Brent's Two Cents

Useful Stuff

There's a new Mac web site online and it's already proved itself fairly useful to me, so I thought I'd pass it on. Useful Mac is a site that lists useful Mac applications -- at this point I'm assuming that someone is vetting the apps that show up there and they're not just listing every new piece of crap that shows up in the marketplace, so it's got a high wheat-to-chaff ratio.

For example, I'm writing this weblog entry with Kung-Log, a simple blogging application that works with Moveable Type's XML-RPC facility.

I also grabbed a copy of iComic, which duplicates some of the features of Daily Comic, but I guess has fewer legal issues because the access methods for each comic are distributed as plugins rather than bundled with the application. It also has cool/annoying window-resizing behavior that is fun to watch for a little while until you turn it off.

I haven't fully browed the list yet, but the stuff there looks pretty good so far, and a lot of it is stuff that I haven't seen anywhere before. Check it out!

Arrival

It finally got here. After months of hesitation and weeks of post-decision waiting, my 30G iPod arrived on Tuesday. Everyone knows all the great things about the iPod, so I'm going to report on the problems with it.

• I absolutely love the look, shape and feel of the device. In fact, it looks so good that you just want to hold it. But when you hold it, you get fingerprints all over it's nice shiny back, ruining the esthetics of the device.
• I have the dock hooked up to some speakers, so I can listen to the iPod at my desk. When the iPod sits in its dock, I find it a little tough to navigate with the scroll wheel. It seems like sometimes it just doesn't notice me touching it.
• I find the display quite difficult to read without the backlighting on.
• The little earbud covers were hard to put on.
• I always get the left and right earbuds mixed up. :-)
• I haven't been able to figure out how to consistently seek back and forward in a track using the scroll wheel. I might have to read the manual.
• Sometimes when I put the iPod into the dock, the "don't disconnect" message comes up and stays there until I launch iTunes and hit the eject button. That's really annoying, because I know that it's not doing anything.

Now, these minor negative points account for something like 1% of the total experience of using the iPod. I've worked with a lot of digital audio players in the last couple of years, and I'd never consider making a list like this for them because they're uniformly horrible, ugly and difficult to use -- the lists would be too long. The iPod puts them all to shame. Now, if only it would record.

Las Vegas Reno-Bound

AT LONG LAST the day has arrived: We're getting on a plane this afternoon bound for three days of bachelor-party fun in Las Vegas!!! ... uh, I mean, Reno! So, you might be tempted to ask... what's on the agenda? Well, never fear, because it's certainly true that Las Vegas has tons to offer for the entertainment-hungry tourist. Did I say Vegas? I mean Reno. Reno has... well... well, hey there must be something to do in Reno. And if not, then Lake Tahoe is pretty close.

Take the hotel we're staying at, The Peppermill. It has all kinds of entertainment, and twelve themed bars. Not just regular bars, mind you, but themed bars. Assuming all the themes are different (i.e. not twelve variations on "English Pub"), then just keeping all the different themes straight will certainly be a laugh riot. This got me thinking about themed bars I'd like to see:

• Bugs Bunny cartoon theme. The waitresses would dress like that sexy girl rabbit, and the bartenders would be decked out like the tasmanian devil or that big furry red no-headed monster. They'd make drinks that were green and fizzy.


• Your Lousy Job theme.You'd arrive and be seated in a cubicle with an uncomfortable chair, or a meeting room that is about four degrees too warm. Wait staff try to get each other fired. The bartender occasionally walks around the bar and yells at customers to drink faster.


• Mars theme. The bar would be set up with rocks for chairs and tables and dust all over the floor. A replica of the "Sojourner" probe would deliver drinks to the customers. It would be impossible to get a glass of water.


• African Savanna theme. Specialty drink: Masai Blood 'n' Milk cocktail. Customers regularly attacked by hyenas.

A Quench From The Past

There was a fresh breeze, clear sky, and a happy sun illuminating the trees in the courtyard below my office. It seemed like a summer day -- and not a paint-the-house-mow-the-lawn sort of summer day... more a no-school-I'm-bored-let's-get-a-goop day. At that moment I reached a good stopping point in my current drudgery, so I resolved to actually do it. I dug out my old green and purple Sport Gulp™ container, grabbed my jacket, and headed up to the 7-11 for a delicious Dr. Pepper. Mmmm. Just like the old days.

I need to take more breaks like that.

Nifty Clicky

At yesterday's MacTAG meeting, there was a demo of a product from a company here in town called eline Technologies Inc. who make a product called VideoClix, which can be used to add interactivity to QuickTime movies. Check out the "showcase" on their web site -- you might have to load the page twice to get it to work (maybe a browser problem?)

VideoClix is software that lets you create 'hotspot' tracks in QuickTime movies, so you can add annotation or other interactivity. It's pretty cool -- try the 007 demo and click on the car, the actors, the airplane... James Bond's sunglasses, etc.

The Wire

I'm not really that much of a Hockey fan. I like to watch playoff hockey, and I like to cheer for the Canucks when they play, but it's not an obsession with me. So imagine my shock at how totally disappointed I am that the 'Heads* managed to lose Game 6 to the Wild, blowing a 3-1 series lead, and forcing Game 7 back here in Vancouver tomorrow. It's troublesome how stressed out I am about this, which just adds to the stress.

At any rate, I'd like to say that I'm optimistic, but I'm not. They played better today than in Game 5, but that's not saying much. It just smells like it's over.

However, hope springs eternal. Maybe they can pull it out. I hope so, but I don't know if I can bear to watch.

___

* 'Heads is my personal nickname for the Canucks. Short for "Canuckleheads".

Keeps Gettin' Better

During my morning surfing-session I stumbled across the highly-relevant (at present) iPoding web site. It's another blog-style site that contains information and news about the iPod. The big news today is that the new iPods apparently support audio recording. Although Apple hasn't made it an easily-available feature yet, one unofficial source was quoted as saying that an adapter for line-in recording would be available in a few months.

This would be a great thing, if it were done right. Just about all of the MP3 players I've worked with (even the dinky little 32MB Digisette) supported voice recording. Right now I use my cell phone and voice mail to leave myself the occasional message, but that's suboptimal for many reasons: It costs me the price of a cell phone call, and it takes too long to dial and wait for the message 'beep'. A good design would be a pair of headphones that included a small microphone, and a record button on the wired remote.

No iPod For You!

So, yesterday was the day that the new 3rd generation iPods were supposed to arrive in stores. I've been wanting to get one for ages now, and finally with the new music store, and new features and everything I finally broke under the pressure and decided to ante up. So, this morning I called up the local MacStation to see if they had any. No dice. It'll be weeks before I can get one. The wait continues....

What's The Big Deal, Anyway?

Not too long ago, I started hearing the word 'blog' everywhere. As a naturally curious person, I wondered about it, but as a tired-ass lazy slob, I simply decided it wasn't worth my time. I was probably right, but when I finally got my web server up and running again, I got curious again and thought I'd do a little research. An hour or so later, here I am, writing my first blog entry. I feel like someone should be welcoming me to the party, but I'm just sitting here alone.

Moveable Type (the publishing system) seems pretty cool so far. There was the usual byzantine installation procedure, but that's just Unix -- I'm used to that. The most pleasant part about this experience was dealing with customer support at my hosting company. Their support staff use AOL IM, so I can just use iChat to contact them for any problems that come up. Instant support. That's a good thing. And for 5 bucks a month, you can't beat it.