Tag Archives: Links/News

Fantasian Kingdoms

Fantasian Kingdoms looks like a very interesting game, and they are one of the more interesting sponsors of my Buy Me a Lego campaign.

From the homepage:

Fantasia is a distant planet ruled by a mysterious race known as Fantasians. This planet is stuck in constant turmoil due to the magical force hidden deep within it’s core. This magic causes all Fantasians to be aggressive and violent in an attempt to feed the evil’s desire for souls. This is where you must take control of a small Province, and lead your people to victory over everyone else.

I’ve only played for a little bit, but I’ll try to give a decent description. It’s a multiplayer real-time strategy game that takes place over many, many hours. Just poking through the options, there are so many things to do. You’ve got military, buildings, wars, laws, research, mining, spies, diplomacy, markets, and more.

Here’s the cool thing, though: the game is completely on-line. No downloads of any type required. Best of all: it’s completely FREE. No monthly costs, no one-time costs.

Once completing the free registration, I was taken to a screen where I could control my province. Here’s where it is on the world map:dharvia It’s just a tiny little place amid a huge world. Once started, I got my scientists researching new building and military techniques, as well as exploration and building.

Fun stuff. Go check them out if you’re on the lookout for new, independent games.

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Getting the most out of Outlook 2007

I’ve been trying to organize my life lately, and this weekend, I decided to get my Outlook under control–respond, file, or delete the hundreds of e-mails in my inbox, create necessary tasks, delete obsolete ones, reorganize the folder hierarchy, etc. Also, I’ve recently been introduced to the Getting Things Done methodology and was interested in that. Some of these sites use GTD as their basis, but all the tips are useful even if you’re not specifically using Getting Things Done. In any case, all of these are focused on personal productivity.

In addition, I decided to figure out how to use some features more effectively than I do. Like categories. Outlook has always had categories, but they work so much better in the 2007 version. The To-Do bar has also been visible the whole time I’ve had Outlook 2007, but I haven’t used it effectively. Until now.

What follows are some links to articles and blogs that can help rein in Outlook and make it work for you.

Organization Basics

Advanced Organization

Getting Things Done

I’ve recently become interested in this methodology, after reading the recent article in Wired magazine.

General

Macros

Blogs

Got some other really good tips or sites? Did I leave out an area of Outlook? Post them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list.

Have you checked out my Buy Me a Lego site? If not, please do so!

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A DC Video Production Company

Here’s a shout-out to “Memories in Motion”, Video Production Technology, a great videography and production company in the metro Washington, DC area. Frank also does great video work for the news wire service my wife works for. They were generous with a donation to my BuyMeALego campaign, and I wish them the best of luck.

If you need a video of a wedding, birthday, party, religious events, reunions, live music, or any other event in the DC area, please go look them up. There are some sample pics and screengrabs at the site.

What is Lupus?

One of my donors to my Buy Me a Lego campaign was a representative of the Lupus Erythematosus Society of Saskatchewan (L.E.S.S.). I appreciate this opportunity to give them so more publicity. I had heard the word “Lupus” but I was not familiar with exactly this disease was, so I looked it up on their site.

According to the site,

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory disease which may affect many different organs and tissues in the body. Women of child bearing age are typically affected, but individuals of any age, sex or race may develop the disease.

SLE while uncommon, is not rare, with an estimated disease prevalence of 1 in every 2,000 population. It is a condition which appears to be increasing in prominence especially over the last 15 – 20 years. This is likely explained by the earlier recognition of milder cases because of increased patient and physician awareness and by the enhanced availability of sensitive laboratory tests helpful in the diagnosis.

I was interested in the derivation of the word “lupus”, which obviously means wolf from Latin. From what I can tell, the rash you can get causes you to appear vaguely wolf-like. From one of the symptoms:

Skin rash – a very common feature occurring in many patients. The classic rash is called a “butterfly rash” because it occurs in a butterfly- like a patch over the bridge of the nose and cheeks. This type of rash is in fact quite common with most lupus rashes being far less specific and accruing anywhere on the body but especially over sun exposed areas.

You can find more information about the disease, including the symptoms, here. Thankfully, it seems that most people have mild cases which can be easily controlled. I encourage you to go check them out.

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Shout-out to Sweet St Music Technology

I want to thank Chuck Brown of Sweet St. Music Technology for sponsoring my Buy Me a Lego campaign. I took a look around his site, interested as I was, because I’m an amateur musician myself (I play piano). I used to play alto sax in middle school, but never became great at it.

Anyway, Sweet St. has a large collection of band instruments, recording gear, studio gear, DJ equipment, guitars, digital pianos, and more–you name it. I liked looking through the band instruments–took me back. And the digital pianos. But if you need anything at all, take a look.

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Some more stores at BrickLink

I received a couple more donations (for http://www.BuyMeALego.com) from stores at BrickLink–thanks guys!

First, eBricksOnline for a wonderful $25.00 donation! thanks! They also gave me a coupon to their store.

And also, Ash’s Extras, for a $2.00 donation. Thank you very much!

So check them out if you need some Lego bricks.

 

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Washington, DC / Baltimore photographer

Thibeaux Lincecum contributed to my Buy Me a Lego campaign and deserves some props. He’s a photographer local to Washington, DC / Baltimore and I enjoyed many of his photos. He’s got a lot of stuff with Burning Man, weddings, parties, and a ton of others. I liked the Montgomery County Fair photos, particularly this one. Very nice. So go check out his stuff.

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