Plagiocephaly

We're back from Jude's second appointment with Doctor "Tony" Plattner. He did a great job working with Jude and explaining the corrective process to us. Here are some cool photos from the digital scanner they put Jude through:



We'll get his corrective "helmet" in a week or so, and it sounds like he'll wear it for 3-4 months. It should be off by Christmas. How's that for an awesome Halloween costume!

If you're wondering about the diagnosis, remolding process or why it's necessary, check out this FAQ for parents provided by the makers of the scanner.

News and Stocks

I couldn't help but blog on this! I ran across a really cool news and stock website the other day when I was looking for treemaps. Check 'em out!

Blogging ain't easy! (kapallens enhancements)

For the readers of my blog, I owe you an apology. Reading the kapallens can be a daunting task. Based upon user feedback, I've recently taken a few steps to help improve the site.

This includes:

• Reducing the number of Snap Shots previews. In my opinion, it's a great feature and even better now that the fine techogeeks at Snap Shots have figured out how to not make every link have a preview.
• Adding an email option. For those that would rather receive an email instead of checking back here frequently, you can opt in to receive an email instead of coming back to check manually for updates.
  
• Fixing my Picasa Slideshow photo albums. By default, Google/Picasa makes all of your web photo albums searchable. I didn't like this option and made them all "unlisted" albums, which broke the links. They're fixed now.
  

How BIG is big enough?

When you're printing digital images, have you ever wondered if your image is too low of quality for printing the size you'd like?

For example, a photo printed at 4x6 only needs to be 1-2 mega pixels to have a resolution as detailed as a film photo. What if you wanted to print a 5x7 or 8x10? How high would the image resolution have to be to equal the detail in a film photo? And what if you wanted to scan a printed photo? What should the resolution be if you were going to re-print it at a certain size?

Are you ready for answers yet? Reference the handy table at Microsoft.com that shares this very information. If it's missing or you want to try another source, use this Google search.

Now what about memory cards? NewEgg and Microsoft both have interesting articles on their site that talk about this very topic.

To save you the research, I'll share that our camera is set on the 5 mega pixel setting and we have a 2 GB memory card. I would have bought the 1 GB card, but the price difference was negligible. Happy shooting!

Can't edit Windows Contacts in Vista

My parents visited us this past week, and as it usually happens, my mom gives me the opportunity to tune up her computer. This time was nothing more than usual and ended up the usual way - various adware that somehow installed itself had to be uninstalled and several program configurations needed tweaking.

One that I got stuck on was with Windows Vista Contacts. I'm used to working with Microsoft Outlook and Windows XP and not as much with Vista. Vista has contacts built into the user profile. Even if you have Outlook installed, you can choose to use Windows Contacts instead.

On a side note, as of late, I've become very frustrated with Vista. It all stems from "Windows Vista compatible" Acer laptop we bought on Black Friday, 2006. Capable is the operative term here . . .we've had so many problems with it. From outdated and incompatible drivers to OS crashes due to insufficient memory, this laptop is SO Vista incapable! I found out just recently that there is a class action law suit that's been approved against Microsoft, Acer and other OEMs on this very issue.

OK, back on topic. It was time for my mom to finally, fully convert her email over to a web-based solution. The spam filters that Gmail has are so much better than what her local ISP offers, meta tagging beats folders hands down, and the thought of a hard disk crash is one less worry with web-based email.

So the real point of this post is to share that, for those who have suffered with me in trying to edit, import or export Windows Contacts, there is an answer! The root of the problem has to do with wab32.dll and wab32res.dll, Outlook files that aren't compatible with Vista. In short, removing these files fixes the problem. I won't bother to explain the solution in detail because it is well documented at vistax64.com. Renaming these files allowed me to export her contacts to a csv file and then upload them to Gmail.

Importing her email was the other issue. I couldn't figure out how to export from Outlook 2000 to Google. It might have had something to do with Outlook's incompatibility with Vista. I didn't go there. Using Mozilla Thunderbird and Google's instructions made for a time consuming but easy transfer.

Jude's 2-week wellness check-up

We took Jude to his 2-week wellness check-up today and learned that he is a healthy baby boy. Above is a photo of our doctor with baby Jude. (Look carefully and you'll see his big foot sticking out.) Turns out his Apgar score was 9 and 9 on the one and five-minute tests. Over 7 means he's normal. I'm going to hold our doctor to that! What does normal mean, anyway?!

He had impeccable timing with the losing of his umbilical cord stump . . .he lost it in her office during our appointment! Our doctor cauterized his belly button on the spot and said we could give him his first bath after 24 hours. She also asked if we wanted to keep it for his scrapbook, but we passed on the opportunity. Jude, I hope you're not upset with us!

Amanda and I also had the chance to ask all of those questions first-time parents ask. We were comforted to learn:

• Newborn babies shed, but it's not unhealthy dry skin. They've just been underwater for 9 months and, since air is dryer than embryonic fluid, begin to lose their outermost layer of skin. Sorry Jude, it's down to 3 layers like the rest of us! Our doctor advised that the best solution to his dry skin problem is to give him a bath or wipe him down with a warm, wet washcloth. Moisturizing lotion is OK, but not necessary.
• Feeding more than 10-15 minutes per side is enough, and we should have Jude should use a pacifier to pacify himself.
• Throwing up for a baby, even out of their nose and mouth, is somewhat normal. If it happens excessively, call the nurse hotline.
• She prefers we take a rectal temperature up to 3 months of age over temporal or ear thermometers. If his temperature gets over 100.4° F, call the nurse hotline. Guess who's on that duty?!
  
• other trivial things, like proper poop color, time between feedings, etc.
  

What I thought was the coolest things was that she gave us stats on how Jude ranks compared to his peers according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). They have growth charts on their site which can be used to assess the growth of infants. Unfortunately, they do not separate out stats for babies based on race/ethnicity or whether they were breast fed or not. So our little caucasian baby competes with the african american, asian and hispanic babies on head circumference, length and weight. As of today, here's where he stands:

source: The Magic Foundation

Jude's percentile rankings:
Length-to-age: 63% (53.25 cm / 20.96 in)
Weight-to-age: 10.64% (3.14 kg / 6.92 lbs)
Head Circumference-to-age: 37.45% (36.4 cm / 14.33 in)

Sounds like we have a tall, skinny baby on our hands. Does that sound like his father?

(My plan is to update these charts over the next 36 months with his progress to show where he's at. I'll do that with a new post.)

Note: I tried using the Google Charts API and a few different online chart generators (here and here), but couldn't figure out how to create the type of charts you see above. The Excel file from The Magic Foundation was serviceable after a few aestethic edits. If anyone can help me figure out how to display this chart using Google Charts, please let me know! Dan?

Our BabyPlus story

On their company website, the founder of the BabyPlus company boldly declares:

BabyPlus children have an intellectual, developmental, creative, and emotional advantage from the time they are born.

The site goes on to name several benefits of using BabyPlus:

• More readily nurse
• Display an increased ability to self soothe
• Are more interactive & responsive
• Are better relaxed and alert at birth

We used BabyPlus after our fertility doctor recommended it. Since he shares the same last name as the BabyPlus founder and president, there's a chance his endorsement may have been coerced.

That fact aside, we have noticed that Jude has been thus far the picture of a perfect baby. He's had no problems nursing, has been alert and awake during the day and sleeps well at night. Really, his biggest challenges to date have been with training his parents how to recognize a dirty diaper, how to swaddle tightly and in general how to recognize what he's trying to communicate to his rookie parents!

We've joked that we're not going to use BabyPlus on our second child so we can test to see if it really works! Kidding aside, it wasn't very difficult to add to Amanda's routine and I would think we'll probably use it again for child #2.

Custom ring tones for your LG Rumor (LX-260)

What's the best site out there to download cell phone ring tones or games from? And once I download them, how do I get them on my phone?

I blogged earlier this month that I got a new phone. I didn't opt in on the Sprint Vision internet service. So how does someone download to/from my phone without Internet?

Meritline has a deal right now on a Bluetooth wireless dongle adapter for $7.50 shipped. How's that for a good deal?! That should let me connect my PC/laptop to my phone.

To double my pleasure and for a little faster upload/download, I also found a deal at Buy.com on a microSD card. It's pretty easy to copy images taken from the digital camera onto the microSD card and then transfer them to . . .wherever. I assume it's just as easy to transfer with Bluetooth. There's a pretty good post on the SprintUsers forum on how to create and upload ringtones on an LG Rumor LX-260 phone.

What I'm still trying to figure out is how to upload ring tones downloaded from the Internet (to my PC) onto my phone. I'd follow the instructions above, but it would be nice to be able to use a non-video ring tone. That way, the images I've assigned to callers will still appear when my phone rings with the custom ringtone. Maybe I could save them as a voice memo and retrieve them on my microSD memory card? We'll see . . .

UPDATE: Here's a post from Yahoo! Answers that seems to answer my question!

Now, if anyone knows where to get the java/mobile version of Pac-Man or Tetris for free, let me know!

Dave's word on . . .

Here begins a stream of posts that may seem to be out of place. Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to research a lot before I make a decision. I also tend to have very selective memory retention.

Since I've spent many hours becoming literate in a variety of things, I thought this would be a good forum to share that knowledge with others and also use it as a reference for myself.

With this blog, you'll notice going forward that I'll be adding posts on things I have researched in the past or am currently researching. This includes things like personal finance (life insurance, annuities, IRAs, mutual funds, etc.), technology, cooking/recipes and where (and sometimes how) to find good deals. Stay tuned!

Our new year's resolution

It's the start of a new year, and our new year's resolution is to become better at documenting our lives for the benefit of our family and the little one growing in Amanda's belly . . .

And so we've bought a Sony DSC-W80 digital camera, a Canon ZR800 digital video camcorder, and I've started this blog. There are usually just a few sites that I check out when I'm looking for electronics and technology, and one of them is TigerDirect.com. They're reputable, have very competitive prices and a decent return policy.

While I'm on the subject of technology, I'll add that I also recently purchased an LG Rumor LX-260 phone from Sprint. It comes with a 1.3 MP camera. I just might have to add Internet so I can post real-time!

Where was I? Oh, yes! I'm going to try to add a few older posts, cut and pasted from old emails. Going forward, my goal is to post on a weekly basis. Help keep me honest!