One of my students mentioned the Bug Me Not Firefox plugin. It's amazing - no more annoying "Please sign in to view this page" problems!

As I probably won't have a chance to get out into the 'burbs before this Friday, I thought I'd submit one of the pictures I took last year in Nova Scotia for photofriday's 'Rural' contest.

I installed the WP Hashcash plugin in an attempt to reduce the number of comment spams I've had to wade through here on my blog. So far I haven't had a single spam comment! (No legitimate comments either, but that's another concern...) Thanks Elliott!

With 2004 having come and gone, many people are going through and presenting what they consider to be their best image of the year. It's a tough choice! I wouldn't say I've captured any stellar photos, so I'll have to go with one with more personal meaning than photographic quality.

The Tidal Wave Disaster really highlights how fragile life is. I am really proud of Canada's response to this disaster: the federal government announced that they would match private donations and freeze the debt of countries affected. Let's take advantage of this! There are many reputable Canadian charities accepting donations for disaster relief:

• Development and Peace
• Red Cross Canada
• Oxfam Canada

And many others. Canada currently leads the way in per-capita donations, let's try and keep it that way! After a season focused on gift giving to our friends and loved ones, I would challenge you to look at how much you spent to get your brother that new DVD, your mother that new sweater, or your friend that movie pass, and then consider if you could spend that much, or more, to help the millions of people currently in need all over the world, but particularly now for the people affected by the tidal wave. Live simply so that others may simply live

Here's a slightly belated Merry Christmas wish. I pray that God blesses you and your family in the upcoming year. I had a wonderful Christmas that I celebrated with Melissa's family on Christmas eve, and with my grandparents and father on Christmas day. As I grow older family becomes more and more important at Christmas, and the gifts become less and less important. We went to visit Niagara Falls on the 27th - I had never seen the falls in the winter, and it was truly breathtaking!

This is kind of interesting. I checked off the countries I've visited and my map shows that I seriously need to travel more!
(create your own visited countries map)

I like it :) I've only spent a few hours using it, so take my comments with a grain of salt...or maybe one of those salt licks. The cropping shadow is fantastic. I don't know what it's really called, but it darkens parts of the image outside of the current cropping area. It makes it really easy to see what's in, and what's out. Preview on the unsharp mask filter - thank you thank you thank you! I started fooling around with the Channel Mixer filter, I would like a way to zoom in / out of the preview as well as panning...A simple way to enlarge it would be great too.

I've been using del.icio.us quite a bit in the past week. I like how it shows you who else has the same bookmark. I also like how you can do a global query by tags. I came across my first meta-bookmark today: somebody had bookmarked the photography tag. Seems like a great way to find other sites of interest!

Here's my first Photo Friday entry. I'm really looking forward to their challenges in the new year, it's a great excuse to shoot pictures of things I wouldn't otherwise!