Gabby

Not every proprietary program can drive a person crazy, right? Some, like Norton Ghost, are superb tools for anyone to use. But, the fact that these tools are proprietary can drive open source fanatics up a wall. It’s not the price of the software that makes the real difference (although it’s a reason to migrate from one software to another for many people); it’s the idea that proprietary software comes with boundaries that keeps the user experience confined to…well, being the user. That’s enough to drive any developer crazy.

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If you’re interested in games for a Linux platform, then you know that game probably is open source, free from cost in most cases, and free to modify. The latter attribute is why Linux games are so popular…a developer can take a great game and make it even better, share it with the world, and become a hero. So, why waste your time and money on proprietary games when so many great Linux games are available?

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It seems a few folks at Advertising Age were burned by the ongoing subprime market fiasco. Or, perhaps the articles produced by Bob Garfield and by Alice Z. Cuneo were a ruse to bring attention to an ad campaign recently produced by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This campaign consists of two separate ads, where prospective homebuyers were encouraged to “invest” in a home. Garfield and Cuneo didn’t like the ads. In fact, Garfield doesn’t like the idea of adding real estate to a diverse portfolio. Why?

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It took me all of one evening to read Timothy Ferriss’s book, “The 4-Hour Workweek.” Yes, the concept of working smarter excited me. Who doesn’t want to double their pay and work half the hours with such simple plans? But, like investing in something you don’t understand, I would be very careful about attempting to live the Ferriss lifestyle. Not everyone can “escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the New Rich [NR].”

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It took me all of one evening to read Timothy Ferriss’s book, “The 4-Hour Workweek.” Yes, the concept of working smarter excited me. Who doesn’t want to double their pay and work half the hours with such simple plans? But, like investing in something you don’t understand, I would be very careful about attempting to live the Ferriss lifestyle. Not everyone can “escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the New Rich [NR].”

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This month I put one of my blogs on the auction block, and it sold for more than my parents paid for their first home in 1962. Granted, that’s not a fair comparison, because that same house is probably worth much more today. Let’s just say that I can pay for one year of Cora’s college education with the proceeds from the sale after I pay Uncle Sam. Was this type of business floating around during the dot.com boom? I don’t know, but I’m enjoying the new possibilities even if they might be transient.

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Learn How to Draw is a new eBook distributed by the zone networks. I published all 17 chapters via DMXzone. com.

Considering that Cairo, Egypt alone contains over 1,000 mosques (Masjids), it wasn’t easy to pick the top twenty-five mosques in the world. But, when we added the words “amazing” and “largest” to the equation, we found some mosques that are worth a plane ticket to visit the sites. We also tried to provide a wide geographic area so that you can visit at least one of these architectural wonders during your lifetime. Mosques are places of worship, but they also lean toward education; therefore, you’ll find many mosques that also contain a madrasa (madrasah, madarasaa, medresa, madrassa), the Arabic word for any type of school, secular or religious. But, don’t expect to always find domes or minarets, features which have become symbolic of the Islam faith. You may discover that local culture often colored the architectural styles on many mosques.

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I’ll bet my alien lamp that you didn’t make a million dollars when you were a teenager, starting with the sales of your sister’s beanie babies over the Internet. And, I can almost guarantee that someone didn’t write a book about you, or that you were a Keynote Speaker with Michael Dell at the Youth International Technology Summit in Austin, Texas. The only person I know who accomplished all this and more is Cameron Johnson, the son of a car dealer in Roanoke, Virginia.

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As a genealogy geek, I enjoy aligning events – such as changing tax code laws – to my family tree to imagine how my ancestors might have reacted to these changes. Even when I can’t imagine their reactions, I’m glad they paid their taxes. I never would have found my third great-grandfather, Jesse, if he hadn’t paid his “head of household” tax in 1819. Most 19th-century taxes, such as the head of household tax, were gathered at the local level, as federal revenue consisted of excise taxes and tariffs to pay for government expenses. There were only three instances from the time of the Revolutionary War to 1913 when taxes were imposed directly on the American public.

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