Day After Christmas

Hello Family and Friends,
We are sooooo sorry that we have not updated anything since the middle of last semester. With Bianca and I in school full time and working we were drowning in homework and church activities so we just did not have time to update anything meaningful. I am also happy to announce that this blog will remain strictly for the family events and updates, and to please my wife, I am moving all of my geeky to a new blog; "the modern cool geek". Is it a corny title...you betcha :-) I will be working on uploading a lot of pictures through out the evening so hopefully we will get everyone caught up on our lives and all the fun things that are happening. Hope everyone had a great Christmas!
We love you all lots and look forward to another great year with all of you!
-JR and Bianca
ps. doesn't Bianca look great with Andy....she is so cute :-)

An El Paso legend passes away.

I am sure most of you have heard by now, but yesterday afternoon Coach Don Haskins past away in his El Paso home. Our family especially loved the Bear and he will be missed by all El Paso. Our hearts and our prayers are with the family. Here is the official AP article on coach.
ESPN
-JR

Saw this on Digg today !

Dude this is totally true...are you a version 1.0 or 2.0?

Hug a developer

My buddy Javier sent me this video today and I loved it.
If you know a developer give them a hug today!

Enjoy!
Cheers,
-JR

Tech in Plain English

Many of you have already seen these guys, but I have been showing this site more and more to people at work to explain some pretty complicated concepts, so I thought you all might like it. If you are reading this you probably already know about blogs - but what about Twitter, RSS, Podcasting and social networking? Check out this sample video from the guys at Common Craft and see what you think.

Honestly I think they are a great tool to explain to people how these new technologies work.
Hope you all enjoy!
Cheers,
-JR

Photo Touch Up

Howdy all,
Just wanted to drop a quick little line to let everyone know that we are ok and still working hard :-) Also wanted to talk very briefly about photo touch up software. I know that most of you already use photoshop or software like that, but if you are like me and on a budget there are some very nice alternatives. If you haven't checked out GIMP I highly recomend it. It has some really nice features and the best part its free. It can do alot of the photoshop things so if you are in need of a quick alternative this is the way to go. I am not big on the ISO hunt and torrent of pirated software, manly because there are so many great free tools out there. That and the fact I really don't want the FBI knocking down my door lol! There is also a good tool that kicks the old windows app Paint up a few notches called Ultimate Paint. Also a good little piece of software.
You can find these software titles at:
www.gimp.org
www.ulitmatepaint.com
Well hope all are doing well and enjoying these last days of summer!
Cheers
-JR

Screen and video capture tool!

Howdy again from Southern New Mexico,
The other day I needed to down load a video and convert it into a .wmv format for posting on a client web site. Needless to say things got a bit tricky I had a free problems. A while back I was watching Tekzilla and they gave some great little tools for just that. Unfortunately I am broke so spending money was not really an option. So I stumbled across a little tool called Freez Screen Capture. This guy is just awesome with a lot of different setting for quality and codec choices. I highly recommend this little app and best of all its FREE. There is also a slew of different apps that the parent company Small Video Soft makes that I am dying to try. Things like IPOD video converters DVD rippers and all sorts of other cool toys. If you all need to rip a video from the net that is not your standard .flv file or something like that this is a great little tool. I know a lot of people out there will tell you to grab Real Players which lets you down load just about any video, but I would really not go that route. All videos are stored as .IVR files that dont help alot since, from everything I have read, there is not a smooth way to convert IVRs to anything useful. If you do have Real Player though, grab a video display it on your machine and copy it with Freez screens capture. Its fast easy and a great little tool. All these products can be found at http://www.smallvideosoft.com/. Hope you all enjoy.
Cheers,
-JR

Pod Catchers

Howdy all,
Everyonce and a while I have friends that use Ipods but they dont like using ITunes. To be honest I rather like ITunes and have been using it religiously for a while, but if supporting Apple is just not your thing there are several other Pod Catcher software out there. I wont go over the many different types that there are, but here is a nifty little site that has all kinds of reviews and things like that. http://www.podcatchermatrix.org/ Hope you all enjoy and try out some of the other options you have to pod catching.
If you have anything you would like my opinion on or maybe just something cool you want to share feel free to post a message and let me know what you think.
Have a great a day to all :-)

Panama City Temple Tour

Howdy all,
My sister just sent me a great video on the Panama City Temple. In case any of you have ever wondered what a Mormon Temple is like this video is wonderful. I hope you all like it :-)

Happy Monday,
-JR

Is the internet down?

Just a quick little note and a cool little website I found today. I work in support and I run across this question a lot; Is the site X down or is it just me? Well there could be a lot of different things going on, but for starters try this little website out:
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com It's a simple little site where you can type in the address of your favorite website to make sure that they are still up or the problem is on your end. If you can't even hit this site your problem may be at your ISP (internet Service Provider) or your router or many other things. Here is a little note that happened to me the other day:
I get home and need to work on some homework so I turned on my desktop. Everything boots up fine, I have internet connection and all is well. For some reason I cant hit anysite what so ever regardless of browser. So I started pinging sites in CMD and I can hit things. Check my router; router is good. Pop open my lap top running Ubuntu; everything works fine and I can surf. At this point I am thinking ok...got to be a windows thing. Reboot ( i hate that); nothing. Ok so I try the Suse side of my desktop...and guess what it works. So its not the router, its the OS for sure. Well to make the long story short, I reset my router changed my tcp/ip settings and finally broke down and called Time Warner. And guess what...I have a few different fire walls on my machine one of which is ZONE ALARM. Well Zone Alarm's newest update has completely blocked all internet traffic to my machine. The moral of the story...some times its just better to call your ISP and bite the bullet.
Hope everyone has a great week,
-JR
If you have questions that you think maybe I can answer - drop me a line or a comment here.

Elder Jared Escobar comes home!!

Howdy all,
Just wanted to drop a quick little note about our friend and cousin Jared Escobar returning from his two year mission in England. We are so proud of him for his dedication and his love for other people. For those of you who do not know we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I won't talk about our beliefs here on this page but I would invite anyone who would like to learn more about the church or our beliefs to visit www.mormon.org. This is a great site that explains a little bit more about our faith. I served a year two year mission in the most beautiful country on earth, ECUADOR!!! I love the people and miss them dearly. My older sister served in Madrid, Spain as well as my brother in laws serving; Puerto Rico, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador and many many other countries around the world. We are thankful for our opportunity to serve. Also we would like to congratulate Ariel Chavez on his mission call to Washington State, USA. We are cheering for you buddy!
Cheers,
-JR

Ubuntu goes mobile

Ok so some of you may have already heard that Ubuntu has gone mobile, but I just ran across the announcement page. If I may say ...DUDE THAT IS AWESOME!!! I have been waiting for a long time now for a mobile device to run linux that I like and my dreams are coming true. Although I have not played with or seen this in real life I am way interested. So if you all are into the mobile scene check out www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile
Very cool stuff.
Cheers,
-JR

Something small but I thought it was cool

So if you are like me you are open to try new tools with your computer, but I know there are several people that are afraid of what is out there in the realm of customizing your desktop. Well, although this isnt new, i had a request from a buddy to talk about objectdock. If you have ever heard of blinds for windows its from the same guys. Very cool little add on tool bar that looks and feels like that neat little one on the Mac OS like Tiger or Leopard. This one is great free and very lite so everyone should be ok with it. Here is a quick screen shot of current work desktop:


You may also notice the cool transparency effect on some of the windows. This can be done really easily using a tool called glass2k. Super simply to use, just down load the little app and then right click on any window and it has the percentage of transparency you want.

There are all kinds of different ways to customize your desktop so get out there and have some fun and let me know if you all come across anything cool.
Oh one last plug check out http://yellowicon.com/ they have some very cool icons and things as well as a great free download section.
Other links are
http://www.download.com/ObjectDock/3000-2341_4-10210264.html?hhTest=1
http://chime.tv/products/glass2k.shtml

Some of my favorite sites

Howdy all,
I know it has been a few days since the last time we posted anything, but we are here in Tucson at Daniel's baptism and I had a few minutes while Bianca takes a nap so I figured now would be a good time to post some things. We have had a wonderful time here in Tucson and in our conversations with Aimee and Bryan and others I decided to share some of our favorite sites here on our blog. For those of you who don't know I am rather geeky and so I spend a lot of my time on the internet. So in my travels on the world wide web I have found some very cool sites that I think some if not all of you will enjoy. So here goes in no particular order:
1. www.hulu.com
hulu is on demand flash streaming of some of the latest movies and tv shows and the best part it is 100% free. It has a lot of the new shows that you may miss with your busy work weeks as well as some of the best classic tv out there. Bianca and I have been very much addicted to the 1st seasons of Doogie Howser MD. Worth the few seconds to check it out.
2. http://www.pandora.com
Pandora is part of the gnome project and is a great free web radio. It does a little more than just organize by class of song, but goes to the artists music types, flows, and beats to find music that is similar. Very nice little player.
3. www.digg.com
Hands down for me it has been the best news source on the net. I have subscribed to blogs and rss readers for a long time as well as the usual news sites, but Digg is a social news site which is user submitted. So you get the best of the news world as well as some of those crazy web stories that are fun to read.
4. http://zennioptical.com
I was just opened up to this site from some of Bryan's family and friends. This site is an amazing optical that can ship around the world and get you glasses fast. The best part is all you need is your prescription and boom you are done....ok let me really get to the best part. GLASSES FOR $8.00 bucks. That is great!!!
5. www.revision3.com
I am a huge podcast and internet tv guy. I got tired of regular tv a while ago and found revision3, which is a complete internet tv station. Lots of good shows and lots of cool forums. Its by the guys who brought you digg.com
6. www.sourceforge.net
Great little place to find all sorts of cool free open source apps
I am sure I am forgetting tons of other websites, but for now I think is a nice little list of some of the cool things out there. If you all have other websites that are cool, please drop me a line letting me know. I love learning about new things.
Hope you all have a great day :-)
-JR

Not a real catch :-(

So much to my disappointment this catch is not real. David had said it all along that this was super fake, but I found my self for one brief moment daring to believe...and alas it is a hoax. Apparently it is a Gatorade® commercial that was leaked onto the net. If you look at the very end of the video you can see her sit next to a bottle. Oh well....i thought everything on the net was true - i guess not lol
-JR

WOW!! Awesome catch

I saw this video today and I thought it was awesome...she could teach some of the major league guys a thing or two:

Ball Girl Makes Incredible Catch - Watch more free videos

Girls Camp '08

Howdy everyone!
Here are some pics of this years Young Women's Girls Camp
Bianca was the coordinator again this year, but unfortunately I could not go because of work and school.
Enjoy !

Vista: How I hate thee, let me count the ways

Ok quick super geek moment: I hate Vista!!! I have tried really really really hard to like the features and work with the new OS but in the end there is nothing that I can see as a clear advantage over XP. The themes and the desktop look cool but that can only take you so far, In fact after about 20 min with Vista the OH AH UH factor was totally gone. For those working on web design IIS 7 is a nightmare. Now perhaps I am being hasty since I am not an expert when it comes to any IIS but geez what I do know, I don't like IIS 7. There are lots of other things I can complain about (like the Network and Sharing Center that takes some serious time getting used to) but I am not going there. If you have the chance to stay with XP...do. I read an interesting article the other day relating that only 8% of developers are coding for Vista as 13% are coding for Linux. Now for those of my friends who are not familiar or comfortable with the idea of another OS don't be. There is life after Microsoft. Now I won't say that everything is compatible or that you can really do everything on Linux that you can do on Windows, let's face it Windows is an industry standard. Linux does however give you a very very nice alternative. It takes some getting used to, but IT'S FREEE!!! So there is a learning curve, at least there is no $200 upgrade fee every time a new version is rolled. I used to be afraid of the "dark side" but try it, you may find that it is a refreshing new look on personal computers. If you are unsure how to even start check out this site: http://distrowatch.com/ here there are tons and tons of different flavors of Linux. I personally recommend Ubuntu and Suse. I have used both and both are user friendly and come with tons of features already built in. They are light too so they can run on almost any machine. If you are a hard core internet user and don't spend too much time on the desktop try GOS. Its mostly an internet based OS but fun and the graphics are very appealing. Well thats the end of my little rant about computers. One last note - Mac's are getting really really nice. OS X has really impressed me. The only downside is the pricey hardware. If you can get over that don't be afraid of the Mac.
Have fun everyone and I hope all the fathers had a good day on Sunday.
Cheers,
-JR

Create a shorter URL link !!

You may have experienced that annoying problem of copying and pasting a huge link to a co-worker or friend. You miss a letter and you get nothing and then you are sending a dead link to your contacts. There is a cool little web based tool that allows you to take really long links and convert them into small / tiny ones. The site is called www.tiny.cc and is super easy to use.

1. Take you super long link and copy it
2. Open the site www.tiny.cc
3. Paste the link into the box labeled Long URL
4. Click on Go Tiny
5. Copy the new shorter link and send to your friends and co-workers

There are some great tools for free out on the web and this has become one of my favorites.
Hope you all enjoy
- JR

Example:
Long URL- http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServerSolutions/SBS/en/library/62e2094e-ad4e-4227-b20e-97a716ed7c861033.mspx?mfr=true
New Short URL- http://tiny.cc/EgslV

Cool Pic of El Paso

I was helping a buddy make a site and I ran across this pic of El Paso.
Nice no?
It almost makes you think....wow.... El Paso is nice :-)
Enjoy

another pic of our dog!

Our new puppy !!

Hi Guys!!
Here is a pic of our new dog Porcha...isnt she cute :-)

YM Camp out '08

oops wrong pics !! lol

Father and Son Outing - Rio Grande

Howdy All,
I haven't had too much time to write later since we got our new puppy, but things are good and we are having a blast this summer. Here are some fun pics of this past weekends outing!
Hope you all enjoy :-)

It's been awhile

Well family and friends - the Flores Escobar family is doing well. We are about to finish on another semester at UTEP as well as our new jobs. For those of you who don't know I have moved jobs and now work at Anamarc Educational Institute in Santa Teresa New Mexico. It about 4 minutes from the house and I couldn't be happier. Bianca is doing great as well, still with Grammies Day Care but now as their Office Manager. I am so proud of her and all that she does. We are still chugging away at church callings and hope we are doing a good job. We recently celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a little trip to Las Vegas :-) You know me I love the Vegas scene. We had a blast and went to Phantom of the Opera and Mystere. Everything was a blast. If you haven't gone to Vegas it is well worth the trip. I will be adding new pictures this evening of our fun trip to Vegas and our latest adventures.
Until then we hope to hear from you all soon.
Love -
JR and Bianca