Mmmm, smells like gasoline.

So there was this gas explosion in Needham today.

Just to give you an idea, here is how far this is from my job.

Yeah, we all wandered outside to look at the 6 or so helicopters that appeared to be directly over the building...and then we wander back inside and the power is out...which for everyone else means party time since they can't use their computers. Meanwhile, the IT folks are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get DNS switched over before the generator gives out (we didn't) and then trying to walk one of our Wisconsinites how to switch it over (fun!).

And just when you think you might be able to go home an hour early, the power goes back on.

Well, at least I still get to leave at 4. Since I got here at SEVEN.

Computer Geekery Update: 4/27/06

Some people have album updates, some people have concert updates. All I gots is nerdy updates. Hope ya like it.

• Google Calendar - Oh, Gcal, where have you been all my life, you wonderous purple, pink, green & teal thing. I am waiting patiently for proper Outlook/Exchange Integration so I can have my work calendar in that bad boy too. Meanwhile, geeks are thinking of all sorts of wacky things to do with it from monitoring medical conditions to network outages.

• In other google news, Gmaps now includes all of Europe. Which is useful for people going to, say, Europe.
  
  
• Yahoo Go! - So at first I'm like "Ya-who? No one comes between me and my Google." But this could actually be interesting. It's a program meant for viewing on TV screens (yes, you can actually read the text off the screen), that lets you view your video, music and picture files. It also has some snazzy features like flickr integration and a DVR (TiVo). The DVR is what caught my attention. It's a free DVR program using the computer equipment you already own. I read the requirements and realize we already have a leg up on everyone because we
  1. already have a computer hooked up to our tv
  2. own a tv tuner card
  Free TiVo? Sounds hot right? However, when I tried to set it up, it was not all puppy dogs and flowers. It seems my old TV Tuner card from 1999 is not, in fact supported. Damn. Also, I was hoping we could stream things over the network so I wouldn't have to give up my TV Tuner card in my room, but it doesn't appear to support that either. Additionally, it doesn't seem to be compatible with iTunes (not surprising), which is weak. But I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a cheap tuner card and maybe a bigger hard drive to see if I can make something happen. It looks promising.
  
  
• OurTunes - So we can see eachother's iTunes Libraries and stream music to each other, which is all fine and dandy. But if I actually want that damn hospital song Cristina got stuck in my head in MY Library (and thusly, my iPod) it's a big ol' pain in the ass. From what I gather, this program alleviates that problem. I have yet to test it out, but I think it might be sort of awesome.