Sleep is for weenies

So much to write about, so little time. Why so little time you ask? Five law classes (including two bar courses and Federal Courts, arguably the toughest, most ‘abstract’ class in law school) + working part-time at the firm + intermittent patent bar studying + working on a book + keeping up with this website + “life.” I have so many ideas I want to run with and flesh out here, but I just can’t find the time to put pen to paper.

In other news, I hope to have a new design up here fairly soon (perhaps even tonight if I choose not to sleep). I’ve been working on it for a while and now I just need to integrate it into my “live” system. Don’t expect anything too crazy — less is more baby, less is always more.

Cammy Cam Party

I took this picture last weekend while walking around downtown San Jose. I debated just throwing it on Flickr and not putting it here, but I really liked the lighting and so I figured what the hell. I’ll probably put up at least one more from this outing in the next couple of days.

Archives without using WordPress’ Pages

A fair majority of the Smart Archives e-mail I field is concerned with how to actually create the /archives/ directory structure without using WordPress’ Pages. I thought about just putting the solution on the project page, but I think this tip will help others with similar problems (unrelated to WordPress) and so I’m posting it here on the weblog.

I’m working off the assumption that you want the same URI as my archives page (i.e., foo.com/archives/). The first thing you are going to want to do is create the /archives directory off your root. After you’ve created this directory, place your PHP file (the one with the Smart Archives function call) within this directory. Make sure that this PHP file has the following code at the top:

Once the PHP file is placed in the /archives directory, you’re going to need to add the following line to your root .htaccess file:

It’s probably self-explanatory, but this rule redirects any page request that falls under the /archives directory and points it to the index.php file sitting in /archives. This line must go after whatever htaccess rules that WordPress, or you yourself, have already put in your .htaccess file that redirect browsers pointed to pages within the /archives directory.¹

That’s all there is to it.

1TB+ datastore recommendations

UPDATE: I received a lot of great recommendations, but none of them could pull me away from the Infrant ReadyNAS X6, which I’ve had in mind from the beginning. If interested, and judging by the volume of e-mail I got regarding this, a lot of you are, be sure to check out TomsNetworking’s take on it. I’m not buying this tomorrow or anything, but barring any dispositive feedback from you guys, it will likely be the solution I run with.

I’m looking to purchase a rather large datastore fairly soon and was wondering what you, the readers, might recommend. I was initially hunting for an all-in-one solution, but prices haven’t been dropping at the rate I anticipated and so I’m also thinking about just buying an enclosure and filling it myself.

Requirements / Desires

There are a few things that I’d like the datastore to have:

• It must have an on-board RAID 5 controller (I want both striping and fault tolerance).
• If you’re going to point me to an enclosure-only setup (i.e., it doesn’t include hard drives), the box must be less than $400.
• If you’re going to point me to an all-in-one setup (i.e., it includes hard drives) it must be at least a terabyte (truthfully, I want much more because I’m afraid I’ll fill up a TB immediately, but cost is so prohibitive) and less than $1200.
• I’d like SCSI, but I realize that SATA or IDE are probably the only interfaces that will allow me to stay within my cost constraints.
• It must have at least four drive bays.
• I’d like both USB2 and FireWire 800, but either will do.
• Any kind of wireless connectivity would be great, but it’s certainly not going to be a dealbreaker.

Craigslist automatic relisting

Why doesn’t Craigslist allow you to automatically relist an item? The current system simply removes your item from the site seven days after you post it. You’re never informed that the item is about to “expire,” nor are you told when it’s ultimately removed. I sell a lot of stuff on Craigslist (mostly to circumvent eBay + PayPal fees)¹, and on more than one occasion I’ve failed to remember that I had an item on the system until days after it had been removed. The worst part is that if after it’s been removed, you let too much time slide, the link sent to you by Craigslist to edit/delete the item will no longer work and you will have to rewrite your description from scratch.

Why can’t Craigslist simply let me know by e-mail that my item is about to be removed and provide a link that I can use to extend the life of the listing (not unlike the link it sends me right after I initially list something)? Everyone wins. I know, I know, you get what you pay for, but…

Apple iPod nano

Just when I thought I would never buy another iPod (pipe dreams, I know), Apple drops the most badass digital music player ever, the iPod nano. Let’s be honest, when Apple comes out with a device called “nano” they’re pretty much guaranteeing a purchase from me. Sadly, I’m told there won’t be any in Silicon Valley until the weekend, but you can bet I’ll be first in line when they arrive.

While I’d like to say that I’m going to ‘review’ it, it’s highly unlikely; all that really needs to be said about it is that it’s an incredibly tiny, full-featured iPod without the hard drive. Have you seen it?!?

UPDATE: Valley Fair got a “ton” of them this morning and I picked one up earlier today. If you think it’s impressive online, just wait until you see it in person. They were flying out the door; everyone in line had at least one and I saw one guy with five.

Motorola ROCKR

This entry originally included a very long rant concerning the Motorola ROCKR, the first “iTunes” mobile phone and the other “big” announcement from Apple yesterday, but after reading it a few times I realized that I sounded a bit like a gadget elitist (surprise!) and so I digress. Let’s just say that it’s strikingly underwhelming both as a mobile phone and as a music player.

Apple Mighty(?) Mouse

Steve, please, for the love of god, just split the damn mouse down the middle and give it two buttons. The pseudo-button(s) on the Mighty Mouse drove me crazy. I have to admit though that I never had any real intention of holding on to the Mighty Mouse, due in part to the fact that in the past nine months I’ve gone through six different mice¹ and because I, like a lot of other Mac zealots(?), am just compelled to try out anything new from Apple. I figured I would use it for a few days and then return it — that’s exactly what I did.

Before I start complaining, let me first expound on the virtues of the mouse’s only saving grace, the scroll wheel, or “nipple.” I’m a big fan of the nipple (to quote Jon Stewart, “settle…”) and can’t wait to see it adopted in other mice. It feels perfect and the “click” sound generated by the tiny speaker inside the mouse complements it well. I was this → ← close to keeping the mouse just so I didn’t have to give up the nipple.

The only thing I would change about the nipple would be to make it clickable. It can currently act as a button mapped to some action, but it doesn’t act independently of the rest of the mouse; when you press down on the nipple hard enough it causes the mouse itself to click (not unlike when you give the mouse a normal left-click) and the guts deduce from this movement that you’re pressing down on the scroll wheel. The whole thing feels a bit awkward.

Speaking of awkward, I was never able to stop thinking about hitting the “right” mouse button and this is what ultimately came between me and the nipple. I kept telling myself to try it for another day to see if I could get used to it or maybe come up with a different way of holding it. Nothing. My annoyance with this came into strong relief when happenstance had me use my “regular” mouse again, which immediately freed me from having to think about right-clicking and I quickly realized that the Mighty Mouse just wasn’t for me.

Another thing I was a little disappointed with was the length of the cord — <1m. It’s perfect for me, and, I suspect, for others who use Apple monitors (because they usually have built-in USB ports), but there’s just no way to use it if your tower is sitting on the floor.

Finally, the side buttons were horrible. Not only can they not act independently of each other (they must be pressed simultaneously), but they’re in a horrible position and offer pretty much no tactile feedback. To be honest, I thought the buttons on my mouse were broken until I saw other people with the same complaints.

Six symbols

This is a metal sheet that conceals a ‘garage’ on the side of a building across the street from the Borders I frequent. Every time I walked past it I thought that it might make for a good photo; I think I was right. I did quite a bit of post-processing on this image, but it doesn’t deviate too much from what I actually saw.

Donate “logo”

I’ve had a few people e-mail me asking for permission to use the donate image I’ve been displaying above the menu on the right. Of course I told them that they could, as can anyone else who so desires; if you feel that it will do some good on your site, then please, by all means.

Katrina relief

As I did for the tsunami victims, I plan to donate any advertising revenue generated during the month of August (which I’m going to match) to the Katrina relief effort, and I encourage other webloggers to do the same.

To be honest, I kind of wish I was there so that I could contribute physically, but seeing as how that really isn’t feasible, I do hope that my monetary donation can help to make at least one person’s struggle a little easier.

My thoughts are with all of you.