Category Archives: Geek-Speak

Geeky spaces lie within — be careful where you step!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

Hardware Moves

$1.849

I think tonight I’ve finished up the last of the hardware moves, all driven by the arrival of the iMac.

And, I set a record. It was 48 hours before I had the covers off the iMac, proceeding to do work to do it. That’s a neat looking piece of hardware on the inside — smartly put together, with well labelled pieces, and easy to install user options (memory or harddrive). I upgraded my memory today from 512Mb to 2Gb, which is the system maximum. The system seems a bit snappier, and that’s a good thing.

Originally this afternoon, I had purchased only one 1Gb DIMM for the beast, but I started looking around, and read a tech note from Apple that indicated that the bus width would be cut in half by using mismatched sizes and types of DIMMs. So, back to CompUSA this evening, and another installation, and the little guy is at 2Gb. Can’t wait to try Photoshop on it!

Of course, I’ve got a few files to move around before that can happen. Those file copies are happening right now, and should be done by the time I’m up in the morning. At that point, I think I can turn off the old server, and start parting it out. To get the little server up and functional took about eight hours of work, and by my standards, that’s not too bad.

So, lots of batch stuff going on tonight, and with a small window of time before the racing double-header later today (Indy 500 and CocaCola 600 — a Memorial Day weekend tradition for me!), I doubt a whole lot gets done today.

If you find a bump in the road, let me know!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

Mac as Art

$1.859

With the new iMac, and trying to move the server code to another box, my corner desk looks like something out of Star Trek: 15″ LCD panel on the new server, 17″ LCD panel on the laptop, 19″ LCD panel on the old server, and 20″ LCD panel on the iMac. There’s a lotta glow from this room!

The more I look at the iMac compared to the other hardware in my office, the more I appreciate its graceful styling. It’s a thing of beauty, and sits like an inspirational beacon on my desk, beckoning me to create and develop.

But… (and there’s always a but)

What crazy monkey designed the keyboard and mouse? The mouse is a single button mouse — no scroll wheel, no right click (without assistance from the keyboard), and no textured feel in your hand. It really is like holding a bar of soap with a cable attached. Is it cool looking? Yes. It just doesn’t give me the function I want.

So, I brought out my old Microsoft Bluetooth mouse and got it configured with the iMac. And then I remembered why I didn’t like the Bluetooth mouse. Whenever it goes to sleep, it takes an 9.5 earthquake to wake it up again. When I reach for the mouse, I expect it to respond, and my Microsoft Bluetooth mouse is a bit sluggish to get out of bed. 😉 It’ll go back in the “for sale” pile.

The keyboard that came with the iMac is another beautful work. Simple, small, and has the keys you need to do work — no fancy shortcut keys, volume control, or anything else extraneous. The feel of the keys though is horrible. Back in the old days, I measured my like or dislike for a keyboard by the “click” of the keys. The more clickey it was, the more I liked it. Nowadays, the clicks aren’t there audibly, but most keyboards have a tactile click, and that’s good enough. The Mac keyboard is just plain mushy. I have a tough time touchtyping with it, as I can’t tell when I have or haven’t hit a key hard enough to make an impression on the app I’m running.

So, I think today will be yet another run to BestBuy, or CompUSA, or somewhere, to get a Apple-centric wired mouse and keyboard. My apologies to the iMac designers — the mouse and keyboard are art, but aren’t suited to my work!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

Once Bitten

$1.869

Yes, I’ve taken a bite, and I’m not referring to the Jim Carey movie of the same title.

Tonight, I bought an iMac from the local Apple store.

I’ve been trying hard to figure out where to go on this decision. I knew I wanted a Mac — the photoprocessing capabilities are legendary — but I was having a tough time deciding between a dual G5 workstation or a PowerBook laptop. Then I saw a note about the iMac, took a look, and was sold. It has 512Mb RAM (which I’ll upgrade soon), 250Gb hard drive, 20″ integrated LCD monitor, 2.0Ghz G5 processor, 8x dual-layer DVD burner, USB 2.0, Firewire 400, 10/100/1000-BaseT network, 802.11G network…. all built into a 2″ deep chassis, and all for a great price. The decision became very easy!

Heath, the Mac guy at the Apple Store, gave me a tour, and 30 minutes later, I was walking out of the store with a 25 pound box of Apple. I gotta say though, that the whole Apple culture is waaaaay different from what I’m used to. It seems like a culture and technology bent on creativity, not so much on the gear itself. That’s an appealing change.

Back at home, unpacking was a snap. Keyboard, mouse, power cord, and the unit itself. Plug it in, turn it on, and it begins to configure itself. I answered a couple of questions, configured my e-mail, and inside 15 minutes, I’m on the local network, hitting the internet, and being functional. Man, what an easy experience to deal with! I know I have a learning curve, but I’m excited about it.

Twenty-plus years ago, I can remember Rich Morehouse showing me his Apple II, when I had gone down the TRS-80 path. I was impressed with the Apple, as it seemed to do more than my TRS-80 gear. Now, all these years later, I have my first Apple, and I think I’m gonna love it!

Geek-Speak

The World of the Future

$1.879

I had previously seen no need for satellite radio in my world. Obviously, I hadn’t looked real hard at it.

At work this week, someone was selling a Roady2 — a little XM radio, with no real frills — for $50. One of my co-workers has been yelling and screaming about how good XM was, and I have to admit I was intrigued. I quickly ran out to the XM site, found that I could go month by month until I decided I liked it, found a ton of programming that I liked, and discovered that I could become a junkie of this technology.

So, I traded a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant for an XM receiver today. I plugged it in to the truck, using the FM modulator built in to the Roady2, and instantly could hear the sampler channel. I listened to this on the way home, with only a few dropouts as I went up the ridge near our home. Of course, I just had the antenna sitting on the dash, and I know that’s not optimal, but I was still amazed at how clear it all sounded, even using the FM modulator.

When I got home, I dashed inside, signed up, activated the little thing, and let the Satellite in the Sky tell the unit in the truck what to do with itself. One grass mowing later, I went back to the truck and found a ton of content waiting for me! I can already tell that just sifting through the content will be a challenge. However, as a side benefit of signing up, I can also listen to XM’s streaming audio version of many of their channels, and that’ll help me to find my favorites. My problem is that I like so many kinds of music…. I’m sure I will outpace the presets on the unit!

Hello XM — I’m here, and listening! 😉

Geek-Speak

Meetup and Fees

I had seen something a while back about groups meeting to discuss WordPress, and found a local group of maybe three people that were trying to do this. Aside from the ugly times of day and locales chosen locally, this sounded like a cool thing. It was using a service called Meetup, which is basically a group haven, supplying e-mail services, some basic hosting, etc., to foster local discussion groups. Up to lately, this has been free.

Upon noticing that the local organizer abdicated, I started looking into what being “the organizer” meant. From Meetup’s perspective, that meant you were responsible for the new fees. So how much are the fees? Well after crawling around on their site, which seemed quick to tell me how great Meetup was but not how much it was gonna cost “the organizer”, I finally found some meat. It is $19/mo per group (or $9/mo if your group is an older one). The old abacus tells me that’s $228 (or $108) to meet folks that had common interests.

According to the homepage of Meetup, they have 187,434 groups. At $19/mo, that’s $3.5M…. monthly. The homepage also thanks all the organizers that are making the Meetup site possible. Well, yeah, if someone was throwing $3.5M monthly at me, I’d be excited too.

They have (advertised) 26 folks “on the team” with titles from Founder to CEO to CTO to Senior Political Advisor. They have a board of directors, boasting one former US Senator, two venture capitalists, one co-founder, and a writer for CNet. Now, assuming they didn’t pay the board a penny, and that their connectivity and other costs run half of what they take in, that’s still a paycheck of about $70K … monthly … each (if divided equally). Let’s say they take fully a quarter of the overall take and put it toward other things, that’s still $35K/mo. Where do I sign?!

(BTW, I’m not a dotcom startup, nor have I ever played one on TV, so I’m sure the cost model is all wrong, but those numbers just seem astounding!)

They also seem quick to tell me that “only” Meetup is the best place for meeting like-minded individuals. Thank goodness they came along — think of all the other opportunities (non-cyberspace) out there for meeting like-minded people that have fallen so short!

I guess I can’t fault them for going to a cost model — as Heinlein wrote, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” But, my oh my, does that cost model sound lucrative for the folks collecting a paycheck, and I just have to wonder if they are entrenched enough with their users to pull this off. Or, will many groups suffer the same fate as the St. Louis WordPress group, and find themselves leaderless and blind, without the services of the self-proclaimed best place for the offline local community….

Geek-Speak

Geek Lust

Ever see that VW commercial with the two kids dancing with the music far too loud? (And no, I never did that as a twentysomething. Just ask my deaf neighbors. Mind the lip-reading.) VW has unknowingly captured geek lust with this commerical.

What’s geek lust? Well, it’s that overwhelming, consuming desire for that new piece of technology. It doesn’t have to be computer fare — audio, video, photography, nuclear fission…. they all fit the bill. And you’ve seen the result. An almost obsessive stream of conciousness with barely a breath of air in between substantial paragraph elements in describing and justifying the Next Big Thing. Even if it’s only been a week since the last Next Big Thing.

So, at what point did VW capture geek lust? Just watch the girl in the VW as they drive away from the megamart with the kilowatt subwoofer. She’s grinning devilishly, rubbing her hands together as only a mad scientist could. She can’t wait to get home, flex her newly purchased geek muscles, and feed her addiction to technology.

That is geek lust. And I’m a victim. There’s no twelve-step program, no bumper stickers, and no infomercials. Either you’re a direct victim like me, or you’re a collateral victim, like my poor, poor wife. 🙂

So, didn’t you want to hear about my desire for a PowerMac?

Geek-Speak

Pucker Factor

$1.979

You know the feeling. You get notification that a new version of one of your stalwart pieces of software is out. There’s squashed bugs, and security features. But, there’s always that risk of fouling things up so bad that you need a rebuild. Pucker factor.

Today, the fine folks maintaining WordPress released a shiny new version — 1.5.1 — of their fantastic code. It’s the very code that is the backbone of this site. And, the pucker factor commenced. However, one download, one ungzip/untar, one file copy, and….. presto-chango! New WordPress at the old Deauxmayne.

Cool.

The only thing that seems broke so far is the “Today’s Photos” piece on the dailies. I know I’m using old code to keep that working (it also busted in 1.5), and that I need to recode to use current functionality. However, I’ve had no time for changes, so I just reapplied my changes, and things seem to be back to normal.

Ten minutes to an upgrade. That rocks. Nice work, Matt and crew!

Geek-Speak

Mind the Dust

$2.179

Pardon the dust around here — some new looks to the site, and a few new features I’m trying to add. Whilst doing this, some things won’t work like they used to, and some things probably won’t get fixed until after vacation. Oh well!

I got most of the new formatting completed this weekend, although there’s still some sprucing up that’s needed — nip and tuck a pixel here and there. Also, for some reason, an insane level of comment moderation was on, so I backed that down a little, and turned on e-mails when that happens so I can catch them quicker.

I hope to get the new photos up tonight — I’m only about 3 weeks behind on them, but have them ready to process. The biggest problem I’ve had is that I can’t get the new server to run JAlbum correctly. It seems like it blows up the video driver. I’ve tried loading a new one, but that process doesn’t work right either. Dunno if I’m missing something, or if I have a fundamental problem. In either case, I’ll try to get the new photos build on the workstation tonight, and shipped to server.

Thanks for bearing with the construction!

Geek-Speak

Paris on Paris

Om Malik on Broadband is reporting that Paris Hilton is now podcasting.

Really…..

The source article even claims that Paris is a closet technophile, playing with all the cool toys.

Let’s say it all together now….. Really…..

Now, I don’t know Paris, have never met her, and expect I never will. And I know TV can make anyone out to be anything — criminal to victim, sinner to saint, and home-video-porn-star to…. well, I guess that one doesn’t change much. But I have to think that a fair amount of what is seen, and really moreover, heard eminating from Paris’ mouth, must be the real stuff!

Geek-Speak

A Bit of Help

I neglected to mention a terrific resource for building a LAMP server (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP).

Through sheer dumb luck, I found terrific instructions at WELL.DONE that really detailed the whole process. I didn’t use everything I found there, but it was a great template! It is definitely worthy of a read.