Category: nerd

I went to Harry Potter this weekend. It was great. Before the movie, we watched 10 minutes of slides advertising consessions, then ten minutes of television ads, then 10 minutes of previews. I’ve only been to the cinemas twice this year, and I’m not in the least bit disappointed. I highly recommend the local brew & views.

Maybe its that I’ve only gotten fed up with it recently, but it seems that our greed knows no end. Be it the Motion Picture Association of America, or McDonalds. Many of these companies are dabbling in this thing called the Internet. The RIAA and MPAA are doing it in a very self-destructive fashion, but they’ve got the law on their side.

McDonalds is advertising in the new online Sims game. There’s already virtual civil disobedience planned, including virtual protests. What a great idea. Like Blogger, it gives the voiceless masses a voice. A voice that no one listens to, and does nothing to change anything. It doesn’t seem that all the blogging has done any good except to placate ones selves.

I think I saw a quote on blogger’s site; “the revolution will be bloggerized”. There’s something to be said about the decentralization of information, but its hardly a revolution. These virtual protests and postings are clever, but they seem like shouting into a bottle. (a clear bottle, so that people can see, but still somewhat futile)

Fortunately I’ll be able to use Satellite Misters as an excuse to not post anything of substance or significance. Whew.

I finally sat down and re-installed/configured php. It didn’t take long this time. If only I can remember what it was that I wanted it for….

When you think Microsoft, think Security. – If that seems like a strech, add “and Exchange Commission investigation” to the end.

Tonight I was thinking about bumper stickers. I like bumperstickers. If you can’t fit an idea onto a bumpersticker, it might be time to reconsider your position.

I was thinking about computers and Open Source in particular. I thoguht of this one: “Don’t like paying for crappy software? Use open source, and get it for free”!

Anyway, I think everyone who owns a computer should read this article by Richard Stallman. It seems quite alarmist, but it seems to really address all the concerns I’ve had the last several years. I want my realtives to read it. So if youre related to me, read it. If not, read it anyway.

I bought the domain www.rooftopbrew.com on Monday night. I’m still figuring it out, but eventually this place will be Rooftop. I realize this is bad timing to change the name to Rooftop, given the sniper on the loose in VA and MD. I’m not sure what changes are going to hapen yet, or even if I’ll have a separate site, which would ultimately be more work.

Yesterday I presented the new features of WebCT 3.8 for the Distance Learning faculty. I had been so busy that I hadn’t really realized how dangerous it could be to mention the next upgrade, but it seemed well received.

Our Multimedia specialist displayed his History of Rock & Roll class, which used Flash MX. It was really cool, and there was a clip of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. All the teachers had seen it live. The three of us who were trainers, wouldn’t be born for several years. I suddenly felt really young. I was the age of most of these instructor’s children. I guess it makes sense, since your children are often the ones who teach you how to use your computer.

I finally finished sorting all the Mp3s that were trashed by a beta IDv3 tag editor. It placed all my tracks in the trash…etc. Now they’re back. It only took a couple dozen hours or so…

I’ve been working with Sendmail, and its a pain. But I’ve got my webmail client up, and I can send mail, but I’m not receiving from external hosts. I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough.

My friend Chris came down to visit, and to borrow some bandwidth. He recently purchased an iBook after several years of PCitude. I think he’s happy. Anyway, we went to dinner at an Indian place last night, and had schemed to go bar hopping or something, but ended up going to Powell’s Books and browsing for a while. He was smitten with the place. We went to the Tech book branch today. It was spectacular.

Now I’m working on setting up my own Mail server. If you’ve read before, I was ranting about Apple taking away my e-mail address. Two friends have caved and paid the $50-100/year for an iTools account. As for me, iTools can bite my shiney metal ass.

Anyway, I’m listening to my 05 folder. I used some beta-version Mp3 IDv3 tag editor that crashed and dumped all my mp3s into the trash. This sucks because they were all sorted by genre and album. I was somewhat surprised when there were 30 GB in my trash. I sorted them into folders by track name, then I move them back to the appropriate directory. Its quite a mess. So now I”m listening to all the mp3s that begins with 05 – ….

I love my mac keyboard. It has the best response of any keyboard I’ve owned. Its one of the petite keyboards designed for the iMac, but I’m past that. Despite its shortage of keys, its worked well for 3 years. I’m not writing an obit for the keyboard, but Logitech released a mac driver for the iTouch keyboard we already own.

It has so many cool little features like volume, shortcuts, and even a scroll wheel. Plus it has all the easy to use Insert, Delete, Home, End, and arrow keys that my iMac keyboard lacked. I’ve give it a try. It doesn’t have the same response, but maybe it will improve my terminal interaction. We’ll see.

Michelle has finally agreed to upgrade to OS X. I’m excited, because OS X is the best OS ever, and I get to teach her how to use it. And I get to do all sorts of exciting things with it, like having it automatically back up her documents and ftp them to my server.

Anyway, while backing up her files, we noticed that her DVD/CDRW drive wasn’t working. I checked Apple’s Support Site, and several people had problems with the same drive model. I called Apple because we were right about end of our 1 year service, and I didn’t want to get screwed like my sister. Turns out we have 3 days left… So they’ll replace the drive for free, but if we want future coverage, we need to buy AppleCare in the next 3 days.