Okay, so that was a blatant lie
If you think any of this gibberish looks interesting, you should poke around and subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up with new content.
I apologize about promising pictures…I brought my camera up to Canada with me yesterday, but it turns out that I took exactly two pictures in the past twenty-four hours. One of them is extremely boring, and the other one I probably shouldn’t put on the internet.
Suffice it to say that we all had a good time.
Canada
I’ll post peektures when I get back tomorrow night (or maybe post monday).
(Another) useful trick
I just thought I’d mention this because it was bugging the hell out of me. In the comments area, Wordpress seems to be deleting the new line breaks, screwing up paragraph formatting etc…I just now discovered that for some reason (don’t ask me why) you can trick it into working by using the [b] [/b] tag (you know, with the wedges instead of the brackets).
Just add a line in your comment that contains those two tags, and you’ll end up with a nice, healthy space before your next paragraph. Looks much better.
Cool Feature
Most of you who use macs on a day to day basis probably already know this, but today was the first time I’d really seen this little feature used. Aside from how we used it today, I’m not sure what else it’d be useful for…but it was pretty damn useful for what it was:
Essentially, my (boss? employer?) Steve Broback and I needed to trade files that were each about 800-850 megs—just large enough to be incredibly frustrating. After a few aborted attempts at sqeezing them on to CD’s, Steve whips out a firewire cord, and tells me to reboot while holding down the “T” key.
So what happens? Apparently, my PowerBook will boot up as an external hard drive that he can access from his, just like you would any store-bought external hard drive. About two painless minutes later, we’d exchanged data, and I was rebooting my machine into normal mode.
Now, while the result is essentially the same as hooking two computers together through a network and transferring a file over Cat5 (minus the reboot), the thought of turning an entire computer into a really fancy external hard drive was pretty funny to me.
Understanding new areas
I find that while I subscribe to a large number of newsfeeds, there are only six or seven that I make sure I check every day. These feeds enjoy a special “A list” category in my feed organizer, and I’ve actually added two of them to my Google homepage.
What strikes me about these blogs, however, is that they focus on niches I don’t know much about.
Probably my favorite and most avidly read blog is TheFerrett. I know this because when I or my friends say “TheFerrett said…,” we don’t look at each other like Dr. Doolittle wandered unexpectedly into the room. An excellent writer and web designer, he writes about politics, writing, and coding. When I started reading him (about two years ago), I didn’t know much about politics or coding, and “writing” for me consisted mostly of puking up Jane Schaeffer.
Another one of my favorite blogs, one that I just started reading at the beginning of the summer, is the Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson, who writes about a mix of his family, the internet, and venture capitalism. On the big list of “things I don’t understand,” Venture Capitalism is pretty damn near the top. Until a month ago, I didn’t even know what, precicely, a VC did.
I suppose that if I had to label the theme of my own blog it would be largely “technology.” So I wonder how many people are going to end up listing me in their readers as their little window into the world of technology and gadgets—because the amazing thing about reading a blog is that you get both a window into a world that interests you and a friend. It’s like having that go-to guy for each of those areas you’d like to know more about but just don’t have the time or energy to find out yourself.
How the Internet Works
I was curious about the sudden jump my blog took with my Apple posts, so I spent a few minutes digging through my stats program to find the culprit. So here’s what I found:
Over the past two days I’ve had an additional 215 unique IP addresses visit, and I’m not really sure what differentiates a “view” from a “visit”–but I’ll just say that on the 25th I had just under 200 “views” and today, so far, I’ve had over 600.
Why on earth did so many new people find my journal all at once? It turns out my entry was somehow (and really, I have literally no idea how–this is just how the internet works) listed on Macsurfer’s Headline News, down under “Analysis/Commentary/Editorial/Opinion” -
“Apple’s image: Appropriately following my previous post on how cool Steve Jobs can be, I thought I’d take a second to flesh out my disagreement with the way Apple names their operating systems.” Jason-Preston.com 9:18 AM
So to all you mac surfers: welcome. I hope you come back.
Follow-up on OS names
I seem to have struck a chord with my post on Apple’s image, and I got a lot of really good points in the comments that I hadn’t really thought about. I’m gonna go ahead and bring those to the front page.
First, though, let me clarify that I don’t really dislike Apple. People tend to think that since I prefer to use PC’s, I’ve got some sort of death-wish for Macintosh, and that’s simply not true. Anyways, here’s my two (more) cents:
I dissagree. I don’t see how naming a the operating system after cats is “posh� or euphemistic. Its just a branding/marketing choice that is no different than Ford naming their cars with “f� names: Focus, Fairlane, Fiesta, etc. or, say, horse names: mustang, maverick, pinto. What’s the big deal? I see no pretentiousness in the cat names.
- tommyboy
They seem pretentious to me because of the way Apple presents itself. I see Apple as the “designer brand” of computers–owning an apple (laptops especially) is like wearing the Armani or the Gucci of the computing world. Apple products are clearly branded and made to look trendier, and in my opinion gaudier than most other computers. While there’s an aspect of cool to this, I think there’s also an aspect of faux-cool to it as well–just as with the clothes. So yes, the names are just a branding/marketing choice. I just disagree with the marketing, I guess.
Hey Jason, I enjoyed reading your viewpoint. Though, I think you might be mistaken about the use of the word euphemistic. Dictionary.com says this:
euphemistic
adj : of an inoffensive substitute for offensive terminology; “`peepee’ is a common euphemistic term� [syn: inoffensive] [ant: dysphemistic]
Perhaps a better way to phrase it might be “Apple has a tendency for hyperbole.� Or Apple is so pretentious.
-Van Secrist
Yes, this is correct–now that I read it again, I’m pretty sure “euphemistic” wasn’t at all what I was trying to say. I would now choose “I tend to pick on Apple because they’re more image-centric.”
I believe the ‘marketing names’ are to help distinguish between ‘versions’ of Mac OS X.
A single point upgrade in Classic Mac OS wouldn’t warrant $129. Who would pay to upgrade from 8.5 to 8.6?
-M
This is a really good reason to have names like this, I hadn’t thought of it. Despite the fact that the OS kernel did undergo significant changes, I think a lot of people wouldn’t feel too inclined to shell out for a .1-.2 style upgrade. But once again, while this warrants version names, it doesn’t mean they should call it “Panther.”
And what would you name an OS? Rock? Paper? Elephant? Please post an interesting alternative.
-Robert R. Fox
Naming things is very definitely not my specialty. It took me over a month to come up with Flicker Gaming, but I’ll give it a shot. How about, for the latest innovention:
Mac OS X: Dashboard
This name would reflect the most significantly flashy new feature, and in my mind it avoids the pitfall of seeming “shallow” or pointlessly “artsy.” (time: 5 minutes! a new record for something I liked!)
Your FlickR
I know, I know…what is it?
“Your FlickR” is my little version of an idea I ganked from Ben. Basically, I’ve set up a FlickR account dedicated to everyone who reads this blog and has an interest in photos.
I’ve set up a “random” e-mail address for anyone to send an image to. Once you send it in, it’ll start rotating in on the “Your FlickR” badge. So here’s what you do:
Find a photo you like on the internet or on your camera, and email it to:
great33told [at] photos.flickr.com
The text in your subject line will be the title of the picture, and any text in the main body will be the description. You shouldn’t have to do anything else.
It’s an open sandbox, go play.
Apple’s image
Appropriately following my previous post on how cool Steve Jobs can be, I thought I’d take a second to flesh out my disagreement with the way Apple names their operating systems.
“Tiger” and “Panther” are the official names of the two most recent iterations of the Mac OS (correct me if I’m wrong), and I find these names annoying. I understand the names are supposed to imply that the OS’s represent the “sleek, feline power and speed” of their namesake, however I feel like it’s a bit “posh,” for lack of a better word.
I just get this image of someone saying “I’m not a barber, I’m a hair stylist!” And I think Apple perpetuates that image. So, regardless of the quality of the product, I get a sense of snobbishness with the name. I guess that’s why I disagree with that image.
Don’t get me wrong — “Windows Vista” isn’t much better…I think “Windows 2005″ would’ve been great. I tend to pick on Apple because they sound so ridiculously euphemistic to me.
Steve Jobs can Speak
This is old news by now, but I haven’t really seen it reverberating around the ‘net too much, so I thought I’d post the link myself. As much as people think I hate Apple—and there are things about Apple I do not like—I’m a very definite fan of Steve Jobs. I think he’s one of a few very visionary businessmen and he has an uncanny ability to put his finger on the pulse of technology. As such, I’ve always been very interested in what he’s had to say about his life, his work, and his dreams.
Jobs gave the Stanford commencement address this past year, entitled You’ve got to find what you love. It’s a very interesting and well done speech. Now why is it that bascially every version of a graduation speech ever seems to dwell on death?
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Google Homepage
Remember when I posted about how customized Google was better than My Yahoo!? I had one real complaint about how the Google homepage was set up, and my prayers have been answered.
Customized Google earlier today rolled out an entirely new set of functionality, now allowing you to enter any custom RSS feed for a selection of headlines. They changed the setup menu so that you select various items from a sidebar, and then move them around the page — as far as I can tell the only things they removed was the “driving directions” tab, and the extra spacing at the top (which I liked, unfortuantely).
In any case, go nuts. Add my feed ;)
Tablet PC
I’ve seen two tablet PC’s in the past week, which is more than I’ve even heard of in probably the past year. When I went around looking at various laptops and computers in September (I ended up with the Fujitsu Lifebook that I’m using now), I didn’t even think about tablet PC’s because they just weren’t being used.
Now that I’ve spent a little time around a few of them, I find them incredibly cool. The basic tradeoff is that you lose some “oomph” and you get some sweet stylus-type action. While I can’t say that I write faster than I type, I still think the ability to draw on to your computer screen is one of the sweeter things it offers.
Next time around, I guess (read: 4 to 5 years from now).
Things and Happenings
Jeff Jarvis, one of the more widely-read bloggers moved his buzzmachine blog to WordPress a few days ago. WordPress is, naturally, what I’m using here, and it’s kind of funny to watch his blog hit the nascent stages of Wordpressdom in the same way mine did.
I’d also like to point out a really neat video.
A lot of the people I’m working for this summer took a demo flight on the private “Connexion” Boeing jet last week, and the pilots gratiously allowed them to take a video of their circle around Mount Raineer. Imagine being on the flight–that would have been amazing.
Funny
If you misspell library in a google search like this, I think it’s funny that the top hit is “University of Texas Libraries.”
…bite
Just got back from the Bite of Seattle, which was overall pretty cool. Today was absolutely beautiful, and there were tons of people at the Seattle Center with all the booths and entertainment.
I drove over with Ben, and we split a fair number of foods before he went to work at his booth, in a really pretty little side area. You could pay $9 to run through the line and grab a sample from each of the stands:
I basically just ate things for the afternoon, and my favorite choice was “Dungeness crab Monte Cristo,” which was essentially a Monte Cristo sandwich with crab instead of ham…quite delicious. I also had two slices of pizza, a beef bratwurst, beet stew thing, and strawberry shortcake.
I also met up with my friends Jeff and Brian, who pretty much ate exactly the same thing I did:
…and got to see The Caesars, probably most well known for their hit Jerk it Out, and they were pretty solid live.
One other thing that was really cool was this guy who had a parrot, and I he had his bird spread out the wings…I don’t know, I’ve always found birds really neat. I got a picture of that, too:
I’ve uploaded the rest of my pictures to FlickR, so you’ll see them showing up on the sidebar, or go ahead and browse them over there if you want.
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