All These Airline Fees...

I don't do a whole lot of traveling. I'm perfectly content to stay home most of the time. With all the added security and now with the airlines tacking on extra fees for everything from checked baggage to bottled water, I'm really hoping that I don't have to fly anywhere anytime soon. One of the things that bothers me most is the fact that I cannot take my bottle of water through security. I drink a lot of water. I take my water everywhere. Someone telling me I can't have it just makes me want it more.

Now, with the airlines planning to charge for checked bags, they've kind of got people over a barrel. You can't take your toiletries in your carry-on, unless they're under a certain size and all fit in a ziploc bag. So you have to check a bag. Or buy toiletries when you get wherever you're going. Either way, someone is making some extra money.

Seriously, charging to check a bag? Who can actually go somewhere without needing luggage? Wouldn't it make more sense to charge whatever for the airline ticket and then offer a discount for those people who don't check a bag? It would be more like incentive not to check a bag, instead of punishment for doing so. Also, it would make it less confusing when you're trying to figure out how much the flight is actually going to cost. I want to book my tickets and see my total, and I want to know that that is what I am going to be paying - not have to do a whole lot of math to figure it out.

But, since they didn't ask me before instituting extras fees for this, that, and the other thing, this table of airlines fees will probably come in very, very handy. When planning a trip, it will be a matter of finding ticket costs, and then comparing to see how the additional fees, or the lack thereof affect the bottom line. That 'cheap' airfare you found may actually end up costing you more in the long run.

I do think I'll just stay home.

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Expand the Capabilities of Your Camera

Image via WikipediaI was writing something on my other blog about downloading pictures from my digital camera, and Zemanta suggested an article that sounded interesting. While I admit that mostly I put my camera in 'Auto' mode and point and shoot, I like the idea that it can do more. If only I can figure out how to use all those extra options... I really need to review the lessons from my online Sony class.

From this Zemanta-suggested article, I found out that there is a free, open source project called CHDK that can turn your point-and-shoot Canon camera into a super camera. From what I can tell, you copy some files to your camera's SD card, and CHDK expands the capabilities of your camera way beyond what it can do now. You can get features like RAW shooting mode, live RGB histograms, motion-detection, time-lapse, and even games on your existing camera. It's non-permanent, so you can try it out and easily remove it whenever you want.

I don't really have time to play with it now, but I wanted to save the article and the links so I can read more about it and try it later. Do let me know if you've tried this or if you think this is helpful.

Zemanta suggested some additional articles that may be helpful:

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Music and Lyrics

Image via WikipediaFrigga over at Any Apples plays a little game on Fridays called 'Rockin' With Frigga' - she posts some song lyrics, and the first person to name the song and artist gets a point. It's fun to play, though I admit I don't know most of the songs she posts. Once in a while she'll use a song I know, and sometimes I go hunting down the lyrics just to figure it out. Once I find the song lyrics, I like to go find the song and listen to at least a little bit of it.

Usually that means searching for it on YouTube or something like that. Today, though, I found a site that combines the lyrics and the song on one page - TSRocks. From what I can see, there are tons of songs on this site. You can go immediately to some of the popular artists on the site, or you can search through the artists to find the one you're looking for. They're arranged alphabetically, so it's pretty easy, except it's alphabetically by first name and not last name, as I learned when I started searching for Bryan Adams under the A's, for Adams. He wasn't there. He was under the B's, for Bryan.

I was searching because he was on Regis and Kelly this morning, started performing one of my favorite songs, and they cut him off. How rude! So I looked him up on this site and played the song there. They even give you the code to embed the song:


Read Run To You lyrics


I love being able to listen to the song and read the lyrics at the same time because I'm very visual and usually can't understand the lyrics just from listening to the song, without having a chance to read them. This site isn't going to help me with Frigga's game, because I can't search for lyrics there, but it is going to make it easy for me to listen to the songs once I know what they are.

Looking for Fonts?

Somehow in the switch from my old computer to my new one, I lost some fonts. The old computer had a lot of fonts. I copied the font folder, which is a good thing, because the old computer died, and all those fonts would have been lost forever! Still, some of the fonts are missing, and I have no idea what happened to them. Today I was looking for one in particular - Bazooka. I didn't find it, but I did find dafont.com, a whole site full of fonts. They're all either freeware, shareware, demo versions or public domain.

If you're looking for new fonts or the perfect font for a particular project, you just might find it at dafont.com. If you know where I can find my Bazooka font, please let me know!

Windows Live Writer

I recently downloaded Windows Live Writer and have been using it to post to my blogs.  So far I have set up three of my blogs, counting this one, and can easily post to any of them.  It works with most major blog services including WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, and TypePad, and it automatically detects your blog's theme.  As you write, you can see just how it will look on your blog, before you publish.

Windows Live Writer makes it easy to insert graphics, hyperlinks, tables, maps, and more.  Also, if you can't be connected to the Internet, you can still write your posts, and they'll be ready to publish when you get back online.  I used this feature last week, and it was so nice.

You can read about all the features of Windows Live Writer here.  I also downloaded some Plug-ins to extend the features.  One of them is this Polaroid Picture Plug-in I haven't tried until now.

That's kind of cool, but the Plug-in I have high hopes for is one that is supposed to let me easily blog a page or selection of a page right from my browser.  That will be particularly helpful for this blog.  When I see something I want to share, I just have to select the "Blog This" button at the top of my browser, and it will open a new or existing post in Windows Live Writer.  Then, I can easily share what I just found. 

Because, even though I'm always running across things I get really excited about, I still find myself forgetting to bookmark, forgetting to share, and losing them.  That is not good.

Free Blogger Templates

I'm always looking for cute Blogger templates, because I just might see one I just have to use. So, when I see a blog design I like, I look for the little link telling me who designed it or where the design came from. Tonight I clicked a link for suck my lolly and found some really cute ones. There's quite an extensive design gallery, templates for both the New Blogger XML and Classic Blogger, as well as information on how to use the templates

It Seems Like Cheating

Yesterday I found this Scrabble word finder. I think it looks like it could be very handy, but it does almost seem like cheating. You can input all the letters in your Scrabble rack as well as the optional word pattern using letters and spaces already on the board. The word finder returns a list of all possible words sorted by score, length or alphabetically.

I was playing Scrabulous on Facebook recently and tried and tried to find a word that would use all my letters. I had the perfect place to put it, but I just couldn't figure anything out. I wonder if this would have helped me? Still, I'm not sure how I would feel about actually playing whatever word it found for me. That doesn't stop me from saving the link, just in case.