The Origin of VirguleStar.com

I’m drafting off the idea of expanding geeky punctuation into words (popularized by www.SlashDot.org)
(Funny story behind his originating motivation)
so SlashDot equals /.

Based on that, being a comment happy developer, I thought an expansion of /* would be particularly apropos as that’s the well known opening comment syntax in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, T-SQL, etc.

Of course, SlashStar.com and readily desirable derivates were already taken :( … however, browsing for slash synonyms turned up "virgule", specifically for the forward slash character, nice!... yeah ok, it doesn't role off the tongue but its obscurity meant I had an available domain name hit and that’s obviously key! :)

And thus www.VirguleStar.com was born.

Canon’s consumer inkjet printer + scanner workhorses

This is the Canon MP830 that I got two years ago for ~$200:
 

As of 07 Oct 2009 it’s now the MX860 that’s sitting in that slot… progress marches on :)
 

As with all this consumer electronics cr_p there’s no guarantees it’ll be all sunshine and daisies…The initial unit I received had some serious problems that can now confidently chalk up to a solid lemon syndrome… I returned it and the brand new replacement I got back has had absolutely zero issues and is still cranking like a champ as of Q4 2009!

This model prints very decent photos… not tippy top commercial quality but pretty darn good on glossy paper. Paper seems to matter as much as ink... I've seen fading on some glossy stock hanging on the wall next to other stock that hasn't.

 

Make sure to checkout my Continuous Ink Supply System write up