Category: Geeky

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The seven phases of owning an iPod

I caught this on Podcasting News and had to pass it on. Drivl.com posted “The Seven Phases of Owning an iPod – An Illustrated Journey“, and I laughed.

My parent's new iPod NanoThe 7th is completely true. My green iPod Mini has served me very well, even though its battery life is starting to dwindle. I’m content with living in the old school age for now. You cool kids with all your fancy color LCD displays and long battery life can go on enjoying what you got.

Speaking of, my parents just got a new iPod Nano. Adding even more to my jealousy, my dad even picked up the Belkin TuneTalk Stereo for it. I doubt he’s going to start podcasting anytime soon, but that’s a setup that I could easily use for my ventures. He’ll use it more to record voice notes for himself.

This is what we do in my family. We try to out geek each other.

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Noticing some slight bugs in Firefox 2

Firefox 2.0 Screen ShotIt seems that every time I launch Firefox 2.0 on my Powerbook, it never likes to load Google like a good browser should(click on the image to the left to see a screen shot). It takes the logo and positions it almost in the center of my screen rather than the center of the window. Usually resizing the window will solve this and everything goes back to normal. I’m making a post about this and then sending the link as feedback for Mozilla.

There are other issues creeping up with the latest release, but they seem to not be overly critical. They are worth reading up on because users are concerned about security problems, but Mozilla is saying that there is nothing threatening about any of the problems that are showing up. I would expect an update soon, but it’s interesting to note that they are hard at work on version 3.0.

Something else to pass on is this link that I got from BoingBoing about a series of tweaks that you can implement on Firefox. Granted that these are for the more geeky individuals, but it’s really not that hard to do. If those tweaks aren’t enough for you, check out the MozillaZine Wiki for a all sorts of geeky and nerdy stuff that you can do with Firefox.

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Giving RadioZoom its own legs to stand on

Back in March, Andrew from Geek.Farm.Life was gracious enough to purchase the “radiozoom.net” domain for the podcast. He’s in a reverse situation than myself, living in Indiana with his American wife, and a long time listener of my podcast. I’ve posted about GFL before, so be sure to go read that to find out more about his podcast.

Until last night, the domain was a redirect to the site that I had setup within this domain. That’s much easier to market to listeners rather than saying “blah-blah-blah slash blah-blah-blah”. I’ve been content with the setup for some time, but the slight confusion of the podcast name combined with the actual URL for the podcast episodes was starting to bug me. It doesn’t give the podcast enough of a brand, at least for me, if you tell people one thing and they end up seeing another.

It took a few hours to propagate down the DNS chains, but the domain now has full control over the site. All the old links to old episodes still work. The change has allowed me to move forward with ideas that I couldn’t implement otherwise. These are more noticeable behind the scenes, and that really matters to me more than you. This also means that it’s less I have to think about while falling asleep at night.

Once again, many thanks go out to Andrew for helping to make this possible. Go check out RadioZoom.net and see for yourself.

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This is the MacBook Pro that I was looking for

Apple MacBook Pro 15-inchActually, I’m really torn. I love my 17″ Powerbook G4, but the processor is getting closer and closer to the low end of things. I’m probably on borrowed time until the hard drive starts to give me fits, so if I’m going to replace the whole thing, then I’m going to stick with the notebook way of life.

Just today, Apple launched some new models of the MacBook Pro that I am very interested in getting my hands on. The big thing for me is FireWire[wiki] 800. Processor speed, graphics, and memory kind of come second. However, the specs on these suckers are looking sweet.

Apple today announced that its entire MacBook(TM) Pro line of notebooks now includes the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor and delivers performance that is up to 39 percent faster than the previous generation. All MacBook Pro models now offer double the memory and greater storage capacity than the previous generation, as well as a FireWire(R) 800 port for connecting to high-speed peripherals. [macrumors]

When you go with a laptop, your hard drive is never going to have enough space on it for you. As space gets cramped, much like on mine, you need to think external. At the same time, the speed of your hard drive is critical, and very rarely do you get anything above 5200 RPMs. Why? Heat and power consumption. It’s all correlational.

With the amount of audio editing that I like to do, I have to have my external, 200GB hard drive. FireWire 800 makes it really easy to make backups and copy files really quick like, but the best part is actually doing all my recording and editing to it. Before this, the fan on my Powerbook would spin quite a bit, not to mention programs hiccuping from time to time because the internal hard drive couldn’t be accessed quick enough. The software was outdoing the hardware, but life is better when you work on the external and allow the processor more room to breathe.

Now that FireWire 800 is apart of all MacBook Pro models, it has me thinking about moving away from the large screen screen world of Apple notebooks. I know that the 15″ is not that much smaller than the 17″, but it can start to matter when you think about simple portability. Bags and protective cases for large laptops are a bit of a specialty, not to mention that you can forget how big that laptop in your bag really is from time to time. The door can and will hit you on the way out if you forget that it’s there.

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Skype 2.0 goes gold for the Mac

Video panel in the preferences of Skype 2.0Skype is the staple of The Crazy Canucks podcast. I got it downloaded and tinkered with it just a little bit(the image posted here is a quick screenshot of the video panel in the preferences, which has similarity to iChat). We’re actually looking to record another episode this evening, but I doubt this will really effect anything involving VoIP. The major addition to this version is video support being added for Mac users, making video chatting available between PC users of Skype.

Posted on their blog yesterday:

Skype for Mac 2.0 goes gold today, which means that we’ve tested it, you’ve tested it and we all agree that it does a pretty good job. Download it now and video call your friends, family, colleagues or anyone else you’d like to see face to face. Remember not only does it work with other Mac users but it also works with Windows users too. That means even more people for you to video call with.

We’ve improved the video quality and made changes so that video calling can now work on older systems allowing more of our Mac community can use it.

Thanks for all your feedback and help to improve the quality of video throughout the beta. A lot of you have sent in your stories on how you’re using Mac 2.0 to get face to face with far flung friends and relatives and we’re delighted we can help to bring you all closer together. Many of you also told us that you’re using video calls with business colleagues across the globe or to see your family back home when you’re away with work. If you have any more stories you’d like to share with us please email them to stories@skype.net. [skype]

The question will be about quality when you make your video calls across platform. The quality of your video card combined with the quality of your webcam will offer mixed results, more so when it comes to the world of PCs. Regardless, you’ll still be able to see grandma wave to you over the internet, no matter how blurry or pixelated she might look. You’ll just never know if she’s giving you the finger or not.

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NPR.org hacked or letting something slip?

NPR.org hacked?Just as I was heading towards bed last night, I made a last dash through my RSS feeds on Vienna. A headline on one NPR.org feeds read, “series hub!” Click on the preview and the body simply said, “It’s almost 1 BIOTCH”. Opening the link to the page, I get the image you see to the left. Click on it to see the full size.

Either NPR.org got hacked or some one is working on a project behind the scenes that shouldn’t have been available to the public. Nothing huge, but I found it interesting enough to grab a capture of and share.

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Exploring the open source road

For the longest time, there have been two main programs that I have used when it comes to doing a lot of my web-editing stuff. BBEdit and Fetch have long been staples in my application library, and that’s pretty much the same two tools that I have been using since I was in high school. I’ve tried my hand at other things, but nothing felt right or as good as lines of code across my screen.

Mmmmm… code.

I decided to venture down the Google way and see what else might be out there in the open source world, specifically for the MacOS. Well low and behold, Open Source Mac was the first site to show up on the list and had the answers I was looking for. I went from just checking a few applications out to making the following programs a part of my permanent library of web tools.

Vienna Finding an RSS application, plugin, or whatever makes reading my feeds easier has been a battle. Safari is good, but not great. Firefox has some good plugins, but nothing has made me happy. Vienna is my first experience with using a stand-alone application to monitor RSS feeds. It works well, imported all of my feeds without a hitch, and looks really nice. “Smart Folders” are super handy, and it’s MacOS native.

CyberduckIf the name doesn’t get you, then the application icon will. Cyberduck is a really great concept for an FTP program. It’s got a simple look to it, but I was instantly hooked with it’s ability to do everything that I needed it to. Let’s be honest though, what more do you want from an FTP program? Upload, download, surf directories, change permissions, and so on. I could use some neat, quacking sound effects though, especially when a download is complete or something.

SmultronSmultron. My final verdict is still pending on this one, but it is a huge step in the right direction. I love the single window with the ability to do split screen editing, and you can trade that for tabs instead. Managing so many files with one program is tricky for any code ninja, but the ability to highlight text to apply a tag is a bit lacking(or maybe I just haven’t discovered that element yet). One cool thing is that it recognizes functions, which makes jumping around your CSS super snappy.

There are more applications that I’m curious about trying out, but these were three that were very impressive to me. Those other programs I mentioned cost money. These other three don’t, and I get a little tired of having to pay for those upgrades, especially when you can get open source stuff like this. However, donate to the developers if you can and give them feedback so they can make this stuff better.

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MSN 6.0 for the Mac isn’t my new best friend

I use a variety of chat clients. Anyone who does the same knows how much of a pain in the ass this is. I’ve tried those all-in-one things that people cobble together, but let’s be honest about them, alright? They’re crap. Nothing has been made that can truly do with the original version can do. Stability is always questionable, and it never looks pretty. Setup can be a pain, and cross-platform communication is painful.

So MSN 6.0 came out yesterday for the Mac. Great. Yet another version that doesn’t have what it needs to have, and it works worse than the previous one. No video or audio support, and there is this “Windows Live” thing that you can click on. Everytime I do that, it screws up. Gotta quit out and relaunch.

This is the only chat program Rebecca has while she’s at work, and it gets oh so better. MSN will decide to not even send out messages back and forth sometimes. Whole conversations will get mucked up, and we’re left clueless as to what the other person is saying or if either of us got the message at all.

I think that out of all the cients I use, MSN is the most unreliable. The words “Microsoft” and “Mac” probably tells all, but if you’re going to put something new out, make it work. Making it look better doesn’t help things at all.

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My blog was hacked

When I woke up this morning, I went to delete a spam comment that got through my defenses, but WordPress wouldn’t let me log in. I tried my login and password a few different times and got nothing. That’s when I started to get that feeling. You know that one I’m talking about?

“This site hacked by” whatever the name was. I’m kicking myself for not getting a screenshot of it, but there was a large wolf image with some language that I was unfamiliar with. There was also a sound file that was posted along with it. It started out with some deep voiced man saying something very foreign, followed by some drums and horns. I was still sleepy eyed and increasingly pissed off that I didn’t take in all the details.

I was able to work around WordPress and get into the SQL database, delete the post, and get my user accounts reset. On top of that, I was running WordPress 2.0.3. I might have waited too long to do the 2.0.4 upgrade that apparently had some “important security updates”.

I’m not sure how this person hacked my site, but everything seems to be back to normal. I’ve done all the neccesary steps. Backed up my site, changed all my passwords, and done needed upgrades. All this after being knocked down with a troubling sinus cold thing all this week, this morning being the first day that I’ve woke up and actually felt good. I’m totally going running right now because that’s a lot better than punching a wall.

Update: Rebecca was able to grab a screenshot of it this morning and has it on this post.