Monthly Archives: October 2007

GMail IMAP

October 31, 2007 – 10:01 pm

In the second “old news” post of the day, I’m really liking the IMAP support built into GMail now, since I can now use the native mail client on my phone rather than going to through the browser (and I prefer both to the GMail java app that is available for the phone itself).

I could do POP with GMail before, but POP has many drawbacks that IMAP does not. This feature is especially important to me, since I get a lot of mail and I’m often (sometimes all day) in places where my cell phone does not get service, so it’s handy to be able to sort through stuff offline and then sync everything back up when a connection is available.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (0)

Ubuntu 7.10

October 31, 2007 – 9:37 pm

I realize I’m a bit behind on posting this, since I usually post about new Ubuntu releases the day they come out, but I’ve been a bit busy lately.

I did think it was worth mentioning, though, especially since this release seems to (at least in my experience / on my hardware) make significant strides in terms of hardware support and the “just works” factor.

This time around, installing on my laptop required absolutely no special configuration to get all the stuff that laptops kind of need to work by default (wireless drivers, suspend/hibernate, etc.) without a single config file edit (much less recompiling things), as well as the stuff you don’t really necessarily need, but looks really cool (Compiz Fusion).

Normally, I don’t put too much value into all the flashy desktop effects stuff, but the main reason I care about it is that I think it does a lot in terms of getting the “average user” interested in Linux. Since I’ve been running it on my laptop, I’ve”wowed” quite a few people (Vista and OSX users alike), and they’re generally very surprised to find out that Linux seems to have jumped to the head of the pack in terms of fancy GUI effects.

That, in combination with “everything just working” factor are two of the three things that I feel are most likely to lure more people over to the “free side” of the OS market. The third is something that I don’t see a lot of marketing on, but I think is a key point: good, easy to use, package management GUIs. In my opinion, recent advances in this area have made Linux actually easier to use for a person starting from scratch as far as their computer knowledge goes, because they don’t need to buy CDs/DVDs or even download programs from a web site, they just open up “Add/Remove programs” and pick the ones they want from a list that will satisfy the needs of 90% of “regular users” out there, and they “just work” - no manual download / install / configure required.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (2)

Attention Lego fans

October 25, 2007 – 10:34 pm

In helping Riley with Bionicle building tonight, I discovered a pretty cool website that has scans of the instructions for pretty much every lego kit ever made.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (5)

Not enough time

October 24, 2007 – 7:27 pm

I’m getting ready to go to the gym tonight, for the first time in a while (maybe even since the triathlon). My excuse so far has been not having enough time, but I decided to not use that excuse anymore.

It’s not that it isn’t accurate. Other than vacation time this summer, I can’t think of the last time I was not re-prioritizing stuff and trying to figure out what the best thing to do at the moment is, and acknowledging that the mountain of other stuff will have to wait.

I guess my rationale for deciding to get back into the habit of going to the gym despite the fact that I don’t have time, is that I will enjoy the time I have better if I’m actually healthy, and I might even get more time (in the long run, by extending my lifespan) than I otherwise would.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (0)

WordPress Devcast

October 21, 2007 – 12:50 pm

The first episode of the WordPress Devcast, a podcast about WordPress development, is up as of now.

This is a project that Dan and I started to keep track of the WordPress development scene. For those who might be into that sort of thing, I hope you enjoy it.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged , | Comments (2)

If you can’t say anything nice…

October 21, 2007 – 12:47 pm

Well, you know how the saying goes.

So, I’ve decided to take a hiatus from posting anything negative about Apple for a while, either here or anywhere else.

I’m thinking six months is a good start.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (2)

Blogger has comment feeds!

October 15, 2007 – 7:37 pm

I’m not sure when this happened, but Blogger has RSS feeds for comments now. You can get to them using the following format:

http://BLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

Thanks to Nathan for sending me that link; I guess I get to blog about it since he doesn’t blog anymore. :)

Not to rain on Google’s parade, but I do wonder why the heck they put the comment content in as the title for the feed items instead of the post title that the comment is related to (like other sensible blogging software does), but it’s definitely better than nothing.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged , | Comments (4)

Spinning girl

October 14, 2007 – 9:16 pm

I’m sure many of you have seen this already, but I just saw it. It’s from an article from the Herald Sun about right-brained vs. left-brained perception, but the article doesn’t seem to go into too much detail about how or why they draw those particular conclusions.
Spinning Girl
For some reason, no matter how hard I tried at first, I could only see her spinning counter-clockwise.

Eventually I found a trick for forcing myself to see it the other way. Try covering up the whole thing with your hand and then slowly moving your hand in the direction you want to see the “spin” happening, and lowering it at the same time, watching for the head spinning in the direction you expect it to.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (10)

Next time someone asks

October 14, 2007 – 6:14 pm

A lot of people know that I’m not too fond of Apple as a company. I’ll often joke about it with a lot of my friends who are Apple fans, but I’ll occasionally get a question from someone I know who isn’t quite familiar with why I can be so down on them sometimes, and I usually do not have a short, simple answer for them that’s easy to understand [other than "Apple hates freedom", but even that requires a lot more explanation for most people :-) ].

For right now, I think I’ll just point them to this recent article by Mark Pilgrim, which neatly summarizes most of what I don’t like about how Apple operates.

I don’t understand this continuing obsession with buying things that you need to break before they do what you want. It’s not just the iPhone; people did the exact same thing with the AppleTV too. Primarily to add support for other video codecs, like DivX and XviD. Why? [...] I thought the big draw for Apple hardware was that “It Just Works.” By breaking it, you must know you’re giving up the “Just Works” factor, so what’s left? Rounded corners?

My current theory is that it’s some twisted form of wish fulfillment. “I wish this company understood the value of openness, but they don’t, so I’m going to keep buying their closed, crippled shit until they get it.” Yeah, let me know how that works out for you. And while you were waiting breathlessly for them to “get it,” Apple locked out third-party videos. And third-party hardware. And third-party ringtones, applications, and carriers. ProsperityOpenness is just around the corner!

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (3)

Note to grocery stores

October 12, 2007 – 10:59 pm

I’m seriously thinking about writing a letter to our local Albertsons regarding a problem I’ve noticed recently, explaining why I don’t want to shop there anymore.

There is a smaller Ralph’s that is nearer to my house, and I often will choose that, but occasionally I decide to go up to Albertsons, since they have a bigger selection and the self-checkout lanes, which are awesome.

However, the last several times (at least four in a row) I have gone to the Albertsons, there have been not one, but two tables set up (on either side of the doors) with solicitors. This is one of those things that really, really bugs me. The petitioners I could somewhat stomach if they weren’t so aggressive about it, but the kids selling products for companies that are not-too-subtly skirting the child labor laws (in my opinion, anyway) really bugs me. Always has, and probably always will.

I’m generally not a fan of unsolicited sales in the first place - if I want to buy something, I will seek it out, so do your best to meet me in that process. Trying to push something on me that I have not already expressed an interest in or desire for is distasteful to me.

Adding kids into the mix is just over the top, in my book. Companies that are trying to pawn off fifty cent candy bars for several dollars should be ashamed of themselves in the first place. Since there’s no way they could ever get away with that kind of markup in the real market, they have to employ kids to sell them for them, and play on the guilt factor of needing to “help out” whatever organization the kid is a part of.

Having the company scrape off a part of its huge profit margin (much less than they would have to pay “real” sales people) and give it back to the kids’ organizations should not assuage their guilty consciences in the least. If these companies were really interested in helping kids, they could start by not exploiting them for their own profit.

I’m thinking about printing up little pamphlets to give to the kids (or their parents) that talk about the kids who are exploited on one end of that transaction (the ones picking the cocoa for most chocolate makers in the world), and then asking them to please not contribute to that type of business model on this side of the equation as well.

By JB | Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged | Comments (7)