Archive for 'General'
Zune – Reserved Space fixed with a device restart
Posted on June 12, 2010, under General.
This last year, my 8GB Zune has been acting up a little when it comes to the Reserved Space on the device. Every so often I would receive a message that my Zune was full, only to see that Reserved Space was using over 1 GB of storage.
In the past, I would go through the not-too-painful-but-still-tedious process of reformatting and re-syncing all of the content.
I just discovered that I can simply restart the Zune, and when I connect it back up to my computer, everything is back to normal. I guess we still live under the principle of “when in doubt, reboot.”
Library of Congress to Archive Twitter
Posted on April 15, 2010, under Current Events, General.
Library of Congress Archives Twitter History, While Google Searches It | Wired.com.
Really, of all things – Twitter??
Be careful out there with your 140 characters.
VMware Player – Now creates 64-bit VMs!
Posted on January 25, 2010, under General, SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.
At home, I recently moved from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. On my Vista setup, I had VirtualPC installed to set up my own labs, installing servers and learning more about various server applications.
I was disappointed to see VirtualPC is no longer supported for Home versions of Windows. I was also disappointed to see the free VMware Server equivalent of VirtualPC had disappeared.
However, I just discovered the free VMware Player now not only runs VMs, as it always has, but also allows you to create them! You can also create and run 64-bit guest VM’s if you have the appropriate hardware, which I do. VirtualPC can’t do that. Sweet!
Update: A co-worker (thanks Shane!) mentioned to me the free VMware Server is still available. I’m going to try out Player, hoping it is more light-weight, and see how it goes first.
“A Time for Choosing”
Posted on November 2, 2009, under Current Events, General.
“A Time for Choosing” by Ronald Reagan
Presidential control of the private Internet
Posted on August 28, 2009, under General, Security, Web Dev/Tech.
Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Politics and Law – CNET News.
“Translation: If your company is deemed “critical,” a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.”
Yikes.
Harley Davidson has the right idea
“Minority Report” computer interaction is here!
Posted on November 21, 2008, under General, Web Dev/Tech.
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo
I want one!
Leaving the flower for the Delicious
Posted on October 6, 2008, under General, Web Dev/Tech.
I’ve decided it’s time to leave Magnolia for my bookmarking goodness and move to Delicious.
Originally, Magnolia had the interest and investment (skills if not money) of some people at the core of the web development community. They were focused on building out a bookmarking site that focused on a pleasant, well thought-out user interface. Things started good, but it appears they got distracted over time. Things I’ve noticed over the years:
- It started for me when search wasn’t fully working, and you could only search on tags, not titles and descriptions. This took a long time for them to figure out.
- They have also struggled with tag management, especially when it comes to groups.
- There is no way to do mass tag management in a group.
- It is impossible to match a group’s taxonomy without opening multiple windows to view the group’s tags.
- They have also seen their share of server downtime, which is a bit unfortunate when you are hunting for a work-related resource.
- Now they seem to be focused more on login API’s and an activity stream – which still hasn’t populated for me, my home page has been blank since they launched it – rather than finishing up what I would call phase 1.5 or phase 2 tagging functionality and group management.
I’m sure there are a lot of behind-the-scenes reasons for the above, but my perspective is from an end-user (client). I kept waiting for them to polish up what was missing, but they kept adding stuff that didn’t really matter for the purpose at hand. I think they started developing more for themselves, and began to forget the point of Magnolia.
I liked the concept they were building, with a nicer (ie, more pleasant to the eyes, and easier to user) interface. I really like some of the minor social aspects, like being able to thank users for bookmarks. I also like the concept of groups, although they need a bit more work to see the full value in both user and tag management.
However, the most recent network/server outtage gave me enough time to check out Delicious, and I found my new home. Working through tagging my imported bookmarks has been a pleasure. Very easy and quick. I do miss screenshots of the web sites, but it’s not a huge loss, and would definitely trade for easier tag management. I like the Firefox extension, although in full mode it needs a little work to be able to move icons to different areas of the status bar. Tag bundles are awesome, and I’m just starting to think through how I want to use that. Near-inline editing of an existing bookmark is fantastic. Overall it’s been a great experience so far. I’m also experimenting with the feature to post bookmarked links to my blog. We’ll see how that goes, but I think I like it so far.
And besides, all the cool kids have been here for awhile.
Politics of Envy
Posted on July 6, 2008, under Current Events, General.
In the past, my wife and I have had our eyes opened by Dave Ramsey on how we could manage our money much better, and not only get out of debt, but stay out of debt. We’ve been on the plan for several years now, and we could not be more pleased with the outcome. We now know very much what it means to get out of a position of financial weakness to be purposefully going down a path of strength, and have seen many rewards. If you feel like your money situation is in need of an overhaul, I highly recommend checking out Dave’s podcast to see what he has to say. It costs you nothing to check out the first hour every day, and you’ll got a ton in return. Who knows, you may end up reading the same book we did.
With the glowing endorsement out of the way, this post is really about a recent ‘rant’ Dave made in regards to socialism vs capitalism. I couldn’t agree more. In the last couple of years I’ve felt the encroachment of envy in various areas of our lives. Having someone else try to guilt you into ‘donating’ your precious time, energy, relationships and money to their pet interests is a real peeve of mine now. Check out his couple minute monologue on the topic here:
Bass Fishing and Butt Scratching – or read the transcript (but voice is better)
He later responds to negative feedback in the following clip that’s just as worth the time to listen to:
So be careful of the “change” you ask for. Not all ideas are created equal!
Energy Efficient Bulbs??
Check your bulbs if you use ‘em. I found brown tinting on two others. Don’t know what to make of that yet, but I will be calling the customer service number on them. Holy cow.
