MacBigot Cached Glances

This is what I’ve set up at http://twtbizcard.com/macbigot . The service is free and simple to use: Just add the hashtag ‘#twtbizcard’ to a @reply to any Twitter user, and they will receive a link directly to your card, with as much information as you can cram into it.

Then, the site keeps track of which cards you have received, and who you’ve sent cards to.

Why is this so attractive to busy networking people? It’s a lot easier to exchange Twitter handles than phone numbers or even email addresses… so if you’re not active on Twitter yet, it’s likely time to at least set up an account: http://Twitter.com .

TwtBizCard Demo from Felipe on Vimeo.

I often use Microsoft Excel, FileMaker Pro, and a strong text editor to do data cleansing — for things such as managing out bad contacts in mailing lists, locating duplicates, and detecting syntax errors. These may seem like trivial tasks which could be done by eyeballing the data — but when you deal with files containing more than a handful of fields and thousands of records, you need to trust your tools.

Because the fine folks at Bare Bones Software do not have Windows versions of my favorite text editors (they are a MacOS-only developer), I had to audition about a dozen tools to manage the same kind of powerful search-and-replace features that I had been accustomed to on the Mac.

The winner turned out to be an open source (free) utility called Notepad++, which does just about everything that I am used to having in TextWrangler — with the exception of the ability to sort lines (which I can still do in Excel if necessary).

(This in response to the ZDNet article, ‘Report: Apple prepping 11.6-in. MacBook Air, new iPod touch‘…)

I’ve been on this rampage for a while now (http://macbigot.com/?p=911 – to catch you up, I believe the market wanted smaller not thinner — or, I’d rather have something that is easily carried vs. one that is easily mailed).

For those who have seen HP’s mini 210 HD (10.1″ display at 1366×768), it’s clear the notion of all netbooks being too much compromise and too little value is fading fast. On HP’s build-to-order site, I got mine with the upgraded video card, added bluetooth, and left everything else standard — and now carry a $409 netbook (sporting an Apple sticker) that I wish had come not from HP, but the company known for leading industrial design and refining ideas left to wither due to poor quality. Netbooks would have been a perfect area for Apple to say, “HERE — THIS is what all those other companies would have created if they’d had Jonathan Ives…”

Instead, they created a whole new space in the market (which Microsoft had failed at, though they’d tried) with the iPad — and I think that’s great, for consumers. But for Creators, it would be much more of a tool if it ran Adobe Illustrator, and could connect to FTP sites, and standardized ports, and (you get the idea).

The Air getting ‘downsized’ may be a step in the right direction for people like me — so it would increase my optimism in the platform. But with only one USB port and no ethernet, it might still be seen as an executive toy.

What about those of us ‘in the trenches’? The netbook format has many features stripped already (horsepower, optical drives, screen real estate); Apple should be looking to improve upon that — not simple remove MORE. To me, the whole concept of the Air was a lame attempt at getting maybe two people in the enterprise to notice the Apple brand. Now that we’ve done that (or not), let’s move on…

What is the biggest thing you worry about when you’ve just recently acquired some new technology?

Perhaps it’s a power surge?

Accidental baptism?

Food poisoning?

Succumb to the effects of poor workmanship?

I’ll bet you never worried about the perils engendered by leaky glow sticks!

My daughter brought home some of those dollar-store toys that you bend to activate, with little plastic joiners to fashion bracelets and necklaces that glow in the dark (some for several days, if you’re lucky), and found that one of the rods was a dud, and another was leaking when she opened the package. I had her take the leaking one immediately to the trash can and warned her to wash her hands thoroughly — but in our haste I never considered that the ‘dud’ might be leaking too, and it lay near the hinge of my brand-new laptop for about five minutes before I threw it away as well.

Not seeing any residue at the time, I put the notebook away and was surprised the next morning to fine a large, gooey streak of chemical nastiness across what used to be gloriously clean and sparkling HP-branded plastic. It took me half and hour and a bottle of Goo-Gone (Mommy keeps it in the house for just such emergencies) to completely remove the slime trail that persisted; and when I was done the gouge was deep, and permanent.

Rather than worrying only about strong magnetic fields and open containers of liquid, I will now also be paranoid about chemical attacks.

Buy it durable, but treat it like it’s brittle.

My HP mini 210 HD arrived the other day, and I am slowly migrating my life onto it from backup disks, etc. I haven’t repartitioned it yet for multiple operating systems; but that can wait, since I now know how to do that with GParted which was included, gratis, on my Ubuntu-based bootable thumb drive.

I’ve also learned (the hard way, over the last few years) to keep important documents backed up by saving them ‘in the cloud’, or to multiple drives, before risking any change to my main system. [Get the t-shirt! Live The Agony!]

So for now, I’m starting out with just the basics — Skype, DropBox, OpenOffice, GIMPshop, ClamWin, PDFCreator, VLC, VNC, iTunes, Firefox (with TinEye, DownloadHelper, and other favorite plugins); all at a cost of… zero dollars.

From the mailbag:

A new employee is hired at the “Tickle Me Elmo” factory and she reports for her first day promptly at 8:00 am.

The next day at 08:45 there is a knock at the personnel manager’s door. The foreman from the assembly line throws open the door and begins to rant and rave about the new employee. He complains that she is incredibly slow and the whole line is backing up, putting the entire production line behind schedule.

The personnel manager decides he should see this for himself, so the two men march down to the factory floor. When they get there the line is so backed up that there are Tickle Me Elmos all over the factory floor and they’re really beginning to pile up.

At the end of the line stands the new employee surrounded by mountains of Tickle Me Elmos. She has a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of small marbles. The two men watch in amazement as she cuts a little piece of fabric, wraps it around two marbles, and begins to carefully sew the little package between Elmo’s legs.

The personnel manager bursts into laughter, after several minutes of hysterics he pulls himself together and approaches the woman. “I’m sorry,” he says to her barely able to keep a straight face, “but I think you misunderstood the instructions I gave you yesterday.”

“Your job is to give Elmo two – TEST – TICKLES…”

Now that I’ve successfully improved my (9-year-old) daughter’s Acer Aspire One 9.8″ netbook to have both a 30Gb WinXP partition and the rest of the 120Gb drive running Ubuntu 10.02 (and hey, she even likes it better, since the Windows audio was awful) — it’s time to look at building a PC for her to use for school. I know, in the ‘good old days’, we didn’t each have one PC for school and another for Googling cat videos like her brother does — but it’s a Brave New World, and I didn’t have a cell phone until I was 27, either.

We’ll be adding an inexpensive monitor (one that is 1366×800 with a built-in digital TV tuner runs around $160), and a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 (Student/Home Edition is around $90 with a three-seat license). The scanner/printer that came with her older brother’s system is already available on our wireless network.

Looking good is the Acer Aspire Revo — the desktop, more mature brother of the Aspire One netbook. The processor is a bit stronger than the netbook version includes, and there is no wireless on this system — I’ll have to located a WiFi dongle (because I hate wires with an unholy passion) in the $15-$35 range). But it’s available from WalMart for a piddly $188. It comes with Windows XP (SP3) preinstalled — which I imagine will get upgraded to Ubuntu after it’s first couple years of use.

After working several live events that included audio from a CD player, I noticed that universally, participants blanch at using an unfamiliar CD player (or at least, hesitate when there is no time to do so). I could mandate that from now on, they bring their own CD player — but then I would be gambling that they would think far enough ahead to choose one with both an AC power source (running on batteries for live performances is a BAD idea) and an audio out. And not all CD players are created equal; some have problems with hiss or a lack of clean bass.

The easiest thing to do is to provide (don’t gamble on what they might bring with them) a player with the simplest user interface possible — a wireless remote control that you can hand them if necessary (keeping them from touching any other of your equipment). Unless you plan on ‘going pro’ (in which case we’d highly recommend being ‘armed’ for all of the big three: iPod, audio CD, memory card/flash drives), the best bang for your buck is going to be the ubiquitous iPod, rather than CDs. Why? Because a decent CD player will run you about $200 (we’re not talking about consumer-level ‘boom boxes’ from WalMart; you want reliable and even sound). And for the real road warriors, the new players that use SD memory cards and thumb drives are also coming down in price, and can make your life a lot easier onstage (the idea for both CDs and SD cards is that you do edits on your Mac/PC, but keep live performances from depending on your computer).

So, bring your laptop to quickly rip any audio CDs that performers bring, and quietly set the disks aside before game-time. Now, you’ll have the tracks in two places — your laptop AND your audio gear — so that if an equipment malfunction occurs, you have iTunes as a backup plan. Copy them to an iPod (or SD card, depending on your hardware), leaving your laptop screen free to browse program and liner notes, IM with crew elsewhere in the facility, and other non-critical tasks.

Whether you decide to settle on audio CDs, iPods, or memory cards, here are the priorities for the ONE device your performer/customer should be exposed to:

1. Must have easy-to-read display (song information, track number, etc.)
2. A wireless/cordless remote control (infrared is most common, but RF would be better)
3. Needs external power source (batteries are great, but only as a fallback)
4. A ‘line out’ would be preferable; but a headphone out is a must.
5. Pick something that will travel well (i.e. a simple power cable is better than a ‘wall frog’ AC adapter; and avoid devices that feel like they will disintegrate if dropped)

—-
Griffin AirDock Docking Station for iPod w/RF Remote ($18.99)

• Works with all dockable iPods
• Comes with a versatile Griffin PowerBlock AC adapter
• Stay in control from across with the included full-featured remote
• Comes with everything you need right in the package, including Griffin PowerBlock AC power adapter
• Compatible with most dockable iPods, and is backed by a manufacturer’s 1-year warranty

—-
Benwin iChoice Dock and Speakers w/Remote for iPod ($26.99)

• Four (4) high-quality Neodymium Micro Drivers
• Convenient remote control to scan through songs or adjust volume
• Can be connected via USB to your computer for synchronizing and charging your iPod
• Compatible with ALL iPod models!

—–
Apple Universal Dock w/Wireless Remote ($49.00)

Apple, 1987:

Microsoft, 2009:




Mirus, 2009:



Apple, 2010:

I don’t know why I would ever need such a thing; but it just makes this particular geek feel more secure, knowing that this exists:

3M Nuclear Grade 8979N Performance Plus Duct Tape MMM-58185 Slate Blue 6 inch x 60 yards (Amazon.com)

It’s important to understand that what Apple has done with their iPad is more important for what computing will be like for everyone 8-10 years from now — than how it will impact the market between now and next Christmas. So this device is really a concept that competes with time and the slow-moving nature of consumers’ willingness to think outside the box.

But as revolutionary as it is, it also compares unfavorably this year with devices that are designed for the low-cost hi-tech market.

One example that I really like is the Mirus Classmate, an under-$500 netbook (available from WalMart.com and Amazon.com) that adds a touch-screen and stylus.

Even though this comes with the netbook-standard 1024×600-pixel screen (which I couldn’t live with for a personal laptop), the ergonomics look ideal to me for managing support tickets while roaming around a building. There is no need for special programming (you could even use Flash!) when developing for Windows XP — if Apple had used a scaled-down version of their own MacOS X (instead of their iPhone operating system), we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But to reach into enterprise markets, the iPad is going to have to add (by software update or otherwise) some rather banal features which Steve Jobs was OK with leaving out of the first-generation iPad.

You know you want to buy this for me.

It’s been all over the news that Lohan TwitPic’d herself the other day, and people are incensed.

See, she doesn’t use an iPhone! Will the scandalous behavior never cease? (That appears to be a Blackberry folks; what is Steve Jobs doing wrong?)

(PG-13 photo after the jump, because though it should be Safe For Work, I don’t know what kind of cranks you may have in your Human Resources department…) (more…)

You are 100% Smarter than a fifth grader.

 

You are smarter than a fifth grader. no doubt. There is no need for you to retake school. Keep on doing your brain excersise like sudokus and crossword puzzles, and you’ll soon be smarter than a sixth grader! Good work!

are you smarter than a fifth grader?

I have a great idea about how we can make up some of the money that Barry has ‘redistributed’ out of the hands of the people and into the grubby mitts of the government (you know the one that used to be ‘by the people, for the people’, etc.?). We can sell ad space on surgical masks. Because, you see, with ObamaCare in conjunction with our new chummy relationship with both Mexico and Cuba, the best medical care the ‘middle class’ will be able to afford will be a gross of these masks.

What would you put on a branded mask that could be worn by tens of thousands and seen by that and many more?

UPDATE:

Flu Masks in Fashion as Virus Nears Pandemic Stage (FoxNews.com)

Look great,breath easier and protect yourself in style with New FLU Fashion Respirators (FluFashion.net)

Fashion Surgical Masks – Fighting Swine Flu with the Power of Design (IrinaBlok.com)

From CNN.com:

Prestige Ameritech is ramping up production. For the first time in the company’s history, it will be manufacturing masks 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Bowen also is looking to hire up to 20 workers to handle the workload.

Ever since Bowen and his business partner, Dan Reese, showed up to work Monday morning, the phones haven’t stopped ringing. With the World Health Organization and national governments confirming cases of swine flu in at least 11 countries, orders for masks are coming in from around the world.

“We’re still trying to get a handle on everything,” Bowen said.
…
“Surgical masks are used in hospitals. They’re not used in the general public,” Bowen said. “So when the general public starts wanting face masks, the supply gets short really quickly.”

He added: “If there’s a pandemic, America won’t be able to supply its own needs, because we’re pretty much it.” Bowen said that if the situation gets worse worldwide, countries like China and Mexico would keep surgical masks for their own citizens.

He said he wants to make sure the surgical masks are going to health care professionals and not brokers looking to take financial advantage of this health scare. The shortage of American surgical-mask manufacturers is a critical weakness in the country’s ability to battle a pandemic outbreak, he said.

“Hopefully, this isn’t the big one,” Bowen said. “What we’re hoping is that this is just a wake-up call.”

From around the web:

…but instead chose to kiss the hand of the Saudi leader (a well-understood gesture of submission).

From AtlasShrugs:

“What a sickening spectacle.”

The handlers and the media — all the people who we trust to know these things, and not to be questioned — they all scolded the ‘foolish’ and the ‘conspiracy theorists’ who raised an eyebrow at Obama’s assurances that he was a Christian (no, really, he went to that church for more than 20 years… everybody there knows him…), and scolded us again when we pointed out that either he was only there because his wife dragged him along (now there is a measure of a leader We Can Believe In) or no, actually, he was fully invested in the Christian Mythos but somehow didn’t manage to perceive after 20 years of sermons that the church was being led by the most charismatic voice under that roof — who happened to be a racist, and anti-semetic, and perhaps a bit batty.

For the record, I would have been more satisfied with an avowed agnostic than a fake Christian — a liar.

Yes, we were scolded for questioning The One’s Character. How Dare We.

A literary work that sometimes gets mentioned on the campaign trail says to watch what a person does, rather than simply believe what they say. (Matthew 7:15-21) We, as a country, failed that test of perception miserably this last November, and it will stand in history as the quiet turning point where America’s good intentions were played by the most obvious of hucksters — on the naivete of both the privileged and the victims of our era.

Although those in the back row were too busy congratulating each other to notice, our new President’s priorities and allegiances to others, rather than to America’s, have been discussed openly — but summarily ignored — for a long time.

The downtrodden were sold an idea, based on a thirst for long-missing hope, that a dramatic Change in direction was worth the Risk of the Unknown. We simply did not want to believe that these personal allegiances mattered.

Below is a picture of your leader. It is upon his back that you cling; waiting for the security, the sensibility, the resurrection of Hope. And in this photo is his backside as he bends to kiss the hand of the sort that just months ago, the blogosphere was mocking Bush for … simply shaking hands with.

Yes, it’s a really good thing he didn’t debase himself by bowing to the Queen of England.

You get what you vote for; not what you’re promised.

---

Related reading:

Please Watch The Video — Bush Didn’t “Bow” (LegalInsurrection.blogspot.com)

The following is a snapshot of references in a Wikipedia article (that some opine will get removed in the very-near-future):

1. Obama bows to Saudi king (WorldNetDaily, April 2, 2009)
   
2. With bowed head and bended knee (American Thinker, April 3, 2009)
   
3. Obama and the King: a right royal bow row (Brisbane Times, April 3, 2009)
   
4. Obama’s royal ‘grovel’ (Sydney Morning Herald, April 4, 2009)
   
5. Post Politics Hour (Washington Post.com, April 3, 2009)
   
6. Queen Elizabeth hugs First Lady Michelle Obama? Holy crumpets! (LA Times Blog, April 2, 2009)
   
7. Michelle Obama’s warm touch with queen draws gasps (CNN.com, April 2, 2009)
   
8. The Queen and Mrs. Obama: A Breach in Protocol (Time.com, April 1, 2009)
   
9. Don’t Touch: Michelle Obama Abandons Protocol With the Queen (Fox News.com, April 2, 2009)
   
10. Michelle Obama charms queen away from protocol (Associated Press, April 2, 2009)
    
11. Kiss dis! No lip service for Barack Obama, French first lady (Boston Herald.com, April 4, 2009)
    
12. A French Embrace for Mrs. Obama (New York Times, April 3, 2009)
    
13. Did President Obama dodge a friendly kiss from French First Lady Carla Bruni? (New York Daily News, April 3, 2009)
    
14. Bruni Backs Off From Obama Kiss (Fox News.com, April 4, 2009)
    
15. World watches Obama, Sarkozy _ forget the husbands (Associated Press, April 3, 2009)
    
16. THE WORLD; The President’s Inclination: No, It Wasn’t a Bow-Bow (New York Times, June 19, 1994)
    
17. Kelso: Holding hands with the Saudis for nothing (Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 22, 2008)
    
18. Obama Bows to Saudi King, YouTube, April 2, 2009)
    
19. Queen Elizabeth’s anger at Berlusconi a YouTube hit (CNN.com, April 3, 2009)
    
20. Surveillance Disclosure Denounced (Washington Post.com, June 27, 2006)
    
21. Iraq violence ‘linked to US vote’ (BBC.com, October 31, 2006)
    
22. Bush Slams Leak of Terror Financing Info (Fox News.com, June 26, 2006)
    
23. Drip, drip, drip — the MSM coverup of the Presidential bow before the financier of radical Islam (American Thinker, April 4, 2009)
    
24. The B-Cast: Did ‘The New York Times’ Spike a Story About ACORN? (Breitbart.tv April 1, 2009)
    
25. The Most Biased Name in News (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, July/August 2001)
    
26. A NATION CHALLENGED: THE MEDIA; Network Coverage a Target Of Fire From Conservatives (New York Times, November 7, 2001)