BrianReese.com

Merry Christmas

During the Christmas holiday, be sure to remember the reason we share gifts. To commerate God’s gift of his Son to us.

-B

Over the past week or so, I have finally found a good use for my USB memory stick. It just so happens that portable software is seemingly making a come back. Portable software is software that can be installed on a device such as a memory stick and then run from more than one computer with out needing to be installed for each computer.

I have found it quite handy to have a couple of programs and, as I explore the available software, I’m sure I will find more useful stuff. The goal is to build a small library of essential tools. Since the drive is rather small, the binary packages must also remain on the small side.

So far, I have found a program called PStart which is be useful as a launch pad for other programs. It puts an icon in your task bar, you click on it and a menu pops up, much like clicking the start button in MS Windows. Since I work in different computing environments, I have found a simple mp3 player to be a handy tool to use to make a play list and play mp3s either from the drive or from a different disk. Currently, I’m using Zoom Player. I have found the program to do the job well, but a little lacking in the different codecs it supports. I’m looking for a program that can store the codecs on the drive. The idea is to not rely on the host computer having specific software outside the operating system. Finally, I’m using Wiz to pack and unpack .zip files. Just today I needed to unpack a .zip file and the host computer did not have an unzip utility.

It has been almost a month since my last entry. Time seems to have been flying.

Thanksgiving was fun, my brother and his girlfriend stayed in Orlando with me and we cooked up a nice meal. As a matter of fact, some of it is still in the fridge waiting to be eaten.

Since I missed posting on Thanksgiving as I had planned, I will note some things I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for my friends and family, with out them I’d be one lonely guy. I’m grateful for having food and a roof over my head along with plenty of things to make life enjoyable. We often get caught up in what we don’t have and forget we have much more than we really need to survive. Most of all, I’m thankful for God’s gift to us, His Son, Jesus.

Recently I’ve come to realize that thanksgiving is a wonderful precursor to Christmas. It only seems appropriate to give thanks for what God has done for us and what He has provided and to follow that up with a celebration of the ultimate gift.