Posts

OK, I’ve had Windows Vista installed for 9 days now and my verdict is … it’s not worth upgrading. Vista is supposed to be more secure than XP but this manifests itself in really annoying ways. The screen flashes black and a box pops up that must be dealt with. That’d be great if it were only for important things but it happens all the time! I’ve had it happen when I want to change the smallest system setting. I’ve had it happen while downloading files. C’mon, get out of my way. ...

I installed Vista on my home desktop machine on Friday. I’ve already been bitten twice by the new (off( button with Vista. I’m going to have to figure out how to change its default behavior. I enjoy reading Joel Spolsky’s articles. In Choices = Headaches he talks about the problems with Vista: Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. ...

Not that it applies to this blog at all but Web 2.0: Buzz-Monitoring and Tracking is a nice write-up of some solutions and I need to look at it more closely. I’ve been trying to use Google notebook to track things but it’s not working so well for me. The interface is kind of clumsy. Need to get back and try it some more, I guess. In the meantime, I can use the blog to call attention to articles that are useful for me and for my hordes of readers.

I installed Vista on my home desktop machine. I say “installed” rather than upgraded because Microsoft’s installation routine refused to let me upgrade. I spent a couple of hours on trying to figure out how to get around that and, in the end, decided that I’d rather install FireFox, Acrobat Reader, iTunes and the other programs that I want or need. It so happens that Thunderbird 2 beta 2 was released recently. I tried “nightlies” or alphas and it was a little too experimental for me. No lost mail but just some inconsistencies in how things worked. Fair enough, they’re alphas. And beta 1 had issues with message filters. So I dropped back to 1.5 In the meantime, I’ve started using IMAP and procmail and message filters are less important. ...

Found a neat idea if you’re into doing things yourself. You can use this device to make your own bottles of soda, mixing the flavors and setting the carbonation the way you want. Create Your Own Fizzy Drinks

I enjoy reading 360digest when I get a chance. Not only is my brother-in-law Dave a newly-minted real estate agent but the house next door was up for sale for a while recently. Real estate is one of those things that we all have to deal with, because we all need a place to live. Anyway, I was amused to read that on the blog this quote: In Portland, Ore., $300,000 means a clean and simple floating home on the Pacific ocean ...

We’re experimenting with linking back to blogs who reference a business on mypages.com For example, a business that listed itself recently was Hammy’s Pizza. It’s in the Portland Pizza category.

What I now know about Wordpress 2.1 … is that I can’t run it because my host is running MySQL prior to 4.0. Tried doing the upgrade and it sort of worked … but not really. So I reverted back to 2.0.6 and found 2.0.7 which is what we’re running now. Really have to get credit to the folks at WordPress - they have made a solid piece of software that’s easy enough to work with that many people have made plug-ins … but it handles stuff like 2.0.6->2.1->2.0.7 without messing up. Very comfortable feeling, relying on it. ...

I’ve had this article on my hot list for a while. In Human Scale, Neighborhoods, and MySpaceaphobia Stowe Boyd writes well about some of the issues with online sites like MySpace or Facebook and even proposes some solutions to the problems they have. Human-oriented social contexts should allow users to control scale: how many people can access what aspects of my on-line persona, what sorts of communication are available based on what degree of connection, and so on. If I want to limit my profile on Facebook to only current students of my university, I should be able to do so. If I want to rectrict access to my music playing habits to only those people that I know, then Last.fm should allow me to. ...

In their article Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs published today, the Times makes a number of good points. Probably the best one is: As some wags have said, the initials D.R.M. should really stand for “Digital Restrictions Management.” One of the reasons I’m reluctant to switch to an Apple computer is because of the apparent lack of alternatives on the Mac. I don’t use Microsoft’s software or formats for music, I use AudioGrabber to rip to MP3 format and then listen to those in iTunes. ...