ColdFusion 7

The new version of ColdFusion is out...version 7. The new version includes all kinds of good stuff like reports, charts, graphs, better XML integration and awesome integration with Flash. It's available from Macromedia, and it runs nicely with J2EE environments.

For those who have never used ColdFusion before, it's a tag-based language that allows you to make dynamic Web pages that are built on the back-end--on the server--and are delivered to the client--the Web browser. This can be data from a database like Microsoft Access or the freely-available MySQL. ColdFusion is written using Macromedia Dreamweaver and must be hosted on a Web server that supports ColdFusion. There are plenty of service providers you can sign up for that support ColdFusion.

Ender Wiggin

In the 1980's in a Catholic military high school in Aurora, Illinois--the fabled home of SNL's "Wayne's World"--lived a group of "Dead Poet Society" wannabes who called themselves Kafka (a nod to our boy Franz). Also in the 1980's were hairstyles on girls that were big. I mean BIG hair. Kafka called these "rad wiggins". And up until a couple of weeks ago, those were the only wiggins I was aware of.

And along came the story of Ender Wiggin. My friend--the bright-eyed 22 year old--now has another reason to call me "Grandpa Simpson" because I had never read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. Of course he was about 5 when the book came out and I was in a college fraternity and drinking heavily at the time (ironically just as the 22 year old is today). It's a wonderful book; it's science fiction, but people who don't like science fiction usually really like this book. I'm thinking about getting it for my oldest son, who really enjoys reading. The book tells the story of Andrew Wiggin, a five year old boy who everyone is counting on to save the world. Not a lot of stress, eh? When I was five I was more concerned with digging holes and riding my Big Wheel. After reading this book, I have found out there there is an entire series of books in the "Ender Saga". The next book is called "Speaker For The Dead", but I've been encouraged to read first a collection of 4 short stories published in September, 2004 called "First Meetings: In The Enderverse". This collection includes the original short story "Ender's Game" as well as two stories about Ender's parents, John Paul and Theresa. These two stories are a prequel to the first book; also included is a story that bridges the first book to the second in the series, "Speaker For The Dead". I, too, recommend "First Meetings" before you continue on in the series.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Part 42

While leaving the movies google-plex last weekend with my sons after watching the movie "Robots" (it was good...fodder for another blog, tho), I noticed a "coming soon" movie poster for "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy". Well, I must be living under a rock with an analog clock and a dialer telephone because I didn't know this was being made into a movie. I've read that it starts either April 29, 2005 or May 6th...soon to be followed by "Star Wars III" which will no doubt eclipse this tale of Arthur Dent.

Either way, you must promise me that you will go and see this movie. Douglas Adams was a prolific man, and this book was a masterpiece. Do yourself a favor and get the audio book, read by Adams himself. I saw Adams give the keynote speech at a conference in Chicago in November 1998, and there are no other words for him except *brilliant*. He has since passed, but he left us quite a legacy. Enjoy the movie!

DWGUY.com

I've secured the domain dwguy.com and it now points to this blog. This is not to be confused with http://www.dreamweaverguy.com, which is my ColdFusion playground which currently features no content.

The Web site that I'm currently working on is http://www.neilares.org, which is the Web site for Northeast Illinois ARES, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service for the Chicago (and surrounding) area. This site is written in ASP and is a work in progress.

I am writing this post on an eMac in the Mac lab at Joliet Junior College where I am a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the Computer and Information Office Systems department. This semester I am teaching "Worldwide Web Home Page Authoring". I'm getting used to the Mac again having not used one since about 1994. It's been interesting looking at what my Web pages look like in Firefox and Safari on the Mac, since there are indeed differences in what pages look like in different browsers and on different platforms (such as Windows, Macintosh and Linux).

My class is taking their mid-term test right now. What I should be doing is studying for MY mid-term test in the class I'm currently taking at Keller Graduate School of Management for my Master's degree, "Managing Software Development Projects". Luckily I have plenty of experience in this, so I'm not too worried.

Songs Featuring the Cow Bell

There are many well-known songs that feature the cowbell. You'll have to listen to them in your head and try and remember, or dig out the album or CD and listen for yourself. Believe it or not, there are just way too many to list here, so I'm just going to give a link to Geek Speak Weekly's Cow Bell Song database.

The Cowbell Sketch

If you haven't seen the famous "Cowbell" sketch from Saturday Night Live, then you just plain have to drop everything you're doing right now, go to the video store and rent "Saturday Night Live The Best of Will Ferrell Volume 1" or you can view it here. The sketch is a take-off of VH1's "Behind the Music" documentaries where they feature a behind-the-scenes look at popular bands from our past. This particular take-off is of the rock band Blue Öyster Cult, popular for songs "Godzilla", "Burning For You" and their most well-known song "Don't Fear The Reaper". Since the sketch first ran on "Saturday Night" several years ago, a cult has formed around this classic bit of satire. In fact, the band itself, Blue Öyster Cult, has gotten in on the fun. Don "Buck Dharma" Roeser, who leads the band, professes an admiration for the sketch. What makes the sketch so funny is the participation of Christopher Walken, who has now hosted Saturday Night Live a handful of times. Walken, who is known for his hesitant delivery of his lines and perhaps a strange way of stressing the wrong syllables of words, was probably hand-chosen for this sketch. Walken plays "legendary record producer" Bruce Dickinson who, in 1976, has been brought into the studio by the band to produce the new single "Don't Fear The Reaper". There is in fact a record producer named Bruce Dickinson, but he did not produce this song for BÖC. Nobody knows how it started, whether it was in response to Walken's delivery of his lines or maybe it was the sight of Will Ferrell's midrift hanging out of a way-too-small `70's style t-shirt, but the cast barely could make it through the sketch, breaking up into laughter both on- and off-camera.

What remains is a cult following that inspires a verbal retelling of the sketch at corporate water coolers, school playgrounds, college fraternities and online forums alike. Add your voice to the cult; here's the script for the sketch. And of course, in the search for "more cowbell", avid rock music fans have searched the spectrum for all known songs featuring the cowbell, which will be the feature of the next post on this blog.

New Music

Okay...there's a lot of great music out right now, and I'm going to write about it. It's been a long, long time since I wrote about music. There's a picture of me---> in something like 1989 when I worked at KDMG. Note the "rose-colored glasses" I was wearing and hair pulled back into a poneytail...things were much easier in life when I was 21. But suffice it to say that I know music, I've got fair comment writing about it, and at one time people actually wanted to know and cared what I had to say about it.

Anyhow, Ozzy Osbourne has a new single out and it will be appearing on his box set of solo works, "Prince of Darkness". The song is a cover of "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain from 1970, and it sounds a lot like back 1969-1970 when John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne was first performing with a little band known as Black Sabbath. Well, Leslie West of Mountain plays on this tune, and he was noted to say recently that his band, Mountain, likes Ozzy's new version of "Mississippi Queen" better than their own and they've started performing it that way! Ozzy's new box set will be available March 22, 2005. It's also worth noting that "Mississippi Queen" is one of the hallmark classic rock songs featuring the COWBELL.

And continuing this discussion of classic rock, Robert Plant has a new single out called "Shine It All Around", and it's a pretty decent song, if not a predictable Plant offering. It's really catchy, though, and it's sure to be a hit. It will be on a new album available in the U.S. on May 10, 2005. The album will be called "Mighty Rearranger".

And on to the cool new tunes I've heard. The first is destined to be a classic for American Hi-Fi, a tune entitled "The Geeks Get The Girls". I like this band anyhow, and their last album "The Art of Losing" is a great piece of power-pop-neo-punk. The band is led by Stacy Jones, the former drummer of Veruca Salt. Perhaps there's a early `90's Chicago sound in this band, and that's what attracts me. Anyhow, American Hi-Fi's new album "Hearts on Parade" will be out in one month on April 12, 2005.

Okay...here's a band that's really tripping my trigger right now: Ted Leo + Pharmacists. I've been listening to this track called "Loyal To My Sorrowful Country", and it's just what I like--power pop with the occasional screaming guitars. The album will be called "Sharkbite Sessions", and it will be biggy. These guys have been around since the late `80's, but this will be the year that many first hear about them.

For those who appreciate neo-punk, there's a great new tune out called "I Predict a Riot" from Kaiser Chiefs. Right now there's just an EP called "I Predict a Riot" in the U.S., but the album "Employment" has already been released in the UK. It's very infectious, and it's not like Green Day--it's much more like The Clash, and that's a really GOOD thing. It's so great to hear good rock and roll amid all of the Jessica Simpson-type schmaltz that hits the charts these days. BBC One is saying Kaiser Chefs are going to be one of the biggest bands of 2005.

Here's a simply awesome tune, "Goodnight Goodnight" by Hot Hot Heat. I really thought I was listening to new Elvis Costello at first when this song started. I was listening to a new mix disc, and I didn't know who this way, I only knew that I LIKED IT A LOT. This is power-pop at its absolute finest, and I will be terribly surprised if I don't see this band on "Saturday Night" Live or a similar show in a few weeks. Hot Hot Heat are punks from Canada, and their third album will be called "Elevator"...it's due out April 5, 2005.

Another band from the Great White North (actually from Calgary, Alberta) that's sounding good to me these days is Tegan and Sara. They're releasing their fourth album, "So Jealous", and the song making the rounds these days is "Walking With A Ghost". I really like how the song starts out with acoustic guitars and starts rocking with a great bass line. This isn't your rocker girl-group sound like Veruca Salt or The Muffs, it's a really sweet sound you get from two sisters (twins, in fact).

I'll have more new music choices next month.

Hurling wind, blowing wind and twirling wind

February was a chaotic month and I did not post to this Blog. Between my personal, academic and professional schedules, the remainder of the day (5 to 7 hours) was spent in slumber or with a nasty flu that seemed to plague everyone this season. And just a quick editorial note: it's little more than 2 months after the world's deadliest tsunami struck, and already people have completely forgotten about southeast Asia.

If you haven't looked at Mad magazine recently, give it a try. Personally, I haven't stopped reading Mad since I was old enough to read. I think it's entirely possible that I scanned through my uncles' Mads even before I could read since the 1960's Mads were peppered with pictures of scantily-clad girls and what pre-teen (now called "tweens") wouldn't want to look at that. Since Mad is now put out by the AOL/Time Warner oligopoly, it is printed in color on slick paper and is full of advertisements for things like video games and zit ointment. It's still funny and timely and edgy.

March is the start of severe weather season here in Illinois. Where I live in Plainfield is right in the middle of "Tornado Alley" and was the site of the only F5 tornado ever in the Chicagoland area on August 28, 1990...it claimed 29 lives and injured 350. Check out this brochure entitled about thunderstorm, flood & tornado safety from the National Weather Service. Tom Skilling was at Plainfield Central High School on February 26, 2005 to speak at a weather spotter training. Here's what Skilling had to say about weather spotting and the Plainfield Tornado. Incidentally, this tornado was so remarkable, that it actually received the name The Plainfield Tornado and is referred to as such in the encyclopedia and in National Weather Service training for meteorologists. The F5 Plainfield Tornado was also so remarkable that Dr. Ted Fujita (for whom the F- scale is named) himself investigated the damage of the tornado and wrote about it in 1993. My best friend's mom died from injuries sustained in the tornado. She was a teacher at Grand Prairie Elementary School and was inside when the tornado struck the school. The building was ripped apart and fell all around her. Her name was Kathy Nelsen, she was from Iowa, she attended Knox College and she was a great person. One night on the way home from Scouts, she said "Rob, why don't you work on getting your Eagle?" and I did...I became an Eagle Scout...it's one of the most important things I ever did, and essentially it was at her prompting. In Plainfield we take the danger of tornados seriously; I hope you do, too.