Gadget-lovers Future Paradise

How do you like the future so far? Trek to the MOMA and see how much further you can go with personal gadgets. They can make your environment perfect for you and keep it perfect for the person next to you (those backseat fights are a thing of the past). You can create energy by walking, remove impurities from the air naturally, and cool insulin anywhere. Are you a lonely guy? Get a virtual companion to steal the sheets, rub their cold feet against yours and throw plates. I'm telling you, whatever you want, it's there.

(The site has a funky interface so Mac people go with Firefox.)

I'm Back!!!

Woo hoo! Happy Dance! I gave up on Verizon and adopted Clearwire. And guess what? Clearwire really works! And it's faster than Verizon! and it's cheaper! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!

Is that great dialogue or what? Oh? It's a monologue? Why do I care? I have joined in for the annual madness known as Script Frenzy. This year I will be writing a screenplay even though I had a choice of TV script, stage play and screenplay. I am now the proud author of 1.5 screenplays. Which is great? Right? Wish me luck.

Better yet. You do it, too. We need more stories.

damn the phone company -i'll be back

Due to forces of nature and the lousy customer service of Verizon (it's either up and wonderful or never coming back, there is not in between), I have been without internet since Saturday night. I've been borrowing access to do the essentials. At the moment I'm at the library with 18 minutes remaining on my time at this terminal. When I get more time I'll tell you just how insane Verizon is. They have not kept two appointments. Well, gotta run. Wish me luck

Blue Screen of Death - Coming to an Apple Near You

The Apple I used to know and love was a friendly, happy company – the lovable big guy on the block who would take on all comers and put flowers in their gun barrels. The guy to whom you could go to with all your problems and who would say, "No problem! I've got that covered." He was a welcoming dude with a living room as large as however many people wanted to jump into it. Those days are over.

I understand, somewhat, that an iPhone software upgrade broke the hacks that opened the phone (well, transportable mini-super computer, actually) to extreme litigation by the people we used to call Ma Bell. Hacking and breaking are, after all, illegal and hobbies akin to stealing. I'm all for paying people for the work they do.

I understand also that if you want to make really cool software that runs happily on Mac OS you need to make a fianacial contribution and join the club. If I had put a lot of time and effort into making a really efficient system with features that border on AI, I'd want anyone who wanted to mess with it to show some commitment, too.

iPhone users got their warning. iMac users didn't. Or if they did it was only in media that doesn't get to me.

Last night I watched a DVD on my brand new iMac running Jaguar. When I was finished I shut down the system and went to bed. This morning I started it up and launched Safari. Or tried to. Safari wouldn't launch. I launched Firefox. Okay. I have Firefox up and running. So, what's up with Safari?

I ran the Update Software utility. Three updates were waiting for me. I installed them. The updates required restart. I restarted. Voila! Blue screen of death (although it's a much nicer blue than the dozy one) followed by the Welcome Screen. Like, where has all my personal information gone? No problem. I enter it all again, click continue and I'm back at the Welcome Screen. After about five retries (yes, I am persistent) I give up and call Apple. It's too early for California – they're all still in bed (ty 1-800-MYAPPLE).

Fortunately, I still have my old (non-Intel) G4 and can look up solutions on the Apple website. I try the least destructive solution: removing ApplicationEnhancer.bundle and it doesn't work. The next solution jumps way back to 1995 with what we used to call a "Clean Install" of the system. That's what I'm doing right now and have been doing for over an hour.

Dear Mr. Jobs, please send a warning next time you want to boot out my system enhancers (of which I have none – is this an Apple vs. Adobe thing? Do you have a bee in your bonnet about Tasty Aps?) and rob me of 2 hours of production time. I'm happy to remove substandard items from my machine or at least to set aside needed time to fix something. I'm not happy with this new bully on the street. Put him away, please.

Normally I would not be writing this sort of thing but I've watered the plants, fed the dog, swept the floors and there is still time left over to be angry about having to reinstall my system. Fortunately, I've been using Time Machine. The most I will lose is one day. Yes, I did consider restoring the system with Time Machine, but that option removes everything on the hard drive. Theoretically I would get it all back in the restore but, no, thank you. I've been there and done that. There's always some little nit that I dearly loved which turns out to be irreparably damaged or gone AWOL.

Argggh!! Well, now I have time to take a shower and get dressed. And take the dog for a walk ... and watch the sun rise over the neighborhood ... and ...

Unlock Books!

Free the books! Freedom for readers! Why don't they just chain us in underground cells and read the books to us then they can make absolutely certain no one is making copies!!!

I recently purchased an electronic book in PDF format from Fictionwise. Before I could actually download the book, I had to click through three screens warning me that I was buying an Acrobat PDF and Fictionwise wasn't responsible if I was unable to read it. Very dire warnings indeed. What was all the insanity about? I've bought PDF books before and read them without problem, even the "locked" PDFs. I make PDFs all the time whether at work or not. So, I bought the PDF with intent to make a copy for my Palm Zire PDA so I could read it in comfort. What book did I buy? Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man. Yes, I 'm a big fan. Although I didn't start off reading his 50 books in order, I am now.

Okay. I download the book but it's not a PDF. It's this weird .etd format. I double click on it, Acrobat Professional opens and I get an error. Can't open the book. I go to the Adobe site and spend about 30 minutes in an endless loop between two pages on the Digital Editions web: the download page and the help page. Back and forth. Back and forth.

I paid over a thousand dollars for Adobe CS 3 Suite (of which Acrobat Professional is a part). I figure that if I call them they will help me out here. No such luck. I need to talk to the Digital Editions people. (Or person. I think it's just one guy who fiddles around on his lunch break.) Anyway, I call them and they transfer me to the Acrobat people who tell me I need to talk to the Digital Editions people. Another endless loop. In desperation I send an email the the Digital Editions people thinking it will be days before I hear anything.

Meanwhile Reaper Man languishes unread and starts to burn a hole in my brain because I picked up the next book in the series as a paperback while out one day, knowing how fast I get through Terry Pratchett books and wanting to have another waiting for me when I finish Reaper Man.

Surprise me! About 24 hours later, I get an email from a very nice guy at Adobe Digital Editions (back from lunch, I suppose) who takes about three emails figuring out my problem and telling me the solution. My Apple computer is too new. They don't make Digital Editions for it yet. Would I like to know when it's available. Yes, please, I tell him.

Meanwhile, back on my old G4 I get the hint and download Digital Editions easily although launching it requires returning to the Digital Editions web site. Quirky or what? The book opens and, hooray!!! I can now read my book but only on that G4 and only when it's connected to the internet. OMG!!

No wonder Amazon has come out with the Kindle and Fictionwise sells their own formats as do the Palm people, not to mention the MSN Reader (snappy title, eh?). Adobe has alienated the customers they created by making it nearly impossible to use the PDFs that are purchased.

Sad really. Adobe originated digital documents and now they're going to lose them. Next time I buy an e-book it won't be an Adobe PDF.

Current Fads
Listening. Night of the Furies - The Rosebuds and recent purchases (unpublished); heavy rain
Watching. Blade Runner (year)
Activity. learning yoga; back exercises
Gadget. cell phone
News Source. the news feeds in Safari
Reading. Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City - Anne Soffee; Poltergeist - Kat Richardson; First Impressions: What you don't know about how others see you - Anne Demarais and Valerie White; The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel Published - Evan Marshall; Mensa Bulletin; Popular Science (Yes, I really am reading them all right now—I'm a reading addict. What can I say?)

a new level of smooth in tv entertainment

ABC is back on my entertainment list with a player that really works. Unfortunately it is some type of proprietary player that wraps up Quicktime in a box of commercial ads. I had to download a browser plug-in which took about two minutes and automatically recognized me as a "Mac People." After the install confirmation I was seamlessly returned to the show I had chosen. Pretty neat.

The show played smoothly (except for that two minutes of smeary visuals) in high resolution. The ads play really huge (of course). Your days of opting out of commercials are numbered. Fortunately they can still be muted and there aren't as many of them as on "free" tv.

I watched two episodes of "Samantha Who?". I guess that means I liked it. I enjoyed seeing Christina Applegate in a new role that suits her. She was perky, believable and, well, smooth. I liked the writing, the dialogue is good, the costumes and make up are shinier than a new penny. The plot is entertaining in a "die hard" sort of way. There's a lot of action and one must suspend a fair amount of disbelief. One must also be enamored of formula and the amazing sheen of polish. I am reminded of the 50's as in "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver." Gloss. Very glossy.

Back to real life.

Notice anything different?

This is me blogging from my new 24" iMac. I look so much better don't I? Now I need to run out and buy a firewire cable so I can transfer everything over from my old mac. I'm a little sad. I will miss my friendly G4 buddy of eight years. Wow! Say that about a PC will you? Never!

Actually, there will be no running for a couple of days. Like when did I ever run? My back went out this morning. Thanks to my lovely chiropractor its now back in but I must be careful for a few days. er ... how did I get my iMac out of the case? Very carefully. Takes more than a sore back to stop that train.



Now back to my iMac.

missing in inaction

For some reason my host server flipped out for most of the day. I've no idea what happened. Looks to be okay now. Sorry.

My iTunes Purchases

Wow! This is a great widget! Forgot to mention you can choose from three sizes and five color schemes. Love this one. I hope you will, too!

If I had to define my taste, I'd say "eclectic." And you?

My iTunes

Here's a nifty widget from Apple that shows you my iTunes favorites. It seems to be a list of the music I play or have played at least once using iTunes on my machine. Some of the names in small type don't look familiar to me, but I have a lot of tunes. The big, bold names are really the ones I play most often so if you want to know what I like, check those names. I thought I played U2 more often than the size of its name shows, but I realize now that I play them a lot in the car, and that's not reflected in this widget.

Downside? I had to partially break my privacy with the iTunes Store to do this. I had to agree to let Apple access my account but just for this widget. I don't know. I feel a bit squidgey about that but, obviously, not too much to not do it. Anyway, this is a trial. If it works then I'll be making this a regular feature. Let me me know if it makes my page way too long to load.

I'll be testing it myself this weekend when I shut down my machine. We'll see how it works then.

Nice blogger swag, btw.

Permanent Shoes

Here's a new concept in shoery: one inny many outies. They are called skins. My favorite is Hailey (the last women's shoe in the slide show) althought Aimee is nice, too. Unfortunately someone thought that women would like all their shoes in black. Who did that market research? The shoes all come in other colors, of course, but they all come in black! Funerals, anyone?

Aside from that, it is an interesting concept and just might work. Imagine never having to break in another pair of shoes and always knowing your size. I like the notion of being able to order online and know that when they get here my shoes will fit and be comfortable right away. The trick will be in getting the right "bone", or inner structure of the shoe. I'm sure that will involve a custom fit. Fortunately Richmond is one the map. Yay Richmond!

You can find out more at the link above and here where you can also order your bone (if you feel like taking the risk).

Something Completely Different
Thanks to my daughter, Kathleen, for leaving her old computer here and the nice 17" LCD display. My display is dying so I'm using hers. For an "old" display it's pretty good and much better my 1998 model. And thanks to Apple for making the G4 compatible with any old display I jam on it. That's real plug and play. Not that fake stuff whosname is pandering.

Forget ABC!

Yes. ABC.com has paid some lucky hobbyist programmer to recreate something that already exists: a movie player plug in. Why not just stick with Quicktime which works beautifully on loads of platforms and has for years. YEARS! Where have they been? The new improved player is much like the new improved mail service at work: worse! The "improved player" has worse playback quality than the "old" one. The main result I see of the "improved" player is bigger commercials and a direct link to the developer's blog. Oh yeah. That's why I watch TV shows, so I can read developer blogs. NOT! I also see hampered interactivity (pausing the show restarts the commercial!!!) and time lost to installing this piece of crap which leaves the potential that I may not come back. And I won't.

I watch shows on abc.com because I like them and it's real convenient for me, especially for shows like "Men In Trees" which comes on late at night. And what episodes are currently available on the site (labled as 6/28/07)? Only the pilot!!! What happened to six months of episodes?

If you really want to see some innovative web programming, check out the iTunes/iPod site. And you if you want high resolution video playback with solid performance, try Quicktime.

things that bring tears to my eyes

1. The New Apple Mac OS X - Leopard. You must watch the fabulous tour and see the new Finder with stacks, Quick Look, Spaces, totally unbelievable Mail and outrageous iChat backgrounds. But my very favorite: Time Machine. Never lose a file again – ever! And find it easily, too. The only drawback: you need an external drive. No problem. I have one. I'm ready.
2. The New Improved iPhone. The darn thing isn't even released yet and already they've improved it! This tour shows you YouTube. I may throw my computer away, or at least my laptop. If I had one.
3. The Pantone home page flash highlighting 56 new spot colors. It's super "touch" sensitive. I don't know how they did it. It's not just a pattern, it's an algorithm. A new home page is not on the same order of magnitude as the Apple stuff, but even little improvements need to be celebrated. I love the whole Pantone site. It's very smart.
4. MirrorMask (2005) makes me wonder where I've been my whole life and why I wasn't first in line at the theater when this came out. The marketers stupdily missed my demographic completely. Fire the marketers! This is the most innovative movie to come out in this or any century. The story, the plot, the sets, the effects – it's all highly creative and like nothing else anywhere. I don't like horror and don't read Neal Gaiman but there's something in his collaboration with Dave McKean that catalyzes an entirely new reality. One which I not only wish to live in, but to die for and invest in. I may need a 3-day cooling off period.

I guess what's really going on is others knocking themselves out for me. It's so endearing. Ah, yes. I have put the "Queen" in alien drifter.

iPod Puzzle Box

I got my new iPod shuffle. This, together with my recent G4 CPU upgrade to 1 GHz, is bringing me slowly but surely into the 21st century. Hey! Can't just jump in all at once. Mainly because it will take me about 10 years to figure out how to open the boxes.

I've seen pictures of the shuffle. Thought I knew how small it is. Well, the pod comes in a box about the size of a pack of cigarettes or a card game. Small. And the shuffle is smaller than that. I had mine engraved. I need a magnifying glass (almost!) to read the engraving.

Anyway, back to the box. I had to put my glasses on to figure out how to open the clear case. After trying various opening strategies (pushing, pulling, sliding, looking for the hinged side) and trying to find the tape (there was none), I noticed this very pale gray circular arrow, like the kind that might signify "replay." I saw that it was actually on a clear piece of plastic. Pulling on the plastic (in the direction of the arrow, of course) freed one end of the box completely. After that, it was a simple pull to get the cover to swing back. Okay.

Next step. Figure out how to get the pod out of the box. After finishing a rather lengthy marvel (which had started from the moment I saw the pod through the case), I noticed clear tabs apparently holding the pod down to a false bottom. After gently trying to extricate the tabs I finally gave a frustrated yank and the whole thing, pod, tabs, and a false bottom, came out of the case. Then it was easy to turn over the white cardboard false bottom and remove the tabs. Pod freed!!

The rest of the puzzle was easily solved by opening two white cardboard doors to the rest of the case. Inside was all the paraphernalia. Knowing how nifty new Apple stuff is I eagerly turned on the pod and saw the light come on. According to the booklet it was fully charged. So I plugged in the earphones and hit >. I was hoping for a nice message from Steve, like "Welcome to your new iPod and thanks for choosing Apple." or some such thing. After all, when you buy a new Apple computer you get a snazzy welcome screen and usually a short movie the first time you turn it on. No such luck with the iPod. Rats.

I have to say I have missed a lot in the music I've listened to using my home stereo speakers or the car stereo. Even listening from the computer with headphones, I have lost a lot of detail (high notes, subtle sounds) that I can now hear with my pod. And that's a lot.

Side Note: There is no help topic, either on my computer or the Apple site, that tells you how to open the case. I must be the only with issues. My iPod was FedExed directly from China. It's a little weird but fun to see it being shipped to me the night before I ordered it. The engraving apparently doesn't actually take 24-48 hours. Must be the mini-writing.

Totally Off Topic: I'm really glad to see that Mr. Mortensen has actually signed his entire name to a post on "In Other Words." Way to go VM! Also, I had no idea this anti-war thing was so massive. I wrote a bit about it in my other blog.

p.s. - You try typing iPod 15 times and see how many times you abbreviate it!
p.p.s. - This pod holds 240 songs! That's about 24 albums. In the four years I've been buying iTunes music I've only purchased 355 songs. Basically, removing the TV shows, videos, electronic booklets, etc. I could put everything I've bought on the iPod shuffle. I've no idea what I would do with a larger pod. Listen by album I suppose. ...

Music Monopoly - Liberate the Music!

I wandered over to Apple and discovered a link on the home page to an essay by Steve Jobs on music. He makes many good points. Among them

• iPod users are not locked into buying their music from the Apple iTunes Store,
• billions of CDs are sold by the major music companies (who control 70% of the music) every year with absolutely no protection at all, and
• DRM (Digital Rights Management) has primarily created an international game with cryptographers creating increasingly difficult locks that uncrytpers (primarily thieves) keep trying (sometimes successfully) to break.

Steve's recommendation:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.

Great decision! If you'd like to know more about his argument then hie thee to the link. I'm a sucker for great writing, facts and consistent logic. If you are too, you will find reading the essay time well spent.

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it. – John Lennon

super intense techno-lust

I don't fall in love with every product Apple comes out with, but this iPhone is totally amazing. I'm so glad it didn't come out before Christmas or there would have been no presents for anyone! I'm also glad I have a year left on my cell contract so that by the time it expires I may actually be able to buy the object of my desire. I can't wait! It's a gadget made in heaven!

on the air down the pipes

This is why I am the alien drifter. I was forced to download Firefox so that I could get video suggestions from "What to Rent." The first movie they recommended didn't work for me although from the outset it seemed like it would. They ask weird questions which they claim is a better way to find out my mood. Mood apparently is the basis for movie choices. They also claim that people watch movies as if they were watching real people. Are we going back to Aristotle? I'm really not interested in all my entertainment being a catharsis. Sometimes I just like to have fun.

Anyway, I've discovered Firefox. It works great. It fakes Internet Exploder better than Safari and it does things that my old G4 can only dream about. Basically it takes the best of IE and Safari and combines them in a very good way. I'm wondering why Firefox can do this on my old G4 with OS 10.3 when Safari needs a new Mac and updated version of Safari. I also wonder why iTunes is keeping up with new developments that let my G4 pretend it's a new iMac. Not that I'm complaining. Okay. I guess all development can't be equal. I'm a mom. I understand you can't treat all your children equally.

Speaking of fun (and the reason for the title of this entry) you can now have more of what I'm looking for, TV on demand, through Firefox. My limited system is very good at letting the commercials through. (Commercials always work. Has anyone noticed that?) Firefox lets it all through. Some smart people are making Firefox. Thank you! I love TV on demand. There's nothing more annoying than to sit down in front of the tube and discover the tail end of a good show.

Downloading Firefox was fast, easy and nearly effortless. I had to drag and drop it into my Applications folder. After launching, it found all my Safari personlizations and brought them all over correctly. There were a few preferences I had to tweak (like to open with a blank window instead of my home page) and that was it. Firefox does a great job with Verizon. So take that and stuff it in your electrons, Verizon! You do support Mac!

Current Fads
Listening. Bob Rivers and Twisted Radio, I Am Santa Claus; the hum of electronics
Watching. Galaxy Quest (1999)
Activity. editing my latest novel
Gadget. none
News Source. the news feeds in Firefox
Reading. D is for Deadbeat - Sue Grafton; TheWisdom of No Escape - Pema Chodron; Fortune; assorted Mensa group newsletters.