DVR for Dad

I helped my dad hook up a Dish 508 DVR system last night. It was an old one of mine that I didn't need since I left Dish for our local cable company this fall. I liked satellite TV, but they can't deliver local channels in High-Def yet, and I really wanted that. I had no idea what model numbers his Dish and switch were, and i was relieved to find that it just worked. He even points at the same satellites here as I did in Iowa, so after swapping out the boxes, all we had to do was call Dish and have them activate the new unit, reboot the box once, and we were in business. Now I just have to teach him how to use it. My dad is one of those people who actually reads instruction manuals, and I have no idea where the one for my 508 went, as I never read it...

Four Gmail Invites

I've got four more GmailGmail invites to give away today. If you want one, post a comment below with your first and last names and a valid e-mail address. Gmail will send the invitation to your e-mail address and allow you to select your username then.

How to read a blog

I'm guessing most of my readers don't need this (with the possible exception of relatives), but John Dvorak has posted a guide to reading and understanding weblogs. [via Scoble]

Info Tech Specialist Position

UNI is now advertising to fill an Information Technology Specialist position at the Iowa Waste Reduction Center:

NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS: Bachelor's degree in management information systems, computer science, business, or related field plus at least one year of web-based database and networking experience required; virtual reality and programming experience preferred

MSN Spaces doesn't support blog clients

I wondered if Microsoft's new MSN Spaces blogging system supported the MetaWeblog API, or any of the popular blogging tools. I looked it up, and the disappointing answer is a decided no. I understand them wanting to have an API that supports all the features of the MSN Spaces service, but in the mean time, howabout implementing the MetaWeblog API over SSL (that's how I post to my blog now) to let people at least use the service? Think of it like this. Sure, Thunderbird doesn't support all of the features of Exchange that Outlook does, but does that mean that shutting out IMAP and POP3 clients from Exchange is the right answer? No, sometimes limited functionality is "good enough" for most uses, and this is one of them.