Stuff You’ll Like

(I’m changing the format for Stuff You’ll Like; it was getting too long and I wasn’t really adding much value. Instead, I’m now making interesting “stuff” available via sharing in my Google news reader. You can subscribe to that feed via RSS, or you can follow it via Google Buzz through my Google Profile. I’ll post a few highlights from that feed, as well as some favorite photos from flickr and elsewhere and interesting web sites here so I can focus on a few things I think deserve the attention, and let Buzz and Google reader distribute the larger set of interesting things that I find. Hat tip to Mark Williamson for the hint I was looking for on how I wanted to manage this set of data…)

Here are some highlights of the things I’ve found this week I think you’ll find interesting.

Interesting links

  • Matt Hill: Balancing your marketing. What’s the best mix?
  • PetaPixel: Useful tool for looking up the EXIT data of online photographs
  • Tim O’Reilly: Putting Online Privacy in Perspective
  • The Online Photographer: Letter to George
  • ARS Technica: Apple opens iBookstore to self-publishers
  • Ethan Marcotte: Responsive Web Design
  • Trey Ratcliffe: Why I don’t use watermarks (I’m starting to lean more in this direction myself)
  • Cameron Moll: 7 things I wish I had known about jQuery
  • Christian Crumlish: Designing for Play slides from WebVisions 2010

Interesting photos

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Interesting Web Sites

  • For the Birds: Tatiana’s vet has redone her web site. Fern’s been taking care of my birds for going on 20 years now. I’m still trying to get the IRS to see her as a pediatrician for my “child”.

Speaking of things I want to use the iPad for…

I was thinking about ways I’d like to be able to use an iPad (or other table-style devices as this market area grows out) — I want to be able to load my photos into Lightroom and then sit down with the tablet and do my parsing, keywording, captioning and other metadata. The tablet form seems to be a great way to work through a day’s shoot and edit out dings, rate the photos, do the captions and keywording, and all of those things the “first pass” through a roll of photos imply; in fact, a wireless connection to my library and the ability to browse through and dink with the images seems a natural; you could do pretty much everything BUT the actuall image processing on it (and some day, maybe that, too).

Now THAT would cause me to get an iPad; I keep meaning to work on my keywording. If I could do that while sitting on the couch or when I have downtime waiting for other stuff to happen? It might actually get done!

 

 

Of 3G iPads and MiFis

Fraser Speirs – Blog – Of 3G iPads and MiFis:

Today I asserted on Twitter that a 3G iPad is far superior to a WiFi iPad paired with a MiFi device. To save myself answering the “why do you say that” question twenty times, here’s the tl;dr version.

 

Fraser goes on to discuss the pros and cons of the Wifi vs. 3G iPads and describes nicely a major reason why I haven’t bought an iPad yet.

Not for lack of interest; the iPad sits in a niche I’d really like to fill. I love the idea of being able to sit down on the couch and “consume content”, get the keyboard out of the way and get back to the “good old days” style model that a paper book brought, only with all of the new content types the internet brings you. That and being able to sit down and play games on the same device? I’ve found it very re-energizing (sorry, you hard core geeks out there) to unplug for a while in the evenings — just get away from the laptop, away from email and keyboards and geeking and all that stuff; just sit on the couch with laurie and either watch TV or “do something” like read or browse my RSS feeds or play sudoku or fire up the XBOX. Or just hang out with Laurie and talk through things.

I currently tend to do that with the Palm Pre, but it’s not really the right form factor. I don’t want to haul out the laptop, it’s also not the right form factor for what I want to do, and if it’s busy crunching photos or doing “real work”, it’s not necessarily available. So there’s a need for a middle ground, one with a larger screen than the mobile phone (where the primary use case is “must fit in pocket and do stuff”) but without all of the extra stuff that comes with a laptop, like the keyboard.

And the iPad fits that wonderfully. Except…

The whole connectivity thing isn’t right for me yet. Wifi is fine here at home, but on the road? I don’t do a lot of travelling, but I see myself doing more photo tripping in the future, and probably starting to do some conference trips as well, so whatever solution I get I have to understand how connectivity is going to work on the road, where “on the road” doesn’t imply “depend on hotel wifi and Starbucks”. But I’m honestly also trying to keep my gadget life as simple as possible, so I don’t want to pick up something like a Mifi (and the Mifi monthly service charge!) just for  few days a year of need. Not cost effective.

Neither is the 3G iPad — because there’s no tethering option. If the 3G iPad tethered so I could use it to connect in my other internet-enabled devices as needed, it’d be a no brainer and I’d do it in a second. But it doesn’t. That means if I’m on the road and would need to upload photos from the laptop (or, gasp, vpn in to work on an emergency) I’m still depending on hotel wifi and/or Starbucks. That’s a fail for me — I need an “on the road” networking solution, not an iPad that connect to the network.

Or I need some other tethering solution that supports the iPad — without adding in a new geek toy (and monthly service charge!) to do it. Unfortunately, my two cell phones (geek eye roll. sigh.) are my Pre on Sprint, and my (really old, really, really old) iPhone on AT&T. Neither carrier supports tethering on those devices.

So basically, I don’t like any of my options, and I just haven’t decided to jump in anyway; if I did, I’d jump in with a Wifi unit…. Which I probably will, but not until after I upgrade my aging, 4 year old laptop… I’m staying on the sidelines for now, waiting to see how various things play out.

My first hope is tethering will come to AT&T; WWDC is coming, iPhone 4.0 is coming, the tethering rumors have swirled again, and we’ll have to see. If they announce tethering for iPhone, I’m expecting we might also see it for the AT&T Pre Plus; if that happens, I can dump my Sprint phone, get a PrePlus upgrade on AT&T and turn on tethering and life is good (yes, I don’t mind paying a bit more for tethering on a phone, I do mind paying for another entire contract for another device for tethering)

It’s possible AT&T might do tethering on the iPhone and not push it out onto the PrePlus. If they do, I’ll make rude noises about their familial heritage and have to decide if I want to upgrade my AT&T contract to the new (currently rumored) iPhone and keep two cell phones (My preference is to simplify and get back to one phone on one carrier; right now AT&T is telling me to upgrade my contract to the pre is $249, so it’s actually cheaper to keep the two phones right now barring a real reason to upgrade)

If that doesn’t happen, Clear is coming to silicon valley around the end of the year. That’s what I’m currently looking at as an option to upgrade the home DSL network. they have a nice bundle that includes a home network connection and a mobile USB dongle that does uncapped 4G and falls back to a 3G connection (with a 5 gig/mo cap) if you’re out of 4G territory. There are currently some rumors floating that they’re going to refocus from Wimax to LTE, but either way, getting a home internet connection and a mobile dongle for $55/month is a good deal — once it rolls out. Assuming it works, of course. So I’m watching and willing to wait and trying to avoid things with contract terms until that hits the floor. And once it does, I’m hoping it pushes other carriers to reprice as well…

Smartphones really started pushing us into the world of ubiquitous computing; my pocket is always online, and that changes what data I keep and how I interact with it. iPad pushes that to the next level and really starts showing off online content as a commodity to be consumed; for the first time, online “stuff” is really for anyone, not just the geeky. That trend is going to continue, but the infrastructure is in transition to properly support that, and all of the pieces are just not quite there yet. And I’m just happy to be patient and give them all a chance to settle out rather than rush in and pay a few hundred bucks (and a two year contract) for something that six months from now I’ll have a much better (and cheaper) solution for… Sometimes, you dn’t have to be in a hurry.

 

 

 

 

Why I’ve been away from the blog…

Apologies for the radio silence recently. For once, I have a good excuse.

Two weeks ago, I decided that, since there wasn’t a hockey game on, I’d go out for a walk. First night since the playoffs started nothing was on, Laurie was on her road trip somewhere on the way back from Chicago, the weather was nice, and I hadn’t picked up a camera in days.

So off to Shoreline I go, thinking maybe i’d try to do some swallow photography and see if the cliff swallows were nesting yet (answer: just starting).

And while walking out towards adobe creek, I caught the edge of the asphalt path and went down like I’d been shot. Didn’t even have time to cuss. Suddenly I’m flat on the ground, looking like roadkill.

When you’re a “person of girth” no fall is trivial. The extra weight you carry brings with it potential for disaster, as well as completely messing up your center of gravity — I’ve always been a bit of a klutz, and despite being really aware of the potentials for taking a fall and being careful while hiking, I’m still a klutz.  When you carry a chunk of extra weight, falls bring with it a real chance of broken bones or other damage.

I realize in retrospect I was a bit in shock. My first reaction was to see whether I was injured — somewhere in the back of my head a voice was screaming “systems check! systems check” at me). I started by moving arms and legs, flexing feed and wrists, wiggling fingers.

The good news — didn’t hit my head. Went down on my left side, got an arm out a bit to break some of the fall. I remember thinking I hadn’t heard anything crack, and as I started moving things, nothing caused me to scream in agony. That’s a good sign.

Suddenly I realize someone’s yelling at me. I’m hearing “Are you OK?” from somewhere far away. I look around and a girl I’d passed as she was headed out had come back to see what’d happened. She looked convinced I was dead or something, but god bless her for wanting to help. (cute girl, where at my age girl is anyone recognizably female and under about 30 years old; for some reason that recognition amuses me…). So I rolled over and said I thought I was okay.

She clearly believed me, because she asked again. and then again. I was still moving and flexing things and it was now clear that nothing was broken, so I decided it was okay to move, so I rolled over and sat up. Probably not exactly my most graceful moment, but honestly, I didn’t care. Still don’t.

So I’m now sitting up and madly moving fingers and rejoicing in the fact that they move as intended and I then look at her again and let her know I really am okay. And I”m not sure she really believed me, but she accepted it as proof she could stop freaking and get on with her life, and she did.

Again, dear, bless you for stopping and caring, and sorry I scare the crap out of you. It was much appreciated that you wanted to help.

And then I checked out the cameras. I was carrying both bodies, with the Tamron wide angle on the 30d and the 100-400 on the 7d. The Tamron landed first and got bodyslammed into the asphalt, while the 100-400 landed last on a nice soft cushion. Some preliminary checks seem to indicate that the poor cursed Tamron only took cosmetic damage — and it has a couple of interesting gouges on it — but I still need to do some serious testing for focus and alignment. I don’t see any sign of problems in the mechanism or some simple test shots. But to be honest, I haven’t really picked up a camera since, since picking things up has been a bit problematic.

Nothing broken, nothing dislocated. I landed left little finger first, and bent it and it’s neighbor back significantly. By all rights I should have dislocated something, but somehow, I didn’t. I did, however sprain two fingers rather seriously, the wrist less severely, and as I found out over the next day or so, basically sprained the entire hand, while hyperextending the elbow. I also whacked the right hand leaving it scraped (and sore and bruised where I think the 100-400 landed on it), and whacked both knees, fortunately, nothing beyond a bit of scrape and bruising.  The hand swelled like a grapefruit, and I got the most interesting bruising deep inside the palm where bending things back stretched all of the ligaments and tendons in the core of the hand (did I mention I was damn lucky nothing dislocated or tore? a broken finger would have been the least of my hassles…)

So I’ve been a hurting puppy. Typing’s been — a challenge, so I haven’t any more than necessary, and what typing I could do without things spasming has been aimed at work, not play. Evenings have been mostly hanging out on the couch with body parts wrapped in ice bags. Tonight was the first night where I didn’t feel the need to haul them out and use them.

I’m still not 100%; I’m guessing another week before the arm is useful for carrying anything heaver than a soda can, but I’m finally able to do that, at least. My range of motion is about 90% of normal and improving daily, swelling is mostly gone, the hand is mostly functioning again, and I can type again with both hands — at least for a while. This is about it for the evening, though, because the little finger can only handle so much pressure on the key.

So things have been on hold for a while. Over the holiday weekend I hope to start ramping up a bit and moving things forward again. I haven’t exactly been idle — it was time I spent thinking through some projects that I’m chewing on that are getting close to surfacing where I’ll talk about them here. Some interesting stuff, and I’ve gond from researching and considering to making decisions and starting to create some plans, and so soon I can share some of it and maybe get a dialog going on it.

But until then, my hand’s telling me this is enough for now, so I’ll be off. But I had gotten a couple of people asking what happened, and I figured it was time for a quick status update.

and the quick status update is — I’m still a klutz, and fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Which all things considered, I won’t complain about…

 

 

 

 

 

…. but because they beat Detroit ….

Via Genuinely Sarcastic:

In the end though, the Wings just didn’t want it badly enough. They weren’t as hungry, weren’t as fast, weren’t as good. I was as disgusted as all of you were with some of the calls that happened during the series, but in the end, sometimes you just have to overcome. The missed headshot on Franzen, as bad as it was – Rafalski blindly passing behind his back right onto the stick of Joe Thornton, setting up the season-ending goal by Patrick Marleau was worse. Losing a 3-1 lead in the 3rd period of Game 3 when they had to win was worse. Sometimes destiny – we like to call them the Hockey Gods – is not on your side. They were on the Red Wings’ side once before, and will be again. It just wasn’t our year.

Allow me for a minute to defend the Red Wings.

I have no voice this morning. My ears are still ringing. I was up at 5:30 this morning because I”m still wired from the game and couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t just a game. It wasn’t just a series. It may have been some of the best hockey I have ever seen played, by both teams. This was Ali-Frazier, a historic heavyweight battle.

As we were in the stands watching game five play out, it seemed to me that once the Sharks scored that Detroit knew it was over. The tone of the play changed just a bit. It wasn’t — not remotely — that the Wings didn’t want it badly enough. They did.

But the tank was empty. The sharks OUT RED-WINGED the Wings, and the Wings simply had given everything they had. The legs were dead, the energy was expended, they were simply finished. The Sharks had the energy, the Wings simply had hit the wall.

That Sharks have some strong rivalries around the league: Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Dallas. But this franchise made it clear, and it’s strived for this for years: it wanted to be like Detroit when it grew up. That’s an extreme compliment to the Wings — that teams feel the way to succeed is emulate them. And that process isn’t fully complete until you can challenge your mentor and win.

That has happened. Finally. When Detroit pulled Howard for the last push,what struck me was how — clinical — the Sharks defense was. Boyle took that penalty, but even so, the Sharks seemed in control and kept Detroit contained. What I’ve noticed this series is that that the Wings tended to be strong early in games, but the Sharks conditioning and youth meant that as the games went on, they got stronger, and Detroit faded a bit. It’s not a surprise to me the Sharks came won games late. Detroit was playing on fumes.

Detroit was in a situation this year it’s seen from the other side many times; had to really push to make the playoffs, they couldn’t rest players and gear up for the playoffs. For the Sharks, this was the second round, for Detroit, the third. Those extra games catch up to you, and here, they did. By the time we hit the last few minutes of the game, it just seemed to me that the Wings understood; even if they somehow came back and tied the game, it wasn’t going to go on much longer.

But they tried. But the arms were tired, the legs were tired. The student learned the skills of the master, and finally beat him. Great conditioning, cerebral, physical (and mostly clean) hockey. Patience — both teams had an almost zen-like patient concentration about them. There’s a huge amount of respect by each team for the other. This series was one of respectful hate, and now everyone gets to head out and buy each other beers…. I doubt many Sharks and Ducks buy each other beers afterwards…

So I deny that the wings didn’t want it badly enough. You couldn’t be in the arena last night and not see it. They ran their bodies to the very end of their capabilities, and somewhat past that. They had nothing left. There are a whole lot of sort, exhausted hockey players wearing ice bags this morning, pondering what else they could have done.

My answer: nothing. Detroit did not lose. They were beaten. And they showed honor and grace in defeat, and deserve a lot of recognition for what they did accomplish.

So from me: congrats to Detroit. This series is why I’m a  hockey fan. And there’s no dishonor in losing to a team that honors you by becoming you. The Sharks learned the lessons very well.

And it’s pretty clear that starting next year, they’ll have to prove it again. I don’t see any sign that “The road to the Cup goes through Detroit” is going to change any time soon….

(via Kukla)

And to my mom…

A very Happy Mother’s day. And thank you for making me what I am. I try to live up to the standards you instilled in me every day. Some days, I actually meet them.

And every day, I’m proud to be your son.

Tip Jars and Coffee Shops

Jeff Nolan: What exactly is the tip jar at the local coffee place supposed to recognize, excellent cash register operation, and at Starbucks is it for excellent button pushing? How about the car wash, am I supposed to drop a dollar in the tip box because they dried my car really well… how about when they do a crappy job, should I pluck a dollar out of the tip box as a penalty?

Maybe it’s just me, but those tip jars mostly say “hey, we know you don’t care enough about that change to want to carry it around, we’ll take it!”

And honestly — I do tend to use it for that some of the time….

How Wired found the iPhone guy…

Here’s a really interesting piece on how Wired tracked down the iPhone finder. Some really nice investigation work here.  People who like to play at being journalists should take notes.

And so the hunt for clues began — a week after Gizmodo broke its story. By then, Hogan had deleted his Facebook profile, and presumably every other social networking profile he owned, in an effort to hide. That made the search difficult, but his attempt to disappear was already a major clue that he was in trouble.

If people take nothing away from this story, it should be this: by the time you try to erase your tracks, it’s way, way too late. Erasing your tracks merely creates new, more visible marks that point to you. Either that or you better be ready to kill all of your friends, hack into all of THEIR systems and accounts and delete all of their stuff, too.

Stuff You’ll Like

A weekly compendium of stuff I found I thought you’d like. If you do, let me know, so I know to find more of it for you.