g4ry.net

in the year 2010

2010-01-01T00:28:00.002-04:00

wow, when was the last time I updated this? this year's going to be different, I swear.

happy new year folks.

//gary

It goes past Fahrenheit 451!

2009-08-06T22:41:00.001-03:00

It goes past Fahrenheit 451!
Originally uploaded by g4rymill3r

This was yet another pleasant find at Princess Auto this evening. This "deep frying" thermometer is going to be mounted in my hot-air popcorn popper so I can monitor roasting temperature, and hopefully get some more consistent roasts. Thinking about doing some more mods to my roaster this weekend as well, stay tuned.

Sword of Truth

2009-08-06T22:40:00.001-03:00

Sword of Truth
Originally uploaded by g4rymill3r

I am so excited about this. No, this is not an Elvish shortsword...although It would pass for one in a pinch, if the neighbors get rowdy. It's a Japanese gardening tool known as a Hori Hori. I found this at Princess Auto, and now I cannot wait to go dig in the mud. Maybe I'll take it to the beach this weekend and practice.

Twitter no more

2009-07-18T17:42:00.002-03:00

Like my Facebook account before it, my Twitter account has finally come to an end. Initially, i thought it was a huge improvement over Facebook, in that it was a quick and easy way to update a "status" type message, via a SMS, to let you friends know where you were, without having to deal with the social drama associated with sites like Facebook and Myspace.

Looking back, the one thing that I hated most of all about Facebook was the spam. Getting an inbox full of "Someone you don't like has added you as a friend" or "Someone you don't really know has poked you" was starting to get really annoying. Twitter, it would seem, has started down the same route. Every day I get emails about some random spammer "following" me, obviously some sort of mass marketing scam. So that's why I finally decided to pull the plug.

Of course, the service offered by Twitter is really integrated into almost every aspect of the internet nowadays anyway... whether it be a tag on your MSN name, or a Zipline on Zooomr. Obviously just another way to commercialize the internet, by making people think the need something, when in fact there is no service offered.

Dell Mini Ram Upgrade

2009-07-12T16:12:00.001-03:00

Dell Mini Ram Upgrade
Originally uploaded by g4rymill3r

I finally got around to upgrading the ram in my Mini10v. It wasn't overly painful, but still rather silly to have to completely disassemble the notebook and remove the motherboard just to upgrade the ram.

I believe Microsoft is the culprit, setting the limit of 1 GB of ram for a new pc to be classified as a netbook, something to do with the OEM version of XP.

Anyway, it's much snappier in OSX Leopard now, as well as the other OS's. For the $25 the SODIMM cost, it was well worth it.

dell mini tripl3 b00t!

2009-07-01T23:55:00.003-03:00

I got my Dell Mini 10v on Monday. I barely spent any time playing with it before I wiped the hard drive, and started the very tedious task of installing 3 operating systems. After a lengthy amount of preparation, I finally got it working as a hackintosh, with XP and Ubuntu Netbook Remix, all in a nifty triple boot setup courtesty of Chameleon bootloader. I briefly considered adding FreeDOS to the mix, making it quad-boot, but I think I'll save that task for another day.

Next step: upgrade to 2GB of RAM. Luckily, my 2 gig SODIMM arrived on Monday as well, but I've run out of time today, so it'll have to wait until the weekend. Unfortunately, in order to upgrade the ram in these things, you have to completely disassemble it, and remove the motherboard. Strangely enough, they did add an access panel to the bottom to allow you to... upgrade the wireless card? Whatever, it'll make a good project for Sunday (Saturday is reserved for the Hip concert.) It's 12:03am, this Canada Day is officially over. ciao

Excuse the Layout

2009-06-27T10:50:00.003-03:00

I've been messing around with templates in Blogger, so please excuse the mess...I haven't really had time to update anything lately.

Windows 7 and Windows Live Writer

2009-02-01T20:50:00.001-04:00

I’ve been beta testing Windows 7 (64-bit) for the past few weeks, off and on. I’ve found that when I had something I needed to get done, I’d reboot in Windows XP. But I’ve finally got around to setting up the “Windows Live Writer” app that’s included, and I must say, it looks pretty cool. I’m using it right now to make this post, and the benefit I’m seeing over just posting via Blogger is that I’m formatting/editing this post in the same view that the actual post will end up in. Upon adding my blogger account to the app, it connected, and downloaded my theme/style, so that it could reproduce it locally in the editor. How cool is that?

Rust Bucket

2009-01-25T15:03:00.002-04:00

I needed a car in sort of a hurry. The answer? Kijiji came through for me, with this finely tuned piece of machinery. For the modest price of $700, this beast is MVI'd until the end of May, and I entirely expect to get that much out of it. Beyond that, who knows, as putting it through inspection will undoubtedly drive the cost up.

PC Load Letter

2009-01-24T20:49:00.004-04:00

So things are winding down to a regular routine now, and I thought I'd take time to start posting here again. My topic of choice? I finally decided to decommission my laser printer (HP Laserjet IIP Plus). After about 10 years of service, it owes me nothing, and as such I decided not to fix it this time. Over the years it has had downtime now and again, but nothing too serious. I bought it in the late 90's second hand for $50, including 3 other broken ones for parts. I decided to print one last page with it before throwing it out, the self-test page by holding down a certain combination of buttons on it's yellowed plastic control panel. The result: it reports a total of 32,955 pages printed since 1991. Not too shabby.

Oh, and I have a new job, old car, etc, etc....boring stuff.

Homeless

2008-10-23T03:11:00.002-03:00

I suddenly find myself with no place to call home. I'm not talking in an emotionally tainted, metaphoric sense such as "nowhere feels like home anymore," but in the sense that I actually have no place to lay my head.

I have to be out of my apartment, as far as I can tell, right away. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in the woods on a job, and likely won't be able to leave here for another week or two. I'm not overly concerned, as I never really took the time to even unpack at my apartment. I believe my total belongings consist of 1 futon, purchased at Walmart, 1 coffee percolator, and 1 suitcase, exploded all over my bedroom floor. The one additional item, the only one that concerns me, is my ukulele.
I don't care about anything else there--it is all expendable; my ukulele, on the other hand, I cannot let go so easily.

My roommate is going to be looking into breaking the lease, and get back to me on the details.
The good thing is that I'm not even on the lease, as I haven't had a spare chance to get it ammended yet (I took over a friends half of the apartment). I don't want to leave my roommate with a mess though, as he's a good guy (although I only met him upon moving into the apartment, and I've only been there a few days at most). Hopefully it will work out so that I can get back there before he has to leave, but it's no looking so good at the moment.

As far as looking for a new place, I couldn't be bothered at the moment. If things keep going like this, an apartment would be completely unjustifiable. On the odd occasion that I find myself not on a job, I could just stay at a hotel for the night. The only problem I forsee with that is not having a permanent address. Without an actual address, I'll doubt I'll ever be able to get healthcare set up, among other things. Oh well, I'll deal with that when it becomes an issue.

I finally made it to BC!

2008-10-14T22:47:00.002-03:00

Jomax 5 in BC
Originally uploaded by g4rymill3r

Ever since high school, I've always wanted to make it out to BC. Well, a couple days ago, i finally got my wish. Unfortunately, it's not quite what I had in mind.

As the picture would suggest (geotagged as always, if interested), I'm at another rig, somewhere deep in the woods in BC. I had to drive all night to get here, so I'm not too sure I'll be able to find my way out again when/if I get to leave.

It snowed here yesterday, and it's been pretty cold. Cold enough for the snow to stick around, and for me to have to scrape my windshield, start the truck, and go back inside for a bit to get thawed out. It's realistically not that cold at all, compared to what it will be soon enough. I'm not exactly looking forward to these -40 and below winters they have out here.

I should be leaving here tomorrow, or thursday at the latest. Hard to say if I'll get to go home for a day, or not. I'll likely just get sent to another well. Possibly the one I just came from.

Yep, it's snowing now.

2008-10-10T08:23:00.001-03:00

PD607 on a snowy night, originally uploaded by g4rymill3r.

The mornings have gotten increasingly colder, and finally it's snowing this evening. It's still only early October, I can't wait to see what January and February are like out here. I'm sure I'll have given up and headed for a warmer climate by then. Oh, in case you couldn't tell from the picture, I'm working on another lease now, with no break in between the two. A day off sometime this year would be stellar.

Fog: You cannot escape it, ever.

2008-10-04T03:32:00.002-03:00

Ensign 11 on a foggy morning, originally uploaded by g4rymill3r.

So here I am, drilling a hole in Northwest Alberta. I woke up to the familiar site of .... well, the familiar lack of site that I thought I left behind on the east coast.

This comes as a welcome treat, as compared to the endless miles of farmer's fields that I'm slowly becoming accustomed to out here.

In case you couldn't guess from the picture, I'm working on a lease, drilling holes. It's been a very interesting experience, as I've been out here for over two weeks now. I've had time to adjust, and I think I'm actually starting to like it. Time will tell, i guess.

I'm not really looking forward to going back to Edmonton, to be honest. In Edmonton, my apartment actually sucks more than the trailer that I'm staying in out here. In addition, the fact that I'm actually making money out here makes me even more reluctant to leave.

Hopefully I'll get sent out again as soon as possible, as money is good.

New Apartment

2008-09-15T11:16:00.002-03:00

Just to catch up....
I finally made contact with work, and started last week on Monday. Got a lot of administrative stuff out of the way, met some cool people, and started in on various courses. While still living out of the hotel, I managed to get my PST, WHMIS, Collision Avoidance, and First Aid done. On Friday, I decided to make the move into Edmonton, as I have an apartment in there (somewhere).

Edmonton is pretty big, lots of stuff there, none of it all that impressive. I managed to find my apartment no problem, and get moved it. The roommate is a pretty cool guy, I forsee no problems there. Things were a little rough Friday night, as I had absolutely nothing. I ended up sleeping on the floor with a hoodie balled up under my head for a pillow. Saturday, I set out exploring Edmonton some. I picked up a cheap futon and some various other little things. Saturday night was a lot more comfy, so I think I'm pretty much set. We don't really have much of anything in the apartment, not even a television. My roommate, like myself, doesn't spend much time there, as the job usually has you living somewhere on an oil rig. For the few days of the month that I'll be staying at my apartment, it's not really worth investing in a whole lot of possessions. I had, however, been wanting to catch the series premiere of Fringe. I ended up downloading it, and watching it on my 12" laptop screen. While it's not a direct replacement by any means, it does seem to be the most promising advancement, to date, in filling the gaping chasm left in the entertainment industry by the cancelation of X-Files.

What the hell is with all the bums? They are everywhere. I guess, living downtown, I'd have to expect it, but they're not like Halifax bums. Apparently if you park on the road overnight, you're asking for it. My roommate has had the windows smashed out of his truck while parking by our apartment. This makes me a little nervous, so I need to look into parking asap. I'm technically not a resident yet though, as I can't seem to catch the apartment office while it's open.

Sunday, I met up with Joff, who's going to the University of Alberta currently. We went out for breakfast, and did a little shopping. Was nice to see a familiar face in a very unfamiliar place.

And that brings me up to now. I have two more days of courses to take, Transportation of Dangerous Goods today, and Hydrogen Sulfide tomorrow. That will finish up all the formal certificate-type courses that I need. Today's course doestn't start until noon, so I'm in at the office trying to take care of more administrative type stuff (like updating my blog). The job seems like it's going to be really "up my ally," but only time will tell.

Alberta Alschmerta

2008-09-07T21:34:00.002-03:00

After a lot of hours on a plane, I finally made it to Alberta. I had to stop in Calgary for a couple of hours, before catching the connecting flight to Edmonton. Things have went very well so far. I have had no problems with my baggage. Not only did I get both of my checked bags, but it appears that the contents aren't even destroyed. The hotel room I'm staying in had an ethernet jack in the wall. Turns out, they have free complimentary internet. I decided to take full advantage, and downloaded Skype onto my laptop, plugged in my headset, and called some people back home for free. I have no idea how long I'm going to be stuck in a hotel, or what exactly I'm supposed to do. I'm assuming that everything will come together tomorrow morning, so I'm just going to take it easy tonight, and have a very early night.

Packing Sucks

2008-09-06T20:20:00.002-03:00

I now realize why I've put off moving for so long. I absolutely hate packing. I was happy to learn that I'll be flying via WestJet, who still allow two checked bags, as opposed to Air Canada, who now charge extra for a second checked bag. I thought two suitcases would be more than enough room for everything that I cannot live without. I was wrong.

Early today, I started a "take" pile, into (onto) which I put everything that I'd like to take with me. As the day progressed, those two suitcases, lying open on my bed, have shrunk to about 1/4 of their original size. This is not aided by the fact that I'll be substituting my carry-on with my ukulele (hopefully, if they'll allow it.)

Either way, I'll be heading out in the morning. I'm just not sure yet how much I'll be leaving behind.

Farewell to Nova Scotia

2008-09-04T20:59:00.002-03:00

I try not to get ahead of myself, but at this point I'm fairly confident in saying that I might be leaving Nova Scotia sometime in the near future....possibly.

I just got an email with the info for my plane ticket, which would suggest that I'm leaving on Sunday (September 7th) and flying to Edmonton, Alberta. Oh, I have a job, guess I didn't really mention that. So yeah, going to be working in Alberta.

My plan as of right now is to just take a suitcase full of clothes and my ukulele. I really don't want to go through the hassle of shipping things, and I don't have anything that I cannot bear to part with. It's kind of refreshing to start over from scratch, kinda like pushing the reset button.

Spores

2008-08-26T20:40:00.000-03:00

White Head was fun, didn't have time to do nearly as much as I'd have liked. I did get a few last rides in on my motorcycle, and enjoyed some pleasantly foggy weather. Also, volleyball; I hadn't played volleyball in forever, so it was really nice to see that there was a revitalized interest in it this summer. Didn't get to jig any pollack though :( Oh yeah, I managed to rip over 500 CD's into .flac as well, which turned out to be rather time consuming.

I made it back to Halifax, and have managed to get a few things finished up down here. It looks like I have a job, so I'll seemingly be moving to Edmonton, AB within the next week or so. I'm completely uncertain on the date however; I have a drug test and medical tomorrow, then I will see if anyone has bought me a plane ticket yet.

I have a horrible cold at the moment, and it's making packing incredibly tedious. Not sure where the spores came from, but whoever you are, diaf. I am trying to get everything packed up, although I'll likely only take a suitcase full of clothes (and my ukulele) with me.

In New Brunswick

2008-08-01T08:59:00.001-03:00

I'm in NB for the weekend. With pending job offers, and the prospect of life getting really busy, I decided to hop on a bus and take a little trip. I fear that my trip will be cut fairly short, as I left too many things "up in the air" when I left. It's cold, and raining here, so no matter how brief, it was well worth the trip.

audio test

2008-06-14T02:12:00.000-03:00

Just testing embedding audio hosted on the internet archive. This post will be deleted shortly.
Hopefully there's a little embedded player for a mp3 of me playing Stairway to Heaven on the Ukulele.

Edit: I decided to leave this post here, as I've referred people to it a bunch of times for kicks. I want to leave the mp3 on the internet archive, more or less as a test to see if it ever gets deleted.

I'm back

2008-06-13T23:00:00.001-03:00

I have a decent internet connection (for the time being) . I'll be updating things over the next few days.

My Ukulele

2008-05-22T12:30:00.001-03:00

My Ukulele, originally uploaded by g4rymill3r.

This is just a temp post to show uke. More to come when I'm not on dialup.

Google Image Labeler Fun

2008-04-13T12:22:00.000-03:00

I just found a great new time killer: Google Image Labeler.

You start a session, each of which only lasts a couple minutes. You are randomly paired with another person, and you are both shown the same random image. You start typing in tags that describe that image, and when you and your partner get a match, you move on to the next image. You can pass on an image at any time. You get points (which have no actual value) for each match you make, the number of points depending on how complex the tag is.

Although this has no real value, there is a running score kept, so you can try to top the charts. It is surprisingly fun, and it is a great mental exercise to jump start your mind. At the same time, you get to help Google take over the world (by making their image search work better). As a bonus, at the end of each round, you get to see what the other person typed for each image.....lending to the opportunity to have a little fun with an audience of one, on occasion.

Battle of the Blogs: Wordpress.com Vs. Blogger.com

2008-04-09T15:07:00.000-03:00

My previous web hosting company sucked. Not only did they lose my website, which i spent countless hours designing, but they also seemed to gradually degrade to about a 50% uptime. Being fed up with it all, i decided to switch to one of the popular free blog hosting sites.

I initially turned to wordpress.com. Having previously used the Wordpress software, i was familiar with it, and enjoyed it's features. But I decided to also give Google's Blogger.com a try, as it is from a respectable company who definately isn't going to fold any time soon.

I know there are countless other options available, one of the largest being Livejournal.com. I have used their service in the past, and knew they weren't for me. They seem to appeal more to community oriented blogs, which is great, just not what I'm looking for.

I decided to write this comparison of the two services, and hopefully by the time i was finished, i would have decided which one was right for me. Hopefully someone else will find this comparison useful; it's not intended to promote one service over the other, but rather to highlight key differences, which are useful in deciding which one is right for you.

Layout / Site Appearance

Wordpress.com has a large selection of themes available to choose from (I counted 66) making it simple to immediately customize your blog. With 26 of these themes, you can upload your own custom header image. And that's where the customizing ends. Unfortunately, Wordpress.com does not allow you to upload your own custom templates. The will allow you to do some customization of the CSS of a base template, if you pay them $15 / year. Although they claim their reasons for this are security purposes, it severely limits the amount you can customize your blog.

On the surface, Blogger.com looks even worse. They have 16 standard templates to choose from. Sure, most of them have sub-options, technically making the template count around 38, but most of these are just simple color scheme changes. Then I noticed the "Edit HTML" tab. Blogger allows you to completely edit the CSS and HTML of the template, as well as upload / download them freely. This allows for a virtually unlimited amount of customization to be done to your blog.

Because of the ability to edit the templates (without having to pay $15 / yr), Blogger wins hands down in this category (in my opinion). Of course, this is not very significant to anyone who has no intention of customizing their blog, and is content with simply using a standard template.

Widgets / Addons

Both sites have the ability to add various widgets to your blog. These accomplish various things, from adding lists to your side bar, to embedding picture or text RSS feeds. Honestly, I didn't really find one to have a major advantage over the other; however, it is worth noting that Blogger allows you to embed custom Javascript, which adds a LOT of possibilities. I also favored Blogger's layout editor. I found it had more flexibility in designing the layout of your blog. Your mileage may vary, but I preferred Blogger in this area.

Tags / Categories

Using a blog in place of a website leads to some amount of disorganization. This blog in particular, being of a general nature, will include posts pertaining to various topics of interest. The ability to sort these topics into categories is a necessity.

The method that Blogger uses for categorization is that of tags (which they call Labels). Simply put, and post can have just one, or a number of tags applied to it. When navigating the blog by tag, any posts containing that common tag will be displayed.

Categories is another method of organizing, which provides a slightly less chaoitic hierarchial system. Wordpress.com has retained their system of categories, and has also added Tags. The uber-neat freak can use both in conjunction to keep their posts well organized.

If you need a better explanation of the differences between the two, here is a link to Wordpress.com's FAQ covering the topic: http://faq.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/the-difference-between-tags-and-categories/

My take on it is quite simple. Tags (Labels) are enough to organize anything I'll be doing; however, the option to use both does lend to the possibility of a higher degree of sorting / organizing.

Multi-User Blogs

Blogger.com allows you to have up to 100 authors defined for each blog. Further, the blog can be made private, and have up to 100 readers defined.

Wordpress.com has a similar setup, however, they limit the number of users per blog to 35. The limit is removed completely at a cost of $30 / yr.
Wordpress also has different levels of users that can be defined, including Contributor, Administrator, Editor, and Author.

Wordpress.com also includes a simple password protection feature. At time of posting, you can choose to add a password to a post. In order for anyone to view the post, or any comments made on the post, they have to enter the password.

Overall, these features do not apply to my situation at all, and are only necessary for collaborative projects, but I think the password feature offered by Wordpress.com is a nice feature.

Site Tracking

Wordpress.com has built in site tracking. This is a big deal to some people, and so it's worth mentioning. It is also worth mentioning that Blogger.com allows 3rd party scripts to be embedded, adding far more robust tracking ability. If you're looking for off the shelf functionality, wordpress.com has it. In the long run, Blogger has more options available in this area.

Navigation / Search

The search features of both sites are more than adequate. The Navbars that both sites places at the top of your page is similar, however the one at Wordpress.com does have more options available.

Ads

Wordpress.com does not allow you to place any advertisements on your blog. The do, however, state that they may occasionally place text ads (Google Adsense) on your blog.

Blogger.com does not place ads on your site, and fully allows (obviously) Google Adsense ads to be easily incorporated into your blog.

Posting Content

Both sites have a standard WYSIWYG editor, as well as HTML editing mode. The editors are similar, and have everything that you'd require. Wordpress.com's WYSIWYG has a collapsable second line which they call the "Kitchen Sink", which Blogger fits all the essentials on one line of buttons. Wordpress.com's HTML editing pane also has more buttons, but in this editing mode i doubt that buttons are of much concern (to me, at least).

Wordpress has the option to post as either a blog article, or as a static page. This is a great option for making your blog more like a full featured website. Blogger.com has no similar option.

Wordpress.com also has the ability to post content as a link, which will end up in your Blogroll; this feature is matched on Blogger.com, in the form of a Links widget which is added to your sidebar. I actually preferred the Blogger.com one, as you could rename it, and not be stuck with "Blogroll". Not a big deal though. UPDATE: Upon further investigation, Wordpress.com allows you to create custom link categories.

Blogger.com allows you to post to your blog via email or MMS from a mobile phone. This was one of the first features i tried on Blogger, and was quite impressed. You simply send an email to a pre-defined address, with a Subject line that will become your post's title, and the body of the message will become your post. You can even also attach photos, and they'll be added to you post. Wordpress.com has no similar feature.

The reason I am quite impressed with the post-by-email option, is that I often find myself stuck on a dialup internet connection. This allows me to write an article while offline, and then simply connect and send an email, without having to navigate any slow-loading web pages on dialup.

Wordpress has an option to convert emoticons such as :-) into actual graphics. I couldn't find any such option on Blogger.com.

Comments / Spam

Blogger.com allows you to turn off comments completely, or allow various levels of commenting. You can set comments to private, registered, or open. The registered option not only includes google.com registered users, but also allows for OpenID to be used, which is a nice feature.

Spam prevention is accomplished at Blogger.com by means of either turning on comment moderation, or turning on a word verification (Captcha).

Wordpress.com has a much more robust spam prevention system (Akismet).
You can turn moderation on or off, and also set various levels of moderation.
You can set comments to be allowed if their author has a previously approved comment, filter comments by keywords, number of links they contain, etc.
You can also require a name and email address for comments.

Overall, Wordpress.com is far ahead in the spam prevention area, but I do like Blogger.com's inclusion of OpenID.

Multimedia Posting

Blogger.com allows for uploading of photos with a max. filesize of 8MB. Jpg, gif, bmp, and png are the allowed extension. The maximum allowed storage space for all your photos is 1GB. Blogger.com uses Picasa Web Albums for their picture hosting.
There is no built in gallery viewer, but you can sign into Picasa to view / manage all your photos.
Blogger.com allows for videos (avi,mpg,quicktime,real, wmv) of up to 100MB filesize to be uploaded. These are hosted on Google Video.
There is no audio uploading available on Blogger.com.

Wordpress.com allows for uploading of photos (jpg, jpeg, png, gif), documents (pdf, doc, odt) and presentations (ppt) with their free account. The maximum storage space is 3GB for all your files combined. There is a built in gallery / media viewer.
For a paid space upgrade, you can upload audio (mp3, m4a, ogg, wav) and videos (avi, mp4, mpg, mov, wmv) to wordpress.com up to a maximum filesize of 75MB.

Wordpress.com's paid space upgrades are as follows:
5 Gigabytes - $20 / yr
15 Gigabyte - $50 / yr
25 Gigabyte - $90 / yr

Although Blogger's video hosting size is seemingly unlimited, the 1 GB limit of the photo hosting can be overcome with Google.com's storage upgrades (which are shared across all Google services):
10 Gigabyte - $20 /yr
40 Gigabyte - $75 / yr
150 Gigabyte - $250 / yr
400 Gigabyte - $500 / yr

My take on this? First of all, I post all my videos to Youtube.com, so that's not an issue. Both sites allow inline linking of Youtube.com videos. Secondly, using other sites such as Flickr.com for the bulk of one's photos is much more reasonable. I will definately make use of the photo hosting on occasion, when I just want to include a random picture or two in my blog post. The free 1 GB from Blogger.com is ample for this, as is the 3GB from Wordpress.com. I will never use any of the paid upgrades, but if audio hosting were included free, I would occasionally use it.

Domain Name

Both sites give you a free 3rd level domain name for your blog. Blogger gives you http://yourblogname.blogspot.com, and Wordpress gives you http://yourblogname.wordpress.com.

Both hosts also allow the use of your top level domain (www.yourdomain.com).

Blogger.com offers this at no charge if you already have your domain name registered. It's a simple matter of setting up a CNAME record to point to google's servers, and your done. You can also set up Google Apps to have gmail host your domain's email. If you don't have your domain name purchased already, you can purchase it through Google for $10 / yr, and have it set up automatically (along with Google Apps).

Wordpress.com charges $10 / yr if you already have your domain registered elsewhere. You have to point to their DNS servers, which means you cannot use your domain for email as well (you have no control over your MX records). I'm suspicious that you could possibly get away with retaining your own DNS server and using a CNAME, but I can't confirm this.
You can also register a domain through them, at a cost of $15 / yr, but you'll still have to go without email.

Conclusion

I decided to go with Blogger.com for a number of reasons. The biggest reason for me was that I got all the features that I wanted from Blogger.com for free, whereas with Wordpress.com, i would be paying $25 / year. This is the best option for my particular uses, but is by no means the right option for everyone.