Author: Franklin

Turn

Do you need to turn? When did you take a turn? Left or Right? Forward not back. You may have noticed this blog has turned. Well if anyone read this blog they would notice a turn. This revisit to blogging has and will take a turn.

It’s my blog and I will do what I want. This has been a technology-focused blog. But, it’s more about what I am thinking, what interests me. I tagged it poorly many years ago. Accurately but not clever. “Tech, life, and stuff” the original tagline will remain but more of the stuff category.

If you do turn look for light. Darkness consumed someone I knew yesterday. The end was senseless. It saddens me. But, I am filled with light and that makes all the difference. Find the light of the world. If the darkness consumes you get help.

Words

There are around 171,476 words in the English language according to Google. How many do you use?

Words are powerful. This so-called information age overwhelms us with words. Words filled with passion, words filled with hate, words filled with confusion, words overwhelming us, words comforting us, too few words of kindness, compassion, and actual love.

I see people searching for words of truth.

Even these statements are just words. The Bible warned us about our tongues and the danger that would lie ahead.

What words can change someones mind? What words matter? Will anyone listen?

My business is tech, the information flow overwhelms, surrounds, disappoints.

How do we tame this tidal wave of humanity’s hubris? The capture of this beast that is our own vanity, our own strength, the manifestation of our prideful urge to be heard.

I have no answers other than the one who is.

10 Minute Time

My concept for blogging is 10 minutes at a time. I want to blog in 10-minute increments. To do a real in-depth blog post will certainly take longer than 10 minutes. But, all I can hope to devote to blogging is 10 minutes.

I have started blogging several many times. I will stop again, however. Eventually, I will find my blogging niche. Life happens and I will fall off the blogging wagon once more. Of that I am certain. It’s ok I think. At this point, the blog will remain. I like this record of thoughts at points in time.

This post was a draft from 2009. 🙂 So, 10 minutes a pop is what I can give to blogging.

Stop Posting Bad Photos

I am trying something new with this post. I am going to post short not complete thoughts. This is more about recording them for myself. I could post them on social media but then I might get comments and opinions from others. In this case, I am not interested in others’ opinions.

Why do people post such bad photos on social media? And then why do people comment on them and say they are good? Can they not see the photo is poorly composed and out of focus? Can they not see the other moving people or ugly objects in the background? Can they not see that the photo casts their loved ones in a poor light?

We all have cameras in our pockets, but that does not make us photographers.

My 3 tips for better photos for anyone are:

  1. Composition – Make sure only the subjects you want are in the photo. Look in the background, if it’s busy or unattractive, ask the subjects to move. Walk forward, step back, move side to side, but frame your photo before you take it.
  2. Focus – Take multiple pictures, click the screen of your phone to set the auto-focus on your subjects, hold your breath when taking a photo, and hold your arm as still as possible. Then choose the best of multiple shots to use for your social media.
  3. Lighting – Phone cameras have come along way but low light situations are still a challenge. Try to take photos outdoors whenever possible. Be aware of where the lights are located indoors. Moving 45-90 degrees and taking the same indoor shot may make a huge difference.

Finally, please do not post bad photos on social media. I realize you are going to do that anyway but please do not tag me. 🙂

Dead Blogs

Are blogs dead? Content is still king. I have posted to this blog 4 times in the last 10 years. But, the blog is still here.

I have some draft posts in the 10 years but 4 actual posts.

Does this mean anything? Blogs are personal. This probably speaks to the fact that life is busy. During these 10 years I was living a life. My kids were growing.

Even in the last year when the pandemic gave us time in different ways and we stayed home more, I still didn’t return to this blog.

I rarely post on Facebook and Twitter, sparingly post on Instagram and Tumblr.

Hmm…not sure I have learned anything about why this blog has gone dormant. This is post number 5.

Compare Two Files in Visual Studio

Today I had some files that I needed to compare. For years to compare two files in Windows I have relied upon WinMerge. But, I realized I had not used WinMerge in quite a long time and had not even installed it on my new box. Most of the time I just use SourceTree, as we are GIT shop, to do diffs now. To see version history of a single files different versions this works great.  (I realize there are MANY ways to do diffs.)

In this case though I needed to see the difference between the same file in two places in my project. Knowing that Visual Studio could handle this well but not remembering how to do it, I of course googled.

You can access Visual Studio’s built in diff tool via commandline in Windows or via the command window in VS. I choose the command window in VS.

Go to: View — Other Windows — CommandWindow

Then in the command window I ran the following command: 

It worked like a champ and shows me the diff without an extra install.

I found this information here.