On Saturday morning I headed out the door about 8am and told the persons in the living room that I was headed with my family to Duluth. When one person asked, "What's Duluth?", I knew that a blog post had to be written. Duluth, MN is easily one of my favorite cities to visit in the world, and it's less than three hours away from home!

Duluth is located at the far west end of Lake Superior, the largest and deepest of North America's Great Lakes. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, the town was populated because of rich iron and copper deposits throughout the northern regions of Minnesota. The city quickly became a worldwide port as locks and dams connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. During the 20th century, Duluth was a major industrial port in the region, although that waned a bit in the late 1900s. Currently, the seaport is still used to ship out metals like iron ore and taconite around the world, but most of the city makes its living on tourism.

Duluth is built on a rather steep hill overlooking the western edge of the lake. stretching almost all of the seven miles across the lake is a sandbar that makes the western side into a nice, natural harbor. However, the city of Duluth built a canal to bring the boats directly into the harbor instead of rounding Minnesota Point, as the sand bar was called. However, some method of getting across the canal was needed, so in 1905 a large structure was put above the canal and a gondola was moved from side to side. It proved effective for a number of years until traffic became more and more demanding, so in 1930 a road that spanned the canal was built. In 55 seconds the Aerial Lift Bridge rises over 200 feet to let seaworthy boats pass underneath.

One thing not to miss is exactly that: the huge cargo ships that come from all over the world. This past weekend we did not see any up close, but I've had a couple times where a boat over 1,000 feet long fills up the whole canal and you're only 30-40 feet away from a hull towering above you. It's tons of fun and an amazing experience for this Minnesotan. (Get plenty of up-to-date news and photos at DuluthShippingNews.com.) Apparently a German world-class cruise ship makes a stop in Duluth every fall as well.

What else is there to see in this town? Well, one of my family's favorite parts is the Lakewalk. The Downtown Lakewalk includes a bike path and boardwalk for the first mile east of the Aerial Lift Bridge, and then a combined bilke/walk path for the remaining 2.5 miles. Another senic area is Skyline Drive, a road that rides the edge of the hill and provides great scenic views of Duluth and the harbor. Along Skyline Drive is Inger Tower, an old cement watchtower that is another great overlook. Also, when coming into Duluth, don't miss the Thompson Hill Visitors Center, where you can see the best view of the city and the harbor just before the freeway descends into Duluth.

For those looking to spend a bit of money, a number of the tourist attractions are worthwhile. The Vista Fleet gives guided tours of the harbor area throughout the summer and it's a great way to learn about the harbor, the big boats, and how things work in there. If you'd rather stay attached to the dock, The William A. Irvin is an old cargo ship that has been docked in Duluth for a couple decades and tours of the ship are given. This is another great way to find out what goes on these ships and just how big they are. Within the last couple years they've added a retired Coast Guard vessel to the tour as well.

The city's old rail depot is now home to the St. Louis County Heritage & Arts Center, more commonly just known as The Depot. It's a nice museum of the area's history and culture, but my favorite part since when I was really young is the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in the back of The Depot. Here, you can find all kinds of old trains that you can actually walk through. I don't know if they still do, but they would still run one of the old streetcars out of the station about a half mile and come back, which was lots of fun to ride in. There are real trains, model trains, and lots of old train-related items from days gone by.

If free is more your style, I highly recommend looking around in the Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center, right next to the Aerial Lift Bridge. This is a free, public museum that has tons of info on the geography of Lake Superior as well as the shipping industry of today and days gone by. Of course, there's plenty of history of the Aerial Lift Bridge too. We haven't really ventured into Downtown Duluth proper in probably a decade since the tourist scene right on the lake started picking up, but there's miles of Downtown connected by skyways, so even rainy days can be somewhat fun.

And, finally, a trip further up the North Shore of Lake Superior is always a good day trip from Duluth. Almost every time I've been to Duluth, we spent at least an afternoon around Gooseberry Falls, a beautiful stop on Highway 61's stretch of scenic viewpoints. The upper and lower falls are beautiful and allow for great places to walk around and play in the water. I have pictures of me and family members sitting underneath this rock since I was 2 or 3, and this time my cousin's daughter got her first photo there. Just a little way up the shore is Split Rock Lighthouse, and a bit further is Temperance River, which is now cut very deeply through some stones and is a great scenic area as well.

The weather up there is often very nice, a bit cooler because of the lake. (Last weekend was definitely an exception though, with highs in the 90s.) No matter how hot it is, though, I'd recommend not swimming in the lake. Around this time of year, the water is about 45 degrees Farenheight. There is a nice beach on Minnesota point that is very shallow and gets a bit warmer, but expect to freeze some body parts if you go in the water. Also, on the way to and/or from Duluth, stop halfway at Tobie's in Hinkley, MN. We always go for the Ice Cream outside, but many stop for their baked goods. Still, the city of Duluth is one of the most beautiful and fun places to go in Minnesota, and some even say, in the world.

(Thanks to Lisa for the great photos and all for a fun weekend vacation.)

I talked to an Apple employee at the local Apple store today. I was chatting with him about the Apple TV YouTube experience and how I was disappointed that I couldn't find the Mute Math "Typical" video on there. He said they were converting 10,000 videos every week to to the QuickTime format for use on Apple TV and iPhones, I think. What a waste, because we really want Flash on Safari anyways, you silly Apple idealists!

Anyways, he asked me if I was going to be there on Friday. I told him no, thinking about giving an excuse but deciding to leave it at that. I replied with, "Well, I suppose you - and all the other employees - are going to be here." He nodded in agreement and said he didn't yet completely know his work schedule for this weekend yet because they hadn't scheduled it yet. As he was walking away, I told him to have a fun time, to which he responded, "Yeah, well, watch the news and see if any of us get killed."

Well, at least they seem to be ready for the worst, I guess.

A couple weeks ago, I listened to an episode of Security Now! that was an interview with Mark Maiffret of eEye. In this show, he talked about his company, which specializes in security research. eEye is one of those handful of companies that work hard to find software vulnerabilities in software and often find and report security issues to Microsoft and other companies. eEye's clients include high-security areas of the government and many other security-conscious persons.

He talked about the functionality of their software, which includes not only an Internet Firewall, but a System Firewall and an Application Firewall. These increased levels of security make sure malware and spyware cannot do their job and that no applications can easily modify core Windows settings. Maiffret also talked about how their Internet-updated systems protect specifically against known vulnerabilities, including the ones they have found but have not yet fully released to the public. He also noted that the system is locked down with their software so well that almost any new vulnerability is blocked on a number of levels throughout the system.

Sounds great, but it's probably only available to high-paying users, right? Not true. eEye, in an effort to serve their enterprise customers a bit more, decided to give a personal, home version for free for a whole year. I've tried out their Blink product for a couple weeks, and it was nice. I did have some issues with installation and keeping Blink running, because a couple times I had to restart my computer. Overall, it notified you just as much as a firewall but protected you so much more.

In the end, I uninstalled it. Software such as Joost and GTA: San Andreas, apparently, have some compatibility problems with eEye's Blink. Plus, I found a bit of a performance slowdown when the software was running. Still, I think that if you're looking for a high-grade security implementation that includes firewall, anti-virus, and so much more, go get your free year for home users. (Even after that it's comparable to Symantec, I think.) It's great if you use the usual MS Office, Internet, and such applications, but will probably have some issues with games and other cutting-edge applications that want to do sneaky things in Windows to get better performance. This is the program for the ultimate security freak or just the cautious web user.

Jeff Robbins of Lullabot has a vision. He sees a world where anyone in the world has a tool to make websites. Here's his vision:

I can foresee a time when a small village in Nigeria will be able to open their $100 laptop, connect to the $100 server they have set up in their town hall, click "make a website" and effortlessly put the pieces together to communicate with the world and with each other. Or a third grade teacher in Indiana, working right in front of her students, will be able to plug Drupal modules into the school website that allow her class to exchange messages with a third grade class in India.

Of course, read the rest of his article to get the full story. I think it's a great idea but it will take a lot of work for everyone. And hey, if you're looking to getting into websites, jump in and learn a bit about Drupal and WordPress. If you feel you can't write some code to enhance the system, by all means, please contribute to documentation and managing of the Drupal systems in any way possible.