03.11.01

Mac Memory

Posted in General at 9 pm

Original Posting: 2/19/2001 09:40:34 PM

I’m cleaning. I’ve been cleaning out my old Macworld magazines from 1992-1996. Now I know these aren’t the oldest things around, but it’s really a trip going through the older articles. Especially interesting are the product debuts: The Newton MessagePad, the Powerbook Duos, QuickDraw GX, and oh yes, Macworld raved about the IIvx.

Ah how time flies. The PDA that was a bit too large and five years too early? The Duo docks that if in place now with FireWire and USB would be incredible for iBooks and TiBooks alike. QuickDraw GX was really striving to be Quartz, the layer just below Aqua in MacOS X.

The IIvx? Well, let’s let dead dogs lie…

I think I’ll keep one issue from each year for now. 5 copies ought to provide quite a time capsule the next time down this memory lane.

Thoughts leftover from dreaming

Posted in Life, Media, Meta, People, Tech at 1 pm

Original Posting: 3/9/2001 10:00:05 AM:

If we make networks that can self repair, then loose the ability to shut all network nodes down, then the smallest portion of the backups/self-maintenece/self-repair portions of software become more robust, would we have created a system that could out live us as a race? What would distinguish this from being another race altogether?

I found a new Weblog/Journaling perl script called Greymatter, via Camworld that looks very promising. I could get rid of Blogger (not to ‘dis’ blogger, but I can’t truly customize it) and set up my archives again. If I do this soon I won’t have too many archives to transfer over. After all, Dwelling is coming up on it’s 3 year birthday…

I’ve decided that blowing air at people will be my way of admonishing them. It will be a particularly harsh punishment in the morning. I’m going to be a great parent. “Don’t make me come over there and blow air in your face!”

NP in my head: Brian Eno’s latest release, “It’s a Beautiful Day”

Now biting my hand: Simone.

Thirty Six

Posted in General at 1 pm

Original Posting: 3/4/2001 10:55:45 PM

That’s the number of mails in my inbox. It’s the lowest my mail has been down to in 6 months easy. Most of the mails in there now are from January and February. I’m finally getting caught up.

For a long time now, my mailbox has been a pretty accurate barometer of my selfworth/selfcontrol/emotional state all wrapped up in one. A mail box of 36 and dropping is a good sign. A mail box of 90 and rising is a very bad sign. That’s where I was earlier this year and had been heading there since September or so.

It would be awfully shallow to think that my life consists of my inbox. Look at it this way: it’s an indicator, the proverbial canary that let’s the mine workers know when to get the hell out. (I’ve been feeling pretty shafted over the last few months. I dug this myself, but damn if it’s not difficult to get back out.) The Inbox is only one indicator. Here’s another: have I shaved? Is my facial hair neatly trimmed. Perhaps it’s the fact that I have to actually look at myself in the mirror that causes this ‘indicator’.

I am getting back out though. I’ve talked to a few friends, got some stuff put away and cleaned up in the apartment. (Organizing and cleaning things away provides me such a huge rush of accomplishment.). I got some of my web pages updated, figured out that my Ghia is “Zambesi Green” not Willow Green which I was suspicious of from the start, and even got invited to a lunch group next Friday.

I was also contacted to talk about another teaching opportunity with a different school. Teaching classes as a sideline is certainly enjoyable for me to tackle. Even if this opportunity isn’t a good fit for me, it’s nice to be asked.

Wireless everything

Posted in General at 1 pm

Original Posting: 2/19/2001 09:56:56 PM

Looking back at that last part regarding the Duo Docks, I realized I’m totally off base. Waht really needs to happen is to get Wireless into a couple more ports. We’ve got wireless ethernet. That’s good. Now we need wireless USB. That will probably come from Bluetooth or something similar.

Then we need Wireless VGA monitors. Then we need a way of passivley powering the mouse and keyboards. Shouldn’t be too hard. If I recall correctly, the eMates had two powerstuds that were on the bottom of the case. Set the case down on the proper pad and the batty begins to charge. Carry it off and go. Seems simple enough to translate for other electronic elements…

If (success) then (success++)

Posted in General at 1 pm

Original Posting: 2/18/2001 01:37:52 PM

Could it be? Am I really starting to get back into the whole journal/blog thing? Things are a bit more stable now and I’m looking for an outlet, and a place to keep writing. I really do want to become a better writer. I’d like to write later in life, support myself through it. But it will take practice. I figure if I’ve got 20 or 30 years of practice, I ought to have some skills to make up for a lack of actual talent. :p

I’m thinking about this Browser Upgrade push that the WaSP is making. It really seems like it’s a bad idea at this point. I really wish they would have held off until Mozilla 1.0 was released. I know I won’t be dropping Netscape 4.7 for a few months still. Hell, I stayed with Netscape 2.04 until about 2 years ago. Went straight from 2.0 to 4.05 because 3.0 was way too bloated. My Mac at the time (a Centris 610) needed a RAM upgrade to run 4.05. It wasn’t till I got my G3 that I switched to Netscape 4.6. And only recently did I really start to take a liking to IE5.

I imagine looking back on these words a few years from now and laughing…

Thinking out loud, unfortunately

Posted in General at 1 pm

Original Posting: 2/16/2001 05:02:21 PM

How about an automated refrigerator? What would this really take?

Let’s assume that the box will be the same size as the usual fridge. If we have an alternative entry (like a freezer door) for over sized items, we could make a little door (1ft square?) that could hinge on the bottom. Pulling the hinge would produce a shelf that you would put the item on. The pressure sensor would retract the shelf into the box, and laser scanners would find the UPC symbol. (If it’s not found you can label it by voice command.)

The platform is lifted up and down by a central platform. The platform can rotate. The platform is made up of alternating fixed and moving rods so that the moving rods can rise a couple inches and smoothly move into the particular slot in the fridge, which is made of a shelf with a similar system of alternating fixed and non-exisiting rods.

The platform is in a center empty colum of the fridge, like a glass elevator inside of a building’s atrium.

This could be the first piece of an automated kitchen I suppose.

Back To Blogger

Posted in General at 1 pm

Original Posting: 1/20/2001 11:23:26 PM

Well, after an abortive attempt to use a different service, I’m back to Blogger. I’ve been yearning to use a system, and I’m finally going to stick with Blogger for a while. It’s easy to set up, it’s already set up and I don’t have to worry about it. The only thing I do have to do is get the archives of the last 3 years set up and try to get people to start using the new location. That shouldn’t be to hard once I put a redirector in the old server.

I’ve been collecting tons of stuff to talk about and now it all seems pretty pitiful. Maybe someday I’ll turn off the TV and get back to living life.

Building a Desk

Posted in General at 1 pm

Everything is working pretty well at this point. I cleaned up some code that looked weird in Netscape 4, and I’m now posting this from that browser. I suppose I’ll take a look at it when I get into work tomorrow with Mozilla 0.8. It will be interesting to see what happens then.

I’ve begun taking advantage of the variable that are built-in and the ones that are customizable. Getting the Style sheets into their own ‘macro’ really cleared up the entry boxes for the templates and now I can see how the templates are set up.

I’m still exploring the flexibility of the system. I think I’ve figured out a way to get an RSS file to come out of it, but I’m still working on that.

In many ways, what I’m doing here is building a desk, a work space for writing. each tool is used in an environment, and the environment for my work (in this case writing) includes the physical space around my computer(s) and the virtual space that it’s published in. So I’m constructing. What can I say… I’m a contruction worker. 🙂

I should also note that Dwelling in it’s first form came online 3 years ago. The first entry I have is from March 6, 1998, back when I was working at OMSI where I had full access to a server with PERL so that I could do lots of debugging and such. Three years of writting is a good start at a journal. It may not be the most revealing on a daily basis, but I’m doing this for two reasons: To improving my writing skills, and to keep a log of thoughts that I can reflect in later years. A link that I want to get set up is the ‘one year ago’ links. I use that quite a bit to remember and recall events.

[This entry would have been lost were it not for a little control panel I have called “SuperSave”. It’s a simple little utility that captures my keystrokes and saves them to a file. Normally this doesn’t do much for standard desktop applications. In BBEdit I’d just make sure that the Auto-Save feature was enabled and type along my merry way.

However, with these Weblications, there’s no auto-save, no real saving at all, until you’ve finished filling in the form. On small forms that’s fine, but on these longer ones like a journal entry, or an online application you run the risk of a browser crash eliminating 20, 30, even 60 minutes worth of work at times. SuperSave prevents this situation from taking another 60 minutes to re-write all the stuff I typed.

It’s the little things, the tweaks and customizations that really turn a computer from a dull hammer to a fine tool.]

03.10.01

Apple Devotee

Posted in General at 9 pm

Well, this is a new one… photo

Another couple of hours

Posted in General at 7 pm

(I’ve figured out how to force the database to post-date an article. Now I can go back through this year’s entries and add them into the system. Not that I’m in a rush to do so. However I promised some non-journal notes and I’m going to make good on that now.)

It’s become more and more apparent that I’m bringing back important things into my life. I’m back to having a journal I can rely on, a place for me to write. I’ve been listening to music more than I have. And *listening* to the music, not just collecting or sorting MP3 into their perfectly ordered libraries. The flash of creative inspiration I had last night pushed along into the interface you’re seeing now. I took a long, hot bath and didn’t get upset at myself. My class is almost finished and I think we’re going to get something good out of it.

I’m enjoying my relationship more as well. Let’s leave it at that. 😉

This new-found confidence is serving me well. Assuming that it’s sustained, I think we’re going to be looking at a very good summer.