BlogAid

From Andy Budd’s BlogAid:

You can help the victims of this terrible natural disaster by pledging the proceeds of any advertising or affiliate schemes you have on your site for the month of January to your country’s Tsunami Earthquake appeal.

What a great idea. This is a no-brainer for me and I’m pretty sure most webloggers feel the same; this project has the potential to raise a lot of money. Good luck Andy.

Top five (individual) weblogs

I’m occassionaly asked whose sites I read and which I most enjoy. My response usually involves a pointer back to my links page and/or my OPML file, which contains the addresses for all of the feeds I read each day. For those that don’t want to work your way though my admittedly long and somewhat eclectic list, I present to you my top five personal websites:

John Gruber

If you have a Mac and a single nerd bone in your body then there is a good chance you’ve read this site. John has a wonderful way with words and consistently writes interesting and compelling articles pertaining to “Mac nerdery.” His writing sometimes walks a fine line between flowery description and superfluous overkill, but he always seems to pull it around and make clear his point.

Jason Kottke

Let’s face it, when it comes to weblogging, Jason is the man. He’s been doing this for a very long time and is constantly bringing something new to his site and the medium. What is more is that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt someone was as “like” me as Jason seems to be — it’s absolutely uncanny how his posts sometimes read how I think.

Russell Beattie

Russ is me, squared — he takes my gadget passion to a whole new level (at least as far as mobile phones go; just wait until I have money Russ  :P). I think what I like most about him is the fact that he absolutely holds no punches — he’s going to tell you exactly how he feels whether he’s talking about the latest Symbian OS or the dingbat we currently call president.

Rui Carmo

There is no question that Rui is the most prolific writer of the bunch and I sometimes wonder how he has time work on his “day job.” One needs to look no further than his index to feel compelled to write about something, anything. He has a great grasp of “tech,” and like Russ above, has no problem telling you exactly what’s on his mind.

Dunstan Orchard

As I’ve said to many people (and probably even to Dunstan at some point), this is one of the best looking sites I’ve ever seen — his attention to detail is truly inspiring. Beyond the dynamic cartoon weather headers, the site is rich with content, not the least of which are his gorgeous photos (which he seems to be posting more frequently).

Soliciting comments on the Belkin TuneBase FM

I recently got an iPod mini for the strict purpose of using it in my car (and on flights) to sample new music. I’m looking very seriously at the Belkin TuneBase FM for iPod mini and am pretty sure that quite a few readers of this site already have one. I’d appreciate any information you guys could give me. I played around with an iTrip on my 2G iPod a couple of years ago and was very disappointed — hopefully Belkin has made some progress in this space.

Dear busy

We’ve had a good run and it pains me to say this, but I’m afraid you just don’t do it for me anymore. I need a new word; something that better describes the way I feel; something more accurate; a word that, when used to rebut friendly fire, provokes understanding and acceptance.

But, until I find that perfect word, it’s you and me baby.

IOGEAR Bluetooth Mini Mouse

A couple of weeks ago I purchased IOGEAR’s Bluetooth Mini Mouse and have been rather pleased with it so far. This is my third Bluetooth mouse and while the first (Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer) was just horrible, the second (Logitech MX900) wasn’t that bad, thus the obvious question of why I got another mouse. Beyond my usual urge to get the newest [insert gadget here], the only real impetus behind me getting the third one was size (and resolution).

Admittedly, the “Mini” part of the name is not a misnomer — this thing is tiny, but despite its stature the mouse is packed with features, a lot of which its much larger competition is missing. The feature that initially drew me to the mouse was the fact that you can charge it while using it. A USB 2.0 cable plugs into the front of the mouse and charges the rechargeable batteries while you work (or don’t). The fact that there’s no cradle makes it very portable and eviscerates the need to worry about whether the batteries are going to go dead; simply pop the cable into your bag and you’re set. It also has an on/off switch so that you aren’t wasting the batteries when not using it. While this might seem like an obvious feature, my first two Bluetooth mice were without it.

I should also mention that the mouse has 800 dpi resolution and can reach up to 66ft (instead of the usual ~30); why one would need the extra distance is beyond me, but you never know.

Road Tools PodiumPad

A few months ago I ‘reviewed’ the iLap and pointed out some problems I was having with it. I recently bought something similar, a Road Tools PodiumPad, and while it doesn’t work very well as a “lap rest” (not that it was designed for that), it is perfect for raising the height of your notebook to a more comfortable reading/typing level. It’s incredibly sturdy and there’s no noticeable movement as you pound away at the keyboard.

The same rubber is used throughout (both on the bottom of the pad and on the parts that touch the bottom of your notebook) and it’s very sticky — your notebook is not going to slide off. I mention this because the iLap would, depending on temperature, allow the PowerBook to slide right off the front of it; as the weather got colder the rubber feet on the bottom of the PowerBook became less apt to ’stick’ to the aluminum iLap.

One very useful feature of the PodiumPad is that it can swivel 360°, which allows you to easily show others what you’re looking at and to move the notebook slightly to the left or right as you change seating positions.

As odd as this may seem, I really have nothing negative to say about it. It would be nice if there was an attachment that you could use for your lap, but, outside of that, I’m pretty pleased.

One more week

I feel like I’ve been neglecting this site some lately. My time is being stretched incredibly thin between a certain someone and law school finals. As soon as exams are over, I should be back to my normal posting routine and will start replying to the growing mountain of ‘non-pressing’ e-mail.

As you were.

Sharing TiVo data

There should be a way for me to share my TiVo “schedule” with other users. For instance, I’m headed back to Florida pretty soon for xmas break and I’d like my dad’s TiVo to record all the shows that my TiVo will be grabbing while I’m away (so I can watch them at his house and not have to wait until I return to California).

Here’s how I think the process should work:

1. X makes a request, through TiVo.com, of Y’s schedule
2. TiVo sends Y an e-mail asking for authorization to share the schedule
3. Y authorizes (or doesn’t)
4. TiVo alerts X that Y’s schedule is now available
5. TiVo automagically puts Y’s schedule on X’s TiVo
6. TiVo adds all of Y’s shows (that don’t conflict with X’s) to the “to-do” list
7. TiVo walks X through the conflicts and lets him configure accordingly
8. TiVo allows X, at any time, to remove all shows added from Y’s schedule

Simple, right? Right. In fact, the initial request should allow X to specify whether the schedule should be mirrored or if the shows should be recorded only on Y’s TiVo until X decides to have his TiVo start recording them again.

Forgive my ignorance if this can already be done, but I’m pretty sure it can’t (at least not through a method as simple as the one outlined above).

I’ve got reservations

How can I convince you it’s me I don’t like
And not be so indifferent to the look in your eyes
When I’ve always been distant
And I’ve always told lies for love

I’m bound by these choices so hard to make
I’m bound by the feeling so easy to fake
None of this is real enough to take me from you

Oh I’ve got reservations
About so many things
But not about you

I know this isn’t what you were wanting me to say
How can I get closer and be further away
From the truth that proves it’s beautiful to lie

I’ve got reservations
About so many things
But not about you
I’ve reservations
About so many things
But not about you
Not about you
Not about you
Not about you
Not about you

From Wilco’s Reservations

“Lots of Robots” redux

A few days ago a reader informed me that Andy Murdoch had released volume two of his Lots of Robots movie. This second installment is a continuation of the first and I suggest that you just watch the work in its entirety. Quoting from my previous post on volume one (almost two years ago, damn):

Andy Murdock’s Lots of Robots is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. As you watch the video, stay cognizant of the fact that this guy did everything himself: the story, the writing, the music, and all of the animation. Wow.

Nothing’s changed. Enjoy.

Before the Internet

By Dave(?)

Google Hacks

A few months ago Rael Dornfest asked me if I would like to contribute to the second edition of the Google Hacks book he writes for O’reilly (he’s actually in charge of the entire “hacks” series). More specifically, he wanted my input and knowledge as it pertained to Gmail, because there was going to be an entire chapter devoted to the webmail service in the new book.

After doing quite a bit of research I organized my ideas and findings and gave Rael everything I had come up with. A few days after I submitted my work, he asked if I would like to be the technical editor on the book. I of course jumped at the opportunity and really appreciated being asked to take on the task. I’ll admit, it got a little hairy there for a while trying to juggle my commitment to the book with law school and interviewing and this site and… you get the idea. Notwithstanding the time crunch, I would do it all over again and am actually in the process of making that happen.

That said, go out and buy the book — I thought I knew a lot about Google, but after poring over this book from cover to cover I realized that I was quite ignorant (not anymore!). Word from the top is that it should be on shelves by the end of the year.

Kenyon & Kenyon

After nearly two months of interviewing and “hobnobbing,” I’ve accepted a summer associate position at Kenyon & Kenyon. To try and relay my excitement and relief here would be an exercise in futility, so I’ll simply state that I’m excited and relieved and will let you qualify those adjectives with whatever order of magnitude your imagination can come up with (you’ll likely still fall short).   :)

Not for nothing, but I genuinely feel that I could not have found a firm more in line with my interests and long-term goals. They’ve gone out of their way to make me feel wanted and I’m extremely appreciative of being given the opportunity to work there. It should be a great summer and I’m very much looking forward to making the most it.

Browser session restoration on Mac OS X

There is one very specific thing that my browser must be able to do: restore my session (tabs and windows) upon browser quit/crash. It never ceases to amaze me, and moreso as the years march on, how few browsers actually have this ability. The only browsers I’m aware of that offer this natively are Opera (for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X) and OmniWeb 5 for Mac OS X. That’s it! I don’t get it, but I digress as I’ve complained about this many, many times in the past and more of the same drivel now isn’t going to change anything. It’s apparent that the masses don’t want, or rather, don’t realize that they need, this option. Where I can’t live without it, it seems that most don’t even know to want it, but that goes back to my argument that 99% of the population seems to be apathetic to the fact that they’re inefficient (which is fine *shrug*).

I’ve wanted to use Safari since it burst onto the scene, and for a very short time I did, but there was that nagging problem of not being able to restore my session when something went awry (you’d probably tell me “nagging problem” was too weak a description if you were sitting next to me and saw me lose all of my open tabs). Let there be no question, Safari is a great browser, but it couldn’t do the one required task that I needed (it can now; read on).

There are a few solutions under Mac OS X, but most have deal-breaking disadvantages (at least for me).

OmniWeb 5, which I actually put in my Required OS X Programs list earlier this year, and which John Gruber wrote a great review for, probably has the best implementation of session restoration that I’ve ever seen. Hell, the browser itself is one of the best I’ve ever used, but I just couldn’t bring myself to shell out $30 for it (a reasonable price, but with cheaper solutions available it went to the bottom of my list).

Another option for Mac OS X is Mozilla Firefox. I love Firefox and I have used it through all of its various versions and name changes since the very beginning many years ago. As you might have guessed, Firefox doesn’t restore tabs, though through extensions the capability is there. For the last few months I’ve been forced to use Firefox v0.8 even though they have been releasing newer versions for a while (including the big 1.0!). The reason for this inability to upgrade is simple: the SessionSaver extension that restores tabs for Mac OS X will only work in Firefox ≤ v0.8. The extension is excellent and really does a great job, but I don’t like the fact that I’m stuck in an “older” browser and I’m pretty sure that development has stopped entirely on the extension. Yes, there are other extensions that will do the same thing, but they don’t work quite right in Mac OS X. Take Tabbrowser Extensions for example. This plugin is perfect if you are using Firefox in Windows, but it has never worked correctly in Mac OS X. I check every new version, but it’s always the same story — “Last tabs don’t reopen at next startup in Mac OS X” — this has been the case for at least a year.

Sick of being stuck in v0.8 of Firefox, I started to look for other solutions. I heard about various AppleScripts that could essentially do what I wanted within Safari, but these required manual save and restore actions on the part of the user. So, not only does it require the user to remember to save/restore at quit/shutdown, it does nothing for the user who accidently quits the browser or who’s computer/browser crashes.

Another, ultimately equally useless option, is Safari Helper. While a decent program, it exists completely separate from Safari itself and requires the same manual interaction I was just talking about.

Despite the ostensible lack of solutions, there is actually one little program out there that does the trick. Saft for Safari is the best thing I’ve found for session restoration on Mac OS X, and it also offers quite a few other neat features to boot. I really put this “plugin” to the test before I actually bought it, and have yet to have a single problem with it — it handles tab/window restoration wonderfully. Notwithstanding the fact that I really don’t use any of its other functions, I paid my $10 with no real trepidation because it does exactly what I need and has made Safari usable for me.

California snow

The True Story of Audion

After reading this story and posting it to my Bits section, I came across John Gruber’s take on it, and instead of typing up something similar I figured I’d just steal from him.

Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing I’d post to the Linked List, but it’s simply too good — extraordinarily, wonderfully good — and thus deserves your full attention.

Get yourself a lovely beverage, disconnect the phone, quit your IM client, and enjoy The True Story of Audion, by Cabel Sasser of Panic Software. One of the greatest Mac stories I’ve ever read. Joyous, exciting, heartbreaking. Note: most of the links are pop-up footnotes; don’t skip them.

Seriously, read this. You’ll thank me. Plus, there will be a quiz next week.

Favorite photos

I’ve just spent quite a while going through my photo collection and pulling out the pictures that I like most. I’ve put these into a new photo set I’m going to call Personal Favorites and will update it as new photos are shot (they’ll be put into the front of the set). You’ll notice that quite a few of these are not in any of the previous sets I’ve put up. Please keep in mind that all of the photos in the set were taken with a Canon PowerShot S30, which I’ve had for three years now!

On a related note, I’ve decided that I’m going to get a digital SLR as soon as I can — I’ve put it off for way too long. They’ve really started to come down in price and I have my eye on two models in particular, the Canon EOS 10D Digital and the Canon EOS Digital Rebel (300D) (now available with an all-black body). As far as I’m concerned, the main difference between the two is price. The 10D and the Rebel have the same CMOS sensor and essentially have the same firmware, but the Rebel’s is slightly crippled (though you can get back some of the functionality through a firmware ‘hack’). The Rebel ships with a lens, but the 10D does not (and the lens I want is ~$450!). The best part about the Rebel is that it takes the same lenses as all of the higher-end Canon SLRs (Canon’s EF lens lineup; I think there are now more than 50 available lenses). So, the way I see it, if I were to get the much cheaper Rebel (when you take the included lens into account) and then outfit it over time with the lenses that I want, those lenses would work on any future [Canon] SLR that I might get. Seems like an easy choice if you ask me, but if you feel that there’s something I’m missing here please let me know.

Bay Area Events

For whatever reason I thought I already mentioned this here, but apparently not. For the last six months or so I’ve been subscribed to the Bay Area Events syndication feed. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area I strongly encourage you to take a look at the site. Every Friday it lays out the goings-on in the Bay Area for that weekend. It first lists the events that are going on all weekend and then lists those activities that are taking place on a particular day. Next to each listed event is a “$$$” label (if it isn’t free), a short description, and/or a link to the relevant site. It’s a great resource.

Are you kidding me?

Shame on you America. Shame on you.

I just came across Todd Dominey’s post, and I might as well have written it myself. A couple of excerpts:

With the exception of the political cartoons, movies, and endorsements linked in my side bar, I resisted the urge to personally write about it. And I could have written plenty — the race had consumed nearly all my attention and energy, not to mention conversations among friends, family and coworkers. It permeated nearly every nook and cranny of my day to day life, and despite the outcome, I’m quietly thrilled to have it all back.

I strongly feel Bush doesn’t deserve another four years, and I would bet there are plenty of Bush voters who would privately admit the same. But there were clearly more powerful forces at play — most notably morality, religion, and fear — that not only solidified Bush’s base, but brought them out in record numbers.

On why I don’t allow comments

I’m often asked why I don’t allow comments on this site. The short and simple answer is that I just don’t have time to moderate them. There’s no way I could let them go unmoderated and so to keep up with them would be more than I could handle. That, together with comment spam and the fact that I would have to reply to any question/comment directed towards me (I can’t help it), would be too much. I might open the site up to discussion in the future, but I doubt it as I seem to be getting exponentially busier as the years march on.

Please America, re-defeat Bush

I’ve moved to Dreamhost

After being made aware of the great deal going on over at DreamHost, I couldn’t resist moving my site (from Apollo) to their service. The entire transition took less than 36 hours and now, save a few DNS hiccups in various parts of the world, everything is as it should be. I don’t want to tout DreamHost too much just yet as I’ve only been using them for a few days, but I can say that I have nothing to complain about so far (which is rare). The following are just a few of the options I’m getting for $19.95/month:

• 2.5GB of space
• 64GB bandwidth/month
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Access to raw log files
• 75 sub-domains
• …plus all the obligatory usuals like SSH, multiple server-side spam-filtering options, mod_rewrite, etc

If you end up getting an account with them, please do mention me, jblanton, as the referrer (their referral policy is great; you hear that Apple?).

I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all the bases, but if you notice that something is broken please let me know.

Stuck in the middle

I’m currently in the process of moving justinblanton.com to a new hosting provider and so access to this site will likely be limited until the DNS changes fully propagate and I get all of the CMS stuff setup on the new server.

As you were.

Quicksilver iTunes plugin

I just wanted to make sure all you Quicksilver users out there were aware of the ability, through the iTunes plugin, for you to have the name of the artist, the song name, and the album art displayed on top of whatever you’re doing each time a new track starts. I can’t begin to tell you how brilliant this is for someone like me. I often put all of the albums on shuffle and I like to know the name of the song and the artist as soon as I cut to the next track (using Quicksilver of course) without having to bring iTunes to the forefront.

Before this plugin I used iTunes Track, which is actually quite nice and provides customizable transparency levels and the ability to specify both the size and color of the display window. Until just recently though, it failed to update the song information unless you used iTunes Track itself to change the song. That’s since been fixed and you can now set the rate at which you want it to update, but the software still doesn’t display the album art. The iTunes plugin for Quicksilver handles this wonderfully by displaying the album art on top of the artist and song name in the middle of your screen for approximately two seconds each time a new song begins playing. Couple this plugin with Fetch Art (an AppleScript that connects to Amazon and pulls down the album art for every song in your collection) and you’re set.

TiVo… finally

After years (literally!) of putting it off, I finally purchased a TiVo about two weeks ago. People that know me couldn’t quite understand how I could be without the technology, and frankly, given my propensity to watch anything and everything under the sun, I can’t say that their disbelief wasn’t well-founded. Despite my [ir]rational holdout, the service hasn’t completely eluded me the past few years; my dad has had it for quite a while (and has seen it through many variations, including the current 250GB HDTV model) and every time I came home from college I swore I was going to get one.

There were two reasons why I held out for so long. The first is that I don’t have a phone line; for the longest time TiVo required you to have a phone line for the initial setup. With the introduction of the “Series2″ devices, ethernet adapters (wired and wireless) could be plugged into the USB ports on the back of the box and used for service calls, but you were still required to have a phone line for the initial setup (this is no longer the case; see below). The other reason I waited so long was because Comcast kept telling me that they would be offering DVR services “soon.” “Soon” has turned into a year and a half of empty promises — you’d think that Silicon Valley might be where they’d like to rollout their new services, but apparently not. So, yah, that’s ~$15/mo they’ll never see from me.

My machine is a Series2 box running v4.0+ of the operating system; this version allows you to not only do all service calls over your broadband network, but the initial setup can also be done over the network (read: without a phone line). I first tried to get on the network using a very old Netgear USB-to-ethernet adapter I had lying around, but the TiVo didn’t recognize it and so I bought a cheap Netgear 802.11b wireless USB adapter. After inserting the adapter, rebooting, and setting up the machine to get on my wireless network (completely mindless), I was in business and immediately began to connect to the TiVo service and pull down channel information. Brilliant.

As usual, I do have some mild complaints. The first, and this is something we’ve been hearing for years, is that the TiVo “Suggestions” service is broken. My TiVo is constantly recommending (read: recording when there is free space) Spanish soap operas (I’ve never explicitly told it to record anything from the Spanish-speaking channels, much less a soap opera) and other equally random programs, such as “Totally Nascar!” I’d be much less annoyed by this if there was a way to “mark” multiple programs for deletion instead of having to delete each of them separately, but as far as I can tell this can’t be done. Granted, I could turn the feature off completely, but sometimes it grabs shows I wouldn’t mind watching.

My main gripe though is with the online scheduling. If you don’t know, this allows you to tell your TiVo to record something through the Internet. For example, I had class during the third presidential debate last week and forgot to tell my TiVo to record it. So, I logged into my TiVo account, went to TiVo Central Online and proceeded to tell it to record the debate that was to take place in a few hours. I was immediately sent an e-mail letting me know that my request was noted and that I would receive another e-mail once the TiVo service got confirmation from my machine at home that it would record the program. After not receiving the second e-mail for a couple of hours I began to think something was wrong.

I assumed that as soon as I made the online request my instructions would be immediately forwarded to my machine and that would be that. That’s not how it works. Your TiVo doesn’t actually see your request until the next time it connects to the TiVo service, which, for Series2 devices connected via broadband like mine, is supposed to be once an hour (or so says the FAQ), but for whatever reason, mine only updates once a day. I haven’t yet had time to figure that out, but notwithstanding the infrequent service calls, why doesn’t the website simply talk to the TiVo as soon I’m done making the request? Actually, extending that idea to its probable conclusion, why isn’t the TiVo a web server? Why can’t I simply login to my TiVo when I’m away from it? I’m sure this is just around the corner, but I’m still confused as to why I can’t do it now.

Another thing I’d like to see with the online service is the ability to view both the shows currently on my TiVo and the shows to be recorded later that day (again, something that will be taken care of when you can simply connect to your TiVo directly).

On a related note, yesterday Engadget interviewed Mike Ramsay, the CEO of TiVo (whom I met).

A cursory look at the Sendo X

To make a long story short, I was recently asked to sell a Sendo X for one of the attorneys I worked for at Ariba this past summer. It was a little awkward because, well, I’m the one who pushed the X to begin with (my constant talk about mobile phones tends to make people listen… eventually), even though I told him that it probably wasn’t going to be what he wanted/needed and that the Treo 600 (which he ended up getting) would be the better choice for him.

Given current time constraints and limited time actually spent with the device, I don’t have too much to say about it. One thing I can say for sure is that I’m glad I didn’t buy it — it’s one of those phones that I would have sold rather quickly. Between the Sony Ericsson K700i, the Nokia 7610, and the Sendo X, I think the clear winner, at least for me, is the 7610 (my current phone). While it’s not really fair to lump the K700i into the same category as the other phones (it cannot be considered a “smartphone”), I pretty much had my “next phone” narrowed down to the above three. Anyways, I’m getting off course here and should probably bring the focus back to the X.

My main gripe with the X, and something I noticed immediately, was its thickness. This was my biggest worry after seeing pictures of it for the last few months (year?). It’s just too thick to carry around in jean pockets (at least for me). The phone also feels a little weird in my hands, which is surely due, at least in part, to its thickness. Sendo would have done well to “squish” the phone and sacrifice narrowness for less depth — usually a good tradeoff if you ask me. The phone is almost a little too narrow, especially in light of its depth — the whole form-factor just ‘feels’ weird.

It doesn’t feel very solid and ‘gives’ quite a bit if you squeeze it. From pictures I had seen online I was expecting a much more “polished” look, but when I saw it in person it just didn’t strike me as something that should cost as much as it does.

The best thing I can say about the phone is the “Sendo Now!” screen, which is an all-in-one display that takes over the screen when other applications aren’t in the foreground. It harbors all kinds of information including the last number you called/received, the number of unread e-mails and SMSs you have, your unfinished to-do items, calendar entries for the current day, and the ability to add shortcuts to any program on the phone. This software was one of the main reasons I was looking at this phone to begin with; it reminds me a lot of some of the better “launcher” and calendaring applications available for PalmOS (such as DateBK), or, dare I say, the Windows Mobile “Today” screen.

The “Now!” screen is the first in a series of customizable tabs available to you — you can add, delete, and configure these at will. One of the neater, built-in tabs, is “History,” which displays the last few programs you’ve selected. For each of the tabs, which Sendo calls “Panes,” you can also customize the function of the right softkey — very nice.

I’m kind of disappointed that I haven’t seen anything like this available for Symbian OS yet (at least not for free). Maybe Sendo will release this for Series 60, though I’m not holding my breath — it’s really all that sets the X apart from others in the Series 60 space.

Like I said, this wasn’t meant to be a review by any stretch, but more a glancing look at a phone I’d had my eye on for a while. I can say that I’m very happy with the 7610 so far and don’t see anything that’s going to knock it off its pedestal in the near future (save the Nokia 6670, which is basically the 7610 in a different body), though Russ might disagree with me on this one.

You might live in Silicon Valley if…

…you’re waiting in line at the Nordstrom ebar in the mall and the guy in front of you is on a Segway. This you-might-live thing seems to be turning into a series.

(picture taken with phone)

Misplaced love

I’ve never quite understood how I became the #1 result on Google for so many things. The search results that I’m most surprised about lately are those that have to do with mobile phones. At the time of this post, I was #1 for both K700i review and 7610 review (my last two mobile phones). Now, I certainly think that my reviews carry some weight, but even a perfunctory juxtaposition of my write-ups and those done by sites whose purpose is to review phones, would reveal that they can afford to (and have) put much more time and effort into the reviews than I can. I’ve written about this a couple of times before and I’m certainly not complaining about the traffic I get from Google — I always welcome more hits — it’s just that I don’t feel like I deserve the top position for some of the things that Google seems to think I do.  *shrug*

4 Sale: One Beleaguered State

A friend recently sent me this in an e-mail, apparently from a classified ad in a Florida newspaper:

4 Sale: One Beleaguered State

Lots of waterlogged property, beautiful views of crashing tidal waves. Land already cleared of pesky trees (some cleanup required). Lack of electricity and gasoline makes for fun historic living environment. Increasingly popular “see the stars, feel the rain” roof modifications on housing. Plenty of insurance agents available for consultation, however may experience difficulty getting one to return your call.

Sony’s smart about-face

It seems that Sony is waking up and starting to heed my advice.

Sony confirmed on Wednesday that it is working to add native MP3 support to its portable music players–a major strategy reversal that could help it compete more effectively with rivals such as Apple Computer.

The company is also considering expanding MP3 support to hard disk devices, sources told ZDNet France, but no decision has yet been made on that front.

It looks like they’re still waffling on MP3 compatibility for their hard disk players, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before they ‘fix’ those devices as well.

Obviously the iPod is dead

This entry is a spinoff of another post I never got around to finishing. That post was about Apple’s current stranglehold on the mobile music market and what they’re going to have to do if they want to continue to dominate. Essentially, my argument was that Apple needed to start offering devices that could do more than just play music. If Steve Jobs thinks he can fight off the rest of the world with just music, he’s sadly mistaken — devices want to converge.

This segues nicely into what I’d like to talk about: the iPod as a mobile phone. At first glance, this might seem a little strange, but turn the logic around (i.e., the mobile phone as a music player) and it might not seem as far off. In fact, it isn’t “off” at all — a lot of the new mobile phones are capable of playing various audio formats, including MP3 (like my new Nokia 7610, and my SE K700i before that, and…). Why wouldn’t one want to consolidate the two devices? I’m obviously the wrong person to pose this question to because I’m that guy who absolutely can’t wait for my mobile phone (or whatever this all-in-one device will finally be called) to “contain” and “control” my life. That said, I can’t imagine a typical end-user who wouldn’t want to, at the very least, merge their portable music player with their mobile phone.

There are a few kinks in this chain to be sure, but nothing that can’t and won’t be resolved. The biggest hangup with moving music to a mobile phone is storage space. Currently the best mobile smartphones ship with 64MB or less of internal memory, though many of them also offer memory expansion in the form of various flash media. While the cost of solid-state media continues to fall, the reality is that it will take nothing less than hard drives to achieve the type of storage required for our music collections (solid-state drives will eventually rule this space, but we’re talking years). It should come as no surprise that this hurdle has already been cleared and mobile phones with HDDs are already upon us. Though there are serious issues related to hard drives in mobile phones, namely shock-resistance and the tradeoff between spinning platters and battery life, these issues are being taken care of and will soon be non-existent (hell, you need look no further than the iPod itself or Sony’s Network Walkman Digital Music Player to get a sense of how long a battery can be made to last and how durable such a device can be). Furthermore, these devices will be rather expensive (the Samsung linked to above will be $800) and I think it goes without saying that they will be treated with care (like most iPods now).

So, here’s the deal Apple, if you’d like to keep your competition down and sales of the iPod up, add a GSM or CDMA antenna to the music player and let it ride. I would be the first in line for such a device (shocking, I know) and I imagine that there would be a lot of people behind me.

As soon as smartphones start adding 1″ and .85″ drive bays, it’s not going to take long for end-users to realize that their two or three devices can be made into one, and there is no turning back when that happens. As good as the iPod interface is, and as pretty as the design can get, it’s not going to be able to compete with mass storage on a mobile phone.

Surely Apple is aware of the power they could wield if they came out with a mobile phone capable of playing music and has probably been contemplating such a device for a while now. There is some evidence available that leads one to believe that Apple is cognizant of what the future is going to require, most notably the recent deal struck between Apple and Motorola that will allow users to play iTunes AAC (FairPlay DRM) files on some Motorola phones. While this approach seems to belie the iTunes Music Store’s end-goal of selling more iPods, it could be working to do just that in the long run if the iPod is no longer just a music player. It’s well known that iTMS barely turns a profit and that the money, in this case, is in the device (and not the content… yet). Given this information, it’s quite possible that Apple is simply going to ‘tease’ the public for a while by allowing its files to be played on certain mobile phones. Then, and after the public is convinced that they need their iTMS music on their mobile phone, Apple will announce the ‘iPhone.’

I realize that this might sound odd, but quite frankly, there is no other option for Apple. You can’t convince me that consumers are going to buy a mobile phone based on whether it can play iTMS files as the Apple-Motorola agreement might have you believe. Nor can you convince me that Apple would be content with simply licensing its DRM technology to every mobile phone manufacturer and banking on iTMS sales. Apple needs to continue selling iPods to stay competitive in the digital music space and to continue selling iPods it is going to have to morph it into a more robust device.

If history is any indication, Microsoft’s format will ultimately be king and Apple will be left to fight for a share of the 10% of people that stay away from Microsoft as a rule. With that knowledge as a backdrop and the realization that Windows Mobile (Microsoft’s smartphone/PDA OS) is on a rapidly increasing number of smartphones, that Microsoft’s music format is competing directly with Apple’s, and that HDDs will soon be in mobile phones, one arrives at the logical conclusion that the iPod, as we have come to know it, is dead.

I’m not saying that Apple needs to create a full-fledged mobile platform to compete with Windows Mobile (oh, just imagine an OS X-based mobile phone though), but I am saying that they need a device capable of more than just playing music. It’s going to be hard to persuade Joe Public that he needs an iPod after Sprint offers him a Windows Mobile device with a 5GB hard drive and tells him that it can play WMA and MP3 files (in addition to being a, for lack of a better term, “pocket pc”).

While most everything I’ve brought up can be done today, Joe Public either doesn’t know about it or can’t afford it, and so Apple has a window, albeit a small one, to produce something before the cat’s out of the bag and service providers start offering these über-devices for $50 with a two-year service contract.

The quick and dirty solution for Apple would be to use the Palm or Symbian operating system to power a phone-capable device and bundle it with an iPod application that would emulate the Pixo interface (to satisfy those who’ve come to know and love the iPod user experience). While it’s anyone’s guess as to what Apple will ultimately come up with, I do hope they come up with something — the opportunity is huge — forget music and think ‘life.’

The incredibly satisfying part about all of this is that it doesn’t really affect me, at least not negatively. As soon as mobile phones with HDDs become affordable, I’ll have one. I couldn’t care less what proprietary audio formats it can decode because I don’t use, nor will I ever if I can help it, any of them. All I’ll require is that it be able to play the open, ubiquitous MP3 format — a very safe bet. Notwithstanding the fact that I’m unaffected either way, I, more than just about anyone, welcome and encourage an Apple mobile phone — let’s hope they realize what’s at stake here and produce accordingly.

Breaking Vegas

This weekend I watched a special on The History Channel called Breaking Vegas. The show walked through, in great detail, the MIT Blackjack Team’s very lucrative run at Las Vegas casinos in the early nineties.

BREAKING VEGAS goes inside the riveting story and shows us how the MIT group was founded and stayed in action for decades, eventually evolving into a full-fledged business–one with only one product, money, which it made by legally beating the casinos at their own game. Interviews with casino heads and former members of the team shed light on the opposite sides of this strange cat-and-mouse game, and we’ll see how their remarkable run finally came to an end.

Some of you might remember Wired’s Hacking Las Vegas, which recounts the same story, and save Bill Joy’s Why the future doesn’t need us, is probably my favorite Wired article ever. I encourage you to both read the article and watch the show — it’s a great (and inspiring) story.

I’m e-mailing like it’s 1993

I’ve eliminated nearly all of my spam, which was approaching 3000 a day. I now route my e-mail through both a pre-server-side filter, Postini, and a client-side filter, Mail.app’s built-in system (which is exceptional, and something I’ve touched on before). Since I’ve implemented the Postini filters only about two spams per day actually make it to my client, and out of those I’ve yet to have a single junk e-mail slip through Mail.app’s filter — I’ve effectively seen zero spam for the last two months. I actually thought about adding one more hurdle, maybe SpamAssassin or something similar, but given the complete success of my current method, anything more would probably be superfluous.

The main impetus behind my wanting server-side filtering was that e-mail on my phone(s) had become next to impossible — I needed to catch the spam before it got to my POP server. This is where the deal my hosting provider has with Postini comes in; all of my e-mail is now routed through Postini’s filters and then to my POP server after the spam has been stripped away. Postini sees 1.3 billion messages a week pass through its servers and claims that it typically blocks 98% of the spam before it reaches end-users (I’d say that’s a fairly decent data set to build effective rules upon).

Another nice thing about using Postini is that I’ve been able to go back to using Mail.appetizer, something that had become completely useless due to the large volume of spam I was receiving (though this was no longer an issue after the program was finally updated).

While Postini obviously works very well (2 << 3000), I do have some complaints (surprising, I know). The first is simply the lack of end-user customizability with respect to the filters. You’re essentially given a sliding scale of what you’ll allow to pass through — this scale has just five positions ranging from “lenient” to “aggressive.” It’s probably just as well that I don’t have a million options to play around with as I would spend hours doing just that, but I would like the ability there regardless.

The second thing that really bugs me is the fact that you can’t add a group of e-mail addresses to the whitelist (addresses that it will always let through and never hold as false-positives). When you see false-positives and tell it to deliver the message, you’re offered the option to add the address to your “approved senders” list, but there is no way to do this in the aggregate — I should be able to upload a file containing all of my contacts and have it add those addresses to the whitelist.

Battle in Beslan

The siege of a school here in southern Russia ended today in panic, violence and death 52 hours after it began. At least [340] people — most of them students, teachers and parents — died, according to official reports and witnesses, after two large explosions sparked pitched battles between the heavily armed hostage-takers and Russian forces.

Does anyone know why we haven’t heard more about this massacre on mainstream TV news? I’ve been following it some online for the past few days but don’t recall ever hearing about it on TV. Now that the seige is over, I see that it is getting quite a bit of coverage, but I didn’t notice any while the standoff was taking place (granted, I’ve been incredibly busy this week and haven’t watched much TV, but still, it seems odd).

“Taking advantage of the panic, hostages began to escape,” Lev Dzugayev, a spokesman for North Ossetia’s president, said in an interview, referring to the initial blasts. “The bandits began shooting them in the back. The special forces on our side had to cover the fleeing hostages. This is unfortunately how it happened.”

Scores of hostages survived, staggering from the school even as intense gunfire sputtered and grenades exploded around them. Many were barely dressed, their faces strained with fear and exhaustion, their bodies bloodied by shrapnel and gunshots. Many others never got out. Their bodies lay in the charred wreckage of Middle School No. 1’s gymnasium, the roof of which had collapsed and burned, a police officer said.

Men and women filed through lifting the sheets that covered the dead, which included children and Russian soldiers or security officers. Recognition brought wrenching, piercing wails. A mother in a red-and-white blouse knelt on the ground, weeping as she kissed her dead daughter’s face.

What a horrible, horrible scene. At least 155 children dead. I don’t know what took over, but when I saw the picture on the front page of this article, where the mother is looking down at her dead child, I just wept.

It reminded me of when I was watching the Colombine incident take place. I was sitting in my room in my first college apartment with my back to the TV. I was working on my computer when I heard the channel switch to someone commentating on the events unfolding at the school. I sat there watching and wondering what the hell these kids could be thinking and how their problems could manifest themselves in such an ugly, final way. This marked the first time that I had actually cried while watching some real event on TV. It just struck me like a brick, the sadness and curiosity of it all. In my personal relationships I empathize with others as naturally as I breathe, but never before had some remote, intangible event caught my attention or my heart in such a way. I don’t know, this incident in Russia worked pretty well to evoke the same reaction from me.

Get iTunes songs for 99 cents each!

Being from a rival school, I’m compelled to rag on FSU whenever the opportunity presents itself. How then, after reading this article in their school newspaper, could I not talk about it here? Some choice excerpts follow below.

In an effort to prevent illegal file sharing on campus, Florida State University is on the verge of finalizing a deal with Apple Computer, Inc. — a deal that would provide free iTunes software to students and allow them to download music for 99 cents per song.

I hate to rain on the parade, but, uhh, iTunes software is already free to everyone. Moreover, 99 cents per song is what it currently charges everyone. Let’s see if FSU’s man-with-a-plan can clear up some of this confusion.

Baker, the director of university computer systems at the FSU Academic Computing and Network Services Department, was appointed chair of a committee charged with finding a way to stop illegal file sharing on campus.

Baker said the idea originated from a concern for students who live on campus and download music illegally.

Good thinking Baker, I think you’re really onto something. The students were probably holding out for the iTunes stamp-of-approval from the university, and now that they have it, watch out ‘illegal’ file sharing, these kids are ready to pay.

Baker said that students can expect to see the project go into effect sometime in the next month. The license agreement is currently under legal review by FSU officials and will close soon, Baker said.

*Psst* students… *pssst* You don’t have to wait for the plan to “go into effect” to buy music through iTunes — Apple will take your money now! No questions asked. Tell them that FSU sent you and you’ll be able to get your songs for just 99 cents each.

The guy on the Apple end of this deal was a genius.

Nokia 7610

As some of you already know, I chucked my Sony Ericsson K700i about two weeks after I got it. The reason was very simple: the battery life was abysmal! Save that major hiccup, the phone was brilliant, but there was no way I could continue using it with such a broken battery. I might go so far as to say that it was the worst battery I’ve ever seen on a device.

Enter the Nokia 7610 (I have the white/silver model). This phone was actually the only other phone I was considering when I decided to purchase the K700i (the Sendo X was also on my radar at the time, but it wasn’t yet released). The main reason I initially decided in favor of the K700i was simply past experience — I’ve had good luck with SE phones. The main reason I initially decided against the 7610 was the design. Nokia has a long track record of feeling the need to push the envelope of mobile phone design (if you can call their designs “pushing the envelope”). This phone is no exception and Nokia has made some pretty crazy leaps as far as keypad and case design go, none of which I think will survive this model.

While I’d like to write a lengthy review of this phone similar to those that I’ve done in the past (most recently the K700i), I just don’t have the time and so I’m going to briefly run over some of the things I like/dislike.

I guess I should start with the battery. I have no complaints. I’ve read every review of this phone (I think :) and a few of them point out that the battery life isn’t too great, but I have to respectfully disagree. Battery life is somewhat ’subjective’ (unless we’re talking about the K700i  :P) and can fluctuate wildly depending on what you actually use your phone for day in and day out. Having said that, I’ve been rather impressed with the life of the 7610 given my use requirements. I routinely get through two days of heavy usage without having to recharge (this includes taking numerous pictures and videos, talking for extended periods of time, and moving files between my computer and the phone with Bluetooth) — not bad for a full blown “smartphone.” I should also mention that the standby time is excellent.

I find the form-factor as close to perfect as it can get. It could stand to be slightly thinner, but that’s really the only negative thing I can say about its shape and size. When you consider all that the device contains, the form-factor is pretty impressive. The phone feels very solid; no noticeable creaking or battery-cover movement. Its shape also allows you to stand it up on a flat surface so that you can take timed (or just steadier) pictures and videos.

I use the 1.3MP (1152×864) digital camera all the time — much more so than I’ve done with past camera phones (I think this is number five). Case in point: when I was at the hospital, I used the camera to take pics of the top of my head so that I could see the gash before they put in the stitches. The white-balancing system works fairly well and I’m quite pleased with the overall quality of the pictures. In fact, the quality is such that I now want to save the pictures I take with it (with previous phones I saved the pictures just because I’m obsessive-compulsive  :P). The refresh rate on the viewfinder is exceptional.

Given the RS-MMC memory-expansion slot and the 64MB card that ships with the phone, I find myself taking video (176×144) of everything. A nice feature of the video recording is that you can mute the microphone if you wish. Playback on the device could be a little smoother, but it’s really nothing to complain about.

The phone ships with the Opera browser, which makes for very easy web nagivation when on the move, enhanced further by the large 16-bit TFT screen (176×208). The entire browsing experience has come a long way since I first had Opera on my Sony Ericsson P800 a couple of years back.

Speaking of the P800, that was the first, and until now, only Symbian phone I’ve owned. The real difference between the 7610 and P800’s implementation of the OS is the user interface that sits on top of it — the P800 uses UIQ while the 7610 uses Nokia Series 60 (Second Edition). The two interfaces aren’t really comparable though as UIQ is more stylus-centric where Series 60 is focused on keypad navigation. That said, I don’t have any real complaints about the interface on the 7610. It could be sped up in certain areas, but for the most part it’s pretty solid. I do like the fact that the softkeys are completely customizable and that you can add whatever shortcuts you want to the “Go to” menu, though this could be made a little better by allowing you to point deeper into the menuing system when making shortcuts.

As can be expected nowadays, the interface can be given an entirely new look through the use of themes, which are allowed to change almost everything on the 7610, including the clock faces, default icons, and backgrounds.

The “Gallery” program for viewing images and video (and other files) is pretty nice and like all of the programs on the phone, allows you to easily switch between phone memory and the MMC card. I’ve actually stopped using the “Gallery” program altogether though, in favor of Nokia Album (Thanks Russ). The Album application allows you to view a time-based thumbnail display of both your videos and images (together). It’s great.

The speakerphone and regular speakers could both stand to be a bit louder — I frequently have the volume cranked all the way up. As for voice quality, I’ve yet to have a single complaint from anyone on the other end.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, I use my phone as a morning wake-up alarm and the 7610’s “Clock” program handles this wonderfully. Once the alarm goes off, the right softkey snoozes for five minutes and the left key turns it off entirely. Like ringtones, the alarm sound can be any audio file, including MP3s. The only thing the application is missing is a recurring alarm option.

I had absolutely no trouble pairing the phone with my PowerBook through Bluetooth. Unfortunately, the 7610 does not sync with iSync. I knew this before I purchased it (another reason I hesitated to get this phone), but assumed that the next version of iSync would add support, especially in light of the fact that the Nokia 6600 and Sendo X, both Symbian Series 60 phones, are suupported. I was wrong, iSync v1.5 was released a few days ago and 7610 support is still missing. Grr. Apparently the hangup has to do with the fact that the 7610 uses SyncML for syncing where the other supported Symbian phones use something called mrouter. Frankly I don’t give a shit what it uses, just get it working Apple!

Because syncing with the PowerBook wasn’t an option, I actually had to export all of my contacts from Address Book and schedules from iCal, import them into a temp Outlook account on a Windows machine, and then run the Nokia synchronization software from there. This option is fine as a one-time way to move everything over, but the fact that my calendar, contacts, and to-do lists aren’t continuously sync’d makes me freaking crazy; hopefully a hack will emerge or the next version of iSync will support it.

And finally, I have to talk about the wacked-out keypad found on the 7610. Oddly enough, like everyone else that has used the funky keypad, I’ve come to like it and find it very easy to navigate. Don’t get it twisted though, if Nokia decided tomorrow to come out with the same model but with a “normal” keypad, I would get it. While the keys feel great when they’re pushed, I wouldn’t mind for the action to be a bit quieter — the clickety-clack is quite noticeable.

The third semester

I’ve had quite a few people ask what I was taking this semester, and so I’ve decided to list the classes below.

• Evidence (required) — with Gerald Uelmen, a member of OJ Simpson’s criminal defense team. Given that he can’t seem to go 10 minutes without talking about OJ and the fact that one of the required texts is a book he wrote concerning evidence issues from that case, I think it’s safe to say that I’ll have a good handle on the “trial of the century” (and hopefully evidence) by the end of the semester.
• Copyright — with Tyler Ochoa, a well-known name in the field.
• Business Organizations — I think this will be my favorite class of the semester. The professor is very excited about teaching and I find the subject matter pretty interesting.
• Constitutional Law I (required)
• Appellate Advocacy (required)

I’ve purchased 10 books so far for this semester (not including supplements) and the total cost is hovering around $650 — such a fucking racket!

Cut Here

“So we meet again!” and I offer my hand
All dry and english slow
And you look at me and I understand
Yeah it’s a look I used to know
“Three long years… and your favorite man…
Is that any way to say hello?”
And you hold me… like you’ll never let me go

“Oh c’mon and and have a drink with me
Sit down and talk a while…”
“Oh I wish I could… and I will!
But now I just dont have the time…”
And over my shoulder as I walk away
I see you give that look goodbye…
I still see that look in your eye…

It’s so hard to think “It ends sometime
And this could be the last
I should really hear you sing again
I should really watch you dance”
Because it’s hard to think
“I’ll never get another chance
To hold you… to hold you… “

I should’ve stopped to think - I should’ve made the time
I could’ve had that drink - I could’ve talked a while
I would’ve done it right - I would’ve moved us on
But I didn’t - now it’s all too late
It’s over… over
And you’re gone..

I miss you I miss you I miss you
I miss you I miss you I miss you so much

But how how many times can I walk away and wish “If only…”
But how many times can I talk this way and wish “If only…”
Keep on making the same mistake
Keep on aching the same heartbreak
I wish “If only…”

But “If only….”
Is a wish too late…

From the The Cure’s Cut Here

Note to self

Next time you’re walking near the side of a building while talking on the phone and looking at the ground, be sure to glance up from time to time so as to save yourself from being nearly knocked out by the metal edge of an air-conditioner and having to wait hours at the ER to get stitches in your head.

Nevermind all of the reckless, throw-caution-to-the-wind things that I’ve done in my life, it’s a damn air-conditioner that almost takes me out.  :P

Thanks Charley

It seems that nature didn’t think my quick trip home was hectic enough and decided to throw a hurricane into the mix. Hurricane Charley, while leaving most of my friends and family (and their properties) unscathed, still managed to screw up most of my few days back home. Not only did it bar me from seeing certain friends, but I was all set to go wakeboarding with my brother’s sick new Hyperlite board and his friend’s Ski Nautique, which is equipped with an 8-ft ski-pole and waterbags that can generate a 3.5-ft wake!!! I wanted my brother to capture me doing some flips and other tricks on video, but we couldn’t even get into the water on Saturday because of Charley’s lingering bad weather.

If you know me only from this site then you probably have no idea of my experience with and love for both skateboarding and wakeboarding — I was really looking forward to getting back in the water, but I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer. Grr. Maybe this winter break will be one of those crazy Florida winters where it’s 90° in the middle of December. One can only hope.

While there’s much more to write about from the trip, including the obligatory “hurricane party,” I’m afraid I’m too tired and have too little time to elaborate here.

I took the picture below a couple of days ago while in the Orlando International Airport before heading back to California; as you can see, my gate and those surrounding it were a bit disheveled from the hurricane. I really wanted to get some aerial shots of the much more serious damage, but my seat position made it impossible.

A short ‘break’

Yesterday was the last day of my legal internship at Ariba. I’m headed to Florida later today for what are sure to be a few very busy days back home. Too many people to see; too much to do; too little time.

I’ll be back in California late Sunday — my second year of law school begins on Monday. Joy.

Sony, put the gun down

There is no doubt that Sony’s new Network Walkman Digital Music Player is a wonderful little device. It looks great, has an insane battery life, ships with a decent-sized HDD (20GB), and weighs just 3.8oz. The problem though is that it doesn’t play MP3 files. The user is left to use Sony’s proprietary ATRAC3 or ATRAC3Plus formats, which means that any MP3 file you want to put on the player must first be converted — a very time-consuming process — I’m sure Joe User’s just chomping at the bit.

By restricting the player to just its format, Sony has also severely restricted its prospective userbase, which will now be limited to clueless end-users and those few willing (and patient enough) to convert their entire collections. I’d guess that a good number of iPod users, whom I’m sure Sony would like to steal away from Apple, are not iTunes users at all (or only in a very limited capacity), which means that Sony had a chance to move them away from the iPod (hell, I looked at the device myself), but because they locked it down I can’t think of anyone who would even consider it. Sony is offering no compelling reason to switch and is likely dissuading most people by requiring them to take the unprecedented step of converting their MP3s. As for those who’ve actually used iTunes to build up their collections, it seems that Sony is too late to the game and will probably miss that group altogether — I just can’t see Joe User cracking the iTunes’ AAC files (FairPlay DRM) and then converting these unprotected files to either MP3 or WMV and then finally converting these to ATRAC3.

Advice for Sony and Others

Well, Sony, your first move should probably be to take care of the foot you just shot. Next, and this goes for all of you digital music device manufacturers, make sure your device can play the most ubiquitous and unprotected format available. If it can’t, it’s a good bet that it’s dead in the water and is going to fail, or at least not going to do nearly as well as it would otherwise. I don’t think it’s too terrible to limit the device to only one proprietary format (after all, the intention is to get people to purchase music from your online store), but don’t then deny users the ability to play other open formats, especially the format that’s not only the most familiar to consumers but that also spawned all of this digital music madness in the first place.

This point is likely obvious to anyone reading this, which begs an obvious question: why did no one at Sony see the flaw in their logic? Can someone please explain to me what they were trying to accomplish by locking out MP3? I’m serious, if you know (or think you know), I’d like to hear it.

Advice for End-users

If you actually pay for music (I’ve read that people still do this  :P) and can’t find somewhere online that sells what you want as an unprotected MP3 file, then don’t buy it online. Buy the CD, rip the album yourself, and keep the CD so that if and when a newer, better format is available and you feel the need to make the transition, it won’t cost you anything but time. Oh how I want to discuss on this site the way in which I gather and store music, but, umm, I can’t really shouldn’t.

I’ll be curious to see what happens when the iTunes format (or any of the other online stores’ DRM formats) dies out or is improved and all the people who have spent a decent amount of money on their collections want their music in the newer, better format, no doubt arguing that it costs the music provider nothing but bandwidth (as opposed to vinyl → 8-track → cassette → CD → dvd-audio → etc).

To steal a line from Goodfellas:

• “My new device won’t play format X, can I re-download my songs in format Y?” “Fuck you, pay me.” - iTunes Music Store
• “You guys just came out with format X². I’d like to upgrade my collection from format X to format X².” “Fuck you, pay me.” - Sony Connect
• “My hard drive died and I need to re-download all of my music.” “Fuck you, pay me.” - Walmart Music Downloads

I’m not saying that the music provider is right or wrong in these cases, but I’m pretty sure that the above responses will be (or are?) what one can expect.

The Killers

The Killers’ debut album, Hot Fuss, is shaping up to be my favorite record of the year (and, umm, as most of you are well aware, I listen to a shitload of music). Get it. Love it. You won’t be disappointed.

Step two

An excerpt from a good friend’s recent e-mail:

Ugh… I was just thinking that I am now one of those persons in your stories that buys everything you do.

Step two: figure out a way to make money off of this — the idea I proposed in the Apple Referral Program hasn’t quite taken off. I just can’t seem to get Apple or mobile phone/PDA manufacturers to adopt the system. It’s almost as if they don’t want to give me money.  :P

Sony Ericsson K700i

I didn’t intend for this review to be as long as it is, but it seems I got a little trigger-happy and couldn’t stop typing.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Sony Ericsson mobile phones (I’ve had the T68i, P800, and T616) and the K700i is certainly no exception. Though there are a couple of disappointments, I have to say that overall, I’m pretty impressed. That said, let’s take a look at this phone.

Design

Though it’s a slight departure from previous designs, I think that the K700i looks great. I don’t quite understand the whole “dual face” thing that SE is trying to push (the idea that it “looks” like a camera on one side, and a phone on the other), but whatever.

What I do miss from the T61x is the identation up the sides of the phone. As I wrote in the T616 review, this made the phone feel secure in your hand, something that is difficult to do with such a small device. That’s not to say that the K700i doesn’t feel good in the hands, quite the oppposite actually, but the automatic comfort of the T61x is notably absent.

The phone feels very solid, almost like you could throw it against a wall and expect it to make a hole. Like most mobile phones, the only movable part is the battery cover, which fits very snuggly (no doubt due to the long “tracks” that run along the cover) and produces no rocking (unlike the T68i) when typing on the keypad and no creaking noises when squeezing the phone.

Keypad

The keypad buttons feel very solid and have a great tactile feedback to them. The keys are rectangular, transparent (kind of look and feel like glass), elevated above the phone, and layed out in a square matrix (as they should be). The function keys aren’t as ‘glassy,’ but have a more ‘milky’ look to them. The illumination on the keypad is excellent.

Joystick

I’m glad to see that SE has moved away from the square shape of the T61x joystick and gone to a completely round design similar to the one found on the T68i, though a little larger. It actually makes the control feel a bit more analog (it’s not), especially when playing games. Another good change is that the joystick can no longer “wake up” the phone — you have to either press the menu buttons or the keypad to bring the phone back to life (yes, you could lock the keys, but I hate extra steps  :P).

All of the joystick directions can be assigned shortcuts.

Data Port and Charger

My second biggest gripe with the phone (behind battery life; see below) has to do with the black rubber cover that “protects” the data port and charger. SE has never offered this on a phone before and I’m unsure why they decided to go with it now; it’s not needed and only makes it more difficult to charge the phone. Morever, it feels hyperextended when you have the charger connected to the phone. I have half a mind to remove it, but because I’ll probably sell the phone at some point, I’m compelled to leave it fully intact.

The charger connects the same as all (?) SE phones — there are two little prongs that snap into the connector. I’d much more prefer a single “plug” as is found on most Nokia phones.

Rock-switch

Under the camera button on the left side of the phone is the obligatory rock-switch. During calls it controls volume; incoming calls can be given a busy tone; in standby mode, information about the phone is displayed, including date, profile, model name, your mobile number, and free memory (sadly missing here is information about remaining battery life); and in camera mode it’s used to set the exposure compensation.

“Online” button

The right side of the phone has an “online” button that takes you straight to the WAP browser. I’ve never used this button in past phones, so I doubt I’ll start now. I don’ t think it can be assigned another function, which is unfortunate.

Camera Button

The camera button on the side now has a delay on it so you have to hold it down for a couple of seconds before it activates the camera.

Display

The display is amazing and really stands out from almost all other mobile phones. The screen is a very bright TFT capable of 16-bit color and features one of the best resolutions available today: 176×220. Text is very smooth and pictures are simply gorgeous — you have to look pretty hard to make out individual pixels.

There are no options to adjust the brightness or contrast, but I haven’t come across a need to do that yet. The screen looks great in direct sunlight and is very readable, perhaps moreso than any other mobile phone display I’ve ever seen.

Games

I was blown away by games on this thing. They look absolutely incredible. The Mascot Capsule Java 3D gaming engine is really impressive — this is one of the very first phones to ship with MIDP 2.0/CLDC 1.1 and J2ME 3D. Combine that with the resolution and brightness of the screen and the superb sensitivity of the joystick and you are left with a pretty decent gaming platform (the best I’ve seen yet on a mobile phone).

Memory

The phone ships with 41MB of available memory (you can get a couple more megs by deleting some of the installed applications/themes/games/etc). All of this memory is available to just about everything on the system, including image, audio, and video files. While there is no memory-expansion slot, I’m not sure that one is really needed given the fact that you would be fairly hard-pressed to fill this thing up with just games, applications, and audio/video/image files (obviously MP3s and MP4 video are a different story).

Syncing with iSync

This was not as easy as I had hoped, but given that there is no official support in the latest version of iSync for the K700i (which makes sense; the phone isn’t even available in the US yet), I was a little surprised to find that, after a little finagling, I could get it working out of the box. The trick is that you have to initiate the Bluetooth pairing from both your computer and the phone, one right after the other. After this is done you should see a K700i icon inside iSync.

I’m positive the next iSync update will have native support for the K700i.

Transferring files with Bluetooh

As expected, I had absolutely no trouble transferring files back and forth between the PowerBook and K700i, be them themes, pictures, videos, games, whatever. There is support for the new HID profile which includes both the ‘object push’ and ‘file transfer’ options of moving files between devices.

Files transferred to the phone through Bluetooth (or by other means) are placed in the appropriate folder in the “File Manager” (see below) based on file extension. If the extension is unrecognized, the file will be placed in the “other” folder.

Using Bluetooth to Browse the Phone

No trouble here either. I actually think the browsing is quite a bit faster than with the T61x. I experienced no problems moving in and out of directories and moving files back and forth.

Digital Camera

The K700i takes decent pictures, but nothing mindblowing. As usual, I really couldn’t care less whether it came with a camera or not. Until they’re 3MP and above, I just don’t care (it won’t be long). The pictures have a native resolution of 640×480 and can be interpolated to 1280×960 (but, um, why?). In addition to these sizes, you can also take pictures at 320×240 and 160×120 and the camera is capable of 4x digital zoom.

The design of the phone is such that when you take pictures and hold the phone horizontally, you’ll find the “snap” button on top of the phone along with the rock-switch that controls exposure compensation (of course you’re taking portrait-mode pics when you do it like this; the option to rotate pics is offered after taking them). You can take landscape pictures by simply keeping the phone vertical. The lens can be snapped by either pressing the joystick down, hitting the camera button, or pushing the bottom-left function key.

As expected there are all kinds of picture options, including black and white, sepia, solar effects, and negative. There’s also a “night” option. Somewhat surprisingly, there’s a panoramic option that is quite functional and something I wouldn’t expect in a camera phone like this. It takes three pictures and stitches them together to form a larger, [hopefully] seamless 1664×416 picture — it actually works pretty well. You line up your pictures by aligning a semi-transparent image of the previous shot that is overlayed onto the viewfinder.

The built-in image editor allows you to add all sorts of things to the images including text and freehand drawings.

One of the neatest additions to this phone is the “flash,” which isn’t a flash at all, but rather a very bright LED light. My limited use has shown that this actually does a decent job when taking close-up camera shots and video clips in low-light settings. It also works very well as a flashlight of sorts and is especially useful for finding the right key and getting it in the door at night. I only wish that you could assign the light a shortcut key, but instead you have to be in camera mode to invoke it (hitting keypad #5 turns it on while in camera mode).

The viewfinder looks great and the refresh rate is excellent.

There is a small mirror on the back just under the lens for self-shots.

Digital Video

Yes, this phone will shoot video as well (with sound!). You can choose between one of two resolutions, 176×144 or 128×96 (both weak for sure, but this is a phone). Again, I couldn’t care one way or the other if I could take video, but because I can, I’m finding that it’s something I play around with quite a bit. Further adding to the enjoyment of taking videos is the fact that you’re limited only by the available memory in the phone (as I mention above, 41MB, which makes for A LOT of video at these resolutions). You can limit the video to a length of 10 seconds if you want to shoot short clips for MMSs. All of the features and effects described above for the digital camera are also available for the video.

Like most other phones that are capable of shooting video, the format is 3GP (H.263), which can be played back on the phone or a computer (yes, you get sound when playing back video on the phone).

File Manager

The file manager built into the phone is pretty nice. It’s broken down into seven folders: pictures, sounds, videos, themes, games, applications, and other. You can move, rename, copy, and delete files from within the file manager. One neat (and long-needed) option available here is the ability to mark several files at a time for deletion (among other things). The photos in the pictures folder are shown as small thumbnails (four per screen) and you can even have it run a slideshow of the pics.

You can also view information for each folder such as the number of files within the folder and their total size.

All of the regular options are here for transferring files: Bluetooth, IR, MMS, or e-mail.

User Interface

I love the interface. It’s very similar to that of the T61x, but with a few changes. The most notable is the sharpness of the icons in the main menu (which is due more to the increased resolution than anything else). They are layed out the same way as the T61x: four rows with three icons each. As you cycle through the icons they ‘magnify’ quickly and then shrink to a size that is slightly larger than the unselected icons, changing looks in the process. A nice touch is this circle ‘cursor’ that follows your joystick moves and jumps from the sides or top/bottom of the screen as you “wrap around” the menu. It looks great.

This phone also makes use of tabs, which I think is a first for a phone-only device, and certainly makes for a better user experience.

Themes

The K700i uses graphic themes and is capable of displaying animated wallpapers. Currently, I’m using a theme called “Nemo” that mimics the virtual aquariums available on the Finding Nemo DVD. The background wallpaper to this theme is gorgeous and little bubbles rise up from the coral at the bottom. It’s pretty neat.

I’ve run through most of the themes currently available, and have seen some pretty impressive collections, though not too many that I would consider using. The number of available themes will grow rapidly as this phone starts to take hold around the world.

[I got an e-mail from someone pointing me to a movie he made that shows off the animated wallpapers — take a look]

Phonebook

I can’t say that I have any complaints with the layout of the phonebook. The menu has been redone a little bit so that more information can fit on the screen. When viewing your list of contacts all you see is their name, but as you highlight each name, the view expands around the name to expose the main contact number for that particular contact; you can then scroll to the right to reveal other numbers and e-mail addresses attached to that contact. Depending on what is selected (number or e-mail address), pressing down on the joystick either engages a phone call or presents a compose window for an e-mail. Pretty slick.

Obviously, you can also attach a photo to a particular contact for photo caller-ID and can have custom ringtones as well. Voice-dialing is also supported.

Messaging

You’ll find all the usual suspects here: SMS, EMS, MMS, and e-mail (IMAP4/POP3/SMTP).

One of the complaints of the T61x was the number of steps one had to go through to get to an SMS compose window. That has been taken care of with the K700i by allowing you to assign this to a shortcut (when I want to send a text message, I simply tap the joystick left). Another really nice touch is a ‘recently sent’ list; this pops up after you’ve composed the message and displays a list of the 10 people you’ve most recently sent an SMS to, while also offering the option to search your phonebook for a number. Overall, the messaging options and associated menus are done very well.

E-mail

Nothing too groundbreaking here except for the fact that you can now send attachments of any file type (even if not understood by the phone), which is a very neat feature.

Multimedia

The K700i comes with a lot of multimedia options, including the ability to listen to MP3s, an FM radio, and some “DJ” software that you can use to create music to be used for whatever (e.g., ringtones, etc).

Media Player

The “media player” can handle the following file types: MP3, AAC, WAV, AMR, MIDI, and MPEG-4 video. It can be put into the background so that you can do other things on the phone while using it.

While 41MB is a shit-ton of storage for a mobile phone, it obviously doesn’t go very far in the way of MP3s or other storage-intensive media (where are the half-terabyte phones?  :P), which is why the media player will rarely, if ever, be used by me, but I thought I would mention it. For the sake of this review I loaded up a few MP3 files to test it out. The sound out of the loudspeaker was excellent and there is an equalizer so that you can adjust the sound to your liking. You can also listen to the music through the supplied headphones.

FM Radio

This is an SE first. It’s been a while since I’ve had an FM radio in my phone (not since the Nokia 7210 and 7250), but I doubt I’ll use it any more now than I did then, though it will be good to listen to Stern in the morning again. Like the MP3 player, you can either play the sound through the headphones or the loudspeaker, with the only caveat being that heaphones must be plugged in because the antenna is contained within the cord. You can save up to 20 presets by frequency number.

Ringtones

As is expected, ringtones can be either MIDI (40-chord polyphonic), MP3s (and other supported formats), or anything that you record. Unfortunately, your options aren’t so great when it comes to message alerts as you are limited to one of six pre-defined sounds.

Organizer

The functionality here is very similar to that of the T61x models. Included are a calendar (viewable by week or month), tasks, notes (all of which can sync with your computer), timer, stopwatch, calculator, and alarms (both single and recurrent).

One neat thing about the notes is that you can have one displayed on the main screen to remind you of something; it’s displayed on top of a transparent window, which looks really nice.

The calculator works the same as the one on the T61x, which is still the best I’ve seen on a non-’PDA’ mobile phone.

Internet

Instead of searching the net for Internet settings and putting them in manually, I used the Wap Set-Up found on the SE site. An SMS message is sent to the phone that automatically loads up the settings for my particular provider. I must admit that I’ve become quite fond of this after having used it on the past few phones that I’ve had.

The built-in WAP 2.0 browser (which is quite capable of displaying pages built with XHTML and CSS) is one of the best that I’ve seen — I can’t say that I’m blown away by anything, but I don’t have too much to complain about either.

I think this phone is the first SE device to support GPRS Class 10 speeds in addition to both CSD and GSM Data.

Speakerphone

Unlike the T68i or T61x, this model comes with a speakerphone. Both the loudness of the speaker and the sound quality from the microphone are excellent — friends can’t tell when I’m on speakerphone. The only complaint I have is that there is no easy way to turn on the speakerphone. You first have to be in a call and then you have to hit the joystick and scroll down to the option, which means that most of the time you will have to tell the person on the other end to hold on. I’d like to see a way to turn this on before making or receiving a call.

Battery Life

The biggest disappointment of this phone is the battery life. It doesn’t make sense that SE would use a battery that is smaller than the one found in the T61x (700 mAh as compared to 770 mAh), knowing full well that the more demanding screen, Bluetooth, loudspeaker, and camera would suck up power like crazy. I’m having to recharge the phone almost daily with regular use, even though I have the screen set to turn completely off when I’m not using it. The specifications claim a talk time of 7 hours and a standby time of 300 hours — not even close.

Miscellaneous

Remote Screen and Remote Display

The “remote screen” option allows you to shoot media over to a Bluetooth Media Viewer (MMV-100) device such as a TV, which means that you can view images or sounds from the phone through the TV.

The “remote display” program lets you use the phone as a remote control for your PC (much like the the third-party Salling Clicker has allowed Mac users to do for a while now).

Has it really been five years?

I got an e-mail from a friend this morning congratulating me on the 5th-year anniversary of this site (how I didn’t notice this is beyond me). It was five years ago to the day that I registered this domain. Damn. This was the last in a long line of domains that I purchased and was initially going to be used only for e-mail — I wanted an address-for-life. It has since become much more than that and now somewhat serves as a repository for my life (well, the geekier side of my life anyways).

For years I was really reluctant to put any content on the site (I didn’t start writing here until 2002) because I was scared that I would become obsessive with it — good thing that hasn’t happened *cough*. It’s turned into a labor of love, and while it does eat up a lot of my time (more than I’ll ever admit), I’ve never regretted working on it.

As long as I continue to receive positive feedback from random strangers and real-life friends about what I’m writing/doing here, I’ll continue to produce.

Here’s to another five years.

Nested archives with Movable Type

I’ve wanted nested archives on this site for a while, but didn’t get around to figuring out a way to do it until a few days ago. I wanted:

1. a list of the months in which I posted something;
2. each element of that list to be linked to the archive page for that month;
3. a list of posts under each month that were published during that month; and
4. each element of that list to be linked to the individual archive page for that particular post.

The entire point of this is to consolidate the list of individual posts with the month in which a post appears. I wanted to merge the list of individual posts with the list of months in which I posted (I’m removing both of these pages as soon as this entry runs its course).

I figured that there was no “direct” way to do this with Movable Type (I realized later that I was wrong; keep reading) and so I started looking at the MT Plugin Directory for a plugin, but there weren’t any that fit the bill. I tried a combination of various plugins, but still couldn’t come up with the functionality that I wanted, which I thought was rather simple.

I began whipping up something in PHP, but quickly realized that there had to be a better way; there had to be a way to do it directly through MT. It didn’t take long for me to figure it out (or for me to feel like an idiot for not trying to do it like this from the beginning).

The following is a very quick and simple way to achieve what I described above (and illustrate on my main archive page) using nothing but MT tags (I’ve included the actual markup that I use as well):

<MTArchiveList archive_type="Monthly">
<h2><a href="<$MTArchiveLink regex="noExtension"$>">
<$MTArchiveTitle$></a></h2>
<ul>
<MTEntries>
<li>
<a href="<$MTEntryLink regex="noExtension"$>">
<$MTEntryTitle$></a> 
(<MTEnglishOrdinal number='[MTEntryDate format="%d"]'>)
</li>
</MTEntries>
</ul>
</MTArchiveList>

If you’re confused by the “regex” stuff in the link tags above, have a look at my post on future-proofing your URIs. The MTEnglishOrdinal tag is part of a plugin I use called DateTags; it takes in the cardinal date number and passes back ordinal numbers (i.e., 1st, 2nd, etc).

Not for nothing, but I really like the look and feel of my main archive page now. On a related note, I’ve changed the menu (the right-hand column) around a bit for archive pages — tried to make it a little more relevant/helpful.

Mail.app and broken spam filters

Mail.app is often lauded (and rightfully so) for its exceptional spam filtering, but what to do when the filters start breaking down? It seems that after the file that contains your filtering rulebase (~/Library/Mail/LSMMap2) becomes too large, Mail.app effectively stops catching spam. I’ve experienced this more than once and each time it has come on rather suddenly, leading me to believe that there is a specific filesize threshold that, when crossed, breaks the filters (the last time I noticed this the size of the LSSMap2 file was ~8.5MB).

The only way to “fix” this is to remove the LSSMap2 file (Mail.app recreates a new, blank file when you restart the application). Yes, this means that you have to start training the application again, which, for at least a little while, puts you in the same position you were in before you removed the file.

Enter JunkMatcher:

JunkMatcher filters spam using flexible regular expressions, IP query against multiple blacklists (such as SpamCop.net) and varoius other techniques such as email property matching, HTML final rendering matching etc. You can match against almost every bit of a message (including attachment filenames and charsets), and the raw material for matching is cleaned out for you to defeat some of the tricks spammers use to obfuscate their messages.

To get my rules back on track again, I simply let JunkMatcher “define” the native filters by using it for a few days. This means that you have to actively look for false-positives (I always get quite a few with JunkMatcher’s default rules), but I’ve found that after just two or three days (given the extremely high volume of spam I get; >2000/day) the filters have been “trained” well enough that I can turn JunkMatcher off (until LSSMap2 decides to shit on itself again).

It isn’t the best solution, but for now it does the trick and has stopped me from implementing Knowspam or something similar.

iPhoto and image resizing

I’m not quite sure when it happened (sometime ≥ v4.0), but iPhoto has finally fixed the non-anti-aliasing of exported photos. This makes my life a tad bit easier. The following steps are those that I used to take to get photos up on this site:

1. Create a temp folder in iPhoto.
2. Copy to this folder all of the pictures from the latest trip/event/whatever that I want to put up on the site.
3. Go to the temp folder and remove all of the photos that I know I’m not going to use on the site.
4. Sort the remaining photos in the order that I want.
5. Tag these photos with the “web” keyword (more about this here) for future reference.
6. Export them from iPhoto with no resizing and where the filenames are based on the album name. This will export the images with numbers that correlate to the order that you have them laid out in iPhoto (e.g., temp-01.jpg, temp-02.jpg, etc).
7. Use QuickName (or whatever you like) to remove “temp-” from the front of the filenames. I’ve found no way to get iPhoto to use only sequential numbers in the filenames (i.e., without a title preceding the number).
8. Use Photoshop to batch-resize the pictures to the size that I want for the website (currently 500×375).
9. Create a new folder on my webserver for the pics and drop them in there along with my Slideshow script.
10. Think about a faster, more efficient way to do this.

Now, because I don’t need to use Photoshop for resizing, I can get rid of step eight and pretty much keep everything within iPhoto. I realize that this method is still a little long-winded — if you know of a faster, more efficient way that is both free and uses iPhoto, then by all means, please let me know (and no, iPhoto’s built-in “Web Page” export and the BetterHTMLExport plugin are not options). Come to think of it, I’m not sure that there is a better solution given the way that I present the pictures on my site, but I’m certainly open to suggestions either way.

I still need to redo a couple of sets on the photos page where I used iPhoto for resizing the pictures (before it was fixed and before I started using the method outlined above). I was actually in the process of doing this when, by some fortuitous event, I realized that iPhoto was now properly resizing images.

Loving the Alien

Sometimes I think I’m scared
Sometimes I know
I feel like making love
Sometimes I don’t
I feel like letting go
Maybe not
I feel like giving up
Is all we got

Sometimes is all the time
And never means maybe
Sometimes is all the time
Maybe

And I’m moving on
And I’m moving on (Sometimes I feel alone)
And I’m moving on
And I’m moving on

Sometimes I make believe
When we’re alone
Machines have taken hold
Can you get me to a telephone
It’s just the little things
You used to see
Am I still that man who makes you who you want to be

I never noticed
How lovely were the aliens
Lovely were the aliens
I never noticed
Lovely were the aliens
Lovely were the aliens

From Velvet Revolver’s Loving the Alien

A wonderful weekend

Sara flew out to my place last weekend — she’s leaving the states and heading back to Paris sometime early next year and I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. We had a great time, but needless to say, parting was incredibly difficult, moreso than we thought it would be. At the risk of getting too personal (which, as of late, I’ve become reluctant to do on this site), I’m not going to say anything more.

I put up a few pictures from a day we spent in San Francisco. Enjoy.

Mail.app and very large mailboxes

It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about moving all of my e-mail over to Mail.app from myriad applications going back to ‘99. At that time, and as I mentioned in that post, I sorted the e-mail by year and sent/received. I’ve since gone the way of some others and removed the year from the equation altogether, so that now there are just two files: sent and received. These are not small files (14,000+ received; 11,500+ sent — not including mailing lists or school-related junk) and Mail.app has handled them without issue. Not once did it hiccup as I dragged and dropped mailboxes with 3,000+ e-mails into the main received box. In fact, I’ve yet to have any trouble whatsoever with the large files. The only real difference I’ve noticed at all is a slow-down in indexing time when you click on a mailbox– it’s trivial but noticeable. I was sold, until…

…I shutdown Mail.app and brought it back up. It was hosed. At least for a short while. For one thing, it took forever for it to “index” the files in the mailboxes — we’re talking over 10 minutes. What is more, nearly half of the e-mail that was marked as spam (more on Mail.app’s weakening spam detection in a later post), which was subsequently sent to the “Junk” folder, had reappeared in my inbox. I could find no rhyme or reason as to why some spams reappeared and others didn’t. Given that these spams were now marked as “Not Junk,” I had to go back through my inbox and remove all of them — manually — a daunting task when we are talking about almost a month’s worth of e-mail (since the last time I shutdown Mail.app).

Given that the only real advantage to using the one-file-for-everything approach is the ability to search all of your e-mail at once (instead of searching through mailboxes by year or whatever other system you’ve come up with), the benefits no longer outweigh the risks if you’re doing this with Mail.app; not when you face the possibility of having to weed out spam again and/or wait an indordinate amount of time to bring the application back up after prolonged periods of use.

I’m quite confident that Apple will correct these ‘problems’ in due time and will probably eventually move to the everything-in-one-file method where “virtual” folders are created using labels and whatnot (ala Evolution and now Gmail). Until then, I’m a little uneasy about having all of my eggs in one basket and might move everything back to the year+sent/received structure.

Monitor PageRank with RSS

I’ve just come across a very simple Perl script that allows you to monitor your Google PageRank through an RSS feed. While I don’t know why anyone would actually want to monitor such a thing (*cough* you can find my feed here), the idea is still pretty neat and a much better solution than using those “pagerank calculator” sites to check it manually (again, who does that?  :P). I realize that I could get this information through the Google Toolbar, but that requires both Windows (which I don’t use) and Internet Explorer (which you couldn’t pay me to use; well, maybe if you paid me a lot and I didn’t have to actually be connected to the Internet while it was open).

If you are looking to setup a feed for yourself, use this site to calculate the checksum value you’ll need (the site linked to in the original article no longer exists and so I had to find another one).

One could obviously take this simple code and port it to many other languages to provide similar solutions (e.g., maybe a shell script that would check for a change every hour and then e-mail you when a change is seen), but RSS is the way to go for me.

Gmail odds and ends

I’ve added a few things (eight to be exact) to the Getting More Out Of Gmail post that I put up a few days ago. I’m mentioning it here because if you aren’t subscribed to my RSS feed it’s likely that you haven’t seen the additions.

Please Stop Requesting Invites

I’ve been completely inundated with these for the last week or so (we’re talking hundreds). Any new Gmail invites I receive will be given out in the order in which I received requests, but like I just said, I’ve received hundreds and so sending me another would be a futile move. Just trying to save both of us time.

Minor design changes

As you can see, I’ve made a few aesthetic changes to this site. I realize it’s nothing too crazy (never is) — hopefully I can get away with describing the design as “simple and elegant” — always a goal. I’d like to discuss a few things that gave me a headache with you-know-which browser and this layout. I’m sure this is old hat for most web designers, but these are problems that I hadn’t come across before.

We all know that IE/Win doesn’t recognize “dotted” borders, but instead treats them as “dashes.” It is because of this that I have always stayed away from the dots — I want the sight to look the same on all browsers (obviously) and IE/Win would screw this up (as is usually the case). I finally gave in to desire and decided to figure out a way around the problem. The first thing I did was create an image 1 pixel high and 3 pixels across. The first pixel was made black and the other two transparent.

I thought I would just tile this horizontally with CSS to create the dotted line and be done with it. Well, as it turned out, that is all that needed to be done for every browser except IE/Win, which made the line 10 pixels high instead of one (yes, even when “height: 1px;” is used; it’s completely ignored by IE/Win). There is no explanation for this other than to say that IE/Win is broken as usual. After trying eveything I could possibly think of, I started messing around with the padding and noticed that a top padding of 1 pixel solved the problem in IE/Win without affecting any of the other browsers I used for testing. So, the trick on 1 pixel images in IE/Win is to give them a vertical padding of 1 pixel.

The second thing that had me going crazy trying to fix was the fact that in IE/Win any margin I was adding to the right of my menu div was being doubled. Literally. If I wanted a 10 pixel margin, I would specify 10 pixels and every browser would follow my orders, except for IE/Win, which would make it 20 pixels. I’ve come to find out that it is a well-known bug and occurs when you are trying to add a margin to the same side as the float direction of the div. The fix is simple enough: just add “display: inline;” to the div. All browsers (including IE/Win) ignore this here, but for whatever reason it corrects IE’s doubling of the margin.

A more filling appetizer

Mail.appetizer (which I wrote about here) is actually being worked on and a new version is available for download. Yes, I’m surprised too — it’s been nearly five months since the initial release and I know most of us had just assumed that this project was dead.

The newest version includes:

• Resizable notification window to fit your desktop.
• Custom font for the message body.
• Displays sender’s photo signature (from Address Book or .Mac).
• Counter showing number of outstanding messages.
• Shows mailbox name (optionally).
• Notification for every incoming message (no longer limited to the INBOX)

A Short History of Nearly Everything

I put Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything on my Amazon wish list nearly a year ago, but never got a copy of it. A few weeks back I came across the audiobook version and can’t stop listening to it (despite the annoying accent of the reader).

This is a great book for those who simply love to learn. While “nearly everything” might be a little too ambitious a title for a book that doesn’t reach too far beyond the natural sciences, I still think it’s fitting. From the Big-Bang to the present, he looks at how our universe and planet evolved (and are still evolving) and how we came to know and understand our world (or not).

…how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since.

The book is incredibly engaging and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Getting more out of Gmail

UPDATE: Also see Google Hacks (Second Edition) and Hacking Gmail — I was the technical editor on both books.

The large number of Gmail invites that I’ve given out in the last few days has spawned a lot of dialogue between friends and I on how to do certain things with the service. There are all kinds of neat things popping up for Gmail. Given that I don’t use Gmail for anything more than sending invites, my experience and knowledge with these things is somewhat limited, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to answer my friends’ (and strangers’) questions, right? I had half a mind to send all inquiries to Fucking Google It, but I digress.  :)

That said, the following is a collection of programs, sites, and information that will allow you to get more out of Gmail.

Easily Move All of Your Contacts to Gmail

I received quite a few questions from friends wondering if they could import their contacts into Gmail. Unfortunately Gmail doesn’t yet offer the option to do this (they will in the future) unless you’re running Mac OS X or *nix (see next section), but I’ve come up with a very simple solution that you can use in the interim.

1. Send out a single e-mail (preferably one that announces your intention) to all of your contacts from whatever program/site you used before Gmail and make sure you also send it to your Gmail account (or to an account that you forward to Gmail).
2. After you receive the e-mail through Gmail, open it and choose “Reply to all.”
3. Write something in the e-mail explaining its purpose and send it off.

Gmail automatically adds to your contact list the names and e-mail addresses of the people you e-mail from Gmail, therefore the e-mail you sent in Step 3 should add all of those people to your contact list.

Import Contacts Directly With Mac OS X (and *nix)

Apparently Gmail already offers the option to import contacts directly, but it seems that this is hidden to all browsers except Camino (v0.7 only) on Mac OS X.

Instructions for how to do this on Mac OS X.

I’ve heard that this method also works for Gecko-based browsers running on *nix (though I’m not sure which versions of which browsers can see the import option).

Helpful/Interesting Sites

• Gmail Gems — a weblog devoted to Gmail tips and tricks.
• Gmail for the Troops — a site that looks to give Gmail invites to the troops in Iraq.
• Gmail 4 Troops - same as above.
• Gmail Swap — a site where you can trade your invites for almost anything. It should be noted that in the last couple of weeks Google has been tossing out invites left and right and subsequently the ‘value’ of the invites has effectively been reduced to zero (this goes for selling them on eBay as well). After all, it is (or rather will be) a free service.
• Gmail Machine — a site that gives away Gmail invites (you have to keep refreshing the page and hope that the “magic” number pops up).
• GmailForums - as the name implies, a forum to discuss all things Gmail.
• Most Wanted Gmail Features - a site that allows you to vote on which features you’d most like to see in Gmail (including those that we know Google is already working on but hasn’t yet released). If there is a feature you’d like to see that isn’t already on the list of things you can vote for, let him know.

Helpful Programs

• Gmail API - There are two distinct components here: an open source Gmail API written for the .NET framework, and a proof of concept Windows application built on top of that API that provides basic remote Gmail functions.
• Mbox & Maildir to Gmail Loader (GML) — allows you to import your mbox or Maildir files into Gmail. The only problem I see with this is that it doesn’t get the timestamp right — messages will be timestamped with the time that they are received by Gmail (there is presently no way around this). If you’re thinking about using this program I would suggest waiting for Google to add this functionality (and it will) so that the timestamps are correct. I don’t plan on making this move any time soon, but if I were, I would definitely wait for Google to offer a solution — the idea of e-mailing 13,000+ e-mails, one every two seconds, does not sound very appealing to me. While this program automates the entire process, the practicality of this method has to break down once you go beyond a certain mailbox size. Also, there is still no way to import your sent messages, which, at least for me, are often as important as those that I’ve received. You can now specify where you want your e-mails sent (i.e., “Inbox” or “Sent Mail”).
• gExodus - a graphical Gmail import utility written in Python.
• Import Mail from Mac OS X into Gmail — uses the source from the above program along with some AppleScript to allow you to migrate e-mail from your Mail.app mailboxes to Gmail.
• Export your Gmail inbox with Python — allows you to export e-mails from your Gmail inbox. Again, this is something that I’d wait for Google to do on their own, but by all accounts it works fine. Like the importers there is still no way to deal with your sent messages.
• gCount (Mac OS X) — displays the number of unread Gmail messages in the Mac OS X menubar.
• G-Mailto (Mac OS X) — allows you to associate mailto links with Gmail (instead of a local client).
• G-Mailto (Windows) — allows you to associate mailto links with Gmail (instead of a local client).
• Pop Goes the Gmail (Windows) — allows you to retrieve your Gmail e-mail through POP3 clients.
• GTray (Windows) — an icon in the systray shows the number of unread messages in your Gmail account.
• GetMail (Windows) — forward your Hotmail e-mail to any address.
• Transfer files to and from Gmail - a tiny PHP script that allows you to send files to and from Gmail accounts. Very very cool. This is actually something I’ve been talking about with some of my friends for a while now. It’s not going to take too long for more robust and powerful scripts to surface. When Gmail is made available to the public I don’t see why one couldn’t sign up for an unlimited number of accounts; the accounts could be entered into a script similar to this one, and provide, theoretically, unlimited storage.
• GmailCompose (Firefox/Mozilla) - browser extension that adds a context-menu link for opening a GMail compose window when clicking on mailto links or when selecting a text e-mail address.
• Gmail Bookmarklets - all of these are for composing messages in Gmail. Some claim that they are browser-specific, but these usually work across the board.
  
  Bookmarklet One
  Bookmarklet Two
  Bookmarklet Three
  
• libgmail - pure Python binding to provide access to the Gmail service.

Wake up

Typical order of things after I crawl out of bed:

• Check e-mail
• Check mobile phone for voicemails and SMS messages
• Check news aggregator (quickly)
• Check stocks
• Check referrers
• Check AdSense
• Pee
• Go back to news aggregator and start reading
• Quickly realize that other, more pertinent things need to be taken care of and news will have to wait

More Gmail

Google keeps giving me Gmail invites (36 in the last 72 hours). I currently have three left — e-mail me if you want one.

Want a Gmail invite?

I’m giving Gmail invitations to the first six real-life friends who e-mail me asking for one (I’m doing it this way so that I don’t get charged with playing favorites  :P). I plan to get a lot of e-mails (much more than I have invites to give), and to be fair, I’ll defer to these unfulfilled requests as I get more invites in the future.

How to create a linkblog in Movable Type

First off, let me apologize for using the word ‘linkblog’ — I’m not a fan of it myself and am only using it because it seems that that is what this sort of thing is being called (and if you got here from Google then I chose the right word   :P).

I’m going to start by going over two solutions that I didn’t choose to implement, but that might be of some use to you, and then I’ll explain the method I came up with, which is easy to setup and use.

The Easiest Method

The first thing that came to mind when I decided that I wanted to do this was to simply create a category in my current Movable Type weblog. To post a new link you would just create a new post in your current weblog and put it into the new category. The code to list the latest links would be very similar to the code you already use to display your weblog entries, except that you’d limit the output to “link” entries through the use of category tags.

This is all well and good and I’d imagine that most people would be fine with this solution, but I had a couple of problems with it. The biggest problem for me was that these tiny, one-line posts would be interlaced with the regular posts (on my end) — I wanted to keep the linkblog completely separate from my normal posts. Just my preference. The other thing that bothered me was the “Post Status” option. For my regular entries I like the default “Post Status” set to “Draft,” but for the linkblog I wanted it set to “Publish” — there is no way to set this variable based on the category of the post. Again, this might not bother you.

The Worst Method

The first thing I did after deciding that I was going to create a linkblog was to look for a Movable Type plugin that already did what I looked to do. After being unable to find one, I thought to create another weblog inside my MT installation and then just reference the second weblog from my first (main) weblog. This is not possible in MT! What the hell? Naturally, I immediately went looking for a plugin that would allow me to call other weblogs from my main one. I ran across David Rayne’s MTOtherBlog plugin. A good idea to be sure, but for it to work, one must rebuild their entire weblog. For example, you’d place the MTOtherBlog call in a template where you wanted information from another weblog to be inserted. Then, you’d add a link to your new linkblog. Now, while the change has been made in your linkblog, it won’t show up on your main weblog until you rebuild the template where the MTOtherBlog call resides — you have to manually rebuild all the pages that reference the linkblog (in my case, every page on my site) each time you add a new link!

Enter pingToRebuild.cgi, which automatically rebuilds a Movable Type weblog (i.e., you’d setup your linkblog to run pingToRebuild each time you add a link). While this obviates the annoyance of constant manual rebuilding, the fact remains that you’re still left to rebuild each and every time you add a link. I find this unacceptable. You might not.

My Method

This method lets you keep the links in a separate weblog and doesn’t require you to rebuild each time you add a link. Keep in mind that the following is my specific setup; there are a lot of things you can play around with and add depending on your needs. The basic idea is that each time you add a new link to the linkblog, a text file is written with the new link and loaded into any page you wish through PHP. It’s very simple.

The first thing I did was create another weblog within my current installation of Movable Type. I decided that the link’s title would be set by the MTEntryTitle tag and the URI set by the MTEntryBody tag. You could obviously use any of the other variables as you see fit (e.g., you could add a brief description of each link through the MTEntryExcerpt tag, etc). After realizing which tags would be used and for what purpose, I created a new template and named its “Output File” “bits.txt.” The entire template is shown below:

<ul>
<MTEntries lastn="15">
<li>
<a href="<$MTEntryBody$>"><$MTEntryTitle$></a>
</li>
</MTEntries>
</ul>

That’s it. The new link is wrapped in markup and “bits.txt” is written. As explained above, the title of the post is the title of the link, and the body of the post is the URI itself.

Finally, to pull this file into another template (e.g., your main weblog template), you simply need to add one line of PHP wherever you want the file’s contents to be inserted.

To make the posting of links faster, I took the obvious step of linking a bookmark in my browser to the “New Entry” page of the linkblog. After I read an article that I want to add to the linkblog, I copy the URI, hit the bookmark button, put whatever title I want into the title field, paste the link into the body field, and press “Publish.” Done.

Bits

I’ve put it off for as long as possible and have finally added a ‘linkblog’ to this site (see “Bits” in the menu). The only reason I didn’t add this sort of thing sooner (especially after seeing most of the people I read do something similar) is because I was never too sure that I wanted to keep up with it. It then dawned on me that I’ve been doing this in a roundabout way for many years: I have a notorious habit of e-mailing links to any of my friends who might find them remotely interesting and have even gone so far as to create 11 different e-mail ‘groups’ to more easily allow me to send the link to those that would find it pertinent. The new ‘linkblog’ will allow me to do the same, but in an easier, faster, and more accessible way (i.e., available to anyone that reads this site, not just the people I e-mail). It will also act as a bookmark repository for myself. I should mention that below the list of “Bits” you can find an RSS feed for the links.

I’m going to do a write-up sometime soon (later today or tomorrow) on how to create a ‘linkblog’ in Movable Type. My solution is really simple and adding a new link is mindless after you get it up and running.

About The Minor Design Changes

I keep flip-flopping on whether I want the menu on the left or the right, so I’m not sure which side it will be on when you read this post. As much as I loved the previous menu (simple, simple, simple), the menu column needed to be widened to accommodate the “Bits” section. The previous menu was on the left and the text was right-aligned, but this posed a problem when I widened the column because the space between the menu text and the left edge of the container became too great and it visually offset the page. I played around with a lot of different layouts, including a horizontal menu (as I’ve used in the past), but I really like the dual-column menu that you see now and I think I’m going to stick with it. To make the columns equal (four links in each), I removed the search link and placed the option below the menu. I’m not sure it will stay there.

I’ll be making slight tweaks for the next couple of days (font sizes/types/colors, column widths, etc.), but I doubt I’ll deviate too much from this layout.

Out of control

SPAM count for the last 24 hours: 1267

As usual, much of the blame can be placed on Microsoft.

Cruel and unusual punishment

My study materials for the patent bar arrived yesterday. Joy. You’d think that for the amount of money paid for these materials I’d get some sort of free ride on the exam; a “golden ticket” that I could just slip to the proctor and then be on my merry way. Apparently that’s not how it works and it’s starting to sink in that I’m actually going to have to study for this damn thing. As I outlined in a previous post, I assumed that the studying was going to be slow and painful. I was wrong. It’s much worse. I slogged through the first two (of 63) modules today and can liken it only to, well, nothing. You’re literally trying to memorize a ~3,000 page manual that is more dense and boring than anything you’ve ever seen. It’s horrible.

Bloglines

After using desktop aggregators for years, I’ve recently moved my subscriptions over to the web-based Bloglines and have no intention of going back to NetNewsWire. I’m always reluctant to use server-side anything; I think this general aversion stems from the fact that I usually don’t feel that I’m in control of web applications (i.e., there are never enough customization and configuration options and everything is centralized on a computer that isn’t mine). That said, I only thought to give Bloglines a chance after seeing some other prominent netheads rave about it. After using it for the past two weeks I have to say that it gets just about everything right; my problems with it are both mild and easily curable. The next few paragraphs outline some of the changes I’d like to see, but even if none of these come to fruition, Bloglines is my aggregator of choice until something better comes along.

The first thing I’d like to see is the number of unread headlines as part of the title of the page (e.g., instead of “Bloglines | My Blogs,” I’d like “Bloglines | 187 unread”). That way, a quick glance to the Bloglines tab in my browser would reveal how far “behind” I was (come to think of it, maybe that’s not a good idea).

I wouldn’t mind an easier way of sorting the subscriptions. As it stands now, it’s easier to export the subs list, import it into a desktop client (e.g., NetNewsWire), sort the subs as I see fit, export them, and then re-import them into Bloglines.

I think a name change would be nice as well. Bloglines implies that it is only for weblogs and not syndication in general. Furthermore, even it were somehow confined to weblogs, I think the name is stupid — what the hell does “bloglines” mean? Perhaps it is a play on “headlines?” Whatever, I don’t like it. *shrug*

Finally, the feature I’d like to see most is for Bloglines to include in my list only the subscriptions that have unread headlines — if there aren’t any unread headlines there is no reason to encumber my list (which requires quite a bit of scrolling as is) with those empty sites.

Sticking with AdSense

I started placing Google’s AdSense ads on my individual archives about a month ago just to get a feel for the amount of money that might be generated. I’m happy to report that I’ve actually made quite a bit off the ads (people actually click on these things, who knew?) and see no real reason to pull them. Not only will this pay for the hosting, but it will leave me with a nice little chunk of change each month.

I’ve debated moving the ads from the bottom of each entry to being inline with the menu on the left, but I hesitate because I feel that that would look a little too “commercial,” though it would surely compel more click-throughs. I’m going to leave them at the bottom of the pages for now, but might move them in the future.

Slideshow Project

After an overwhelming response to my earlier post about the new slideshow I’m using on the photos page, I’ve gone ahead and added some comments and instructions to the code and am now offering it to everyone. Keep in mind that this is just something I whipped up a couple of days ago to display my images after tiring of my previous solution and being unable to find something simple and small that did what I wanted (read: it is both simple and small and is meant to fulfill a niche need of mine). Apparently this sort of thing is something that a lot of other people were looking for as well given the strong response to the earlier post.

Go to the Slideshow project page

Pics from LA

I just put up some photos from my trip to LA. I didn’t take too many pictures and am a little disappointed with most of those that I did take so don’t expect too much.

Photo slideshow with PHP

UPDATE: Slideshow Project Page

I’ve completely redone my photo pages. After much more consternation than there should have been, I decided that I wanted to do a slideshow with the picture sets instead of the tiled thumbnails that I previously used. I spent a fair amount of time looking at possible solutions for this, but opted to build it myself in PHP after not being able to find a method that I liked. Among the different solutions I looked at were the BetterHtmlExport plugin for iPhoto and Galerie (not to be confused with Gallery, which I’ve used a few times in the past and knew would be overkill for what I wanted to do now). I probably worked through eight different options before deciding that I would just write it myself because none of the things I found captured the simplicity of what I was shooting for: the ability to drop a single PHP (or other) file into a directory of sequentially numbered images and have those images presented as a slideshow. I also wanted the presentation to mesh well with my current page templates and be easy to change in the future.

My solution takes care of all these things and the code is fairly short (as it should be given the simplicity of the problem). The way I have it set up, you need to include a one line text file in each directory of pictures which specifies the title of the page (so that the PHP code/template can be kept completely separate from whatever set of pics it’s working with). This could obviously be easily extended to cover more variables like descriptions for individual pictures (for example, you could set up each text line to correspond to that line number’s matching image number, thereby allowing you to give a description of each picture). After you create this text file you simply need to drop the PHP file into the directory and then point to it.

Initially, I planned to have the pictures show up in my “content” column (where this text is), but this would have required me to either widen the div or go back and resize all of my pics to 400×300, neither of which I wanted to do. Because of these constraints, I decided to keep the slideshow pages free of the menu and title header found on the other pages. I removed the title header because I wanted to make sure that the pictures could be viewed in full without the person having to scroll, which they would have had to do if they were viewing 375×500 portrait pics on a 1024×768 screen (yah, I find it hard to believe myself, but some people still use that resolution).

So, yah, nothing revolutionary here, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. If past experience is any indication, I have a feeling a few people are going to ask for the code. If this turns out to be the case, I’ll probably flesh it out a bit and make it more robust before passing it around.

Apple 23″ Cinema HD Display

A good friend of mine (one of the many that I’ve convinced to move to Apple’s OS X) is leaving for the summer to do a study abroad program, and as luck would have it, I get to “look after” his 23″ Cinema HD Display while he’s gone. Given my propensity to become attached to all things tech, I was a little apprehensive about taking it in the beginning knowing that I’d eventually have to give it up, but I’ve since changed my entire outlook on the situation. I’m just going to keep it. You hear that Dave? I realize this might put a damper on our friendship, but the fact is, I just can’t go back to life without it. I hope you understand.  :P

In other news, if anyone out there has a spare $2000 that they’d like to donate to my just-created monitor fund, please let me know.

Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition

There has been a lot of controversy/hype/anger/apathy surrounding the recent release of Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition. I must admit that I’m lumped in with the apathetic crowd. Because I only run one weblog through the system (perhaps two in the near future, I’m still debating that), I’m not affected at all by the new pricing scheme (i.e., for my uses, it remains free), which is the impetus behind all of those who are ‘angry.’

That said, I upgraded to v3.0D a couple of weeks ago and have experienced no trouble at all (including no plugin hiccups). Besides some subtle interface design changes, there really is nothing aesthetically different from past versions. I knew this going into the upgrade and am well aware of the changes to the ‘guts’ of the system, but I was still expecting something more. Notwithstanding the lack of feature updates, I see no reason to stop using Movable Type — I still feel that no other CMS comes close.

For kicks, I installed WordPress a few weeks ago and messed around with it for a while, but its interface did nothing for me nor were its features on par with Movable Type’s. To be fair, I was running v1.0.2, but v1.2 was released a few days ago, which might have fixed some of the things I didn’t like; I’ll probably play around with the new version sometime this week. Adding to Movable Type’s pull on me is the number of plugins available for it. Not to be left out, WordPress also offers the ability to easily create plugins for the system, but its repository is currently much smaller; granted, WordPress’s user base is much smaller and it’s only been out a short while compared to Movable Type.

To be clear though, if it turned out that the new Movable Type pricing scheme required me to pay for it, I would probably get past my hang-ups with WordPress and begin using it, which seems to be the attitude of most of those who are now forced to pay for v3.0D upgrades. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t pay for Movable Type (as I’ve said many times before, it’s one of the greatest pieces of software I’ve ever used), but if there is another [free] solution available that can do everything that Movable Type can do, logic dictates that I would opt for the other solution. *shrug*

Back from SoCal

The trip down to LA was great. I’m going to try to make this quick as I have 2323243 other things to do — I’ll save trip details for phone conversations and inquisitive e-mails. I stayed with a good friend of mine and his aunt and uncle in a small town called San Dimas. The first full day down there we hit up Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards. Pretty much walked the entire Hollywood Walk of Fame and saw the Man’s Chinese (it’s actually Grauman’s) and Kodak theaters. Stopped in at the Roosevelt hotel and got some drinks.

Later that day we drove through Beverly Hills and did some window shopping on Rodeo drive. The amount of money in that area is truly unbelievable. To be perfectly honest, it was disgusting. I saw four Bentleys in less than 20 minutes, not to mention the Aston Martins and countless Porsches and Range Rovers. Speaking of cars, I actually saw a Maybach on Hollywood Boulevard; what a beautiful machine. We ended the night at a seafood restaurant/bar called Gladstone’s on the water in Malibu.

The following day we woke up pretty late and wanted to be back in time for dinner with my friend’s uncle so we didn’t stray too far from the house. We went down to the shopping/bar area in Pasadena and walked around and had a few drinks. That night we had dinner at Little Tokyo in San Dimas, which, I was told beforehand, was the best sushi outside of Japan. My friend was absolutely right — it was the best sushi I’ve ever had. From the quantity to the quality, it just doesn’t get any better. At the end of our meal I put on my best Fear Factor face and ate crickets that were given to us by the sushi chef. After seeing him take a few down I didn’t hesitate too much and went for it; they were surprisingly good (I think they were coated in sugar), but I can’t say I was too fond of the legs.

The next day we met up with another friend of mine from the law school. She was born and raised in the LA area and had a lot that she wanted to show me. We started out the day by walking up and down the sidewalk at Venice/Muscle Beach. The area there was really neat; there were lots of places to skate and play paddle tennis and basketball. The sidewalk was lined with the usual shit-knack stores and sidewalk vendors hawking everything from handmade purses to kites. The one odd thing I noticed was that all of the meatheads working out in the “beach gym” thing were wearing nothing but what can best be described as tighty-whitey underwear — weird.

After we left Venice beach we hit up the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica where we stopped at a few places to eat and drink. We then walked along the Santa Monica Pier, which was gorgeous and very busy. That night we went to a bar called Miyagi’s in West Hollywood (where Hugh Hefner supposedly frequents; no, he nor any Playboy bunnies were there that night). The plan was to jump in and out of a few places but I was smitten with the bartender and didn’t want to leave — it was a good time. Be prepared to pay at this place; the drinks I was getting were $17.50 each (needless to say, I wasn’t aware of this until the tab came).

The next day I drove down to Huntington Beach to meet up with one of my best friends from high school who is now living there. We went down to the beach and the Huntington Pier, which was awesome. The beach was packed and the water was full of kids and surfers. There was actually a big surfing competition going on while we were there, which was kind of neat. We stayed on the pier for quite a while and snapped up a lot of pics. At the end of the pier we watched some guy and his kid reel up a stingray they had caught. The plan that night was to head back up to LA and go out on the town, but I was so tired that we decided to hit up a local place in Huntington Beach. Good times.

I Wish I could write more, but I’ve got a lot of other things to take care of. If you’ve e-mailed me within the past week, hold on tight, a reply is forthcoming, but it might take a couple more days — I have a shit ton of e-mail to return.

I did manage to get a few pictures, but nothing too great. I forgot my camera on one of the excursions and am waiting to get the pics from the girl whose camera I used that day — I’ll put some pics up shortly after I get those other photos.

City of angels

I’m headed down to Los Angeles later today with a good friend of mine. I’m incredibly excited as I’ve never been to LA and have always wanted to go (hell, the furthest south in California I’ve ever been is San Luis Obispo). I probably won’t post again until Sunday, but you never know. Expect a new picture set sometime next week and some great stories to boot (though I’ll probably have to confine most of the stories to e-mail, depending  :P).

Musicplasma

I came across this site about a week ago during my study bender and kind of forgot about it until now. Essentially, Musicplasma takes the name of an artist that you punch in and spits out a graph that contains all those artists who are related in some way (genre, epoch, etc) to the artist you’re querying — a visual search engine. You can move around the graph and click on the other artists to start the search anew or you can zoom in and out of the artist currently in focus.

The closer the artists are, musically speaking, the closer to each other they will be displayed on screen, you will be likely to appreciate artists close to the one you selected first.

I’ve put it through quite a few tests and it seems to be fairly on point, but you can definitely break it (e.g., “the streets” produces some whack results). Either way, it’s really fun to play around with and for those of you who who pay for music, it provides a list of the artist’s albums and links to them on Amazon.

Google love

I follow my referrers fairly constantly and have come across some rather interesting Google searches the past couple of months. The following searches are a few of those (off the top of my head) for which I am the #1 result.

future-proof your uris
mobile phone roundup
required os x programs
i’m a computer engineer
iphoto metadata
os x verbose boot
apple referral
pictures of scu
justin from american chopper
t616 receiving pictures
ebay fraud indonesia
quick trip to san francisco
resizing pictures in iphoto
“rolling stone for life”

The toughest year

It’s rare that I talk about personal stuff on this site, and I doubt this post will get very far in that regard, but I kind of wanted to get this out there. This has been the hardest year of my life. My mother passed away three days before I was to begin my first day of law school — clear across the continent (Florida → California) and completely removed from friends and family. While I’ve made some great friends out here who have been more than supportive and have gone out of their way to be there for me whenever I needed it (not to mention everyone back home), the year has been more difficult than anyone will ever know. I kind of shut myself off from talking about my mother to just about everyone and backed away from any conversation that I felt was leading in that direction. Even now as I type this, I feel myself pulling away and not wanting to write about it anymore, though I’ve really said nothing (then again, a lot of that has to do with the fact that it’s a little too personal for this site).

Oh yah, law school was pretty tough too — pounded out the last exam Friday morning (suffice it to say that from 12PM Friday afternoon to 6AM Saturday morning, a lot of fun was had). Finals obviously sucked (3-4 hour essay exams suck as a rule), but on top of that my mother’s birthday was right smack in the middle of them and then Mother’s Day was three days later. I was, quite literally, a walking ball of nerves and emotion. Those that really know me know that I’m an incredibly emotional/sensitive person and it has taken all of me not to lose it the past couple of weeks. I’ll strike a lot of that up to an emotional disconnect that I’ve forced upon myself the last 10 months — I don’t think I could have made it through school without it. That’s not to say that I haven’t had my bad moments throughout the year; I’ve cracked quite a bit and at times studying was nothing short of impossible.

Now, with one year of law school down the drain and some free time to think, I’m realizing that I haven’t come too far in dealing with the pain of her loss. I don’t know, I think I’m just incredibly scared to tackle it head-on, knowing all too well how fragile I am. I’m hoping the summer will allow me some time to reflect and finally come to terms with all that has happened. I have a habit (some would say a good one) of throwing myself into schoolwork, computer shit, and helping friends with personal problems. While this allows me to be wonderfully productive, now more than ever it has caused me to feel guilty for pushing other things to the back of my mind. I don’t know. I need more time.

That said, I’m incredibly relieved that this [academic] year is finally over and I can step back for a bit and recollect. I wish I could open up more on this site (in general), but I don’t think I can. It just doesn’t feel right.

Law school finals

I’m right in the middle of first year law school finals and so I probably won’t post for a couple of weeks. We’ll see. On a related note, if I’m a little slow with the e-mail replies you know why.

Quicksilver

“Quicksilver is an evolving framework for accessing and manipulating many forms of personal data.”

BlackTree’s definition sounds great, but it doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of Quicksilver’s power. I first mentioned this program in the Required OS X Programs post a few weeks ago. At that time I had only been using it for a few days, but had already realized that it was indispensable. After having had the chance to really dig into it these last few weeks I can genuinely say that it is perhaps the single most ingenious program I’ve ever used on any platform. It just works. Wonderfully.

There are very few people who run Mac OS X and have a weblog who have not commented on Quicksilver with the same excitement as myself. The real breakthrough moment for me came when I was searching for a quick way to pause/play/skip in iTunes using just the keyboard and without taking the focus off of my current window. So, I hit cmd-space (the default key combination for launching Quicksilver), typed “nex,” and pressed enter. Sure enough, it had selected “Next Song.scpt” and jumped to the next track in my playlist. I was sold. It’s one of those programs that causes you to convince yourself that using it for [insert any task] is much more efficient, even if it’s not.

Say you want to e-mail someone in your Address Book. You simply punch cmd-space, type the person’s last name, and choose their e-mail address. Done. Speaking of e-mail, you can actually type the entire message up in Quicksilver and then have it launch a new message addressed to whomever you choose. After you hit your hotkey sequence, hit the “.” key and begin typing your message. When finished, hit enter and then search for the person to whom you want to send the message.

You can even pipe text to Quicksilver from the command line. *drool*

There really is no limit to what this program can do and it’s only going to become more powerful. As I mentioned in an earlier post, your need for the Dock and Finder can be completely obviated if you so choose; it seems as if some have already taken this step. Beyond its functional greatness, I think it looks really good and meshes well with Mac OS X. It’s the type of program that further enforces my decision to move from desktop Linux to Apple’s OS.

I do recommend checking out the excellent documentation as it contains a lot of really useful tips and information. To that end, you might as well exploit the forum while you’re at it.

Something tells me the good folks at BlackTree are going to get us all hooked on this software crack and then start charging for it.

$3.2 billion

According to a recent NYT article, consumers spent $3.2 billion on custom ringtones in 2003. What the hell is wrong with people? I remember when predictions of this sort of thing started surfacing a few years ago; I just brushed them off as nonsense, but apparently I was wrong. I just don’t get it — who’s buying these things? First of all, ringtones should only be used when absolutely necessary. Second of all, if your phone is in your pocket (which I’m assuming it is 99% of the time), it should be on vibrate. Period. That way, you never disturb others with the ring and never have to worry about switching it to vibrate when required. For those who haven’t yet received the memo: no one needs to know that you’ve received a phone call except you.

Ring tone sales are expected to continue to expand as more sophisticated cellphones and advanced technologies become available, which will make the rings sound less like they are being played with one finger on a tiny calliope.

I hate to break it to those out there who think this cash cow is going to last, but this little bubble is going to burst as soon as the majority of mobile phones allow the user to use his own audio files for ringtones (i.e., an MP3 of their favorite song), which is not too far off (I’m referring to the average user’s mobile phone, not high-end models that have allowed this sort of functionalilty in one form or another for years). Even then, the argument for having it on vibrate still applies, perhaps more so given society’s affinity for bad music these days; the last thing I want to hear when Suzy gets a phone call is “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.”  :)

Among Cingular’s newest offerings are name ringers that seemingly speak to the cellphone owner, as in “Mike. Mike. Answer the phone, Mike.”

Again, this is going to be moot when end-user phones support the ability to use personal files (i.e., you could create your own, “hey, dumbass, answer the phone… what? you can’t hear this because the phone is in your pocket and you should have it on vibrate?”). I could do this on my old P800 , but the point was lost on me.

At the end of the day, to each his own; if you want to pay for ringtones, so be it. I’ll never understand. $3,200,000,000 in one year!

Gmail

Despite requesting to be a beta tester for Google’s Gmail webmail service (eventually POP and IMAP as well), I’m yet to get the early nod from the powers that be (though apparently other “active” Blogger users have). Lucky for me, Jeremy Zawodny had some extra invites to spare and he sent me one a couple of days ago (I guess I could have always turned to eBay).

Everyone knows the big deal behind Gmail is the 1GB (yes, 1000MB) of storage space that comes with each account and the ability to archive/search through ALL of your messages. Given that I already do these things, and have for years, I’m obviously not going to begin using Gmail as my e-mail ‘client.’ In fact, I doubt I’ll ever use it to send/receive personal e-mail. The reason I wanted to get an account was simply to play with it; to find out what all the hype was about (and to reserve the jblanton username — you just never know).

If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m afraid I don’t see the big deal. I can’t find anything particularly “innovative” going on here, save the fact that some things people have been doing for years in native e-mail clients are now being offered through a non-local webmail interface. *shrug* I guess the regular user out there who uses Hotmail/Yahoo/MSN/etc as their primary e-mail tool might like the fact that they don’t have to delete their e-mail, but hell, they can’t care too much because they’ve been deleting their e-mail for years. Either way, more space was the logical progression of such accounts. Granted, the jump from 3-10MB to 1GB is impressive, but all other similar outfits will follow suit in due time.

The fact that Gmail has “virtual folders” is also creating quite the buzz. While neat and practical, it certainly isn’t cutting-edge technology — correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I was doing this in Evolution years ago.

Notwithstanding all of these not-so-innovative innovations, if I were one of those people who used any of the aforementioned free webmail services, I would definitely jump on Gmail as soon as it’s made available to the public. Let’s be clear: Gmail is the free e-mail service to beat. The only caveat is that you will be signing away your privacy (your e-mail “conversations” are used to deliver context-sensitive ads), but this is really no different from privacy issues that already afflict other services (or will in the very near future).

As others have done, I’m posting my new address here to generate some spam so that I can take a look at how Gmail attacks it (this was actually the only reason for this post, but it appears that I’ve managed to ramble on as usual).

Selling out

I’m debating becoming a part of Google’s AdSense program. I’ve thought about this for a long time and have repeatedly opted against it, but I’m now starting to have second thoughts given that a lot of “non-commercial” sites are making decent change from it (if anything, it would be nice to cover hosting costs). So, if you start to see the text ads in the next few days, don’t be alarmed. If I do decide to do this the ads will only appear on the archived pages (beneath the posts) and never on the main page(s).

iLap

I recently purchased an iLap for my PowerBook. It provides excellent heat distribution, raises the screen and tilts the keyboard when it is on my desk, and when it is in my lap it raises the PowerBook to a much more comfortable position and keeps the heat away from my future children.

The Good

The most important thing is that it really relieves some of the strain I constantly feel down the back of my left shoulder and neck after prolonged periods of notebook use at a desk. I think it looks really good on my desk and now I can slide the notebook around the desk rather easily (I have a glass top).

It is incredibly comfortable for lap use as well — you feel absolutely no heat from the PowerBook and it raises the notebook to a level that is much more conducive to extended sittings. The machine stays much cooler; it’s almost cold in places where it was rather warm before.

I was a little concerned about the angle of the slope being large enough to prevent a CD/DVD from being loaded into the PowerBook (it slot-loads from the front), but this was not a problem at all.

The Bad

Aesthetically, there is one thing that irks me: the padding found on the front of it has this ugly (in my humble opinion) “shell” pattern that I really can’t stand. I knew this before I bought it so I can’t complain too much, but if I had my say this pad would be as plain as possible. Moreover, it’s made out of velvet; I would have preferred anything else.

Functionally, I don’t have too much to complain about, but there is one thing that kind of bothers me: there is no way to lock the back hinge in place. This is fine when you have it on your lap because it allows the iLap to move along with the position of your legs, but when you slide the unit around on a desk the hinge moves a little and I find myself checking to make sure that it’s straight. I would have liked some sort of locking mechanism on the hinge.

The Unexpected

There were a few things that surprised me about the setup. The first is that the front pad attaches to the unit by velcro. It obviously had to attach someway, but velcro never crossed my mind. The downside to this is that attaching/detaching the front pad is a pain, especially if you are frequently moving between a desk and a chair/couch. The upside to the velcro is that it makes it easier to slide the whole thing when it is on a desk (instead of having the aluminum touch the desk).

Another thing that I didn’t anticipate was how the screen’s angle would be constrained by the angle of the iLap. Those of you that have a new aluminum PowerBook know that the screen does not tilt too far past 90°, at least compared to the titanium PowerBook, or most notebooks for that matter. The angle of the iLap works to cancel out the angle of the screen so as to further suppress its maximum obtuse angle. In practice this really isn’t a big deal, especially if you sit properly, and I really don’t see how they could have designed around it, but I’m sure this will be an issue for some people.

Finally, the screen tends to “bounce” quite a bit when you are typing fast. This is no doubt due to the fact that the back hinge is wrapped in a cushion which tends to react to the weight and movement of your fingers as you type. I suspect that this “bounce” will dissipate over time as the cushion becomes compressed from use.

And so it began

Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay,
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.
All five horizons revolved around her soul,
As the earth to the sun.
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn.
And all I taught her was everything…
I know she gave me all that she wore…

And now my bitter hands shake beneath the clouds,
Of what was everything.
All the pictures have all been washed in black…
…tattooed everything.

I take a walk outside,
I’m surrounded by some kids at play.
I can feel their laughter,
so why do I sear?
And twisted thoughts that spin around my head…
I’m spinnin’…I’m spinnin’…
How quick the sun can drop away.

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass,
Of what was everything.
All the pictures have all been washed in black…
…tattooed everything.
All the love gone bad turned my world to black…
…tattooed all I see… all that I am… all I’ll be.

I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life,
I know you’ll be a star…
…in somebody else’s sky,
But why, why, why can’t it be, can’t it be mine?

From Pearl Jam’s Black

In 1993 I bought my very first album, Pearl Jam’s Ten. I was 13 years old. I tagged along with my father to a Peaches music store in Orlando where he let me get Ten and Nirvana’s In Utero. So began what can only be described as an obsession with all things music. How fitting that my first album ever remains one of the most powerful, potent, and personally relevant records in my entire 4000+ album collection. While every song on Ten is a classic, Black has always been my favorite.

MoCoLoco

Though I can’t yet afford most of what is shown in the Modern Contemporary Design web mag, you better believe that this is the kind of furniture I’ll be buying when I can. Great little site.

Feeding the masses

In response to a few requests, I’ve put up an OPML file that contains the RSS feeds of all the sites I currently read. I point to it on the links page and I’ll try to keep it up-to-date. It should be importable into all news aggregators that support OPML. If there is a website you think I would like and is not in my list, please let me know.

Alkaline Trio

A couple nights ago I got to meet and watch Alkaline Trio, whose latest album, Good Mourning, I’ve probably listened to more than any other the past few months (the hookup was through the same friend who got me a backstage pass for the last concert). NOFX and Authority Zero played as well. In addition to standing backstage during the sets (see pic  :P), I also got to hang out quite a bit on the NOFX bus. I could go on and on, but not without sounding like an ass, so I digress. Suffice it to say that it was an incredible experience. (Picture was taken with mobile phone because both of us forgot our regular cameras!)

Managing mobile phone purchases

To maintain my gadget problem I’ve had to come up with various ways of getting the “latest and greatest” without having to spend too much money. The first method that I mention below has worked well for the past few years, but there is another way (which dawned on me a few days ago), that, when the conditions are just right, can make even more economic sense.

The Old Way

I buy the newest/best thing available, keep it in mint condition (the product of my anal-retentiveness and the knowledge that I will be trying to sell it rather soon), buy the next best thing available, sell the previous gadget on eBay (though I now try Craigslist first), and then begin the process anew. Most of the time I don’t lose too much money, and sometimes I actually turn a profit, all while keeping up with the latest devices.

The New [better] Way

The newest way I’ve come up with for minimizing the cost that accompanies new gadgets is Amazon. You see, Amazon is giving away phones (with service plans). For example, my current phone (still one of the best phones available in the US, which I explain here) is available on Amazon for -$50 — they pay you $50 to take the phone if you sign up for a service plan with T-Mobile (some phones actually offer $100 back; this might be the route I take this time around given that all I want is a new/better plan — I can just swap the SIM card out of the new phone and put it into my current phone and then sell/trash the new phone). Now, I understand that all providers hit you with a heavy fee when you break the contract. Believe me. The thing is, you now have $50 (or $100) that you can put toward breaking the plan you had with your previous provider. There is a good chance that this amount will be less than $150 with the $50 (or more) payout. Couple that with the fact that you can now keep your number (instructions if getting phone through Amazon) when you move between carriers and you’ve got a fairly cheap way of getting new [smart]phones and/or service plans.

Possible Problems With The New Way

The biggest problem that you run into with this method is that you are limited not only by the providers that Amazon works with, but also by the phones that they are willing to submit to this program (read: discount). Cingular and Verizon do not participate at all (they’re the two biggest providers in the country), but more to the point, the providers that are involved do not give all of their phones over to the program, and let’s face it, a lot of times the providers themselves (I’m speaking directly to GSM providers here) don’t offer the best phones anyway and so you are left to order them from overseas or through eBay. So, your choices with this method are severely limited, but, if it does turn out that a phone you actually want is available, it offers a relatively cheap way get it.

Another possible problem is the fact that the phones will be locked and will carry the carrier’s logo. It’s been my experience that those looking for phones on eBay/Craigslist generally want them to be unlocked and free of any logo (for obvious reasons on both counts). I’m one of those people. So, you are limited on the other end when you try to sell this phone and must restrict yourself to only those people who want a particular phone from a particular provider, substantially narrowing your market. You could obviously have your phone unlocked and might even be able to get the logo removed, but both of those remedies require time and money, two things I’m trying to avoid. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending how you look at it, there is really only one way to get around this: the first method I outlined above. But then we’re right back to the money dilemma, because unlocked, logoless phones carry a hefty premium, especially when we are talking about the newest models which are garnering the most attention on eBay/Craigslist.

At any particular time, it all boils down to what’s available through Amazon, what you are trying to sell, and how much you are willing to spend to move up to the ‘next level.’ If all of these factors militate in your favor (as they currently do for me), you can probably walk away with a great deal.

It used to be the case that you could get out of service plans rather easily with enough huffing and puffing on the phone, but those days are pretty much gone. I know. I remember thinking how ridiculous service plans were when they first started surfacing. I think Sprint is the only provider left who actually let’s you pay month-to-month, though it’s an extra $10/month for the “privilege!” How great would it be if we could just hop around from network to network without contracts?

Free Culture

Lawrence Lessig, perhaps the single most important and influential cyberlaw figure of this decade, gave a lecture today at my law school. Though I’ve followed his work closely for the past couple of years, this was the first time I was able to see him speak. The presentation focused mainly on his new book, Free Culture, which was released a couple of weeks ago (you can find the book in audio format here). The presentation was engaging, entertaining, and informative, as most of his works are. Hopefully this will be the first of many Lessig lectures that I will be able to attend.

On a completely unrelated note, the night is young, there is no school tomorrow, and I’m headed out to have some fun.

Linear news

Over the course of the past week I’ve been monitoring the number of headlines that come through my news aggregator each day, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. While I ‘felt’ (over time) the linear trend that you see below, I didn’t think that it would be so indubitable. It would obviously be much more accurate if I did this over the course of a month or year, but I really didn’t feel like monitoring it for that long. The results (* == 25 headlines):

Monday

747 headlines ******************************

Tuesday

598 headlines ************************

Wednesday

512 headlines ********************

Thursday

457 headlines ******************

Friday

369 headlines **************

Saturday

185 headlines *******

Sunday

135 headlines *****

WEEKLY TOTAL: 3003
AVERAGE: 429

Unsurprisingly, the biggest fluctuations appear near the weekends: Friday/Saturday (-184) and Sunday/Monday (+612). The weekends are generally fairly slow, especially for blogs.

It should be noted that I’m currently subscribed to 111 feeds (76 personal blogs and 35 news sources). I’m curious (scared) to find out what these numbers will look like 10 years down the road.

Using Westlaw with OmniWeb 5

I realize that given the stringent circumstances required to reproduce this problem (a law student using Westlaw through OmniWeb 5 on Mac OS X), there is a very good chance that the following will help no one, but I’m sick of doing research at the moment and felt like sharing. As I mentioned in a previous entry, OmniWeb 5 is the best browser I’ve ever used on any platform. Ever. As such, I’d obviously like to use it for researching my current law school project through Westlaw and LexisNexis (i.e., not be forced to use another browser just for these tasks).

The Problem

While Lexis gave me no real trouble (at least nothing more than I complained about previously), Westlaw was a different matter entirely — it wouldn’t even let me log in. It would take me to the obligatory requirements page and tell me that both JavaScript and cookies were disabled. They weren’t, and in fact, each and every time I visited the page, Westlaw created six new cookies. Go figure.

The Solution

Armed with the knowledge that JavaScript and cookies were not the problem, I was left with only one other possibility: the USER-AGENT string must be giving them something they don’t like (so they lie and tell me, the user, that I’m doing something wrong — that I have features disabled. Way to go Westlaw). Anyways, like a lot of modern browsers, I have the option of changing the USER-AGENT string, but unlike any other browser that I know of, OmniWeb lets me do this on a site-by-site basis through what it calls “Site Preferences” — site-specific options are set and stored so that when you go back to that site again, your preferences are known and applied.

To get Westlaw working, you need to remove all of the Westlaw cookies and then set your USER-AGENT (through Site Preferences) to either “Netscape 6.2 (Mac OS X)” or “Netscape 7.0 (Mac OS X)” — these are the only strings offered by OmniWeb that seem to give Westlaw what it wants. On a somewhat related note, the “Safari 1.0 (v85)” string does not work, though Safari itself works fine (but is not ’supported’).

Required OS X programs

I’ve been asked by quite a few people for a roundup of the Mac OS X applications that I find essential. The following is a brief list of those programs:

OmniWeb 5 (beta)

Without a doubt, the best web browser I’ve ever used on any platform (and I’ve used pretty much every browser available since ~1993). Expect a full, exhaustive review when this gets out of beta.

QuickSilver

Though I’ve only been using this for about two weeks, I’d hate to be without it. If you prefer to use the mouse as little as possible (like myself), then Quicksilver will probably completely obviate your need for the dock. I haven’t yet taken that step, but I’m not ruling it out. For a more in-depth look at this excellent program, check out Todd Dominey’s write-up or Rui Carmo’s evaluation.

NetNewsWire

The is the news aggregator for OS X. This is actually the first program I installed when I moved to OS X.

MenuMeters

This is the best utility I’ve found for keeping track of system resources (processor utilization, memory/disk allocation, bandwidth monitoring, etc.). It has a small resource footprint, is very configurable, and all of the statistics sit unobtrusively in the menubar.

Mail.appetizer

A great plugin for Mail.app — I wrote about this a while ago.

iTerm

Let’s face it, if you came to OS X because of Unix like I did, it probably didn’t take you long to figure out that Terminal.app just wasn’t going to cut it.

RBrowserLite

This is a fairly decent FTP program. Like most GUI Mac applications, it likes to use multiple windows for things that can and should be contained in one. Notwithstanding this annoyance, it’s a solid program. My only real gripe is that it tends to eat up a lot of CPU when you do multiple transfers. Truth be told, I still use NcFTP (command-line FTP client) for most of my file transfer needs, but when I’m doing large batch jobs I turn to RBrowserLite.

Xinema

QuickTime will not allow you to full-screen a movie unless you buy the Pro version, which, and I think this goes without saying, is completely ridiculous. Xinema not only lets you full-screen, but also offers better playback control (fast-forward/rewind using the arrow keys, etc.).

BBEdit

Easily the most powerful text-editing/coding package available.

SubEthaEdit

I find myself using this text-editing application more and more. In fact, I’ve used it to type up all of my posts for the past couple of months. Its big claim to fame is the ability for multiple users to edit the same document in real-time, but I’ve found that it’s actually a really great editor besides.

SideTrack

SideTrack is a replacement driver for the trackpad (touchpad) found on Apple PowerBooks and iBooks. Among other things, it allows you to do vertical and horizontal scrolling with the trackpad.

TinkerTool

TinkerTool is an application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into Mac OS X. This allows you to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system.

The patent bar

I attended a patent bar information session yesterday and I must admit that I walked away a little nervous. The speaker didn’t say anything that I wasn’t already aware of, but I guess all of it just kind of hit me at once. Here is the gist of it:

• It’s recommended, depending on the study kit/course you choose, that you spend 150-200 hours studying for the exam
• The study kits/courses run from $800-$2300
• The pass rate hovers between 30 and 50 percent
• Given the pass rate it is possible that I might have to take it more than once
• It costs $390 each time you take it
• This, coupled with law school (and work over the summer) and my insatiable information appetite, makes for a very busy Justin

The entire exam is based on the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) — a ~3000 page boat anchor that I’ve been told is about as exciting as a phone book. Very, very, very dry.

The only good thing I can say about the exam is that it is now computerized (this is the first year), and so it is offered continuously throughout the year instead of just twice as in previous years. I’m really unsure as to when I’ll actually take it, but it will probably be sometime later this year. It’s kind of up in the air. The fun never ends.

Monkey see, monkey copy

I seem to have an admirer. I woke up this morning and started going through my referrers and came across this site. Look familiar? Not only did he completely ripoff my design, but the working links actually point back to my site. This sort of thing happens all the time, but it still gets under your skin when it’s your site that’s being stolen. I don’t have access to mod_rewrite on this server, else I’d really throw this guy for a loop.

I love Craigslist

Craigslist never disappoints. Yesterday I put my iPod up for sale and in less than ten minutes I received an e-mail from someone wanting to pick it up the next day (today). I had six e-mails within 30 minutes of putting it up. Unbelievable.

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of e-mails asking why I’m selling the iPod, so I’m going to go ahead and briefly explain the reasoning. The truth is, I just don’t have much use for it lately. It’s a second generation model and I’ve had it for quite some time. It was especially useful during undergrad because I took a bus to/from school every day. I no longer do the bus thing and so the only time I actually use it is when I’m flying, which means that I’ve used it twice in the last four months. I figured I might as well offload it now while I can still get a decent amount for it (the fourth generation model is right around the corner).

Speaking of things I have no use for anymore, enter eBay. Though I’ve never had any real problems with the service and have a perfect feedback rating, it just doesn’t make financial sense. There is no reason to take a percentage hit (twice if you use PayPal; everyone does) when you can get away with no hit and usually buy/sell the item much faster. Frankly, the only reason I see for using eBay at all is when I can’t find a buyer/seller on Craigslist (it’s location-based so there are obviously fewer people participating), which has yet to happen.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m headed up to San Francisco for an evening full of…

TiVo, surrogate parent?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I found the following excerpts from this NY Times article fairly disturbing. I found it equally disturbing that someone would admit this sort of thing.

“Before we got the TiVo, my son was getting C’s and D’s in school because he was staying up late to watch his shows and going to school half-awake,” said Mr. Cambron, a television engineer in Kansas City, Mo. Now that the Cambrons can time-shift programs, his son is getting enough sleep and his grades have risen to A’s and B’s.

“Now we watch TV together as a family after dinner,” he said. “And my son even has enough time to get a job. So it’s improved his sense of the value of time. And it’s improved my relationship with him.”

iPhoto metadata

Over the course of the last month or so I’ve undergone the arduous process of adding keyword descriptions to each and every digital picture I have in iPhoto. The idea being that when it is all said and done the library will be very searchable (the descriptors are also useful for creating “Smart Albums” — a new feature of iPhoto 4). I have keywords such as family, friends, florida, etc., but perhaps the most useful are my “weblog” and “web” keywords. I’ve done this so that in the future, when I change the layout of the site or decide that I want to make larger photos available, going through and figuring out which ones from each set I used on the web will be mindless. For example, if I increase the width of my content container and want the pictures I used inline with the blog to match the new width, all I have to do is search the library for “blog” and then resize those pictures accordingly (same for the pictures in the photos section). Nevermind that iPhoto (yes, even v4) is the absolute worst for resizing pictures and that I have to do it through third-party software. While on the subject I should also mention that I haven’t found iPhoto 4 to be too much faster than the previous version (except for launch time).

I knew going into this that it would be time-consuming monkey-work and that I would have a hard time stopping myself from coming up with evermore descriptive meta tags. I’m the kind of person that, if given enough time, would probably have keywords such as “shoes” (to highlight all pictures with shoes in them) or something equally absurd. You get the idea. Fortunately, sometimes the earlier tags actually speed up the addition of new tags. For example, let’s say that I want to label all of those pictures that include a particular friend that I’ve met in California. I would just search for both “california” and “friends” and then weed out the pictures from the results. Obviously none of this is groundbreaking, but it has helped me further organize my collection. Though incredibly daunting at first, it becomes much easier after you have a satisfactory keyword base in place.

What really scares/excites me is talk that the next Mac OS X filesystem will have metadata functionality. Again, this concept is nothing new and has been implemented before (*cough* BeOS); Microsoft’s upcoming (*cough* never) Longhorn OS is rumored to run a similar database filesystem. The options and usefulness of such a system are endless. It could include ID3 tags from MP3s and senders/subjects from e-mails and filetype descriptors and author information and… you soon realize that the implications of an all-inclusive descriptive database of every file on your computer are very powerful. Gone will be the days of multiple search apps (e.g., e-mail search, file search, etc.) — only one application will be needed — in the case of Mac OS X, the Finder. Hell, you could probably get rid of deep directory structures as well — just build them on-the-fly as needed, or have the OS create ’smart’ directories defined by user-specified rules. All of this says nothing of the smarter interaction between programs that metadata will allow. Ugh, I just realized that I’m starting to get rather tangential to the title of this post and can probably keep writing indefinitely; I’ll digress (but expect much more on this topic in the future).

Something different

What’s the best way to get rid of a nasty cold that you have been battling with for over a week? Run around backstage at a NOFX, Strungout, and Pennywise concert in San Francisco. OK, so that probably wasn’t the best thing for my cold, in fact, it’s sure to hurt it, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. A good friend of mine is the brother-in-law of Fat Mike, the lead singer for NOFX, and so he invited myself and another friend to hang out backstage before/during/after the shows. Needless to say I had a great time and met a lot of really neat people. Quite a few pictures were taken — I’m waiting for a buddy of mine to get them over to me. If any are decent, I might put them up.

Pictures of SCU

Last week I got a few pictures of the law school I’m attending. I can’t say that I’m terribly pleased with them — I’ll probably try to shoot another (better) series when time permits.

I also have pictures from UF’s campus that I took a couple of years ago and will put them up at some point.

Blame the engineer

A friend e-mailed this to me earlier today. It seems to be fairly on point and funny besides.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost.

He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Hello, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman on the ground called up, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be an Engineer,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is, probably, technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and the fact, is I’m still lost. Frankly, you haven’t been much help to me at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip”.

The woman below responded, “You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is, you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

Mobile phone roundup

It’s been pointed out by more than a few people that I haven’t bought a new mobile phone/PDA in quite a long time (seven months!). There are two main reasons for this: 1.) lack of money and 2.) there really isn’t too much out there that can compete with my current phone. Granted, there are quite a few phones that have all of the features (and sometimes more) of the T610/616, but very few can offer all of this with the form-factor of the T610/616 and compatibility with Apple’s iSync. Except for those that do it for a living, I probably follow mobile phone related news more than just about anyone (save Russ, who is constantly writing about mobile something or other), and the list below sums up those phones that I currently have my eye on (in preferential order):

• Sendo X: This will be the best phone available when it is released. Absolutely nothing compares to its feature set + form-factor. This will be the phone to have when it is available and is the phone I’ve been lusting over the most the past few months — I just wish they would release the damn thing. Given it’s capabilities and size, I’m sure it won’t come cheap and I’m actually a little scared of what this dream gadget will cost.
• Treo 610: A much needed upgrade to the excellent Treo 600. Rumor has it that this model will get rid of the archaic 160×160 resolution and jack it up to a wonderful 320×320. It will include Bluetooth (a must-have for me), something I can’t believe they left out of the 600. Also, the internal memory will likely be pushed beyond the current 16MB. The one thing that I’ll still take issue with is the external antenna; it’s been quite a while since I’ve had a phone with one.
• Nokia 6230: This phone’s feature set and size are amazing and as plain and simple as it looks I think I might actually like its design, though I’d have to see it in person before I would consider ordering one.
• Sony Ericsson K700: Update to the T610/616 — my current phone (the T630 can’t really be called an ‘update’); supposed to have a much better camera and more memory, and that is well and good, but it appears that this phone, like its predecessor(s), will not have a speakerphone. SE is really screwing itself by leaving this feature out — that alone will deter me from buying it (you think they would have learned their lesson after everyone complained about the T610/616’s lack of a speakerphone). The worst part is that the speaker is certainly capable (the software just doesn’t support it).. There will be a speakerphone and it will even allow you to play the FM radio through it. If the T610/616 is any indication, this will be a great phone.
• Nokia 6600: This a possible purchase — not too many negative comments on this one except its size, and more to the point, its thickness and the apparent “hollow” feel it has to it. Notwithstanding these complaints, a lot of people have been really happy with it. Not only does it run Symbian OS, but it offers just about every mobile phone feature currently available. If I were to seriously consider this phone, I would probably hold out for its successor, the 6620.
• Motorola V600: Much to my chagrin, a friend of mine just got this phone; it’s the first Motorola device to include all that we’ve come to expect in a modern phone (Bluetooth, camera, etc). It feels very good in the hands, very solid, and the external lights are really neat, but I’m afraid the $600+ price tag is a deal-breaker for me. Nothing against Motorola, but if I’m going pay that kind of money for a phone it better include some practical PDA functionality and offer some sort of software expandibility (i.e., a strong development base for its OS where new apps are coming out for it all the time, like Symbian or Palm). I don’t care how pretty it is, a $600+ phone-only device is just not going to cut it.
• Nokia 3660: By all accounts this will be a great phone just like its predecessor, but also like its previous model, this one suffers from being bulky and ugly, something I don’t think I can get past.
• Sony Ericsson Z600: Essentially the T610/T616 in a clamshell. I really don’t have too much to say about this phone other than that it is too think for my tastes and because it doesn’t offer anything above and beyond the T610/T616, it’s not really an option.
• Sony Ericsson Z1010: This is SE’s first 3G phone and offers some great features, but, like other SE clamshell phones, this one comes in a little too thick for me.

She’s so cute!

Myself and my first love’s three year old daughter, Dylanne, the sweetest little girl you’ll ever meet (luckily, the camera’s love for her balances its disdain for yours truly). I spent the last few days at their place in San Luis Obispo, where Ryanne is going to school. It’s about three hours south of Santa Clara and as far south as I’ve been in California. The weather sucked while I was there, but we had a wonderful time despite it. She took me to a great sandwich shop for lunch one day and I was quickly reminded that I need to find something similar here in Silicon Valley. While going to school at UF I was spoiled by Hogan’s; I’m not sure I’ll ever find a sub that good again. I know a lot of people that frequent this site have been here in the valley for a few years and I would appreciate it if you could e-mail me any sandwich shop recommendations you might have (preferably in Santa Clara).

Yes, I realize that the topics in this post are a little disjointed, but I’m tired and am not going to fight it. Good night.  :)

Coachella

A friend of mine told me about the Coachella music festival a few days ago. Absolutely unbelievable lineup. I seriously started drooling as I was reading through it — I haven’t seen anything like this since Woodstock ‘94. A few personal favorites that will be there: Radiohead, The Cure, The Flaming Lips, Wilco, The Pixies, Paul van Dyk, The Future Sound of London, Ferry Corsten, and on and on and on. There is one small problem though: it’s right around the time of my first-year law school finals! It’s almost as if the organizers called me up and said, “Justin, what would be the absolute worst time for us to hold this once-in-a-lifetime concert?” To which I responded, “You know what, I don’t want to seem pushy, but would it be possible to hold it in the middle of my law school finals?”

Open arms

The steps of San Francisco’s City Hall the day after Valentine’s Day and during the first week that San Francisco started issuing same-sex marriage licenses — what a beautiful picture (from Ephemera).

12 Reasons Same-Sex Marriage will Ruin Society — a facetious and rather funny take on the ridiculousness of amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriages (from GatorGSA).

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.
2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.
3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.
4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears’s 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn’t changed at all: women are property, Blacks can’t marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.
6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.
7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That’s why we only have one religion in America.
8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.
9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.
10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to cars or longer lifespans.
12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

Minimal

Hopefully it’s quite obvious that I’m going for a very minimalist look with this latest redesign (aren’t I always?). I don’t think I can get much barer (more elegant?) than this, but rest assured, if it’s possible I’ll do it. The title of each post now links to its individual archive (instead of the ∞ symbol that I used to use for this purpose). As always, if you notice anything funky, let me know.

Referrer spam

I’ve noticed a significant amount of spam come through my referrers in the past couple of weeks. The HTTP referrer variable is spoofed with things like “nude4u.com” and “paris-hilton-video.blogspot.com” — the idea being that some people will actually click on these links — unbelievable. Then again, spammers are nothing if not opportunists, so I guess this isn’t too surprising. Fortunately, I can [publicly] block most of this because there is a quick patch for Refer, which I started using a few days ago.

Referrers

After spending some time hacking away at Dean Allen’s Refer, I now have a public referrer page. While the initial setup of the script was trivial, it took a while to get the row elements in the order that I wanted and to remove the stuff I didn’t want presented. After I was satisfied with how the table looked, I put the relevant PHP call into an MT template and was ready to go.

I have to say that while the Refer package is very well done, I would have liked to see more configuration options so that I could have spent less time getting things the way I wanted them. Also, Dean, if you’re reading, in the next version could you please include the option to show search terms on the main index page as is done on the “queries” page (i.e., the search terms are filtered from the URI and presented separately from it)? I’ll probably just go ahead and make the changes myself at some point, but I think it’s something that should be included in future versions of Refer. That said, I can’t find anything else I would change/add to this package and recommend it to anyone looking to create a public (or private) referrers page.

The syndication juggernaut

In a previous post I linked to an RSS feed generator from Apple for its iTunes Music Store. Apple has since gone one step further and added feeds for many other sections of its site. It’s so great to see syndication like this on a site of Apple’s magnitude, just one of many big-name sites in the past few months to add RSS/Atom feeds.

Speaking of syndication, a couple of days ago Yahoo! publicly moved away from Google’s search technology and went back to using its own in-house engine; what’s neat about the search results is that they include both a link for the site’s RSS feed (if available) and a link to add the feed to your My Yahoo! account, which now includes an RSS reader (beta).

Hopefully all of this exposure from big, well-known companies, will start to convince the public that they need syndication, thereby causing a greater demand for other sites to offer feeds.

Data Archiving Services

For the past year I’ve been using Data Archiving Services alongside the statistical logs provided by my host. While I have found the service useful, I’ve decied to drop it as it sometimes makes my website slow to load. Each time I get a hit, DAS is pinged with information about the visitor — this ping sometimes takes a few very noticeable seconds. The truth is, DAS really didn’t offer anything beyond what I already had available to me. However, it does present the information that I care most about in a much more readable and ‘pretty’ way than http-analyze, the logging software provided with my hosting account. There are two things that I need when it comes to website statistics: 1.) the number of hits a day [week, month, etc] with the ability to have it not count hits to certain URIs (e.g., hits on my syndication feed) and 2.) referrer statistics — I like to know where my readers are coming from. Both of these are handled nicely in DAS and horribly in http-analyzer, not to mention that the latter’s inferface is ugly and gives you no configuration options. The entire http-analyzer suite is quite powerful and offers statistics on a wide range of traffic data, but gives you absolutely no way to specify how you want this data presented or grouped — it makes me nuts.

That said, I don’t have much choice but to use it as it is all my provider offers. Because of the wretched way in which it handles referrers, sometime in the near future I plan to add a “referrers” page to the site so that myself and others can see this information in a way that I find useful. I’ll probably use either Dean Allen’s Refer or Stephen Downes’ Referrer System. Truth be told, I’d rather use Apache directly for this sort of thing, but I don’t have access to httpd.conf on the server.

God made Louisiana

I was doing the reading for my property class earlier today and stumbled across a rather funny story (you’ll have to bear with me, this is as good as it gets in law school). The current reading discusses the system for recording land titles in America. Federal agencies generally require land title searches go back to the original source. A New Orleans lawyer, working for a government agency, researched the land title back to 1803, and when asked who owned the land prior to that, he replied:

Please be advised that in the year 1803 the United States of America acquired the Territory of Louisiana from the Republic of France by purchase. The Republic of France previously acquired title from the Spanish Crown by conquest. Spain acquired title by virtue of the discoveries of one Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor who had been duly authorized to embark upon his voyage of discovery by Isabella, Queen of Spain. Before granting such authority, Isabella, a pious and cautious woman, obtained the sanction of His Holiness, the Pope. The Pope is the Vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, the only son and heir apparent of God. God made Louisiana.

The Grey Album

The Grey Album, from Danger Mouse, is a unique blend of old and new: a collection of songs from Jay-Z’s latest (and final) effort, The Black Album, put to new beats created entirely from The Beatle’s White Album. I’ve been listening to this record for a couple of weeks now, but felt compelled to write about it today after reading that it was receiving a lot of understandable heat. Danger Mouse was not given permission by Jay-Z or the Beatles to make the record, and as a result, was served with cease-and-desist letters from EMI last week.

I usually don’t post about music because, as those that know me are well aware, I’m a music nut and if I were to write about all of my musical interests I would be forced to drop out of law school. Literally. Couple that with the fact that I essentially ‘gave up’ on hip-hop a few years ago (admit it, most of it is incredibly boring and repetitive any more, though there are some exceptions) and it’s a wonder that I posted at all. Notwithstanding the fact that hip-hop (at least as an honest story-telling medium) fell from grace years ago (though sales charts and the Grammys would have you believe differently), this is the first record of its kind and I felt that it deserved some mention here. You can find this album in its entirety (192kbps, 44.1kHz, true stereo), here, here and here, among many other places across the net.

While I’m talking about music in this post, I have to make mention of two records that I’ve been listening to constantly: The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002 top ten) and The Shins’ Chutes Too Narrow (2003 top ten). Get them. Love them.  :)

Note to RSS feed maintainers

When you change the address of your RSS feed, be sure to tell your subscribed public — a simple message left on the old feed telling us where we should now point our aggregator. I’m only mentioning this because I’ve noticed the stale-feed problem three times in the last month on sites that I read.

The Digital Challenge to Copyright Law

Yesterday I attended a symposium entitled The Digital Challenge to Copyright Law, which was put on by my law schools’ Computer and High-Tech Law Journal. While the presentation was incredibly long (around 9 hours), I have to say that I walked away from it with a much deeper appreciation for, and understanding of, many aspects of intellectual property law. Each of the panels included serious industry and legal heavyweights (you can find their names and occupations in the event brochure). Most of the panelists were lively and engaging and made themselves readily available between discussions to talk one-on-one with audience members. For instance, I was able to talk to, among others, Michael Ramsay, the founder, Chairman, and CEO of TiVo. I can’t deny the fact that being in a room full of so many successful, powerful, and learned individuals is both exciting and intimidating to a first-year law student.

Mail.appetizer

A few days ago I came across Mail.appetizer, an excellent plug-in for Mail.app.

When new messages arrive, Mail.appetizer displays a transparent notification on top of your screen. It shows only sender, subject and the first plain-text lines of the message, so you can determine whether the message requires your immediate attention. The prominence of the notification can be defined by adjusting transparency and display time.

The idea is nothing new, and in fact, is one that I’m usually turned off by, but this little plug-in pulls it off quite well and I have found myself really enjoying it. The main reason I tend to shy away from this sort of functionality is because it requires me to tell my e-mail client to check for new mail every X minutes, thereby conflicting with my desire to check my e-mail from my mobile phone when I’m away from my computer; there would never be any e-mail on the server because I would constantly suck it down from my computer, and no, leaving the messages on the server is not an option.

Because I like the plug-in so much and plan to keep using it, I’ve had to get into the habit of putting my machine to sleep when I leave the apartment so that it stops checking for e-mail while I’m out. The problem with this is that I almost always have something downloading in the background and putting the machine to sleep obviously breaks it (yes, I realize that I could tell the e-mail client to stop checking every X minutes, but to do this every time I leave my apartment would be ridiculous).

What I really need to do is whip up some AppleScript to tell Mail.app to stop fetching mail when my PowerBook no longer sees my Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. What I wouldn’t give for more time in the day.

If you are looking for more Mail.app plug-ins, be sure to check out Mail.app plugs and suggestions, a pretty good repository.

Laughable

Anyone else see this recent MS Knowledge Base article? “Steps that you can take to help identify and to help protect yourself from deceptive (spoofed) Web sites and malicious hyperlinks.” What the hell is Microsoft thinking — they can’t fix the problem with their browser and so their advice is that you should manually enter URLs? An excerpt from the article:

The most effective step that you can take to help protect yourself from malicious hyperlinks is not to click them. Rather, type the URL of your intended destination in the address bar yourself.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense; we’ve always known that those damn hyperlinks were a gaping security hole. Who in their right mind is going to look at a URL and say, “Man, that looks malicious, I better type it in manually.” Oh, it gets better. They go on to say that you can also copy/paste some JScript code into the toolbar to “identify the actual URL of the current web site.” The instructions say:

Use a JScript command in Internet Explorer. In the Address bar, type the following command, and then press ENTER…

…Compare the actual URL with the URL in the Address bar. If they do not match, the Web site is likely misrepresenting itself. In this case, you may want to close Internet Explorer.

The article goes on and on explaining different ways to determine whether the current URL is “malicious,” none of which is going to help the average Internet user, because 1.) they just don’t care and 2.) it’s too much work. Why would Joe Internet jump through such absurd hoops? The quick answer is that he won’t. I cannot imagine trying to walk my grandma through those steps, much less see her doing it of her own volition. How could I even explain to her the reasoning behind it? “Well grandma, you see, Microsoft worked long and hard trying to solve this problem with spoofed links, and because they couldn’t come up with an answer, they provide you with simple steps to help you use the Internet improperly.” I’ll never understand why people won’t stop using Internet Explorer, especially given the great alternatives available and the fact that a new exploit is reported almost daily.

Standards advocacy

Yesterday, after our LexisNexis representative gave a presentation on “Shephardizing” cases online, myself and a friend approached him and asked why a lot of the functionality of LexisNexis breaks when you aren’t using Internet Explorer (of course, I knew the answer but I just wanted to see what he would say). Being a non-techie, he gave the expected response, something along the lines of, “that’s just what they decided on; everything works fine in IE.” While the answer was anticipated, the logic is still incredibly flawed. I tried to explain to him that if the powers that be would just comply with simple web standards, then their site would be fully functional across all operating systems running a compliant browser (i.e., any browser other than IE  :P). If, after those changes were made, things were to break in IE, they could point to the fact that IE is broken, not their site. As it currently stands, when someone complains about lost functionality in Firebird, Safari, Opera, or any browser other than IE, all they can say is, “use IE” — the ridiculousness should be apparent .

Random links

What is Mac OS X? — an absolute must read for anyone wanting a deeper technical understanding of the OS.

Confessions of a Car Salesman — while rather long, it is incredibly interesting and informative — you’ll be glad you read it (especially if you, like myself, are ignorant of the behind-the-scenes action at car dealerships).

The Tyranny of Copyright? — the battle between copyright in the Internet age and the Copy Left movement.

The first blog dis’ record — read the page and listen to the song — hilarious.

Show Time! — great BusinessWeek article dissecting Apple’s current stranglehold on the digital-music industry.

Bloopers from NES Games — oh the memories.

iTunes Music Store RSS Feed Generator — ALL online distributors should offer this capability in some capacity.

Lego Han Solo in Carbonite — wow.

Long line for Apple Store opening — you have to watch the video from start to finish to fully appreciate it.

Lists

The long-standing, frequently referenced, and oft-imitated “Top Ten” page has been renamed to lists (I know , I know, you can hardly contain your excitement). I wasn’t sure that I could create a more boring name than “Top Ten,” but I think I pulled it off. Quite frankly, I prefer “lists” to just about everything else because it is incredibly broad and will allow me to add other things to that page without “feeling” uncomfortable about it (I have lists of everything — I can’t help but to categorize and order things).

PowerBook battery

As great as my PowerBook is, I have to take serious issue with the battery life. When I sent the machine off to have the white spots removed, I also had them replace my battery as the one it initially came with was lasting around two hours, though Apple rates them at up to four and half hours. They replaced the battery, but the new one has the exact same lifespan! I should be able to get through two classes without having to reach for the power cord. Not sure what my options are at this point, but sending my PowerBook off again isn’t one of them, nor is buying a new battery. What really irks me is that my TiBook had excellent battery life.

While I’m whining about computer problems, all Bluetooth mouse manufacturers listen up: put an on/off switch on the mouse! It makes no sense not to include this “feature.” I carry my Bluetooth mouse in my computer bag and rarely take it out in class; if my bag gets even the slightest nudge, the mouse “wakes up” and starts taking my pointer all over the screen. Not only does this get in the way of whatever I’m doing, it drains the hell out of the batteries, which aren’t too good in the first place.

A buddy of mine just got the Logitech MX 900 Bluetooth mouse and it runs circles around Microsoft’s effort — it includes a much-needed charging cradle and feels much smoother than the MS mouse, but it too is missing the ability to switch if off.

Cartoon weather

Dunstan Orchard has done something rather amazing on his website. The picture header you see there is based on a panoramic view from the top of his house. He illustrated 90 versions of the panoramic picture, each one depicting a different weather condition, time of day, and moon phase. The picture that is displayed depends on an XML feed from weather.com which corresponds to his city’s real-time weather conditions. Even the sheep in his pictures pay attention to the weather. While this idea is not new, his implementation is both impressive and inspiring. A great site all-around.

Apple referral program

Apple should offer some sort of reward to those who convince others to “switch.” In the past two weeks alone, four people whom I have a close relationship with have either purchased a Mac or made it known that they plan to in the very near future. I propose that Apple give the ‘referrer,’ or ‘persuader’ as it were, some sort of monetary kickback, even if it can only be used toward Apple products. After all, they offer a referral program for .Mac, so why not extend that to notebooks and desktops as well? Of course, even if this idea never comes to fruition (which it won’t), I will continue to laud the greatness of Mac OS X (I can’t help but to talk about it — I think my friends buy Apples just to shut me up  :P), but it would be nice to get something in return. All it would take is a simple question to be answered when one registers their product: “Did any particular person influence your decision to purchase this product?” Granted, there is no real incentive for Apple to offer this type of program because those who do ‘advertise’ their products aren’t going to stop simply because they aren’t ‘rewarded.’ But then again, people would certainly try harder to ’sell’ Apple’s products if they got something above and beyond the “I told you so” line in return, which, quite frankly, is usually enough for me.  :P

Hell, this idea should be extended across all product lines (mobile phone carriers/manufacturers, PDAs, headphones, music, etc.) — I’d be fucking rich.

Shure E3c in-ear headphones

The package says it all — “An audiophile listening experience for when music matters.” You might remember the little blurb I put up a while back concerning the Shure E2c headphones. I replaced those a few days ago with their latest offering, the E3cs. The only reason I even thought about getting rid of the old pair was because they caused me a slight pain in my right ear after prolonged periods of use. Though the headphones came with a fitting kit, my ears were apparently too small for the smallest set of available “sleeves.” The E3cs solve this problem by not only providing smaller “flex” sleeves, but by also shipping “ultra-soft” sleeves in addition to the others. The sleeves found on the E3cs are the same as those available for the E5cs — their top-of-the-line cans ($499). You can find reviews of the E3cs here and here.

I should point out that you can purchase the entire line of Shure in-ear products at the InMotion kiosks found at airports. I was unaware of this until a few days ago when I was snooping around some headphone forums trying to get the skinny on the E3cs, which weren’t yet shipping from Shure.com (they were supposed to start shipping on the 5th, but it was delayed a week). One of the forum contributors was going on and on about how great these headphones were and everyone else was scratching their head trying to figure out how he got ahold of them so early. He finally spilled the beans and said that he got them at the airport. Upon reading this, I called the InMotion kiosk at the San Jose airport (which is less than five minutes from me), and sure enough, they do carry them. I picked up a pair within the hour.

Years of e-mail

I’ve converted all of my saved email to the ubiquitous mbox format and imported it into Mail.app. It is ridiculous. I have every email sent and received since April of 1999. I’m kind of pissed at myself for not beginning to archive sooner — I think I sent my first email either late 1993 or early 1994. The email I do have saved is from various clients including Pine, Mutt, Evolution, quite a few versions of Netscape (luckily, they have archived versions of every browser since 2.0 — this became really handy during the conversions), Mozilla, Outlook Express, and Outlook.

I didn’t have too much trouble importing the mail files from Pine, Mutt, Evolution, Netscape, or Mozilla, as they all use the mbox format (note that the Linux and non-MS programs gave me no trouble). That isn’t to say that there weren’t any hang-ups though. I actually had to do quite a bit of work on a Windows machine to get everything converted. I found a great program for converting the OE .dbx files to mbox format, though on a few of the files it broke the From: field and so I had to find/replace across the entire file (not fun when the file size is 50MB).

The biggest problem was converting the Outlook .pst files. I think those had to be converted between three or four separate formats to get right. Let’s see: installed Outlook on Windows machine → imported the .pst files → imported into Outlook Express from Outlook → tried running the .dbx-to-mbx converter — it broke to all hell → installed and ran Netscape v7.1 → imported from Outlook → tried bringing these files directly into Mail.app — no go — it would see the first message and nothing more → installed Netscape v4.8 → copied the mail files from the Netscape v7.1 directories into the corresponding Netscape v4.8 directories → changed the filenames to match v4.8’s naming convention → opened v4.8 — it read the files fine → moved those files to my PowerBook and imported into Mail.app.

Done! Now, in Mail.app, I have everything organized by year and sent/received since 1999.

iPod mini

What the hell is Apple thinking with its new iPod mini? The big rumor floating around before Macworld 2004 was that Apple would release smaller, cheaper iPods, so that those who couldn’t afford the $299 starting price could still get in on the action. Well, they delivered — the new iPod is both smaller and cheaper. Kind of. It is $249 and comes with a 4GB drive. Two questions immediately spring to mind: 1.) How does this really help the person who couldn’t afford the $299 model? and 2.) Why the hell wouldn’t someone just hold out a little longer, save an extra $50, and get an iPod with 73% more space? The idea is for Apple to compete with the flash-based and low-end HD players (why anyone would buy a flash-based player is beyond me, but to each his own), not with their other iPod. John Gruber makes an argument that pricing really has nothing to do with it and that the selling point is, and is supposed to be, its smaller size. I might entertain this theory if ever I heard someone complain about the iPod’s size, but I haven’t. Ever. I’ve never heard someone complain about the 20GB 2nd-gen iPod, much less the skinnier, lighter 3rd-gen models. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever complained about its size, which, I dare say, is quite the compliment. If its selling point really is its form-factor, then we should expect a mad rush of people snatching these up as they have no doubt been waiting around for Apple to produce a smaller model. I don’t buy it. Like I said, the argument is lost on me and I think Apple is going to have to come down on the price for the thing to sell.

Didn’t want to leave

I’ve never wanted to stay in Lake County, Florida more in my life. I had absolutely no desire to come back to California. I had to because of school, but I’m not sure I want to be here. This break has been the best I’ve ever had. My friends and I had sooooo much fun and did sooooo many great things that it was incredibly hard to leave it all behind and possibly not see them again for a full year. I’m going to miss huge meals prepared by friends’ parents (and grandparents), the really fun stuff I can’t talk about on this webpage, the drunken nights (and days) at Kristie’s place, the New Year’s celebration with old friends, the simple lunches with someone different each day to reminisce and catch-up, the laughter, and the unconditional love. I’m going to miss it all, and now more than ever. I can’t explain the feeling I had when the plane touched down in San Jose — just apathy really. Yay, more school.

Though I was rarely at my house, I did manage to get through the first two seasons of 24 on DVD. That show is absolutely fucking incredible. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so engaged in a TV show in my entire life. I’d watch three or four episodes at a clip, never wanting to stop. It’s really an excellent show and one that you should treat yourself to if you haven’t already.

I’m getting dangerously close to buying the available-only-in-Japan-at-the-moment Sony DSC-T1 digital camera. Ugh.

While I’m on a roll of talking about completely unrelated things, this promotion looks way too good to be true. If anyone has any info on this outfit, or better yet, has signed up for this promo or used them in the past, please let me know, as it looks, umm, free!

Top ten of 2003

Musically, the year started out rather slow, but things eventually picked up and I really feel that I came away with a lot of great records. If I had to pick a favorite album of 2003 it would probably be The Strokes’ Room on Fire.

• The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
• The Postal Service - Give up
• Zwan - Mary Star of the Sea
• The Strokes - Room on Fire
• Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
• The White Stripes - Elephant
• Ryan Adams - Rock N Roll
• Our Lady Peace - Live
• The Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music

Unfortunately, I was not able to see as many movies this year as I would have liked. A few that probably would have ousted others in this list had I seen them are: Angels in America, Spellbound, Thirteen, 21 Grams, Capturing the Friedmans, 28 Days Later, and Bus 174.

• Lost in Translation
• American Splendor
• Mystic River
• Pirates of the Carribean
• Seabiscuit
• Finding Nemo
• Bad Santa
• Old School
• Return of the King
• Master and Commander

How do you like them apples?

I must admit that I’m a little relieved after getting off the phone with the Apple people. After re-sending my PowerBook back to them, I was expecting to have the computer back no earlier than the 12th given previous experience and the the New Year’s holiday. Much to my delight, it was actually scheduled to be delivered today — unbelievable! Listen to this: I shipped it back to them on the 31st, the next day was New Years, they received it on the 2nd, fixed it, and shipped it back out the same day! If there hadn’t been a holiday and a weekend in the middle of all of this, I would have had it sent off, repaired, and back in my hands in less than 44 hours!

I won’t even be back in California until Wednesday and so I called Airborne Express and had them delay the delivery until Thursday. Let’s hope that this time around it arrives unharmed.