It is a beautiful time of year as it is January and we have over 18 inches of snow in our yard. Where we have shoveled it is about three feet high. I have several bird feeders and I enjoy watching the birds feed when it is snowy or snowing. They show up really well against the white background. They also seem so happy and there are so many of them.

I was watching some quail coming from across the road up over the snow bank and then running as fast as they could to get to the food underneath the bird feeder. When the birds eat out of the feeder a lot of the seed drops and the birds that don't like the feeders come and eat from the ground. As I was watching this one particular quail I noticed as he ran fast he would sink into the snow from time to time and this would hinder his forward movement towards the seed.

It set me to thinking about organizing, which might be a stretch for some but being a professional home and office organizer I look at many situations and wonder how that can apply to organizing.

The little quail hurrying along did not make as rapid progress as the bird near him because running made his little claws sink down into the snow. This can be how it is with any organizing task we do. If we go too fast we could be slowing ourselves down. Organizing can be done efficiently at a moderate to slow steady pace. Now for those who are like the energizer bunny it is perfectly fine to go faster as long as it is not a hindrance to the ultimate goal.

When organizing start in one room at a time. Start with a goal in mind, analyze that room, ask yourself questions such as: what do I want this room to be used for, what do I want it to feel like, are there things here that belong in other rooms, are there things I can get rid of either by donating or throwing away. Do I need to get others in my family on board and committed to

New interface design for MythTV
MythTV 0.22 will be sporting a new interface design. Features include animation, better interactivity, and faster and easier development for themers and developers...
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Zap2It Labs discontinuing free TV guide service
Zap2It Labs have announced (cache) via their webpage that, due to abuse of the service, data will no longer be available after September 1st. There is no other direct source, and no option to pay for the service even if the users wanted to...
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UK petition for free TV listings
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Free-TV-listings/ being run to make all UK television listings freely available under royalty-free terms such as a Creative Commons License....
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New server
DreamHosts.

I have had to drop the mirrors, atleast temporarily, as the new site is bandwidth limited.
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Sky Anytime for Any PC?
Advogato has pointed out (cache) that Sky's advertising of their new Anytime package doesn't actually run on *any* PC. It requires Windows.

lkcl suggests the advertising is in breach of the ASA guidelines and goes on to point out the many devices runing GNU/Linux Sky is now utilising, including the set-top box, and the modified/pre-configured Netgear DG834GT for the broadband service.

Under the GPL license, Sky should provide the source code free of charge...
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Interview with pcHDTV Founder/CEO
Open Addict has an interview (cache) with Jack Kelliher, Founder and CEO of pcHDTV, the Linux-focused hardware company that markets HDTV cards.

Their flagship product is the HD-5500 (cache) HDTV PCI card which supports the popular MythTV Linux PVR application...
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New HDTV chips announced at Consumer Electronics Show
CES show has seen the launch of a raft of new HDTV chips.

Conexant has added two video decoders for HDTV personal video recording (PVR) set-top boxes. The CX2427X is a dual-channel video decoder that can decode two HDTV programmes simultaneously, and supporting PVR applications on up to two televisions, eliminating the need for a dedicated STB receiver for each TV.

For the cable market, Broadcom has developed an HDTV Chip with a programmable security engine that has the hardware included to support all the current conditional access systems. This will avoid the need for subscriber cards, which are costly to distribute and vulnerable to hackers, and allow new CA algorithms to be downloaded to the cableboxes...
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Sky+ tops 2 million mark

The rapid growth of Sky+ highlights increasing demand from customers for the ability to take control over their television viewing. With 2 million active boxes, almost 5 million viewers are using Sky+ to record without video tape, pause and rewind live TV, and record all episodes of a favourite series at the touch of a button...
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KWorld introduces dual hybrid TV tuner
KWorld has announced a new TV tuner in the form of the DVB-T PE310 (cache). The DVB-T PE310 is a dual hybrid TV tuner PCI-Express card initially designed for the UK market.
The DVB-T PE310 sports two tuners, both of which are capable of displaying analog and digital signals, which means that you can tune into two analog sources, or two digital sources or even one analog and one digital at the same time.
On top of that, you can use the additional AV/S-Video input for CVBS, S-video or SPDIF connections...
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MythTV developer on ExtremeTech
MythTV, has an article on ExtremeTech (cache) about his book Hacking MythTV (cache). In this article, he reviews the 'Top Plugins for MythTV' ...
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keeping this room the way I envision it.

I was organizing a craft room for a woman who was so embarrassed by the room that she always kept the door closed. There were a lot of cupboards so all the crafts could be separated by the type of craft such as paints, paper, etc. and each shelf was labeled. One of her children said to me "I don't know why you are bothering, we will just mess it up." This is one example of why it is important and necessary to get the cooperation of others in the family to keep rooms and everything in them organized.

By having a goal in mind and then evaluating how to reach the goal, taking small baby steps and working at a steady pace; before you know it your goal of being organized will be achieved.

Marilyn Bohn's Bio
Marilyn is a creative organizer who has been organizing for over 20 years. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and is working towards becoming a Certified Professional Organizer. Professionally she has been organizing homes and offices for over two years. She holds a bachelors degree in Social Work. She has reared five daughters and currently lives in Utah.

Go to her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find free organizing tips and interesting blogs and helpful articles on organizing.