Monday, March 31, 2003
Sheesh, I thought winter was over!
Yeah, yeah, I know. I don’t need any punditry from you northerners who think it’s laughable that I feel as though I’m freezing my butt off with mid-40 temps this morning. But I can laugh at you any time your area gets hot and humid (it happens), and all you want to do is lay there and drip.
Comments: 2 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Raena -- March 31, 2003 08:28 PMPfft. When there's nothing but water between you and Antarctica, you'll know cold.
"Penguins and snow and ice!!"
• • •
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Have you ever noticed when you finally get a weekend to just relax (translation, I didn’t have any assignments/obligations laid on me), you still end up getting yourself involved in all sorts of tasks?
In spite of the fact that I spent most of today taking some photos of a couple houses a builder/friend of mine worked on to be used in a showcase brochure, and then helping another person (friend of a friend type of thing) get started migrating from his older Revision A iMac to his new 17" iMac (there’s still more to do…later this week), this has actually has been an enjoyable weekend. The point is, I agreed to these tasks because I knew I’d derive a bit of enjoyment from seeing these beautiful houses and from seeing yet another person experience the wonder that is Mac OS X.
There’s a lesson here. Even if they’re more laborious, I’ve proven to myself that self-imposed obligations are far less troublesome and daunting than employer-imposed obligations.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Movable Type gurus, please chime in.
What is causing pages in the administration pages to load up blank? I can’t find any rhyme or reason to when it happens. Sometimes the very first page I try to open won’t display. Other times, I’ll get through the menu page, then the window to add a new entry, but the page that displays after I click Preview comes up blank, or maybe I’ll get all the way through publishing an entry, but the screen that says my notification has been sent doesn’t appear.
I’m not the only one. I’ve followed a few threads on Movable Type’s support forum of people who have the same problem, but there are no solution suggestions.
There is opinion, however, that it could be something to do with a configuration problem in Apache servers.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Raena -- March 31, 2003 08:36 PMMy gut says something's up with caching on your web server.
My other gut says that there might be a KHTML-derived bug with pages that refresh, so if you're using Safari that might be something to do with it.
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Friday, March 28, 2003
Can You Hear Me Now? I Hope Not!
Listen—er, read—carefully. E-mail (or this blog, for that matter) does not explicitly convey someone’s tone of voice. For goodness sakes, before you beat someone over the head because you think that what they typed was done with a an unkind intent, make damn well sure that person was truly meaning to be unkind!
Sure, it’s one thing if I type in an e-mail, “I HATE YOU, YOU #)*#$!@) DORKWAD!!!” But if I type something like, “I don’t understand your question. Give me some more information so I can give you a decent answer,” those words do not, generally, mean that I think you’re an ignorant plebe. It just means, I didn’t understand your question. Tell me more.
While discussing this topic with fellow ATPM staff, one observation came out that conversing with written word is kind of an art form and that someone who is adept at language can actually convey tone of voice with just the written word.
Fine. When I’m writing a love letter, or a request for my office to let me buy something, or an article for publication, it is absolutely important to try to be clear with not just what you’re saying, but the tone in which you’re saying it.
However, as far as I care, e-mail is a natural venue for quick, informal conversation. It’s a way to get a word to someone who’s hard to catch by phone, a way to map out what you want to say so you don’t forget parts when you speak in person, or a way to get a word to someone you don’t want to talk to on the phone or in person. Don’t expect me to make absolutely certain that a sentence I type in e-mail has been carefully thought out so as to be impossible to be interpreted as me being pissed off.
If I’m pissed off, I assure you that I won’t leave it to an ambiguous sentence for you to infer my mood. I will let you know it.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Queue -- March 28, 2003 04:12 PMSarcasm is often read into people's spoken words. It's no wonder this carries over into reading e-mail.
• • •
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Nope, Iraq Had Nothing To Do With It
My God, this is completely unreal. I first heard about this listening to the Glenn Beck show on the radio. In today’s Picture of the Day box, his web site said:
“U.S. Marines searching Iraqi military headquarters in this southern city that was the site of intensive fighting came across a mural depicting a plane crashing into a building complex resembling New York’s twin towers…”The photo linked to a New York Post article, though the article oddly says nothing about the mural except in the caption to a much smaller version.
BTW—the photo’s credit is listed as Joe Raedle/Getty Images.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
This is just plain stupid. “Who knew buying a laser printer could be such a politically charged event?”
And I don’t know if it’s more or less stupid than the enormous number of people who still don’t know how to properly capitalize the name, eBay (check the headline).
Full Wired News story.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
CNN’s Web Site Induces “Shock & Awe”
Jeez, ain’t this the truth? I saw those CNN pages and wanted to back up about 10 feet!
(No punditry about the PC web browser graphic. I saw the image on the defective yeti site.)
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Sigh. Earlier this evening, I had something in mind I wanted to blog about, but I was a good boy and, instead, worked on the final touches of a Macromedia Studio MX review that is slated to appear in the April issue of About This Particular Macintosh. Now that I’ve finished, I can’t remember what I was planning to post.
Well, it’s not what I was originally thinking, but here’s something my friend, Andy, reminded me about—the Columbia’s recently located flight data recorder which was in surprisingly decent condition.
And now, it’s 11:40 p.m. and Bill Cosby is the guest host for David Letterman’s Late Show. You know what? Someone should offer Bill his own late show!
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Monday, March 24, 2003
Admittedly, it sort of snuck up on me that Mac OS X marked its second birthday today.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Too much moving and shaking going on—even with other companies. It’ll be a long time before I even remotely consider purchasing a digital video recorder.
Full Wired News story.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Queue -- March 25, 2003 09:37 AMI wonder if the GoVideo product line will get any better now that they're being bought out.
• • •
For once, a little good news to go along with the slime pit that is the music industry.
Full News.com story.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Panther to Officially Debut at WWDC
Though it was largely assumed to be the case, many are probably happy to hear Apple’s official announcement that the next generation of OS X, code named “Panther,” would be introduced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Allow me to make the observation that virtually all the other web sites I’ve seen that talk about Panther refer to it as OS X 10.3. Yet, Apple’s announcement says nothing of version numbers. While I’m sure there’s plenty of grounds beyond assumption that have the next version number assured, I’d be amused to see Panther come out as something like OS X 10.5. Indeed, Apple’s System Software version numbers have, thus far, a pretty good history of skipping from either .1 or .2 up to .5. System 6 only got up to 6.0.8; System 7 went from 7.1.2 to 7.5; and then we saw Mac OS 8 go from 8.1 to 8.5. (Yes, there was an 8.2, but it was just an internal development version in advance of 8.5.) I might as well also mention that OS 9 has capped at 9.2.2. Even if it is updated to work properly with Panther, it will probably only get bumped to 9.2.3 or (if tradition holds) 9.2.5.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Jon -- March 24, 2003 12:58 PMYea but this is NeXT style now. They used to do lots of updates and went roaring through the sub versions. Also, they don't want to speed up because the day when they reach 11 means a whole new ad campaign.
• • •
Rhymes in the Dubya/Saddam Debate Rap-off
A little Sunday morning topical humor for ya:
You epitomize evil, persecution and hate.
But at least you’ve got a name I can pronounciate.Sad-H is in the house, don’tcha mess with me,
Or I’ll aim my last missile at the D of C.You didn’t disarm, now it’s time to fight,
And I’ll rock your ass like I rock the mic.My armories and factories and cribs have all been checked,
But there’s a missile in my pants Barb and Jenna can inspect!I’m Saddam, got de chahm wit’ all o’ de ladies,
So don’t go bombin’ like Vietnam in the Tigris and Euphrates.I’m rappin’ to you with my main man, Powell,
And we won’t stop the jam till you throw in the towel.From Top5.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Apple Pulls Safari Seed Project
Should’ve seen this one coming. The very fact that even I have been able to give v67 a try demonstrates the leaks were pretty major.
Now, bear in mind that, at this point, this is the only web site I’ve seen mentioning this—and I’ve never previously known of this site. I imagine it’s reputable though—certainly no less reputable than mine! It is, after all, written by a Detroit Free Press columnist. In any case, MyAppleMenu pointed to it—a site which has an RSS feed that I follow.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Jon -- March 23, 2003 03:17 PMIt's true. I was just pissed that I decided to hold off on the screen caps until tonight and thinksecret posted em. Should not have hesitated :(
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Saturday, March 22, 2003
Isn’t This A Little Like Going Out To Get The Mail On Sundays?
I imagine that I (or, more accurately, my account) will probably be the newest laughable topic at the water cooler for some customer service reps at EarthLink. The guy I was talking to was incredibly amused at whatever he was seeing about my account on his computer screen.
Some years ago, I switched from my local ISP, Access Orlando, to EarthLink—mostly in anticipation of DSL access, but largely to also have national dial-up access. After a while of using Sprint DSL (with Earthlink as the ISP), and not being immensely satisfied, Time Warner Central Florida opened up their service to my area and, at the same time, had begun offering EarthLink as an ISP choice. I switched as soon as my DSL contract was over…which wasn’t very long afterward. I might also point out that, for reasons I won’t waste time with here, I modified my account name a few times when I was a dial-up and a DSL customer.
So, suffice to say, my account with EarthLink has gotten a bit of a workout. Tonight, I got an e-mail stating that my credit card that is associated with the account was about to expire and was asking for an update. To be truthful, the one they had on file was to expire this month, though it’s now got another three years on it. I had just never updated with EarthLink for an obvious reason—ever since I switched to broadband, I was no longer billed by EarthLink. Sprint, followed by Time Warner, handled it.
The reason the EarthLink rep seemed amused was that his computer revealed the EarthLink portion of my account has been billing me for $0 every month! Everything had been converted over properly when I went from dial-up to DSL to cable but, somehow, the monthly billing cycle hadn’t been flagged off. I never knew anything of it—until tonight, when the system tried to ask me to update my card information.
The EarthLink rep said I just made his day.
Good for him.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
I’ve just upgraded my Movable Type installation to version 2.63. Let me know if you see any problems resulting from it.
One problem I anticipated was my fix to unpad the anchor URLs in my e-mail notifications (i.e. blahblahURL/archive/file.html#123 instead of blahblahURL/archive/file.html#000123). I went to the CMS.prn file to re-correct it, but the syntax of the send_notify section seems to have changed in this version. If someone knows how to restore unpadded archive links in the e-mail notifications, please chime in.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Now that communicator-esque cell phones are firmly integrated into our lives (Nextel’s DirectConnect feature is about the closest similarity) and there is rather serious discussion on whether matter-energy transportation is possible (the IT manager at my office recently told me that scientists actually have transported inanimate matter, but couldn’t tell me if the matter was moved or duplicated), I’m now reading about yet another piece of Star Trek technology that’s being developed—today! Wired News recently carried an article about a vocal translation device being tested at the Office of Naval Research.
Undoubtedly, current events are probably forcing developers to focus on Arabic translation, but the universal translator-type functionality is sure to follow.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Queue -- March 22, 2003 04:45 PMNo doubt the translator will start out similiar to the one you see on the new show, Enterprise. Ineffective at time, takes a while to translate, etc.
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Friday, March 21, 2003
Optimus Prime Heads to Middle East
This one is probably only going to be meaningful to you if you used to watch the old Transformers television cartoon. Bryan, this one is for you!
Among the members who are preparing to go to the Middle East as the 5694th National Guard Unit, from Ohio, is one Optimus Prime! Yes, this guy legally changed his name to that of the fearless AutoBot leader of the popular 1980s cartoon.
(I don’t know if the first link in this entry will always work. I just went back to it and got a message: “A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed.” I wondered if it’s not possible to link to sub pages on the site, but when I navigated to it normally, it still didn’t work … so maybe it’s just temporary. If you can’t bring it up, and if you care (:-p) the main transformers.com page still loads for me, though it starts off with the recent (translation: lame) incarnation known as Transformers Armada.)
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
I stumbled across this Java-based game called Bridges and have never encountered anything quite like it. I’m getting addicted and haven’t even beaten it yet.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Bug? That’s Not A Bug. That’s A Feature!
Assuming there’s no reason for Apple to be misleading about the issue, I’m happy to have found this Knowledge Base article which explains why my G4 PowerBook often doesn’t reach 100% battery charge.
“The batteries used in these computers are designed to avoid short discharge/charge cycles in order to prolong the overall life of the battery. Because of this, when setting the Mac OS X battery status menu bar icon to display charge state by percentage, you may notice that the reported charge stays between 95 percent and 99 percent. When the battery level eventually drops below 95 percent, it will charge all the way to 100 percent.”In layman’s terms, this means that the battery is intentionally allowed to drain up to 5% (in a manner analogous to a period of nonuse) before firing up the charger. It seems reasonable that the more frequently you charge the battery—especially short cycles—the shorter the battery’s overall life will become. This “feature” keeps the trickle charge modes less frequent, prolonging the battery’s usability.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Punditry like this was inevitable.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Live From The Front Lines—UPDATED
I find it extremely amazing to be sitting here watching CNN and looking at live video of the 3rd Squadron of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment blasting through the southern Iraqi desert. It doesn’t seem like it’s been very long that satellite telephones have become somewhat affordable to use under particular circumstances. To now see live video pictures shot by someone bouncing around heavily in a support vehicle and fed through a video phone not tied to a land line, but streamed through a satellite line—I’m just really impressed.
Update—11:25pm: As much as I am intrigued by these pictures, I am equally as miffed at yet another example of journalistic stupidity. Both CNN and MSNBC are currently showing this live video. Admittedly, the pictures are from different cameras, but both networks have been displaying “exclusive” badges on the screen. HELLO!?
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Susan -- March 24, 2003 05:17 PMThe son of a friend from church is in this unit. 21 years old, married, with a 6 month old baby. The soldier's name is Jarrod.
• • •
Jon is keeping up a photo log of images pertaining to the military activities in Iraq. It appears he’ll be updating it periodically, so you can check back there from time to time. He’s also soliciting suggestions/submissions of photos.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
As Jon succinctly stated, here we go.
Among his search of resources was a blog from Baghdad. It might be a good one to follow over the next few days.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
This announcement could prove rather interesting.
Al Gore says, “I have been particularly impressed with the new Mac OS X operating system and the company’s commitment to the open-source movement. And I am especially looking forward to working with and learning from the great board members who have guided this legendary company’s inspiring resurgence.”
Full News.com story.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Bryan -- March 20, 2003 09:38 AMSo will Al Gore claim to have invented Apple?
• • •
Photographer For Hire?—UPDATED
Wow, I must be a photographer, or something! I just received a request from the South Carolina Rural Water Association to use one of my ATPM desktop wallpaper images on the cover of their upcoming annual membership directory, distributed to about 450 members.
This will make the third book cover that has utilized a photo I’ve submitted to ATPM as a desktop image. Plus, two other times, I was asked permission to use my U.S. Capital photo as screened backgrounds within electronic newsletters.
Before someone gets any ideas, the header for this entry was typed with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I’m happy to discuss the use of photos I’ve taken for personal reasons but, with few exceptions, I really don’t avail myself for contract photography.
Update—2:30pm: Well, perhaps I jumped the gun a little. I misunderstood the original e-mail request and SCRWA is at the stage now of choosing one of a final candidates for use on the cover. Mine is one of them. “In the event we choose another photo for the membership directory, we may want to use it on our website or in our quarterly magazine.” I suppose I understand that they have to know they have the photographer’s permission for all the final candidates before “the brass” chooses the one to go with.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
I’m making mention that Apple axed the CRT-wielding G3 iMac from its product list because I’ve referenced it to colleagues as a relatively decent Mac for a pretty low price. iBooks are now the only new G3 machines you can buy and, if you go with entry-level models, share the least-expensive-new-Mac pedestal with the G4 eMac.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
This news item is pretty hilarious, but my feelings are quite well echoed at the end of the story. Coke or Pepsi? I don’t care!
Thanks, Eric.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
25-step Guide To Building Web Pages
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)
- Download a piece of Web authoring software ≈ 20 minutes.
- Think about what you want to write on your Web page ≈ 6 weeks.
- Download the same piece of Web authoring software, because they have released 3 new versions since the first time you downloaded it ≈ 20 minutes.
- Decide to just steal some images and awards to put on your site ≈ 1 minute.
- Visit sites to find images and awards, find 5 of them that you like ≈ 4 days.
- Run setup of your Web authoring software. After it fails, download it again ≈ 25 minutes.
- Run setup again, boot the software, click all toolbar buttons to see what they do ≈ 15 minutes.
- View the source of others’ pages, steal some, change a few words here and there ≈ 4 hours.
- Preview your Web page using the Web Authoring software ≈ 1 minute.
- Try to horizontally line up two related images ≈ 6 hours.
- Remove one of the images ≈ 10 seconds.
- Set the text’s font color to the same color as your background, wonder why all your text is gone ≈ 4 hours.
- Download a counter from your ISP ≈ 4 minutes.
- Try to figure out why your counter reads “You are visitor number 16.3 E10” ≈ 3 hours.
- Put 4 blank lines between two lines of text ≈ 8 hours.
- Fine-tune the text, then prepare to load your Web page on your ISP ≈ 40 minutes.
- Accidentally delete your complete web page ≈ 1 second.
- Recreate your web page ≈ 2 days.
- Try to figure out how to load your Web page onto your ISP’s server ≈ 3 weeks.
- Call a patient friend to find out about FTP ≈ 30 minutes.
- Download FTP software ≈ 10 minutes.
- Call your friend again ≈ 15 minutes.
- Upload your web page to your ISP’s server ≈ 10 minutes.
- Connect to your site on the web ≈ 1 minute.
- Repeat any and all of the previous steps ≈ eternity
• • •
An old, bearded shepherd with a crooked staff walked up to a stone pulpit and said, “And lo, it came to pass that the trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg.
Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, “Why doth thou travel far, from town to town, with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?” And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, “How, Dear?” And Dot replied, “I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah’s Pony Stable (UPS).”
Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had, at the top price, without ever moving from his tent. But this success did arouse envy.
A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham’s drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young man did take to Dot Com’s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites, or NERDS for short.
And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only if you bought Brother Gates’ drumsticks.
And Dot did say, “Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others.” And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel or, as it came to be known, “eBay,” he said, “we need a name that reflects what we are,”
and Dot replied, “Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators.”“Whoopee!”, said Abraham.
“No, YAHOO!” said Dot Com. And that is how it all began.
(So, it wasn’t Al Gore after all!)
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
A new pastor moved into town and went out one day to visit his parishioners. All went well until he came to one house. It was obvious that someone was home, but no one came to the door even after he had knocked several times. Finally, he took out his card, wrote on the back “Revelation 3:20,” and stuck it in the door.
After the following church service, as he was counting the offering, the pastor found his card in the collection plate. Below his message was a notation of “Genesis 3:10.” Upon opening his Bible to the passage, his face turned red, and he let out a roar of laughter.
Revelation 3:20 reads: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”
Genesis 3:10 reads: “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked.”
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
I’ve already indicated that my brother comes up with some gems of blog items. His latest entry makes a pretty valid observation that no matter what the outcome of a war with Iraq, it’s quite likely that we’re going to see a lot of changes with the U.N.—if it doesn’t just evaporate altogether.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
I guess I never knew accountancy was a word. Regardless, Mac News Network is indicating Apple is preparing to take on a new challenge.
All I want to know is, what took them so long?
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Wil must have a really demented mind to find (and spend time at) sites like these.
Start with this page that makes your childhood fantasies of flying come true.
Once you’ve managed to “Raise da Roof,” head on over to the game of Trogdor where you will be lured into spending many hours stepping on peasants in exchange for the gratifying payoff of the ability to Burninate!
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Monday, March 17, 2003
There are a lot of great laughs to be had here.
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Wired News also has an article that touches on what I couldn’t express earlier. It’s true, if you want a really good journalistic take on how the U.S. is handling the situation, go read it from sites that don’t care if what they report slams on Bush’s tactics—go read foreign news sites.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Do Pay Phones Really Need New Life?
A Wired News story reports that we may start seeing new uses for pay phone booths.
First of all, people, forget about the charging station idea…as if I’m going to stand around a booth twiddling my thumbs for the time it takes to charge my cell phone long enough to get at least one good call out of its battery. Hello!? Cell phone power adapter/charger units are small enough to keep handy.
The Wi-Fi access point at booths, however, may seem like a good idea, but locations are going to have to be given careful consideration. The story correctly points out that most pay phone sites aren’t really in locations where people would be prone to plunking down and using their laptop.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Is it just me? Is giving Saddam a final 48 hours an earnest plea for him leave or face a military conflict at “a time of our choosing” or is it just schmooze to us Americans? Saddam isn’t going to do in 48 hours what he hasn’t done in countless years. Forget about the timed ultimatums and just go in and get the bastard.
Bush also said, “I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.” Exqueeze me? Isn’t this the type of thing a military leader says to try to scare his opponent when he knows he may be getting ready to fight a battle that isn’t going to turn out well for him?
Don’t misunderstand me, Bush is probably right. Knowing how things turned out during Desert Storm and knowing that Iraqis have already been surrendering without there even being a declaration of war on them yet—sure, Allied forces are likely going to go in there and totally kick ass. It just seemed to me like a pretty lame thing to do to suggest to Iraqi military that they should just not bother fighting.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Queue -- March 17, 2003 11:25 PMI think Bush's warning to the military is good strategy. The Iraqis know we can stomp them, and many of them have already expressed an interest in getting out. I'd say Bush made the perfect move to get as many of them to leave as possible.
• • •
Sunday, March 16, 2003
He Works, She Works, We All Scream for iWorks
I, for one, hope that the reports of yet another front that Apple is fighting to sever dependancies on Microsoft are true. There’s no reason to doubt them, for now.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
“I thought I was addicted to the Internet, but the therapist at psychobabble.com says it’s just a phase I’m going through.”
From Top5.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Long day. Short blog. I’m sleepy.
I will say this, though: I’m pretty impressed with the battery life on the digital camera I purchased. I’ve been playing around with it a lot this afternoon to see what it can do, intentionally trying to drain the batteries so I can charge them overnight and have a fresh set (I may be going to the MGM park, if the weather is decent). I shot and shot and shot. Even did a bunch of rapid-fire shots. I finally even resorted to setting to to take a movie file. At the lowest quality setting with no sound, it will record on a 32mb card for nearly 500 seconds. After the many test pictures I took (and erased), I let it do the long videos about 5-6 times before the batteries finally gave out. Suffice to say, I’m predicting great battery life under normal use. (This afternoon was, most assuredly, not normal use.)
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Friday, March 14, 2003
It’s a sad time for my family right now. My mother’s 13-year-old Cocker Spaniel, Princess, had to be put down yesterday. Besides being blind, partially deaf, and arthritic, she was developing advanced symptoms caused by a heart murmur and liver disease. It’s likely she also had cancer.
Little baby girl, you wiggle tail, you’ll be missed.
Princess Cassandra Lynn, III
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Born: January 31, 1990
Died: March 13, 2003• • •
Possibly hot on the heels of the “lunch tray” 17" PowerBook, it seems Apple may be announcing a 30" LCD Cinema Display sporting 2400x1500 resolution.
What kind of punditry does it speak when you can buy a computer display that’s bigger than a lot of people’s home television sets?
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Blog Queue Goes Movable—Author Celebrates Birthday
First things first—happy birthday to my brother, Bryan.
Now then, I’ve mentioned Bryan’s blog in the past. This is a pretty major update for him. He’s now using Movable Type. Granted, his ISP doesn’t permit CGI so he can’t run MT himself, but he’s piggybacking off my installation in a frameset, so his original domain will still work. Those of you who prefer to syndicate the blogs you follow, that’s available, too.
I’ve said it before—Bryan can come up with some great little gems on a variety of subjects. You won’t be bored with his brand of punditry! Head on over to the Blog Queue.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Whether you prefer to triple click, or your mousing skills are in good shape and you can aim, this text selection tip is a good one.
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Thursday, March 13, 2003
My Olympus C-5050 digital camera arrived today. By no special effort on my part, the 256mb xD Picture Card and xD to PCMCIA adapter I ordered from a different site (better price) arrived at the same time. This camera is splendid. I’m very pleased with it and hope to be more active with my digital photo albums in the future!
Thanks to Jeff who bought one a little while ago, prompting me to make good on my desire for a digital camera. After a bit of research on my own, I decided the model he chose was ideal for me, too.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Remind me never to buy Benetton clothes.
Full Wired story.
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For all you ’nix nerds out there:
% unzip
% strip
% touch
% grep
% finger
% mount
% fsck
% more
% yes
% unmount
% sleepThanks, Chris.
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Tuesday, March 11, 2003
MacMinute mentioned that Hilton hotels, Borders bookstores, and McDonald’s restaurants are going to start providing 802.11b access at selected (and hopefully increasing numbers of) locations. Cost wasn’t mentioned for Hilton or Borders, but McDonald’s plans to give one hour of access if you purchase a combo meal.
I’m still wondering whether Starbucks is going to make any profit from the for-fee wi-fi access some stores provide, and I don’t know why airports even bother. But I think McDonald’s has the right idea. (Best I can interpret, it seems my friend, Chris, disagrees.) I see nothing wrong in offering wi-fi access only to paying customers and not to drive-bys. I just don’t think there should be a separate fee for it.
I don’t have immediate plans to eat at McDonald’s any more, but other restaurants could offer something similar. I have my own broadband at home, so I’m not one to hang out at a restaurant just to use the internet and not eat anything. Thus, making a food purchase to get access isn’t a problem for me. Hotels could offer access to room occupants and people registered for current conventions/meetings that are taking place. I’m not really sure how bookstores could set it up. Hmm, perhaps you leave a $10 deposit which can be credited toward a purchase.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Queue -- March 12, 2003 11:21 PMInteresting you should say that about hotels. The last hotel I stayed at in Florida had Wi-Fi connections for $10 for 24 hours. Not bad, eh?
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As previously blogged, a movement had started to officially rename french fries as freedom fries.
Apparently, it’s now official.
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I guess people are getting increasingly comfortable (even if it’s a false sense of comfort) that they are anonymous on the internet. Either that, or they don’t care that, someday, someone might check them on their activities.
As I’ve mentioned before, my primary ATPM responsibility is cleaning up after the trash that sometimes gets left in comments on the site. I just deleted a comment which read, “could somebody please give me a real link on where to download the full version of sim tower for free, please? thanx ;D”
HELLO!!!?? As if ATPM is actually going to allow that comment to remain. I suppose maybe people just don’t realize the comments on ATPM are monitored.
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Dang! If you have any interest at all in Star Trek, let me suggest you take a few moments to do this personality test. I just went through it and I think it was dead on! I shouldn’t have to say, it is probably only going to be accurate if you answer honestly.
If you really must know, here are my results:
Myers-Briggs would say that you are an ISTJ (Introvert, Sensor, Thinker, Judger). In Star Trek language, you share a basic personality configuration with Spock and Miles O’Brien.People like you are generally logical, honest and upfront. You get impatient with phonies and people who are disorganized, though you keep your reactions to yourself, as you’re usually cautious and quiet, though not timid. Others find you reliable and will count on your being there in times of need. You make a loyal and responsible friend, though only when others remember that you’re conservative in nature.You’re literal, realistic, and practical. You’re a hard worker who does very well in highly detailed situations, as you’re careful and precise.You are also somewhat resistant to change and comfortable with routine. When change occurs, you’ll be the last one to fit it into your routine, but you’ll become an expert in time. You work much better to adapt to change when you see practical benefits.Your primary goal in life is to be of service and do your job well. Your best rewards are to be listened to and to be acknowledged for your hard work.Good careers for your type are operations officer, chief information officer, database administrator, police detective, and science officer.Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by taryn chekov -- February 17, 2004 09:55 PMthis shall be fun
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Oh god. And to think this thing costs nearly half the price of the PowerMate it’s designed to hold.
Listen, I have a PowerMate and love it. I’m absolutely positive I wouldn’t find it as useful if it was raised up a half an inch on this pedestal.
Thanks, Jon.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Bryan -- March 11, 2003 10:57 AMI can't believe they're getting away with charging $20 for a piece of clear plastic. Where can I jump on this bandwagon?!?!
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I’ve already blogged the wonder that is PerversionTracker. Mostly for my own amusement and reminder, I simply had to take note at one of PT’s better analogies used to describe the perverse software it tracks. Where does this guy get his material! Hah.
“As useless as a yodeling ferret on a boogie board in the Serengeti.”
As I was typing this entry, Jon and I were discussing PerversionTracker. I’ve come to the conclusion that, in spite of my previously noted glee in reading the entries, PerversionTracker is starting to sound a bit like a broken record. It seems like everything lately is just a whack at a piece of REALbasic junk. I think PerversionTracker would start being a joy to read again if it simply had a blanket statement at the top of every page saying if it’s REALbasic, it’s too perverse even for this site. Then, start tracking nonREALbasic perversity.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Oh crap. I feel like Ellen Feiss. I finished typing up this blog entry and was in the preview window, then, in my infinite stupidity, closed the browser window before saving it. Uhg! So, the re-write, below, probably isn’t going to be as good.
Anyway, I’m still happy about what I was trying to blog about. Palm Computing has finally introduced the Palm Tungsten|W which will make use of AT&T Wireless as its carrier—my preferred service.
At $549, its price isn’t too bad, but it’ll likely be a few months before I pick one up. Naturally, this gives an amount of time for all the “early buyers” to find out all the quirks with it first, possibly resulting in an updated model by the time I purchase one. But the real reason I’m waiting is that I just last night ordered an Olympus C-5050 digital camera, and I can’t justify several hundred dollars for a new gadget until probably late summer.
Thanks, Jon, for finding out about this!
(Okay, Lee, hit the frickin’ Save button this time!)
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Monday, March 10, 2003
After several days of inactivity, my brother posted a few new entries today on his blog. Particularly interesting is his Fiber To The People entry.
By the way, he’ll soon be blogging through my Movable Type installation (his web host doesn’t allow the resources he needs to blog effectively). Once he switches, not only will his entries be syndicated for those of you who’d prefer to read that way, he’ll also be inclined to blog more often since MT makes it easier for him to do so.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Now That’s What I Call A Fanatic
Before the next person calls me a fanatic about Apple just because I have a license plate that reads MAC-USER, measure my fanaticism against this guy!
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Saturday, March 08, 2003
From Top 5:
“I like to look on the bright side. Every day, I beat my own previous record for number of consecutive days I’ve stayed alive.”Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
I just came across a pretty fascinating story about an internet-enabled bus on the BBC News site.
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The previously blogged experience notwithstanding, any trip to an Apple Store tends to be a fun trip. Even more so when you meet up with friends. Hi to Ellyn Ritterskamp—fellow ATPM staffer—whom I met for the first time tonight at the Orlando Apple Store.
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A Diamond in the Rough—UPDATED
At least there’s one person who’s a smarter-than-the-average-automaton military officer. I’d be curious to know what sort of apps the guy is running, since you know the Army’s IT department isn’t writing Mac software.
Update—3/10/03: Chris took a bit of exception with my wording, above, so I decided to clarify. What I meant to say was that someone in the military was headstrong enough to go through the effort of acquiring a Macintosh. I didn’t mean to implicitly say that military personnel tend to be automatons. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. I just don’t imagine we’re going to hear many more stories like this one where someone takes the effort to go against the grain of armed forces tradition and standard procedure.
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Friday, March 07, 2003
StarOffice Trial Edition Coming
This is good news. Even better news would be if it’s developed for Mac OS X, but even if it sticks with Windows/Linux/Solaris, it’s still one more good whack at Microsoft—the goal being to knock it on its monopolistic ass.
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Fast Enough to Catch Up To Itself
I just came across this News.com page that reports:
“Last November, a team of scientists broke the world record for transcontinental data transfer, sending two DVDs worth of data from Sunnyvale, Calif. to Amsterdam in less than a minute. That’s 6.7 gigabytes of data, traveling more than 6,800 miles at an average speed of 923 megabits per second, or more than 3,500 times faster than a typical home broadband connection.”Just for the sake of interest, I was amused when I scrolled a bit lower on this page and read a blurb about the most recent iMacs sporting Sony-manufactured SuperDrives that should be capable of writing both DVD-R and DVD+R, but only do DVD-R. I’d seen this story before and didn’t pay it much attention, but the headline of this one gave me a chuckle.
(DVD+R)+(DVD-R)-(DVD+R)=DVD-R
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This is a nifty little math puzzle-like thing I saw mentioned on Surfin’ Safari.
I suppose I should consider myself a pretty smart dude for figuring out how it works. I’ll tell you, but I’ll put it into a comment for this entry, so as not to immediately spoil the fun.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Lee Bennett -- March 7, 2003 12:58 AMThis puzzle is a pretty spiffy mix of both mathmatical fun as well as ShockWave programming cleverness.
The number you come up with will always be a multiple of 9. All of the numbers in the table that are a multiple of 9 have the same symbol which, of course, the crystal ball will display when you click on it. The real clever part is that every time you go back to try it again, the symbols for just those numbers that are multiples of 9 change to a different symbol.
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Apple updated iMovie to version 3.02 today via the Software Update panel.
I have a feeling this update isn’t going to be of much use to me. I haven’t found much description from Apple on what this update does, other than “improved performance and stability.” Well, jeez, is that not basically the general purpose of any software update?
While a MacRumors forum is full of posts of largely satisfied people, a post on VersionTracker states, “iMovie 3.0.2 remains completely useless for me. [The] video runs ahead of the playhead while audio remains synchronized, even when the movie isn’t playing, getting ahead of the timeline by thirty frames every six minutes of movie time.”
Yep, this is exactly what I’ve been experiencing. Is there a fix?
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Thursday, March 06, 2003
You Can’t Make a Monkey Out of Us
Well, duh!
Full Wired News article.
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Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Kottke.org reported on a Clay student who is “compiling a catalog of ‘early popular web culture.’”
Bringing some of these items back to conscious thought it pretty trippy!
Do you remember the dancing baby? URouLette? How about the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe or the Hampster Dance? And, of course, we all remember the day we actually reached the last page of the internet!
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
My buddy Chris blogged a couple of great items this evening.
First up, a story that sheds a whole new light on the concept behind taxation in the United States. I do not claim to understand much about our country’s taxing system, but if it’s anything like this tale, I’ll never complain about the rich getting unfair tax breaks ever again.
In the “ooo, neato” department, the world’s smallest combination lock has been developed. Each gear is only 300 microns across. That’s one one-hundredth of an inch, or three tenths of a millimeter.
Finally, moving over to the “why?” room, $20 bills are going to start showing up in rainbow colors. Is it just me, or has someone in the U.S. Treasury been doing a little too much “LDS?”
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Tuesday, March 04, 2003
Browsers in the Hands of an Angry God
Yes, okay, I swiped this gem from PerversionTracker. It was too good to pass up.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)
- And the STEVE spake unto Avi and to Hyatt, saying unto them,
- Speak unto the children of Apple, saying, These are the browsers which ye shall use among all the software that are on the earth.
- Whatsoever implementeth the tabs, and render the text, and render the CSS, among the browsers, that shall ye use.
- Nevertheless these shall ye not use of them that render the text, or of them that implement the tab: as the Lynx, because he render the text, but implementeth not the tabs, nor render the CSS; he is unclean unto you.
- And the Internet Explorer, because he render the text, but implementeth not the tab, and render not the CSS; he is unclean unto you.
- And the iCab, because he render the text, but implementeth not the tab, and render not the CSS; he is unclean unto you.
- And the Opera, though he implement the tab, and render the text, yet he render not the CSS and he creepeth on the page loading; he is unclean to you.
- Of their code shall ye not use, and their executable shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.
- These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the page loading; the Netscape 4.x, and the OmniWeb, and the WebDesktop after his kind.
- And upon whatsoever any of them, when they crash, doth fall, it shall be unclean; whether it be any disk, or CD, or server, or tape, whatsoever storage it be, wherein any work is done, it must be erased, and it shall be unclean until the even; so it shall be cleansed.
- And if any browser, of which ye may use, <blink>; he that toucheth the executable thereof shall be unclean until the even.
- For I am the STEVE your CEO: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping browser that creepeth upon the page loading.
- For I am the STEVE that bringeth you up out of the land of Windows, to be your CEO: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
- This is the law of the browsers, and of the software, and of every application that runneth on the client, and of every application that loadeth upon the server:
- To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the browser that may be used and the browser that may not be used.
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The “Butcher of Song” is now OS X-native, complete with a PerversionTracker rating of 9.4.
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Oh bother! How the hell are we going to ever convince people that HTML formatting should stay on the web and e-mail should stay ASCII only when conglomerates like Earthlink are sending out asinine tips like this one suggesting people “have more creative communications” by using HTML formatting in their e-mails?
Hey, Earthlink big shots; it’s bad enough you guys decided to change your weekly newsletter to HTML format. I don’t need clueless internet newbie plebes sending me e-mail messages that are several tens of kilobytes bigger than they need to be just because they want to type the word “love” in red!
And while I’m hollering at you, if you’re going to talk about using HTML formatting in e-mail for the slightly more redeeming purpose of being able to type foreign characters, at least show the intelligence to properly identify that “the ‘c’ in français” is called a cedilla and “the two little dots over the ‘a’ in doppelgänger” is called an umlaut!
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Monday, March 03, 2003
CD-R media is between 30 to 40 cents per disc if you just pick up a spindle at a local computer shop. If you dig around the internet for deals and rebates, they can be had for just pennies a disc.
So how does one put an end to the feeling of being gypped when the rare disc fails to burn and is rendered useless?
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Sunday, March 02, 2003
The next time you’re considering hiring a professional entertainer for your event, consider checking out Ed Leto. As I said in the previous entry about Sea World, I met Ed (and Faye, his wife) a little while ago and got to know them better today.
Ed is a fantastic variety entertainer, was trained at the former Ringling Bro. & Barnum and Bailey Circus Clown College, and also trains new performers who are starting their career.
Props to you, Ed!
Comments: 2 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by chris -- March 3, 2003 01:05 PMAsk Ed if he knows a clown named Sweet Pea, from Baton Rouge, LA. That's my aunt, who, I believe, has *taught* at Clown College...
Posted by Ed Leto -- September 11, 2003 06:11 PMIt's been 8 years since clown college. The name rings a bell but I honestly don't remember.
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Wow, anyone been to Sea World Orlando lately? It’s a lot different from what I remember. Unfortunately, a lot of what’s new is various vendor sites littered throughout the park—especially near the entrance/exit. But beyond that, even the general feel of walking around the park is new, and the entire southwest side of the ski lake is totally blocked off for a lot of new construction, so there’s even more to come.
It was a nice day for the park, today. Cloudy, and it did rain twice, but the timing was great. The first time, we were under a pavilion for lunch, and the second time, we were inside the Wild Arctic attraction.
Today’s trip was an office outing, so coworkers were seen off and on all day long. Probably the best thing about this is that Sea World has a special on where an additional $10 on top of the ticket price converted my ticket to a pass that’s good until December 31. Since the office paid for the pass, I only had to come up with the $10 and can now go back any time I want this year.
Of course, best of all, I got to spend the day with some of my best friends, Rosa, Juan, and Jeff, and also got to know better some new friends I met a while ago, Ed and Faye. What Ed does for a living is getting a blog entry of its own, so stay tuned…
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The March 2003 issue of About This Particular Macintosh has been published.
Comments: 1 (Comments are now closed.)Posted by Jon -- March 2, 2003 10:07 PMSound the cannons. Another good issue as always.
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Saturday, March 01, 2003
This entry is largely for my own benefit—something I can search back for if I ever need to (hey, I’ve seen other bloggers do it, so I feel justified). However, I would be totally thrilled if anyone else learns something new out of this, too.
I came across a MacDevCenter entry that discussed various methods of screen snapshots. I had previously been certain it was possible to take a snapshot of just a single window object in OS X but couldn’t, for the life of me, remember how to do it. This article, among other neat tricks, reminded me that to do so, you start with the Command-Shift-4 technique of capturing a boxed selection, and then tapping the space bar to get a camera icon that will grab whatever window it is hovering over. Pretty neat.
Comments: 0 (Comments are now closed.)• • •
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© 2003-2004
A. Lee Bennett, Jr.
http://www.dtpbylee.com/blog/
One of the things that consistently amused me during my short stint in Miami was all the heavy jackets that would come out when the temperature dropped below 60.
By the way, it was snowing when I woke up this morning.