The Lewis Show

I've been good at my blog for remembering dates. I'm yet to reflect on events that landed our country into world war in the 1940's. Today I remember the thousands of lives lost as a result of this conflict and carry hope that we make every attempt not to repeat these same mistakes made not even a century ago.

Quiet week. Not much going on, so I'll post a picture of great awesometude. Yeah, I made up that word. I fear I jinx my beloved Pack when I post about them, so this will be all. I promise. Unless they win it all. Who knows.

On this ninth anniversary of 9/11, we're reminded of both the good and the evil that still exists in our world. We remember the helpless panic watching the television during and after the attacks. We also remember the tremendous outreach and charity afterwards. We remember the families that live on today without loved ones. We remember heroes that bravely surrendered their lives to preserve life and comfort for strangers. In remembering the sacrifice, the sadness and the pain this date brings, we're reminded that we've once again forgotten one of the main virtues of living together in this human community. That virtue is respect. I enjoy the definition of respect as it is given in its Wikipedia entry: Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity (such as a nation or a religion), and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. For some reason today, be it elitism or because we live in such a politic...

I've had a lot of fun posting every day this month. The creative thoughts flow, when I'm away from a computer.  So how about a picture of a cat?  Young Dexter, the prince of darkness and fruitbaskets.

Since there were no posts yesterday, this one puts me back on track for the month. It's obvious I've been stalling by posting videos and some pictures, but creating content is a talent that few have. I am not one of those people. The purpose of posting every day this month is to get me out of a comfort zone of web consumption and transfer the few brain cells I have left and use them for web creation. I'm reminded that I still need to work on getting my other sites up and running and then need to figure out how to let things flow. At the end of the day people do not have time to read about other people's lives unless there is some serious interest. I know I had lost interest over the past few months. I think the popularity of social media, news, and networking sites is proof that we've all become more of a consumer class and less of a creative one on the intewebs. There is a place for all of that and goodness knows I'm involved with it all, but there really i...

Best wishes to all Dad's today as we recognize the work and sacrifice each responsible father undertakes every day. My Dad's my hero. It took too long to realize how selfless and caring he really was growing up. I try my best now to enjoy the days with him now as an adult and I could never thank him enough for all he's done for me and for my brother. I hope every day I can become half the man he is, I'm pretty sure I could never reach that mark, and that sits just fine with me. Thanks, Dad, for everything.

I'm going to spend the next few posts focusing on Customer Service. I'll be taking this from the perspective of the customer service rep though, not from the customers. I think this perspective can help some find out easy ways to avoid aggrivation and get results whenever we need to contact a company. In the meantime, it's just a lazy beginning to Autumn. There's a kitten in our flowers. He's giving a demonstration in lazy. Go back to sleep, Dexter.

pmv3xhwbfd is a code of righteousness required by Technorati. I've had my blog since 2004. I never really cared to see how it fared in the bloggersphere, but I figured now is just as good a time as any. That's all, nothing else to see here, unless you want to entertain me by leaving a funny comment or anecdote. Or send money. I like money. Who doesn't like money?

The dominating story is obviously this new and improved strain of the flu which has had a few reported cases all over the world. I like most people don't care for the hysteria, but I've noticed my hand washing activity has increased a lot this week and I'm seriously debating becoming a germophobe who refuses to shake hands. I think I'll take up bowing as our Asian friends do. I don't see me changing any other activities. Janine and I are still planning our trip for Philadelphia next week and we're going to have a good time. I hope others don't give in to fear and with good common sense goes on with their own lives too. Not a good idea to fly a plane a few thousand feet over the ground in New York City regardless of the reason or intent. I'm just glad I wasn't a NY emergency operator this week! I'm betting some heads will roll over this flap and that's too bad. I'm hoping that some people learn to appreciate the art of the photo op, ...

I was recently thinking how proud I was of myself for not missing time over the past few months because of illness. That went up in flames today. Friday night, Janine and I joined family to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We traditionally have corned beef and cabbage with bread and Irish Butter (it's green). Everything was great, but somewhere in the group someone carried in a stomach bug. Sunday morning everyone who went to that party woke up with said bug, and I mean everyone. I think it's just a 24 hour thing, but I'm still feeling the effects even now. I've had 3 slices of bread with some chicken noodle soup the past 48 hours and I'm still not hungry at all. I have kept hydrated though. I always remember how much I love 7 Up, because it's the only time I get to drink it. Here's hoping no one else gets this virus, because it's no fun..no fun at all.

I fear the incurable writer's block that I've been struggling with this year and my blog. I decided to post a week end post and go over something, anything. I think if I give myself deadlines, I'll actually start piping out content again. So what am I going to talk about this week...or better said, what am I going to talk a boot? I was very happy to watch Martin Brodeur win his 552nd game as goalie for the New Jersey Devils. He passed Patrick Roy's mark this week. His next record is to win the most shut outs, and so on, but as anyone who reads my blogs know, I've always been crazy about my teams not only when they win, but when players achieve great things. It was good in these times to have some pride in something and to cheer. So what about things at Chamberlayne Farms? Janine got me a nice executive desk and Thursday night, I set it up in the guest room, and hooked up the computers. I'm hoping having this up and running and having room for my printer, a...

I never cared to call anyone or anything Ugly. So this year's Ugly list had to really have gotten on a nerve, or just produced enough of a mess on the web that it deserves mention in this post. The site in question either left me with a bad taste in my mouth, or showed me how hilarious us humans can be. Here's my list of honorable mentions for 2008: I was going to give Pownce the big Ugly award for this year, but I've talked about them enough, I gave enough of my time to them, and they don't deserve another second of my time. Any company that comes in and shuts something down only to restart it under a different name from scratch has lost my respect completely.  JustinTV , for those who haven't visited the site, is a life casting service. Amid copyright issues that the company have been facing this year, they were hit hard by the suicide of one of their users last fall. The site maintained the site is moderated and I agree with their stance, but something like t...

Part two of my three part series on the web in 2008 focuses on what went wrong. What went bad this year? In these troubled times, a lot of sites have hit the skids, or some services just fell short either in customer service, brand promotion, or a combination of many other things. I'm saving the sites that hit the skids for tomorrow. Today I want to focus on sites and services that lost their steam this year. First my honorable mentions for The Bad of 2008: Yahoo had one whale of a roller coaster ride this year. Their services were starting to give them an edge in social media with their acquisitions of Flickr and del.icio.us  . Microsoft came in this summer to outright buy Yahoo at $31 per share. Yahoo and their board fought off this buyout and this fall, Microsoft pulled the plug and killed the deal. Yahoo's stock is now trading around $12 and the future is not looking bright at all for them. They've tried partnerships with Google and AOL, but their days ...

My next three posts will be three sites that were influential this year to me and stood out above other sites. The other two posts will feature The Bad and The Ugly sites for 2008. I'll be sure to mention several honorable mentions, but for now, I wanted to highlight three sites specifically. First my honorable mentions for The Good sites in 2008: Twitter leads this group hands down. Despite the down times this year and the immense growth, Twitter to me is still the exact same service now, as when I signed up last year. It also gets a mention for surviving this tough year in social networking.   Twit Live (not related to Twitter) comes in second. Leo Laporte decided this year to kick up things in new media by live streaming his content practically every day. I've always enjoyed his programming, but now it's even more interactive.   Google Reader's advancements have been very important to me this year. Not a day goes by when I'm not checking my feeds, shari...

Janine and I just wanted to take a moment to wish our readers a Merry Christmas and wishes for a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year. See even I can get into the holiday spirit despite my grinchyness. We got lots of good presents this year. She got a new iPod, a Flip Ultra camcorder, some Godiva chocolates (which she's yet to share with me), and some earrrings. I got a backup external hard drive, a Wiimote docking station, a tie clip, and the latest Simpsons Wii game. We also got a Shop Vac and Toaster which were desperately needed, and some other odds and ends. I am left with one gag gift though, a bottle of Ukrops syrup. I probably shouldn't mention this gag because I think it would make a perfect re-gift. I mean who wouldn't love to receive a bottle of rich delicious maple syrup from Ukrops?

I haven't found a ton of value in MySpace over the past year with the inception and fame of Facebook and micro blogging services such as Twitter and Pownce. I was curious about the new profile editor on MySpace, so I spent some time there yesterday and came to this realization. Their music service has to be the best on the web in the social music world. I have established by being there over four years a large list of bands and friends that have similar taste in music. I even met Janine over having similar tastes in music. We both like In Flames, so we owe Swedish metal ultimately for our meeting. MySpace made news this weekend for streaming the new album from Guns and Roses, Chinese Democracy over their music service. It was reported on Friday that there were 826,000 listens to their new title track at a rate of 25 listeners a second going to MySpace to hear the much awaited album. That shattered any previous record and is potentially sending a strong signal to the music ind...

Do want!

I really love this picture of us in Vegas in 2006. I am a very lucky guy, but at least I'm not turning a year older on the 6th. Many happy returns to the love of my life..and many many more. And kudos to me for not disclosing that she's turning t.... I know better.

I know I've promised a review of the many browsers that occupy our current web space, and that is still coming. In the meantime, I figured I'd post a few practical lists of things that I use with my preferred browser, web apps, and cloud computing. I'm going to get all nerdy with it, but my goal is to help users explore their options and check out some new things. So I have a few addons with Mozilla Firefox and to really get the most out of this browser, one really needs to take time and explore what's out there as far as extensions and themes. Here are five of them that make browsing more enjoyable for me: Foxmarks - Found here , is a simple utility used to sync bookmarks between or among several computers. For instance, you have a desktop computer, a laptop, a computer that you may use Firefox on at work, you get the idea. Foxmarks syncs the bookmarks from your home computer to your other installations of Firefox so that you don't miss out on anything. This is...