Early thoughts on Google Plus

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I was able to get set up on Google+ last week. You can find me here.

I’m still trying to get a feel for it. I love the idea of Circles. I’m all about categories. I’ve never used the lists in Facebook and find it to be about 90% noise now.

I doubt if Google+ will ever achieve the popularity of Facebook, but it might hurt Twitter some. It can do everything that Twitter does and isn’t limited to 140 characters. It might be a little too “geeky” for the Facebook crowd however.

I’m still on the fence with Picassa. Just what I need. Another photo sharing site. I’m already putting my pictures on Facebook and Flickr. Now I’m supposed to upload to Picassa, too? I think I might just get a SmugMug account and be done with it.

I haven’t yet joined any huddles or hung out with anyone. I guess I’m just a little too busy.

Carova, NC

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Took the family to Carova, NC yesterday for a day on the beach. It’s a bit of a pain to get there since I have to drive 65 miles south to the Outer Banks then make a left and drive 30 miles north to Carova. But it’s a great place to go. The road ends in Corolla and from there its 4 wheel drives only. We had no one within a quarter mile of us. Only had to look out for passing vehicles since the beach is actually considered a road down there. The weather was perfect. It was about 85 degrees, a few clouds here and there, and low humidity. Beach was a challenge when leaving since the sand was so soft, and we couldn’t find a good set of tracks to follow. I should have probably let some air out of my tires but didn’t. Anyway, here are some pictures:

A Beautiful beach day in Carova, NC

Pelican flying by

Dolphin jumping while kids are surfing

Dolphins were around us all day

Software for my iMac

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With the new iMac 6 weeks from being delivered, I’m thinking about the software I’ll install.  So here goes:

Hoping that OS X 10.7 will be shipping by then.  I will still install from scratch however. I think since I’ll have two drives, I will have to partition the 2TB drive to hold the /Users directory.

iMac

New iMac on the way! Eventually.

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Just ordered my new iMac this past weekend.  Upromise was having a 10% sale for Apple so my wife gave me the green light.  Here’s what I ordered:

  • 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 27″
  • 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x2GB
  • 2TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive
  • AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5
  • Magic Trackpad
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac

I’m going to fill up the memory to its maximum 16GB, but I’ll order the memory from Other World Computing to save a few hundred dollars.

Unfortunately, because I ordered it with the SSD, it won’t ship until July 6th and I won’t receive it until around July 13th. No biggie. Have plenty to do until then. Have a house I need to sell.

iMac

NCAA Final Four predictions

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So we’re down to the Final Four. It’s been one of the most exciting basketball tournaments ever.  Poor Butler.  Last year’s Cinderella team. No Cinderella this year. Oh, they’re back in the Final Four again. But this time, they’re being overshadowed by VCU.  Butler and VCU will face-off in the first semi-final game next Saturday.  Should be a defensive struggle.  And in the other bracket will be a couple of well-known powers, Kentucky and UConn.

Based on my latest rankings, we have two very exciting basketball games in store.  UConn is ranked #6 and Kentucky is ranked #8. Butler is ranked #34 and VCU is ranked #41.  But ignore the rankings.  On March 7th, my rankings had UConn at #13, Kentucky at #29, Butler at #57, and VCU was ranked #76.  Here are the current power ratings for each school:

  1. UConn 61.935
  2. Kentucky 61.761
  3. Butler 59.898
  4. VCU 59.543

Based on these ratings, here are the chances of each team advancing to the championship game:

  1. Butler 52.04%
  2. UConn 51.00%
  3. Kentucky 49.00%
  4. VCU 47.96%

Nobody is a clear favorite in either game.  These should be tremendous games.  So who’s the favorite to win it all?  Well, based on my ratings, here is the breakdown:

  1. UConn 31.86%
  2. Kentucky 30.15%
  3. Butler 20.27%
  4. VCU 17.76%

So it seems that the winner of the UConn/Kentucky matchup has the best chance to win the national championship.  But I wouldn’t put money on it.  Butler and VCU have proven that they not only can play with anyone, they can beat anyone.  It should be a fun ride!