Earlier today, the weather plugin (which told you the weather in nearby Worcester) broke my blog earlier today. As of yet, I don’t know how or why, but needless to say, hunting it down wasn’t easy or fun. I nearly gave my host some crap which wasn’t their fault. Arg!
Update: Apparently more is going on than just with the weather plugin because attempting to post this returned document empty errors. Why must things break on me?
Following a lengthy search for a good Bluetooth mouse (see entries one and two), someone mentioned the Macally BTMouseJr and the fact that it recently was released. I decided to check it out.
I hadn’t heard much about it, which seems like a marketing blunder considering the demand being generated by new Powerbooks with Bluetooth built-in. Wireless has become an attractive option for laptop users because the surfaces users may work on may not allow for cords. Cords also tangle and are a pain to put away repeatedly. This prompted some companies to come up with solutions for travelers. For example, Kensington made the PocketMouse Pro which features a mechanism to wind the cord within the mouse. The also made a wireless mouse with a compartment to put the USB dongle. Why not use the wireless already built into many laptops, including Windows-based ones? In addition to others, Macally has.
Dog Bites Politician On Campaign Trail
(Via TheBostonChannel.com .)
After being subjected to a million signs and bumper stickers for both candidates involved, this brought a smile to my face. Call me sadistic.
The last few days, I’ve been playing with the CSS that renders the site for me. I’ve now given the weblog a page-like look (notice the border on all sides). Normally, that bugs the crap out of me on websites, but I’ve tried to keep it a small border to make things look nicer. I’ve also removed the numbering of the comments and gave them dashed line separators.
Next up is to add a logo of some kind (and a favicon because I’m sure all of you are tired at looking at the generic icon for this site). I’ll have to try my hand at designing them both myself as no one offered to help this artistically stupid programmer.
My friend Scott (yes, I know his blog is empty, I’m trying to get him to change that) moved into his new room at U-Mass today. He’s staying in the same building, Field, but he’s moved down to the second floor.
That, first of all, made moving him in ten times easier than normal. In fact, we spent most of the day wandering around Amherst. We even had time for a stop at Amherst Brewing Company (ABC), which is a great place to stop if you’re ever in the area. They even have sampler packs so you can try a variety of their beers. I’m going to stop now because I could go on all day about beer.
Many of you may be familiar with the uber text editor, BBEdit. I recently upgraded to the 8.0 version of this fine utility.
My verdict? Well, it’s pretty similar to 7.0. There are a few key new things that made it worth the upgrade price to me. The first is the document sidebar. Instead of having a few dozen windows open, you can have just one and switch between them. This is a big win for small screen users (like those of us with 12″ Powerbooks). It also highlights the current line, which seems minor, but is amazingly useful. Hunting down the cursor can be a real chore, so this is a real time-saver. It also lets you the system spell-checker (which I’ve become addicted to.
For the first time in my life, I will not be going back to school at the end of the summer. My parents asked me if it felt weird. As of yet, no, it feels perfectly natural going to work every morning and come home every evening. Perhaps it’s too early to judge how I will feel, but I’ll say this: I’m feeling fine.
I won’t have to return to the world of academia, with its self-imposed sense of importance, lack of real world relevance, and absurd idealism. I can finally interact with other people in a real way. I’m not saying I hate school. I’ll probably start on a graduate degree sometime soon. It’s just that after 16+ years of education, every little bugaboo about its culture has turned into frustration. They become all you focus on. I’m sure the “real world” will be the same way after some time, but I’m hopeful that its downfalls will cause less friction with my personality.
I recently criticized Watson for removing EyeTV functionality from Watson’s TV Pane. Dan Wood has restored this and the iCal functionality (with caveats). I must applaud him for this. I think most Watson users would have taken the TV pane as was and thought nothing more of it. It’s great to see such dedication.
After a long iMac-less summer, Apple has announced the new iMacs with full specs and pictures.
I’d list them here, but I figure there’s not much point. You can all read. Of note is the fact that the iMacs are using a system bus that is a third of the processor speed. This is a first for G5’s, but probably won’t have a large effect upon performance. They’ve also adopted a new form factor that has essentially moved the entire guts of the machine into the LCD frame. This begs the question, why couldn’t they make a G5 Powerbook again? I won’t go off on a rant about misplaced priorities at Apple again. I’m sure that can come back another day.