Craig Gardner

I've been using the Blackberry Storm since it was released and thought that it would be a great device and would at least get other smart phone manufacturers to push themselves. Immediately, I noticed that the battery life on the phone was terrible, especially when using the built in GPS. I also noticed that the phone was mostly unresponsive to my actions.

Now, it's not all bad. I do like the Blackberry way of keeping all of your messages (SMS, IM, Email, etc) in one place.

Recently, I've been working on a couple little projects and amazingly, they're finished. Both were done using Drupal.

I just installed Windows XP on my laptop after telling myself and my friends that it wouldn't happen again. However, in my defense, it was in a Virtual Machine so I won't be using it with any kind of regularity. It's more so I can manage JetDirect Print Servers than anything else.

Another month has passed and I've attended yet another month of User Group meetings. This month was very exciting though. At the Orange County PHP Meetup, we've decided to set up a Southern California PHP Conference. This is really exciting since I've never actually been to any of the big tech conferences that go on throughout the year but hear about pretty much all of them and think it would be exciting and super fun.

If you're trying to install Windows XP over your existing Vista installation on a GT5628, Gateway recommends that you follow the instructions here. Unfortunately for Gateway, the instructions on that link are not instructions on how to do anything, let alone Windows XP installation instructions. I think they meant to send me this link which would actually be useful if I just wanted to know how to install Windows XP.

I took my beer to the homebrew club tonight and they didn't think it was horrible. That's awesome because I was just looking for some input on how my steps for brewing were over the actual beer. I believe my next step is to find a style I enjoy myself and start tweaking until I learn roughly how each of the different ingredients of a beer affect the flavor. I think after that I will start trying to create my own recipes.

Google just released updated maps of the damage/smoke in the Southern California area for Google Earth. It's some amazing stuff.