Where is Nerdy Thursday?

As you may have noticed, Nerdy Thursday has disappeared. To be honest, I felt like all I was doing was linking, and while linking is ok, I realized that most of my posts I bookmark on my del.icio.us. So for awhile Nerdy Thursday is on hiatus while I rethink the strategy. You can check my del.icio.us links on the left for a plethora of all things nerdy.

Nerdy Thursday- Adobe alternatives part 1

If you use the internet to any degree, or work at a company that has standardized documents, then you have used Adobe Acrobat or the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Acrobat files, commonly known as .pdf files, are becoming a standard that usually trumps Word, mainly because you can create the .pdf file, and anyone in the world can see it because the Reader is free.

I love Adobe, I really do (I am getting into Photoshop now). But the Adobe Reader is one bloated piece of software. It commonly occupies 20-30mb of RAM while running, not to mention the long load times, especially if you are trying to open a pdf through your web browser.

But if the internet has taught us anything, it's this: Give a nerd bloated and slow software, and he will get with other nerds, do their nerdy-thing, and make a new program that's less bloated and faster. The Nerds of the world have done just that for .pdf files.

The first thing is the .pdf reader, Foxit Reader. This is your replacement for Adobe Reader. It loads literally twice as fast as Adobe did on my home computer and my work computer. What's better, Foxit Reader only used 8mb of RAM-- less than half of what Adobe uses. So, if you're a multitasking person when you're on the computer, you will have better performance because more RAM is free to be used elsewhere.

Next week, we'll talk about a free program to make .pdf files yourself.

Nerdy Thursday- Desktop Tower Defense

Nothing is as exciting and terrifying to a nerd as the ADDICTING GAME. Sometimes it's Civilization I-IV, or another complex strategy tale. Others, it's a game like Puzzle Pirates.
You kind of expect to get addicted to games like these, because they are built for extended play and you can micromanage your nerdy brain out. Customization, managing, and creativity is the name of the game, and the more the merrier.

Then the VERY ADDICTING GAME comes along. This is the game that addicts you so fast and so hard you are addicted before you know you are addicted. This is the short, simple, yet challenging minigame I am talking about, my friends, and the new king of the VERY ADDICTING GAME is Desktop Tower Defense. In order to keep from addicting you, I won't describe it too much except to say it's a mesh of Centipede-Rampart-and any other build walls and stop the bad guys game. Basically, you build gun towers to stop baddies from making it across the screen. I can't say anymore-- it's too addicting to even discuss. Don't click on the link, if you know what's best for you. It's partly why I haven't blogged in a few days...

Nerdy Thursday- Photoshop help

If you're like most of the millions of normal, non-nerdy people, if you want a black and white picture, you change your digital camera to the black and white mode. But if you're a pro photographer, and/or a nerd, you shoot it in color then change it to black and white using Photoshop! How do you do this? Go the Digital Photography School's blog to find out.

Nerdy Thursday- A Prairie Home Companion

One of my favorite things on Saturdays is to be out driving and stumble upon A Prairie Home Companion on the radio. Hosted by Garrison Keillor, it may be on of the few true radio shows left in the world. The problem is that I can never consistently find it on the radio- one week it's on one station and the next week it's somewhere else; apparently in my neck of the woods it's syndicated randomly.

Thankfully, Mr. Keillor is now podcasting the program through Itunes and the like. Details are here.
If you have never heard this before, check it out: it's funny, relaxing, and radio at it's best.

Photo by Dana Nye

Nerdy Thursday- Ecto 1 for sale

If you are a kid of the '80s, then you are a Ghostbusters fan, or at least know who they are. Aside from the well-known logo, the other icon of the movies and cartoons was Ecto 1, the ambulance that the Ghostbusters converted into their official vehicle. One of my most vivid memories of childhood toys was my Ecto-1 car, that was big enough to put the figurines in. It may have been my most played with toy aside from Voltron and Legos.

The Ecto-1 used in the movies is for sale for a meager $149,998 (which is more than double the value of my home). It's been totally restored, if that helps your buying decision.

Your programming schedule

I'm going to try and be a little thematic around here, mainly to have some order to my OCD brain. Since I am not doing this for "fortune and glory" (Indiana Jones, anyone?), I don't want to limit what I write about, but for my faithful 3 readers out there some continuity may make things more understanding. The randomness will still appear from time to time, but I'm going to try to include at least one entry a week in these topics, although the days are not set in stone:

• Photo Monday- interesting, funny, pretty pictures I find on the internet tubes.

• Emerging Wednesday- Since Wednesday nights are usually associated with church here in the South, I'll talk, muse, or link to something about post-church issues/questions/topics.

• Nerdy Thursday- something from the Nerdery; computers, movies, games, gadgets, comics, who knows? It will be nerdy.

The other neat thing about this is that the labeling feature will allow to search for posts that only fall under these topics, so some of my blogging threads will stay continuous. I will also be going back to old posts and apply the new labels just to add some depth to the categories.