Yeah look at my awesome collage making skills.  I know you are impressed, you don't need to say anything.  But my phenomenal  Photoshop collage making abilities are not the point of this post.  The true purpose is to showcase some links that I discovered this past January that I think are really neat.  So here we go!

Blogs
Tim Ferriss - I want to like this guy: automate my own business, travel the world, and do anything I want.

Photos
Library of Congress Photos - The U.S. Library of Congress made its own Flickr account and uploaded some magnificent photos from the past decade.  They really give a nice look into how people lived back in the mid-1900s.
Falling - Purely stunning.
Driving Me Crazy - I love the washed out colors in this photo, it is a neat effect.
Monitor Calibrator - Properly configure your computer monitor to view more-or-less correct colors.

Applications
Jott - A near perfect speech to text transcription service.  Call a number, record your message, have the transcription emailed or texted to anyone you want.  For free.
Docx2Rtf -  Even though I just got a free copy of MS Office 2007 from my university, this great program converts the new .docx file format to .rtf, which is readable on nearly all systems.
Input Director - I haven't tried this one personally yet but my good friend Paul S. tells me it works wonderfully.  This program allows you to share your mouse and keyboard across two different computers (example: use one keyboard and mouse for your desktop and laptop at the same time).

Informational
ROBOT9000 - xkcd's IIRC chatbot that doesn't allow 'useless' (those that don't add to the conversation) comments.  Really an interesting system.
MS Office Shortcuts - I never knew of the fantastically organized MS Office 2007 keyboard shortcut system.  It is brilliant and improves my efficiency.

Video
Mr. Rogers - Watching this video makes me appreciate how inspirational and caring Mr. Rogers truly was.

    I am a freak when it comes to organizing things.  Especially on my computer, I like to keep all of my data properly labeled and organized in a hierarchal structure so that I can quickly view files without wasting time searching or weeding through garbage.
    My whole file system has been in a beautifully organized state for years, but one area that has continued to arrive short in my organization standards is my email inbox.  Running more than 5 domains with 10+ addresses has allowed junk mail to seep in uncontrolled, making my inbox a disaster zone that would waste too much of my time each day to manage.  If I didn't check  my mail at least once per day then I would be greeted the next day with a minimum of a few hundred emails.  However the sad truth is that only a few of these emails were important to me while the others just tried to sell me pharmaceuticals and Rolex watches.
    After trying for years to find an solution to my untamed inbox, I have finally discovered how to effectively get rid of the SPAM, leaving only the messages that are relevant to me.  Here's an explanation of how I did it.

1. SPAM filters
    My first task to make my inbox manageable again was to get rid of the junk mail that was coming to emails that I knew I couldn't just change.  My mail server enables junk mail filtering, so I easily switched that option on.  With that one action I cut my junk email intake by half.
    Half was not good enough for me though.  I also turned on an option within Thunderbird (my client of choice) to "Trust junk mail headers set by:" to either SpamPal or SpamAssassin.  This can be found under Tools>Accounts>Your account name> Junk Settings.  This further reduced the amount of junk I would receive, but I would estimate about 30% was still coming through.
    My final step in the filter phase of my SPAM elimination came from setting up custom message filters (Tools>Message Filters).  Basically I created filters that watched the subjects and "From:" fields of incoming messages for key words like "viagra", "rolex", "pharmaceuticals", and their variants.  If a message contains any of these terms than it is directed out of my inbox and to my junk folder.

2. Bayesian/Adaptive Filtering
    I had always had this feature on in Thunderbird, but thought it was generally ineffective.  It would read the email contents and make a decision as to whether it thought the message was junk or not, usually marking only the most obvious of messages as junk.  Later while researching the topic further I found out what would make this feature  work extraordinarily better.  Under Tools>Options>Advanced>Config Editor>"mail.adaptivefilters.junk_threshold" I changed the value from 70 to 30.  This instantly made the adaptive filtering much stronger and got rid of many unsolicited emails.

3. Catch-All Accounts
    Once I had neutralized the amount of email that I was receiving on my current accounts, I moved on to creating new a method of finding out where SPAM was coming from.  I created a catch-all address on one of my domains to use to sign up for all new websites.  For example if I want to sign up for an online photo service I would use NameOfPhotoService@berts-catchall-address.com.  I only use that email for that one particular service, so if I start receiving junk mail from NameOfPhotoService@berts-catchall-address.com, I easily can identify what site is the culprit of my junk mail and can complain/delete the address/enable more restrictive filtering so that any junk can be easily eliminated.

4. Unsubscribing from Newsletters
    This may sound easy and stupid, but it works.  I came to realize that a lot of the messages that I labeled as junk turned out to be valid newsletters subscriptions.  I realized that I would often sign up for a newsletter that I would later stop enjoying, only letting my subscription continue to deliver new issues to my inbox every week.  The solution? Unsubscribe from the newsletters that no longer appeal to me.

5. Create a White List
    At first, one of my friends' emails or a newsletter that I enjoy would occasionally get caught by my junk mail filters.  This just meant that for the first week or so I would have to check my junk mail folder to see if something was incorrectly labeled as junk.  If I did find something that was not junk, I would add the sender to a special "not junk" address book that I created so they would not get marked again in the future.

    Overall I have been using this system for a few weeks now and it is working magnificently.  I only receive about one junk email in my inbox per day now, which is a gigantic improvement over the few hundred I was receiving before.  Overall I am very satisfied with my current system and hope that you can adapt it to your needs to help slay the evil that is junk email.

   Earlier this week my friend Mike B. and I were discussing terrible web design.  During our conversation I mentioned how terrible my first website design was and how improved through practice.  Talking about the subject made me want to revisit those days of bad graphics and table layouts, so I decided to upload the old Retro Designs Online in all of its full glory.  If you visit It you will see how my website looked a little more than 5 years ago.  As a bonus I also uploaded some of the old RDO movies, so in case you've been left out of the crowd and haven't seen them, now you can.  I plan to upload the remaining films over the course of the next few weeks and I'll be sure to post the links on this blog once I do.

    I finally picked up my Case Symphonic Winds 2007 Windi & Jazzi CD today.  The recording quality on it is pretty good.  If you want to hear some pop style music take a listen.  My favorite song from the concert was "The Glory and the Grandeur," a percussion feature.  It should be fun to play these songs next week in Severance Hall.

   The spring semester started yesterday and as Dr. Ciepluch mentioned, "There are only 69 days of classes left."  I've had a chance to go to all of my classes at least once, so here's my first impression review of them.

• Calc II - The professor seems very helpful as do the 6 SIs.  My class is taught at 8:30am and there is another section of it running at 9:30am.  We were told if we overslept for our class we are encouraged to make the one right after ours.  I'm hoping this is an option that a lot of students will take so the huge class size will become smaller (currently I would guess there about 60 students).
• SAGES "Democracy?" - The workload for this class is my one major worry for this semester.  The professor seems like she will be great at leading discussions and has chosen some great books for an interesting topic.  However, after having one 50-page nightly reading and the multiple "short" (5-7 pages) essays I feel like it will be difficult to do all the work for this class.
• Life After Graduation "Economics" - I look forward to having this class once a week.  The topics covered in the class are what you can do with an economics major after graduating, but more importantly it also goes over writing resumes and how to prepare for interviews.  We were also told that we would go over how to act when meeting employers and how to act in social job fair environments.  I can't wait to do more in this class.
• Symphonic Winds - Playing music is always fun.  The amount of concerts and everything else that I have to help out with (for my job in the music department) this semester has me worried though.  Some of my exam dates are around concerts so it will be difficult to spend whole days preparing for concerts and finding sufficient time to prepare for tests.
• Macroeconomics II - This class is going to fly.  The professor seems like she will be good at covering the material, but there is a lot of material to cover.  Fortunately, most of the material this semester is going to be a review from AP Macroeconomics (thank you Mr. Noyes!).
• Statistics - Another class I think I will really enjoy.  The professor goes over the chapters in great detail so I don't think there will be much out of class work (and any work we do have seems like it will be fun).  My only complaint about this class is the $200 book and software cost.  Especially since the software expires after 13 months.  Seriously, how greedy can this company get?
• Accounting - Oh boy, I thought this would be boring basic mathematics but I think I am pleasantly wrong.  The professor is very energetic and knows his material well (he uses Powerpoints but his lecturing alone makes the concepts he's teaching very clear).  He also made it seem that the class will be about analyzing financial reports and deciding which companies would be smart to invest in.  I can't wait.

    I am also currently signed up for Photography I but I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop.  My rationale behind this decision is that the class will do nothing for me except cause stress.  I already know how to take photos (I'm not saying I'm great...but I won't learn anything from this class) and work in a darkroom.  The assignments will only become an annoyance come concert and exam season, and they will only add to my workload.  I rather just keep taking photos on my own, use the spare time I will have from dropping the class to do other school work, and find a club to join instead.  Besides the crazy amounts of work so far, I am enjoying this semester.

    Today marks the final day of my winter break.  In the next few hours I'll be packing up my belongings and loading the car for my trip back to Cleveland tomorrow (I know the photo above is misleading).  Overall I enjoyed my break although it became boring at times.  Some highlights of my break included (in no particular order):

• A trip to Holy Land U.S.A.
• A trip to Pleasure Beach
• Getting my car fixed (it now has working heat and no longer overheats!)
• Seeing teachers and friends back at Foran
• Designing some websites
• Having a good New Years and Christmas
• Lots of food!
• Playing shows and recording with Africa
• Receiving and using my credit card
• Becoming fairly good at Dvorak
• Getting back into playing chess
• Narrowing down further what I want to do in life (or rather realizing what I don't want)
• Getting some scholarship/loan/financial aid stuff done

    I'm looking forward towards starting the new semester.  I have a feeling that it will be more stressful than the first, but I think that I will feel happier and more accomplished about it.

    Yesterday my friend Sean and I decided to visit Pleasure Beach.  Pleasure Beach used to be known for its theater, thrill rides, grassy picnic areas, and summer beach cottages.  About ten years ago the bridge connecting the "island" (it's really a peninsula but getting to it from the mainland is only possible by walking along a stretch of beach) burned in a mysterious fire (read: arson).  The city has planned rebuilding the bridge for sometime now, however all of the former residents' belongings were left on the island after the initial fire.  The state of the island today is pretty much a wasteland of decaying buildings and eviction notices.
      Armed with a camera I was ready to explore and photograph anything that remained.  Right as Sean and I got to main road on the island, we noticed another photographer had beat us there.  We introduced ourselves and found out the photographer was none other that Rob Dobi!  Rob runs the very popular t-shirt line Fullbleed and archives abandonments all across the northeast at his photography website New England Ruins.  Needless to say I was excited to meet him.
    Rob knows everything about The Beach, making regular visits multiple times a week.  He gave us a tour of some of the more interesting buildings and also told us some of his other exploring stories.  After about an hour of showing us around, we went off on our separate ways.
    Sean and I stayed for a few more hours to photograph as much of the island as we could.  By the end of the day I had almost 160 photos on my card and was very satisfied with the results.  I'll be posting them up on my newest website in the coming days.  Stay tuned for updates.
   

    It's been about one month since I have switched to using a Dvorak keyboard layout.  I've known about Dvorak and its supposed superiority over QWERTY for years but never bothered switching until I read The Dvorak Zine.  I decided to test how long it would take me (if ever) to become as accurate and fast at typing on Dvorak as I was on QWERTY. 
    I took three typing speed tests in early December on QWERTY and the results showed that I had 95% accuracy at 83 WPM.  Now almost one month later I took the same three tests on Dvorak and my results show 91% accuracy at about 44 WPM. 
    Although I'm not yet up to the same speed on Dvorak as I used to be on QWERTY, I am going to continue using Dvorak.  Using Dvorak I have noticed a significant difference in how my hands feel while typing:  I don't have to stretch my fingers into uncomfortable positions as often as before and I also don't experience as much tension in my hands as I did when using QWERTY.  Hopefully going back to school and typing up papers will increase my accuracy and speed on Dvorak and by time Spring Break rolls around in March I'll be just as good on Dvorak as I was on QWERTY.

    Last night Africa had a show at Lia' Pizza in Shelton, CT. The venue was a pizza place with a stage setup next door so teens could get worked up dancing and then easily go get a bite to eat. The show was packed with people; my guess is that around 60 people were squeezed into the main room with another 20+ hanging around outside.
    We played with another great band called The Cut Off Frequency who played an eclectic mix of punk, pop punk, unlikely cover songs ("I Like to Move It"), and some great disco. All with pretty good vocals and a great keyboard synthesizer.
    Our set went really well and it was possibly the best show we ever played. The crowd was phenomenal, having fun and dancing through the whole set. We got a conga line started during "The Party Song", a great screamo/hardcore breakdown during "Can't Stand It", and our combining of "So Much For Our Dreams"
and "Rasta" was the ultimate set closer. Here is our set list from last night:

Cheep
Can't Stand It
The Party Song
Show Some Love
Apathy (had to get cut due to time)
Now I Know
The Disco Song
Dreams>Rasta

    Our current plans are to finish recording our album, make some new t-shirts, and have a huge CD release show sometime in May. If you want to check out more photos of us or listen to some very old recordings, check us out on MySpace.

I love reading well compiled lists of interesting, funny, or helpful items.  So in an effort to help me remember some of my favorite online discoveries of 2007 (as well mention some gems that I've been visiting for much longer), I share with you my "Best of the Internet 2007":

Blogs
http://www.cockeyed.com/ - Pranks, art, and statistics!
http://www.engadget.com/ - My favorite tech blog
http://iwillteachyoutoberich.com - My favorite finance blog
http://lifehacker.com - My favorite DIY blog
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ - Sometimes hilarious and depressing. Mostly depressing
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ - Seth Godin is a fountain of thought provoking ponderings

Photoblogs
http://www.istoica.com/everyday/ - Lots of cool portraits
http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/ - Makes me want to live in England
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebba - Very creative photos
http://asofterworld.com/ - Depressing emo awesomeness

Art/Photos
http://www.mbfala.com/Jackson/Jackson_Confidential.html - Photos of impersonators
http://www.baldguygreetings.com/ - Unforgiving greeting cards
http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/exhibit-3.html - High speed photographs
http://www.greatlakesurbanex.com/ - Ohio UE
http://www.todaysplanet.com/pg/beta/lizardlover/ - Lizards!
http://www.dlanham.com/ - Great characters
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/ - Graffiti...minus the graffiti

Comics
http://xkcd.com/ - These are hilarious (if you understand them)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic - Always a fave
http://www.questionablecontent.net/ - It's like a bad sitcom: good

Applications (online and off)
http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-automatically-back-up-your-hard-drive-147855.php - Back up your files locally or remotely
http://www.priceprotectr.com/ - Track price protection policies for items recently purchased
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html - Completely uninstall any application
http://www.yawcam.com/ - The best webcam software. Period
http://smoz.sourceforge.net/ - Windows start menu organizer
http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/turn-any-action-into-a-keyboard-shortcut-316589.php - AutoHotKey transforms any key press and more into a shortcut
http://www.autohotkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Script_Listing - Pre-made scripts for the above link
http://del.icio.us/ - Better than using bookmarks (http://del.icio.us/bertwagner mine if you want to check them out)
http://www.stumbleupon.com/ - For when you want to kill some time

How-to
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/ - Using a Wii to make touchscreen displays
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/how_to_write_a_thankyou_note.php - I used to suck at thank you notes.  Then I read this. And now I suck less
http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Flashlight-Hack!!/ - Pretty powerful laser pointer

Informational
http://dvzine.org/zine/index.html - Learn the benefits and history of Dvorak
http://www.city-data.com/top2/toplists2.html - Statistics for major cities. So fun to browse
http://www.amnesta.net/other/monopoly/ - How to win at monopoly
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_cia.html - CIA makes a fake Sci-Fi thriller to rescue some hostages

Video
http://demos.immersivemedia.com/ - 360 degree panoramic videos
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gaming/the-cal-marching-bands-amazing-16+bit-video-game-halftime-show-322662.php  - Cal marching band marching to some awesome video game classics

Consumerism
http://uneetee.com/ - I love these shirt. And I'm not even hardcore!
http://glassyeyes.blogspot.com/ - Cheap eyeglasses
http://coupons.com/ - Food coupons! Sweet
http://www.woot.com/ - I was so close to getting BOC on Christmas
http://www.slickdeals.net/ - Some really rad deals

Forget about resolutions, I'm creating goals to make the most out of 2008.  I got a lot accomplished in 2007 and only want to trump this by doing more in 2008. So here we go (in no particular order):