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Pretty much all the pictures of me on this site will be the South Park version I made using the South Park character generator. Tada!

It finally happened. I surpassed Derik Farnsworth (nsfw) in Google as the #1 Derik link. Oh, how I’ve been waiting for this day. Now I can put my plan for world domination into motion. Maybe I can sign all my email: I’m #1!!

I recently got asked a question via email. I thought I’d share my answer. My problem is in the WiFi category. I have AirPort turned on, and around the corner from where I live is a Starbucks, as well as other apartments that have WiFi, so I get a few connections here and there. Among these are the connections, “default” and “linksys”. I don’t know which one is Starbucks, but I assume “linksys” as I get the strongest connection. “Default” only gives me 3 bars, but it spastically goes to 1 or none every few minutes, which results in me being disconnected from iChat very often. ...

Maybe it was an April Fool’s joke on Think Secret’s part. Maybe they were trying to set up a legal defense that they guess a lot (and are wrong). Maybe a delay was introduced. Who knows? At any rate, there was no Tiger announcement which would have made all the wakka-wakka gags almost bareable. Now my problem is that without Tiger as a new toy coming soon, I’m starting to eye a new SATA boot drive (a 300 GB drive). Keep me from spending money Apple!

I will not be doing any lame April Fools Jokes on this site today. Sorry. The Management

It’s been rather quiet on the Mac front. Well, that’s not entirely true, we have the continuing saga of Apple versus the rumor sites. Very little has been decided in the courts, but that hasn’t stopped the Mac community at large from giving their fifteen cents. Unfortunately, the battles being waged are being clumped into one, making the debate wandering and unfocused. We have one group shouting “This is a freedom of speech issue!” while the other says (quite accurately) “This particular decision is not.” A pissing contest ensues. ...

All right, so I’m way behind the curve on this, but one of the neat side-effects of widespread RSS adoption is a phenomenon known as Podcasting. RSS feeds (at least as of version 2.0) allow for a field called enclosures. It’s a bit of a misnomer, but a useful part of the spec. It basically specifies the location of a file that’s associated with a post. At the current time, it’s generally an audio file (MP3, WMA, AAC, etc.). In some cases it’s a video file (but that’s much less frequent due to increased cost associated with production and bandwidth). The natural extension of this capability is transfer to iTunes and then one’s iPod (hence, podcasting). New RSS readers aim at handling these feeds (and in particular, the enclosures). There are the open-source iPodder and iPodderX (which are free and $20 respectively). ...

I got an email from Don MacAskill, CEO and Chief Geek (his words, not mine ;)) over at Smugmug. He informed that they are working on feeds for their content, which is absolutely terrific. I’ll be able to add more pictures and eliminate my little lack of inline-block support problem. As a little side-note, Don was also very friendly in his email, so anyone passionate about sharing their photos should check out their service.

I like to read a variety of blogs and get a variety of opinions. Instapundit is still the best way to do get a full sampling. I forgot how I found Wizbang, but I enjoyed reading a lot of the content. Fast forward to a few days ago. Contributing Editor Paul decided to go into “I told you so” mode because a news story suggested that evolution was more complex than simple genetic inheritance. His expert interpretation was that evolution was severely flawed. Naturally, he got lots of flak for this. Instead of letting it go, he made felt the need to post again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Notice a pattern? This is immaturity at its most embarrassing. He continued to get lambasted with criticism in the comments. ...

I’ve hit a major milestone in my involvement in Macworld’s Forums. I’ve written 10,000 entries there. I’ve learned many, many things. I’ve taught and told people many things. I was even afforded the opportunity to have the prestigious title of moderator. To celebrate this moment, I’d like to share what I’ve learned. The way to learn to love writing is the act itself. Would you believe that I wasn’t a big fan of writing prior to my involvement in the forums? The only reason I didn’t despise it was the encouragement I got in my college writing class. The problem was that the class ended and I didn’t really get to explore the subject matter that excites me. I found myself an outlet. I started sharing the bits and pieces of knowledge I had accrued from troubleshooting my own machines and obsessively reading Mac news and software sites. Sharing this information was my passion. All that reading I did wasn’t satisfying, it’s fuel for my writing. Patience takes time. As curt as I am now, I once had a lot more contempt for some people. Whether I perceived ignorance was caused by stupidity or laziness, it didn’t matter. Now I realize that some people really lack the knowledge to even research answers, even if it is as simple as running a Google search. I’m still impatient with some people, but that usually because of an attitude. Don’t participate to get moderator status. Becoming a moderator was incidental to me. If you go into it trying to get something, you’re not going to get anything. It’ll feel like a job and you’ll ultimately resent every other member. Don’t post just post count. You’re going to sound like an idiot if you post every thought you have. It’s annoying. Here’s a good rule of thumb. If your entire post is I wholeheartedly support X, then it’s probably not worth saying. Give a fresh perspective or an interesting view point. Know when you’ve said all that you can say. This will get you out of a lot of pissing contests. I still haven’t mastered this. It’s easy to get caught up in an argument and want to get the last word in. When you start repeating your arguments, it’s time to move on. Some people think that developing a reputation is about winning every argument (and starting them if they don’t already exist). Some people don’t want to be your friend, but most do. It’s hard to tell when someone is being a troll or is just really frustrated. The best way to figure this out is offer solutions to what they’re bitching about. If they don’t find value in any of the suggestions and thank you, they’re a troll. Either ignore them or tell them you’re sorry you couldn’t help and get out of the conversation. They’re not interested in discourse. That’s all I’ve got for now.