retrophisch.com

Farewell, C & G

The big news in the Mac market today is that longtime software publisher Casady & Greene is closing its doors, with all software reverting back to the individual developers.

Casady & Greene’s tour de force in software publishing was Conflict Catcher, which eased the process of troubleshooting control panel and extension conflicts in OS 9 and below. It was a primary weapon in any Mac troubleshooter’s arsenal, but alas, it has no place in an OS X world. The only other C & G product I’ve used, and continue to use, is Spell Catcher, which will continue in development through its developer, Rainmaker Research.

After Apple bought SoundJam and turned it in to iTunes, and OS X began to dominate the landscape, it was only a matter of time. So we bid Casady & Greene a fond farewell, and thank them for taking the risk on publishing some great software.

Yellow Pages hot commodity

Knowing the company I work for, the n3rdling thought I would be interested in this article.

Yes, the Yellow Pages business is a cash cow. One of the reasons Bell Atlantic wanted to buy out GTE was that our Yellow Pages business was a major revenue generator; our last year prior to the “merger,” GTE Directories accounted for 20% of all the revenue for all of GTE. I haven’t heard any numbers in the past two years regarding VZ Directories’ contribution to the overall revenue structure, but I’m sure it’s not as high a percentage. In addition to the economic downturn, we’ve got the former Bell Atlantic books dragging us down…

Why Star Wars Is Better Than Titanic

1. The Titanic is big, but it doesn’t have hyperdrive.
2. Yoda could’ve used the Force to lift Titanic out of the water.
3. Leia is a princess, a senator, a freedom fighter, and Jedi material. Rose is just marriage bait.
4. Ewoks throw better parties than either first class or steerage.
5. When flying towards the Titanic, Wedge couldn’t say, “Look at the size of that thing!” and really mean it.
6. It would be much scarier to get chased around the boat by a raving madman with a lightsaber as opposed to a handgun.
7. Titanic is egalitarian by portraying poor people as sympathetic characters. Star Wars is egalitarian by promoting bug-eyed amphibians to Admiral.
8. Said bug-eyed amphibious Admiral does not lose his ship.
9. We know Cal is the bad guy because he sneers at the poor and treats his fiancee like property. We know Darth Vader is the bad guy ‘cause he strangles people & blows up planets for fun.
10. Yeah, Leo can dance, but can he fly an X-wing?
11. Rose braves icy water to rescue her man. Leia braves Jabba the Hutt.
12. There are always enough escape pods in Star Wars.
13. Do you know what the Empire does to self-proclaimed “kings of the world?”
14. If Luke were handcuffed to a pipe below decks in a sinking ship, he would use the Force to get the key.
15. Nothing has the same sting as “I’d rather kiss a Wookie.”
16. Han is frozen in carbonite and turned into a wall ornament. Leo simply freezes.
17. Han Solo would’ve steered clear of that stinkin’ iceberg!
18. We knew the boat was gonna sink. But who could’ve anticipated, “Luke…I am your father”?
19. Stormtroopers blast big holes in stupid minor characters; everyone in Titanic was a minor character.
20. When Star Wars was proclaimed coolest movie of all time by half of planet earth, George Lucas did not make a fool of himself at the Oscars.

21. Titanic morals:

• gamble
• cheat on your fiancé
• pose nude for pictures
• premarital sex is OK if you’re infatuated
• let undesirables drown

22. Star Wars morals:

• fight evil
• do good
• respect all life even if it’s ugly and slithers
• rescue the princess
• save the planet

Yes, an oldie, but a goodie, back from when James Cameron’s history lesson run amok displaced Star Wars as the highest-grossing movie of all time…

Comcast woes

So at some point yesterday morning, our broadband connection died. We both had been using it in the early morning, checking email, pulling up web pages, that sort of thing. But when I went back to do the same around 10:30-11ish, no connection. Checked the cable modem; no connection with cable.

Now, we’ve been experiencing drop-outs left and right for the past few months on a seemingly regular basis. I’ve chalked it up to the Comcast buyout of AT&T’s broadband business, and the switching over, but it is getting a little ridiculous. Not to mention that even before the buyout happening, we had more broadband dropouts in any single month than a I did in a year and a half with Verizon DSL at our old house.

Spent about two hours on the phone with a Comcast tech yesterday. The guy was very competent, I’ll give him that, and we tried a myriad of things. I had even gone out and bought a new cable modem, just in case that was the problem. It does not appear to be. Other friends in the neighborhood still have their connections, and there’s no reported outage for our area. So the tech and I are both thinking that’s something’s screwy at the junction box. We’ll find out later today; an on-site tech is due between 2 and 5.

The past year and couple of months with broadband cable as soured me on it, however. Especially when you’re trying to run a server on that connection. Said server has now moved, however, to the more reliable business-class DSL line of a friend.

DSL was never available in our area when we first moved here, which is why we had to go with cable for broadband. I have begun research on if I can get DSL now, even though it will be “slower” than the shared 1.5 Mbps of the cable connection. The Verizon DSL web site claims that we’re “pre-qualified,” which you would think means that our line checks out for it, but we’ve been pre-qualified before, and then I spoke with a live CSR only to be told that we’re not in an area serviced by Verizon DSL.

Which would leave me the small local telco, Advantex, which does offer DSL service, but for $10 more a month than what I’m paying for cable. (We get $10 knocked off our bill each month for providing our own cable modem.) The question again would be is Advantex’s DSL offered in our area. I’ll follow up with the two DSL providers on Monday.

All I know is that dial-up sucks these days for most everything but email…

Condemn it

Awwwww. The po’ wittle U.N. buildings are falling apart, and they don’t have no one to pay to fix them up…

Guess who they want to foot the bill?

Thanks, but no thanks, United-Against-America Nations. We already shell out more money for your hostile, ineffective, do-nothing, impotent organization than any other nation on the planet. Get out of our country and go set up shop in France.

I am Dilbert

Our workgroup maintains a central server for others in the company to access important information re: our projects, software to install, etc. As part of all of this, our sysadmin recently created a report that shows all of the current “advertisements” going out to our users, reminding them they need to upgrade Application X or what have you. Our great and wise sysadmin then puts a link to this report directly on the front page of our server, easy to find, easy to click on, easy to download.

So then my boss decides that this isn’t good enough, and that the report has to be emailed to our opposite numbers on the eastern seaboard. Now the opposite numbers have the exact same access to the aforementioned web page as we do. They can just as easily go fetch this report as any of us can. But now I have to email them a copy of it every week! <sigh>

Anyone want to hire a Mac-head with some basic web design skills? As long as you’re in Dallas and you’ve got killer health insurance, I’m flexible on other stuff…

Mac OS X 10.3 beta first impressions

So yesterday I installed the WWDC release of 10.3 on a spare G4/933 at the office. It simply flew. It is fast. Wicked fast. Below are some of my observations of it on the 933, as well as my PowerBook G4/500. (ATPM staffers, you’ve seen most of this already.)

Mac OS X 10.3 appears as fast—if not faster—than OS 9 on the same machine…

The system in question is the aforementioned G4/933 single-proc with SuperDrive. Our OS 9-based graphics configuration was loaded on it, but this system hasn’t seen any testing in a while, so it was a perfect candidate for co-opting to test Panther. I loaded the Panther Disc 1 into the SuperDrive, and started the installation. Typical OS X install, began after a restart, pretty boring. I figured that the install would kill the existing OS 9 config, but that’s easily replaced, so it was no big deal.

Filled out the contact info, selected my time zone, and voila!, it brought me to the log-in prompt. First surprise: don’t all previous versions of OS X want to restart at this point? So I logged in, and brought up a Finder window. Second surprise: all of my OS 9 stuff was still there, the Panther install didn’t touch any of it! (The reason for this is that on the Panther developer beta, the default install is to upgrade the existing OS X system, if present. If not, it simply installs it. If you want to wipe the drive for a clean install, you have to tell the installer.)

Eye candy-wise, they haven’t put in any new user pics, desktops, or screen savers just yet.

Regarding the new Finder window: I like it. Yes, it is a little Windowsy, but damn if Apple hasn’t outdone Windows on a Windows feature/interface. I have nearly always used the OS X Finder in column mode anyway, so there was little for me to get used to with the new one. I made that change in my Finder prefs right away, so that all my Finder windows open in column view. And yes, boys and girls, Finder prefs are sticking!

System Preferences have been streamlined. Desktop and Screen Effects are now one and the same, with buttons denoting each to click between. They are not tabs in the sense that they do not look like tabs, but that is how they function.

While I’m not wild about the metal appearance everywhere (it has grown on me through repeated iChat, iTunes, Safari, and Mellel use), I do like the removal of the Aqua stripes from all windows. Most pleasant.

It’s fast. Fast. Wicked fast. Did I mention it was fast?

As usual, there are many subtle interface surprises that you wouldn’t think to look for, but when they happen, they pleasantly surprise you, then you promptly forget about them. Which is why I’m not listing any here right now. :)

Exposé is a very cool feature. Very cool. Wicked cool. (Yes, I like that word.) It’s going to change the way people work in OS X with windows and applications, and I believe it will be a change for the better.

One thing that’s missing thus far: an Internet pref pane. They pulled the .Mac stuff out and gave it its own pref pane, but Internet is AWOL. So no way that I’ve found thus far to determine default browser, default mail, etc. Hey, it’s a developer beta, there’s more to come.

Safari 1.0 is included. IE 5.2.2 is the other web browser of note. I don’t have a FireWire cam to use with iChat AV, but I like the app itself, especially how the typing area at the bottom of a chat window automatically expands as you type. This way, you don’t have to scroll up one line at a time to see exactly what you’ve typed.

Cool switching, Cmd-Tab, brings up an enormous bar with your active apps in the center of the screen, with a semi-transparent background, like with the brightness and sound pop-ups. It also puts the current app at the front of the list, with the app you last used right behind it. For instance, right now I’m switching back and forth between Safari and iChat AV, and I don’t have to go to the Dock and cool-switch through a bunch of other stuff between the two, or use my mouse to click. One Cmd-Tab smoothly switches me back and forth. I think this is going to kill a good portion of the market for Liteswitch.

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten right now. I have yet to encounter one of my apps or little extras that’s breaking under the beta, but then again I haven’t given my systems a total workout with the new OS just yet. I expect that now that this release is in developers’ hands, we’ll begin seeing updates to applications left and right in the coming month or so. More to come.

How pathetic am I?

So I’ve spent part of last night and this morning, off and on, installing Fink, FinkCommander, and X11. Why? Why, to play XGalaga, of course, the open source clone of my favorite childhood video game. Geez, you didn’t think I was going to go through all that trouble to do work or anything, did you? ;-)

Server moving

The site will be going down for a bit this evening as we move the server. Should be back up some time after dinner time, CST.

UPDATE, 7:30 PM CST: And we’re back…
Thanks for the quick move, Jim. This was just a physical move for the current server, as prep for our move to a new box in the near future.

Going out of business twice as fast

I’ve got to start reading more from James Lileks. Like with the previously-noted pen comment, he cracks me up:

Today they announce the new machines. From all I hear the new computers go up to 11, so to speak. Dual 2 ghz processors. Of course, this means the company, which is DOOMED, will now go out of business twice as fast as before.

Pen tech

A few minutes later I have a fistful of Bics, including the new nevr-dri-out highlighting pens with a clear reservoir tank. You can see the lovely yellow ink sloshing around. No more wondering how much highlighting you can do - just check your tank. Highlight with confidence, friend. Across the room, a Sharpie salesman who, true to the name of his product, had the manner of Chris Finch from “The Office”, was handing out the new bleedless acid-free silver-ink Sharpie. Got two. At the Uniball table, the new magic pen with invisible ink that turns purple when it hits the page! And it has - drumroll - a clear reservoir tank. All your old pens with their inscrutable interiors are old and busted, and I sneer at you from my position on the clear-tank paradigm verandah, where I have a lounge chair and an umbrella and a drink. It’s clear but it tastes purple.

Make Your Company Look Good After You’ve Behaved Badly for Dummies

1. Verizon Wireless rants, raves, and whines about how the FCC regulation for wireless local number portability—letting you keep your same phone number, even when you change providers—is going to cost billions and billions of dollars. Despite the fact that the FCC regulation has been in place for years and wireless providers have chosen to ignore it, since the FCC has failed to enforce it.

2. Take the FCC to court over the issue!

3. After the court rules against you, give in and announce that you’re going to lead the industry and everyone should copy you, because by Zeus, you’re doing what’s best for the customer. (But only after being forced to…)

Isn’t technology cool?

1. Buy the Baby Einstein CD set. (Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, and Bach)
2. Rip all 4 CDs to MP3 with iTunes.
3. Copy all 4 sets of MP3s to your iPod.
4. Now you can use your Aiwa noise-canceling headphones plugged in to the iPod and situated on the wife’s abdomen to let your developing little son listen to the classics, proven to beneficially stimulate neural development.

Self-branding for the road

So how far would you go to promote your own personal brand? Some people nab custom license plates to slap on their vehicles in their respective states. Thanks to the Acme License Maker, now you too can experiment with self-branding for your personal transport. (Please bear in mind that I do not know the rules for number of characters allowed in the states shown.)

For instance, I could get:

Michael might prefer:

Or maybe he’d like:

Jason could go with:

Brad and Mena could promote their new venture with:

I know Lee has a custom Macintosh Florida plate, but would he slap on DTPBYLEE, provided Florida allowed all of those characters?

Just some fun food for thought…

That pesky double standard

John Trever, Alburquerque, New Mexico, 19 June 2003

(Thanks, Rick)

Microsoft comes full circle with IE

Marc Marshall brings up the excellent point that Microsoft has come full circle with regard to Internet Explorer. His is the last post in Macintouch’s Browser Future report for today:

The bottom line in this situation is this: For the past several years, Microsoft gave away a free browser to kill the competition, and succeeded. Now, they have stopped development of their standalone product, and are giving people exactly three choices to get their “standard” product: 1) Buy Windows. 2) Use MSN for Internet access. 3) Pay them $10/month or $80 per year. No free options, no free upgrades.

The price is higher than Opera or Omni’s paid competition, and you don’t have a free option, and you have an ongoing fee. In fact, if MS starts charging annual licensing for Windows, there will be no lifetime-licence-purchasable version of IE. This sounds like exactly the sort of consumer hostile situation that monopolies create, and governments are supposed to protect us from.

Now that they’ve pretty much saturated the market, Microsoft has been scrambling on how to consistently generate revenue. They have long discussed subscription software licensing, and this situation with IE appears to be the first shot across the bow. Unfortunately, I do not forsee the mass sheep of Windows and IE/Mac users torpedoing the Microsoft Bismarck any time soon.

Kerry mum on Cape wind farm

Presidential hopeful John Kerry is running around the country talking about renewable energy, like wind and solar power, proposing we get 20% of all our energy from renewable sources by 2020. He calls it “Twenty by ‘20,” or something to that effect. Yeah, I suppose that’s something I could get behind. Having seen the big wind farm at South Point on the Big Island of Hawai’i (the southernmost tip of the United States, and quite a windy locale), I think that if there’s a suitable windy location, yeah, put up a wind farm. It won’t provide all of the energy a population might need, but it would certainly help.

But will the Senator bow to the liberal elite on the proposed Camp Wind windmill farm on Horseshoe Shoal, seven miles off Nantucket Island? Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard residents are complaining that the wind farm will ruin their respective views. Awwww, po’ wittle ewitists. They whine and complain about getting away from fossil fuel consumption, but when offered the chance to do so in their own backyard, they don’t want it because it’s not aesthetically pleasing. Seems someone wants to have it both ways.

Myron Ebell, of the free-market environmental think tank, Competitive Enterprise Institute:

“People think if you live in the right area you don’t have to put up with anything. Well, where are they going to get their energy? From little squirrels in wheels?”

(Thanks, Rick)

Mailsmith 2.0 arrives

Bare Bones has released v2.0 of my favorite email client. Major kudos to Michael for getting SpamSieve bundled with all Mailsmith 2.0 purchases (before 31 July 2003).

Speaking of which, SpamSieve 1.3.1 has been released. Seems to be a bit faster to me, and I like the new script addition that sends a piece of mail directly to the Trash when I mark it as spam. (I have the Mailsmith filter that SpamSieve’s script uses set to send spam to the Trash; others have a spam folder, so your mileage may vary.)

If you’re already using both of these products, here’s the kicker regarding Mailsmith 2.0: it features direct integration with SpamSieve! No more scripts or filters! Rock on, Michael! Way to go!

IE6 gives me hives

Ok, not really, but it’s really ticking me off. Why is it that my site validates as XHTML 1.0 Trans, validates as CSS2, looks perfectly fine in Safari, Camino, even IE5/Mac, yet looks like complete dung in IE6? I know, I know, IE6 doesn’t fully support the CSS2 spec, yet, so I’m sure that’s playing a huge role. I suppose I could drop it to CSS1, but I’d rather be posting than fiddling with making the site look exactly the same in Microsloth’s stupid Windows browser.

In Microsucks’ defense, there are some font issues with the site in Firebird, but at least pages scroll properly in that browser. I haven’t tried Opera for Windows yet.

Good riddance, IE, part III

Speaking of the dress-code-aware genius that is Dan Benjamin (is that enough, Dan?), he offers up some delectable food for thought on the discontinuation of standalone IE development for the Mac. I say standalone, because it seems that IE will continue on in MSN for Mac OS X.

Zeldman sums it all up rather well.

From here, as it has for several weeks now, it looks like a period of technological stasis and dormancy yawns ahead. Undoubtedly the less popular browsers will continue to improve. They may even gain in market share. But few of us will be able to take advantage of their sophisticated standards support if most of the market continues to use an unchanged year 2000 browser.

But enough, and enough, and enough. We are glad of the latest versions of Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Safari, and Omniweb. But on this grey and rainy day, this news of a kind of death brings no warmth. To Tantek and Jimmy and their colleagues on the IE/Mac team: for what you achieved on behalf of web standards and usability, much respect.

When it arrived, IE5/Mac was the standard for web browsers. It shamed Netscape. Complacency and stagnant development, however, have left it behind technologically. Zeldman mentions reasons people switched from IE to Camino or Safari; I switched for all the reasons he discusses, including that it’s one less Microsoft application on my system. There are choices people, and they’re better than the “standard.”

DNS Primer

If you’ve ever been interested in how your email gets from your computer to someone else’s, or how your browser knows how to load up a web site, you need to read Dan Benjamin’s excellent DNS primer at MacDevCenter. It’s geared toward Mac OS X users, but anyone can learn the basics of DNS, IP addresses, routing, and all that other techie stuff that makes the Internet work, boiled down in to simply terms by Mr. Benjamin (of Hivelogic/Hiveware fame).

Oh, and hire this dress-code-aware guy, if you have the need. Too much talent to not be getting paid well by someone, somewhere.

New jobs for friends!

It’s been a good couple of weeks for friends of the ‘phisch. Steve landed a programming job with DirecTV’s billing company in Charlotte, NC, and Richard is now a sysadmin with Standard & Poor’s in Boston. Congrats, amigos! I hope you both have long, happy, healthy, and wealthy careers with your new employers!

Latest look for retrophisch.com

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been working on a site redesign. I decided today to take it live. (You can ignore the links in the archived post; they’re flip-flopped now.)

The entire site does not, at this time, reflect what you see here on the main page. I had planned to wait until it did to switch over, but at this rate, if I continued to wait, it would be a long one. So here it is, hope you like. If you hate it and just have to see the site the way it was (and updated just like the main page), click on the Retrolook tab above and enjoy.

Not that those of you who stop by regularly really care; I know you’re reading with NetNewsWire anyway. :)

Good riddance, IE, part deux

This morning, Microsoft released a slightly-updated version of IE for Mac OS X, version 5.2.3. While no future development is planned, Microsoft will update this last version of IE as needed.

I hope Ric doesn’t mind my copying this from today’s Macintouch, but he doesn’t provide a permanent link to this story:

Clint McIntosh summarized the issues of Microsoft dropping Internet Explorer development for the Mac (something the company also has done on the Windows platform):

Microsoft is saying that they can’t do as good of a job as Apple of integrating the browser with the MacOS as a a reason they are halting development of Internet Explorer and that Safari is an excellent browser even in this public beta stage. BUT there is a serious problem ahead of us Mac users that deals with browser detection at many sites.

Many sites that rely on security or on compatibility do a browser check when you first try to view their pages. They usually make sure you are running MSIE 5.x or higher or even Netscape 4.x and higher. I’ve found that a lot of site developers don’t even realize that there are many more browsers other than IE and Netscape—either that or they just don’t care.

I’ve already found quite a few sites that don’t work at all with Safari such as my online banking through SouthTrust bank. I’ve written to the webmasters of those sites that aren’t Safari friendly but the standard answer I get back is “Our site only works with Internet explorer and netscape.”

Using iCab’s ability to identify itself as another browser, I’ve found that there is no technical reason for the limitation to IE and Netscape. They just do browser checks and see that you are using something other than IE and Netscape they deny you access. I’m not a fan of Microsoft but I do use IE on those occasions when I just can’t get a page to work with any other browser. Netscape 7 is just too slow and bloated for my liking and it still doesn’t work on a lot of sites where Netscape 4.x works flawlessly.

I’ve tried and compared the features of iCab, Opera, OmniWeb and others. They all have their good points, but Safari wins out overall. If Safari is going to be a suitable replacement for MSIE, Apple is going to have to either change the identifier to pretend it is IE or they are going to have to market the hell out of Safari to get the name known out there as a major player AND they are going to have to beef up a lot of the compatibility issues before they finalize it as a 1.0 release. There’s also the issue of browser plugins, but that’s another story.

Tigers first to leave Omaha

The LSU baseball team is swept for only the second time in all of its College World Series appearances, and their season is over. The Tigers dropped their losers’ bracket game to South Carolina yesterday, 11-10. LSU came back from a 6-0 deficit in the 1st inning to take the lead.

But Coach Smoke Laval left reliever Jason Determann in an inning too long, and it cost the Tigers severely. The Tigers had a two-run lead going in to the bottom of the 8th, when the Gamecocks blew through a tired Determann’s pitching to take a one-run lead they held on to through the top of the ninth for the win.

The Tigers had a great run: they finish the season 45-22-1, and this loss is only their first in seven tries against an SEC foe in the CWS. They were the regular season SEC Champions, and runner-up in the SEC Tournament.

More blogging coverage

Business Week Online has a good article on the growing pervasiveness of weblogs, and what they mean to mass media and consumers. I like Nick Denton’s term of “open-source media.”

Good riddance, IE

No more Internet Explorer for Macintosh. No more standalone Internet Explorer on Windows. I cannot tell you how heart-broken I am to hear this.

Test driving

So this weekend my bride and I took some big baby steps. Furniture was purchased. Items were registered. And strollers were test-driven through the aisles of the local Babies R Us. I knew having a kid was going to be a lot of fun…

Death of PNG?

Ric notes a News.com story about the impending expiration of the patent that controls the GIF file format, and what that may mean for the PNG graphics format. See, LZW compression forms the basis for the GIF format, and Unisys owns the LZW patent. A few years ago, Unisys began to flex its muscles in enforcing the LZW patent, and this basically meant the death of free and cheap shareware GIF creation/manipulation software.

To compensate, the PNG graphic format was created, and a movement to rid sites of all GIFs was born. Well, Unisys’s patent expires in the U.S. later this month; in the rest of the world, next year. The PNG format, despite many advances over GIF, has not caught on heavily outside the geek community. And it doesn’t do animation, which GIF does.

Personally, I like the PNG format, and use it when possible over GIF. (Unless I’m using someone else’s graphic, though I have converted them in the past.) Most modern browsers support it, though perhaps not fully (viz: IE).

So after the patents expire, are we going to see an explosion of activity in the GIF creation/manipulation software market? If so, you may see the PNG format remain a second-class graphic file citizen, or worse.

Cursive is dead

So sayeth the n3rdling. (And CBS.)

I have to agree; the only thing I write in cursive any more is my signature. My handwritten print is much better, and cleaner. So much so that someone is supposed to make a font for me, at some point in his copious spare time. Even then, like Jon, I’d much rather type it than write it.

Jon brought up a good point in our discussion about it: if you type it—which nowadays means in to a computer—you can index it, search it, publish it; the possibilities are endless.

This is probably why my feeble attempts at journaling have all ended in failure. Printing is just too slow, cursive is too messy. I may fill up a couple dozen pages in a journal, then it tapers off to nothing. I guess what I need is a decent journaling app, where I can print out the individual entries to put in to a binder or some other hard copy product.

The Samsung Way

The current Business Week’s cover story is about Korean tech company Samsung, and its ascendance from third-rate copycat to bleeding-edge envelope pusher. Apple gets quite a few mentions throughout as well; Samsung’s MP3 player line is third in the market worldwide, behind Number 2 iPod. Good article, showcasing how Samsung defies the conventional wisdom with its old-school processes, though it begs the question of how long the company can keep that up.

Speaking of Apple and Samsung, Jon pointed me to this article, wherein they discuss Apple’s threatened lawsuit over the Korean tech-maker’s latest revision of their Yepp series MP3 player. Seems it looks just a little too much like the iPod. Samsung’s agreed to go back to the drawing board.

Seriously, though: I love my iPod, but how many different ways are there to design a good MP3 player? Cool your jets, Steve-o. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. As long as it’s not an exact, specification-for-specification, look-by-look copy, let’em go. The iPod will still spank’em.

Change of address

DNS address, that is. In preparation for the move to our “new” server, we’re changing out our DNS name servers some time late this afternoon/evening/weekend. So if you can’t get to the site later tonight or over the weekend, it’s just because the DNS is repopulating, and that kind of takes a while.

Brain usage

So, at Dan’s urging, I took Mind Media’s Brain Persuasion Test. My results:

Your Brain Usage Profile

Auditory : 60%
Visual : 40%
Left : 50%
Right : 50%

Chris, your hemispheric dominance is equally divided between left and right brain, while you show a moderate preference for auditory versus visual learning, signs of a balanced and flexible person.

Your balance gives you the enviable capacity to be verbal and literate while retaining a certain “flair” and individuality. You are logical and compliant but only to a degree. You are organized without being compulsive, goal-directed without being driven, and a “thinking” individual without being excessively so.

The one problem you might have is that your learning might not be as efficient as you would like. At times you will work from the specific to the general, while at other times you’ll work from the general to the specific. Sometimes you will be logical in your approach while at other times random. Since you cannot always control the choice, you may experience frustrations not normally felt by persons with a more defined and directed learning style.

You may also minimally experience conflicts associated with auditory processing. You will be systematic and sequential in your processing of information, you will most often focus on a single dimension of the problem or material, and you will be more reflective, i.e., “taking the data in” as opposed to “devouring” it.

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself—and of others—while maintaining an “openness” which is redeeming. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity is not in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, the more obvious and the more functional.

Gee, who would have thought I was balanced? :)

This does explain a lot about me, however. How I seem to be at war with myself at times, creativity versus technical interests. How I can do ultra-basic stuff in Photoshop or OS X’s Terminal, but haven’t become more of a power user in either, despite my intentions to do so. Thank goodness I use an OS that allows me to consistently work both sides of my brain.

Feel free to take the test yourself and leave your results in the comments.

Speaking of “Rewriting Living History”

As to the truths contained in Hillary’s ghost-written tome, consider this:

On April 29, 1997, Hillary told CNN’s Larry King that she would never run for public office. Two years later…

Quote of the moment

“I will not read it, I will not buy it, I will not subsidize Hillary Clinton’s retirement… Obviously this is a fictional version of what happened in the White House for eight years.” —Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.), on Hillary Clinton’s new book, June 11, 2003

Here, here!

Now, if anyone wishes to buy the book for me, I would be happy to review it…

7135 first impression

As I stated previously, I went on my lunch break to the nearby Verizon Wireless store to check out the Kyocera 7135 SmartPhone. I was suitably impressed. Yes, it’s a little thicker and bulkier than most phones out there, weighing in at 6.6 ounces. But playing around with it, I didn’t find its size to be a deal-breaker. We are, after all, talking about a phone with a Palm PDA jammed in to it. Personally, I didn’t feel that it was too much bulkier than my current Motorola StarTac, once it’s folded over and in its belt clip/holster.

Decided to do a little checking on the web. Walt Mossberg likes it, but doesn’t like it. Walt’s gripes do not overly concern me, especially the email issue. Call me old-fashioned, but I just haven’t quite grasped the concept yet of checking my email on my phone. I like to stay connected and in touch via email as much as the next guy, but I honestly don’t have the type of professional or personal life that would warrant such immediate need.

Mike Wendland loves his 7135, and has had little problems with it under OS X. Since I’m no longer using iSync, I doubt I would encounter the same issues as Mike. (Said issues may have been fixed with iSync 1.1, but I haven’t come across the post yet on Mike’s site that may say so.) Reading through one forum on Palm Boulevard sounds like there was a lot of pent-up demand for the 7135 from November of last year to just this April. There’s even an entire site devoted to Kyocera SmartPhones.

I’m waiting to hear back from our VZW corporate rep, but I think I’ve found my new phone…

De-iApping

So today I de-iApped a bit. Viz: I had moved all of my contact and calendar info out of Palm Desktop, into OS X’s Address Book and iCal. Then I set up iSync to sync my Palm m505 with my TiBook. The thought was that I could then sync this info with my iPod—which I’ve done once in about six months—and whatever new mobile phone I get when my current contract expires (end of this month).

Seeing as how I’ve never used iSync to sync to my iPod (did it all manually the one time), and now I’ve got my eye on the Kyocera 7135 as my mobile phone replacement, I’ve ditched Address Book and iCal and moved everything back over to Palm Desktop. Syncing is way faster now. I think Apple is doing some really cool stuff, but the iSync Palm conduit just plain sucks. Address Book and iCal are now gone from the Dock.

Yeah, I may opt for another phone, and that might mean that I’m doing all of this again. The m505 actually is provided by my employer, so if I went with the 7135, I’d have my own Palm, with a phone wrapped around it. I’m going to look one over during my lunch break.

Defend your family, go to jail

At least in New York, Brooklyn to be specific. Ronald Dixon discovers an intruder in his son’s room, going through drawers. Intruder rushes Mr. Dixon, screaming to go upstairs with him. Mr. Dixon fears there may be others in the house that intend to harm him, his wife, and his children. Mr. Dixon shoots intruder twice, wounding him.

Mr. Dixon legally obtained his 9mm pistol in Florida, before moving to New York. New York requires all firearms to be registered. (Why? To make it easier to trace them back to criminals, presumably. To make it easier to confiscate, at worst…) Mr. Dixon made an attempt to comply with the law and register said firearm, but was unsuccessful. Mr. Dixon was able to plead down to a charge of disorderly conduct, but he could still spend up to a year in jail; at least he won’t have a criminal record when he’s done.

An anonymous letter to the Brooklyn D.A. sums it up pretty well:

“If you were in the same position that Mr. Dixon was in, I would be willing to wager that you would also use whatever means you had on hand to defend your loved ones, as any of us would.

“By prosecuting Ronald Dixon on spurious charges, you are sending a very dangerous message to the residents in your jurisdiction: Defend your family, go to jail. You are also sending an equally dangerous message to the criminal element, who would realize that law-abiding citizens would now be hesitant to defend themselves for fear of criminal prosecution, and therefore make prime targets for violent crime.”

A naturalized citizen, Mr. Dixon immigrated from Jamaica, and served in the U.S. Navy for three years. He works two jobs seven days a week to provide for his family. And now his American dream has been crushed by an anti-gun, anti-personal protection, anti-liberty district attorney. Kudos, D.A. Hynes.

Icon War

This seems to be an appropriate use for Windows XP technology…

(Thanks, Jason.)

Rome’s iman supports suicide bombings

From the Religion-of-Peace department: the leader of Europe’s largest mosque stated support for suicide bombings against Israel in a recent sermon, as well as in an interview granted to an Italian daily.

It is so refreshing to see Muslim leaders extending the hands of brotherhood and tolerance, when so many around the world have done the same for them. I suppose the difference is that those Muslim hands hold detonators and knives…

More freedom of, not freedom from

D. James Kennedy reports on recent U.S. Department of Education guidelines “that require the Secretary of Education to issue guidance on constitutionally protected prayer in elementary and secondary schools. These guidelines clarify what it is that public school students are allowed to do on campus.”

He goes on to offer an outstanding layman’s overview of the whole “separation of church and state” issue, and why that is a complete fallacy.

Incredible teaser

Steve Jobs’ other company has released a teaser for their next film, The Incredibles, due out in November next year. Consider this your splatter warning.

Cup Hat Trick

I know, it’s not three years in a row, but it is three in the last nine. The New Jersey Devils stomped the Mighty Lucks of Anaheim 3-0 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight. Though he was unable to play in the Finals, former Star Joe Nieuwendyk became only the 6th player in NHL history to win three Cups with three different teams.

I’m not shocked the Devils won, and I’m quite happy about it. I’m not shocked that this series went to seven games, though I am disappointed. Whether or not the Mighty Lucks have what it takes to get here again will be seen in the coming seasons; don’t count your lucklings before they hatch, Anaheim. You were never really in this: the Lucks were shut out 3 of 7 games; 2 games were won in overtime. I will say that Game 6 was a phenomenal display of hockey, and the Lucks deservedly won that one.

So, Commissioner Bettman, you got seven games on ABC in prime time. Congratulations. Starting in October, let’s see you ensure there’s an NHL game on ESPN or ESPN2 every single night at least one game is being played in the league. Then we’ll see professional hockey, with the oldest sports trophy in North America, start getting the exposure it deserves.

(The Stanley Cup is 110 years old.)

Notes on San Diego

So my lovely bride and I have this relatively new tradition (3 years old now) of going for a 4-day weekend the week of our anniversary. This year, our trip took us to San Diego.

We took in Seaworld, saw Shamu. My favorite had to be the dolphin show (with a couple of pilot whales). What can I say, I’m partial to dolphins. Kel really enjoyed the sea lion show, which was an outstanding comedy.

The next day was spent at the world-famous San Diego Zoo. While we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, there were many times when we wondered, what’s the big deal? There are other zoos with better exhibits/enclosures, and far better layouts (Audubon Zoo in New Orleans springs to mind). SDZ does deserve its reputation, however, because of its fantastic research programs; it outspends and outperforms any other zoo in the country; pretty much the world.

Our last full day was spent driving up the 101, aka SH 21, alongside the coastline. Let me say, this was a profound disappointment. While lunch in La Jolla (say La Hoya) was nice, overlooking Scripps Park and the Cove, we only saw the ocean three or four other times, and only briefly as we drove past. Much different than the drive south from San Francisco to Carmel, where you’re hugging the ocean—albeit a few dozen feet up a cliff—nearly every mile. And California road signage sucks. Sucks. I’m talking enormous, Oreck/Kirby/Hoover suckage. We ended up at the south gate of Camp Pendleton, turned back through the Oceanside Marina, then popped over to I-5 back to downtown San Diego.

We roomed at Prava, a three year-old hotel and spa, converted from a time-share property. (They still maintain a relationship with time-share companies, which is how we stayed there.) Located in the heart of San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, we had plenty of great places to eat within walking distance. Prava makes the Retrophisch Recommends™ list of places to stay.

Back to Omaha, baby!

The LSU Tigers crushed Baylor 20-5 in game three of their NCAA super regional to earn their 12th trip to the College World Series since 1986. Yeah, that’s right, bub: LSU has been one of four eight teams in the CWS 12 times in 17 years!

The Tigers will face CWS arch-nemesis Cal State-Fullerton in the first round of the CWS. South Carolina and Stanford play in the other bracket.

Geaux Tigers!!!

UPDATE, 6/10: The rest of the field is SW Missouri St. vs. Rice, and Texas takes on Miami (FL).

Mars Mission Patches

Dan notes NASA’s sense of humor with regard to Mars rover naming conventions and mission patches. This is what happens when guys our age, who grew up with Looney Tunes, are put in charge…

Can you feel the love?

Barbra Streisand is suing a fellow environmentalist. Why? Because he took an aerial photograph of her Malibu coastline estate. Along with 12,000 other pictures of the California coastline, all as part of creating an aerial photographic survey of the coastline to document erosion over time.

Shhhhhh. Don’t anyone tell Barbrat about the Keyhole spy satellites the NSA could retask to sit over Malibu if it wanted…

One for the conspiracy nuts

Speaking of the Stanley Cup Finals, specifically the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, ponder this:

( Please note that I do not believe my theory, though certain parts are true. )

The National Hockey League has an exclusive television contract with EPSN/ABC. A television contract that, to no one’s but Gary Bettman’s and the NHL’s surprise, is not gaining hockey the expanded audience it seeks in the United States. Viewership has dwindled from the days when Fox carried games for the league (with far more than I’ve ever seen on ABC).

So, what has happened is, Fox has turned to Nascar, ABC is turning to the NBA and ESPN is turning its nose up, cutting 30 percent of its coverage while burying what’s left on ESPN2.

So, the NHL wishes to increase television coverage for the Stanley Cup playoffs, especially the Finals, and league games in general. ESPN/ABC would, of course, like higher ratings so they can charge advertisers more.

ESPN/ABC are owned by Disney. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are owned by Disney. If you’re looking for a conspiracy, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this one out.

The Ducks have talent, that’s for sure. Paul Kariya has always been one of the NHL’s top players; he’s just never had the rest of the team to play with. Giguere has shown that he is one of those top-flight French-Canadian goalies of the Roy-Brodeur caliber. (Can we please stop with the “Gettin’ Giggy with it” lines?) But overall, this is not a championship team. Yes, I know there is always a time for Cinderella teams, but the Ducks are not a Cinderella team. Not without help. Look to this season’s Minnesota Wild if you want to see a true Cinderella team.

The Ducks take out the defending Cup champions, the Detroit Red Wings, in a four-game sweep? Does anyone out there honestly believe the Ducks are that talented? Granted, Detroit didn’t seem to play as hungry as the Ducks, but still, a four-game sweep? You have better odds of winning the lottery. Of getting struck by lightning.

Then the Stars. At least Dallas handed Anaheim its first losses in this year’s playoffs. But again, the Ducks had help to get through that six-game series. I was at Game 2. It had to have been the worst-officiated hockey game I have ever witnessed, in-person or on television. It was atrocious, from both the refs to even the two linesmen. You know there’s a problem when the game’s referees are announced, and there is a collective “Oh no” from those in attendance. I kid you not.

The Stars do not blow leads late in the game. Again, the Stars did not look like the Stars of the regular season—the Stars that thoroughly dominated Anaheim in all but one game they played in the regular season—through all six games, and this certainly contributed to the Ducks “success.”

Now you can make a case for the Western Conference Finals, and the four-game sweep of the Minnesota Wild. The Wild came off of two seven-game, come-from-behind series to make it to the conference finals. The Ducks, by comparison, coasted in. The questionable calls, however, continued.

(Don’t think the same thing wasn’t happening in the east, either. I’m a little shocked that the Devils were able to fight their way through some equally atrocious officiating, especially during the Eastern Conference Finals against Ottawa.)

So the Ducks are in the Finals, playing the New Jersey Devils. You know, the Devils, who have played in the Stanley Cup Finals in three of the last four years, including this one. The Devils, who have won the Cup twice. The Devils, with oodles and oodles of talent, and playoff experience to boot. Not surprising, the Devils crush the Ducks in the first two games of the Finals, not allowing a single goal from Anaheim.

Could it be? New Jersey will sweep the Ducks in four? Capturing the Cup in Anaheim?

Someone at the NHL/ESPN/ABC hits the panic button. Lo and behold, the series is now knotted at two games each. Providence certainly does shine on those incredibly lucky Ducks. Incredibly lucky Ducks. The series will now go to at least six games, and the price of advertising goes up.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are for sale? Gosh, an appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals is certainly worth a price mark-up. A Cup championship team would command a premium. The next two, possibly three, games will be interesting to watch.

Of course, it’s all just a theory…

Galloway moving to ESPN radio

One of my favorite sports-talk hosts is moving from WBAP, 820 AM, to the station’s ESPN radio affiliate. This stinks, since I never listen to ESPN radio, keeping the radio—when I listen to the radio—on either WBAP or KWRD 100.7 FM (Christian talk radio). This is all in the D/FW metro area, by the way.

One problem I have with ESPN radio, or, at least, the affiliate here in town: when I’m watching the freaking Stanley Cup Finals on your company’s main network, it sure would be nice to have the game on the radio, if I have to leave the house, as I did this weekend. I wonder if the same would be true if ESPN was carrying the NBA Finals, or the World Series?

Microsoft targets Google

Is there anyone that Microsoft doesn’t see as a competitor?

“We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That’s something that we’re actively looking at doing,” said Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft’s MSN Internet services division.

What’s wrong with the Google user experience? I think it’s great. I love the simple, minimalist interface on the main page. If you need more advanced features, they’re a click away. If I want a bloated, crufty, way-too-much-happening-at-once search engine, I know where to go already, thank you very much. But I’m sure Microsoft is doing some sort of “innovating” in the search engine sector.

iMac no more

So, yeah, maybe I’m just way behind in picking this up, but the CRT iMac, the box that helped bring Apple back, is no more. The only CRT Macintosh still being sold in the Apple Store is the 17” G4-driven eMac. So the flat-panel iMac is now the only iMac. Thanks to Robert for pointing this out.

PowerBook prices lowered

Apple has lowered the prices on the 12” and 15” PowerBooks, in some cases by as much as $300. Does this portend an update for the 15” model and speed bump for the 12”? WWDC is just around the corner…

Tigers win regional

For the first time this season, the LSU Tigers win an extra-inning game, and in doing so take their 8th consecutive regional championship. The Tigers, 20-1 all-time in regional championship games, were 0-4 this year in extra-inning games. LSU now moves on to a best-of-three super-regional against Baylor to determine who goes to the College World Series.

Geaux Tigers!!