My Bloglines feed has been a bit spastic lately

If you’re using Bloglines to access this site, I apologize for the somewhat sporadic RSS feed as of late. If you haven’t noticed, sometimes some of the posts announce themselves as new or modified when they are neither and where I’ve done nothing on my end to cause their statuses to change. It’s been bugging the hell out of me for a while, and earlier today I finally had some time to take a look at it.

By subscribing to my feeds in various readers I’ve come to think that the problem is only occurring in Bloglines and so there must be some disconnect between that service and FeedBurner. I was hoping to have the issue reproduce itself through NetNewsWire so that I could use its “Highlight differences” feature to nail down the culprit, but NNW doesn’t register any changes (i.e., it’s behaving correctly).

I did some digging around in the source this afternoon and have come to the conclusion that the function that WordPress uses to populate the lastBuildUpdate element of the feed is a bit wonky. It looks at the last modified date of every post (and picks the most recent), when I’m pretty sure it should limit itself to the number of items in the feed. In other words, the date should change only when one of those items currently in the feed changes; after that item is pushed off the bottom of the feed it should have no effect on it from that point forward.

So, after seeing what Movable Type’s default RSS 2.0 template did (which doesn’t seem quite right either), I’ve set the lastBuildElement equal to the pubDate element of the latest post, which requires me to run through “the loop” twice, though for the first iteration I just set query_posts() to 1 (in the second iteration I set this value to 50 so as to make sure the more frequent “bits” don’t completely obliterate my regular feed when the regular weblog has been stagnant for a considerable amount of time).

All of this is just a long-winded way of saying “maybe it’s fixed, maybe it’s not.” Not sure there’s much else I can do about it at this point. No, it’s not a pressing problem or anything, but I find it really, really annoying.

If you’ve any idea what may be causing this, I’d love to hear from you.

A quick Image Magick/NetPBM question

Anyone know of a way to get either Image Magick or NetPBM to create square thumbnails built from the largest square that can fit inside the center of the original image? In other words, I basically want to crop the image from a square emanating from the center and then resize that square into an 85 pixel thumbnail. As per the earlier post, I’ve started to look at Movable Type as a possible photoblog solution, but I can’t stand how it creates thumbnails for uploaded images (i.e., it distorts them if you don’t constrain the proportions, which is something I don’t want to do). I started poking around the scale subroutines in the Image module, but I can’t seem to find the right options (and the right order) to get what I want and I’m tired of working on it (or, rather, I’m just too lazy to deal with it right now).

This is kind of a threshold issue, because if I can’t get this working then MT is definitely not an option for me and I’ll just stick with the Pixelpost setup that I’ve already put so much time and energy into. That said, I’m 99% sure this is doable, and easily.

Poll: What address should I use for the photoblog?

Update (2): This poll has been closed. Thanks for participating.

Update (1): Someone thought it would be funny to add “oogieboogie” as one of the choices. I was afraid something like that might happen and I’ve since removed the option altogether.

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, I’ll soon be debuting a photoblog here and am struggling to decide which URI convention I should use; thus, I’ve opted to let you, the reader, pick for me (as long as you pick the one I want). For what it’s worth, I’m leaning toward the sub-directory.

The photoblog is imminent

I can’t wait to get back into photography over the next couple of weeks. I had to put a lot of the joys of my life on hold while studying for the bar and I’ve probably missed shooting more than just about anything.

As I’ve discussed here before, a few months back I actually setup, over the course of a few days, a complete photoblog using Pixelpost. It’s a great little package and certainly the best PHP/MySQL solution I could find, but man, I had to hack the hell out of it (as usual, I documented all of my changes so that I could help others with this in the future). The photoblog is currently fully functional and completely up to date; it took me forever to resize/upload all the old pictures I wanted to use, and in the order that they were originally included on this site (pulled in from Flickr).

Issues I’m still concerned about

The future

I’ve definitely got some misgivings about the whole thing, namely the future-proofness of it all, but the way I see it, I simply had to separate the photoblog from my regular site (for many reasons, not the least of which being that I wanted to display larger photos) and PP’s package is currently the best thing going. Moreover, a few months back I spoke with one of the guys behind the upcoming pixyBlog and he told me that not only were they thinking very seriously about offering an open-source solution (in contrast to their initial offering of having your photos hosted with them), but that you would be able import all of your Pixelpost stuff into pixyBlog.

I’ve also been looking very seriously at Movable Type to handle the photoblog. Most of you know that I’ve a very intimate knowledge of that publishing system and used it for a few years before moving over to WordPress way back when. The only real problem I foresee with that system running a photoblog is that there are no site-wide photo options (e.g., I wouldn’t be able to change the size of all the thumbnails from within the CMS¹).

Thumbnail size

Pixelpost limits thumbnails to 100 pixels wide, and while this is fine for an archived page of thumbnails, I’d rather have them be a bit larger for the RSS feed (but smaller than the 800 pixel size I’m using on the site). I don’ t think this is possible without some serious overhauling of the underlying framework.

Posting outside of the photoblog itself

This is something I’ve been struggling with for a while, and besides that little bar thing I just finished up, this was one of the main reasons I’ve held off so long on moving to a full photoblog. I’d like to keep pictures here because I think it offers a nice balance to the regular techno-babble that pervades the site (and I know some others feel the same). Furthermore, quite a few people are subscribed to this site and the more people that see the pictures the better. However, the process might be more trouble than it’s worth.

So, what to do? I’m still not sure. I could always keep posting the pictures to Flickr along with my photoblog (and then pull in the 500 pixel versions from Flickr for the regular site, which is what I currently do), but this would essentially require me to post in triplicate (photoblog, regular site, and Flickr) and I think we’re all aware that less than full autonomy usually doesn’t sit too well with me.

Another hangup I have with this method is that I think I want to get away from Flickr entirely. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the service (it’s still untouchable as far as I’m concerned), but if I’m to do this whole photoblog thing I’d like it to be fairly centralized (hit counts, comments, etc.) and not spread out across disparate systems.

If you’ve any ideas, I’d love to hear them, but I’m pretty sure what I want isn’t really feasible and at the end of the day I think I’m probably going to stop posting pictures to this site altogether (I’ll just keep encouraging people subscribed here to subscribe to the photoblog as well).

Timeframe

I actually plan on having everything public by the middle of next week, unless I decide to take the Movable Type approach, in which case it will probably take an extra week as I’ll essentially have to start from scratch; getting the templates setup shouldn’t be too hard, but moving all the photos over will definitely take some time.

The near future

Now that that’s over, you can expect a ton of posts and links from me over the next few days as I catch up on all I’ve missed in the last week (my aggregator is telling me there are ~6500 news items to sift through). Apart from helping my girlfriend move, I don’t plan on doing much over the next couple of days outside of geeky computer things and watching all the stuff that’s built up on my DVR.

Vacation

I’m headed back to Florida in a few days for about a week and a half and plan to spend as much time as possible wakeboarding, kiteboarding (if my brother and I can work it out) and doing whatever other throw-caution-to-the-wind activity I can think of. I’ll also be hanging out with my dad in Cocoa Beach as he’ll be on a mini-vacation of sorts.

After that, I’m shipping out on a cruise to the Western Caribbean with the girlfriend. I really wish I was in a better mood, but I think it’s only going to get worse as I sit around and think about how I did on the bar. She’s so pumped for this trip that I feel guilty not being pumped myself as I know it drags her down. We’ll see how it goes.

Umm, well, that sucked

So, I’ve just trudged my way through the worst three days of my entire life — I took the California Bar Exam on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

It was the hardest, most stressful, most insufferable thing I’ve ever had to do, and, as much as I hate to say it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion I’m going to have to do it all over again.

Unfortunately, I have to hold my breath for four months, which means I get to spend four months dreading sleep for fear of having to worry about the future as I lay there. It’s not entirely uncommon for people to have to take this exam 4-5 times. I can’t imagine. I think I’d rather die. I’ve always had rather serious physical manifestations of stress and this exhausting, three-day marathon of self-doubt and worry really took its toll. I’m beat.

If you haven’t gone through this “rite of passage,” you have absolutely no idea how difficult it really is. You just can’t know. It’s no secret that the exam is the toughest in the country, and, well, by the end of the second day I was convinced of that; I was a complete zombie, hadn’t really slept or ate for a few days, and my brain was mush.

One simple fact remains and I have to keep repeating it to myself again and again: I could not have studied any more than I did. I’ve been told my entire life that I’m too hard on myself regarding just about everything I’ve ever endeavored to do (sports, academia, etc.), and I can’t disagree. I’m too competitive and expect too much from myself. I recognize this. However, I can’t change it. It’s part of who I am and how I operate, and to be completely honest, it’s what separates me from most people, even if it ultimately lowers my quality-of-life quotient.

I would have loved to have cheered and clapped as the proctor said “time!’ at the end of the last three-hour session like everyone else (1000+ people) seemed to do yesterday (seriously, it was like they won the lottery or something), but it just wasn’t in me and never has been. While failure has usually been a fairly remote possibility for me (if I actually try), the possibility of failure never ceases to cause me much internal strife and consternation until I win or pass or whatever. In this case, the possibility of failure is very real and I’m made to wait much longer to find out.

Anyway, I’m not going to belabor the point (some might say I already have); I could probably spend 500 more words on why the exam was difficult and why I don’t think I did so well, but it’s all pretty pointless and talking about it is just making me more depressed. On the bright side, I’m not in Iraq.  :(

Keep busy. Must keep busy. Fortunately, I can do that really well.

BlackBerry 8700c

I’ve really zero time to discuss this right now (see bottom of post), but I wanted to say a few quick things before I lost the desire.

Anyone that has talked to me personally in the last week would undoubtedly tell you that I was absolutely smitten with my new BlackBerry 8700c because I haven’t stopped talking about it. After having stayed well ahead of the mobile phone curve for as long as I can remember (it’s hard work, really, and apparently out of my control), and used every mobile OS imaginable (from various Symbians to multiple PalmOSs to embedded Linux to every Windows Mobile effort to… you get the point), I decided to take a ‘chance’ and play around with a RIM device.

Turns out it wasn’t so much a chance as it was a welcomed change — the device is wonderful. When I have time I plan to go into its beautifully simple and practical UI, its very fast EDGE implementation (much faster than every other comparably-equipped EDGE phone I’ve had in the past), its crystal-clear sound, its excellent built-in browser (Opera Mini works fine of course, but I actually prefer RIM’s app) and its rock-solid construction.

Something tells me that the low-tech business types, for many of whom BlackBerries have become as indispensable as desktops, have no idea how good they have it.

Sure, I’ve got my usual persnickety gripes, but these are far outweighed by the positives. That said, one thing I would really like to see is native Gmail integration. I realize that this would require some cooperation between RIM and Google, but I’m hoping beyond hope that it will happen eventually. It would be a godsend to be able to have Gmail mail pushed to the device (i.e., without forwarding) and manipulatable through the BlackBerry mail client so that starring, labeling, replying, sending, etc., would all be sync’d up with Gmail (without ever having to jump out of the mail client and into the browser).

In any event, it’s fantastic and has far exceeded all my expectations. To be honest, I’m quite upset that I waited this long to get one (though, to be fair, there were legit reasons for that, not the least of which being Cingular’s $45/mo. all-you-can-eat BlackBerry data plan, which, by the way, includes no SMSs).

Part of me hates to say it, but I’m kind of blind to other next-gen devices right now (let’s not kid ourselves, despite the incessant hype, there’s nothing too exciting going on in this space right now); as soon as RIM gets an 850MHz UMTS/HSDPA radio into one of these sweet little berries, I’m going to buy it and probably be content for some time to come.

This will likely be the last non-“bit” post from me for a while. I’m currently mired in bar prep and crunch-time is upon us — the exam is on the 25th, 26th, and 27th. If I survive with my sanity in check (flip a coin… seriously), I’ll get back to writing here as soon as I can.

Uncrustables are god’s handiwork

I’ve been told by at least a few people (surely more if they knew me better) that I’m at once the laziest person and the most productive person they’ve ever met.¹ Enter Uncrustables, the pre-packaged, no-crust, frozen peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.² That’s right, I’m too lazy to make my own sandwiches and if this little wonder-in-plastic doesn’t count as the perfect snack then I don’t know what does. Once you convince yourself that whatever makes them dry and fluffy (instead of wet and soggy) after they’ve been “thawing” for an hour isn’t going to kill you, you’re left to enjoy a painless, simple, get-in-get-out snack.

I swear, every time I tear open one of these bad-boys I can hear the guy from the Guinness commercials yell, “Brillyunt!”

Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones

Update: I’ve returned the QC3s and have since purchased a pair of Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 Pro earphones, which are, umm, sonic heaven. I’ll likely do a full write-up after the bar.

I don’t have too much to say, or too much time to say it, so let’s see if I can stream-of-consciousness my way through this real quick.

When I got wind of these a couple of months ago I couldn’t wait to try them out. I’ve long resisted noise-cancelling headphones and have instead opted for the noise-muffling, in-ear models (I’ve had the Eytmotic ER-6i, Shure E2c, and Shure E3c to name just a few). So, I went down to the Bose store the day the QC3 headphones were released and was told that I wouldn’t be able to buy them for a couple of weeks, though they had a pair on display. I put my name on the call-me-when-they-arrive list and picked them up a couple of weeks ago when the store got them.

I’m well aware of Bose’s shortcomings when it comes to home-audio fidelity (it’s been well established by those in the know that the the brand is much stronger than the product), but I have tended to like their headphones (I’ve owned two pairs of TriPorts) even if they are a little bass-happy and fragile. I never got into the QuietComfort 2 noise-cancelling set because (1) they looked like ear-muffs you might wear in an Antarctic blizzard and (2) they took regular batteries. I’m not completely against over-the-ear designs and have owned some pretty nice cans of that variety over the years, but the QC2s just seemed a bit cumbersome to me.  *shrug*

Shut up already and tell me what you think

First off, and this was certainly no surprise to me, they don’t sound as good as my Shure E3c earphones. They’re alright, but there’s definitely no jaw-dropping going on here. What did surprise me though was how much better the Shures were at blocking out noise. The Bose are great for equalizing ambient, background noise, but if you’re looking to shut out the conversation three feet over, you might as well not have them on. Obviously this depends a bit on the type of music you’re listening to and how loud you have it turned up, but overall I was underwhelmed.

For whatever reason, I thought I was going to be able to charge them through a power cable that plugged directly into the headphones; I’m guessing that it was a pre-launch review somewhere that had me thinking that as nothing in the Bose ad copy gives me that impression. That said, charging them is not a big deal — you simply slide the lithium-ion battery out and plug it into the wall adapter — but it would have been nice to simply plug them directly into the wall.

Battery life is great and I would say that it meets their quoted time of 20 hours on a single charge. The flashing LED is nice too; it alerts you when there are ~4 hours of juice left.

The audio cable only plugs into the left ear-cup; for the price, it would have been nice if you could plug into either side (I prefer the right).

One feature held over from the QC2s that I really like is the ability to remove the cord while still being able to take advantage of the noise cancellation. However, given the above, in that situation you might be better off with old-fashioned earplugs.

All in all, they are quite comfortable over prolonged periods of use and they sound pretty good. I’ve got two more weeks to decide if I’m going to keep them or not (30-day return policy), but I think I probably will.

Come on Bose, give me a break

Just when I thought the company couldn’t get any more pretentious, what did I find on the inside of the rather nice travel case? A “wallet” velcroed to the wall of the case that contained 10 business cards that read, “Customers tell us they’re often asked about their Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones. For your convenience, this courtesy card is yours to pass along.” How do they know that already? In any event, the backs contain phone numbers for Bose operations in various countries.

Ooooh, I can’t wait for the first person to ask me about the headphones. I’m going to tell him to hold on, dig around in the travel case, and then pass him one of these sweet cards that will not only tell him how self-righteous the company is, but will also keep him completely oblivious as to what makes the headphones so appealing. He’ll stand there confused, wondering why I don’t just talk up the headphones, and I’ll tell him, ever so cooly, to flip that bad-ass card around and see what’s waiting for him on the other side. He’ll smile, nod, and tell me that’s he’s tired of the whole Internet thing and would much rather call up the company, wait on hold for 15 minutes, and then ask the friendly operator about my headphones. I’ll smile back and just think, “Yah…,” as I nod my head in agreement.

What?

How not to write an e-mail

I reply to 99.9% of the e-mails I receive; it might take me a while to get back to some of them, but I eventually make the rounds. I received the following e-mail earlier today and can’t make heads or tails of it. I initially thought it was spam because there doesn’t seem to be a single coherent thought, much less a coherent sentence, throughout the entire message, but the subject matter made me do a double-take (I’ve written quite a bit about Sony Ericsson phones on this site, especially the K700i). If you can figure out what this guy is asking, please let me know so that I can reply to him.

Subject: Complaint about K700i or K500i

Hi

We are facing this problems continuesly till now. We bought our set before 1 year and we face problems 3 time in our sets. we are very dispointed. We’ve k700i or K500i. First problem we occurred in my cell in it’s joystick which is occured in 5 months when we bought our cell and after some time K700i set again problem face it’s display problem after repaired it sony service center and also k500i we face problem it’s souds system or it’s battery system. we have also some other phone in sony ericsson set which have many problems in different set.

Now we both are very dispointed about sony set. How this is possible if customer is not satisfied to your set. Why I am buy your set and In my knowledge in practicaly there is no benefit in sony ericsson set. It’s waste of money because there is so many customer who are not satisfied with ur product. That’s not a good business for sony.

So pls. give us a satisfied answer about sony set. What should we do.

Thanx