mysiteonline™

I know this is completely unrelated to what I normally talk about, but I had to share this. I simply don't understand it. Is it funny? Is it scary? Is it extremely homo erotic? Maybe it's all of the above. Regardless of that, I guess there isn't really much you can't do with the right man power and plenty of idle time on your hands.

So I wanted to purchase Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Web Premium... I decided to wait an extra week because I had some money to pay on my credit card and just wanted to take care of that before making another large purchase, it wasn't that big of a deal, and any money not used in paying off the credit card would have gone into the bank. Well, my luck doesn't seem to be all that wonderful. As you may know, I also just bought the Apple iPod and iPod+Nike kit, so add that into this equation...but I went out to a local fair (socializing, awesome!) which cost me a pretty penny by itself; just like going to the movies, if you're going to enjoy it you already know you're going to pay a premium.

Well, I ended up losing my cellphone on one of the rides. Granted, the rides were pretty awesome, but not quite $300 awesome (original retail value of the phone). At least it's only something physical that can be replaced so I didn't let it ruin my evening, but man... So I drive out the next morning, cancel my old phone and buy a new one while upgrading my contract to get a (small) discount. I was going to extend the contract anyway. If you're curious, I use AT&T Wireless, and no, I didn't buy an iPhone. I like the slim-line design of my phone, so I bought an upgraded model of what I already had, I now have a Charcoal-Silver Moto RAZR V3xx.

Okay, I can still deal with the monetary blow, I think... Wait, wait...what's this? MY CAR WON'T START! Hmmm, I didn't leave the headlights or any other lights on...it was fine this morning... Here's what happened: the plastic surrounding the positive side of the battery terminal (including the batter terminal) broke away from the battery itself. There was battery acid leaking in my battery compartment and I didn't even know it. Because of the broken piece and corrosion, the terminals couldn't make a connection. As silly as it was, the battery still had juice and was good to go...if it could make a connection. So that was yet another cost in a new car battery.

...I think it'll be another 6 weeks before I can purchase my Adobe Suite. :(

I'm about to make a large software purchase in the form of Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Web Premium. Adobe is selling it for $1,599 US. Amazon is selling it for $1,553 (a total savings of 3%, plus free shipping). I've heard that Adobe's online store is horrible, but purchasing directly from the manufacturer, I'd presume I'd be certain to get the box, any paper manuals, wrapping, etc. that is supposed to come with it. Purchasing from a 3rd party (even Amazon) - sometimes the fine print is accidentally left out - I might get a partial product (such as some online stores selling the upsell version, which I cannot use as I still am using Photoshop v5 at home - too old for an upgrade/upsell purchase, and I don't think my academic version of Flash will suffice).

Does anyone have any opinions on the matter? I trust Amazon. I don't trust myself at buying the right product, but with Alex King's problem with Adobe's store, I'm not sure if I should even trust Adobe. What would you do?

...my work discount is negligible.

Now, not only do I own an Apple Mac Mini, but I've just purchased something I swore I never would. I've bought an iPod Nano. I don't listen to music "on the go", I don't like headphones or ear plugs, and if I did, I'd want to be sure it played protected Windows' Media Audio (and/or video) files. ...so why the iPod?

Simple: it's the best digital device for tracking (and assistive training in) running habits when you also purchase the Nike+iPod kit. Supposedly, it doesn't work with any other model (and who'd want to have a 30GB model strapped to their arm?), and all the other competitive devices I've seen just don't quite measure up to this dynamic duo. It is an expensive thing, but when looking at someone's 2nd look at the device in action, I couldn't resist. The ability to hack, gather, and use all that nifty data was just causing me to ooze with curiosity, and the "I want one" syndrome!

In Chris Hartjes' blog, he links to an alpha version of the CakePHP Documentation for v1.2 from CVS! I wish I knew about that - I didn't realize their documentation was also handled by a version control system; awesome!

Also, in the spirit of competitiveness and cross-education, I've gotten my friend intrigued in CodeIgniter so we can compare notes on our (well his newly) favorite PHP frameworks; mine being CakePHP and his being CodeIgniter. I hope we will have some interesting (silly) arguments and discussions, and be able to compare and contrast each framework's unique failures and ingenuity (comparatively between the two anyway).

I already seem to be doing it to him when he talks about ASP.NET, and that's just a completely unfair comparison. :D