Tech

Tech-focused ramblings. Computers, blogs, and whatever else fits.

Techno-lust

by

The Wall Street Journal’s top seven items of techno-lust, with commentary by me:

7: Fancy new does-everything cellphone.

Ugh. God no — at least, not for me. It’s a personal thing, but one I’ve yet to see any need to change my stance on.

6: DVR (Digital Video Recorder — a hard-drive based VCR).

I don’t watch enough TV to bother. Sure, sure, I’ve heard the arguments that DVRs make watching TV worthwhile (easier than ever to weed out the chaff and only see the good stuff), but I just don’t have enough interest in the television world.

Amusingly enough, I actually am considering signing up for cable TV for a few months sometime soon so that I can keep up with the upcoming presidential debates, and as I work nights, I’ll need some form of time-shifting device in order to actually watch the debates. However, given that I have every intention of turning the cable service back off once the election is over and done with, a cheap VCR should do me just fine when the time comes.

5: iPod Mini.

Yup. If I had to replace my iPod, I’d replace it with a Mini (if one were available). Most of the time, I’m only using between 2Gb and 4Gb of my 10Gb (2nd Gen) iPod, so the 4Gb of the Mini would work out quite well for me, and be smaller and lighter. Can’t complain about that.

4: USB flash drives.

If I didn’t have my iPod, sure. As it is, though, I can just drop any files I need to schlupp around on the iPod and call it good.

3: A really big, really flat TV.

Oh, definitely. Not for TV, of course, but I’m a movie geek. Size does matter.

2: Apple’s new Airport Express.

Yup. Even in my little studio apartment, I can easily see myself using at least two of these little gadgets (one for the main room stereo as it’s too far from my ‘puter to get an optical digital audio cable between the two, and one for the bathroom for shower tunes), and possibly three (unwire the webserver).

1: A Gmail address.

Hm. Apparently I’m the only geek on the ‘net who doesn’t care about Gmail. I’ve got enough e-mail addresses as it is, the last thing I need is one more to have to keep track of. Count me out of this one.

(via Buzzworthy)

iTunes: “I Wanna Take You Higher” by Duran Duran from the album Thank You (1995, 5:05).

Winer goes off the deep end

by

Rather amazing, the things you miss when you disappear for a few days.

Over the weekend, Dave Winer suddenly decided that due to a number of factors, he could no longer support the weblogs that he, along with Userland Software, had been hosting for free under the weblogs.com domain. Rather than do something reasonable, like contact the people about to be affected by the change to warn them or give them time to archive their posts in preparation for a move to a new hosting solution, he simply pulled the plug, replacing the affected sites with a tersely-worded notice:

This site is for people with sites that used to be hosted at weblogs.com.

  1. I can’t afford to host these sites. I don’t want to start a site hosting business. These are firm, non-negotiable statements.
  2. There are several commercial Manila hosting companies, including weblogger.com. Thomas Creedon maintains a transcribed Dave’s audio post, which (to me) really doesn’t do that much to clear things up.

    What blows my mind about this is not that Winer/Userland decided to stop providing free hosting services — that’s certainly within his/their right, and to a certain extent, you should expect to get what you pay for. However, his methodology here was flat-out ridiculous, as is his proposed “solution”. I have no idea just how many weblogs.com sites were affected by this, but I’m sure that nobody was pleased to see their weblog just suddenly up and disappear, with no method of retrieval beyond kissing Winer’s ass (he started off the comment thread for the announcement with “Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining.”) and hoping that he gets their site exported sometime in the near future (just what sort of timeframe might people be looking at here, anyway? “Sometime after July 1” leaves a lot of wiggle room) so that all their past writings don’t just disappear.

    It’s difficult for me to even conceive of doing something like this. While I don’t host anywhere near the number of sites that weblogs.com did (whatever that number might be), I do host a few friends sites for free, and I can’t imagine simply pulling the plug on their sites. Not only is it an amazingly callous thing to do, but the guilt alone would have me up at night — and that’s just for three other people!

    But then, I’m not Dave. Good thing, too, I’d say — I’d hate to have engendered such fear in people that they’re afraid to say anything bad about me…

    Some bloggers contacted for comments for this story said they didn’t want to make disparaging comments about Winer’s actions, for fear he wouldn’t provide them copies of their blogs.

    “People have been really afraid to discuss this,” said a New York blogger who asked that his name be withheld. “There’s a lot of concern that any nasty comments will result in Dave not getting around to making a copy of your blog. I think a lot of the politeness and ‘We love you, Dave!’ sentiments that you’re seeing in some Web posts is just pure paranoia.”

    The biggest lessons to learn from this? I see three.

    1. Back up regularly. Make sure that the online copies aren’t the only copies of your work. Never hurts to be safe.
    2. If at all possible, host on your own server. Don’t trust your work to a third party — no matter how trustworthy they may seem, there’s always the chance that something might go badly in the future.
      • Of course, I say this while I post my entire website to TypePad — a third party — and as I act as a third party for the friends that I host on my server. Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury, after all. ;)
    3. And lastly…Dave’s being an ass.

    iTunes: “Mr. Johnson Takes A Bow” by 12 Rounds from the album My Big Hero (1998, 4:03).

Blogger Anon-O-Con

by

Many thanks to Pops (The Two Hour Lunch) for setting up this Saturday’s Blogger Anon-O-Con down at the waterfront. Got to hang out and chat with Pops, Richard (Tikun Olam), Mike (Dumb Blogs Have More Fun), Anita (Anita’s LOL), Ted (Ted Leung on the Air) and Julie Leung (Seedlings and Sprouts), Chip (The Binary Circumstance), Receptionista (Hammer and Peg), Staci (Daymented), and Myk (Life, it is a travesty), along with Pops’ counterpart Mom, their own Mr. Man, the Leung’s children, and Prairie. All in all, not a bad gathering in the least!

Apparently my Utilikilt was something of a hit, seeing as Mom is now suggesting that Pops should get one of his own — and what do you know, Pops found out that UK is having a Father’s Day Sale.

Utilikilts’ First Annual Father’s Day Extravaganza is open to all Utilikiltarian Fathers, Dads and Papas! Any father who make a purchase of a new Utilikilt between Mon June 14 — Fri June 18th during regular business hours 9:A-6:P PST may deduct your age from the price of any Utilikilt of your choice (limitations and restrictions apply).

Sounds like a good deal to me, though being childless (and in no hurry to change that status), I’ll have to sit this particular sale out…

iTunes: “Mr. Pitiful” by Commitments, The from the album Commitments, The (1991, 2:11).

Ink or champagne?

by

Following up (in a way) on my printer ink woes, today MetaFilter points out that by volume, printer ink is six times more expensive than Dom Perignon champagne.

I still haven’t bothered to replace my printer, though I need to at some point — I’m just still pissy about spending the money on the ink just to find out that my printer was dead. Still, at the moment, as long as I don’t mind waiting for a bit I can just bring anything I need printed out to work (side benefits of working in a copy shop), so I’m not entirely without options. It’s still a frustrating situation, though.

iTunes: “Get Bizzy Time” by Voight Kampff from the album In to the Mix II: The 2nd Coming (1998, 5:03).

VisitorVille

by

Apache log file analysis plus SimCity equals VisitorVille, a program that displays your website as a city, with traffic represented by people moving from building to building (page to page), and arriving via bus (referrers and search engines).

Visitors come to your web site from other sites (referrers). Some of these referrers are search engines. In VisitorVille, referrers are depicted as buses. And web pages on your site are depicted as buildings. When a new visitor arrives, a bus delivers them to a building. To move between buildings, visitors either walk, take a cab or — if you have designated them as a VIP — a limousine. VIPs also fly in by helicopter.

When you have many visitors on your web site, it begins to resemble midtown Manhattan, and it’s hard to get your eyes off the screen! Buildings resize and illuminate dynamically based on the number of people inside, their relative popularity, and how many visitors exited through them. Buses, taxis, and limos race around the streets; pedestrians walk across crosswalks; helicopters ply the air. It’s all very real, because it’s reflecting something that’s also very real: Your visitors are human beings, and they exhibit human behavior. They are not abstractions, and with VisitorVille you no longer have to think of them as such!

As goofball as it sounds, after spending some time perusing their website, I have to admit that this is a really cool idea. Unfortunately, it’s a really cool idea whose client software only runs on Windows. Such a shame…

(via Wired)

iTunes: “Part 2 (Bomb the Bass/Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five/The Charlatans/Prodigy/Jane’s Addiction/Tim Dog feat. KRS-One)” by Howlett, Liam from the album Prodigy pres. The Dirtchamber Sessions Vol. 1 (1999, 6:44).

No longer the top of the heap

by

Well, it lasted longer than I thought it would, given how fast technology advances, but my dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 is no longer the top-of-the-line machine from Apple.

Apple today introduced updates to their Power Mac G5 line, now featuring a full range of dual processor systems at 1.8 GHz, 2.0 GHz, or 2.5 GHz — and ~~all~~ [the 2.5 Ghz model]{.underline} features a new liquid cooling system to keep heat and fan noise down. Nice!

(via MacMinute and /.)

iTunes: “Hazy Daze” by Wax Police, The from the album Acid: Breaks and Beats (1998, 2:24).

iTunes supports AC3 and DTS?

by

I was just reading this Macworld article on how AirTunes works (the new audio streaming technology built into Airport Express), when I noticed this paragraph…

If iTunes is playing back a digital multichannel file format like AC3 (Dolby Digital) or DTS, those bitstreams are wrapped in Apple’s compression and encryption, and then decoded at the other end. In those cases, AirPort Express would end up streaming the raw AC3 or DTS stream via an optical cable to your home theater receiver for decoding.

blink

iTunes can play and output AC3 and DTS? How does that work — and from what source? Are there standalone AC3/DTS audio tracks out there somewhere? I’ve generally only seen them used on DVDs, though I know that there are some audio CDs made that use DTS, and probably some that use AC3. If I had such a CD, how would I put an AC3/DTS audio track into iTunes?

I don’t have a use for this information right now, I’m just really curious. It’s news to me.

iTunes: “Sweet Surrender (Roni Size v2)” by McLachlan, Sarah from the album Plastic Compilation Vol. II (1998, 4:00).

Airport Express feat. AirTunes

by

This looks very cool: Airport Express featuring AirTunes, a small wireless basestation that will connect to a stereo to allow music streaming, for only \$129.

Unfortunately, I’m 5 minutes away from the start of my shift, so I can’t explore in detail yet. Grrrrr!

(Okay, I’ve skimmed through a bit more. I want. Of course, I’d need an airport card for my G5 too…but I want. Geeklust yay!)

How to make friends by telephone

by

Many people are linking to this 1940’s era booklet on the then-newish telephone system and commenting on how amusing it is.

As for me, after flipping through the pages, I’m struck by how much more bearable many phone conversations these days would be if people would keep these pointers in mind.

(via Boing Boing)

iTunes: “Storm 3000” by Leftfield from the album Leftism (1995, 5:43).

Descent 2 for Mac OS X: FREE!

by

This rocks.

I’m not much of a gamer. Never have been, likely never will be. Most computer games bore me, requiring far too much time and mental effort to bother with (any strategy based game — StarCraft, WarCraft, WoodCraft), or just being so pointless I can’t envision devoting time to them (EverCrack). Generally, if I get into a game, it’s for a few minutes at a time, and either brainless but fun point-and-shoot (Doom) or brainless drive-around-in-circles racing games (Star Wars Pod Racer, Wipeout for Playstation).

One of the few games that ever really got my attention was Descent. At the time it came out, it was a groundbreaking game — taking the then-typical pesudo-3D first-person-shooter approach of Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, and so on, and putting it into a true three dimensional world.

Where previous “3D” games were actually two-dimensional (your only real choices of movement were on a plane — forward, backwards, left, and right turns, etc.), Descent put you in control of a small spacecraft flying through tunnels within planets and asteroids, adding the final third dimension, allowing you to pilot your craft through all three axis of movement. You could dive, barrel roll, loop-de-loop, swoop down on targets, anything.

We had some great multi-player Descent games at The Pit (my old apartment in Anchorage), and for once, I had the advantage. While I would occasionally play games, I wasn’t enough of a gamer to have very many old habits built in, so when I started playing with the controls of Descent, it didn’t take me long to get the hang of moving through a fully three-dimensional world. My roommate Jason wasn’t able to adjust as quickly, due to the ingrained habit of only thinking along two axis of movement. Many was the time when he’d end up behind me, blasting away, when suddenly I’d go round a bend in the tunnel just out of his sight, fly into a large open room, and immediately shoot straight up to hover just above the entrance. Jason would come screaming into the cavern and start trying to find me — panning left and right. Meanwhile, I’d be targeting him from above, suddenly unleashing a blistering stream of laser fire onto the top of his ship, and sending him off into blissful digital oblivion.

Of course, Jason being the jobless obsessive-compulsive that he was, he soon spent far too many hours doing nothing but play Descent, so it was only a matter of a week or two before he was flying circles around everyone else in the apartment. Still, my little reign of terror was fun while it lasted.

What got all this started running through my brain, though, was Phil tipping me off to some wonderful news — Descent 2 has been ported to run on Mac OS X, and is freely downloadable!

Schweeeeet.

It’s downloaded, just waiting for me to install it. I think I better wait ’till the weekend to do that, though, otherwise I’m likely to get nothing done from here on out.