tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56736682009-01-19T08:36:59.170-05:00The online home for Greg Leedberg, since 1995.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-75133156703001853672007-08-12T14:51:00.002-04:002009-01-15T18:41:56.689-05:00

Well, for those you who know me or have been reading the blog for a while, you should know that I got engaged to my long-time girlfriend (of 6 years!) last summer. I'm really happy to say that, after a year of wedding planning, we're now married, back from our honeymoon, and re-adjusting to normal life. More than anything, I was really surprised at just how much planning is involved in a

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-50381087180550083082007-04-07T11:18:00.001-04:002009-01-18T10:39:17.820-05:00

In February of 2006, I bought a new electric razor. Ever since then, I have been obsessed with getting a perfect shave. The new electric -- a Norelco -- was pretty good. Definitely better than other electrics I've had in my life. But, every day when I look at my face in the mirror, I knew there must be a way to get a better shave. I had redness (especially on my neck), a dry feeling, and a

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-34623094418335881312007-03-10T09:23:00.001-05:002009-01-18T10:39:44.612-05:00

Back in the day, by which I mean the year 2000, I couldn't say enough nice things about the website CNet. They had a great section of reviews of software, hardware, and gadgets in general. They supplied useful computer news to enthusiasts. And, most of all, they had a big hand in popularizing my first big software project, Billy. I "released" the first version of Billy in late 1999. I put it

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1157382629853970272006-09-04T10:47:00.001-04:002009-01-18T10:40:30.839-05:00

Instant messaging has proven itself to be one of the truly "disruptive" technologies of the past few years. The primary communication medium for college- and high school-aged people is no longer the telephone, it's their computer, through the use of IM. IM was pioneered by, of all companies, America Online. Almost from its inception, AOL allowed members to send text messages directly to each

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1154270695691748122006-07-30T10:29:00.001-04:002009-01-18T10:40:56.968-05:00

It's been quite a while since I last posted here, but that's because a lot has been going on in my life. I generally don't use this blog to talk about my personal life, but I also never said that I wouldn't, so... I'm engaged! After 5 1/2 years of dating, I proposed to my girlfriend on July 3rd -- right before my favorite holiday! We have a "tradition" (which we've only actually done once

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1150663626204613892006-06-18T16:11:00.001-04:002009-01-18T10:41:23.933-05:00

I like to think that I understand the computer industry. Maybe I don't, but I like to think I do. I'm a software engineer. I read Slashdot every day. I talk to lots of people about computers -- both casual users as well as geeks such as myself. I think I've got some perspective on what people use their computers for, what they wish their computers could do, and where the industry is and

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1148922291181618032006-05-29T12:20:00.001-04:002009-01-18T10:42:09.982-05:00

No, I'm not declaring that the Microsoft Word file format is dead, or soon to be so. Rather, I'm calling for people to realize why it should be dead (or at least marginalized!). First, let's soldify what this argument is about. Microsoft Word is a word processor, developed by Microsoft. Over the years, it has become the most-used word processor around the world. Interestingly, it's quite

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1147460239294124662006-05-12T14:37:00.001-04:002009-01-18T10:42:48.894-05:00

As I've talked about before, I receive a large amount of spam. Not as much as I used to -- at its peak, I received about 200 spam messages a day -- but still too much. One would hope that after years of having to deal with spam, I would have some advice to pass to people, and I do. The first, and most important, thing to do in order to deal with spam is to never, ever, put your email address

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1147035778860983022006-05-07T16:32:00.001-04:002009-01-19T08:32:43.103-05:00

My computer is the centerpoint of my life. Partly, that's because I'm a geek, and a software engineer. But, I would wager a bet that many people, including non-geeks, are in the same situation. These days, our computers are home to at least our digital photographs, emails, word processed documents, music, financial data, and lots more depending on what you do with your computer. That being

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1146521705026390552006-05-01T18:13:00.001-04:002009-01-19T08:33:34.895-05:00

One of my favorite television shows -- one of the few I've consistently watched religiously over the years -- is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I even saw Jon Stewart live once when he came to Cornell. The premise of the Daily Show is simple: it's a "fake" newscast. It doesn't aspire to be a full-fledged newscast like you would see on your local news channel at 5:00. Rather, it lampoons the

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1144367020512969292006-04-06T19:08:00.001-04:002009-01-19T08:34:08.773-05:00

Science fiction always portrays futuristic communication as being video-based. In the future, no one will have to talk to someone and only hear them -- we'll be able to see them, too! There seems to be a common belief that this is the way forward, and will enable humans to better stay in touch. I can't wait for this type of technology to come to fruition. Except, it is already here.

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1143986213541807182006-04-02T09:22:00.001-04:002009-01-19T08:34:54.978-05:00

For years (all throughout college and grad school, really) I have used, and loved, Palm computers. Specifically, for 3 years I had a Palm IIIxe, and then got a Sony Clie. I used them for keeping track of my schedule, making to-do lists of school assignments, and, most of all, keeping an address book that contained "last known good" contact info for basically everybody I've ever known since high

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1142713303994911962006-03-18T14:48:00.001-05:002009-01-19T08:35:36.176-05:00

I hate polls. That said, I guess you know where this post is going. The usefulness of polls? Not much. The modern media seems to love polls. Any big subject that comes up, CNN and Fox News will put up poll results saying that "60%" are for it, "20%" are against it, and "20%" are undecided. Great. Now, how has my life been enriched by this knowledge? Presidential approval polls sometimes

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1140894457864572212006-02-25T13:52:00.001-05:002009-01-19T08:36:14.041-05:00

Leedberg's List is my own little soapbox where I can voice my opinion on a subject that, I think, I'm pretty darn knowledgable about: computer software. In this installment, I'd like to highlight a program which may not be required for every computer user, but for a segment of the population, it completely changes the way you use your computer. The newest addition to Leedberg's List is Cygwin.

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1139607447056452622006-02-10T16:15:00.001-05:002009-01-19T08:36:59.182-05:00

I recently discovered that Microsoft is now providing a free version of its Visual Studio development environment, called Visual Studio Express. In November it will become a $50 product, but considering that the full Visual Studio sells for $1000+, that's still a steal. I'm writing about VS Express because I think it's more than just a company lowering the price of their product, or offering a

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1139010329886008472006-02-03T18:38:00.000-05:002006-02-04T21:31:41.826-05:00

It's popular these days to bash Walmart. For example, the recent hubub over requiring them to provide health insurance for their employees, or the constant hatred for squeezing out small "mom and pop" stores. A lot of the criticism is probably warranted. Big corporations have a tendency towards imperfection. However, it also seems to have become popular to criticize them, even if it's not

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1138232378268033272006-01-25T18:19:00.000-05:002006-01-25T18:39:38.330-05:00

Back in June, I briefly mentioned that I switched webhosts from Yahoo! to Dreamhost. At the time, I talked about how much I liked Dreamhost (actually, I went into more detail about why I hated Yahoo!), but I had only had the service for a few days, so what did I know? Well, now I've been a Dreamhost customer for over 6 months and I have to say, my opinion of them has only improved. So much so

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1137780762406185542006-01-20T12:34:00.000-05:002006-01-20T13:19:30.243-05:00

Hopefully, you're familiar with my two artificial intelligence / natural language processing-based "chatbot" efforts, Billy and Daisy. If not -- they're basically programs you can download and talk to, and they will be able to learn from talking to you, enabling them to converse better over time. I've been blessed that these two programs have actually been met with quite a bit of popularity.

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1137270661466391222006-01-14T15:13:00.000-05:002006-01-15T08:04:04.680-05:00

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I took a trip to New York City for a couple days. She had been a couple times previously, but this was my first time to the city. Our main motivation for going was to see the Metropolitan Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor at Lincoln Center. This may seem random for me as a software engineer, but my girlfriend is a vocal performance major -- and remember that I was

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1135780954561315182005-12-28T09:18:00.000-05:002005-12-28T09:50:44.116-05:00

Leedberg's List is my opportunity to tell the world about a piece of software that I think is great, and makes computing easier or more useful. The program of choice today is PDFCreator. Basically, PDFCreator allows you to produce PDFs (portable document format), which are then readable by the free Adobe Acrobate Reader, or the numerous open source PDF readers, such as GSView/GhostScript. First

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1134764203535820432005-12-16T14:52:00.000-05:002005-12-16T15:29:24.250-05:00

Now here's something for a non-technology post! Every year I like to try and pick my favorite new TV show, based on a variety of factors. What matters to me most is the intelligence and quality of the writing, the acting ability of the cast, how well matched the cast is with their roles, and lastly, whether or not the show has a sense of why it exists. For example, a show that predominately

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1134158693558659792005-12-09T14:52:00.000-05:002005-12-09T15:08:30.140-05:00

Yes, spam has ruined everything, for everybody, in more ways than you realize. Spam annoys me daily, since I've had a relatively public email address over the years. My email used to be all over my website and in the WHOIS information for my domain. I've done a good job of removing it and instead using a feedback form, but the damage has been done. I routinely get ~60 spam messages a day,

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1132363713569245692005-11-18T20:08:00.000-05:002005-11-18T20:28:33.606-05:00

For those who don't know, Emacs is one of the most popular text editors available for Unix-based operating systems. Emacs, and its competitor vi, have both been around almost as long as Unix itself, and most users of Unix can barely get through a day without using one of them. They are both excellent, in their own ways. There is also a surpisingly good port of Emacs for Windows operating

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1131833283141644462005-11-12T16:50:00.000-05:002005-11-12T17:12:05.106-05:00

So, today is my birthday, and I turn 24! For a while, I've been intending on writing an entry on growing up, so this seems as good an opportunity as any. Generally, when my birthday comes around, I don't feel like I'm any older than I was a year ago. Some things have probably changed in that year, and I probably am a little more mature, but I don't feel like that's the case. When I turned 23

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673668.post-1131320619738647192005-11-06T18:26:00.000-05:002005-11-06T18:47:54.243-05:00

For all two of you that read my My Computers blog, you'll know that I recently built a third computer, "Waldorf", out of parts that have been recycled out of other computers. There was one new component to Waldorf -- a Linksys 802.11g wireless LAN card. In the process of building this computer, I ran into a massive, confusing, week-long problem. Surprisingly, the problem had nothing to do with

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05093705191689651001noreply@blogger.com