April 30, 2007

Shameless Plug.

Oh, by the way, I finally got this set up today. My quest for global domination has begun.

Posted on April 30, 2007 4:10 PM | link to this entry

Furnishing

My lovely wife found this light fixture online at Lumens, and she knew it would be perfect for our dining room. It's a new edition of a George Nelson classic, and I think it fits the room (and the vibe of the house) perfectly.

Meanwhile, we've got a different light up for sale on Craigslist. Honk if you're interested!

Posted on April 30, 2007 4:09 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

April 25, 2007

Change of Heart.

This is quick note about a conversation Jen and I had with our neighbors yesterday evening, which was still on my mind as I fell asleep last night. We live next to an ex-serviceman/retired public official and his wife, who are both intensely religious and outwardly Republican. (There are multiple anti-abortion bumper stickers on their vehicles, and they display various religious themed signs on their front lawn year-round.) Despite our differences of opinion, we get along with them very well. During our visit, the subject of Iraq came up, and their comments stopped me in my tracks: They called the war a terrible thing, compared it to Vietnam, and plainly stated that they thought our troops should come home. I felt as if someone was shuffling the tectonic plates underneath my feet as we spoke.

Memo to Mesrrs. Bush, Rove, and Cheney: Your key demographic smells the bullshit.

Posted on April 25, 2007 11:23 AM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

April 23, 2007

Coda

I use an older Windows-based program called HomeSite daily to do my heavy lifting when I'm building sites, with a liberal sprinkling of Dreamweaver and some BBEdit for the things HS can't do. When I heard that Panic, the shop behind Transmit (an excellent FTP client for OS X) just came out with Coda, billed as a new editor/ftp client/reference app all in one, I was very interested.

I'm downloading it now to give it a test spin this week-it's always hard switching from one workflow to the next, but I like the reasoning behind creation of the app: ...our web workflow was wonky. We'd have our text editor open, with Transmit open to seave files to the server. We'd be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web.

This sounds much like my workflow—I've usually got Parallels running HomeSite and Explorer in a virtual window, Safari and Firefox open for testing in OS X, Transmit to upload (HomeSite's "built-in FTP client" is a joke) and another two or three browser tabs open for reference. (Plus Photoshop, Illustrator, and/or ImageReady.) Usually I'll offload some of the testing and viewing duties to a secondary machine, usually the Thinkpad to my left, so that I don't have to continually cycle through windows to see what I need. But that's clunky, and it takes time to set up each workflow—especially when I'm cycling through multiple projects like I often do on a daily basis. One of the promises of this new app is that workflows are saved exactly as they are left, so one would be able to pick up right where one left off on a day-to-day basis. (This feature is implemented somewhat crudely by HomeSite, but not in a way I've been able to make useful.)

While I usually have a strong dislike for having multiple UI views in one app, I'm interested to see how Coda handles all of these functions and how Panic implemented them. I hope they have some kind of quick key for tabbing through views so that I don't have to rely on the mouse to move around. I also hope it's more stable than Dreamweaver, which still acts like a narcoleptic teenager.

More thoughts as they come-I'll give it a test run tomorrow morning.

Update 4.25: I played with it for a while yesterday, and while it's fast, and clean, it didn't light my fire as much as I was hoping. I think this is due partially because I'm entering the middle of a project as opposed to starting a new one with it; it's got a lot of nice features that I could use, but I've not had enough time to really find them all yet.

Posted on April 23, 2007 5:35 PM | link to this entry

April 20, 2007

Daffodil

Finally, some warm weather. It's going to be 70° this weekend, and I have work-work to do inside, when I'd rather be outside with a rake and shovel. Argghh!

Posted on April 20, 2007 6:41 PM | link to this entry

April 19, 2007

Bill's Laptop Barn, Part Two

I'm beginning to see now why the $300 Powerbook was $300. When I first picked it up, the screen was fine, but I noticed some play in the hinge clutch—not anything to worry about, I figured, because Jen's Pismo had an equal amount of play and it's always been fine. (I also noted that the case on this G4 has been opened at least once, because there are two screws missing on the right side in the display and by the video port.)

Over the course of the last few days I've been getting more and more artifacting on the lower half of the screen. At first I was able to get rid of it by altering the LCD display angle, but now it's to the point where the lower half stays black and no amount of adjustment will get rid of it.

Doing some sleuthing, I found some excellent sites with detailed instructions on disassembly and part swapping for everything from the display to the DC board, which makes mucking about inside the guts that much easier. (I've had my old Pismo down to the motherboard without directions before, and it was a dicey affair, but I did it.)

I'm assuming I'll at least need to replace the video cable, and while I've got the case cracked I want to swap out the DC board to repair the damage done by the previous owner. Because the display hinge has some play in it (and I'd guess this is the root of the video problem) and because I already have to pull the display off to get to the DC board, I might as well see if I can replace the clutch hinges on both sides.

DC board, #922-6089	$69 (NOS, 30 day warranty)	$99 (used, 6 month warranty)
~~Clutch hinges, #922-6021, 922-6022~~	~~$39 (NOS, 30 day warranty)~~	~~$29 (used, 6 month warranty)~~
Video cable, #922-6016	$39 (NOS, 30 day warranty)	$49 (used, 6 month warranty).
Case Screws		$29 (used, 6 month warranty)

I figure about $200 plus an afternoon of surgery should get us a production/backup laptop in fighting shape and ready for action.

Meanwhile, my $40 Powerbook 1400 is still being flaky when it comes to wireless connectivity. I can get a couple of minutes of pure signal (or hours, on occasion) but then the connection will drop and I'm offline. Restarting, reseating the wireless card, and cursing have no effect. I even pulled an identical wireless card from my spare Base Station and tried that, but had no luck with a constant signal.

Update 4/21: I cracked the G4 case last night, and came away with mixed results. The case itself is full of dust and grit—it's a miracle the thing hasn't shorted out already, honestly. There are more than a few case screws missing, and the hard drive is a Samsung notebook drive, not the Apple original, confirming my suspicion that someone's been in here before. As much as I don't want to pull the rest of it apart, I'm going to order the DC board and replace that before I put the whole thing back together.

I cracked the upper bezel this morning, and it looks like the clutch assemblies are in fine shape, but the screws that held them to the display frame were exceptionally loose. I think I'm going to reattach the display to the case and see if the display flicker problem is gone, but I'll still buy the monitor cable just in case.

a previous installment of Bill's laptop barn

Posted on April 19, 2007 4:11 PM | link to this entry

April 18, 2007

Recap

There's been a lot of silence around here lately. I've been putting stuff up in the sidebar, but the main feed here has been quiet due to a hectic schedule and the winter blahs. I'll recap the highlights:

The storm that kicked the crap out of New England blew through here with a vengeance, but did no lasting damage to the Lockardugan compound. I thought for sure that I'd wake to find the greenhouse impaled by a large branch from the sugar maple in the backyard, but it's still standing. The blue house across the street did not fare so well, though—a century-old tree of unknown species gave up at the root ball and fell over into the empty side yard. A neighbor further down the street lost a pine tree which fell directly into his front porch, and as of yesterday afternoon the chippers made short work of it. Between some ill-advised elective pruning and this week's storm, that side of the street is looking much thinner this year.

Over the last few weeks I've been playing follow-the-bouncing-ball with the city over our water situation. We've been having problems with our water for years now: it goes from almost clear to disgustingly rusty in weekly cycles, with no real rhyme or reason, and it's ruined much of our whitest laundry. I spent time on the phone with DPW, who claim they came out and cleared the hydrants, and the city labs (who are supposedly tasked with testing the water), who gave me multiple numbers to call in a futile search for someone who could help. I gave up on the city, and yesterday morning we had a pair of plumbers in to install a commercial filter just inside the basement wall. Our plumbers are true Baltimoreans, in that they have the honest accent I can only mimic, and they always appear in a cloud of cigarette smoke, but they are knowledgeable, quick, and the nicest contractors I think I've ever dealt with. While they were here I had them quote on moving one of the radiators back into the dining room, and when we get a little money in the door I'll have them come back and do it in preparation for next winter.

Jen and I have been searching for floor coverings ever since we got in this house, and as anyone who has looked at rugs can relate, it's an expensive proposition. For a premade rug to mostly fit one of our bedrooms (most rugs come 6' x 9' or 8' x 10', and our bedrooms are all 12' x 12') we'd be paying over a grand for something that kind of looked good. Our good friends R&K hipped us to buying carpet remnants and having the edges bound, and it felt like the scene in The Miracle Worker where Helen Keller finally gets it. We drove out to Security to one of the local carpet dealers' warehouses and shlepped through forests of carpet rolls, holding this paint chip up against that color and marveling at some of the deep-discount patterns that reminded us of decades past. We settled on one color and pattern for our bedroom, but didn't have luck with the other rooms despite the selection.

For the rock-bottom price of $300, I scored an Aluminum G4 PowerBook from Craigslist last night for Jen to use as a travel laptop. It's 15" and been used pretty well (the power cord is a little flaky due to a drop, which may prompt the purchase of a replacement power board off eBay) but the screen is bright, everything works, and it came with a nice Brenthaven laptop backpack, which usually retails for over $100. I'd say we made out very well.

Finally, I'm frantically trying to fit in as much illustration as I can before May 3rd, which is the submission deadline for page layouts in the book I'll be advertising in. I have two images that I've settled on, but I need at least two more to feel comfortable, and I don't have them yet. For now, I'm working late in the evening trying to balance paying work and illustration so that I can hit all the deadlines...cross your fingers for me.

Posted on April 18, 2007 9:52 AM | link to this entry

April 13, 2007

A Present For My Lady

This afternoon I won an auction for a galette iron to give my bride, after waiting around for months to see one pop up. This one is a model G-1 (petit), which means it's not as big as the family iron, but I figure it's worth a shot for $9.

I'm keeping my eye out for the large version, to be sure.

Posted on April 13, 2007 6:19 PM | link to this entry

April 11, 2007

...and my right arm, too.

Some quick price checking on the Adobe Creative Suite for both Jen and I leads to a sobering realization: In order to get the components I need (Photoshop, Illustrator) in CS3, I'll have to spend $1,583 on the Web Premium edition. Strangely, the Web Standard edition doesn't come with Photoshop or Illustrator, which I'd compare to selling a new car without an engine or tires.

However, she can get the Design Standard edition for $1,187 with everything she'd need to work—the Design Premium edition includes Flash and Dreamweaver. This is like selling a car with an optional jacuzzi tub and heated sunporch—sure, they're nice, but do they really go with the base product?

Posted on April 11, 2007 9:32 AM | link to this entry

April 10, 2007

Name That Crazy

Any guesses?

Posted on April 10, 2007 9:32 PM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

April 8, 2007

English Car

Posted on April 8, 2007 4:48 PM | link to this entry

April 6, 2007

Here It Comes To Save The Day.

I've been using a MacAlly two-button mouse for, well, as long as I've used a USB Mac—ever since I ~~pinched it~~ borrowed it from my dot-com in 2000. It's a good mouse, even though it's not laser-based and it doesn't have a scroll wheel, but it does have green blinky lights that flash when the buttons are clicked. OOOOHH, BLINKY LIGHTS. The clicking action is easy and it tracks very well for a roller-ball mouse, even if I have to clean the ball every evening. Which leads me to my first complaint: the disgusting gunk that magically collects on the bottom of the mouse. I don't know which camp you fall in, dear readers, but I am that guy who needs to have a clean mouse. Some people are able to design whole magazines and create buildings and write novels with the contents of a landfill stuck to the bottom of their mouse; Mine must be spotless. I've pulled entire animals from the trackball of some mice because the hair kept jittering the cursor. This drives me insane. But I lived with my blinky mouse because, at heart, I'm cheap, and I couldn't justify $50 for a new one, which they used to give us for free with a new computer in the olden days.

All was fine with my mousing world until I graduated to a big-boy laptop, and the short cord of the mouse failed to reach the two USB ports on the left side of the machine. Instead I had to use the right-side port, which meant I was constantly bumping the front of the mouse into the cord and the plug base. This was, to me, about as annoying as having a monkey following me around repeatedly poking me with a cattle prod: My primary interface with the computer needs to be as seamless as possible, hence my anal-retentive cleaning habits and hatred of desktop obstacles.

The idea of the wireless desk appeals to me, so I tried an early Apple bluetooth mouse a few years ago which drove me insane in two minutes: the action was jittery and laggy, and I felt like I was working during the middle of an epileptic fit. I've tried several laser-based PC mice, which the MacBook Pro immediately made friends with, but I couldn't find one that felt right in my hand or didn't cramp my wrist. Then, I tried a Kensington bluetooth mouse a consulting client had, and I was smitten immediately. It was smooth, the mouse had good weight (manufacturers, listen: a heavy mouse feels good) and the action was very snappy. I looked at the local Computer Superstore (the one laying off 1/3 its workforce) and found entire pallets of mice that had cords, looked painful, were painted with fanboy FPS graphics, or defined 'wireless' as 'dependent on a USB dongle', which is just stupid. Browsing the the local Apple Store, I didn't find full-size Kensington mice, but they did have another brand which I bought and tried out.

The Logitech V270 looks and feels nice, but I found it hard to press the buttons without use of a sledgehammer: within five minutes my carpal tunnel was vibrating all the way up my arm and down the back of the chair. The scroll wheel was big and felt good under my thumb, but the action was just like scrolling through text in MS Word: Select something and begin to drag it slowly, and suddenly the cursor is five pages below where it started. I boxed it back up after three hours and talked Dave into going to the Apple Store with me Wednesday night to return it.

I was happy to walk out with a refund and empty hands until the helpful Apple Specialist showed me the new Mighty Mouse, which I'm led to believe is an improvement over the old version. Right and left clicking that doesn't require years of weightlifting, a scroll button that doesn't leave me in the dust, and a great feel for my wrist. I'm a day into it so far, and I like what I have. It's not quite as precise as a rollerball or a wired mouse, but it's pretty damn close. And I don't have to battle any cords other than the ones that lead to all the other crap on my desk, which is a nice change.

Posted on April 6, 2007 10:10 AM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

April 4, 2007

You Ain't In The City No More, Boy

On my way home from the bookstore this evening, I decided to pull into the driveway backwards so that the Jeep would be facing outward, something I do whenever I get the chance. This evening I spied something unusual in my headlights, low to the ground and skulking, running across Frederick Road: a red fox, plain as day, watching me warily over its shoulder as it padded over to the opposite side of the street. Due to the arc of my turn, I put the Jeep in reverse and followed it easily with my headlights as it ran across lawns to the lawn of the church, then did a circuit of the pine tree there before disappearing into its foliage.

We've known we have a fox for a neighbor for some time now—we saw one repeatedly last year out the kitchen window and assumed it was living under our neighbor's porch. We've also seen tracks that are too big for a cat and too small for a dog in fresh morning snow through the backyard, so it's no surprise this one is around. Something told me, though, that this was something I was meant to see, so I did a little research. This site has a lot of good information on foxes, including the observation that they're great for hunting varmints, something our yard has in abundance. This is also prime birthing season, which means I may have seen a parent out hunting for dinner (sorry, the garbage cans are empty, pal, but I'd be happy to introduce you to the chipmunks digging condos under the maple in the backyard.)

The idea of totems is relatively new to me, and something I don't usually consider much. The last couple of weeks have me looking for some higher meanings, though—a recent influx of work has me considering my karma, and a current project is testing my patience, professionalism, and good judgement. A cursory search in Google brings up lots of crunchy new-age babblings about spirits and raibows and faeries; yeah, OK, whatever.

The general consensus seems to be that it's a powerful totem and one that is clever and crafty. If I could get some clever and crafty to rub off on me right now, that would be great, because I'm not feeling so sharp lately. I've had a few things happen this week that are making me question my own intelligence, but I've been able to recover without bringing shame upon my dojo. So maybe this is a sign that I've got to tap a little more of my clever and crafty for the future. The Internets also say the fox teaches one how to slip out of unpleasant situations quietly. This talent would normally be be fine, but I'm having some problems with accountability right now, so I figure it's telling me not to fade out, but step up to the plate more consistently. Which means I have a dreaded phone call to make tomorrow morning.

Cleverness, discretion, cunning, quick wit, camouflage: I could have used some of these things for a 1½ phone conversation this afternoon...where were you then, my little friend? Oh, that's right, I was looking out the window, waiting for someone to make a 10-minute point, and I saw a woodpecker. Woodpecker? Sensitivity, protection, devotion...How does that help me with this stuff? Mother Earth, what the hell are you trying to tell me?

Posted on April 4, 2007 10:57 PM | link to this entry

l33t skills

After pulling the last of the photos off the two cameras I brought to California, I'm afraid to say my abilities as a photographer are in a steady decline. Waaaaaay back in the early days I had a Kodak DC-3400, an absolute clunker of a camera, and I somehow made it take very good pictures. After graduation to the Canon, I had a long string of lucky shots until I started reading the stupid manual and finding other excellent features I hadn't noticed before, and then it all went to hell. For this trip, I took the D-70 and a little Canon PowerShot, and I got about five good pictures out of a hundred taken or so. All the D-70's shots were too contrasty or overexposed, and the point-and-click Canon made everyone in the shot look like disciples of Satan, even though it was set on redeye flash.

At this point I don't know whether to be worried or pissed; I threw the little Canon in a drawer and reset the D-70 back to factory specs. It's going to take even more reading of the cryptic Nikon manual to learn about metering shots properly and learning where the sweet spots are, but I'm getting the hang of the camera slowly. I'm going to try and post as many pictures as I can now that the weather is warming up and the flowers are blooming, and hopefully find some of my mojo again.

Posted on April 4, 2007 1:14 AM | link to this entry | Comments (4)

April 2, 2007

Zeitgeist, Plus Or Minus 1 Year.

So while I was in San Francisco tippity-tapping away for the Man, Jen took advantage of our three-month extended NetFlix promotional and ordered the first three Deadwood DVDs to watch. She got all the way to Episode Seven before I got home, and we took some time out on Saturday to pop the next disc in. Already, I'm hooked, and that's only three episodes. Great writing, production values, and characters (not to mention the acting.) Yet another series we're coming in late on.

While I was in the S-F and staying with my friend Nick, Apple finally shipped the Apple TV, which required a trip to the Apple Store downtown to pick one up. He got it home and hooked it up to his plasma, and within about two minutes had music streaming from his laptop. The quality of the downloads available from iTunes was a little disappointing, to my eye—the encoding was pixellated and blocky. Not satisfied with the standard configuration, Nick devoured all twenty-two pages of forum postings by the Apple TV hackers, and during the course of the next evening I watched him dissect his box, load a few files via a FireWire enclosure, and reassemble it so that he had SSH and the ability to modify the system. From there, he encoded and uploaded several movies that weren't offered through iTunes, and they looked much better. He was still perfecting his process when I had to leave, so I'm not sure how much success he's had since then. My opinion of it is that it's a nice toy, but for $300 I'd rather buy a used Mini and build my own streaming video server to stick under the TV. It's not robust enough yet to warrant the cost or the limitations. Besides, we need a TIVO and a TV that has more than just a coaxial input first.

Finally, I had the opportunity to play with Aperture a little bit before I got too busy. My first reaction was WHOA. This application looks and feels like no other Apple product I've used. As I get further into it, I'll post results here.