Actually, though, Ed has installed Win 7 on his Sony Vaio laptop and I have to say, I'm impressed. It actually works without too much trouble. Hurray! *fingers crossed*
Found a greasemonkey script that blocks anything on Google News from Fox News or the Wall Street Journal. It replaces them with some funny headlines. My personal favorite is "What an Wingnut Idiot says!" for Fox News.
Though he should have added universally desirable for both sexes, to really make it the perfect wish. I mean, if you're going to sell your soul, do it right.
"Ah yes, the ineffable appeal of a plastic snowman punctuating a July lawn!" - Awesomest cartoon line I've seen in a while.
My partner and I were discussing my 1st generation iPod touch last night. It's getting long in the tooth. Sound only works out of one channel through the earphone jack. It really is useless for gaming, since it has no external speaker (like newer ones do) and I refuse to use earphones with it if I'm only getting one channel. It works fine as a internet browsing device, and as a music player when it's attached to its dock. It is an awesome remote control for Boxee.
Ed subtly suggested that it might be possible for us to get me a new one. Normally, I would have responded to that by dragging him into the other room so that we could immediately order it online so I could have it by the next day. I NEVER refuse a gadget. I did this time, though. I mean, really, do I need an iPod touch to play games with? Not if rumors are true.
The big rumor being, of course, that Apple is going to release a tablet device sometime next year, maybe in January (maybe around CES?). Oh, joy of joy, a giant iPod touch. Or maybe a touch-screen macbook? Or a color Kindle like device? Or, or, or... We have to wait to find, you see. That's if it ever materializes at all. But the fact of the matter is, I would have bought an iPod touch last night were it not for this rumor. Apple has lost a sale because of it.
They're not the only one. I have a 1st generation Kindle. It's an ugly beast, but it is functional. I really like the Barnes and Noble Nook, mostly because it supports the open ePub book format. I'm not too worried about getting my Kindle books from the Kindle to the nook. There are ways to do that if you are persistent and have the ability to run a few python scripts. DRM wouldn't prevent me from using the content I purchased. What stopped me from buying a nook, then? The Apple tablet again. I mean, if the iSlate really comes, won't it be a far better book reader than the nook. Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun Times has said that there are rumors of trucks filled with books arriving in Curpentino every day. And Marvel is now releasing digital comic books on the iPhone (through a distribution partner). Wouldn't those also be available on the mythical tablet? And then there's all the noise coming out of the New York Times about them partnerning with Apple to bring their paper to a new device. Are newspapers and magazines going to be available for the iSlate/iTablet/iWhatever? Will books, magazines, newspapers and comic books suddenly become available in the iTunes store? Will I finally have the device I have always longed for - one device to read all of my content, to watch all of my videos, to listen to all of my music? So, Barnes and Noble lost a sale, all on a rumor.
There are already tablet devices coming to market. The Archos 9 looks slick (even if it is running Windows.) Nokia has an immensely overpriced tablet. There's one coming out from Asus. There's the rumored CrunchTablet, which seems like it might be real again. So, Apple won't be the only game in this market. So why am I holding out?
Because I know Apple will do it right. Oh, they'll lock everything behind walls and walls of DRM. They'll make it next to impossible to get anything off the device one's it is on there. They'll create barrier after barrier to application developers who want to develop apps for the tablet. But in the end, it will be beautiful, and more importantly, it will work. Everything will be tied to the iTunes ecosystem, a system I am already locked into anyhow. I mean, I already have an iPod Touch, an iPod shuffle, a MacBook and an AppleTV. Why in the hell wouldn't I want an Apple tablet over everybody else's. Sure, I love open source, and this thing will be about as far away from open source as you can get. It will be corporate lockdown taken to the Nth degree. It'll be missing features I want, just because Apple will decide I don't need those features. It'll be frustratingly limiting in just as many ways as it is awesomely powerful. I will love it and hate it all in the same breath, and I don't care. I want it, I want it, I want it. It will be elegant, it will be beautiful, and damn it, I will find a use for it even though I don't really need it.
And I can't buy any other gadget until Apple decides to put out this monstrosity, or until I get bored of waiting. So, there you have it: Rumors are preventing me from buying gadgets. It's all the fault of Apple rumor sites and twitter. Damn it all, Apple, just release this damn tablet already, so I can go back to my normal, unwise, gadget-buying, early-adopting ways.
(Oh, and I know you never buy a 1st release of an Apple device, because you will always pay for it and you will always suffer. You always wait until the 2nd interation. But even though I know this, I won't wait. So there.)
This is a Microsoft Store. Suddenly, the employees start dancing. Who's helping the customers????
Seriously, WTH?
So how is someone supposed to get my attention? Well, there are a few ways. The number one best way to get my attention is by sending me an at reply on twitter. There are a few reasons why this is the best option. A) I know it'll be short (under 140 characters) and therefore won't take up huge amounts of my time. B) It'll grab my attention because both my phone and my MacBook will let me know I have a new tweet aimed at me. C) I'm obsessed with Twitter and check it often. D) Did I mention that I know it'll be short? (http://twitter.com/dogboi)
The second best way to get my attention is by sending me a dm on twitter. Of course, that only works if I follow you on twitter, which is why it's the second best way. It has the added bonus of sending me a message by email.
The third best way is by text message. Like tweets, I know text messages will be short and unlikely to consume huge portions of my time.
The fourth best way is by email. I have several email addresses. I do not have my phone set up to check them automatically. I have to do it manually. Yes, that is on purpose. I don't want my phone going off every few minutes because of email messages. I get a lot of them. They are filtered into various folders depending on their importance. If it is important, email is probably not the way to go. I'm slowly moving away from email as a way of getting my attention. (note that I count blog comments as email right now, since that's how they present to me. I get them in my email account).
Lastly, Google Wave looks like it might be a good way to get my attention, once I start using it regularly. Right now, though, I'm just playing with it, and I don't really have much time at all to learn how to use it. It is on my To-Do list in the near future.
Oh, and facebook will get my attention, but I hate it. I'm considering closing my facebook account. I'm going to do another post about that soon. My reasons aren't that complicated though: Facebook is loaded with spam, and I'm just sick and tired of it. I don't want to see the app spam anymore, at all, and unless Facebook gives me a global No MORE APP SPAM button, I can't justify spending any time there.
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. - Martin Golding
And 150% was one of the lower numbers I saw. It actually was closer to 170% most of the time.
Wow, you get crisp edges on every brownie. AWESOME.
Baker's Edge Nonstick Edge Brownie Pan, found via Cooking For Engineers (http://www.cookingforengineers.com/) and listed on Amazon at http://bit.ly/25ulZ3
Ed found this through StumbleUpon. I was sitting next to him and I was quite enthralled with her presentation. Good stuff. Longish, but worth it.
Thanks to William Gibson (@GreatDismal) for linking to this on Twitter.
But it's too good a device to just get rid of. I've mostly been using it as a small internet tablet. It works well for this, but I'd really rather it had a bigger screen.
Enter Ed's project of the day. He has a slightly worn Sony Vaio laptop that he is no longer using. He upgraded it to Windows 7 today. We realized that this laptop has an HDMI out, and plenty of processing power and memory. It's perfect for an HTPC. So we installed Boxee.
I already had a Boxee account, because we use Boxee on our hacked AppleTV. The Boxee experience on the AppleTV isn't all that great. It crashes a lot, and it is very laggy. I assume that the ATV doesn't have enough ooomph for Boxee. So we installed Boxee on the Vaio.
I immediately remembered that there was a Boxee app in the App store. I installed it, and it worked perfectly. The iPod touch controls the HTPC whenever Boxee is running. Even better, I got an app that could act as a keyboard and a mouse for the HTPC when Boxee is not running. In effect, the iPod touch became a remote control for the HTPC. It's an awesome way to use an old gadget that I refuse to get rid of.
And it has major advantages. It does all of this over WiFi, which means I don't even have to point the iPod Touch at the HTPC. And I can browse the net on it, which I can't imagine you can do on any other remote.
Now if I could just control my TV with it. :-)
(Oh, as an aside: Boxee apps rock. We just got Netflix streaming on our PS3, but it is SO much better on Boxee. Fancast and Hulu access is also excellent. Might be time to consider getting rid of our Satellite subscription.)
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
joedogboi- joedogboi
- Joe's Home on the Web