My co-worker, Joe Tower, is a designer/developer who is just getting into coding his own Drupal modules. Over at his blog, earlier this weekend, he created a basic module. I thought it needed a couple more things, so I'm gonna pick up where he left off. You might learn a bit or two about how the innards of Drupal work if you keep reading.

A couple years ago, I watched the Pilot of "Chuck", a TV show where a common computer geek gets a supercomputer installed in his brain. It's got geek references, real spies, and lots of fun. It's equal parts drama, comedy, and action, sometimes even a couple of those in the same scene. I haven't seen a tone of television in my years, but it's easily my favorite show currently on television. But that won't last for long, because the show's finale is just over a week away.

In these trying times for America, they need a charismatic President that knows what's going on. Zaphod Beeblebrox, a two-headed humanoid from the vicinity of Betelgeuse, is probably not that man. But he has been the President of the Galaxy. But, oh wait, in that version of history, the Earth has been destroyed to make room for a hyperspace bypass.

This morning, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took what may possibly be the biggest gamble of his life. Netflix has been a successful company for over a decade, starting as a DVD-rental-by-mail service since 1998. Ten years later, they started offering streaming of movies and TV shows over the Internet, no longer requiring the DVD-by-mail. In the last six months or so, some Internet statistics companies (which are a bit spurious) claimed that as much as 40% of prime-time Internet traffic was Netflix Instant traffic.

Starting with the iPhone and it's brethren the iPod touch and the iPad, Apple only allows you to download and purchase apps via their App Store, which requires approval from Apple to sell them. In the last year, Apple has also made it an option to buy apps for Mac OS X through their sanctioned App Store as well. This has some inherent benefits, most notably a level of security and a trust party to collect payment as well as an easy way to get updates to apps. But, in the end, there's still many shortcomings in the App Store model.

Yes, the iPad 2 is not for me. The iPad may be the future of mainstream computing, but at this time, it's not for me. More on that in a minute, though. First, here's the skinny on the new iPad 2, announced by Apple yesterday in San Francisco by Steve Jobs and his snappy presentation crew.

As usual, every fall Apple debuts a new line of iPods to wow the kids and parents into getting new iPods. And, of course, this year was no exception. On Wednesday, September 1st, Steve Jobs and many from the Apple crew showed the press their latest products at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in downtown San Francisco, CA. And as expected, the iPods were updated with cooler, newer features and a couple other new products were announced as well.

Earlier today, Hulu.com announced Hulu Plus.  For those who don't know what Hulu is, it is a company that allows users to stream TV shows to their computer over the Internet the day after a show is broadcast.  The TV programs are only on Hulu for a couple of weeks on average.  The company was started jointly by NBC Universal and Fox TV, although ABC and other companies now have a stake in it as well.  The networks have made it clear in the past that they did not want Hulu content on your TV; it was meant only for watching at your desk on your computer.

OK, so it seems that this blog is all about Apple these days.  Hopefully one of these days I'll get some other subjects.  But hey, I know some of you like to hear my thoughts.

This past week has been a big one for Apple, everyone's favorite/love-to-hate electronics/computer company.  Two weeks ago, iPad apps and reviews started showing up, then Saturday brought the iPad to thousands of Americans (for a $500+ fee).  Then, last Thursday, Steve Jobs and other Apple executives gave developers and press a peek at the fancy new features coming to iPhones and