The Occasional Blog

I’ve been a fan of bookmarklets which are javascript tools you can add to your browser’s bookmark menu (or bar) to extend the functionality of your browser without having to resort to a browser-specific plug-ins. One I ran across recently is called Readability and I find myself using it more and more often. It reformats the current page you are on to a single-column display with all of the extra advertising and layout ‘noise’ to make reading much more comfortable and enjoyable.

Here’s a quick demonstration of how it works. It’s free, easy, and quite nice.

Readability – Installation Video for Firefox, Safari & Chrome from Arc90 on Vimeo.

Geek, Links

Source: Online Education

Geek, Links, Work

A lot can change in ten years. Since it seems to be such the in thing, here’s my assessment of what difference ten years can make.

What	Then	Now
Computer		(my work computer)
Connection	56Kbps	20Mbps (366x faster)
Company
Position	Systems Administrator	Manager, Information Technology
Me
Becky
Kaelyn
Brian

Apple, Family, Geek, Macintosh, Work

Created by Online Education

Geek, Links, Thoughts

This is going to be an interesting post as I am currently dictating this to my iPhone as I drive to work. I am using Dragon Dictate which is a new app that does voice recognition. So far the quality is interesting. This really might be a better way to blog as this is more convenient and makes use of “lost” time.

I find it difficult to formulate my thoughts, however, as dictating is a much different method of composing than typing at the keyboard. I’ll give it a good effort as I really do want to blog more often but just can’t seem to find the time.

Geek, Links, Work

I’m not overly into music but I do have bands and artists I enjoy, both past and present. However, a few recent events involving two of my favorite ones have been quite curious and has me asking “what is a band?”

Early this year, Steven Page, one of the founding members of Barenaked Ladies left the group to persue a solo career. His contribution to their catalog of songs and their sound is without question, as is both his and their future. The four remaining members released a live album recorded in March with Keavin Hearn stepping up his vocal efforts along with Ed Robertson, Jim Creeggan, and Tyler Stewart as well. They are all talented musicians so I have no doubt they will be able to develop a new style and voice and look forward to the fruits of their labors.

Separately, one of my favorite bands, Information Society, set up a Twitter account (along with the rest of the globe, btw) to communicate with their fans on upcoming events and other info. Personally, I think that kind of use for Twitter is quite valuable and I follow several sources who use Twitter similarly.

The part that got weird is the fact that “they” followed me back. That is normal etiquette in Twitter but it was a bit surreal when I received notice that I was being “followed” by a “band” I have enjoyed for over twenty years. It’s a strange fusion of old and new. Of course, the account is managed one of the members (my guess is Kurt Harland) but it’s still a bit odd. Now if I could only get them to come out here since I haven’t seen them in concernt since 1987 at Disneyland grad night at the Tomorrowland Café.

So, is a band a brand and is only measures by their product or are they identified by their individual members and creative contributers? Will BNL still be BNL without Steven? Of course. Was InSoc the same group when it was just Kurt and Paul Robb had moved on? Yes (albeit with a different sound). I will say their newest album, Synthesizer, which marked the return of Paul Robb and James Cassidy, is my favorite and I blogged about it before. Ultimately, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ll most likely keep following both of them no matter what (or who) they’re made up of.

Update: In my old post that I referenced, I said that I saw InSoc in 1989 and not 1987. I went to grad night both years (once for my graduation and once for Becky’s). It must because I’m 40, but I’m not not sure which year it was. Was it even them?

Geek, Links, Thoughts

I know this is the Occasional Blog, but posts have been too far in between (the Twitter posts don’t count). Please forgive me. I’m not dead, just busy. For the sake of an update here are some highlights of the last several weeks.

• I’m trying to find a Senior Systems Administrator at work (you’d think that Sony Playstation would have stacks of resumés)
• My daughter turned twelve and after today’s haircut, she looks ready for high school
• The pond got its spring cleaning a few weeks ago and looks abfab. Too bad the heron got all our koi and we’re left with only 4-5″ feeders
• We took a family vacation to San Francisco to coincide with spring break and a business meeting
• The MacBook Mini is working out quite well especially after adding 2G of RAM and an 8G SDHC card
• I will be going to both E3 (definite) and WWDC (very likely) so June will be busy as well

I’ll do my best to do an actual post soon, but until I can find a candidate, things will still be busy.

Apple, Family, Geek, Links, Thoughts, Tweets, Work

I was happy to receive shipment confirmation on my Dell Mini 9 order on Thursday and it showed up Tuesday afternoon. After quickly archiving the SSD (I had considered evaluating the pre-installed Ubuntu Linux setup, but ‘eh, I’ve used Ubuntu before), I proceeded to install OS X Leopard (10.5).

My initial attempt didn’t work directly off of the install DVD (the easy way) so I had to resort to the more mucky copy-install-DVD-to-external-drive solution. On the plus side, the install proceeded fairly quickly as it was not hampered by the slowness of installing from DVD.

After a few reboots and updates, I now have this:

I must say that it is the cutest and coolest little laptop that I’ve used in a while. I’ve been able to install the apps I want to use (Firefox, OmniFocus, 1Password, iStat Menus, Growl, and Adium) as well as the VPN software for work so I can respond to any issue that might come up. After purging items mentioned in my last post, I have 4.5G free on the 16G SSD (formats to 14.03G).

It isn’t all paradise, however. Getting used to the keyboard is proving challenging. Not surprisingly, the keys are about 80% normal size, but I can live with that. The part that’s really strange is that the ‘/” key which is normally to the right of ;/: is now below ./> but the really annoying thing is the right shift key is half size right next to the up arrow. More often than not I end up moving the cursor up a line whenever I try to capitalize something.

While I will opt for my work MacBook or the family MacBook Pro for anything really serious, the Mini 9 is a great little “goof around” Mac that Apple never made. After our budget digests the purchase in a month or two, I’ll pick up a 2G DIMM as I’m noticing the slowdown of OS X on 1G. I’ll also get a 8G SDHC Flash card for scratch and I’ll be ready for anything.

Geek, Links, Macintosh, Thoughts, Work

While I wait for Dell to ship my Dell Mini 9, I did the only thing I can do: pretend. Borrowing an idle Mac Mini, I installed, updated, and trimmed OS X to see how much breathing room I’ll have on the 16G SSD. I’ll put my process here for my own reference when I do it again for real but also for anyone who might come by and is curious.

1. Formatted SSD as 16G HFS+ partition. I’m not sure what the actual size of the SSD will be (I’ve heard ~13G usable)
2. Installed 10.5.4 with everything option turned off
3. Did initial set-up and let Spotlight build initial search index
   7.92G Used, 8.08G Free
4. Installed available updates:
   • Remote Desktop Client Update 3.2.2
   • QuickTime 7.6
   • iTunes 8.1
   • Java For Mac OS X 10.5 Update 2 1.0
   • Mac OS X Update Combined 10.5.6

   Reboot: 7.23G Used, 8.77G Free

5. Installed Firefox 3.0
6. Using AppZapper (running from a flash drive), I deleted the following apps:
   • Automator
   • Chess
   • DVD Player
   • Font Book
   • iSync
   • AirPort Utility
   • Audio MIDI Setup
   • Boot Camp Assistant
   • ColorSync Utility
   • Migration Assistant
   • ODBC Administrator
   • Podcast Capture
   • RAID Utility
   • Remote Install Mac OS X
   • VoiceOver Utility

   7.15G Used, 8.85G Free

7. Installed available updates:
   • iLife Support
   • AirPort Client Update 2009-001 1.0
   • Front Row Update 2.1.7
   • Safari 3.2.1
   • Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 3 1.0
   • Security Update 2009-001

   Reboot: 7.6G Used, 8.4G Free

8. Ran Monolingual and removed all languages except English and English (United States)
   Reboot: 6.09G Used, 9.91G Free
9. Ran Monolingual and removed all Input Menu languages
   6.04G Used, 9.96G Free
10. Using Monolingual removed all architectures other than Intel
    Reboot: 5.97G Used, 10.03 G Free

Of course, I can dig through /System and /Library to find others but I don’t think the gain would be great and I’m happy with having 8-10G free considering I can easily get a 8G SD flash card for additional storage.

Geek, Macintosh

If you follow me on Twitter or read my previous Twitter posts, you saw that yesterday we decided that we could afford to buy a Dell Mini 9 for my birthday. I’m kinda excited as I’ve been wanting a netbook for a bit and the Dell is able to run OS X with no significant compromises (aka Hacintosh). Since I think it will be a bit before Apple decides to play in the netbook arena (if ever) and, if they do, will not be likely targeting sub-$400, this will be the best way to get a mini Mac laptop on the cheap.

Of course, the challenge of getting OS X running will be fun in-and-of-itself. Will it be the perfect laptop? No. I know the screen is small, keyboard cramped, and the processor is on the modest side, but I will be able to carry it almost anywhere and will have a full browser, mail, and programs with me. With the SSD disk, it should be silent, too, which is nice.

I’ll be ordering it tomorrow morning and while it won’t make it in time for my 40th birthday on Wednesday, it will hopefully be in before too long. I’ll let you know how it goes and what the experience is like.

Apple, Geek, Links, Macintosh