Summer Music

Tonight we'll ride bikes to Hoboken for either the Elvis tribute at St. Ann's Festival or Gene Plumber in Sinatra Park.

Attended the Weehawken Summer Concert Series last night and heard "The Revelations." They were great! Incredible energy. And the Lincoln Harbor venue is only 10 minutes away on foot.

Last Thu we saw "The Fave" in Hoboken. Great fun.

And most of this is completely free of charge.

Can you tell we're loving the easy access we have at the new house?

Digital Cables

After receiving yet another game console I ventured into Radio Shack looking for HDMI cables. These cables have quickly become the standard to connect game consoles and computers to a/v devices like TVs and stereos. Have you noticed what the retail stores want for these things? It's a significant fraction of what you paid for the device itself. Radio Shack wanted $35 for a 3ft cable and $75 was the cheapest 6ft cable in the store. I've noticed similar pricing in the big box electronics stores.

Ended up buying a package of four 2 meter cables on the web for $49 including tax & shipping. I know there are purists that will lecture on comparative bandwidth ratings. Come on, the cheaper cables support 1080p. Good enough for me.

Fun

NYC Restaurant Week

Didn't Know (or forgot)

Interesting - 25 Things You Might Not Know About IBM

Paralells and Function Keys

Tech support at Quicken & Quicken Bill Pay had asked me to use control and function keys to invoke special functions in the program. Within the on-line pop up, holding down ctrl-F3 and clicking 'Contact Info' allows refresh of the contacts with the QBP server. Holding ctrl-Shift while clicking File->File Operations->Validate does a "Super Validate."

Neither of these worked so, after some investigation, this is the resolution. Hold the fn key and then strike the function key to get the effect of just the function key in Windows. That is, to get F3, hold down the fn key and press F3. To get ctrl-F3 hold down ctrl, fn, and press F3.

The solution for ctrl-Shift is different. By default it is mapped by Paralellels as the key combination that simulates the right mouse click. You can change that mapping by navigating the Parallels menu thus: Desktop -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Mouse Right Click. From that screen you can either turn off the emulation or remap to another key combination. Once that's done Windows will recognize the ctr-shift combination.

Acid Reflux

After being on OTC Prilosec for a while my Gastroenterologist put me on Nexium and it has made a big difference. On the Prilosec I could lie down after a big meal and still have the bubbling and gurgling but there's less of it with the Nexium.

Eddie Skuller

Went to the Guitar Bar All Stars concert in Hoboken last night. Check out this guy.