09.09.00
Posted in General
at 11 am
My birthday is coming up soon, and of course the standard wish list is full of geeky stuff. An MP3 player with USB connectivity would be cool, or the Keyspan Digital Media Remote would be a great addition as well. (I was wondering if this, combined with Mousekeys could operate as a wireless mouse…)
Let’s see, a new Sony reciever would be great as our ancient Panasonic has stopped playing the left channel. There was that nice big jacket at a store here in Portland, and a great desk chair with a 12 year warranty as well. Of couse some of the desks were very nice as well.
Let’s see, an External Firewire hard drive would be *really* cool, as I could finally move all my stuff of my G3’s internal hard drive and repartition it so that I could have a place to put Mac OS X. The Public Beta is coming out next week, and I’d love to be able to work with it. Baring that, a simple PCI video card so that I could run two monitors would be a huge plus for me as well. I’ve got an old 21″ Greyscale Radius monitor that I would love to be able to use…
Of course, I would not return a Graphite iBook Special Edition either, though I’d probably wait for the next one that should have FireWire on board… Ooo and the Airport Base Station would be great, because that, plus a 4 port Ethernet hub, would allow Amy and I to be on the Net at the same time, with no hassles.
Though I’ve got to say, any of the above items would make great gifts. But they would be extras. All told, my life is pretty excellent as it is. I’ve got a beautiful woman who I’m deeply in love with, a couple of cats that adore me, a job where what I do can make an impact on the company, and very few worries. All in all, it’s a very nice life.
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09.08.00
Posted in General
at 3 pm
Three of our sites went live this week. It’s been pretty crazy of late getting so many projects through our small shop in such a small amount of time.
<http://www.jamminfm.com> <http://www.abctech.com> <http://www.airadvice.com>
Let me take that back, it’s pretty easy to get these projects through… if they were the least bit staggered. All of the sites came in within three weeks of each other (plus 4 other sites, half theat went up last week, another two that will next.) and so each was putting presure on exactly the same resource at the same time.
It’s easy to move an elephant, if everyone can lift their part of the elephant together. But if you try to move an elephant like a sandbagging line, then you’re going to find yourself with some pretty slow progress.
Of course, all of this relates directly to last July’s near disaster in the Sales department. Is it really any wonder why 2 of the 3 sales poeple are gone now?
There’s a lot of presure on our development guy now. He’s got 4 projects that basically rest on his shoulders. Im hoping that I can pitch in on some of the stuff and help out, but it will be interesting.
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09.06.00
Posted in General
at 6 pm
Apple’s releasing the Beta for MacOS X at the Apple Expo in Paris next week. Steve Jobs will of course be making the introduction. However, accoring to a Wired article, he may have some company.
<http://www.wired.com/news_drop/palmpilot/story/0,1325,38607,00>
It seems a group of people are unhappy with Apple’s treatment of users outside of the US, and will be interupting his speeh to make their own. I love this quote from the article:
Jobs gives brilliant speeches, and the protesters may be clubbed like baby seals if they dare to interrupt his spiel.
Clubed with those brand new G4 Cubes, I’m sure…
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Posted in General
at 11 am
I think it was an inside job… A very inside job indeed. ;p
Okay, it’s time to beef up the security model around here…
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09.04.00
Posted in General
at 4 am
journal entry page. I was just poking around on your computer and found your journal entry page. Of course, I shouldn’t post anything to your journal, but you know me… Heh, heh. But, don’t worry, I’d never divulge anything too personal about you, like your fetish for dressing up like Steve Jobs in drag and insisting I call you Ms. Ivana Macintosh, Queen of the Holy Apple Empire. No siree, that’s way too personal to share with just anyone, and your secret’s safe with me. ;P
Ok, I’ve harassed you enough. For now. I’m off to hunt down floral print fabrics and swath them in deep velvet. ‘nough said.
Ciao!
Moi
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09.02.00
Posted in General
at 12 pm
Dear Andy:
As luck would have it, as my local CompUSA was redoing their AppleStorewithinaStore-WithouttheWalls,windows,oranExternalExit Amy and I happened to be fawning over a G4 Cube, and a small conversation with a sales guy got me a blueberry iMac for Free!
Well, most of an iMac… The case anyway. No motherboard, no pixel popping CRT, but the case, its metal shielding and lots of screws. (About 35 of ’em by my count.)
They were getting rid of their ‘for display only’ models with no innards. Well how could I pass up the chance to grab a beautiful blueberry iMac? So I did. Then I turned around and Amy says,
‘And just what do you think you’re going to do with it?’
A quick couple ums later and I had my answer: iMacquarium. So I get home and start looking up this great term, and find that not only has Andy already started on the idea, at MacHack 99 he talked about plans!
Plans! That’s what I need… But Google wouldn’t produce. The <http://www.cwob.com/> wouldn’t produce. So I’m left with this request:
‘Help me Andi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!’
…Ross…
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08.27.00
Posted in General
at 12 pm
I don’t know if any of you have seen this, but check out the conversations that the Automated Psychiatry program, Eliza was having with unsuspecting AOL Chat participants: <http://fury.com/aoliza/>
A couple of them are just riots. Thirty/Twenty Nine go together (read Thrity first) and Five is pretty good too.
(Don’t mind the graphic weirdness on this entry, I’m just messing around with some ideas…)
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08.26.00
Posted in General
at 1 pm
Aug 26 Sat (01 PM)
Last night I went to hear Ralph Nader speak at the Memorial Coliseum. I’m glad I went for the content, cause Nader just doesn’t have much speaking ability. At least not in the ability to rally a crowd… If he did, he’d be able to really scare the Gore campaign. Nader’s group might do this in spite of Nader himself.
—
This morning I’ve added some material to my Ghia pages, and I’ve finally gotten around to completing the navigation bar problem where the graphics weren’t set up to expand all that well. This was fine as long as I didn’t try to nest my sections too deep or have long titles, but it realy didn’t look to professional. It’s been on one of my to-do lists for months, and now I’m much happier with the site overall.
—
For the Ghia, I’ve got to go out and check the oil. then I’ve *got* to track down an auto wrecker that will do away with the old Civic… I need to get this done before the end of the month elsewise Amy and I are going to be paying another month’s of insurance on it.
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08.23.00
Posted in General
at 9 pm
Aug 23 Wed (09 PM)
Amy and I have been catching up on movies ever since Kozmo started bringing them with ice cream and candy bars… 🙂
The latest round included North by Northwest, Hitchock’s film with Cary Grant. Of his films I’ve only ever seen Vertigo and would like to check out more in the future.
<http://www.theapplecollection.com/various/Celebrity/hitchcock.html>
The story was great and some of the scenes were really cool, particularly the fly-bys of the plane. I really thought that the whole picture would have been better if we had learned about the George Kaplan later on in the film. But it was a great ride, though I think Vertigo was the better of the two.
Now, what’s next? Rear Window seems to complete this reviewer’s trio. <http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/n/north_northwest.html>
Sounds like a plan… 🙂
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08.21.00
Posted in General
at 12 pm
Aug 21 Mon (12 AM)
This weekend I began taking the first few steps towards cleaning up and refurbishing Viva, my ’73 Ghia. I’ve begun to find various resources around town that have parts and I’m beginning to figure out where those parts go.
Two examples so far: Door panels and ashtrays.
The driver’s side door panel had been coming loose. The back end of the door (furthest from the hinge) was getting stuck on the interior vinyl trim piping on the inside of the wall just behind the door. This was causing the panel to be pulled off of the door each time I opened the door. The situation was obviously only going to get worse. I think it was the most serious problem with the car, because of how quickly the situation was becoming worse.
So a trip to Thrifty Auto Supply was in order. I went down there and as I walked in the door, the guy asked me what year my Ghia was. Turns out he and his dad build VW Bugs and liked Ghias too. I knew I was in a good place.
I coaxed him outside to look at the door and he knew just want I needed and just where to get it. Halsey Import Parts Distributing is at about 77th and Halsey <http://www.teleport.com/~halsey/,> a ways out east but not too bad. Again I had the counter guy come out and he knew what I needed and even told me how they would go in. He also told me that I ought to stop by another place, Always V Dub, On 50th between Hawthorne and Division.
So I quickly got a hold of the necessary clips and boots, took off for home and got ’em installed. Now the panel is nice and tight and I’ve even made it better by installing the clips and boots on the bottom edge of the panel where they were missing.
Then I took on the ashtray. It may not seem all that impressive but the thing was rusted tight. The lip that covered the tray and flipped up when the tray was pulled out was simply stuck. The spring that lifted the lip was no use against the layer of rust on the whole unit. I finally got the tray pryed out and dusted it off. It’s still pretty grimy and rusted, but at least it works properly. (Not that it will get much use as there’s a drink/food/smoke ban in the car.) I’ll figure out what to use on the rust soon.
The next two issues to tackle are the cover on the back of the dash and the dent in the rear fender. I think I might be able to pop out the dent myself. I’m going to give it a shot then I’ll look into a body shop. The cover on the back of the dash is more difficult. in the trunk there’s supposed to be a cover that divides the wiring behind the dash from the trunk. The original cardboard cover has utterly deteriorated and it’s time for it to be replaced. It’s a hazard really.
On my ’67, one night I had tried to hook up the overhead map light. While driving the main drag in Grants Pass, a thick, acrid smoke began pouring out of the dash. The wire that hooked up the map light was too small of gauge or something and the wire was glowing bright red when I looked at it. I want to get the wiring solid and replaced with good strong wires behind the dash of the ’73.
There are other issues, but these are the most pressing. By next year I’d love to be able to put her into a show as a daily driver…
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