Wednesday, February 28, 2007

FDA Approves Shire's ADHD Drug Vyvanse

I was checking out my Google personalized home page, where I have a feed from Topix.net related to ADHD. I saw this article mentioning the FDA's recent approval of a new drug by Shire to help treat ADHD called Vyvanse.

The article mentions that Shire, the pharmaceutical company, has pushed for FDA approval of Vyvanse because it faces competition from generic versions of Adderall come 2009.

I used to take Adderall and Adderall XR a few years ago, and I found it to help as well as a drug can. I stopped taking it because it got to be too much of a hassle to get the doctor's approval, then the insurance approval. I couldn't believe how much this medicine cost, too. Geez.

I'm still looking for ways to adequately manage my ADHD symptoms, although I often feel like I wouldn't have as much going on if I was taking some medicine for it.

Related tags:
at 1 comment:

Monday, February 26, 2007

New Look for the Journey Inside My Mind Blog

Howdy. Last night I upgraded the Journey Inside My Mind Blog layout to better make use of the good stuff from the latest version of Blogger. I'm not finished, as I need to get my Twitter stuff on here, and I want to present the labels in a cloud, instead of the alphabetical list you see now.

Update: I have implemented label clouds on all my upgraded blogs; namelyLook for more warm, juicy goodness in the near future.
at No comments:

Friday, February 23, 2007

Blog Makeover for the Official Mom

I recently gave the Official Mom's blog a makeover. Check it out and let her know what you think!
at No comments:

Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Envelope - JOKE ALERT!

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see the bed nicely made up and everything neat and tidy. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, "Dad". With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:
Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and Mom.

I've been finding real passion with Joan and she is so nice. I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, her tight motorcycle clothes and because she is so much older than I am but it's not only the passion, Dad, she's pregnant.

Joan says that we are going to be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood, enough for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Joan has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Joan can get better; she sure deserves it!

Don't worry Dad, I'm 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday, I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your son, Chad

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the report card that's in my desk drawer.
got this via email from Jeff

Related tags:
at No comments:

Friday, February 16, 2007

One Big JIMM Podcast Feed

This is either going to work smoothly or really get messed up. I have created a master feed of all the Journey Inside My Mind Podcast episodes and have just redirected the FeedBurner URL to pull from that feed. No need to update your subscriptions, but you may find a bunch of new episodes in your podcatching software. I hope not, though.

I described the rationale behind this in the earlier article, "Working on new, custom RSS feed for JIMM Podcast". One big reason is so that the show can get listed in the various popular podcast directories, including the iTunes Music Store. I guess I thought that it would automatically get discovered by iTunes, but I've now learned that wasn't the case. I have since submitted the feed to be listed, and I'm looking forward to being able to share the news that the show is listed in that directory.

Related tags:
at No comments:

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Blog Makeovers, cont'd

I've just updated the layout for QuotesBlog. It had been almost an entire year since the site had been updated, according to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine page. Below is the recent layout:

QuotesBlog from March 2006

Incidentally, here's what it looked like in one of its earliest forms, way back in November 2002:

QuotesBlog from November 2002

Related tags:
at No comments:

Second Winter Storm Hits Cincinnati Hard

We're in the middle of a second winter storm. I thought the Groundhog didn't see his shadow, and that meant we're supposed to have an early spring... Anyhow. Cincinnati has seen a lot of freezing rain in the past 24 hours, with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark (32 degrees F, 0 degrees C). Dangerous conditions to be sure, not only from the ice on the roadways, but also ice on tree limbs and power lines. It's actually a bit creepy, hearing the heavy tree limbs brushing against the roof of our apartment building.
Courtyard Trees During Winter Storm, No. 3
As I sit here looking out the window, I see trees encased in ice. In the courtyard behind us sit several large branches that have fallen to the ground, not able to hold the weight of the ice. Power had been flickering on and off throughout the day yesterday and actually went out around 7 PM last night, right after I'd just returned from the store. It was out for several hours and finally came back on in the middle of the night.
Icicles on the Apartment Building
I worked from home yesterday, and it looks like I'll be working from home again today. I know that many of my coworkers are not as fortunate, so my heart goes out to them.
Icing on the Car, No. 1
Related tags:
at No comments:

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Working on new, custom RSS feed for JIMM Podcast

I could seriously go back to bed right now. I got pleasantly distracted yesterday with the idea of creating my own RSS feed for the Journey Inside My Mind Podcast.

Right now, FeedBurner is creating the feed from whatever Blogger puts on the front page. I had initially set up the blog to show 999 posts per page, so that everything would be on the front page and therefore also in the feed. After about 50 episodes or so, it was taking too long for the page to load, so I opted to limit the number to the last 50 episodes per page.

I recently was reminded that Rob at podcast411 has a tutorial on how to create an RSS feed by hand. That got me thinking that I could have, at a minimum, feeds with 50 episodes in them at a time. That way, new listeners could subscribe to it and then easily be able to pick up some of the older episodes, some of which are my personal favorites.

I think I will opt instead to use this feed for everything. It is a small task to maintain this with every episode that gets released, and it will always redirect subscribers back to the main page.

So I spent over 6 hours yesterday getting the first 55 episodes into the new feed. I'm currently up to 79 episodes, so it's just a bit more work to get them into the master feed.

Then I get to work with the FeedBurner folks to redirect the podcast feed from the original Atom feed on the blog to this new feed. I've heard about it done from other podcasters, and it appears to be seamless.

I may opt to record the episode for this coming week today or continue assembling the rest of the episodes into the new RSS feed.

Related tags:
at No comments:

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Blog Makeovers

You may or may not have noticed some changes recently to this blogs and others I produce since I migrated them over to the new Blogger; namely that posts have categories/labels associated with them, so that you can see what else I've posted in the related categories.

Well, I up and redid the way Get That Job! looks. I completely redid the template and layout, and I must say, the change looks better. I hope to freshen up the look of all my blogs in the near future.

I recently found out that the Internet Archive has a Wayback Machine, where you can see how websites have changed over time. For example, you can see various incarnations of journeyinsidemymind.com since September 2002. Check it out.

September 2002 version of the Journey Inside My Mind Blog

Related tags:
at No comments:

Friday, February 09, 2007

JIMM 79 - Jazzmania IV

The latest podcast is ready for your listening ears: JIMM 79 - Jazzmania IV, featuring a great mix of independent jazz music and some promos for other shows. What are you waiting for? Go experience some jazzmania!

Related tags:
at No comments:

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Steve Jobs Calls for an end to DRM

Steve Jobs has posted a revolutionary article on Apple's website entitled, "Thoughts on Music", in which he compares the sales of CDs, which are free from Digital Rights Management (DRM), to sales of individual tracks on the iTunes Music Store, which do have DRM. His argument is that major record labels are selling so many CDs right now and that, if Apple is able to remove the DRM from tracks it sells, even more tracks would be sold.

I probably can't do the article justice. There's more of a discussion on music players and other stuff. Head on over to the article.

Related tags:
at No comments:

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Snowstorms, long drives, and podcasts - hooray!

I just spent 3-1/2 hours driving 60 miles from north of Dayton, Ohio to my home in Cincinnati. That averages to just over 17 miles per hour. On the highway. In a snowstorm. Right now we have about 6 inches on the ground.

Fortunately, I had some great podcasts to listen to along the way! Such asI also opted to call the following podcaster's comment lines and leave messages:
Driving distance: 60 miles
Driving time: 3-1/2 hours
Having you podcasters to keep me company during a snowstorm: Priceless

Thank you all for keeping me company. I didn't need a radio.

Related tags:
at 1 comment:

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Live Acoustic Guitar at the Library

On a very cold Sunday afternoon in Fairfield, Ohio, I sit near the lobby of the Lane Public Library and am enjoying guitarist David Cochran and his fingerpicking style. For the past few minutes, he has played mostly classical music, and it's been wonderful to watch his technique.

We have begun timing our visits to this library so that we can make it to these Sunday Sounds series events:

One big key to playing well, as I'm watching him, is being able to move up and down the fretboard with ease, without the aid of a capo to transform the key in which the guitar is tuned. He makes it look so easy, but I know that such grace is anything but.

I see two other acoustic guitars on stands next to him; perhaps these are tuned differently for different styles, and we'll be sure to hear something from them soon.

Oh how cool is that? He just launched into a beautiful rendition of "Here, There, and Everywhere" by The Beatles! Having finished that song, he just said that he's got a few more for us.

Others in the audience ask him about his style in between songs, and it's very cool to hear the interaction. I'm definitely impressed with the use of barre chords and variety of fingerstyles.

Now comes "Michelle" by The Beatles. The acoustic guitar is such a beautiful instrument.

The library's Sound Series occurs on the first Sunday of every month, and free coffee is provided. Just be careful not to spill it on the carpeting like I just did!

Related tags:
at No comments: