David Bottomley's Blog

It's been a little over a week now that Barack Obama has officially won the 2008 US Presidential Election. I was disheartened on election night, and shocked the next morning when I saw that even my relatively conservative state of Indiana went for Obama. Nevertheless, his election is indeed historic and my congratulations go out to him. Though I find it ironic that the first black President is a Democrat. Afterall, the Republican Party was responsible for the freeing of the slaves and the racial equality we all share today. Obama does seem like a decent person- a 'likable' sort of a guy, and perhaps this is why he was elected- on the basis of charisma alone. However, that said, he is a very freighning politician- one of the most liberal US Senators to ever hold the office. The question now is how will he govern as president. Will he govern as a centrist, as he promised during the election? Or will he break yet another promise and return to his liberal roots in the Democrati

Woot! I am one of the many Republicans who did not support John McCain in the primary election because, in my view, he was not as conservative as I would prefer. Of course I still would have voted for him in the general election, as I can't imagine a candidate much worse than Barack Obama- someone with zero executive experience, very little legislative experience, and a limited voting record bordering between indecisive and extremely liberal. John McCain, however, is a very dedicated man, with an indisputable record of service and sacrifice for the United States. When he was shot down over Vietnam, captured, and tortured- the Vietcong offered McCain early release due to his father's position as an Admiral, but McCain refused, until other prisoners of war were released who had been there longer than he had. That is true dedication. Its doubtful many Americans today would make the same decision. McCain undoubtedly made the best choice he could have in choosing Sarah Palin as his

Okay, I gave it a shot. For roughly a month I used Firefox 3, hoping that by the third version they would have most of the bugs worked out- like the memory leak in Firefox 2, fully intending to use Firefox from this point out. Not that I've had any problems with Internet Explorer, but I wanted to take advantage of the many add-ons that exist for Firefox. My experience with Firefox 3 (not the beta, mind you) was not a positive one. I was only running a handful of Firefox 3 add-ons (all properly compatible with FF3) but experienced numerous and frequent problems, with the address bar becoming corrupted and repeating itself, with frequent crashes and lock ups where Firefox would become completely unresponsive for 10-20 seconds at a time. And yes, I've heard those that say well- the add-ons are causing that behavior, and that is true to a point, but not all. When I was experiencing issues, I would disable and/or remove all my add-ons, and frequently, the add-ons had no effect on th

Windows Vista is a superb operating system. It's vastly more secure, more capable, more stable, and with more new and useful features than any previous version of Windows. And yet... the rumors and myths are more prevelaent than ever. Rarely does a week go by where I don't have to debunk the myths that Windows Vista is 'horrible' and should be 'avoided at all costs.' Just this week, I received an email from a client stating that "...a local computer person told me that Vista may be scrapped, somewhat like the old Windows ME edition - - - and they recommended purchasing the Windows XP PRO rather than Vista. Have you heard any of that - or is it just talk?" Here is my response: "Regarding Vista, the truth is that Vista is far and away superior to XP- in many ways including security, functionality, ease of use, and stability. My primary system is Vista and I always recommend Vista over XP, unless you’re stuck with a legacy application or obscur

Check out this awesome commercial running on Discovery Channel. I especially love the clip from Future Weapons and the clip of Stephen Hawking.

I am a man of deep political convictions, which can be obvious by viewing my web site. I believe deeply in freedom. It's not just a word, and the Constitution is not just a piece of paper, as so many people today seem to believe. I am a Republican, the Grand Ole Party, or, as I like to think of it- The Party of Freedom. Now, such things as political parties and organizations are made up of people, and people are not infalible, and you have exceptions to every rule. I do not agree with every policy or decision of George W. Bush, just as I do not agree with every policy or decision of John McCain. In fact, I wish we had a more conservative cadidate on the GOP ticket this year such as Fred Thompson, or maybe Mike Huckabee. But that does not mean I will not wholehartedly support John McCain for President, because he is my party's nominee, and by far the best man for the job that is running. The Repulibcan Party was founded by abolitionists on the very principles of freedom

My friend and I have started a new tech podcast, so many of my tech stories might be reflected on that podcast, though I hope to keep this blog updated occassionally as well.  You can check out the podcast at www.techcasttoday.com