Since Karin now uses an iPhone to keep in the digital loop that is otherwise so lacking (read: blocked) at her new job, I get access to the new little toy on weekends. I’ve been tinkering a bit and downloading some of the basic apps. Nothing too obscure… yet. (Though, thank you WordPress app for this post… by the way.) That my Blackberry has a much more awesome and functional keyboard is where the competition ends, though. This phone definitely handles everything else much [...]

We woke this morning to fresh blanket of soft, light snow. If you think there is no other kind, you are sadly mistaken. The snow we received as recently as two weeks ago was wet, heavy, and cold. It was also tough to shovel from the walk. So, the delicate and fluffy version of today was a welcome change. It did leave me thinking about the hours I’ve spent indoors recently — where else but — in front of the computer. Syntax Gull scuffs [...]

Since upgrading the Mac to Snow Leopard and iLife 09, and also dumping some cash into a networked storage system, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time grooming, tending, tagging, and toddling through my digital photo collection. That was not the sole purpose of the upgrades slash add-ons, but it was a big point on the pros-checklist. The problem is that suddenly I find myself with a stupidly large amount of work to get from point A (folders full of digital photos dating [...]

Sony unveiled their latest iteration of the PSP, and in the subsequent few days it has been universally slammed as an epic failure. The PSP Go, unlike my older model, is unilaterally tied to a Sony-controlled online-only media store, hampered by a boggling array of proprietary cabling, and proudly displays a smaller screen than it’s older brother — and all for about eighty bucks more, too. I’ll be sticking with my 3000, thanks. But unless you are foolish enough to dip your toe into [...]

It occurred to me a couple weeks ago — about the same time I was upgrading my OSX install and shuffling my massive photo collection around in iPhoto 09 — that I was putting a lot of stock in a single USB backup drive I’d picked up on discount. I wasn’t exactly playing Russian Roulette with my data, but I was feeling a little hung out over the extra risk I was taking with a mere single backup copy of my photos and music, [...]

I understand Twitter now. I get it. And the knowledge, the upsight, the clarity came to me after the nth time of explaining it to all those people who repeatedly asked “but why…?” Here is the thing you need to understand to get Twitter: Twitter is a search engine. Sure, it is disguised as a social networking site. Sure it is dressed as a stream of seemingly disconnected thoughts strung onto the web by hundreds of thousands of vain and incomprehensibly motivated people. But [...]

Did I mention the grandparents have discovered Skype? We may as well disconnect our landlines now. Why bother with a simple voice call when they can taunt their grandchildren via a live video feed? Dad hunted me down from the nineteenth floor of the Hilton in Guadalajara, Mexico last night to show me his hotel room and the view out of his window. It was dark, so the window was more like a mirror than a panoramic view of the city skyline. And, unfortunately [...]

gadget (găj’ĭt) (1) noun. A small specialized mechanical or electronic device; a contrivance. (2) noun. Slang for any hardware device, typically small. Synonymous with “gizmo.” Mine? (And I don’t count computers or cameras as gadgets…) 10. Zircon StudSensor You may find it curious that on a gadget top ten list a stud sensor creeps into the rankings. However, if you are a homeowner and have not made use of this cheap little gadget, time to visit the local hardware store. Easily one of the [...]

It was late. I was tired. And I’d been hacked. Well, it wasn’t exactly a “hacking” per se, in the strict sense of the word. I’d left a wee little hole open in one hidden away insignificant, worthless little project I’d spent no more than a few hours of effort on, a hole that let spammers add a few bytes of text to a unmoderated system, and a hole that I really didn’t think was a big problem. But even a slow leak will [...]

Matt, Chris and I spent a mis-adventurous couple of hours downtown this afternoon toting the cameras around and trying to take some photos. I’ll spare the details about the dead battery and the wicked rainstorm as this is simply a post to draw your attention to THIS LINK which, when zoomed to the appropriate magnification will display the results of combining three bits of technology: a GPS, a camera time-synchronized to the GPS, and a bit of software that pulls our wandering coordinates from [...]

It’s been about a month and a half since the Sony E-book Reader found its way into my stack of books, and while it has not been the exclusive purveyor of reading material in my life (note as a couple of examples the “Steampunk Anthology” and “Insect Field Guide“) it has been first fiddle, so to speak, based on both sheer novelty and quantity of text. Some of my observations to date: :> The tech aspects are all fairly solid. The display is clean [...]

If you’ve ever seen the Robin Williams movie “Bicentennial Man”, you may recall the opening scene: a quiet suburban neighborhood is the setting as a delivery van pulls up to the door. A box is signed for, dragged into the house, and carefully pried open revealing a gleaming robot which promptly goes into demo mode. I couldn’t help but be reminded of that movie yesterday when, working from home, the UPS guy rung the doorbell. I signed for a nondescript cardboard package, dragged it [...]

The new toy arrived via secret import channels yesterday, and I spent a couple hours last night adding files, poking buttons, and generally enjoying my super-slick ebook reader. A fairly basic little machine, there is nothing particularly special about the behind-the-scenes technology that powers the device. Sure, it doesn’t have a wi-fi connection, touch-screen, faster processor than my toaster, or threaten Kasparov’s reputation in any significant way. Instead, it is a wee bit of memory, a fairly basic processor that does nothing much more [...]

…I was leafing through the fliers that arrived on our doorstep last night and, well, with certain things being on sale in ways that are no less than rare and substantial, it would have been difficult to justify waiting for anything but a less painful moment which may never come. Moments of wanton purchase and elaborate spending motifs aside, we were due for a replacement, though maybe not one so elegant. I succumbed to the pressure, however, and went over to the lighter side. [...]

One week into 2008 and this is only my second post. Were you one of those who was checking every day to see if I’d resumed the daily posts? Do you miss me yet? Alas, all is not lost. I’ve been writing — as always — just not here, very much. In fact I would almost — though hesitantly — call it a productive weekend with that regard. A few thousand words, in fact. I don’t have much to say other than I wanted [...]

It’s been a month worth of upgrading. Upgrades are cool. Usually, it just means taking something you already have and improving, replacing, or appending it to make it better. My highlights of this pleasant process include: :: I put my snow tires on the car yesterday and just this morning had the two-year old beast winterized. Not exactly an upgrade, but it drives like a snow leopard now — a NEW snow leopard. Can you believe she just passed 50,000 clicks last week? :: [...]

I’ve been active in this little negotiation game for the last week or so. No, there’s no link. It’s a new game I’ve discovered wherein you blindly spend small bits of real money — $6 here, $10 there — to lease real domain names — .coms, .nets — and then sit around and wait. Eventually, if you’ve found a good name, someone comes along and hires a domain buying agent to try and buy the name off you for more than you paid. All [...]

For those who think HTML is neither significant nor important, please keep in mind as you read this that both Karin and I earn our salaries largely because we are both fairly fluent in this language and its companions. Our food, cars, and house are (almost quite literally) largely paid for by web code. Thus, when you are geeks like us and there is revealed a glimpse at the new version of this code, it’s not quite as exciting as Christmas, but close. Hypertext [...]

Eschewing fascination with a view askance of the plighte of moderne morality, transcending a somewhat troglodyte decline of soul, et plus contradictory of the favoure of mere memetic sensibilities relating towards electronic vanities and such related, as they might be named here at a later date. Elegance of forme and function, spirit and soul, life and death is in oppositione to the manners of mere compress’ed redundancy. Retreate and manifest. Embrace simplicity. DID IT EVER occur to anyone else that the V in Windows [...]

A bit of a stumble tripping me up in my running efforts has emerged. A sporadic problem with the circuit breaker on the treadmill is cutting short my kilometers. According to the little label on the breaker switch, the treadmill is rated for 10 amps. It’s plugged into a 15 amp circuit. Everything should be right as rain, but anywhere from three to ten minutes into a jog, the built-in breaker on the treadmill trips and the belt bobs to a standstill. I’ve got [...]

As the holiday season looms ever-closer, I get the rash of not-so-subtle hints from every family member upon whom I happen to stumble: what do you want for Christmas? What do I want? Ugh. I want a day where I don’t need to think about anything but peace and quiet, where I can just write, or maybe wander the (now icy) streets and snap photos of things — like I used to when I had less to worry my crumbling mind. I doubt too [...]

So, while the laptop has been relegated to the kitchen I must admit that my only real gripe with the ol’ Dell laptop was the power supply that shorted out twice. Otherwise, the little imp held up for three good years. We’ll miss her when she ups and dies completely. For now she is has only two good functions left in her antiquated Pentium-powered guts: (a) I’m surprised how often the need to dip into Google comes up in random conversation, and; (b) Meal [...]

Here’s the deal: In celebration of this weekend’s anticipated HOT turkey, I’ve decided to go COLD turkey on the coffee for a while. Don’t ask why. It’s just one of those things that somehow I’ve decided would be good for me. Caffeine is the most commonly used mood-altering drug in the world. Caffeine is found in numerous plants, the most widely consumed being coffee, tea, cola nut, cocao pod, guarana, and maté. It is estimated that in North America between 80 and 90 percent [...]