Author: malfunction54

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ch-ch-ch-changes…

Well, after a little over a year, the startup that I’m working for has decided to close the location at which I work. It’s been fun, it’s been real, but I can’t say I’ll miss it too terribly. The long hours were gruelling, and now it’s time for a break.

So, what’s next? Honeymoon. My last day is Sept 30, and we begin our honeymoon Oct 1. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

BTW, getting laid off sucks. I’ve gone through the emotions about it, and feel a lot better about it now that I’ve gone through them. In the end, I know that I’ve been called to do something else, and for the last several months, I’ve been feeling more and more that I should not be here anyway. This is just speeding up the process. My next step is to do some web work and multimedia work for a small company that does such things. Also, I’m going to step up the game with the nonprofit that I’m a part of. The next year will be interesting indeed.

After the honeymoon, I’m taking some much needed rest. I haven’t had a real vacation in years, and it’s about time to regroup, gather my thoughts, focus on my future, er “our” future 🙂

Oh, also, we’re trying to move. That’s a load of fun in and of itself. Add that to the other stuff going on, and it’s a recipe for an ulcer. Ah, everything in its own time, everything in its own time. (I’m no where near getting an ulcer, really, I just have a penchant for the dramatic. I’m really about as un-stressed about the whole thing as I could possibly hope for)

Here’s to the end. The end of Chapter 2, and the beginning of chapter 3!

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ease of use

I really do like MacOS X. I do. Of course, nothing’s perfect, and here’s one of them. Why can’t I create a CD image that is readable on Windows (or Linux or NetBSD for that matter)? Is this some kind of joke? There’s no option to create an ISO9660 image that can then be burnt to a CD? Give me a break! I really don’t mind using hdiutil from the command line, or even using mkisofs from the fink archives, but if Apple went to the trouble to make a nice GUI, then why aren’t these options available there? In Mail.app, there’s a checkbox for “windows-friendly atachments”. Couldn’t there be a similar option for Disk Utility?

So, what’s a nerd to do? Roll your own, of course! I decided to learn something new and write a little Applescript droplet that turns the dropped folder into an ISO image. Here it is in all its glory. It detects if you’ve gone over the rough size limit of a CD, but doesn’t check for DVD size limits. However, it doesn’t stop you from making an image any size you want.

Try it out (if you have a Mac) and let me know how I can improve it.

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Guitar Guru

Haha! Via Music Thing, this is the funniest Flash animation I’ve seen since I first watched Homestar Runner. Mr. Fastfinger is a guru that can play M34n Lix0rz. It’s interactive, so you get to make him jam and you have to use his abilities to defeat a demon accordionist. Very funny!

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cable guy

So a few weeks or so after the wedding, I walk into the computer room at home, and notice that my Windows machine (which had been running for a few months with no issuues) is at the BIOS screen. “okay”, I think, “something small has happened and I’ll just reboot.” Uh-uh. The SCSI controller is complaining that it can’t make its wide negotiation with one of my drives (the 80GB 10,000RPM guy). Well, it says to check the cables, but I hope that’s really the problem. So, I never get around to fixing it because I’m so busy getting the rest of the house in order, living the married life, and working.

So finally, last night, I decide to take a look and see what the problem really is. I disconnect the cables from both hard drives and the adapter doesn’t complain. Good. At least that somewhat eliminates the adapter as the problem. Now, I hope it isn’t the drives. So, I reconnect the drive that wasn’t having issues, and the controller complains that there’s a termiation problem and that I should check the cable. Great, this is pointing more and more to actually being a cable issue. so, I replace the cable with another SCSI cable (happen to have 3-4 68-pin SCSI cables lying around) and voila! It works! no complaints from the controller, so I think that was the issue. A huge sigh of relief 🙂

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coolest thing ever…

When I was growing up, I loved those kitschy educational films from decades past. I always wished that I could get them to view on my own time. When I got into video production, I thought it’d be great to have those old films at my disposal to splice in pieces as at will.

Now, my wishing is over. I thought I was going to fall out of my seat. I was reading an article bashing Creative Commons, when the author made mention of a film archive of those very same old education and training films!

There’s lots of other stuff there, too. Check it out!

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New Crack City

So A2C and I are in DC for a little R&R. We go shopping one day, and she gets me to try an iced-decaf-soy milk latte at *$s. I have to say, I’m hooked. We got a coffee/cappuccino machine for our wedding, and we just made some at home this last weekend.

Now, I’ve tried avoiding caffeine for a long time, as it has some pretty bad effects on my sleep. However, I think I’ll have to find a place for this new fascination.

Ah, sweet addiction, thy name is iced-decaf-soy milk latte.

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iPod mini annoyance: fixed

I love my iPod mini. The one annoyance I had with it was that when it wakes from a deep sleep (not used for 36 hrs), it loses some settings. Primarily, the one that annoyed me was the cliker settings. I generally set it to off, to save power, and so it doesn’t, well…, click. There were also issues about the main menu items and all that, but it didn’t bother me so much.

As of the newest firmware (1.4), they have fixed this issue. Thank goodness! Unfortunately, they broke the Smart Playlist feature. You see, the Smart Playlists on the iPod would update if you changed some attribute (typically the rating) of a song on the iPod. Now the feature only works while you’re in iTunes. This is supposed to be fixed.

John Gruber has some interesting views on the podcasting phenomenon, and why Apple had to release new firmware and iTunes.

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connections…

so, I’m reading slashdot, and a submitter’s name suddenly strikes a chord in my memory. I follow the link in the story, and find that we have the same alma mater. intrigued, I shot off an email trying to see if there is a connection.

Within an hour, I receive a reply. The person not only identifies me, but a few key words in the mail totally bring the memories of where we knew each other from rushing back. How cool is that?

When I was a shy nerd back in the junior high days, my parents forced encouraged me to “broaden my horizons” by going to summer camp. As it turns out, it was the best thing I did in my youth. I met lots of great people and had wonderful experiences.

So there’s a flurry of email exchanged, and it turns out that this person has also kept in touch with others from our camp days! Man, I hope we can all get together and catch up on the last several years soon!

Anyway, this really made my day 🙂

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Nerd Badge of Courage

So, I just signed up for an account on an OpenPower Project machine in Germany. Power as in PowerPC – the chips that have been powering Macs for the last decade+. It’s sponsored by IBM.

You are allowed to develop and run code on this platform pretty much as you like. They’re trying to get interesting development projects happening in an atmosphere of sharing and innovation. Pretty cool if you ask me.

What am I going to do with it? Who knows. Mostly just play with some test code and benchmark it with other platforms. Plus, it gives me a +5 in geek cred 🙂 Should be fun!

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The Future is the Remix

William Gibson is cool. I’ll have to admit, I’ve only read a few essays by him, and have yet to delve into any of his major works (Neuromancer – defined the cyberpunk genre).

So, this article talks about how appropriation, or "cut ‘n paste" has become the way that new works will be created. I guess it’s an old idea, but he puts in into words in a very nice way.

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