Category Archives: uncategorized

I upgraded my Manila server at school today to Mac OS X and Frontier 8.05. Wow — talk about a speed boost. Very cool. Almost worth all the frustration it took to get it running on OS X. What a pain that was.

Apple Remote Desktop. Pretty cool, but bittersweet. The controller app runs on OS X, and the client runs on anything from 8.1 to 10.1, but the controller app won’t run on 8 or 9. That’s bad news for those still running a dual platform shop. I like to be able to sit at any computer in a lab and copy out from there. I won’t be able to do that using ARD unless I upgrade all my lab computers to OS X, and that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Macintouch asked readers for their WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference) concerns and ideas. They got an awful lot of hardware suggestions for a Developer Conference. My favorite is the hosehead who says: Migrate features from MacOS X like preemptive multitasking and Memory protection to MacOS 9.x without bringing the UNIX baggage with it. This can be done now more than ever before due to Carbon is making this possible. Ummm, isn’t the impossibility of that task the whole reason for Mac OS X? Remember Copland? Remember Rhapsody? He goes on: As for virtual memory, memory is cheap, and MacOS application footprints are tiny. Most Mac users turn it off anyway. Good idea. Memory’s cheap, so we don’t need virtual memory. Memory protection although may save your OS from crashing, does little to prevent data loss as a result of a crashing application. To say nothing of the other running applications that won’t lose data as a result. Hosehead.

I love that there’s so much great open source/free software that’s not released under the GPL. I love the BSD-style licenses, not because I want to rip off the software, but because I can tie my software to it, even make it dependent on it, and not worry about the licensing issues. That’s why I’ve decided to use PostgreSQL for my HelpDesk project instead of mySQL. That’s why I’ve decided to focus on PHP instead of Perl. That’s why I’ve decided that Apache will be at the heart of my weblogging tools instead of . . . well . . . OK, there’s nothing I would have used other than Apache. It’s awesome.

Linux Journal likes Mac OS X. But of course!

What the world needs now is another weblogging API. Geez. Of course, I’m working on one, too, so I guess I can’t be too critical. Although mine is more targeted toward education.

Ever have someone pass out in your office? Trust me, it’s scary.

New Jars of Clay album, The Eleventh Hour — very cool.

An idea for a new web publishing platform is brewing in my head. The pieces: Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, REALbasic, XML-RPC. Hmmmm. Frequency.

I find Bob the Builder to be a bit disturbing. There’s one episode I’ve seen (and I’ve seen it like three times), where there’s way too much sexual tension for a show aimed at toddlers and preschoolers. It’s called “Buffalo Bob.” Bob enters a line dancing competition, and his date is supposed to be Mavis, from the Post Office. Well, it turns out that Mavis hurts her leg at the gym, and Bob is upset that he can’t go. Wendy (his construction assistant, if you’re unfamiliar with the show) gets really coy and says, “Well, Bob, there is someone you could take.” From there it just degenerates.

My boss had a rough day today. He said to me, “Would you think less of me if I needed a drink when I get home tonight?”

I said, “Sir, I couldn’t possibly think any less of you than I already do.”

Revisiting my New Year’s Resolutions, just after the Ides of March.

1) Push weight down to 180 (currently 198)

Currently 187. Pretty close, considering I started the year at 198.

2) Read through the entire Bible (along with my wife)

Coming along nicely. I just finished I Samuel 8, which puts me right on schedule (actually, a day ahead). She’s ahead of me. A little friendly competition helps the motivation.

3) Finish rewriting my HelpDesk program in REALbasic and PostgreSQL (right now it’s in FileMaker Pro)

This is the toughest one. My REALbasic skills are coming along. I’ve kind of sidetracked into XML-RPC for a little while, but that’s OK — it’s all good. My PostgreSQL skills are probably fine for what I want to do with HelpDesk.

4) Move to Mac OS X full time (with no Classic on my machine)

I made strides toward this. GoLive 6, Office X, and QuickMail Pro 3 (as much as I just barely tolerate QuickMail Pro) help a lot. I tried the Corel Graphics Suite (native), and that’s OK for most jobs, but sometimes when I need to get down and dirty, I still need Photoshop and ImageReady, and I don’t have version 7 yet (and probably won’t until summer).

5) Renovate my bathroom (late 1950’s pink)

This will depend largely on what HealthGuard decides to do about Jen’s surgery. If they agree to pay it, which they absolutely should in my opinion, then we will have some money to put toward the bathroom.

When I first started at Etown, I was able to remember everything about every computer. Now I’m starting to slip. I can’t remember everything anymore. It’s just too much.

HealthGuard got back to us with a resounding “No” today. I suppose we’ll have to appeal it. Jen needs the surgery. If they won’t pay, I’ll have to get the money somehow. I guess I could sell a kidney or something.

Sibelius? Still sucks. I had more fun with it today. Although, today’s problems were more a result of problems with Opcode’s OMS. The OMS Setup just ate itself whole. It was sick and twisted, but I upgraded to the latest version and that seemed to fix it. My new favorite thing about Sibelius is that you can order version 2 for Windows, and it’s shipping, but the Mac version isn’t shipping and you can’t pre-order yet. According to the FAQ, the Mac version is taking so long because they want to support Mac OS X 10.1, and it “only just came out.” Yeah, whatever. It’s been out for six months or so, and they could have gotten even earlier if they were in Apple’s Developer program. Heck, I’ve already made several programs that run on 10.1, and I’m still learning how to program!

We have a MIDI Lab in our school that runs Sibelius. Hence my constant interaction with it. Here’s hoping we move to Finale soon.

Charles Haddad of Business Week thinks that corporate IT keeps choosing PCs over Macs because of job security, rather than the standard arguments of price and technology. Well, duh. One gem: Scores of IT managers and their underlings wrote in — most of them anonymously — to complain that their companies could save millions if they would switch to Macs. And another: I ask you, what’s more cost effective — buying a PC that needs a network technician and two support guys for $5,000 each a month, or a $2,000 Mac that requires just one support person? Excellent points both. That’s one of the reasons so many schools stay with Macs. We’re understaffed and underfunded. If we switched to PCs, we wouldn’t be able to keep up. We’d be buried very quickly.

I’ve chosen a name for my still-very-much-in-progress Blogger program: Frequency. Cool, huh? Kind of a reference to UserLand’s Radio, and also a reminder that you can keep your website more up-to-date by using it. I was pretty pleased with myself.

I’ve posted Technology Deism in the Articles section. It’s a piece I wrote about a year ago for the now totally-up-in-the-air website eTechNews. Enjoy! More to come soon as I continue to build up the site.

Sibelius sucks. I just can’t say it any plainer than that. The installation process is ridiculous (no imaging allowed) and the stability is, well, absent. If it starts to crash with a Type 1, 2, or 3 error, just trash the MIDI Preferences (Global) file. Then Sibelius starts back up with no problems. Well, it seems to me that this file doesn’t do anything but sit there and corrupt itself. When you trash it, there’s no loss of functionality or settings — it just starts working again. I don’t get it. This is version 1.4. “We’ll fix this in a future release,” they say. Well, the next release is 2.0, and you’ll never guess this, but it costs money for a major version upgrade!

I’m learning all about Server Side Includes right now. Very cool. CSS and PHP are next on my list of web technologies to master. Still working on XMP-RPC in REALbasic.

My voice is back. It came back as suddenly as it went away. I went to say something to my boss, and I realized I was talking out loud. Weird.

More of the web site is developed. The Music section now has some MP3s and lyrics for songs I’ve written.

Today I am voiceless. I woke up yesterday with no voice whatsoever. I can whisper, but it hurts a bit. If I shout, it’s downright painful, and it only sounds like a whisper anyway.

I’m fleshing out some more of this web site. I still need to upload some articles I’ve written and some MP3s I’ve recorded. I’ll probably do that at lunch today.