From the Doghouse
A look at dogs having fun
Poser Gallery
My gallery of pictures I’ve created in Poser
My Science Fiction and Fantasy stories
Stories I’ve written
Nature by Carol
A look at the less technical side of life
My Approach To Identifying And Eliminating Email Spam
I don't know about you but I've completely stopped answering my phone. If you want to talk to me, leave a message. I’m guessing you already know why I made that decision; 99.9 percent of the calls are someone trying to sell me something or to scam me. In case you...
A Followup to Amazon Polly and My Solar Fountain
I live in Texas because I enjoy the hot summers, mild winters and the food. Well, also because my wife has told me she's not moving out of Texas. What I really dread is springtime when my allergies kick into overtime and I feel like a druggie looking for my next...
Married To A Systems Engineer, Why Do Engineers Ask So Many Questions
I really don’t think it’s fair for my wife to break into uncontrollable laughter every time I explain that as a systems engineer, most of my job involves facilitating communications. I understand why she starts laughing, despite speaking a common language,...
Why Would An Engineer Find Gordon Ramsay Entertaining?
One of the major differences between my wife and I is the way we view food. My wife likes to savor new foods and enjoy the delicate interplay between the seasonings. Me, I'm more concerned about how long it takes to prepare and eat. My wife accuses me of only having...
Creating An Alexa Podcast For OpinionByPen Using Amazon Polly
In my previous post I took you on my journey to add Amazon’s speech synthesizer Polly to Opinionbypen. I have to admit I did this as an excuse to play with some of the emerging technologies offered by Amazon. Although there were a few minor obstacles along the way,...
Amazon Polly For WordPress, A Review And Maybe A Podcast
It’s inevitable that having mastered their own specialty, an artist will go on to explore other media. For example, a painter who has worked with oils will probably try watercolors. An experienced electrical engineer will probably think he’s capable of doing...
Random Posts
The Solar Powered Chicken Coop Fan ProjectSummers in Texas are brutal, especially if you’re a chicken locked up in your coop every evening. Sure, it’s for their own protection but on those evenings with little or no breeze, it can get very stuffy. Adding an electric fan would help but running a 200 foot extension cord was out of the question. […]
How My Quest Took Me To Red Sneakers And ScrivenerIn my plan for 2016 I mentioned that I was going to get serious about my writing. I shared a few of my stories on Amazon WriteOn and received a rather lackluster response. The overwhelming lack of response made it obvious I’m not a natural. Well, it’s not like I expected to be great the first […]
BYOD, a Rallying Cry For RevolutionBYOD, Bring Your Own Device, is a relatively new term. It reflects the desire of employees to use their own tablet, iPad or Android device rather than using the device provided by their company. I’ve been here before and it’s nothing less than a revolution, not one of violence or guns but one of computers […]
Random Posts
Class Action Suits, A Way To Balance The Budget?The odds are strong you’ve been a client in a class action suit. You might never know you were involved in one. Maybe more than one, I know I’ve been represented in several. It seems the moment you buy something, you’re automatically included in a class action suit. Many of the lawyers representing my interests […]
I’m Stuck But I Have A Bold And Cunning PlanHave you ever started something but try as you might you can’t finish it? It doesn’t matter if it’s a book that you hope will get better, a movie that always puts you to sleep or the first blog post of a new year, we all been in that position. Come to think of it, […]
The Opinionbypen 2016 StrategyPlease consider this post as a newsletter to my subscribers. Yes, I’ll make sure it has good SEO but that only gets me to the starting gate. There will also be that one lone fool that stumbles onto this post by accident but if experience is any guide, he will quickly leave. Congratulations, that makes you […]
Random Posts
An AI Assistant Comparison, Alexa, Google and Folgers?Once they hit the market, it was a given that sooner or later I would acquire one of the AI assistants on the market. The only thing holding me back was bandwidth and cost. When Google dropped the price on their mini and Amazon dropped the price on their Dot. I was unable to decide […]
The Importance of Teamwork in a DesignImagine if you will, a design team that has been tasked with designing a tablet that will be crucial to the future of their company. The team consists of the best and brightest engineers and programmers in the company. For those of you that like names, let’s call the company Chester’s Online Natural Gas and […]
The American Compliment, It’s Destroying Our CredibilityI was given an interesting glimpse into our culture a few days ago. A visitor to our country pointed out that Americans always waste time telling you something good before they tell you how poor your design is. I wanted to rebut him right away but I couldn’t think of anything good to say first. […]
From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
Using Data To Influence My Content, How Opinionbypen.com ChangesIn the design and maintenance of Opinionbypen.com, there are two guiding principles I always consider. When it comes to technology, resisting change is the best way to become forgotten. Then again maybe you’re still using a rotary telephone as you watch your VHS tapes on that black and white television. …
A Look Back at Some of My Favorite PostsEach post I write is a snapshot in time. Sometimes I go back to correct them or add a little more information but I’ve learned that I always need to continue looking forward. Rewriting my old posts, as much as they might need it, doesn’t give me time to write …
Opinionbypen Hits 10,000 ViewsSometime this last week, Opinionbypen had its 10,000th page view. For those of you who, like myself, love numbers, that’s an average of 556 views a month or 18 views a day. I’m proud of that number because those are page views by real humans, not bots. If I counted …
My Experience With Ramsay Hunt SyndromeThis is not something I wanted to write about but as I said in Questing, I’m trying to be more open and share my experiences. I told myself that once this was not a major factor in my life I would write about it. About 8 weeks ago I had …- An AI Assistant Comparison, Alexa, Google and Folgers?Once they hit the market, it was a given that sooner or later I would acquire one of the AI assistants on the market. The only thing holding me back was bandwidth and cost. When Google dropped the price on their mini and Amazon dropped the price on their Dot. …