you can finish the day as the hero.

My big problem right now is off the tee. I was hitting the ball well a couple of weeks ago and suddenly this week a pull hook has found it's way into my bag. And with my team, I could be called upon to be the "horse" off the tee. One of our teammates, my cousin, actually hits the ball a long way, but my Dad told me he's not been playing that well lately. I know how that feels. Our other teammate can hit the ball pretty well and with decent distance, but he's not had any confidence in anything bigger than a 5 wood for a few years now.

We can probably count on Dad to keep us in play most of the day, which should give the rest of us a chance to try to wail on it. But if we can't keep it in the fairways, we may be working pretty hard for birdies. Which is not what I want. I want to have at least a chance for birdie on every hole.

Looks like it's time to pull out the Harvey Penick books again.