Tom Dalton

My New Favorite Button: F11

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Sometimes, I travel. Sometimes when I travel, I find myself using a little laptop. Sometimes when I'm using that little laptop, I find myself reading web pages or working on documents in a window that's got 20% of its total space eaten up with useless menus and title bars.

F11 to the rescue!

Hit F11 right now. Go ahead and do it. You'll thank me.

In most programs, it will at least hide the utterly useless Windows title bar. In Firefox, it even hides all your tabs and the browser bar! w00t!

That is all.

Bad Idea of the Day: Glassblowing at Home

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:43:00 +0000

So...

I had a beautiful vision. A little baby food jar, food for my precious babies, could be turned into a little piece of art. I was going to turn it upside-down and melt the bottom so it would drip down and touch the top and then cool in a little glass river. I thought maybe I'd position a few color-changing LED lights at the base of the thing and mount it on a little block of wood when I was done.

It was supposed to be a thing of beauty.

I took some safety precautions. I set the baby food bottle (washed and empty) upside-down on its lid -- with the lid off, and the jar slightly offset, so heated and expanding air wouldn't be a problem. I set the whole thing on a wet rag in the middle of a cookie sheet on the stove. That way, the beautiful melted and flowing glass wouldn't start any fires.

Then I got out my butane jet torch and fired away at the base of the jar.

Those of you who know anything about working with glass are already laughing at me.

For the rest of you -- here's a word of advice: don't try melting your own glass at home, unless your real goal is to turn baby food bottles into grenades.

I got it all cleaned up. Only a few little cuts on my hand. My heart will probably slow back down to normal by bedtime.

April was in the living room, watching the whole thing happen. When I apologized for blowing up our kitchen, she replied, "I suppose it was inevitably going to happen someday."

I married well.

Bitesize Game

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:11:00 +0000

You've got to play this beautiful game. It's educational, see? And great music and sounds for calming cranky babies.

Babies

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:51:00 +0000

I have two babies! I love them very much. Cute, little, screaming babies. So that's all this post will say. :o)

Flash 3D

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:36:00 +0000

This is a simple 3d flash demo movie I made a while back. I used '3D Flash Animator' and actually had it as the splash page for my website, for all of five minutes or so.

Phoning It In

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:38:00 +0000

"If you take one more step over here, I will waggle my wand... and you will disappear!"

You just can't mess with the Flight Fairy!

That, and other nonsense, is what streams forth from the magical fount of TV. Wonderful!

New Home

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:32:00 +0000

Jettison the old! Embrace the new! That's how it goes. And *this* is the new.

How Many 5-Year-Old Kids I Could Take in a Fight

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:29:00 +0000

Wireless Internet in a Can

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:47:00 +0000

Just a quick note to say that I'm taking this thing offline to go test a cantenna.

Cookie Monster

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:47:00 +0000

Oh, shoplifter guy. Why did you lie to the media?

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:34:00 +0000

Of all the people to lie to! Not the media!

Presumably, the Consumerist's outrage comes from the fact that the media is so easily duped.