Got any good New Year's Eve plans? We're gonna welcome the New Year with new people, meeting most of them for the first time. One of my friends at Microsoft has invited us to a small, casual New Year's Eve party. At first, I thought it was a trick - he's the same guy who kicked my ASCII in Doom 2 a few weeks ago. Well, this New Year's Eve, I'm better prepared. Not really, but just in case he's reading this… I'm trying to psyche him out. So, just like Ponzi asked, what are you doing this New Year's Eve? I, however, don't care what you're wearing.

It's true; the seventh version of the Acrobat Reader is light years better than 6.0 in terms of speed and UI snappiness. PDF is PDC (pretty darn common), so having a good PDF viewer is essential. If you haven't already done so, go ahead and grab Acrobat Reader 7. I've got it installed alongside Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0 and both are running without a problem (independent of one another, however - doesn't look like they can be run simultaneously). Took me all of two milliseconds to decide to make Acrobat Reader 7 my default PDF reader. Truly, putting 6 (and even 5) to shame. I wish they'd unleash Adobe Acrobat Elements to the mainstream - much like they have with Photoshop Elements and (unseen by myself) Premiere Elements. Perhaps it'll happen down the road - with a complete bundle / starter kit for beginner desktop publishers. Still not sold on the Adobe Photoshop Album product, though.

I've been a huge fan of Tony Little's Gazelle for several months now. Out of all the exercise equipment I've ever used (at home or remotely), it's been the easiest, cleanest, and most effective. It's a glider, not an eliptical. Tony Little is more than a little annoying with his commercial, but don't ignore his product if you're looking to fulfill a New Year's Resolution. I had abandoned my Gazelle for several weeks, since I'd been busy with personal and professional things. Two days ago, I hopped on it for a 600-calorie burn. No sore muscles. Last night, I did a 500-calorie glide. Today, I'll be using the Gazelle again. I have the basic (Tony Little's Gazelle Freestyle) unit, but have been looking to upgrade to a more feature-complete system:

How can you improve upon perfection? Tony Little has upgraded the Gazelle Supertrainer with Soft Glide technology. This revolutionary feedback system puts a bounce in your step with every glide. It makes exercising on the Gazelle more interactive, more responsive and more fun. The “soft glide” creates an even more natural movement for you and helps energizes your workout. And remember, the more energizing and fun the movement, the more likely you're going to stick to the exercise program and achieve your fitness goals.

This “newer” Gazelle is about twice as expensive, but could be a perfect upgrade (so long as I've got resistance settings, which the Gazelle Freestyle lacks). Any other Gazelle fans out there? Let's keep each other motivated throughout 2005!

I fully admit it - I watch for good Torrent files to download. There are plenty of legal torrent trackers out there, just waiting to be discovered by music and movie fanatics. With the recent elimination of SuprNova, several download fanatics have been forced to look elsewhere for their file fix. BitTorrent may not be easy to set up, but that doesn't mean that BitTorrent can't be easy to use. IMHO, the only BitTorrent client worth trying is Azureus. It was a dream come true when I came across a live Moxy Fruvous show last night on the etree tracker - 42 tracks, all new to me! They're in the Shorten audio format, though (so use ShnAmp). Man, I love BitTorrent. Thank you, Bram Cohen. If you've never tried a torrent, now would be a great time to start. Discover and download something new today - but don't be a Pisco Bandito.
BitTorrent is nothing more than a digital cassette tape for users. A legal bootleg is exactly how I discovered one of my favorite bands, FWIW. Sharing isn't bad, so long as it's being done responsibly. If you DON'T even give us that inch, we'll be much more inclined to take a mile. Torrent killers are killing nobody but themselves. NeoWin just posted this:

This evening, Suprnova administrator Sloncek made an announcement that the Suprnova team and an un-known partner have created a p2p based bit-torrent distribution system called eXeem. Sloncek said that the company backing the project would remain anonymous for the present time. The announcement was made on Novastream, a radio station loosely affiliated to Suprnova.
In other news, bit-torrent hub LokiTorrent has announced that it will not bow to MPAA / Legal pressure to close. The MPAA launched a series of legal actions against 'Jon Doe' defendants running bit-torrent hubs before Christmas. The theory goes that in shutting down the centres of piracy (the hubs) it cuts out the ability for users to easily access pirated material. Although clear statistics are not known, the furore and size of donations made to LokiTorrent would suggest that removing the hubs has done serious damage to piracy. [More]

And the band played on…

After owning Canons for years (including, and up to, my PowerShot G5), I thought I'd give Nikon a shake. Their feature set on the Coolpix 8800 was almost too nice to pass up. This new digital camera isn't without its share of bugaboos, however. I've found that with the latest firmware upgrade [1.4], new issues that have arisen; now I can't take a flash photo without the LCD going blank for a couple of seconds. The gate to the CF slot doesn't have a good locking mechanism, the image severely pincushions at the 10x zoom level, and every Coolpix 8800 cable and add-on is proprietary. That said, I'm definitely having fun with the Coolpix 8800. Enthusiasts have been raving about Nikon digicams for several years now, so now I'm trying to see what all 'Coolpix' fuss has been about. Can't wait to try out the BSS and extended movie modes!
Would I get the Coolpix 8800 again? I'll let you know after I've had a while to play with it. The “vibration reduction” feature has been sorely missed in a digital camera for years. I'll send a couple of my initial snapshots to the sidebar in a few minutes. Gotta read the manual first.