I went shooting a few pictures around the Boston area in the freezing cold.

Then a few days later, in Chinatown for the Chinese New Year and met up with Guy…

(View the whole Chinese New Year set)

Shortly afterward, I bought a new hard drive (1/2-tb), so I have been trying to consolodate (and organize) all my photos on one disk, finally. As I can actually browse through my (now almost complete) collection of photos spanning several years back, I can post pictures like these from my most recent trip to Germany (almost a year ago):

…or from the beaches of Florida (from 2003):

…or from a trip to Acadia in Maine (in 2004):

Also, I recently purchased a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2. Basically, nearly everyone calls it an LX2 for short. This little compact camera shoots raw, has a Leica lens, and can fit in a reasonably sized pocket (with a little bulge). I’ll be great for when I cannot lug my armada of camera equipment (like commuting to and from work, simply hanging out with friends, etc.).

Recent news reveals that Peter Pan peanut butter somehow has salmonella.

How did this happen?

Wikipedia’s article on salmonellosis lists the ways that salmonella is typically spread.

The type of salmonella usually associated with infections in humans is called Non-Typhoidal Salmonella. It is usually contracted by ingesting raw or undercooked eggs, or from animals such as:

• Chickens and cattles, if the meat is prepared incorrectly or becomes infected with the bacteria somehow.
• Infected eggs and milk, as well as egg products, when not prepared, handled, or refrigerated correctly.
• Reptiles such as turtles, lizards, and snakes, as they can carry the bacteria on their skin.

Another, rarer form of salmonella is called Typhoidal Salmonella. It is carried by humans only and is usually contracted through direct contact with the fecal matter of an infected person. This kind of salmonella infection can lead to typhoid fever. It therefore mainly occurs in developing and undeveloped countries that do not have appropriate systems for handling human waste.

If I remember clearly, peanut butter is supposed to be made of peanuts, often with salt and sometimes a bit of sugar. That’s it. What, exactly, is ConAgra doing to the stuff to enable salmonella to invade peanut butter jars that have been sent across the entire country?

So far, this peanut butter induced sickness has affected more than 300 people — and that’s just what has been reported! It must be more than one or two individuals not washing their hands.

What else is in your other processed foods that you may not know about?

Ok, I thought this day would never come. But I have to admit it, I’m a Mac convert.

Recently my employer purchased a 24″ iMac for my graphics work because my Thinkpad just wasn’t up to the task. I needed a bigger display and some decent hardware to push it. Curiously, no matter how I tried to work it, the Mac beat the PC offerings in both price and options every time. I was concerned about running Linux since it was my platform of choice, but after consulting with a coworker I was assured that virtualization software “specifically parallels” for the Mac was top notch. So I decided to take the plunge and haven’t regretted a second of it.

Soon after acquiring the hardware I became the envy of the office with daily visits of curious coworkers oogling and groping my machine. Three months later it still happens, but to be fair, the display on this thing is so big it could probably be seen from space.

After a few months of getting used to OS X and settling right in with parallels it dawned on me that my favorite open source applications were available for the mac. Although they don’t look at home along side other Mac applications, GIMP and Inkscape work just fine. And combined with spotlight and other Mac applications my productivity has increased significantly.

I hate to admit it, but I haven’t really been using Linux much as of late. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things that Linux does that I miss, but honestly have been doing just fine without. If I ever have to, I can get into pretty much any operating system within seconds using parallels. Even though my experience has been extremely positive, I promise I won’t go all fan boy on you all and start dressing metro sexual. At least not for awhile …

I was one of the fortunate individuals to get a developer discount code for the Nokia N800.

It’s been a few days since receiving the device, and I have had it with me ever since. The tablet does have a few quirks, but I’ve put it to good use as an ebook reader, a ‘Net radio device, and as little portable Linux geek toy. Of course, having a nice Web browser and IM client in my pocket, ready to go, has also been great.

Just to let you all know how much this thing has been in use, I’ll say this: The entire blog post you’ve been reading (including this right now) was written on my N800.

Thanks, Tuomas and Nokia!