BBs Blog

After becoming increasingly disgruntled with the way the latest version of Firefox was duplicating information in my top menu bar, and seeing the ad for Flock several times on Pure Mac, I finally decided to give it a try. Even though it has Firefox built into it, Flock is not taking over and duplicating information in my top menu bar. And I love the social networking features on Flock. Not that I’m much of a social networker. But if I ever do decide to become a big time internet social networking butterfly, Flock will make that easy for me to do. I did sign up with Digg after giving Flock a thorough test run. I’ve also learned how to create and post a blog entry directly from Flock with its nifty blog feature. The web clipboard feature that allows me to save links, images and text for later use in my blog posts or stories is really handy. I have to say I really do love being Flocked! Flock is available for Mac, Windows and Linux platforms.

While Flocking around on the net I found several interesting stories. Including one about Australian crocodiles dying after eating cane toads. That story proved to me just how dangerous introducing critters into a foreign environment can be. If The Powers That Be had wanted cane toads in the land down under, they would have put them there during the great creation phase. One person commenting on the story suggested introducing a natural predator of the cane toad as a solution. Needless to say I am dead set against that possible solution since it would probably screw up the ecological balance worse than introducing the cane toads did. The cane toads were first introduced as a means of controlling cane beetles, which are pests than plague sugar cane growers. The story didn’t mention how good a job they did controlling the cane beetles. However, 77% of fresh water crocodiles have died since 2005.

Trying to eradicate a critter that does belong in an environment can cause just as many problems as introducing one that doesn’t belong. For instance, if natural predators such as coyotes are ruthlessly exterminated by ranchers, then pretty soon the surrounding environment becomes over run with critters like rabbits. I know this for a fact because I live in an area where that has happened. The ranchers say the coyotes kill their newborn calves and must be eradicated. However, when the rabbit population increases too much, the grass the adult cattle need to survive is eaten by the rabbits. This means the ranchers either have to have buy hay to feed their cattle, or watch the mothers of the newborn calves starve to death.

There was also a cute little story about a giraffe helping some other animals escape from a circus in the Netherlands that brought a smile to my face as I read it. If you haven’t already seen this story Click Here

Another interesting article I found while Flocking around the net was one entitled, 17 inventions you’ll want in your home. There are some really groovy inventions in that article that I would love have in my home and garden.

And for those of you who like to surf while they work, there in an interesting article about a web filtering program called Websense that if your company has installed it, or does install it, may interfere with your ability to load certain pages. Oddly enough, according to the author of that article, Websense will allow you to read pages telling you how to grow marijuana and cook crack cocaine, but won’t allow you find out which were The 10 Most Delicious-Looking Sandwiches From 80s Movies. Gee, I wonder if my page is on the tasteless list for that filtering program? I know the military has me blocked, as do a few other filtering programs. If anyone reading this article discovers BB has been blocked by Websense, please send me an email and let me know.

Now I’m going to upload this to the BB’s Blog and get back to Flocking around on the net. Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about some silly web filtering program interfering with my Flocking and Digging on the net. Oh, and I hope those reading this have a very happy 4th July. Try not burn the BBQ, or blow your fingers off.