Someone asked me:

I notice that when some people comment on your blog (and other blogs) there is a picture icon of them, instead of some generic little icon. How do I get a picture icon of myself when I comment?

Easy!

That picture icon is called a “gravatar”: a Globally Recognized Avatar. If you go to gravatar.com, you can register yourself, upload a picture, and associate it with your email address(es) that you use.

Then when you comment on a site that supports gravatars (which seems to be most these days), it will automatically load that picture of you when you comment.

This is my current gravatar:

All I can say is “w00t!”

Update:
Because several people have asked: I use a product called “PS3 Media Server” (PMS for short… go figure). You can get it at http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/ and more info is available at http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/.

It’s written in Java, so it works with Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.

I just tell PMS what folder I want to stream, then that folder shows up on the PS3 to play from. So all the porn you’ve collected on your computer over time you can watch from the leisure of your couch on a ginormous TV if you have one.

The Husbear has been craving an iPhone for a long time. So I finally broke down, broke his contract with Sprint, and surprised him with an iPhone a few weeks ago. He’s been raving about it ever since. “It’s so simple to use,” he says. It must be, if he can use it without asking me to many questions on how to do this or that with it.

I have to admit: it was easy to set up. Ordered it online from Apple. FedEx delivered it to my doorstep. I opened the box, plugged it in to my computer, and walked through activation with iTunes. Simple.

After playing with his phone for a few days, I went and did the unthinkable. To me. After years of having several Windows Mobile devices (first my Motorola Q with Alltel, then my Motorola Q9c with Sprint) I purchased an iPhone for myself.

Those around me have known my vehement opposition to and ridicule of all things Apple. Not because I’m a “PC” (which I am!). I grew up building computers. That’s what made computers so interesting to me. The ability to build, modify, and play with all sorts of components of my choosing. And I could load almost any OS (Microsoft’s or others) on any hardware I put together. For me the opposition to all things Apple stemmed from their closed, proprietary technology.

So the last few days I’ve been trying to put into words the reason I switched.

I think the biggest reason for me as to why I went with the iPhone: a centralized location to find applications (at the App Store), and the fact that so many companies seem to be offering only iPhone-based applications and services.

I’ve easily found application replacements for everything I did with my WinMo device without having to search all over the Internet for them.

Had Microsoft done the smart thing years ago by creating a centralized application store, I think WinMo would have done extremely well outside the business world. Now they’re attempting to do just that. To late, in my opinion.

I still feel dirty for having taken a bite of the Apple. I’ve been assured by some of you out there who follow me on Twitter that the feeling will pass. I’m sure it will. But it’s still an odd feeling to have the “enemy” sleeping in my house.

… and I’m not talking about all the political changes as of late.

I’m talking about something that has been there beside me in bed for the last 16 years.

Tonight, my (mostly) faithful alarm clock that I’ve had since I was a Sophomore in college decided to give up the ghost.

Well, I guess technically I “put it down”.

For the last week or so, it has failed to function properly. When the alarm is supposed to go off to rouse me out of my slumber, it resets itself to a flashing 12:00 and doesn’t make a sound.

That’s a bad thing when you don’t naturally wake up at 5:47 five days a week.

It is now time to find something new that will jolt me out of my slumber.

*sigh*

Oh, and no, I didn’t leave it in the trash. That was for dramatic effect. I added it to the pile of stuff going to the electronics recycling center.

(BONUS ROUND: My remaining 10 gay points go to the person who correctly guesses the logo on the T-shirt I am wearing. And no—neither I or the Husbear own one… the shirt was a give-away at Decadence.)

My apologies to anyone who came to the site earlier and got the big nasty HTTP Error 500 Internal server error.

That is what happens when I make a change to my website’s configuration files and then wander off without validating.

Bad Erik. Bad.