06.30.02
Very Soon
Very soon now, I will be making journal entries from a new Mac…
(Congratulations to Brazil on their FIFA World Cup victory.)
06.16.02
Clear Channel Communications
From a mailing list I’m sub’ed to:
ONE OF MY INTERESTS is “the media” in general. Long gone are the old days when one company could only own a few radio or TV stations. While you were sleeping, one company has managed to buy up *1,200* radio stations with over a billion listeners. Waldo in Virginia, a reader and friend of mine, alerted me to this — as well as a new web site that’s dedicated to letting people know what’s going on. He notes: “Clear Channel’s 1,200 radio stations control 60% of all rock programming, they own the vast majority of the musical venues in the U.S., they own the lion’s share of billboards, talk show hosts, and popular musical acts. THEY decide what bands get famous, and what bands are doomed to play the bar circuit. If you don’t understand why your favorite local band just can’t seem to make it big, http://www.ClearChannelSucks.org (new window) has the answers. The music that you hear on the radio isn’t played because it’s popular, but because the labels paid for it to be played. If that’s a problem for you, that site is the place to do something about it.”
06.13.02
Newt-vana Reached
Hold onto your seats… I’m surfing the Net *wirelessly* from my Newton.
*W-I-R-E-L-E-S-S-L-Y*
Newton 2000 plus Lucent WaveLan Silver Wi-Fi card plus the recently released drivers. I am in Geek Heaven.
The Palm VII I lug around has started looking… weak. This so rocks.
06.12.02
The Devil and Mr. Mathematician
Recently seen on a mailing list:
“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of hell.”
– St. Augustine.
06.02.02
Wonderful Day
I’ve had a simply wonderful day with Amy. Here’s a nice vinette to wrap it all up:
I’m sitting at a coffee shop, on the Park Blocks downtown. Amy has brought her Powerbook and we’re using the wireless net connection put together by PersonalTelco. It’s beautiful out, warm sunshine and green leaves filtering the heat. We’re sitting next to my convertible while Amy reads out the play-by-play for the Sacremento/LA game. I close my eyes and… relax.
Life is pretty damn good on Sunday afternoons.
05.31.02
Feature Creepy
I just took a look though through that list of features for Jaguar, aka MacOS X 1.2. And I saw this:
“Pulsating gumdrop of death pointer”
I swear that’s in there. Would anyone like to explain this?
05.30.02
Jaguar Features
Feature list for MacOS X 1.2:
Quartz Extreme – GPU hardware acceleration
Universal Access: Quartz ‘zooming’
Universal Access: Read back text from all apps
Universal Access: Invert screen
Ink – global handwriting recognition
Finder: multithreading
Finder: Services
Finder: Spring-loaded folders
Finder: Open With.. contextual menu
Finder: Automatic thumbnail creation
Finder: Integrated search
Finder: SMB browsing
Finder: WebDAV/iDisk speed improvements
Finder: Set text size
Finder: Set label position to bottom or right
Finder: Show item info
Dock: removed pin-stripe background
Get Info window with collapsable panes
Python, fast CGI, TCL, Ruby
X Server: Server optimised JVM
X Server: Disk, print and email quotas
X Server: “headless” operation
X Server: Improved LDAP, AD, Kerberos support
X Server: Netinstall, Netboot
System Prefs: various panes renamed
Mouse shadow
Pulsating gumdrop of death pointer
Draggable minimised windows
SMB compatibility, bug-fixes
SMB Server
Printer sharing/networking with Win/Mac/Unix – CUPS
Quicktime 6: improved speed, efficiency
Quicktime 6: MPEG4 support
Genie effect window closing
Update Terminal.app
Improved scrolling
Mail.app: threading, stability
Mail.app: expanded filter criteria, use multiple filters
Mail.app: Exchange support
Mail.app: Merge mailboxes, use 1 mailbox for all mail
Mail.app: label emails
Mail.app: intelligent spam filter
Mail.app: start IM conversation in iChat
Mail.app: search over multiple mailboxes
New global Address Book with vCard, SMS, Bluetooth
Sherlock 3 – web services, channels
Java 1.4 – new functionality, improves performance on other platforms
Simple Finder for kids
Quartz rendering for Carbon Quickdraw apps
Universal Access improvements for disabled
Bluetooth support
Visual Eject key feedback
iChat – integrated AIM compatible instant messaging app
Quartz anti-aliasing for Carbon Quickdraw apps
Application icon on minimised windows
Improved GCC compiler for overall system performance
Other optimisations, bug-fixes
IPv6, IPSec
FreeBSD 4.4 base
Windows VPN compatibility
Improved Disk Copy app & CMM modules
Rendezvous – automatic device discovery on IP
Developers can use brushed metal look in Project Builder
iPhoto 1.1
New Digital Hub preferences
Preferences for enabling, configuring built-in Firewall
05.25.02
Of Recent Days
The months of 2002 have been consumed by this ‘on the verge of finishing’ project that has dragged on for… months. Literally the site has supposedly been going to launch the next month for just about each month ahead. I’m so tired of this thing. The situation, being just about to finish leaves me in a really irritable mood all the time.
My main job these days is the work at PGE. And my focus is getting the project finished. Whenever a project is ‘almost’ finished I begin to put my concentration on getting it done. The closer I get to finishing the more I anticipate finishing. Each week, each day I get a bit more edgy, my humour gets a bit more wry and I get more cynical.
It permeates the rest of the my life as well. I get short with people around me and Amy bears the brunt of it. My plumeting mood has got to be rough because of the contrast with my usual, more even countenence.
I feel like a real heel too because in recent weeks I’ve gotten a new Stereo for my Ghia and a brand new office chair. I ought to be fine and I ought to be able to separate out my issues at work from my actions and feelings at home.
My irritability has only been tempered by the moments that I spend doing and focusing on something else. But I find that it’s got to be something that I can be intense about. I’ve been playing on Amy’s keyboard tapping out and layering little 12 and 16 measure tunes. I’ve been playing some French learning tape tracks over and over again. And I’ve been working on this Director project that our class has supposed to have been putting together.
These are projects that occupy my time before I finish TownPartner and get on with my life.
05.10.02
Typographic Horrors
For the first time, I’ve seen a sign that just made me gasp and gawk. Could it get much worse? It’s one thing for a store’s sign to use the “OCR Extended” font which comes with Windows.
But to then follow it up with Arial in all caps? It’s enough to make my eyes bleed. Look at that weak R or those ugly ‘E’s with their equal length arms. You’d think it was a cheap knock off of Helvetica…
05.06.02
Wonderful Ads
I love stuff like this: thismodernworld.com/…/gra_bDoctor.jpg
At the bottom: For 30 days, test Camels in your “T-Zone” (T for Throat, T for Taste) The woman with a the T overlay looks like she’s got just like lines needed for “Total laryngectomy“
This is just one of several interesting ads that are available: thismodernworld.com/…/gra_badvert.html