PEBCAC

The Loc8tor, designed to find any misplaced object as long as you had the foresight to tag it with one of the Loc8tor’s wireless tags before it went AWOL.

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The folks at Open Voting Foundation got their hands on a Diebold AccuVote TS touchscreen voting machine. They took it apart (pictures here), and found the most serious security flaw ever discovered in this machine. A single switch is all that is required to cause the machine to boot an unverified external flash instead of the builtin verified EEPROM

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The best TV is animated…much like the only innovation happening in music, is in hip-hop. Debate this latter, I’m not even a big rap fan…but it’s true.
Nonetheless, I’ve noticed from looking at my media-center Tivo that over half of the programs I’m watching are animated. Examples:

The Simpsons

This is probably obvious to anyone that watches any animation. The best TV show, both for its writing and directing, is the Simpsons. It’s not always what I’m watching, but for 17years!! its dominated American Pop culture. Even when it’s slipping, it’s still better than 90% of the TV being broadcast. I’d rather ratch Simpson’s re-runs that watch most of the crap on TV

The Boondocks

This cartoon took a couple of episodes to grow on me, but it has. In a testament to that…I will be purchasing the new box set. This is the first DVD I’ve bought since Weezer’s Video Capture Device. The animation style is a cross between McGruders style from the print comic strip and high concept anime. The themes are intense, the commentar quick, sharp and funny and just when you think you’ve gotten the joke… the writers slash your perception of things. Probably one of the best things, ever, on TV.

King of the Hill

Yes, the writing has faded and it’s reaching it’s end. But it is returning for 2007.

King of th Hill is probably one of the more realistically written TV shows. From the precise capturing of the character verbal and physical mannerisms, to the excellent continuity, King of the Hill is underappreciated. The writing often surpases the Simpsons. Although the show is thousands of times slower that the Simpsons and other Fox stablehorses like the Family Guy and American Dad. The show is methodical, well written, well timed and I’m not too thrilled it’s ending.

South Park

South Park continues to push the envelope with episodes mocking the Passion of the Christ, Scientology, Disability Rights, Immigration, Islam and anything else you might deem sacred. There is no one safe from the glare of the South Park writers. If you haven’t been challenged, disgusted and revolted lately…then you aren’t watching South Park. Great TV!

Honorable Mention:

Robot Chicken

Moral Orel

Family Guy

The site will be put on “warm standby.” Yes Virginia, the cold war is really over.

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To hell with the Segway Human Transporter. I want the Segway Centaur. Check out the video.

This is the first review I’ve seen of Apple’s Wireless Mighty Mouse.
I think I need one.
One of the major slowdowns to development, oddly, is the ‘right mouse’ button.

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General Spewings

From the hardwired keyboard shortcuts of expose to the high gloss outer white shell, the apple screams high design.

Much like the ipod, albeit not to the same degree, apple products feel like alien technology. The keyboard is composed of individual chicklet like keys. It’s reminsecent of a PDA, but is actually very functional. The back of the screen has the nifty lit apple logo as well. The ports are all flush mounted and the power cord is magnetized, this should be standard on all laptops. It seems trivial, but is wonderfully useful on the road.  My only real complaint so far from a design standpoint is the heat and the edge of the keyboard/laptop. The edge is sharp and none too comfortable after long stretches.

Now, I’ve mentioned the heat a couple times, and it’s plenty noticeable. I guess that’s why it’s a NOTEBOOK and not a LAPtop. This thing could cause sterility. No, really. I’ve had worse in a Toshiba Satellite with a desktop prescott 3.2 P4. It’s not unbearable, but could be better. Hopefully the new Intel Core Duo’s will be implemented eventually…they’re rumored to run much less hot.

I’ve been shocked that so many hardware components are compliant with OSX. My external harddrives have all worked. My bluetooth camera phone syncs, and has cool remote control feature for the desktop and media player. My printer worked flawlessly as well.

Network file sharing has been really easy to setup. And with the release of FLIP4MAC, I’m looking forward to streaming more media through quicktime.

My biggest problem has probably been developing at the same speed. You just get into certain habits with specific platforms and I’m sure this will change…but it’s still annoying. Preparing images and developing webpages is still slightly easier on windows, because I’m know the tools. I’ve only had about 7 hours to work on the mac though, so it should get better.

It’s been great so far. Next week I’m going to start using it for work as well and that should let me get a lot more done. Forcing myself to use it in that enviornment will make reducing the learning curve a functional necessity. So.. we’ll see….

enough ramblin. At some point I’m hoping to get something together coherent reviewing the specifc differences between Windows and OSX and the general apple thoughts.

I found this cool plugin for OSX and wordpress that enables a posting from a widget. Test!

This is better than a flatpanel in the bathroom.
from digg:
Fish ‘n Flush is the safe, fish-friendly aquarium for your bathroom. Kids AND adults love it!

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Okay, I’ve slacked off due to an enormous amount of wor, massive pond rebuilding at home and general health issues. Nonetheless, I’m posting a series of more detailed mac reviews, from the viewpoint of a windows geek. The first will be posted tomorrow. Other than that, TTFN…gotta go check on the pond.

Okay, I’ve slacked off due to an enormous amount of wor, massive pond rebuilding at home and general health issues. Nonetheless, I’m posting a series of more detailed mac reviews, from the viewpoint of a windows geek. The first will be posted tomorrow. Other than that, TTFN…gotta go check on the pond.

Okay, I’ve slacked off due to an enormous amount of wor, massive pond rebuilding at home and general health issues. Nonetheless, I’m posting a series of more detailed mac reviews, from the viewpoint of a windows geek. The first will be posted tomorrow. Other than that, TTFN…gotta go check on the pond.

Cool and frivolous parrot training gadget. Digital recordings play at regular intervals to train your bird while you’re out.

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from digg:

Finally, straight talk from someone inside Symantec.

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Sick, have been since Harrisburg. Will be posting major update soon. Many things to compare discuss etc.

Using a mac makes you smug. it works. it just does. tired. 5 hours in car plus 1.5 hour traffic standstill. In Harrisburg. g ‘night

 

 

Resources for switching from XP to MAC OS X

I’ve been digging around and trolling on macosxhints.com and have come across a couple of resources to ease the transition. I’m not doing a total pc abandonment, yet, so I’m not in a major rush.

So far, it’s still not as fluid for me to do basic webdesign on the macbook, but this is simply because I need to learn shortcuts. However, reconfiguring user accounts and administration is already easier. I had to reconfigure the administrator account. On linux and XP/2k3, this can cause massive problems when the underlying string value doesn’t change, particularly with things like active directory. No such problems on the mac. Besides, after working for several hours on the mac…I had to sync podcasts on my xp box, simply because the mac didn’t have the data yet. Nonetheless, the OS hung and crashed repeatedly while doing this…no fun.

Here are the resources I’ve been using so far:

PC Mag : Switching from Windows to Mac

OS X software for switchers

Mac Rumors List of Universal Binaries

Apple Guide - simplistic

Switching to the Mac, the missing manual

Mac Rumors - Installing Apps in OS X

Play Super Mario bros on line(or download it). I’m sorry for any problems playing it or/and the bad music(if you have that problem. There also links on that page(on the right side) to other classic nintendo games

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It’s been a long day at work and on the road. So I’m going to keep it short.

Even though I was sick, I spent most of the day wishing I could play on the mac. I’ve reconfigured the user structure to reflect the administrative split between the admin account and the general user accounts, my own included.

The mac has had few problems. I’ve installed p2p software in order to try out some new software, etc. But, I hesitant to install much, as I’m still getting use to the OS.

I’m going to give it to my wife for a couple of days soon, while I’m on business and will post her comments as well. The OS is still fast and the machine is still hot, but I’m still wishing I had 12 more hours in the day in order to learn this little beastie.

Why we’re here

Okay, basically I’m working on a project where the owners of a site are using macs due to general computer inexperience. As a result, I’m using a mac as well in order to provide support and debug certain web functionalities that don’t seem to work across platform. Besides, I also need something that is going to work the first time, everytime. While I don’t expect perfection. The first few hours have been pleasant. Besides, I’ve always been a secret fan of apple. Here’s the experience so far.

The Applestore

The Applestore in SouthHills, was still thick with the hipness and pretension I expect from Apple. However the excellent customer service and really enthusiastic sales were not present. True, we showed up on a Saturday at 8:30…but we we’re buying two 13.3 macbooks, two ipod nano’s and two applecare extended warranties…not cheap. Nonetheless, after walking around for about 15 minutes, we asked a sullen looking teenager to help us. He was more interested in selling us extra services, software and accessories and not that proficient at trying to assist an experienced Windows user in migrating. Finally, we ordered our two machines and, due to the ram upgrade, had to come back the next day (today/sunday).

Sunday we showed up for our machines. I’m not sure if it was because the airconditioning was out at the mall, but the staff person that helped us was SEVERELY put out by the process. He was not too keen to assist in answering the few remaining questions I had…so off we went.

Unpacking

Unpacking the Ipod and Macbook revealed the normal excellent origami style packaging I’ve come to expect from Apple.

The macbook itself doesn’t need reviewed, there are plenty of those. I love the sleek design, magnetic latch and power cable, flush mounted ports and general top noth industrial design.
Firing it Up and the first trip around the block

Having setup hundreds of pc’s…this was a delight. The entire machine was setup and online in just about five minutes. Most of the setup was automatic.

I immediately posted to my blog but lost some functionality in safari, so I went to firefox. Having never installed a mac application, it took me a few seconds to figure to drag the icon onto the harddrive icon. I’m sure all of these functions have names, but I’m still looking for a good OSX book to get myself and the wife up to speed.

Shortly after posting to the website and getting up firefox I poked around and found my shared network drives on my windows server and media center. Quicktime needs to get various codecs to play most of my windows-centric media. Nonetheless, being able to view the windows data and access it so easily was great.

Finally, for very first impressions…everthing is FAST. True, the visual eye candy adds to the sense of speed…but it’s FAST. And Hot! Very Hot! Not unbearable…but slightly under my Toshiba A75 with a fullsize Pentium 3.2HT single-core.

Second Run Tonight

Got back on the machine after charging the battery some. My wife is still saying “It’s so pretty” every few minutes. Playing around I picked up our Sony W600i and turned on the bluetooth. Instantly, the phone was seen and with one click the photos moved. Next, I grabbed a bargain 4megapixel camera we have and plugged it in via USB, it was instantly viewed and transfered the pics. Finally, I tried a ‘backup’ DVD and it played with no problem.

While all of this was happening, I setup the update program to run. So far, that’s where we are now. It’s ‘bouncing’ and ready to go. I’m gonna logoff and get some sleep so I can play tonight. Will post result tomorrow

Summary

I really am enamored right now. It’s fast, sexy and sickeningly easy to use. I’ve got lots of questions, but I haven’t lost any real mission critical functionality. This is amazing considering it’s a fundamental platform change. Will post initial thoughts tomorrow about design, connectivity, media, functionality vs windows, ease of use, etc…

Think different(ly)