Finally found an image viewer to replace ACDSee

My quest to only run Open Source freeware or standard freeware applications on my computer is going well, but there are still a few applications for which I have not found a replacement. In a recent web search, I recently found a good image viewer to replace ACDSee. I mainly use a tool like this to view images quickly and to rotate the images from my digital camera. Like many of you, I use Picasa to store and view my pictures, but find it very annoying that changes made in Picasa don’t change the actual files on the hard drive.

The replacement that I found is called FastStone viewer and is a freeware application. It contains all of the features that I was looking for and is very fast to startup and load images. I have added this tool to my list of freeware tools.

Who you gonna call?

This title will sound familiar to all who enjoyed the Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 movies in the ’80s. I recently reviewed both movies for UnePorte.net. Seeing these movies again renewed my love for this universe and I found out that a mini-series of Ghostbusters comic books was printed last year. I’ve ordered a copy of the new paperback collection that has just been released and will let you know how it fares when I read through it. The art in the book looks great and the story and dialog seem to keep the spirit of the characters from the movie.

Grocery Store Wars

Some people have way too much time on their hands… Grocery Clone Wars, produced in association with the Organic Trade Association, is essentially a spoof of Star Wars made with vegetable and fruit characters. Luke become Cuc Skywalker (a cucumber), and Chewbacca become Chewbrocolli, among others. Some of it is pretty funny while other parts are a bit more boring since they talk about the goodness of organic produce against other types of cultures. An interesting watch that runs for a bit less than ten minutes.

New Project for Barenaked Ladies lead singer

I was a bit surprised today to learn that Steven Page, lead singer of Barenaked Ladies, one of my all-time favorite bands, has released a solo project in June of this year. Entitled The Vanity Project, this new CD contains a series of songs that Page co-wrote with long-time collaborator Stephen Duffy. I’ve only listened to the excepts available on the web site so far. Some songs sound quite interesting while other are a bit too much of a departure from the BNL sound for me. I’ll have to try to listen to the entire CD in the near future to form a better opinion.

A look at the next Windows, Vista

The new name of the next version of Windows has been recently announced, it will be called Windows Vista. A first beta was recently release to a small number of external testers to get some feedback on the product. You can read an in-depth review of the beta on the Windows Supersite, a great Windows news site. A lot of the changes mainly seem to be superficial interface changes (although some things are quite pretty), but there are also a few deeper features that will be interesting to see in action. One thing I’m wondering is what will the system requirements be with so much going on graphically on-screen.

Omertà 3 – Le Dernier des Hommes d’Honneur on DVD

The third and final season of the Quebec drama series Omertà is going to be available on DVD on September 13th from TVA Films. This third season was quite interesting since its storyline started before the first season, followed some of the major events of seasons one and two and finished after the second season. This way, we got to see many of our favorite characters again.

Google Earth

I have been introduced to another wonderful tool from Google recently called Google Earth. I was already blown away by Google Maps, with its smooth scrolling maps and satellite imaging. However, Google Earth just blows that out of the water. On startup, the application simply shows you the planet. You can then enter an address and it will zoom to that street address, dynamically loading one image after another to get the correct resolution. It kind of feels like the imaging that they had in the movie Enemy of the State with Will Smith. The other nice thing is that the databases accessed by the client also contain 3-D information on buildings located in the major american cities. It is therefore possible to see the New York cityscape in 3-D with overlaid information about streets, restaurants and hotels. Quite a sight. And as usual with Google software, this is completely free!

I don’t usually post images in my entries but a picture is worth a thousand words as they say, so here is a picture of the tool in action, showing the Chicago Aquarium where I went for my vacation last month.

Blogging on a beautiful summer day

Another long time without any posts… Things were a bit nuts for the last month and a half. Andrée foot healed well and she got her cast off last week. So she had it for a total of 5 weeks. This encumbrance really put a hold on a lot of the projects that we planned to do around the house.

We were in Chicago in mid-July for a reunion of about 15 mothers and their babies born in October 2004. About 6 dads also participated to the event. It was a lot of fun. We went to visit the Chicago Aquarium, the Navy Pier and had a nice, relaxing picnic at a park near our hotel.

There is not much else happening these days. I’ve started watching the first season of Battlestar Galactica at my wife’s urging and must say it is a very enjoyable series. I’ve only seen the mini-series and first two episodes of the season so far so it will still be a bit before I can chat about it.

The house is coming together

We have now been in the new house for four weeks. Although Andrée’s accident has put a few things behind, we’re still making good progress in getting the house in shape and where we want it to be. We have moved the last few boxes that we had left in our old apartment.

We were also able to get a ramp for our main staircase between the main floor and second floor. One of the previous owners had removed and discarded the ramp, probably to make it a bit roomier. However, with a small child who’s starting to climb everywhere, the ramp is a necessity. Looking at our neighbor’s backyard, we saw that they had a ramp that is exactly the same style as other ramps in our house. We asked them they would be willing to sell it and they just gave it to us, not believing that it was missing in our house. After some good scrubbing and spray paint, it’s looking great on our staircase.

The week off that I took to help around the house was productive. Andrée got her real cast on Tuesday and we got the house babyproofed enough so that the first floor is pretty safe for Évelyne. Back to the office tomorrow after being away for two weeks.

I have just finished a review for MacGyver Season 2 that will probably be posted this week on uneporte.net. Next on my list is Les Aimants, a french comedy written and directed by Yves P. Pelletier.

Post-Move News

I know it’s been a while since I last posted. We moved to our new house in Laval three weeks ago. The move went pretty well, although the overbearing heat in the following week and the change of scenery did give Évelyne a hard time for about 5 days.

I was then off to Ottawa last week to give a training class at a customer site. During that week, Andrée dropped off Évelyne at her mother’s place to get some work done around the house. What was supposed to be a highly productive day ground to a halt quickly as she missed a step and broke a bone on the side of her right foot. She will be getting a cast tomorrow that she will have to probably have to keep for 6 weeks or more.

So life continues to be quite busy but at least things are moving in the right direction with the house and life in general. The next post should sooner that the last one.