links for 2008-08-21
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A new mechanism to give you the ability to view PDF documents in-line within Firefox 3 on Mac OS X.
How do you explain a Wiki?
I work in the world of technology and I often get asked questions like, “What’s a Wiki?” Recently I ran across a really cool series of videos by the fine folks at Common Craft that explain, in plain English, what some of these technologies are. Take a look at this:
#47 on Flickr’s Explore for January 30, 2008
I didn’t realize it until just now, but I actually have one photo that has made Explore on Flickr, and it is this one. I wish I would have realized it seven months ago. It would have been more exciting to me then!
One of the things that amused me about this photo when I snapped it was that the driver of the sleigh looks the part, except for the fact that he is wearing a bluetooth cellphone headset in his ear. 
–Pete
Who knew? Cancer of the Toe in Dogs
Emmet is our 10-year-old black lab that we’ve had since he was a puppy. Unfortunately, he is now beginning his fight with malignant melanoma. That’s right. Malignant melanoma. The type of skin cancer that every human dreads because it is so hard to treat. It turns out that dogs can get it too and it is just as bad for dogs, as it is for humans.
With Emmet, it started out with us noticing that he had lost part of his toenail on his left rear foot. Normally, losing a nail is really painful for a dog and normally it bleeds like crazy, as they have blood vessels in their nails. Emmet has always been a stoic dog, and so it didn’t surprise us that much that it didn’t seem to slow him down, but because of that, we didn’t notice it until it was already infected. We took him to the vet and started a course of antibiotics. A few weeks later his nail began to grow back, but it was a just a sliver of a nail and it was clear that it bothered him a bit, so we kept it trimmed really short.
A week ago, we noticed that his toe was swelling — in fact it was quite large now. We figured it was
infected again. We brought him back to the vet and as she looked at it, she grew concerned. It looked different than before. We decided to do a biopsy and it was quite clear as she did the biopsy that his toe wasn’t swollen with infection. It contained a mass of some kind — a tumor. She took a sample and we sent it off to the pathologist. She also noticed that his lymph node near his knee on the same leg was swollen too.
A week later, the biopsy results came back. It wasn’t good news. It was malignant melanoma — one of the worst kinds of cancer. It tends to be very aggressive, fast growing, and worst of all — it can rapidly spread to other parts of the body, especially the lungs. Given the type of cancer, Emmet’s prognosis was not great. He might live a few weeks, a few months, or perhaps another year or two. it all depended on whether or not the cancer had spread.
The question now was, “What can we do to treat him?” I’ve always been against doing radical treatments on dogs. You can do chemotherapy. You can do radiation treatments. The problem is that these treatments cause the dog to get really sick and/or cause even more pain. Although they can prolong their life, it isn’t often by very much — a few months at best and much of that is not quality time. So we started debating how to best treat Emmet. Our goal was to make sure that the time he had left, however long that was, was quality time.
We talked with our vet. With talked with our parents. We talked with our trusted friends. We came up with a plan. We decided to have Emmet’s lungs X-rayed. If the cancer had spread, it was likely going to end up in his lungs. If it was already in his lungs, further treatment was futile. He would die within a matter of a few weeks. Fortunately for us, the x-rays were clean. No cancer in his lungs….yet.
Now that we knew that, we could decide where to go. The toe involved was a non-weight bearing toe and tumor seemed to be limited to that toe, and perhaps one lymph node in his leg. Other than the tumor, Emmet was happy and healthy. His heart and lungs were strong. He was a good risk for surgery. We opted to have his cancerous toe removed and the questionable lymph node removed as well. That surgery happened earlier this week. The goal was to get rid of the obvious cancer so it wouldn’t spread and to get rid of a sore spot on his foot so he could walk, run, and play. So far so good. The surgery went as planned and Emmet is healing nicely. Once it is healed, he’ll never miss that toe.
How will this end? We don’t really know the details, but I’m sure the cancer will eventually kill him. It is, without a doubt, lurking somewhere else in his body. But, given that we have gotten rid of the obvious tumor and questionable lymph node, I’m hopeful that we’ll see his wagging tail around our house for a while yet. I’m hoping for at least a year, but I’ll be happy with whatever God gives us with our sweet, loveable, dog.
links for 2008-07-23
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A really cool site about the periodic table of elements.
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Most recent Macs don’t need a crossover cable when you connect two of them by their ethernet ports. They auto-detect the need and crossover automatically if needed.
links for 2008-07-18
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This tip wasn’t in any of my public speaking classes….
links for 2008-07-02
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A nifty little script that runs as a login item or a Dashboard widget that is used to notify a Mac User that is bound to Active Directory how much time until their password expires.
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A new type of image file was introduced in Leopard — the Sparse Bundle. This new type of disk image is critical for Time Machine
links for 2008-06-30
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A nice short article about how to do a vignette using Pixelmator on the Mac
Sammy the Chaperone Dog
I don’t remember why I was thinking of this today, but I was. When I was in high school, my parents had a black Standard Poodle named Sammy. She was a funny dog with TONS of personality and she adored my dad.
I need to back up a bit and then we’ll come back to Sammy. The house I grew up in was a rambler style house. It had a fully finished basement, and the basement was where we had the family room and the TV. When we watched a movie, we watched it in the basement. In high school, my brother and I would often bring dates over to the house to watch a movie or just hang out. It was pretty convenient that the family room was in the basement, as my parents often went to bed around 10 o’clock, and so we’d have the basement to ourselves.
One evening my girlfriend and I were sitting in the basement family room watching a movie and I heard my dad say, as he got up to head to bed, “Sammy — go downstairs and see what those kids are doing.” A moment later I heard Sammy pad down the stairs and her big fluffy head appeared in front of me as she checked out what we were doing. Fortunately — we were just watching a movie! She then climbed up onto the couch and sat down directly between me and my girlfriend. That’s right. She sat BETWEEN US. As she sat there, she looked back and forth between the two of us, her big, pink tongue hanging out. She sat there the rest of the evening.
I told my parents about it the next day. She was henceforth referred to as “The Chaperone Dog”. My dad always made it a point to send her downstairs to see what we were doing whenever I had a date over to watch a movie. Figures.
–Pete
Photo of the Week - Ears in the Air
We played with Emmet, our 10 year-old lab, in our pond last Sunday. This was my first chance to try and get some action shots of him swimming and playing in the water with my new camera.
Like most labs, Emmet is a natural in the water and he’d rather swim than do just about anything else. He swims very low in the water and uses his tail as a rudder. One time, he swam so much and so hard in one day, he actually sprained his tail. Who would have known that would be possible!
links for 2008-06-20
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This explains how to reset the local KDC for a Leopard client to prevent this problem.
Photo of the Week — Catazo the Llama
My animals are always a favorite subject to photograph. This photo is of Catazo, our gelded male llama that lives out at my friend’s farm. Catazo is quite a large llama and has a big personality to go with his size. Although some llamas do spit, he rarely spits — at least at people. I have seen him spit at other llamas and at our dogs from time to time. I like this photo because of the vivid colors that ended up in the background and because of how it highlights his very expressive face.
–Pete
links for 2008-06-10
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A really nice article about the differences between active, inactive, and wired memory in Activity Monitor
Photo of the Week — Inter-species Bonding
It is always interesting to me to see what photos that I post on Flickr other folks find interesting. I keep a group of photos that is titled “Top 20 Most Interesting“, and it is automatically generated each night based on what Flickr thinks are my most interesting photos. For quite a while now, the most interesting photo in my set has been this photo of Catazo the Llama and Bucky the Labrador. Catazo is our gelding male llama that lives out at my friend’s farm. Bucky is a Labrador Retriever that belonged to some friends of ours. Bucky was just around a year old when I snapped this photo. Sadly, Bucky has died since this photo was taken.
You might want to check out the other photos in my Top 20 Most Interesting Set. Be sure to comment on the ones you like. Commenting changes how “interesting” Flickr thinks my photos are.
–Pete
Playing with Mars Edit
There is no excuse. I haven’t posted much of anything in weeks on the blog here, except stuff from my delicious account. Tonight I just had a few minutes to try out the new version of Mars Edit. I had tried this software in the past and was underwhelmed by it. This no version looks pretty cool actually. One thing I like is the integration with Flickr. I’ll keep you posted on it. I may just have to buy this one….
–Pete
