Better Firefox bookmarks toolbar

I hate having "toolbars" under my address bar as it takes away real estate from webpages. Having said that, there are pages that I want access to with one click and not having to go to "bookmarks" and searching for them. I found a cool little way to have your cake and eat it to by moving the bookmarks toolbar items to the main file toolbar. They fill out the otherwise unused space between "Help" and your window controls.

• Enable your Bookmarks Toolbar under View, Toolbars.
• Go to View, Toolbars, Customize
• Drag the "Bookmarks Toolbar Items" from the Bookmarks toolbar to the top bar next to "Help"

Now you can change those items around to have shorter descriptions so they fit. I ended up removing the names and going by just the icons. When you bookmark something that you want in there, just add it to the bookmarks toolbar and it pops up there. Brilliant!

Dogs and new lens

Yesterday ended up being the last day we had Rascal as a foster. I was figuring it was about time he got adopted out, and I did just buy a new lens for my camera, so it was time to take some pictures.

The new lens is simply awesome. Its the 24-105L and its miles beyond the 17-85 that I had before. Instant focus and great contrast and colors. I had to adjust the photoshop workflow a bit as I no longer need to do anything to the pictures before posting :)

On the dog note, Rascal did get adopted out today, which made us a bit sad. He was an awesome dog and if not for the fact that I won't allow 3 dogs in the house, Cathy wanted to keep him. We got a new hound/lab/something mix, Jess, for the next few weeks, so we'll see how Zoey adjusts to having a new friend around

Google AJAX Libraries API

Kind of old news, but Google is now hosting the latest and greatest versions of the most popular JS libraries including jQuery, prototype, script_aculou_us, etc

Because of the gzip compression and fast response of google's servers, these files get to the users fast!

You can either use google's loader or just link to the permanent paths of the files.

The Ajaxian has a great article on this

"4 Wheeling"

Since it was so nice yesterday, we decided to take the Jeep out for a little bit of 4 wheeling. A few weeks ago, we scouted this area about 30 mins from the house, and there looked to be a good bit of fun trails. Anything from mild to "break your car".

This was my first time doing some serious off road and it was a friggin blast! The Jeep is way more capable off road then I thought it would be considering the mild lift/mods. In one spot, we got out of the truck to inspect the road and were both a good bit cautious about the coming up maneuver. After getting into the truck, it went through it in about 0.2 seconds. It was easy!

Now I'm really looking forward to 4th of July weekend as we'll be doing a lot more serious wheeling when some friends from Raleigh come down to visit in their newly lifted Jeep Unlimited

Camping

Over memorial day weekend we went to do some camping in the NC mountains. We tried a new spot, Fire Creek, next to Hayesville. While the hiking was great, the views kind of sucked. Hence no pretty overlook pictures. This was the first time out camping/hiking with Zoey and she had an absolute blast. She was a great dog off the leash and she had a blast playing in the streams.

The 4Runner also proved itself off road. We picked a far away camping spot, about 6 miles down a hole ridden gravel/rock road. Got the point the GPS had no idea where we were anymore :)

The pictures aren't the greatest quality, but it was a great time!

The Jeep has some new tunes

After driving the Jeep for about a month now with the crappy stock stereo it was time to upgrade! Out went the crappy OEM tape player and the blown paper speakers. In its place we installed a nice Kenwood CD player, Polk speakers, a hardwired XM Radio setup, and a Infinity Basslink subwoofer. I ran all the wires nice and neat under the dash and carpet and the install looks great.

We ended up picking the Basslink over a traditional sub in a box for the space saving design, as well as the integrated amp. It has 2 10's in that tiny box, and packs quite a punch. After hearing it in the open top Jeep, I went ahead and ordered one for my Mazda.

This whole setup works AWESOME. We got to the point that driving 50 on the road, you can't hear the road noise. Only awesome music. It can get to the point where it hurts your ears without distortion with plenty of thump. We'll be the ones pissing people off at stoplights :) Cathy loves it!

I also got off my ass and started to arrange the workroom that is right off the garage. I still have to get a "house tools" set to fill up that corkboard. At least now, I have a workbench to get some stuff done. Once we get the new cabinets for the kitchen, the old ones will go in here.

iUI is awesome

It looks like I will be an official iPhone convert here shortly. I've been playing with some iPhone looking pages lately at work, and got to use the iUI JS library that Joe Hewitt created.

This library is awesome. It lets you code a page in standard, plain HTML and then converts the CSS/JS to an iPhone look and feel. Also, it sets up your links to enable the "slide in" navigation to work correctly between your links. Plain genius and its oh so easy to use.

With this work and the new "Corporate Friendly" 3G iPhone that is coming soon, I'm hoping to be able to get rid of this POS Palm 700w that I've been cursed with, and go to the iPhone for my phone/email device. I'm very excited. We'll see what happens!

We love craigslist, painting,kitchen, race car etc

I've used craigslist off and on to sell and buy random stuff. I've sold both our recent cars on it, and also bought the Jeep using it. We've also recently started cleaning out junk out of the house. I'm loving the fact that we can get $25 for an old desk that I hate. Finally got rid of the old fridge in the garage, and we're upgrading Cathy's end tables/coffee table in the fireplace room.

We also spent a decent amount of time on the house this weekend. Finished painting the ceilings downstairs, and Cathy spent a bunch of time sanding/caulking the fireplace room to get it, and the trim ready for paint.

Also had the install contractor come out and confirm everything for the new kitchen. New cabinets and the granite is getting ordered today. Should be here in a few weeks. Kitchen is going to look pimp. Its pretty funny how your perspectives change over time. 2 years ago, I wouldn't have given a crap about a new kitchen, while now, its actually going to be kind of cool having a pimpy looking kitchen.

I also tore down the front of the race car. The drivers side axle was way busted, but nothing else was damaged or worn. Since I have some spare axles, I'm going to repack them with Redline grease and raise the car 0.5" before I do anything else about axles. I forgot that last time I swapped the springs, I must not have adjusted the ride height all the way correct, and the car was too low. That screws up the suspension geometry and eats axles. Oh well, lesson learned...

Road Atlanta ProIT

So we just got back from Road Atlanta. A fun as hell, but in the end, disappointing weekend. I started out with the test day and trying to finish shaking the rust off, trying some more lines, as well as gathering some data. I also wanted to give the Hankooks one last shot, to confirm my findings from the previous test (just as good lateral grip, but not as good under the brakes) The first few sessions went well with me finding some speed and putting down consistent good laps. The third session, I put down 2 killer laps, and decided to just shut it down for the day and not risk the car.

For the morning qualifying, I threw on the Hoosiers and went out with the red mist. I drove around traffic for a few laps and on the 4th one threw down a rocking lap. Came in early as I felt a high end miss on the car that was there throughout the whole qualifying. Checked out the timing sheet, and oh boy, 1:42.84. Pole by almost 3 seconds and a time that would have gotten me 2nd on the grid at the ARRC.

I checked the plugs and wires (all looked well), and turned the rear sway bar up for the afternoon qualifying. Figured I would try to set the car up very loose and see if I could hold onto it. The good news was that the bar worked well, but the miss was still there.

With the help of Bowie from Conover Motorsports and Matt from BHP Brakes I got a new distributor on with a quickness. I didn't have time to test it before the race, as the miss was only there in 4th and 5th gear acceleration. Figured if the miss was still there, I was just going to punt on the race and not hurt the motor

I had a rough start as I got caught inbetween gears as the green flag flew, immediately putting me down two spots. No big deal as I was a good deal faster then the two guys behind me. I waited a few turns and passed them right back. Even better, the high end miss was gone.

I settled in for a few laps and opened up a big gap between me and 2nd place. After 4 laps though the field got bunched up behind a pace car as a car spun and broke in turn 1. During that restart, I let Mike Cottrell in an SM in front of me and helped push him along the straight for a little bit. Figured out though that I was just going to get into their race and mess it up, so I went and pushed ahead. Over the next 15 laps, I built up a 15 second lead while not pushing the car very hard.

On the last lap, the drivers side axle decides to let go. I got a big puff of smoke, lots of noise, along with the car not going anywhere. I thought I broke a lot more then I did! I went ahead and pulled it off to the side and watched the field go by to take the checkered :(

All in all, I obviously wished I would have finished, as I would have had a nice win and some good contingency $$, but what can you do. Oh well. At least it wasn't something very expensive and I have some spare axles at the house. For the next set, I will be using Redline high temp grease in the CV joints hoping to prevent it from breaking down. We'll see if that does the trick.

I'll have some pictures from a pro photog that was there, so I'll post those up as soon as I get them