I’m going dark

Not really, but that’s kind of what I feel like (and it’s probably what I should do). Yesterday was the first day of BARBRI, a ~1.5-month study course for the almost-impossible California Bar exam,¹ which I’m taking near the end of July.

I’m putting this post here so that I can reference it when making excuses for the lack of new posts, the slow e-mail responses, and the loss of all quantifiable productivity (ugh!).

The study course requires 8-12 hours a day (fours hours of lectures and then they suggest you study 4-8 hours on your own). After having just finished the six day, six-hours-a-day PMBR “early bird” review, I’m at a total loss as to how anyone could work on this stuff for 8-12 hours a day for a single day, much less an entire summer, yet that is our plight. Did I mention that it’s all mind-numbingly boring and tedious and dry and dense and…

All of this is just a long-winded way of asking you to please cut me some slack. As always, I will reply to every e-mail received, it just might take me a bit longer to get to it (especially the “can you please help me with…” e-mails).

And what will I be doing in my “downtime” on top of replying to e-mails, keeping up with the 250+ feeds I’m subscribed to, and writing posts? Learning Ruby on Rails of course. I’ve never been so excited about a new language + framework; the whole “convention over configuration” emphasis really, really intrigues me, because it seems to work to abstract away all of the mundane elements of programming so that your output is limited more by logic than by syntax (read: you can be more productive and in a shorter amount of time). The end-goal here is to use RoR to build my own CMS to power this site, something I’ve been putting off for far too long.

Poll: How does Photoshop “feel” under Rosetta?

Update: This poll has been closed. I got the answer I wanted/needed and a lot of great e-mail feedback to boot. Thanks.

I need some end-user feedback. If you spend a lot of time in Photoshop and have recently moved from a G4 machine to a MacTel, how would you rate the ‘usability’ of Photoshop under Rosetta? I’m hearing a lot of conflicting reports and the answer to the question will play a significant role in my decision to get a new Intel Mac before a Universal Binary is released.

Keep in mind that I’ll likely have 2GB of RAM in the new machine and am not too worried about the feasibility of processor-intensive filters, but rather, I simply want it to be able to load RAW files in a relatively short period of time and allow me to add multiple layers and masks without too much fuss.

Can I buy a MacBook?

Me? A computer nerd’s nerd? I’m seriously considering upgrading from my aluminum PowerBook G4 to a MacBook (MB) instead of a MacBook Pro (MBP). What the hell is going on? It’s actually quite simple: by almost all accounts, the MB is awesome.

If you’ve looked at the benchmarks,¹ the MB nearly equals or bests the Pro line in almost every relevant category. That jarring statistic, coupled with the ~$1100 price difference, has really caused me to pause and think about which machine I should get.

Before going any further, I should qualify the “~$1100″ statement above. The MB configuration I want can be had for $1368, and a comparably-equipped MBP for $1999. The difference in price here is probably not enough to keep me away from the MBP (and its sexy body, 128MB video card, ExpressCard slot, better display, etc). However, if I were to go with the MBP there is simply no way I could stop myself from bumping up the HD to the 7200 rpm model and the video card to the 256MB version (and I’d get an extra .16GHz to boot). Add in all of that and we’re now looking at $2,499 (about a $1100 difference). I should point out that the prices I’m quoting include the cheapest memory options available; everyone knows that you upgrade the memory yourself as Apple’s prices are ridiculous. While on the topic, I don’t think I’d get less than 2GB of RAM (the upper limit) this time around.

Though the MB unarguably gives you phenomenal bang for your buck, there are three main things that have heretofore stopped me from purchasing the new model; the first two fall out rather nicely, but the third might be a hurdle I’m not willing to attempt to jump.

Display

While the widescreen MB display is nice, I’m afraid that the lack of screen real-estate would really start to bother me after a while. Moreover, I loathe “glossy” screens and there is no option to get a matte-style (read: normal) screen with the MB (who the hell wants to deal with the ghastly reflection on those things?). Luckily, for me at least, I don’t see either of these things being a big problem, because now that I’m out of school, whatever machine I buy will be pumping pixels through my Apple 23-inch HD Cinema Display 99% of the time (I just need to get a mini-DVI-to-DVI converter). So, it seems to me that I’ll only use the MB’s screen when I travel (and for bar studying this summer). It’s a non-issue.

Keyboard

Much has been made about the MB’s keyboard and its non-abutting keys. I, for one, think it looks a bit odd and had some reservations about it when the first pictures started surfacing, but after having typed on the machine quite a bit the last few times I’ve gone into the Apple store, I don’t think it will be too big an issue. Regardless, whatever hangups I might have about the keyboard are mitigated by the same factor mentioned above, namely, the fact that I’ll have the lid closed and the machine connected to my cinema display, which requires me to use an external keyboard. It’s a non-issue.

Graphics Power

Finally, I’m most concerned about the integrated graphics card on the MB. There’s no question that it’s plenty powerful for everyday tasks, and can handle both heavy-duty video editing (something I’m not interested in… yet) and photograph post-processing (what I’ll eat up most of the CPU cycles with) without issue, but what I’m uneasy about is gaming (both on Mac OS X and Windows using Boot Camp or whatever virtualization software [hopefully] ships with X.5). No, I’m no longer a big PC gamer and haven’t been for a while (but at one time in my life… I don’t even want to get started), but I’d like the option to be there if and when I feel like experimenting, and, well, that’s pretty much an impossibility with the MB.

Conclusion(?)

I thought that typing this out would help me with my decision, but, unfortunately, I’m still stuck. One thing I did realize is that I’m probably not being honest with myself when I start harping on the MB’s graphics card and my inability to play PC games because of it. Truth is, I doubt I’ll ever get back into PC gaming (what with my Nintendo DS Lite, Sony PSP, and imminent Nintendo Wii purchase to keep me entertained).

Am I willing to pay ~$1100 more for a much better, though likely not pushed, video card, larger screen, and the über-sexy aluminum enclosure? I’m sad to say it, but probably. You know, I could just tell myself that once I start working I’ll buy the rumored quad-core Mac tower (or whatever insanely-powerful machine they come up with) and will then have no real need for the MBP extras. Hell, if I can convince myself of that, then I should probably just drop the video card from 256MB to 128MB, accept the 5400 rpm drive, and eat the $631 ($1999-$1368; the difference between the MB and the similarly-spec’d MBP; see above). That way, I could get the “pro” machine (and live with myself :) and then still convince myself later that I need the more powerful tower. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

On the lack of new photos here

Truth is, I’ve actually gone ahead and created a “real” photoblog (and did so about a week after I said I wouldn’t). It’s about 99% done, but I haven’t “announced” it yet because I wanted to have my photoblogs.org affiliation completely setup before I put the site out there. The problem though, is that they haven’t allowed new signups for almost two months now! Unbelievable, and of course they decide to do this as soon as I decide to setup a legit photoblog. To be fair though, it’s pretty much one guy that runs the entire site, and, well, we all know how external pressures and obligations can severely limit our time. Anyway, as soon as all of that is squared away I’ll get back to posting pictures (and I’ve plenty to post).

Costs associated with becoming a [patent] attorney

To say nothing of undergrad costs, the following are the expenses I’ve incurred (and will be incurring for years to come) with regard to law school and related requirements.

• Law school tuition: $90,000+
• Law school books and study aids: $4500
• California Bar study materials: $4000
• California Bar application: $529
• California Bar moral character evaluation: $431
• California Bar fee to use a laptop on the exam: $150
• California Bar initial registration: $75
• California Bar LiveScan (fingerprint scanning): $18
• California Bar MPRE exam: $55
• California Bar admissions certificate: $69
• Patent Bar study materials: $830
• Patent Bar application: $240
• Patent Bar fee to take the exam: $150
• Patent Bar fee to get your USPTO number after passing the patent bar: $100
• Cost-of-living in Silicon Valley: $$$$$

Ridiculous.

Thanks dad

Yesterday, a couple of hours before my girlfriend and I were to get dinner with my dad (our last before he had to head back to Florida), he bought me my [surprise] graduation present, the Sony Bravia XBR LCD HDTV I’ve been salivating over for the last few months (beyond its feature set and technology, I challenge you to find a better looking enclosure). We got it up and running as soon as we got it back to my apartment, and, well, it’s awesome(!) — the over-the-air HDTV signal is sick.

Though it will be tough to part with my TiVo, I’m going to move to Comcast’s HD DVR setup as soon as possible.

I’ve just graduated from law school

From computer engineering to law, it seems that my days as a student have finally come to an end — I walked across the stage earlier today and tossed my last cap. I’m no longer a student. Wow, I get a knot in my throat just thinking about it.

Time for a long break! Oh, erm, right, bar study courses start Monday! FUCK.

On a somewhat related note, these past few days have obviously been pretty hectic, so please accept my apologies if I’ve held on to your e-mail longer than usual (as always, I will reply… eventually).

Anyway, I’m off to do “family” stuff with the girlfriend’s family and my dad.

Soliciting tripod recommendations

UPDATE: Good lord, response to this post has been, well, overwhelming. It’s kind of hard to believe that the question could generate such a reaction, but it seems that everyone likes to talk about tripods. Tripods!?! Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback, and, as usual, I’ll likely write something up about whatever I ultimately decide to buy, though I think I’ve much more research to do than I ever anticipated.

I’m in the market for a nice tripod for my Canon 20D. I’ve done absolutely no research on this (and hope I won’t have to), so it’s kind of hard for me to even say what I’m looking for. Briefly, I don’t want anything too large, heavy, or cumbersome, and I want to be able to carry it around for a couple of hours without constantly complaining¹/thinking about it. If you’ve any suggestions, please drop me an e-mail or leave an audio comment. Thanks.

The day Costco won my heart

So, last week I went to Costco to pick up a few Ahi tuna steaks (this has become somewhat of a ritual the past couple of months) and anything else that looked good along my trek from the front of the store to the seafood section. As I made my way up to the checkout line all I could think about was the $1.50 coke/hot-dog combination they offer at the snack bar and how I didn’t want to wait in line to get it, but knew that I would because I’m a fat bastard (not really).

Imagine my surprise when the guy ringing me up asked if I’d like to buy something from the snack bar; I thought it was because I was salivating out of the side of my mouth thinking about the hot-dog, but as it turns out he was asking everyone the same question. After looking at him quizzically, I said yes and he proceeded to ask me what I wanted. I replied, he added it to my bill and told me that I could pick up my order from “that line.” He pointed to a people-less line (an oxymoron, I know) directly next to the line with 632 weirdos salivating over a stupid hot-dog.   :P

Needless to say, this simple, obvious bit of automation and efficiency warmed the cockles of my heart (did I really just say that?) and has forever endeared the wholesaler to me (at least until everyone else wises up and the two lines become indistinguishable, at which point I will officially become a salivating weirdo again).

On TextMate and FTP[lease]

MacroMates, please, for the love of god, add edit-over-FTP functionality to TextMate! I’m loving your text editor and am thinking very seriously about weaning myself away from the free TextWrangler (there, I said it!), but the one thing holding me back is the fact that I can’t do File → Open from FTP from within the application. I realize that there’s a “debate” brewing around this issue and that some people claim to like using an external FTP client, but let’s face it, they’re either ignorant or lying to themselves. Umm, why would someone want to use a separate program to execute such a simple, common task? Answer, they wouldn’t.

Frankly, I don’t even care about SFTP, I just want to be able to open all of my site-related stuff through the editor itself. Better yet, and hopefully this is something you would do anyway were you to add FTP, give us the ability to mix local and remote files within the same “project”; this would be a godsend, and, well, I for one would talk about the editor incessantly, not to mention create things for it as needed.

Hell, while I’m complaining, could you please give us the ability to kill the horizontal tab bar when we are using the Project Drawer? I see no need for both.

Photoshop automation question

Does anyone know how to automate the process of loading a single RAW file in Photoshop and saving it in the TIFF format at various exposures? More specifically, I’d like to point Photoshop to a RAW picture and have it save the image as three .tiff files, one at the original exposure, one a stop above, and one a stop below (or any other configuration I want to experiment with). I thought that I could set this up in seconds, but it’s proving to be a bit more difficult than I anticipated, mainly because I’ve found no way to bring up the RAW dialog after closing it (without opening the picture file again).

If it’s not already obvious, I’m asking about this because I want to minimize the hassle and time it takes to create an HDR image from a single file — opening and closing the file three times is making me crazy. Speaking of which, a few days ago I asked if there was anything better than Photomatix Pro for creating HDR images. I received quite a few responses from that query and had my suspicions confirmed: Photomatix Pro is currently the best thing going.

Bird Flu hits Florida trailer park

From a friend via e-mail.

Update: Photographer who took this shot.

Skating always takes me back

To this day nothing really feels as good as skateboarding when I get extremely stressed. Sure, I can’t ollie over a grocery cart anymore, and if I were to break my arm again I probably wouldn’t be doing pop shove-its over a friend’s brother¹ with my cast on this time around, but it still feels really good to get out there and be a kid again sometimes.

No subject is safe

I just ordered the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM lens¹ and it should be here by the end of the week! I absolutely cannot wait to snap this thing on, though I’m really unsure as to when I’m going to be able to find the time to actually shoot with it. Ugh. I’m trying to carve out half a day this coming weekend to head down to Santa Cruz, but those plans are predicated on things over which I have no control.

NerdTV

For whatever reason I thought I had mentioned this here before, but a search through my archives tells me otherwise. Basically, NerdTV is an online interview series by Robert Cringely that focuses on geeky ’superstars.’ I’ve watched all of them so far and have found each to be both interesting and inspiring. You should check them out.

Nintendo DS Lite

The Nintendo DS Lite is an instant classic. Period.

It’s Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I don’t know where to begin. Within five minutes of taking it out of the box I had the language switched from Japanese to English (mine was imported), the “Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection” up and running on my home network, and a Tetris DS game going with someone halfway around the world (in case you didn’t know, Wi-Fi games are free). It’s the perfect gaming device.

As I previously wrote, I held off on getting an original Nintendo DS because, well, it felt and looked like shit. The DS Lite is a complete revamp and upgrade — it’s a different machine entirely. The screens are insanely bright, the stereo sound is impressive and immersive, it’s solid as a rock, and the form-factor and weight are very practical (it’s totally possible to carry it in the pockets of your shorts or a sweatshirt or something).

Before my unit arrived I purchased Tetris DS and Mario Kart DS and have since bought Sonic Rush (amazing use of the dual screens; kind of treats them as a single “tall” screen) and Nanostray (a nice addition to one of my favorite game genres, the flying shoot-em-up). In the near future I plan to buy Meteos, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, 2006 FIFA World Cup, and New Super Mario Bros., which comes out in about a week (if the videos on the link don’t take you back I don’t know what will; IGN has just put up a glowing review). If you know of a game you think I might like and haven’t mentioned, please let me know.

The early bird gets the worm

If you were at all interested in the DS, but hated its shortcomings, then there is no doubt that you will want the DS Lite. That said, if you plan on getting one when they launch in the states on June 11th (at $130!), you better get in line as soon as possible (read: pre-order) — not to overstate the obvious, but this thing is going to be a huge success here (not only are all the DS-haters going to want a DS Lite, but those that actually have an original DS won’t want it anymore once they see its latest iteration).

Keep in mind that you don’t have to wait and can simply import it; I paid about $220 (including shipping) and Lik-Sang had it here in three days.

Still not convinced?

For those of you still on the fence, check out Cabel Sasser’s videos comparing the DS Lite to the original DS and the Sony PSP (I’ve linked to these before in the bits); they’re fairly entertaining and do a good job of highlighting the DS Lite’s strong points.

• First video
• Second video
• Third video

Thoughts on the first poll

After looking at the numbers for the first poll it seems that only about 17.5% of my readership actually voted. I can only speculate as to why the number was so low. Perhaps a lot of you hate stupid, pointless polls? Or, maybe those of you that use online aggregators (which is most of you) just didn’t feel like taking the time to click through to the site to vote? Either way, I understand, and to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have voted myself, but the numbers still seem really low. I guess it could have just been the subject matter; only future polls will tell.

As for the purpose of the poll, I have to say I’m a bit surprised that the results are pretty much split down the middle (if you count the second and third answers as different means to the same end). To be honest, I thought fewer people would have voted for the single-column format, but it seems I was wrong. That said, I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to two columns for a while now, mainly because a single column is pretty restrictive and doesn’t offer a lot of flexibility. I love the way it looks and feels, but it just isn’t very scalable. I knew this before committing to it, and for a while it wasn’t a problem, and really isn’t still, but I have a feeling I’ll eventually get back to multiple columns if only because they’re more practical.

I should note that the voting software worked without a hitch and I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for something similar.

Patent bar exam-taking tip

I implore you to not take the patent bar right before the finals of your last semester of law school, because, if you’re anything like me, you’re going to find that it’s next to impossible to actually study for your exams. Studying for the patent bar wiped me out and it’s been nothing but an uphill battle trying to prepare for finals. Couple that with the fact that I can’t seem to put my Nintendo DS Lite down (more on that soon) and the beautiful weather and, well, yah.

I realize I’m not alone in this last-semester-apathy thing, but I think it’s safe to say I’m leading the pack.

Poll: How many columns do you prefer?

Update: This poll has been closed.

So, my first poll. I think everything is in place and should work without issue, but please e-mail me if you notice anything out of the ordinary. Thanks in advance for your input with regard to the poll question. Note that the results will be shown on this page immediately after you vote.

Voting software redux

As per my request, I’ve received quite a few recommendations for polling packages and have settled on Democracy AJAX Poll (thanks Hale), which is exactly what I was looking for, not to mention the fact that it’s already packaged as a WordPress plugin. It has everything I wanted and was reluctant to mention in the previous post: simple IP-based cookie system for blocking multiples votes from the same person, CSS bar graphs (no images), ability to link to specific polls (because I’d like to run them as regular posts),¹ and it’s written in PHP. Perfect.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to be polling about (past the first one that I’ll likely put up later today or tomorrow), but I do think they’re ‘fun’ and will try to get them up here somewhat regularly.