if you're interested in tracking the swine flu to find out if it is coming to a town near you, then check out Google Maps! 

http://tinyurl.com/swinemap09

officials in Egypt are slaughtering 300,000 pigs to help prevent the spread.  i'm just hoping they do something with all of that pork.  it would be a shame to not get some good ribs and shoulder off those things.  you can't get the flu from eating pork, so I say, make some money off that stuff! 

i've added a link on the right to my list of links for a site called liliputing.  it's a blog about netbooks that i've been watching for a couple of months now.  all of the latest netbook news can be found there.  i'm convinced that I will eventually own one, so i'm trying to keep up with the technology so that I know what to buy when that time comes.  so, if you are at all interested in the concept of a netbook, then I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed for Liliputing.

and if you're not sure what a netbook is, let me educate you.  a netbook is an ultra-mobile notebook whose screen size ranges between 7" to 10" and is primarily used for email and some document processing on the run.  the processor for these devices is not as beefy, but that helps to keep it small and efficient.  most run a flavor of linux, but you can also get them with XP Home and eventually you'll be able to get one with Windows 7!  you're limited to about 2 GB's of ram in most models but it's plenty for the purpose of the netbook. hard drive capacities range from 4GB in a Solid State Drive, but have currently gone up to 160 GB in a 2.5inch hard drive.  the advantage of a SSD drive is that you don't have to worry about moving parts, but for now, you are limited in capacity.  fortunately, some models include SD memory card slots for easy expansion.  most netbooks also include a built-in webcam, which is a very common feature in many laptops these days. 

that's the quick description of the world of netbooks.  like I said, if you are more interested, you should check out liliputing to find out more!  or you are welcome to pick my brain about it as well.

is it ethical or moral or whatever to ask for donations if you are not a non-profit organization? or if you just want people to give you money? technically, my family is a non-profit organization. we don't make money as a family by just being.

i'm thinking of starting a fund that only benefits my family. it's a totally selfish and silly idea, but that's what makes it so intriguing and enticing. the fund is called "The Catron Family Disney World Vacation Fund" or TCFDWVF for short. maybe we can come up with a different name..but i don't want to deceive people into thinking it is something it is not.

my first thought is...why would anyone give to fund like this? here are 3 good reasons to consider...

1 - I love Disney World and having money to go there would make me very happy. don't you want me to be happy?

2 - The economy is in terrible shape and it needs to be stimulated! If people don't go to Disney World, then President Obama will shut it down. Ok, he never said that, but it could happen. Look at GM.

3 - Everyone can spare a buck or two or couple thousand. You've all got money just sitting there rotting away. Jesus is coming back soon, so there is no reason to save your money.

also, i think the TCFDWVF could reward gifts from DW to donators who give different amounts of money. for instance..


Bronze Level ($100) - T-Shirt from WDW, a personalized letter from the Catrons, and a picture of us with Mickey

Silver Level ($500) - Everything from the Bronze Level plus other nice WDW gifts

Gold Level ($1000) - Everything from Silver level (includes Bronze) plus 40 hours of free IT consultation (home or business) Good for 40 hours to be used within a year. *any extra hardware/software necessary will be billed extra

see, I know you already want to give, but I haven't began accepting donations, yet. let me know what you think. i know there are starving children in the world, so please don't think i am shallow. just doing a little brainstorming.

the cool thing is that you can take donations through paypal. you just add a donate button and start taking donations. now, i know there are some tax considerations, so I'll have to do some more planning obviously.

several months ago, i decided to change directions in my blog.  i was going to review free software so that you, the reader, would be well informed of free and open source software.  well, as you can see, it was fun for a while and then I got busy at work...imagine that. 

so, now, there's no direction to my blog.  i might do a product review or i might tell you about some stupid person i encountered at Walmart.  also, as I stated in my previous post, i got rid of my web space.  it was mostly for fun, but i decided that it was also unnecessary since i could do most of it with blogspot.  the portfolio feature will be trimmed significantly since i hosted some of the examples.  but, those sites I have created that are up and running can be linked to from this blog.  and images can be hosted with photobucket.  I haven't gotten that far, yet, so don't go looking for my portfolio right now. 

oh, and I hope to have a different pic up soon in my profile.  i just look ridiculous there.  how many of you have seen me wear a tie?