I present to you, in no particular order, some of my favorite things from 2004 and their corresponding posts on my weblog.


Bloglines - I was looking for a good, free RSS reader, and I found it in Bloglines. And they just keep making it better. It's probably the site that spends the most time in my browser. I'm up to 180 feeds now, and Bloglines makes it so easy to keep up with all the websites I like to read.


Ubuntu Linux - Ubuntu fixed the major problem I had with Linux. It's hard to install new programs when you have to compile it, or you don't meet the dependancies. Ubuntu's package manager checks dependancies, then downloads the right version from the web and installs it all automatically. This makes Linux accessible for a lot more people, and it gives the user a lot of power.


Napoleon Dynamite - A very funny movie. GOSH!!


Gmail - Hotmail upped its disk quota from 2 MB to 250. Too little, too late. Gmail has 1000 MB of space, great spam filtering, and the best user interface I've ever used for email. It even made me drop Thunderbird. The web really is becoming a platform of its own.


Podcasting - Once I got iPodder, iTunes, and MortPlayer (on my Pocket PC) all working together, listening to podcasts has been great. I listen on my walk to and from work every day. The brendoman.com podcast has been a lot of fun, too.


My new job - I'm a real live IT nerd now. This job has been just right for me.


Jon Stewart - Great show. Great book. Great job of calling the media to task.


Lil' Brudder - The heart of a champion, I tell you.


Free Culture - A great book about why copyright law is broken and the corruption in Washington is making it more broken. If it continues we'll lose important parts of our culture.


Troy - His comments on my Passion of the Christ review kept us entertained for several weeks.


They Might Be Giants in Concert - That was a fun show. Their new cd is very good, too.


My trip to California - Helping Rob move back to Missouri turned into a big ordeal. But if you're going to be involved in a big ordeal, you might as well be with some good friends.


Midwest Vacation (map) - Who knew the Midwest could be so fun?


Top 5 Worst Worship songs - 210 comments and counting.


Tivo - Mmmmmmm, Tivo.


Firefox - Firebird gets its name changed. Again. Microsoft Internet Explorer continues to have security problems. The browser wars are back.


danny.brendoman.com begins - Thanks again, Brendan.


It's been a good year. I can't think of another year in my life that's had this much cool stuff. Thanks to my family and friends who have shared it all with me. Here's to another great year in aught five.