We stayed in the Normandie Hotel in Old San Juan which was pretty cool besides being stuck in an elevator, a bad meal, and a loud party right above us. We did get to see Fort El Morro and Old San Juan, a great time with lots of history. We went on a day tour of the el Yunque Rain Forest and then to the Luquillo Beach, a fun day trip with a hike and a swim - first time I got to see a tropical rain forest. Overall it was a great trip and I would recommend it to anyone, take a look at the pics in the photo gallery.

One of the most shocking things I see in the field of technology consulting is the lack of disaster preparation. Even many businesses still have little to any backup solution. The article: Technology: Prevent loss of data with backups, was featured in the Poughkeepsie Journal (PoJoNews.com), the state’s oldest running newspaper. The article is a brief overview of what a business or even a home user can do to protect their data.

I plan to continue doing off line articles as well as the blog to keep businesses as well as the general consumer informed on various technology topics. I will also continue technical articles and try to even work on some off line technical articles. In any case, I will keep you posted.

With all the pressure on IT solution providers to provide solutions for homes and small businesses who are locked in this model, many IT companies are jumping into action to provide a solution. The solution its self is a very simple one, centralized storage. Many OEM’s are coming out with storage solutions that will be able to be accessed via the Internet or through a local network. Even Microsoft is jumping on board with it’s upcoming release of Microsoft Home Server. A platform that will manage this exact situation, allowing users to securely access their data centrally from an attached data storage medium through their local network or the Internet.

Recently, Dell has just purchased EqualLogic for $1.4 billion, showing exactly how important this game is becoming. With such a large investment in a successful storage company by the big guy in home computer sales, we will begin to see Dell offering solutions to solve the problem. One such solution already in the works is desktops without hard drives who access a central data storage device which will act as a server managing all the data centrally.

Of course the story can’t be all green pastures… There is always the issue of security. In an ever growing day and age that security is a growing concern in IT and personal data is at a prime, many are scarred to implement such a solution. Many people are afraid to place all of their data in a box that will be accessed by a separate devices or even the infamous cloud (Internet). I do agree that many people should be concerned, but it is no different than securing your computer. Although there is added risk since the data will always be accessed remotely, it will be ever critical to make sure the data is encrypted and protected by multiple levels of protection.

I know we are really just talking about NAS (Network Attached Storage) here, but the importance is that it is starting to become mainstream even for the home user. I personally favor the centralized data model and I am happy to see OEMs and operating systems going towards the same model. It will be great in the next few years to migrate from having data spread all over to devices accessing centralized data devices. I am ready, are you?

Think about it. In a perfect world there would be a wide area wireless coverage from a mutual system of WWAN, muni-wireless, and private wireless systems. Provided, all these systems provide neutrality (do not control the internet, allow for open access, as most people get the internet now), we will be on the right path. Then imagine that the cell phone carriers allow for your phones to use hybrid technology so that they will switch between the carrier signal and the internet based on a traffic demand? Then take that a step further, you have only one phone number. Based on a tree hierarchy, the call can be sent via VOIP to any device that you choose so that you can receive the call at multiple locations. Based on location of the device, you will receive the call from a multitude of signals. Pretty crazy stuff…

However I do not see this happening anytime soon. Although we see these technologies individually, we will never have convergence because everyone wants there own land with a castle they can be king in. Although a backbone of a free-market economy, I think everyone can still have a castle and work together. Just someone has to set up the meeting….

As I read the article by Bobby Halton in Fire Engineering Magazine the month prior regarding the need to practice safety stand-down week, I can only imagine his reaction when news came out of the deaths of our nine brothers in South Carolina and brother in the FDNY. Although every death of one of our brothers is a very tragic event, these ten deaths are especially tragic. The FDNY firefighter, Daniel F. Pujdak, a member of Truck 146 of Brooklyn died when he fell four stories when preliminary reports state that he lost his footing when going over a parapet (large structure at the edge of the roof line, usually found on commercial structures for decoration). While the nine members of the Charlestown, SC Fire Department died of what preliminary reports are stating was a failure of the light weight construction of the building.

Every day it is getting more and more dangerous with fires burning hotter due to the use of synthetic materials that put off more BTUs coupled with the combination of cheaper building using light weight construction, mainly the truss. Charlston, SC firefighters battled their commercial fire in a light-weight truss constructed commercial structure that failed in just 30 minutes! I know many brothers can remember back in the 1970s battling fires for hours in structures due to their solid heavy construction, however those days are over. I can only see our industry going towards fighting fires from the outside as long as there is no life hazard. It is just too dangers anymore, so as safety stand down week passes hopefully we have gotten a real good idea of the dangers of our job and just how dangerous it is fighting fires in light weight construction as well as what we interpret as just easily getting off a ladder. Hopefully these very tragic incidents will show us just how important is is to look at safety.

I can not say all was tragic this week, seeing my cousin graduating probie school! My cousin will join myself on Engine 33-12 and continue our family tradition of firefighting. As the lead instructor said at the ceremony, “Welcome to the greatest profession on earth” and this is by far still true. I just hope my brothers have a safe stand-down week and continue to stay safe. Remember: “Never Trust a Truss!”

My condolences go out to our ten brothers who have so tragically passed this past week:

Daniel Pujdak, Age 23 (FDNY/ NYC, NY)

Crowd View of the Incident

NYC News On the Scene

This technology integrates perfectly with a dynamic website CMS, content management system, such as a blog. As you write a news story or blog post as I am at the moment and then publish it, most CMS systems such as Drupal or Word Press will use a plug-in, widget, to encode that post or entry in the sites RSS. Now instantly people can read the latest news and posts! The problem becomes with static websites that still are authored to this day, how can they play with this new hot dynamic technology. I ran into that very issue recently with one of my clients static website and found the answer with one of the best web resources there is: Dynamic Drive DHTML. There RSS Display Box is by far one of the best solutions I found to solve the problem.

The issue was how can I make a dynamic element with a static website? So I figured the easiest way to solve the problem was to have the dynamic element tell the static website what to do. By doing so I could have the news stories expressed dynamically through RSS and then use the Dynamic Drive Java-script to display that dynamic data solving the issue entirely. This new method of web design is known as AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. More or less it integrates all of the popular web languages (Java-Script, XML, and XHTML (HTML) as well as CSS) to accomplish interactive and dynamic web 2.0 technologies in a usable and fast manor. With that said Dynamic Drive once again pulled through for me with this great code.

Of course I had to add in a couple of edits to cater to my needs. I am a web standards buff and in order to allow the news stories to display in a list, I would have to add in the UL or OL tags inside the Java Script it self. So if you too want a valid list heres how. First open up (outputbody.php). This is located in the rssbox folder and manages the templates that will display your feeds on your page. In this file you will have to add LI tags enclosing the template so that it generates the list :

function outputbody($item, $template=""){
if ($template=="" || $template=="default"){ //DEFAULT TEMPLATE ?>
<li> // Insert the list item to add each item as a list item
<DIV class=”rsscontainer”>
<div class=”rsstitle”><a href=”<?php echo $item->get_permalink(); ?>” class=”extlink”><?php echo $item->get_title(); ?></a></div>
<div class=”rssdescription”><?php echo $item->get_description(); ?></div>
<div class=”rssdate”><?php echo $item->get_date(’d M Y g:i a’); ?></div>
</DIV>
</li> // Insert the close tag for the list item after the RSS item template layout
<?
} //end default template


The the last thing you have to do is define either a UL or a OL for your list type in the page that controls the entire feed and template integration in the file called (main.php) also located in the rssbox folder. Here I created a small IF statement to trigger an echo command to insert the UL or OL tags depending which template is used in the outputitems function:


function outputitems(){
if ($template=="" || $template=="default") echo '<ul>'; // Added in an IF statement to trigger an insert of a UL if the default template is used
global $feed, $feednumber, $templatename;
$max = $feed->get_item_quantity($feednumber);
for ($x = 0; $x < $max; $x++){
$item = $feed->get_item($x);
outputbody($item, $templatename); //call custom outputbody() function
}
if ($template==”" || $template==”default”) echo ‘</ul>’; // Added in another IF statement to trigger an insert of the close tag for the UL
}


There you go, simple as pie. A great way to get your dynamic RSS feed on your static web page with a little tweak. ENJOY….

The Hudson Highlands and Fishkill Ridge parks have over 2,000 - acres with numerous hiking trails that are featured in a lot of the popular hiking adventure books. Just about every trail has incredible views of the valley and are always a fun time. The Fishkill Ridge Park is owned by Scenic Hudson, the most powerful environmental group in the valley and one of the most in the nation. The park serves as the northern entrance to the Hudson Highlands State Park. The Hudson Highlands is most notably known for the Breakneck Ridge hike, one of the most step hikes and one that has one of the best views.

My favorite hike, and the one I do the most is pretty much one that most Beaconites have done for years. I just did it again the other day with the wifey since it was our first date and is always a great time. The hike is lined out in red on my Hudson Highlands/ Fishkill Ridge Hiking Trail Map and starts at #1 on the map in the City of Beacon at the dead-end of Pocket Road. There are 5 or 6 areas off the side of the road were you can park. The dead-end has a gate to keep motorized vehicles off the motorized trail utilized by the city’s water department to access its water works and reservoir as well as heavy equipment to access the towers on top of the mountain. The trail starts off to the right of the green water tank aka “The Dome” as Scenic Hudson’s “White Trail”. This area is known locally as “The Dome” and is a popular high school partying spot for the kids too lazy or too scared to make the trek to “Pines” (More about that later). The trail is named the Fishkill Ridge Trail and runs parallel to dry brook which carries the city’s water supply from the reservoir on top of the mountain to the water tank. It is a great hike that is not too step and features a lot of foliage. It continues up with a lot of small water falls until you get to point number 2 on the map.

At number 2 you are almost at the merge with the motorized trail and are at the base of the largest waterfall. At this point you cross over the stream and get a great view of the falls which are about 75 feet tail (pictured above to the right), a great picture point. After this landmark you travel up a steeper incline to where the trail crosses the motorized trail in an area that is densely populated with Pine Trees (known locally as “Pines” and is the premiere party spot for the high schoolers). At this point the “White Trail” continue towards Route 9, however I make a right on the motorized trail and take it further up the mountain which eventually leads you to point #3.

Point #3 is at the city’s primary reservoir and features a damed lake with 250 million gallons of water. The large lake is a great place to take a break and enjoy the view of the rest of the way up. You can also see the Mt Beacon Fire Tower in the distance which there is a movement to preserve it. After you have rested at the reservoir it is time for the final stretch of the hike to get one of the best views of Beacon at point #4. It is a short distance until you get to a fenced off area around one of the tower farms. After walking by the fence and getting your 10 years worth of radiation you reach a small field. In that field you will see a large monument known as the Daughters of the American Revolution - Melzingah Chapter Signal Beacon Fire Monument. This monument commemorates the signal fire that once burned at that location during the revolutionary war to signal the people of the Hudson Valley that “the British where Coming.” Something so important to the area that the city even named it’s self after it. From that point you get an incredible view of the cities of Beacon and Newburgh as well as the bridge between them (pictured in my Mt Beacon Hikes Photo Gallery). At nearly 1,500-feet high, you can see way up and down the Hudson River and is a great time for a picnic. All and all the hike takes about 4 hours to take your time going up and down as well as getting some lunch.

This spring the love of my life bought me 5 tickets to see my favorite sports team at Shea (The Mets for the uneducated, lol). Although the Yankees are the greatest sports team in the world, with more wins and records than god himself, I still love the Mets. The one thing the Mets have over the Yanks is that they are the Amazins’. I can not even think of one team who has as many amazing wins as the Mets have had in any sport. From the infamous 1986 game when Bill Buckner missed a routine grounder to loss the World Series to any of the other amazin’ games such as the two I am about to describe, the Mets never stop amazin’.

So with that said, the first game was number 11 at home vs the Colorado Rockies. What should have been a fairly easy win turned out to be an edge of your seat pitchers duel. Both teams allowed only a combined 14 base runners and no runs until the tenth inning. My heart dropped when Troy Tulowitzki hit a triple to send Yorvit Torrealba home to boost the score to a 1-0 in the tenth. However I knew these were the miracle Mets and they would figure out how to win somehow. They were up and as soon as I knew it, two were out. Then Damion Easley came cold off the bench and I thought, great the game is over. In fact most of the crowd started to make their way out. Sure enough in no time Damion was at two strikes and literally everyone in the stadium started to leave, however these fans did not have the faith in the amazins’. Sure enough the next pitch was a home run and the game was tied! The game then went on to the 11th when the Mets had men on 2nd and 3rd and Endy Chavez was up at bat. A great hitter, the defense did not play for a bunt and as sure as dandy, Endy bunted. With his speed he made it to first and the bewildered defense could only watch as Shawn Green ran in to score the winning run. Once again showing the fans and baseball why they are the Amazins’.

Now after seeing the previous game, one to remember and probably be one of the best games of the season, I thought how can they top it. This time I went with the wifey herself instead of the step-dad. Also we were a little late and caught the worst ever traffic on the Hutch, but thats the city for you. To no surprise, Game 19 vs the Cubs was an amazing game from the time we walked into the stadium to see the Mets loosing 1-0 in the second to the once again edge of your set ending. Before we knew it, the score was 4-0 with the Cubs dominating and the wifey said the infamous words of “Great we are going to see them loss.” To which I responded, these are the come back kids they will come back, watch how they are the Amazins’. Sure enough the boys held their ground and battled back to get the 4 runs to tie it up. Then in the bottom of the 9th they struck again and loaded up the bases with their three top hitters. The Cubs pitcher, Wuertz, had two outs on his side and the Mets clean-up hitter, Delgado, who was ice cold. However Wuertz broke from all the pressure and ended up walking Delgado and the winning run. Once again, METS WIN!!

So now everyone knows why I have been a die-hard fan since day one of the Mets and why I am proud to have NY Mets Plates on my car. All I can say is “LET’S GO METS!”

Something that really takes getting use to is the CVT transmission. Known as the “shift-less tranny”, it really seems to just go and no shifting. It is great on fuel economy and defiantly helps the performance end. The added option of switching to “semi-manual” with race inspired shift paddles is a nice added treat for those days you feel like pushing it. This is a great ride and I hope it lives up to it’s Nissan name of dependability for the next 100,000 miles!

PROS

• Fast, Nice Sounding Performance
• Great Looking Car
• Tons of Toys to Play With
• What’s Not to Like???

CONS

• This Car is Fully Loaded and No Bluetooth?
• Back Seats Do Not Fold Down