Santa Claus has always been on the cutting edge and it’s no different in the age of the internet. Gone are the days of mailing letters and schlepping to the mall. Amy-Mae Elliott has posted 5 Ways to Connect With Santa on the Web at Mashable.

Today’s kids have a wealth of online options for hooking up with the Claus.

We’ve scoured the ‘Net for the five best ways to connect with Father Christmas, from the iPhone version of a letter to Santa, to some sleigh-tracking GPS tools.

If you have kids (or are just a big kid yourself), we think you’ll enjoy sharing these holiday web treats.

My favorite is the NORAD Santa tracker, although the email from Santa was a big hit.

Have a great Christmas Eve.

I posted about the move to 10pm right before bRight@Night was supposed to start last night. Then I clicked over to my host switchboard to start the show. It was then that I found out that Blog Talk Radio had switched from the old click to talk (for premium subscribers) to using Skype. Now, I have nothing against Skype, and I have nothing but good things to say about Blog Talk Radio.

On the other hand, I sure wish they had given some warning about the switch. I was told that it was a “soft launch” and that additional details would be available soon. But 10-15 minutes before show time isn’t sufficient to download the software, get all the settings right, create an account, and still log into your show.

I finally got things set up around 10:40 — 10 minutes after the show was scheduled to end. I quickly scheduled a 15 minute segment for 11:00, but it really threw me off my game.

I wanted to talk about the elections today in NY, VA, NJ, and elsewhere. I guess I’ll just have to talk about the results on tomorrow night’s show. I can do that.

Or maybe I’ll have to schedule a show for tonight, after results start coming in. I’ll have to see about that.

The internet turns 40 today.

At 2100, on 29 October 1969, engineers 400 miles apart at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI) prepared to send data between the first nodes of what was then known as Arpanet.

It got the name because it was commissioned by the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa).

The fledgling network was to be tested by Charley Kline attempting to remotely log in to a Scientific Data Systems computer that resided at SRI.

Kline typed an “L” and then asked his colleague Bill Duvall at SRI via a telephone headset if the letter had arrived.

It had.

Kline typed an “O”. Duvall said that arrived too.

Kline typed a “G”. Duvall could only report that the system had crashed.

I haven’t researched it, but I think that sometime in the few days following this event a message went out inviting readers to “add fuel to your love-rocket.”

Six time since 5:30 this morning. That’s how many times the computer has, on it’s own, just restarted. It makes it very challenging to read, and especially write, anything.

I tried using the computer we bought at a church yard sale. It has about 10% of the memory and ran at about 10% the speed of this one that still wants to restart on it’s own. The trade off is substantial. Until I can replace this one, or figure out why it wants to restart at random, I’ll just have to do what I can.

Thank you for visiting in spite of the lack of posts. That will change starting now.

I’m impatient, and the weekend is here. WordPress issued 2.7 RC1 several days ago. The final release isn’t due out for another few days, but with the extra time the weekend brings I have decided to install the latest release candidate here. I’ve been running the latest version for several weeks on a test blog I have set up and I haven’t had any problems. Of course all of that is subject to change (and Murphey’s Law) on a “real” blog.

If things go wonky for a while, at least you’ll know why. And I’ll have a few days to fix things.

UPDATE: Things appear to have gone smoothly. Only two plugins don’t work – Baltic Amber Admin Themes, and Simple Tags. Neither are really needed.

I’ve just uploaded a new WordPress Plugin – Twitme. If it works as I think it should this post should be automatically sent to my twitter feed.

Here goes.

UPDATE: It Worked!

I saw this at OTB and decided to join in.

Mozilla is gearing up for the release of Firefox 3

Firefox is attempting to generate the most downloads in a 24 hour period. That time frame starts at 10am PDT/1pm EDT. I’ll be joining in after work.

Reclaim Conservatism was off the grid for about 13 hours. Now it’s back. Please tell your friends.

Let’s face it, the headline had to be written by someone, why not me.

It seems that some folks are having trouble holding on to their Wii.

If you’ve ever worried about putting a hole in your TV set, Panasonic might just be the company that can help you out; Panasonic is protecting its sets from Wii-related damage by returning to classic boob-tube technology for their modern-day LCDs.

It’s a well-publicized problem: A Wii owner accidentally flings a Wiimote into a TV screen, smashing a new 50-incher.

[...]

Panasonic has announced a new lineup of flat-screen TVs reinforced with glass used in old cathode-ray tube sets. The classic TV has toughened thick glass to ensure the sets don’t implode, but LCDs and plasmas only sport a thin glass faceplate. Panasonic wanted to strengthen those LCDs with CRT technology in order to allay any Wii worries.

This is quite the obvious solution. Everyone knows that if you can’t control your Wii you need to use protection.

ADDED: If you have a better headline, let everyone know in the comments. Also, don’t forget to join in the Caption Contest.

I’m a frickin’ genuis! I have solved the problem of our dependence on foreign fuel sources and found a way to put BDS to a good use at the same time.

It’s simple really, now that this technology is available.

US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from human movements.

The adapted knee brace, outlined in the journal Science, can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from one minute of walking.

My plan is quite simple really, we fit every Code Pinko and Moveron.org member with one of those devices. Their knee-jerk reactions to anything President Bush says or does should be enough to power a few good size cities.

Man, I can’t wait until the royalty checks start rolling in.