I'm playing around with Firefox 3, which was released today.
One thing people have been saying is that it's faster than ever and I agree. Page load times are extremely quick. I'm gonna keep an eye on memory usage since that's another improvement that's being lauded and see how things go.
And I'm digging the UI for OS X.
The big news out of Macworld this year is the new MacBook Air. Billed as "the world's thinnest notebook", the air measures an impressive 0.76" high, weighs in at 3 pounds, and is based on a specially designed Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
“When we started this project we didn’t think it was possible. The product that we ended up building for [Apple] is about the width of a dime, it’s as thick as a nickel; it has 400 million really fast really efficient transistors. It is state of the art.” - Intel CEO Paul Otellini
Aside from the smaller processor, the MacBook Air's thin design is also thanks in part to the elimination of the optical drive. Users have the option of purchasing an external SuperDrive or utilizing a new feature called Remote Disc. Remote Disc allows users to use the optical drive of any Mac or PC located on the same network to install software or access files on CD or DVD.
It's thin, it's sexy, it's revolutionary, and it doesn't have a user replaceable battery. Just like the iPhone, users will not be able to replace the battery on their own. Not sure how that's going to work, but hopefully Apple will make the battery replacement process a painless one. Based on that small point alone, I know I'll never own one of these little puppies. But that won't keep me from admiring it.
The MacBook Air is available for preorder from the Apple Store in two base configurations ($1799 and $3098) and is shipping in 2 - 3 weeks. CTO options include 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo processors, 80GB PATA HDD or 64GB SSD (solid state drive), and an external USB SuperDrive.
Today Amazon announced Kindle
It looks and sounds extremely interesting... but I don't know that I'm ready to give up my dead tree media just yet. It's listed as in stock on November 28th, so if you're looking for something different for the technophile on your Christmas list, it might be something worth looking into.
I'd love to say that my upgrade is complete, but I haven't done it yet. I had a big date this afternoon (it was a lot of fun!) plus I'm having too much fun staring at the box.
My delay has nothing to do with the reports coming from others who have run into serious difficulty.
Nothing to do with it at all.
I'll be here with my box for a few more days. It's awful purty. And the box alone won't hose my machine 
Since I've had little time for blogging, I didn't get a chance to point out that Apple is finally releasing Leopard on Friday. Leopard has over 300 new features and a list of them can be seen here.
Apple is taking pre-orders now and is offering free delivery on release day. I pre-ordered a copy, but won't be installing it until after I read some feedback to avoid potential pitfalls. I would recommend that others do the same.
Towards the end of the day today our new tech director came into The Fearless Leader's office and asked if we wanted to drop RAM upgrades into our new servers. I'm working my way into über-geekdom so of course I wanted to play with the nice new shiny Xserves he bought. We've got a total of five new servers - one to run LDAP, one to run an intranet, one to replace our webserver, one which is going to be attached to an Xserve RAID (with about 5.25TB of storage!) and become our new mail suite, and one... ya know... I can't remember what the last one is doing. But that's not important right now.
On to the RAM. We dropped 8GB of RAM into the LDAP server and brought the intranet server up to a total of 10GB. That's a helluva lot of RAM and the servers themselves are beefed up but I'm not surprised. I've noticed one thing about our new tech director - he doesn't screw around when it comes to hardware, he gets the most bang for his buck. Unlike our previous person in charge who damn near killed us with her doctrine of 'Quantity Over Quality', which we're still suffering from in the form of crappy eMacs.
So I got to see the inside of an Xserve for the first time today and I gotta tell ya, it is impressive to say the least. I'll admit it - I drooled a little. We're probably going to start getting these things configured and deployed in a couple of weeks. My school year is off to a damn good start.
Apple announced new iPods today and the biggest part of the announcement is the new iPod Touch. The Touch is essentially an iPhone minus the annoying shackles of AT&T phone service. It sports the same multi touch interface as the iPhone, Wi-Fi capability, access to the iTunes Wi-Fi music store and more. An 8GB model will sell for $249 and a 16GB model will put you back $349.
The Nano will now come in a stumpier form with a 2-inch screen and support video playback, the Shuffle is getting some new colors, and the original iPod (now known as 'iPod Classic') will be available in 80 or 160GB models.
In big non-iPod news, Apple slapped early iPhone purchasers across the cheek before backhanding them soundly to the floor. The 4GB has been retired and the 8GB model will now retail for $399 - that's a $200 price drop less than three months after release. I'm betting there are a lot of 8GB iPhone users fuming right about now.
I love the iPod I have now, but I think a Touch will be working it's way onto my wish lists for all future holidays - I've been a fan of the interface all along, but haven't been in a hurry to part with my Treo or my current service provider just for a gadget. Now I don't have to.
Yesterday amid all the hubbub about the new iMacs and the new versions of iLife and iWork, there was a bit of information that was hardly mentioned.
Apple's Mac Mini received an upgrade just like it's big brother iMac, jumping to 1.83GHz and 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors. $599 gets you a 1.83GHz Mini with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and a combo drive (CDRW/DVD). $799 bumps the processor up to 2GHz, gives you 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and Apple's SuperDrive (8x DL DVD burner). Both models are available on Apple's website... not sure about Apple Store availability.
The mini was only briefly mentioned during a Q&A with Steve Jobs yesterday... one can't help but wonder if rumors of the Mini's demise aren't too far off, regardless of the upgraded machines.
Today Apple announced upgrades to their iMac line. They've moved away from offering a 17 inch model - 20 and 24 inch models are what you have to choose from. The iMac has also undergone a bit of a redesign. The new machines are slimmer and made from aluminum, taking on the appearance of Apple's Pro machines. All in all, they're pretty sexy.
The low-end 20 inch iMac is basically taking the place of the defunct 17 inch models. For $1199 you get:
* 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 1GB memory
* 250GB hard drive1
* 8x double-layer SuperDrive
* ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory
The next step up is a 20 inch with a 2.4GHz processor, a 320GB hard drive, and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of RAM.
If big is your thing, the 24 inch models come with the following specs:
$1799
* 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 1GB memory
* 320GB hard drive1
* 8x double-layer SuperDrive
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
$2299
* 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
* 2GB memory
* 500GB hard drive1
* 8x double-layer SuperDrive
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
All machines are now shipping with the redesigned Apple Keyboard (a new compact wireless version is available as a CTO option) and iLife '08, which includes updated versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand.
... and it was fun!
For his birthday Brad scored a Wii. His lovely wife said she'd get him one as long as he found it for her... those puppies are a bitch to find. After praying to dark gods and sacrificing several small children and goats, he finally found one. He invited me over yesterday to partake of Nintendo's latest console offering.
Now, when the latest round of console wars started up I took a stand and declared my intent to stay the hell out of it. I'm tired of planking down my hard-earned cash every time a new game system comes out. I was content to play my Xbox and Gamecube until they died. But then I actually played with the Wii.
It is the slickest console I have ever played.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who will have negative things to say about the system, whether it's about the Wii's graphics capabilities or it's processing power, but I'm here to tell you, aside from these potential sticking points the Wii is kick ass.
I'm sorry - the Wii is KICK ASS. That statement does require the emphasis. I was sold after playing the sports games that come with the system. When I first saw the controller for the Wii, I was turned off. I'm used to the controllers of old - two hands holding the thing with thumbs mashing buttons and providing movement control. I'm old school like that. But after bowling with Brad and understanding how the whole damn thing works, I'm in love with the controller and the concept behind it.
We bowled. We played tennis. We played baseball. And I had a blast the entire time. It was great.
And now I'm hooked. I want one. Bad.
Unfortunately I'm running into the same problem Brad did - they're a bitch to find. Shipments are small and seemingly at random. And stores can't keep them on the shelves for longer than twenty minutes when they finally do arrive.
So hide your small children and goats.
I'm not above utilizing Brad's methods to get what I want.
For awhile I've been obsessed with having the music I'm listening to publish automagically to the sidebar. Apparently, I'm not the only person with this obsession - Brandon Fuller wrote a plugin (link is for Mac version of iTunes - other players available) that grabs track information from iTunes, looks up album cover art, and creates affiliate links for Amazon and the iTunes store.
Now that's dead sexy right there I tell you!
Now, as long as I have iTunes playing, info for the last five songs I've listened to will appear in the right sidebar. It's a little wonky though - sometimes it pulls links and cover art for completely different artists and albums (Case in point). But that's a small gripe and not the fault of the programmer, but the fault of the stores' returned search results.
So, check out what I'm listening to. If you see something you might like, follow a link and buy the album from Amazon or download tracks from the iTunes store.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has been sharing his experiences as a Windows user trying out a MacBook Pro on his Hardware 2.0 blog at ZDNet.
If you're thinking about switching or are just curious about the differences between the two platforms, give it a read. You can find day one here.
For now anyway, although I'm afraid I just jinxed myself.
After several tries, my latest attempt at upgrading the memory in my PowerBook appears to have been successful. Which is good, because (as Artie suggested in the comments) my next step would've been to take the machine to an Apple Store and demand they replace the logic board. Which would've turned into a lengthy process that I wouldn't really want to deal with.
I found this and figured I'd give it a try. The memory arrived today and my machine has been buzzing along for four and a half hours with no problems. Knock on wood.
I think I love my PowerBook again.
The Expo starts on Tuesday and rumors and predictions of what this years event will bring have been popping up all over. I'm still holding on to a rapidly dwindling hope that Vista 2.0 will be released, but Steve Jobs has already said that it won't be out until Spring 2007 and the last build released in December still had some issues. We might get to see some more new features so I suppose that will tide me over for now.
Other than info on the new OS, it doesn't sound like there's much of anything else that would interest me. There's been a tremendous amount of buzz about the "iPhone", but I picked up one of these not too long ago and I'm not in the market for a new cell phone. When I hear "iPhone", I'm not hearing "smartphone", and after getting used to the Treo, I don't think I'll ever have a regular cellphone again.
There's bound to be more information on the iTV, a media hub that will allow deliver wireless streaming content from iTunes to your television. I guess it sounds cool, but that's not something I need or am looking to do. Updates to iLife and iWork are probably going to be announced, but that's not enough to make me do a happy dance.
Even though it doesn't sound like there's going to be a lot for me to get slappy about, I'm sure a lot of other people will be pleased with Apple's offerings this year. But there's always the potential for surprises.
And I like surprises.
I saw this article over at ZDNet awhile ago and was going to post about it, but was in the middle of NaNo so I let it go. Today, I'm NaNo-free and in a rant kind of mood.
For you savages that have no clue about how the internet works (how the hell did you get here anyway?) and can't click the link, I'll sum up the article as best I can.
The ACLU (generally not a group I side with) and a group of people sued the federal government over the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), claiming the law is unconstitutional. For a brief overview of COPA, I'll refer to the article:
The law would impose a maximum fine of $50,000 a day and up to six months in prison for anyone who uses the Internet to "make any communication for commercial purposes that is available to any minor and that includes any material that is harmful to minors."
On the surface, it seems like a good idea, protecting children from the awful things they might find on the internet. But I have a problem with the law that goes beyond the court battle - the law shouldn't be in place at all. It never should've been introduced and it damn sure never should have been signed. All this craptacular piece of legislature does is take the burden of responsibility off of the parents to monitor and control what their children access on the internet. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.
But attorneys for the U.S. government called the law necessary to protect young people from sexually explicit material and said Internet filtering technology was not good enough to block offending Web sites from personal computers.
Wrong on both counts! Oh how I love to see my tax dollars at work, funding this complete asshattery!
The law isn't necessary to protect young people from sexually explicit material, PARENTS are necessary to protect young people from sexually explicit material! Wow, what a concept! Parents should be watching their children like hawks, especially on the internet.
And internet filtering technology is good enough to block offending websites. I should know, our hardware-based filter stops a ton of inappropriate material from getting through to the computers in Little Johnny's third grade classroom. But the thing to remember is filtering technology is not "set it and forget it". All filters need to be updated regularly (ours updates at midnight every day) in order to be effective. But that's where mom and dad come in again. A responsible parent shouldn't have a problem with making sure the filter is up-to-date to ensure their child isn't exposed to the crap that's on the internet.
Is content filtering 100% effective? No, it isn't. But it will block the majority of the inappropriate material that a child shouldn't be exposed to. Any decent filtering solution will provide the user with the option to manually add a website that isn't in it's records.
We don't need another law to take the job of responsible parenting off of our plate. All we need is for parents to do their jobs and raise their kids.
If that's too much to handle, don't have kids.
I found this nifty little deal over at IFOC and figured I'd give it a go...
By using the MyChingo service, you can leave me a message of up to two minutes in length through the player below.
Give it a whirl...
Hit the button and leave me a message, but please, nothing dirty... I get enough dirty talk from Brad at work.
I switched hosting companies a couple of weeks back. My old shitty host, 5gbhosting, was telling me I owed them money even though my account wasn't up for renewal until August. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to reach anyone to sort this mess out, I started looking for a new host.
I settled on DreamHost and have to say I'm digging them so far. First reason - they provide a wealth of features through their own in-house control panel system. The system is easy to navigate through and fairly intuitive as far as actually using the built in offerings. They have a wiki with how-to's and info on using their system as well as some info for newbs.
On to the features... I have 20GB of storage space and 1TB of bandwidth at my disposal. Both increase weekly by 160MB and 8GB respectively. I can hear it now, "Jesus Dave! What are you going to do with all that?!?" Ummm... use it! I have a couple of other domains that I plan on moving over as their plans come up for renewal. Plus (and this is the cool part for all you depraved perverts out there!) they allow adult content to be hosted on their servers.
Yes, soon I'll be able to start my porn website featuring Brad, a cucumber, and a toothpick. 
Moving along... Paul mentioned that he had heard bad things about their email service. I've been getting my email, but from reading their forums, it sounds like some of their servers have issues at times. My complaint about their email system is the usage of m####### mailbox ids... instead of logging in to check your mail with a username, you have to use the mailbox id number. Not really a big deal and it sounds like they're working on changing it.
It's only been a couple of weeks, so my opinion may change but from what I've seen and experienced so far, I'd have to say that I'm a satisfied customer.
Over a week ago, I set up a new roadblock to try and stop the comment spammers from nailing me as hard as they were.
I was getting over a hundred spam comments a day and no matter what I tried, they still managed to get through.
I'm happy to say that since setting up SCode I haven't received a single spam comment. Hopefully this past week and a half is the rule and not the exception.
Or maybe they all dropped dead from an exotic disease that liquefied their brains and caused their genitals to rot and fall off.
I can dream, can't I?
After deleting another 100 comments filled with offers of naked chicks and a bigger dick, I decided to seek alternate means of defense. MT 3.2 comes with spam filtering plugins built in, but I'll be damned if I know how to configure them effectively. I've followed the documentation but no matter what I do I get slammed with spam.
I did some research and found SCode 1.0, an anti-spam CAPTCHA plugin. I've got it running now and I've been hammering at it since last night with good results.
This means that those of you who actually comment will have to go through the added trouble of entering a six digit number in a field before posting... oh the horror. But seriously, try it out... I want to make sure it truly is being a pain in the ass.
My middle finger salutes you, oh great comment spammers.
I'm missing posts...
I don't know where they went or why. Ed brought it to my attention this afternoon.
I guess it's just some more of that love/hate relationship I was talking about...
Most of the time, Movable Type and me get along just fine.
And then there's the times when it does idiotic things that don't make sense to me. Like pinging a Trackback on an old post because I re-saved the entry.
I don't get it... it pinged once. Job done. Why do it again?
I think my laptop is getting ready to crap out on me. This sucks... my laptop is what I do all my writing on. I have a desktop, but that's what I use for audio and video editing... I don't really want to put it to work as my writing machine as well.
I think it's my hard drvie that's getting ready to go... I've already replaced the hard drive once which was a major operation, no thanks to Fujitsu. I've been pretty happy with my laptop, but I don't know if I'd buy another Fujitsu after their sorry-ass support the last time my hard drive died.
Deciding on a course of action is made harder by the fact that I was hoping to replace the old girl next year.
So what do I do? Back everything up and press on with the current hardware and save everything to a shared folder on my desktop? Replace the hard drive now, then replace the entire machine in a few months? Or play daredevil, do nothing, and scream and moan like a little girl when the hard drive croaks and I lose all my stuff?
Decisions, decisions.
"...nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose..."
-Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
My second oldest niece graduated high school this past June and since I'm such a cool uncle, I promised her I'd build her a computer as a combined graduation/birthday present. I figured she'd need something better than the old Packard Bell POS she has now, since she's starting college soon.
The time has come for construction to begin and I'm in ber-geek mode.
Granted, the setup I chose for her isn't top of the line by today's standards, but considering it's based heavily on the machine I use for music and video stuff, I'm pretty sure she'll be happy.
Off to the lab I go...
UPDATE 8/17/05 01:03:05 -
"It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open..."
-Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
I hacked my comment templates to allow for TypeKey users to post comments using their TypeKey info.
And then I sat back and thought about how many hacks I've thrown into this site.
Eventually this fucking blog is going to implode from the strain of the multiple hacked templates, the hacked together style sheet, and all the other shit I've done.
I guess I should start making regular backups.
UPDATE: Heh heh... It started to go KABOOM!!!! No TypeKey authentication yet.
Apparently a beta version of Windows Vista (a.k.a. The OS formerly known as "Longhorn") is going to be released tomorrow.
Vista?
Hmmm...
Virally Infected Software To Acquire?
Or...
Viruses Infections Spyware Trojans Adware
I think they should've stuck with "Longhorn".
Earlier this week (I think it was this week... might've been last week) me and Brad were talking about Windows Update and OS X's Software Update.
I was complaining about how Microsoft has two separate update sites for Windows and Office and wondering why MS can't get their act together and handle updates the way Apple does... OS X's Software Update handles OS updates, security updates, and Apple-branded software (i.e. iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) updates.
Well, MS is now offering Microsoft Update.
Of course, in typical MS fashion, it seems to have some problems.
Can't say I'm surprised. If you plan on trying out the new updater, I'd back up your important files first. And set up a system restore point... just in case.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Wasted Years in the Wasted Tech category. They are listed from newest to oldest.
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