Tweetbar is a freeware Firefox-sidebar based client for the Twitter web service. It’s a nice idea, but I found it didn’t work too well (for me, anyway).

• It conflicted with the security add-on NoScript. Tweetbar could not log on to Twitter unless I temporarily turned off NoScript. (After logging on, it had no problems retrieving information, though.) There’s probably a workaround for this I would try to find if I wanted to keep using Tweetbar, but, for the following reasons, I don’t.
• Loss of spell-check. I use Firefox’s built in spell-check — a lot. Right click on a text field, select “Spell check this field,” and you’re off to the races. Not available (apparently) with Tweetbar, meaning I’d have to add steps (i.e. difficulty) to post with Tweetbar. Why, when I could just open Twitter itself and still have fully functioning spell-check?
• Entry box display mangling. When I tried entering a tweet which scrolled past the initial size of Tweetbar’s entry box, the display did not properly follow and I could no longer see what I was typing. It’s bad enough I can’t check the spelling mechanically, but I can’t even see what I’ve typed to use my own brain for spell checking? Uh-uh. No thank you.
• The key combination to bring up Tweetbar (Shift + Ctrl + T) didn’t work for me. I don’t know why. Nothing happened. I had to manually open it using the menu. Annoying process.

There’s probably more, but that’s enough. Overall I was left wondering, as long as I already have Firefox open, why not just load Twitter itself into a tab of its own? It works far better and easier as far as I can tell.

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under Product Reviews, Software Reviews.
Comments: 2

I just got an email from the website RockHouseMethod.com informing me…

A Rock House Instructor/Artist is Coming To Your Town

It then gives the details…

Date Venue City State Distance Date Tour/Venue City State/Province Country Distance
Sun 5/18/2008 Bernie Worrell w/ EMT @ Joshua Tree Music Festival Joshua Tree CA United States 117 miles

117 miles away from me. I had no idea this town was so big. :-/

Posted: March 30th, 2008 under Life Journals, The Funny Side of Life.
Comments: 1

According to the trivia section of Robin Williams’ biography on IMDB.com:

(Robin) Studied acting briefly at Juilliard under John Houseman. Houseman told him he was wasting his talent at Juilliard and he should strike out on his own and do stand-up comedy.

This dumbfounds me. (Not that it’s difficult to “find me dumb,” but that’s another topic. :-p ) What, is Juilliard for people who don’t want to be performing artists? Is Juilliard for people who don’t have talent. (Well, we are talking Robin Williams…. ) What was Houseman saying about Juilliard and its students?

I wonder how many graduates of Juilliard have Oscars, and what the ratio is to the overall number of people who’ve attended.

Posted: March 29th, 2008 under Celebrities, Entertainment.
Comments: 1

I’m twitterpated. No, not in the sense used in Disney’s Bambi. I’ve joined the Twitter website.

http://twitter.com/GeneNash

What’s Twitter? Um, it’s kinda like a mini-blog limited to 140 characters, in which you say what you’re doing right this minute!!! Yeah, I don’t see the point of it either, but it’s popular and I’m a good little sheep.

Baaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!

Speaking of being a good little sheep, I also just joined MySpace. (And if you don’t know what MySpace is, for goodness sake pick up a newspaper or magazine once in a while!)

http://myspace.com/genenash

Posted: March 29th, 2008 under Life Journals.
Comments: 2

The call girl behind disgraced, now-former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s downfall has been revealed as 22 year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

Ashley told The New York Times, “I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster.” Sorry, Ashley, the pics are out.

Said pictures reveal her as a thin, fairly-plain girl whose greatest talent seems to be having learned to pout.

One webcam pic seemingly shows her negotiating her fee.

(For the humor-dense, that was a joke.)

Dupre operated under the codename “Kristen.” (Just for giggles, her birth name was Ashley Youmans. I don’t know how many names she plans to have, but she’s obviously morphing her way to “Kirstie Alley.”)

Here’s the $4,000 (or $5,500, or $8,000 — depending on whom you’re reading on what day) Question: How is this girl…

…worth that much money? (Not to mention a political career?) Surely, the Gov could have scared up something better by slinking down a back alley and banging a couple trash can lids together. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to wait for the inevitable “stolen sex tape” for answers, but I suspect that will only deepen the mystery.

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under Current Events.
Comments: none