January 2009 Archives

Very smooth. The new interface allows you to insert an image directly, so this is something dad will need for his journal.

I don't have time to see what's changed write now (as Jerry is calling) but I was using 4.0.1, so I'm sure puh-lenty has.

I just found an iPhone application for editing for Movable Type.

This technology is evolving rapidly...

This is just in its infancy, but I wanted a visual picture of the economic crisis and the affected banks. Using the Google Maps API and the FDIC's failed bank list, I created this:

Failed Banks and the TARP

Right now, it is very basic - it just shows the points where the failed banks exist. As I learn how to manipulate this, the markers will each show the name of the failed bank and the date which they failed. My next step will be to add all of the banks which accepted money from the TARP and all the banks which refused money from the TARP.

I'm very curious, what patterns, if any, will emerge...

I'm going to throw in a plug for Google Reader. For the past several years I have been using rss2email, which is a wonderful tool but not perfect. I love the fact that I can get feeds in my email - to a point. I now am watching over 20 financial feeds (what can I say, I'm hooked) - which is cool, but overwhelming my email box. I can easily see 50+ emails a day - and I don't have time to process them all.

The other downside is that rss2email does a poor job with HTML email and Dad's Journal just doesn't look as good as it should.

So today, instead of doing an hour of valuable work, I checked out Google Reader. I dig it. The interface is sweet, but the coolest feature of all is a Firefox bookmark which allows you to move to the next unread feed - and it displays the original feed in the web browser, full HTML etc. That will make reading Dad's Journal a pleasure. Finally, it has great support for the iPod Touch which is, of course, yet another addiction.

I highly recommend you check it out - oh, and you can my public feeds (or entries) here.