Webthoughts

Alrighty then! Sorry everyone for being so incommunicado for so long. For those of you who have written asking is everything was okay, yes everything is. I have just been incredibly busy with my day job and working on iHam on iRye.

It's really quite amazing to me that so many people have actually been paying attention to this blog in the first place. Huh. Will wonders ever cease?

You've also probably noticed the new look. I've decided to try out MovableType, the granddaddy of all blogging tools.

I'm just starting to dip into this thing, so I'm simply using a built-in template from MovableType, but I hope to eventually transistion this thing over to a more customized template that will better fit into the overall look of this site, but for now, just a generic template.

I will, however, be back on a fairly regular basis and hope to have some big news soon!

This is pretty cool! Hopefully this somehow makes it into the Mac OS sometime soon. Although it looks like it is only currently available for Windows platforms, the demo works with Macs as well. It's definitely a step above "Victoria"!

I love April Fools Day. Any day that the normally serious isn't quite so serious is a good day.

But there are times I really have to wonder and shake my head.

Yesterday morning, a local radio station began to air news stories about how the city had banned people from smoking in their cars. The first offense was punishable by a $50 fine and went up from there for multiple offenses.

The station presented the thing seriously and the morning show DJs were encouraging people to call in to voice their opinions.

Here's the head shaking part: Of the dozens of calls they put on the air, nobody seemed to realize what day it was. People were outraged葉alking about organizing protests, limitations on personal rights, blah blah blah, etc.

Finally, toward the end of the morning show, someone thought to point out what day it was. The volume of calls they received on the topic seemed to suddenly drop off.

*chuckle*

This is interesting. Apple has finally responded to the complaints from many PowerBook G4 12" owners regarding the extreme temperature they experience from the machine. Basically, Apple's response is that it's a normal side-effect of incorrect ventilation (due to incorrect placement of the machine).

I don't have a 12" PowerBook G4, but am seriously considering one to replace my venerable, but aging Pismo 400. I have read all these reports with great interest. I like the form-factor of the machine and it's just about perfect for my various needs for a portable, but the heat thing does worry me.

It seems though that Apple is not worried. I'll be interested in seeing what happens with the first revision of the Lil' Al.

The latest installment of the Animatrix is out. By far, this one is the best one of the bunch so far.

"The Second Renaissance, Part 1" was good, but the animation was a little primitive for my tastes. I do look forward to Part 2, however. It'll be interesting to see the Matrix actually begin.

"Program" was fairly weak, I think. I don't like Animae-style animation and it just seemed too escapist to me. I'm sure that if I really lived under the circumstances they live under, escapism would be high on my list of priorities, but I really do prefer "The Real World".

"A Detective Story" just clicked for me, however. I like the tie-in to the actual movies with the Trinity character (one must wonder if that was really Carrie Ann-Moss providing the voice--or maybe I just really missed something). The animation, while evoking the feel of a more primitive style, certainly seemed to fit the story. The twists and turns of the story were very "detective"-like and I REALLY liked the bit about the past detective.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to the release of The Animatrix in a few months. And, of course, I am eagerly awaiting "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions".

Okay...is there anything that FOX won't stoop to in order to get ratings? Honestly, I was not watching the program, but in the process of flipping through channels tonight, I happened across "Married by America".

I haven't watched a single second of this program before tonight, so take everything I say with a grain of salt悠 really know nothing about the program. But, i guess tonight was the night the couples had their bachelor and bachelorette parties. I'm sure stuff similar to this goes on all the time, and my own bachelor party could have been considered questionable in some ways. But do we really need to be showing this kind of stuff on prime-time television?

Yes, I know that FOX has always considered itself to be the "daring" network預lways trying to push the envelope. And, the network is also responsible for some really good television ("Boston Public" is just good television and "24" is probably one of the best hours of TV on each week).

But, there still needs to limits. This may be an unpopular opinion, but television is a HUGE influence on our society's perceptions. Networks really need to keep that in mind.

Am I asking for a return of the hardline censorship of the past? No, not at all. Television's pushing the boundry have done a world of good as well (Trivia Question: When did television's first inter-racial kiss occur?).

I don't know the answers to these types of questions. Do I think that what FOX is doing with this show is right? No. I don't. Am I sure that I'm correct? Not so much. I'm sure I'm correct for ME, but not necessarily for everyone else.

Ultimately, I guess, the responsibility for what we see on TV falls to the public. Yes, the networks need to show some responsibility as well, but we need to make sure that we're taking responsibility for what WE think is right.

For me, "Married by America" isn't it.

I found out some interesting news yesterday evening regarding the popularity of the stuff on the SearchWare Solutions Website.

The website is hosted by the fine folks at digital.forest and I have been extremely happy with their service over the past year or so that SearchWare Solutions has used them. The actual account is one of their shared hosting accounts that has pretty much been very reliable for my needs.

Over the past several months, however, I've been getting hit with some bandwidth charges. I really never realized my stuff was popular enough to cause these kinds of problems. Yes, I check my server logs, but the actual numbers never really clicked until last night.

It turns out that the SearchWare Solutions site is averaging serving about 583% of its allocated bandwidth. Oops. I guess that explains a lot of those bills.

Granted, the website itself is probably not as optimized as it could be. It loads well enough, even for those still using 33.6k modems (the lowest I've ever tested on), but there are probably many corners that I could cut to optimize it even more for size and speed. And, in reality, I'm toying with the idea of starting a fairly major redesign soon to accomplish this and some other goals that I'd like to meet.

However, most of what the site is serving is the software itself. Print Window, iHam on iRye and Pix Lite are by a huge margin served the most. This is what I've always expected. I fully understand that some of the older, Classic-only stuff (like Eradicator, Startup Lock and MacRun) will never be as popular as once they were. Look for me to post a little more about this later.

Of course, I decided I needed to find a way to cut back on those additional bandwidth charges I was getting hit with. I gave my account-representative at digital.forest a call and asked what other type of account I could have that would allow me greater bandwidth but would still cut back on my overall expense. After some discussion about what exactly I was looking for and some other factors, she was able to set me up on a customized plan that, while more expensive than I'm paying now, should cut my overall costs by elminating much of the additional bandwidth charges.

Although I'm not going to go into much of the specifics, I will say that it was a great example of customer service that went above and beyond what would be accepted as the norm. This is why I give digital.forest my business. They have always gone out of their was (at least as I perceive it) to service my needs. If you are looking for a hosting partner, I would definitely highly recommend digital.forest for this reason alone, even if their standard hosting packages didn't look so attractive as well.

Ken Bereskin talks today in his weblog about the new auto-installing disk image format introduced with Mac OS X 10.2.3 and how Safari takes advantage of these to make the entire download process very seemless.

Letting alone the fact for the moment that I really dislike how Safari handles downloads (why won't it let me choose where I want my download to go on a case-by-case basis?), the auto-installing disk image format disturbs me as well, but, perhaps not for the same reason as you might think.

The thought behind the whole thing is simple and seems like a good idea on the surface: The image is downloaded and, as soon as the download is complete, the application is automatically extracted from the image, placed in the same location as the download and the image is then deleted. All this happens without user interaction. Simple, right?

But, I have a few issues with this (and, if I didn't, would I be posting it here?). First, when you get right down to it, what's the difference between this and a self-extracting archive such as those made by Stuffit Deluxe? They both encode a file (or files) in an Internet-safe format; they both provide a single container; they both automatically extract their content when told to (by Safari or by other means such as double-clicking). The only REAL difference is that the auto-installing disk image deletes itself when done whereas Stuffit self-extracting archives don't. Seriously: big whoop.

Secondly, and this is probably the bigger of my complaints, I believe that computer users need to understand what's going on with their computers, at least to a point. These auto-installing disk images are doing things, basically without the users knowledge. A file IS being deleted. Yes, I'm sure Apple has taken all possible precautions to try to insure that this functionality isn't used for malicious purposes, but's not my point here. I see nothing wrong with expecting a computer user to have some basic knowledge on how their computers work and how files relate to one another. I'm not asking for people to be geniuses, but a little basic knowledge here can be a good thing. The way this works now, people could get the impression that they are actually downloading the file itself and not an archive, or possibly the reverse.

I try to make all the software I produce as easy to use as possible to appeal to the greatest user-base possible. But, at the same time, I'm not going to sacrifice functionality or power because I'm afraid of scaring off a person without a basic understanding of how their computer works. I firmly believe in easy-to-use and easy-to-comprehend software, but not to the extreme to the point where I'm patronizing the user.

At the same time, I acknowledge that I may feel this way because I am a more advanced computer user. Perhaps Apple is on the right track here, but I'll remain skeptical until I seem some very tangible benefits over current conventional methods.

Crap...I didn't even notice this... FOX has preempted "Boston Public" tonight for more of that "Married by America" drivel. Hopefully, this will be the last one (I think it's supposed to be).

Needless to say, I won't be watching tonight's episode unlike that unfortunate incident last week. Good riddance.

Did you get your taxes in on time? Here in Omaha, you have just about two hours and forty-five minutes left...

Luckily, my wife and I got ours finished and mailed off yesterday.

Why didn't we electronically file (we could have)? We owe this year, so why make it happen any faster than it needs to?

For those of you squeaking them out at the last minute, good luck!

I'm back now after the holiday. I had a very pleasant weekend that culminated on Sunday with both sides of my family coming over to my place for Easter dinner. Surprisingly, it was the first time that both sides of my family had been together since my wife and I were married back in August of 2000. Things went really well and some anticipated tensions didn't rear their ugly heads, so we think that it was a success overall.

It was back to the grindstone today, however, and, as usual, the Monday after a holiday found a way to be worse than the Monday previously. It really astounds me the attitude that some people take when dealing with those providing a service, such as printing. Having a counter between you and the "customer" really does seem to bring out the worst in others. I really don't know what it might be, but something seems to make people think that when that counter's there, they aren't liable for their actions or words. They way my coworkers and I get treated at times is downright reprehensible?and this frequently by people who I know, overall, are good folk.

Can you tell I had to deal with a lot of attitude today?

For those of you who want to spend a little more, Microsoft has announced the availability of Special Edition versions of its Keyboards and Mice. Of course, these Special Edition input devices are really just their same fare with an updated black or white appearence. Microsoft even goes so far as to offer high-resolution pictures of these new devices.

I don't know what I'm really trying to say here. I just find it funny that these products have been released. What's wrong with their current devices? Say what you will, but Microsoft makes some pretty nice keyboards and mice. I don't see the need for "Special Edition" versions of these that do nothing really except change what they look like.

Apple's current (excellent) industrial design aside, a computer is really just a tool and not much more that that. Yes, one wants it to be pleasing to look at, especially if you can't hide it under a desk, but do we really need to be releasing "Special Edition" keyboards and mice (at a higher cost)? I'm getting more and more frustrated with the current trend to make things look "snazzier" without really improving function. And this isn't just in the computer world, but in everything. You can get spiffy looking televisions, phones and even toasters for Pete's sake! Overall, do these modified appearances really improve function?

Of course, one might make the same case for cars (such as the 1970 Chevelle that I mentioned in my last post) and other things that have traditionally had a much higher focus on form as well as function than do consumer electronics and the like. But I guess it just disturbs me that as a society we are finding these kinds of things more and more important. There just seems to be something so...shallow about that.

Eh...maybe this is just me being cynical after another day at work dealing with crabby customers. Those kinds of days always seem to put me in these kinds of moods.

All I know for sure right now is that I won't be rushing right out to buy a "Special Edition" keyboard or mouse anytime soon. My current mismatched ones work just fine thank you.

I've been playing around with iTunes 4.

I'm really enjoying this new version. The whole streaming capability is still wowing me (despite my other obvious reservations).

I have just a few minor things I'd like to point out that I haven't seen discussed elsewhere yet.

• If you haven't tried out the Visualizer in the new version of iTunes, I highly recommend that you do. It is a definite improvement over the previous versions. It appears to include some new effects, but the biggest improvement is how much smoother it appears. There even seems to be some anti-aliasing going on there as well. Of course, I'm running on a fairly modern Mac, so I don't know how much of this would show on older video cards (maybe this ties in with Quartz Extreme somehow?). At any rate, as I said before, try it out. I found myself staring totally transfixed earlier this evening.
• I really don't like the new button appearance in the main iTunes window. The buttons have a very flat, 2D appearance that is quite unlike the older 3D, shadowed look. I know I've seen these buttons in something else as well, but for the life of me, I can't remember where right now. At any rate, they definitely look...cheaper...than the old buttons. I would go so far as to say they look quite ugly as they really don't seem to fit in with the rest of the interface.
• I've only purchased one song from the music store so far ("Simple Man" from Lynyrd Skynyrd, if you must know). The quality of the audio seemed very good (at least on my small Yamaha YST-M15 Computer Speaker). The process couldn't be easier to purchase a song either.

Why does it take almost two days for the Music Store to send me an e-mail confirmation of any purchases I make? I've made a total of three purchases (each 99｢ songs), each on different days. Each time, I receive an e-mail confirmation about 36 hours after the actual purchase.

While I'm on the subject, at least as far as I've seen, the Music Store doesn't show you how much your purchase will be with tax. The only place I've seen the total with sales tax is in the e-mail confirmation. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, and it really doesn't matter for a 99｢ purchase, but it could for some of the higher-priced items.

Just in case anyone has been living in a hole and doesn't know yet, Apple has made available Mac OS X 10.2.6.

I think this just might go down as the quickest update to Mac OS X since 10.0 appeared. I'm willing to be that one of the major reasons this update appeared so quickly (let alone at all) is the highly-reported problems with USB hubs that 10.2.5 had (although I never experienced any of those problems). However, many other improvements are listed at the page linked to above.

The update is currently only available via Software Update, although I'm sure a standalone installer is only a day or so away.

Okay...I just spent the last several hours lost in the world of Jinni Zeala. I really must say that this is one of the finest computer pinball games that I have ever had the fortune of playing.

It's got everything: realistic physics and mechanical actions, challenging puzzles, a great soundtrack and sound-effects and graphics that are the next best thing to real.

It has its quirks, to be sure (TILT is difficult to control and the ball does seem to find the outer "pocket" way to easily), but it is incredibly easy to lost a lot of time to this game.

Highly recommended.

Today was the beginning of a much-needed 10-day vacation for me. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. I plan on spending it doing as much unwinding as I possibly can.

It was a good start today. I and an old college-buddy of mine visited AmeriCruise 2003 in Lincoln, NE, quite possibly the largest car show I have ever been at. They claimed up to 2,000 cars. I don't think it was that much, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were several hundred there.

The show was held at the State Fairgrounds and covered about a four-square block area. There were, of course, cars everywhere. We arrived there at about 11:00 this morning and proceeded to immerse ourselves in classic-car goodness for the better part of the afternoon.

Frankly, although the show was an excellent show with many incredible cars, I was very surprised at the lack of variety in the cars. I would say that '55-'57 Chevy BelAirs were by far the most represented car, followed closely by 30's vintage Fords. I also saw more Chevy Nomads today than I have seen in the rest of my 30 years of life combined. It was astounding how many of the same type of cars there were.

Of course, Chevy and Ford far outnumbered everything else. Mopar (Chrysler products) was very poorly represented. I was also disappointed to find a dearth of Chevelles. As I've mentioned before, I really want a 1970 Chevelle. I was looking forward to taking a close look at a couple of prime examples of such a car. There wasn't one to be found in the entire show. There were a few '69 Chevelles and a '64 and '65, but no '70s. Oh well.

I was also surprised to see that, although the Camero was fairly well represented (a few dozen or so), there were a grand-total of two?count 'em?two Mustangs (a '65 and a '70) in the entire show. Interesting.

The show ran the gamut of car categories: from all-originals to fully-restored, heavily-modified to near-junkers. I had my camera with me and took many, many pictures, but as I still don't own a digital camera, I don't have any to post for you this evening. Maybe after I get the film developed I'll scan a few and post those.

All-in-all a good start to my vacation. I'm actually going to another car show tomorrow here in Omaha. Golf will be up next on Monday. I REALLY want to unwind...

There's really not a lot more I can say about this, except provide the link.

It's finally the weekend. Finally. At long last. I thought it would never come. Ever. In a million years. Weekend? What's that?

It's was a very long week at work. We were very short handed and I had several emergencies pop up that demanded my complete and undivided attention (even when more than one showed up at once). One could say that I came this close to quitting several times this week. But, of course, I didn't because that would be...well...er...quitting.

At any rate, I now have two days of time that I supposedly could call my own. That's fine. I have a house that is in desperate need of some straightening that will probably get some attention this afternoon. I have a lawn that is turning the most interesting shade of brown, mostly due to the horrendously hot and dry conditions we've been enduring for the last week or so, and my lack of time to do anything about it. I have a wife that would probably like to spend some quality time with me without my seemingly eternal grumpiness getting in the way.

Did I mention it was a bad week? ...At least as far as my normal weeks go.

Along with everything else that was happening this week, I also was deeply involved in a software project (for work, of course) that, while exciting in many ways, has dragged on way longer than it should have. Much of that is my fault, for various reasons I won't go into, but this project has also necessitated my putting a hold on SearchWare Solutions stuff until this project is done. Hopefully, that should be by the middle of next week. Then, it's back to the Print Window and iHam updates that I have been promising for a while.

In other news, my wife and I have been tinkering with the idea of buying a truck of some sort. Ever since we purchased the house (a year ago 4 days ago), it always seems we're hauling something somewhere. This doesn't always work that well in a '99 Pontiac Grand Am and '96 Honda Civic. This would be the first truck for either of us and so we really don't know exactly what we need. We've been visiting a few car lots in the area to see what options we have available to us.

Due to budget constraints, we're probably looking at a used truck. We've found several so far that have interested us, ranging from '95 Chevy Silverados to '00 S-10s to '01 Dodge Dakotas to '00 GMC Sierras. All over the spectrum, it seems. If we have time tonight, we may head back out to some of those lots for a test-drive or two. Any suggestions anyone?

Finally, I still haven't worked out the Airport problem I detailed in an earlier post. Therefore, my Pismo has become physically wired to my router due to the necessity of having network access on this machine until I get everything else figured out. It somewhat defeats the purpose of a portable, but use of the machine is more important than that at the moment.

I'm off to start cleaning...have a good weekend all!

Like it or hate it, one can't deny the impact that Star Trek has had on today's world. The Star Trek world lost one of its pioneers today as the man who designed one of the world's most recognized icons passed away.

Thanks to Steven Frank for pointing this out...

Take a look at some research being done by one James Patten at MIT's Media Lab. Apparently, he is working on developing some new user-interface technologies that involve manipulating physical objects on a given surface.

Although relatively primitive in presentation currently, this project looks to have created some incredible behind-the-scenes technology that only looks to be about one step removed from some of the user-interface ideas presented in Minority Report, the recent sci-fi thriller starring Tom Cruise.

This is very different stuff than the current Desktop/Window metaphor that is so prevalent these days. But, this is also very interesting stuff. Take a look. Those of you on slower connections should be aware that this is a largish QuickTime movie.

Just got done dealing with a somewhat disturbing situation. I was at a local Super Wal-Mart attempted to pay for my purchase with a check.

The checker was obviously new (he kept referencing a hand-written guide on how to use the register) and had some trouble feeding my check through their scanner.

The scanner, the first several times he attempted to read the check, refused to scan the check (for whatever reason). The checker called his supervisor who did something on the register, at which point the scanner accepted the check. However, after it scanned the check預lmost instantly葉he register responded that my check had been declined.

This, of course, came as somewhat of a shock to me. The checker tried the process a couple more times, but each time the check was declined. He couldn't tell me why (whether because he really couldn't, or just didn't know how, I don't know).

I ended up paying with cash (good thing that I had enough on me; I normally don't carry much cash around with me) and took my check and one of the little declined receipts that the register spit out to Wal-Mart's Customer Service desk. I explained that my check had been declined, but the checker couldn't tell me why and asked if she could. After briefly looking into it, she informed me that I had a history of writing bad checks at Wal-Mart and therefore they would no longer accept checks from me. Needless to say, I was now shocked again. If I had been writing bad checks, I certainly didn't know it (and, indeed, I knew that I had NOT been)!

She gave met the 800 number for TeleCheck, the service they use for their check processing. I thanked her for her time and went home to call the number.

Turns out the 800 number is an automated system only. It prompted me to provide it with various numbers (such as account number, bank routing number, social security number, phone number, zip code, etc), a process that took probably three or four minutes counting time to navigate through the menu system, only to tell me it had no information regarding the reason for the decline.

The system then told me that if I wanted additional information about the decline, I could write a letter to the company and gave me the mailing address for TeleCheck.

Now, the way I see it, if the system knows enough to decline my check at Wal-Mart, then it should know enough to tell me why it was declined when I called their number. But, then again, I'm the criminal here (as it appeared), so why make it easy to find out anything?

I searched through the rest of the system's menu system and found no path to actually speak with a person (again, why make it easy?). So, I checked out the company's website. After a brief bit of searching, I found some other phone numbers to TeleCheck other than that provided by Wal-Mart. Many of these numbers just dumped me back into the same automated system, but one of them actually connected me (after a brief wait) with a real person.

I explained the situation to the man on the other side of the phone and let him know their automated system couldn't tell me why my check had been declined. After providing him with much of the same information as the automated system asked for, he was able to tell me that the problem actually appeared to be an error on their part. It seems my account number had been linked with another person's information somehow. After much apologizing on his part, he told me that he had, while he was explaining what had happened, fixed the problem and I should be okay now.

This whole thing has disturbed me a bit. The idea that a mistake like that that can have such an adverse effect on someone can occur without warning scares me. Granted, the company appears to have made things right with (after the fact) relatively little fuss, but why did this happen in the first place?

I have always had a problem with the idea that a company like this or the credit agencies like EquiFax and the like hold so much power over us. One mistake can cause a lot of problems for someone who has never done anything wrong. In this instance, the problem was fairly easy to fix once it had been identified, but I know from experience that fixing things with the credit agencies can be much more difficult.

I'm not sure this is the best system we could come up with to help protect companies from those with bad credit histories or other financial problems. But, I suppose these companies really have no interest in making things better for those whose lives they actually effect, deferring instead to the idea that retailers and mortgage-lenders are much more important.

At the same time, however, I really have no ideas on how to make the system better, so really I guess I'm just ranting here. But, a good rant now and then never really hurt anybody.

According to the The Mercury News, at least one retail chain is selling disposable digital cameras. I guess the 2-megapixel cameras retail for $11 and include 25 shots.

This sounds good in theory, but looking at some of the details, I'm left scratching my head. Users of the camera are only able to delete the last picture taken--it's not possible to modify or review any of the other pictures. This is okay--it is a disposable camera, after all. But my greatest confusion in this is a simple question: "Why?"

It turns out, the camera can not be connected to a computer. Instead, the camera must be returned for processing. The user will then receive prints and a PhotoCD. Uh...I can do that now with the (much cheaper) current crop of 35mm cameras. And, I'll get the negatives. The article doesn't say how much (if any) processing fees are, but I can't imagine that this is that much better of a deal.

It seems to me that if I could just hook the camera up to my computer and get the instant satisfaction of having my pictures there, it would be much better. I'm sure the camera could be rigged to not function any more after the 25 picture limit (thus, the "disposable" part).

I suppose this is just a first crack at this concept. I'm sure we'll eventually see different takes on this as time progresses. Still, it's interesting that digital photography has entered the "disposable" stage. That shows you how far it's come.

Heh...

I have a coworker who has been known to, frequently, use Kazaa to locate and download music. Questions of legality and ethics aside, this is a prime example of why peer-to-peer file-sharing services can be so dangerous if you are not careful.

Now, I don't have the particulars. All I have is the evidence provided by a single panicked phone-call from this coworker. But, the situation sounds dire.

It seems that he has been searching for a certain song for quite some time. Last night, he finally found it and, in his excitement, downloaded it and attempted to load it into whatever MP3 player he uses to play it.

Immediately, his (Windows) system presented him with some sort of message indicated a fatal error and suggested that he reboot his computer. He did so, only to be presented with a message indicating that no bootable system disk could be found.

He tried various things (although I couldn't get exactly what out of him) before panic truly set in. He used his copy of Norton Disk Doctor to examine the hard drive. Apparently, Disk Doctor could find no usable data on the drive. It found fragments of something, but nothing usable or recoverable.

Now, as I said earlier, I have nothing but his description of things to go by. Much of this could very well inaccurate and the situation may not be as bad as it appears. But, it does appear bad. He doesn't have a current backup and it looks like he has lost at least six months worth of data.

But, back to my original point, it appears that the "MP3" file was the cause of the problem. Could it have been some sort of trojan application? Looks that way. And that's my point. With these types of services (i.e. Kazaa), you really don't know what you are getting. Just because a filename appears as one thing doesn't really mean it is. At least from things like many of the big-name websites (like VersionTracker, Download.com, etc.) you can be pretty sure that what you're getting is what they say it is, as these things are check out before being made available. One assumes the same thing with a music-service such as the iTunes Music Store.

I have always tried to avoid peer-to-peer services (although I did experiment a bit with Napster back in the day). And it's stories such as this that makes me happy that I have. Of course, with a Mac I don't have to worry about these types of problems nearly as much, although it could still happen.

I'd just rather not deal with the problem in the first place.

It's been quiet in my neck of the woods here as of late because I've actually been on vacation and simply forgot to mention that fact. I'm in a place with little to no 'net access, which explains the lack of updates.

I'll actually be back home on Saturday, but until that time, don't expect anything else from me.

Okay...I titled this entry "Reflections on Solitude", but maybe that isn't quite right. Perhaps it should have been titled "Being Away From it All."

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I have been on vacation for a while. My wife and I went to spend some time at my family's lake house about three hours from Omaha. This is my all-time favorite place in the world.

Now, the terms "lake house" and "all-time favorite place in the world" might bring to mind images of water-skiing, boating, laying out in the sun, swimming, etc., etc., etc. This is true. I do many of those things when I'm there. But they are not why this is my favorite place.

What appeals to me more than anything else is the solitude and the simple life it provides. These have a profound impact upon me every time I am there. The community of cottages that surround the lake is small; the nearest town is less than 2,000 people; and, as I mentioned before, there is little in the way of Internet Access.

Although in recent years, non-local visitor traffic has picked up (especially on the weekends), during the weekdays, the silence and sense of calm that pervades the place is so incredibly profound, I can't help but to reflect upon it and its place in my life. I did some of that reflection during my last visit.

As I have touched on before in this weblog, my life can be extremely hectic and much of the time, I feel as though my time is not my own. My job keeps me busy for most of the day, and even when I'm not there, I am on call (a fact which is frequently taken advantage of by my employer). However, I am not going to debate the merits of my job at this time.

Instead, I'm going to ask a question: Why does a place of such quiet and solitude appeal to me?

I'm a technology-oriented person. I love tinkering with my computers, love the fact that my job involves computers and am always keeping on the latest gadgets coming down the pike. However, when I visit the lake-house, I usually make sure (and did on this last visit) that I don't take my laptop with me. I leave my Palm at home. There isn't even a telephone there.

And...I love every moment of it...

I figure that this place gives me something to work toward in my life. Although, the idea appeals to me, there is no way that I would be able to live there full-time at this point in my life (although there are others that do live there full-time). Right now, as I said, I am a technology-oriented person. I would be seriously out of touch with that if I lived there. The closest thing to an internet connection that can be had there are (by today's standards) relatively slow 33.6k modem connections (the phone lines can't sustain anything higher).

It's not all back-water of course. The paper gets delivered every day. People still bring home new cars, new boats, etc. Some of the older cottages have been torn down and replaced with thoroughly modern homes. Trash gets picked up. There's a recycling program. Many modern conveniences.

Still, it's simpler. And, unfortunately, that just doesn't fit in with my life on a full-time basis right now. Not with what I want to accomplish.

But, the idea that one day I would be able to spend more time there, even permanently, is one that appeals to me. Retirement's 30 years off for me, if even that soon. But I will find a way to make that simpler life a part of my life. It's something for me to work toward: an ultimate goal.

Well, to be unoriginal, I would have to say playing golf in a blizzard.

Okay...it wasn't quite a blizzard. More like snowing hard with a fairly gusty wind, but it was definitely cold. It was during my junior year in college. We were bored silly on a Saturday afternoon. Despite the snowstorm outside, one of the guys glanced at the golf-clubs sitting in the corner and said, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?".

Fifteen minutes later, we were at a local three-hole practice course that was (not technically) free. Six inches of snow on the ground, orange golf balls and many layers of clothing didn't stop us from playing six holes.

Good times... Good times...

I haven't updated the blog in a while, so I thought I should probably drop a line.

I've been doing some reevaluating of my life recently. Nothing major (at least I don't think it is), but something that has bothered me for a while. I have found that I've been having problems "unplugging"葉hat is to say, turning the computer off.

Now, the fact that my computers are never turned off aside, I still have been thinking recently that I've been spending way to much time in front of computers. As you have already probably figured out if you've read this blog for a while, I'm in front of a computer (three actually預 Mac and two Windows PCs) every day at work and then I come home where I spend a few hours a night working in front of a computer again.

I'm on at least six different e-mail lists, SearchWare Solutions-related e-mail to slog through. I spend time working on various SearchWare Solutions programming projects (which, as of late, have been progressing slower than I would like). I browse various hobby-related websites from time to time (computer-related and otherwise). I also do some graphic design work on the side. And this is all after I get home from work.

The point is, I think I've been spending too much time in front of a computer recently, so I've really been cutting back. I can't do much about the amount of time I sit in front of computers at work, but I've been limiting myself time-wise at home and, indeed, for many days over the past two weeks, I haven't even touched a computer at home. (This is one of the reasons the blog hasn't been updated in a while.)

Honestly, it's been wonderful.

The weather has cooled off some, so spending lots of time outside has become enjoyable again (the lawn hasn't looked better since I purchased the house), I've gotten other projects that I've been meaning to get around to done, my wife and I have been walking a lot more, I've read several books in the time it used to take me to read one (and I'm an avid reader), the house is cleaner than it usually is, etc.

I think that with the amount of stress I've been under from work this past year (probably one of the most stressful times in my life), I've really lost sight of how to unwind and make sure I have downtime. I've really tried to make that happen these past couple of weeks, and part of that is making sure that I'm not stuck in front of a computer all the time.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still a geek and will always be a geek. That isn't going to ever change. I've just remembered that even geeks do not live on computers alone.

For the Mac users out there, what is your alert sound?

Pre-Mac OS 9, I always used Sosumi (as did so many others, I think). With the advent of Mac OS 9, I switched to Submarine because I liked how much more subtle it was. When Mac OS X appeared, I switched to Purr for a while and then back to Submarine. Nowadays though, I use a custom sound I found somewhere called "Uh-Oh" which is exactly what it sounds like, a voice saying "Uh-Oh!". I am sure that I will eventually become bored with that though and switch to something else, although I have no idea what.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Steven Frank yesterday blogged an entry about how he is mystified by his blog-reading habits. He finds himself with two separate lists of blogs he visits, some in his browser and others in NetNewsWire. Some are the same, others are only found in one or the other list.

Although I don't follow as many blogs as I suppose that Steve does, I agree with some of his points. Granted, I only use the "Lite" version of NetNewsWire, but I, overall, prefer to read blogs in my browser, rather than NNW. I like how NNW keeps me up to date with which blogs have been updated, but I find reading entries in that manner to be incredibly boring. No personality, whatsoever.

I find that much of the personality, as I say, in the blogs that I read is in the webpage itself. Granted, Webthoughts is simply using one of MovableType's built-in templates (that will eventually change when I have time to muck with it), but I find that, in reading other's blogs, the design of the page many times puts me into a certain frame-of-mind regarding what I am reading. I find this almost imperceptible feedback necessary, if that makes any sense.

Plus, truth be told, Safari makes it really easy for me to quickly scan my (admittedly small) list of blogs. I have a separate folder for those blogs in the bookmark bar. Simply click on it, select "Open in Tabs" and - Presto! - all the blogs are open and ready to be read. If no changes have been made, it's only a single click to close that tab and move to the next blog. Really, NNWs benefits aren't really much of a benefit to me when considered in that context.

So, I would say that I am definitely on the side of reading blogs in my browser, rather than in a RSS reader. I find it a much more pleasurable experience.

This is a true story, frighteningly enough.

As many of you have probably figured out by now, I work in my day job at a quick print shop as their technology manager. Just because I'm the tech guru though, doesn't mean that I don't have to deal with customers as well.

Well, today, I got to deal with another one of those customers.

I received a phone call this morning from a man asking if we could accept orders through the internet. We can, of course. The primary means for a customer to place an order through the internet is by visiting our website, which provides an online order form. I relayed this to the customer.

"Huh," he said. "Do you have an e-mail address I could just send my file to?"

I explained that the website was the preferred method for online orders. We did have e-mail addresses, but they were not for general order submission.

The customer was very insistant that he just wanted an e-mail address and didn't want to have to deal with filling out an online form, but grudgingly accepted my suggestion to try the website.

About two hours later, the customer called back fairly upset because he "could not get the website to work." I asked a few questions, trying to figure out what the problem might be. It turns out that he was spelling the site's address incorrectly (leaving out a character), which of course, caused the expected page to not appear.

After correcting the man, he seemed to get even more irritated. He demanded that I give him an e-mail address he could just send his file to and that, if I wanted his business, he would not deal with any website to place his order.

Of course, I gave him an e-mail address, but I qualified that by explaining that, again, the website was the preferred method because it had, in the past, proven to be more reliable at both delivering the orders and providing better order details.

At this point the man practically screamed into the phone, "Look! I work for [a local offset printer]! I should be given preferred, direct access to your e-mail to send my files! I should have to deal with your website like I was a member of the common rabble!" I kid you not. He actually referred to everyone who wasn't a printer (and therefore his potential customers) as "the common rabble." And, he sounded like he meant it. He was far and above anyone else because he was a printer.

I sat there, slightly stunned, stunned for a moment as I tried to figure out what I would say to that. I muttered something about how we looked forward to getting his order and that if he had any other questions, he was more than welcome to give me a call back.

About three hours after that, we received an e-mail from him that, along with an attachment, read:

"Print 500 copies."

I chuckled in private vindication while preparing to give him a call to ask him such annoying questions as "What paper would you like this on?" and "When do you need this by?"

Heh.

For those of you who might be living under a rock, the Chicago Cubs clinched the National League Central championship today with an impressive double-header sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates, combined with a loss to the Milwaukee Brewers by the Houston Astros.

The Cubs now move into October for the first time since 1998, and this is their first division title since 1989.

They now move on to meet the Atlanta Braves in the first round of the playoffs. Atlanta, while sporting the best record in baseball, has their work cut out for them. The Cubs have been hot lately, going 19-7 in the month of September. Atlanta will also be facing the best starting pitching rotation in baseball (although, I'll grant that the bullpen is an entirely different matter).

Way to go Cubs! Could a Cubs/Red Sox World Series actually happen?

What was your first computer?

An Atari 400. Ah...remember those? The baby brother of the Atari 800. My mother gave it to my father as a Christmas present in 1979 or 1980.

I spent many an hour planted in front of that computer playing many different games, from Pac-Man to Star Raiders (still one of the best games of all time). This computer was also my first exposure to programming. I wrote my very first programs on that system using Atari BASIC (yes, even using that awful membrane keyboard).

The Atari continued to have a long life, even well after my parents brought home the Apple ][e. It finally died in 1991, I think, after it received a severe static shock which caused the keyboard to no longer function.

Honestly, I wish I still had that computer.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

If you spent any amount of time playing arcade games in the 80's, this should bring back some memories. I haven't thought about some of these games in a long time.

My place of employment is one of the many companies that sold its soul to AOL and has an agreement for AOL to have prominent product placement in our storefronts. This, of course, means cases and cases of AOL CDs stacked to the rafters (slight exaggeration, maybe, but in final effect, basically true).

Well, one of the "perks" of this agreement is that, once a month or so, an AOL representative (read: "paid subcontractor") comes in to make sure the AOL displays are still looking nice and replenishes the stock of CDs.

Today, I witnessed something that simply appalled me. The representative came in to do his duty, as usual. However, this time he asked if we had received our stock of new CDs (the ones with the blue covers is the way he put it, I think). Someone mentioned that we had and retrieved the many cases of aforementioned CDs that had arrived earlier that day.

He took to replacing the old CDs with the new ones in the various displays scattered about the retail floor. What did he do with the old ones? He threw them away!

Now, at this point, I should probably point out that those AOL CDs don't move very fast, if at all. I have no concrete numbers to provide, but it seems as though those displays are always full and we always have extra cases of AOL CDs laying around in our store room.

So, this representative simply threw away 500-some-odd AOL CDs because they were old. Now, in all fairness, what was he going to do with them? I don't think CDs are recyclable (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and I really don't know what other use you'd find for them. But, I also know that CDs are not biodegradable. You throw them in a landfill, they're going to stay there for a long time.

Now, if he threw away 500-some odd CDs at my location only, multiply that by all the other myriad of locations you can find the CDs at (they even have them at Burger King, for Pete's sake!), and suddenly you have a great many more CDs clogging up a landfill or two.

Not a very environmentally friendly policy, if you ask me.

Of course, it all comes down to AOL producing far too many of these CDs in the first place, but that's an entirely different rant...

Way to go Chicago Cubs! You just had to go and win that game last night didn't you! Understand that because of you, I have been flat on my back all day! I didn't even get to sleep in my own bed last night!

Because you had to win that extra-innings thriller of a game, I had to, of course, jump around my living room in celebration. And, because I was jumping around, I failed to notice my wife's shoe laying in the middle of the floor. Well, I failed to notice it until I rolled my ankle when I came down on top of that shoe.

So now, because you had to go and win the game, I'm laying here on my living-room couch with an ice-pack on my swollen ankle that won't support me when I try to stand.

Of course, the fact that I have a bad ankle from an old high-school era injury that is susceptible to frequent sprains, the fact that I was jumping around like an idiot and the fact that my wife left her shoe in the middle of the floor had nothing to do with my present condition.

Your win is totally to blame. Nothing else. Now I'm forced to just lay here watching college football all day in the same couch as I slept on last night because I couldn't make it up the stairs.

Yes. Definitely. The Cubs are definitely to blame for this. There is no way I could be responsible, could there?

Okay...it isn't actually broken, but after a trip to the doctor today, I found out that I most likely have a small fracture in a bone in my ankle.

As I mentioned in my previous entry, this ankle has always been my "bad" ankle. I would sprain it fairly badly every few years, but it always seemed to heal fairly quickly.

The sprain from Friday night hasn't really gotten much better.

Oh, sure, I was able to finally walk on it again yesterday, but this morning, walking was out of the question again and the ankle finally started turning several different interesting colors. And it is still very swollen.

So, I decided (with lots of encouragement from my wife) that it was, indeed, time for a trip to the doctor.

The doctor told me after examining the x-rays that, although it isn't clearly visible, all the signs point to me having a fracture. If it is indeed there, however, it is a very small one. He'll know more after they are more thorougly analyzed in a few days. However, I'm still looking at one to two weeks of crutches. Yay.

At any rate, if it really is fractured, it will be my first bone-related injury ever. What a new experience! One, of course, I would much rather have totally missed out on.

Okay...no matter how the game turns out, this will go down as one of the best moments in this post-season. Kerry Wood hitting that ball out of the park to tie the game just fits in with the way this post-season has gone.

Wow.

Well...not the result I was looking for.

Although it is truly amazing the way the Cubs fell apart in the 8th inning last night, it's more amazing how well the Marlins kept their heads in the game tonight and head to their 2nd World Series in franchise history after being down 3-1 in the NLCS.

Congratulations to the Florida Marlins. You guys played some really good ball and were the better team on the field these last three games.

Likewise though, congratulations to the Chicago Cubs. This was really a breakout year for the franchise and they really have nothing to be ashamed of. My hope is, of course, that they will build on this year and vie for a World Series again next year.

In the meantime, I'll have to root for the Red Sox (to hopefully beat the Yankees). That failing, I'll be rooting for the Marlins because we just can't let the Yankees win it all!

Just tried to log into the iTunes Music Store via iTunes. It seems it's not possible at the moment: "The iTunes Music Store is currently unavailable. Please check back soon."

Seems to throw more fire onto the "rumor" that Apple will indeed release the iTunes Music Store for Windows today.

I'm going to be really interested in seeing if there is any truth to the rumor that Apple and Pepsi are going to launch a joint promotion whereby people who purchase Pepsi products will be given a code that can be redeemed for free downloads from the iTunes Music Store. If this is indeed true, this is the just the type of promotion that Apple has needed to do for a long time.

Anything Apple can do to get itself and its products and services more into the public eye can only be a good thing.

I feel bad.

I find myself rooting for the Florida Marlins in the World Series this year, even though they beat the Cubs in an incredible comeback from being down three games to one in the NLCS. It痴 not that I dislike the Marlins. I really couldn稚 care less about them. The reason I feel bad is that I知 rooting for the team that beat my team.

Ah, the important issues in life, eh?

At any rate, it痴 great that the Marlins won last night in a game with some sloppy pitching all around. That game really could have gone either way.

In a related story: I really have to assume that FOX is really upset in what it was dished for a World Series this year. I really think that the network was hoping for a Cubs/Red Sox World Series. Their ratings would have been through the roof. Now, I have to think that their ratings for the series will be mediocre at best.

I get the feeling that, New York City aside, America is pretty tired of seeing the Yankees in the World Series. I know I am and pretty much everyone I know is as well (except for one coworker of mine who is such a big Yankees nut that it痴 just scary). Of course, I do live in Cub country, so this area might be slightly biased.

Nevermind.

It's not broken. It's not fractured. It's just really, really sprained.

I just got back from seeing my doctor again about the ankle. Turns out that the specialist looking at the X-rays of my ankle have pronounced the bones sound and whole.

But, the ankle is nastily sprained (and indeed is turning all sorts of interesting colors this evening). So, I'm still on the crutches. I'm still on really high-dosage drugs to get the swelling down (yes, it's still not gone away).

But it's not broken. It's not fractured. Finally, some good news about this whole thing...

It has been an incredible weekend here weather-wise. These past two days have been the first days this year that I have truly felt that Fall had arrived.

Sure, it's been fall since September 21st and temperatures have definitely been cooler than the summer highs we saw this year. But still, temps have been in the mid to upper sixties, with a couple of days in the seventies this month.

Eagerly anticipating tonight's season's premier of 24, easily the best show on television last season. The preview's that FOX has been running nearly non-stop for the past several weeks look intriguing.

Although the novelty of an entire season being dedicated to one day has worn off, the drama, twists and subplots that this show has consistently kept spewing at us continues to make it my most eagerly anticipated television hour each week (yes, even more than Star Trek).

I had the opportunity today of watching an (obviously) novice computer user engage in an epic battle with Clip--the paper-clip assistant in Microsoft Office. It was really quite humorous.

So, after a string of several days with at least one post a day, I haven't posted for...uh...five days now. I've received a couple of e-mails asking why I don't post more. The answer to that is simple: I post when I have the time, inclination and/or need to post something.

Wow. Word's fail me. This is just pathetic... (warning, long load time due to size and number of pictures)

According to the Register, Jon Lech Johansen has managed to write a small utility that can "decrypt" the FairPlay protection scheme that Apple uses for the songs available on the iTunes Music Store.

My excitement level is certainly getting higher and higher as Monday approaches. I've been looking forward to this for a long time (since March, when I first heard that Battlestar Galactica was coming back).

Monday and Tuesday have come and gone and I was finally able to see the newly "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica. Although I won't go so far as to say "WOW!", I will say "That was pretty good; I look forward to the series, if there is one."

Although this is perhaps one of the funniest Strong Bad e-mails in quite some time, it's also a little sad because I know people who are just like this. All the time.

If you happen to be watching Today tomorrow morning on NBC, take note of the weather segments. The house with the Christmas decorations that they will be featuring during these segments is not very far away from where I live.

The City of Papillion is already gearing up and making a big deal about Al's visit. Traffic control is already underway in the neighborhood. Luckily, the neighbors are really supportive and understanding about the whole thing!

Although I'm sure she would be devastated to hear this, Britney has lost what little respect I had left for her. Her little joke over the weekend shows that something is seriously wrong in her life.

Getting married "just for the hell of it" is pretty much the last reason anyone should ever think of marriage. A spur of the moment joke, just to be "wild" is probably one of the sickest things I've ever heard of (with a few fairly obvious exceptions, of course).

If I was anyone who ever had the opportunity to get close to her in a relationship, I would look at this incident and wonder just what she really thinks about marriage. Would she look at a "real" marriage as a joke as well? Something to not be taken seriously? Luckily, I will never have that opportunity, nor would I ever seek it out.

This points to something seriously wrong in her life and points to something seriously wrong in our society. People don't take marriage as seriously as they once did, and the family and, to many extents, future generations are suffering because of that.

But really, I'm going to stop here. I could go off on a rant for quite some time on this subject (both the Britney aspect and the much more important, grander-scope societal issues involved). It wouldn't be pretty, and this little weblog isn't going to make much of a difference anyway.

It's just really sad to see someone who is looked to as a role model for so many impressionable people to continue to throw her opportunities away for flings and money and other momentary things. *sigh*