Site Updates

New features or changes on Michael’s Piece of the Web

18
Jan
2010

New Virus & Spyware Guide Update

At long last, I’ve updated the Spyware & Virus Prevention and Removal section of Michael’s Guide. The last update was several years ago and things have changed drastically in the past few years. Malware is nastier than ever. It poses as your anti-virus program, it blocks you from  removing it and much more. Hopefully this updated guide will assist you in preventing and maybe even removing this stuff. One thing that seems to have changed as well is that the average user may not always be able to remove these things without professional help, so prevention is stll the best policy.

You’ll be seeing many more updates to the site in the next few days. I’m slowly bringing it up to date and making it more useful.

Posted by Michael in Site Updates, Technology
19
Oct
2009

Yankee Candle Village Fall Festival Photos

Yankee Candle VillageWhen you hear Yanke Candle you think candles, obviously. But Yankee Candle Village in South Deerfield, MA makes you realize what a huge empire this compnay has built. You could (and we did) spend the better part of a day wandering through the many sections of the village. The slightly imperfect candles of the discount room are a great deal at half off. OK, so maybe you don’t want an Apple Cider scented candle that red on one side and pitch black on the other, but a tangerine candle that’s filled just a tiny bit too high is a great deal!

My personal favorite was the Bavarian room. $6000 giant German stein anyone? And who wouldn’t love the Black Forrest room where it snows all year long?

The Fall Decorations and events of the Fall Festival made it that much more fun. As usual I took plenty of photos. You can see them right here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
19
Oct
2009

Mount Snow Oktoberfest Trip Photos

Mount Snow FoliageMount Snow is a ski resort in Vermont, but before the ski season starts German beer, food, music and events take over. I am, of course, describing Oktoberfest. They also had an arts & crafts show and scenic ski lift rides to the top of the mountain. Despite rain on Saturday, Sunday turned out to be a very nice cold day. As expected, the Fall foliage was impressive to say the least. It also gave me a chance to really test out my new camera. It turns out that shooting photos while hanging on for dear life to the ski lift isn’t easy. But that’s what a love for photography and a terrible fear of heights will get you!

The photos are posted in my Photos section.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
19
Oct
2009

Orange County Choppers Photos & more

Orange County ChoppersI just added 2 new albums to my Photos section. The first is from Orange County Choppers in Newburgh, NY. You probably recognize the name from the Discovery show American Chopper. I stopped by the Teutels new “world headquarters” on the way to Vermont last week. They have a retail store which is fairly over-priced, but I did shell out for a keychain anyway. The best part of it is the bikes that are on display. They have many of the theme bikes they built on the show on display. There’s also a viewing area where you can see into the shop area.

I also added a small album of photos from the Bordentown, NJ Cranberry festival. Thrown in with that album are also a few shots from the Blackwood Pumpkin Festival in Gloucester Township and my backyard all from the same day.

Another important note… these are the first photos I’ve posted that were taken with my new Nikon D90!

Check out them all out here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
05
Sep
2009

Photos from Newport Trip

Newport, RII was scheduled to be in Newport for a week on business but the trip wound up being unexpectedly extended into a second week. I used the opportunity to do a little bit of sightseeing on the weekend. Besides walking about 10 miles, I took tours of two mansions (The Breakers & Marble House), toured the Breaker’s stables & carriage house, walked part of the Cliff Walk and did some shopping. If you have to unexpectedly get stuck somewhere, Newport is a good choice!

Check out the photos here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
04
Sep
2009

Western Maryland & West Virginia photos

Western MD Railroad

I just added 3 new photo albums. They are all from my trip to Western Maryland and West Virginia. We visited the Spruce Forest Artisan Village & Penn Alps restaurant. The bulk of our trip was spent in Frostburg & Cumberland, where we took a ride on the Western maryland Scenic Railroad. On the way home we spent 2 days in Charles Town and Harper’s Ferry. It was a fun couple of days. It was nice to send time in some very old, very small towns for a change and Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park is one of the most interesting NPS sites I’ve been to.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
04
Sep
2009

Photography Category

Since more and more my blog posts seem to be about adding new photos to my site, I’ve now added a new Photography category to the blog.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
09
Aug
2009

Less Tweet Clutter

Instead of my blog creating post of all of my tweets each day, it will instead wait until the end of the week to gather all my my tweets for the week from my Twitter account. I’m hoping this will cut down on the burying of my real posts. I also went back and consolidated my previous tweet posts. I guess this also means I should post to my blog more often!

Posted by Michael in Site Updates
04
Jun
2009

Jacksonville Photos

JacksonvilleI finally posted my photos from my week in Jacksonville, Florida. As i say on the photo album page, I spent most of the week indoors at a conference, but did get outside to take a few quick photos.

Check them out here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates
04
Jan
2009

Christmas at Longwood Photos

Longwood GardensLongwood Gardens is a fun place to visit all year long but at Christmas time it’s a totally different place. The amount of lights and flowers is astounding. They’ve really exapanded the displays since the last time I was there two years ago.

Because we were there after dark this year, there aren’t as many great photos, but there was plenty of cold weather and Christmas lights which is all it takes to make me happy apparently! Check out the photos here.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates