Scored a Wii

So, after a week of trying since it's launch, I was finally successful in obtaining a Nintendo Wii. I have to say, after some of the horror stories online, I was wary about waiting in line for one of these.

I got a tip last night that Best Buy (in Texas) would be running an Ad in Sunday's paper where they would guarantee a minimum of 12 per store. I left the house at 6:30am to go grab a paper to see if this was real, and it was, so I decided to drive by the nearest store to see how bad the line was. There were already 8 people in line, so I chose to stick around just in case 12 was going to be the max number (and perhaps some people could have been holding spots for others). I called my sweet wife to let her know she didn't have to get up, as she was willing to drive to another store to see if there was a better line. By now it was about a quarter until 7am. The line filled up to 12 by 7. Someone drove by and dropped off a couple of newspapers for everyone waiting to read.

Steve, the manager, came out to check on us, and let everyone know that there were enough units for each person in line at that time. He politely told us that he was not allowed to say how many they had, but would let us know when the line size grew past that number. My wife dropped by at 8am with Starbucks, and kept me going. I had already read the paper, so I passed it off to her (although there were no coupons in this issue). Steve came out a couple of times more, and a little before 9am let the people in the line over number 27 know that there were not enough units for people past that point, unless someone in front dropped out.

Just before 10am, Steve came by one final time and started passing out tickets, and explaining to everyone how the process would work. He took the people at the back of the line, and anyone else who wasn't purchasing a Wii and moved them to the front, so they could enter the store uninhibited. We all walked in line and picked up any games that we wanted, and proceeded to Customer Service to trade in our ticket for a Wii.

Overall, it was a very pleasant and orderly process. Thanks, Steve!

I'll update later, but the system is already a hit with Alexis -- Wii Sports is cool, and so is Excite Truck.

Keep the Hardware Coming

If you are a victim of Moore's law you are in hardware; if you are a beneficiary of Moore's law you are in software.

How to tell a hardware from a software person

I'm definitely a software person.

R.I.P. Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin was tragically killed by a stingray yesterday. Although we didn't get to meet him during our stay in Australia this year, his presence was felt at Australia Zoo. This is a big loss for them. Our prayers go out to his family.

Read more at: Steve Irwin Killed
and Witnesses tell of freak death

OSCON 2006 - Morning of Day 1

I was just greeted with the morning site of Mt. Hood from my hotel window in Portland, Oregon this morning. I'm looking forward to the week of the conference here. Day 1, I'm signed up for JavaScript Boot Camp and The Rails Guidebook. It should be fun.

Maybe I'll venture out on the MAX later this evening and pretend like I know how to get around in a big city. Austin is slated to add light rail to the options of transportation around 2008, so it will be interesting to see how it works here.

In the meantime, I need to find a MiniUSB to USB adapter so I can upload pictures from my camera...

Metaprogramming

I went to an interesting talk last night by Dave Thomas, sponsored by Austin on Rails. Dave is the author of several interesting Ruby and Rails books. Cool stuff. I am just getting into Rails, and this talk covered some of the interesting features of Ruby that make all that magic work. I'm still learning Ruby, so I don't quite feel qualified in calling myself a Ruby Programmer yet, but maybe someday...

At the giveaway, my name was pulled and I got a free copy of Bruce Tate's From Java to Ruby: Things Every Manager Should Know. Cool beans.

Shuffle Recovers from 'Lights of Death'

Those of you that know me, know that I've been limping along iPod-less for a little over three weeks now. My 512MB iPod Shuffle had been experiencing the green-orange Lights of Death.

It would not play, and no computer I had access to would recognize it either as an iPod or a thumb-drive. I had even taken it to the local Apple store for a Genius to look at, and had no luck there.

The troubling thing to me was the method of failure... it seemed more like a firmware issue, and not a component failure. I'm not so sure now. The day it died I had hooked it up to my work computer's docking station for an emergency charge. It worked fine after that, on the car ride home. Then, when I went to plug it into my Mac, it wouldn't show up. Is there some kind of weird overcharging issue?

My plan was to let the battery drain, and see if I could trigger some other kind of reset. Wishful thinking, since flash memory doesn't erase that way.

Over the long weekend, I noticed that a new iTunes came out, and a new iPod Updater. I had tried the previous iPod Updater, but since I couldn't get the iPod to show up in the Mac, it couldn't update it. I downloaded this new updater, and iTunes. I fiddled with my Shuffle a bit, and it still had the Lights of Death... so I wasn't very hopeful when I plugged it in. I was surprised when iTunes gave me the message, "There is new firmware for your iPod, would you like to update now?" Heck, yeah!

So, I just finished a bike ride with my resurrected Shuffle, and things are much better.

Update: Apple releases utility to reset the 1G iPod Shuffle. See: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ipodshuffleresetutility10formac.html.

176-Year-Old Tortoise Named Harriet Passes On

One of the coolest things we did in Australia this year, was to visit Australia Zoo. While we were there, we met Harriet, who was just a magnificent animal. It was hard to believe that a living tortoise was around at the time of Sir Charles Darwin. Talk about a connection to the past!

I was very sad to hear of her passing today.

Read more at dsc.discovery.com/news/...

Is Pepsi Fine? - No

Someone else is noticing the Pepsi trend. I much prefer Coke, but I to am finding it harder to get at restaurants. I think Pepsi is gaining in marketshare, due to some of Coke's pricing terms. I asked one of our local mom-and-pop shops about a year ago why he had to charge so much for a half-liter bottle of Coke. He said he was being charged the same rate that than the vending machine in the same building charged for the 20-ounce bottle, and he still had to add sales tax to it. He couldn't do enough volume to justify the business, so he had to switch to the half-liter bottle to keep the overall price down.

Inspired by www.jonsthoughtsonevery...

iTunes Movie Store Leaks?

You just have to wonder how these things leak out. The pricing negotiations on iTunes music items always seem to leak, and show that Steve is fighting for the consumer . I have to wonder about that. It seems awfully convenient for these stories to leak out in favor of Apple.

I'm not one for conspiracy theorys, but Apple does know how to work the media. They have proven, time and again, that the can construct a consistent message and deliver it through mass media in a very efficient manner -- regardless of what story market share numbers tell. They provide a compelling story.

So, if you connect those two thoughts together, you come up with an interesting idea. Apple could be manipulating the media to increase their leverage on content providers during license negotiation, but I have no proof of this. "Manipulating" may be a strong word, but I think it still applies.

Keep in mind that any form of DRM (Digital Rights Management) represents a tightening of control over media, regardless of the terms and pricing model. Apple has so far presented fairly reasonable terms, but there isn't anything to prevent them from further restricting them.

Probably what worries me most about DRM is its durability. Will it last? Digital media could last a long time, if you still have the ability to access it in the future. Think about that for a minute, then think about trying to play an 8-track tape today. The difference is you don't need a physical player for most digital media -- just a physical way to transport the media. Obsolete file formats abound -- simply because we don't have a way to read the format anymore. DRM under the control of a single company represents a lot of faith in that company to allow further access to that file in the future.

Read more at Variety.com - Friend or foe?

Update: Need I say more about Apple and media? At last count there were 117 articles linked to the Variety story on Google News.

Cars

Went to see Cars last night. I am still surprised at how well the folks at Pixar can put together a movie. They have such an amazing sense of craft, that it's easy to forget you are watching an animation. You also get the sense that they genuinely took interest in Route 66 and the age of driving. It is just such a pleasure to witness this craftsmanship at work.

What if Darth was a Little More Normal?
Audio dubbed from James Earl Jones' other movies... ROFL!

Darth Vader After the Death Star Blew Up
This cracked me up!

New Site Design is Up

Over at the home page, I've put up the new design. I decided to try out iWeb for this round, since it came with the latest iLife that I bought for the video I'm editing of our Australia / New Zealand trip.

Once I got accustomed to the interface, I actually liked it. Normally, I like hand-coding my HTML, but iWeb has some really excellent tools for graphics in it. It's like a poor-man's Dreamweaver, I guess. I was able to mask, rotate, resize, and position different photos within the page. The Travel main page is where I tried most of this out, building on the template Apple supplied. It was so easy, I plan on extending this page in the future.

The only part that really annoys me with iWeb so far, is the Navigation Menu. There is no way to customize what is included in that menu. You can choose to include pages or not, but not really add any links to it. I may need to explain what I'm trying to do to clarify this.

iWeb has the concept of a site where you group all of your pages together. You can edit any number of sites, and have them all publish to .Mac under different directories. So, a site called Main is published under /iWeb/Main/Main.html. This is great, because I wanted to have certain sub sites that were just related pages -- like the Travel page. The problem with this implementation was that I could not use the navigation menu to link back to the Main site, or have the Travel site listed from the Main site's navigation menu.

There also seems to be no customization you can do to the Navigation menu, aside from changing the header height to allow it to be under some other page header. It is not positionable like other elements on the page, and you can't select it to change any of the style in it. It's an on or off element per page. Considering how customizable the graphics and text fields were, this is a bit jarring.

Overall, it was quick and easy to use, and I like the program. I still might try out some other site design software, but this is a definite improvement from the old .Mac homepage.

New Apple 'Get a Mac' Ads

These are priceless. They pretty much sum up all the little points that I tell people, but with such better writing. Six, in total, Viruses, Restarting, Better, iLife, Network, and WSJ. http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Money and Prestige

How do you find good leaders? I was just watching last week's episode of "The West Wing", and it triggered an essay that I had read. A section of Paul Graham's How to Do What You Love talks about Money and Prestige.

Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like. ... The other big force leading people astray is money. ... The danger is when money is combined with prestige.

Now, take this, and apply it to executive compensation. There is a lot of money being thrown around in that area. I am not saying it is wrong, but it certainly isn't going to help find the right people for the job. It will attract a whole mess of ambitious people, though. For middle executives, this may not be a problem. For a top position, do you want to attract the most ambitious people? This doesn't always equate to good leadership. You really need to dig into a person's character to find that. Some of the best leader's I've known, did it naturally and sometimes even reluctantly. That being said... I still have no idea how to attract good leaders.

Boot Camp

For all the people out there speculating on when Apple is going to allow Windows apps too run natively inside Mac OS X, this is for you: OS/2 - A better Windows than Windows. .

Does no one remember this? Seriously, one of the big killers of OS/2 was that it's best apps were all Windows apps. I see Boot Camp as just an Apple sanctioned boot loader that won't stomp on OS X. People were doing it anyway, so why not sell a few more boxes?

It's nice to think of all the grand virtulization technologies, but I really don't find them that interesting. It is a new label on an otherwise old technology. All this hype so that you can run multiple virtual computers on a single box. Why the hype? Because they are mostly running an OS that needs some kind of backup OS to take over for it. It's a good robust solution, but let's not forget why it is there. It's taking up the slack for reliability from the OS. It happens to work a lot better now that we have all these CPUs to throw at it, but it's still a fairly old idea.

Inspired by www.theappleblog.com/20...

Airport Screening

I think this is the best description of airport security yet. Most people just don't grasp the real purpose of it.

Remember the point of passenger screening. We're not trying to catch the clever, organized, well-funded terrorists. We're trying to catch the amateurs and the incompetent. We're trying to catch the unstable. We're trying to catch the copycats. These are all legitimate threats, and we're smart to defend against them. Against the professionals, we're just trying to add enough uncertainty into the system that they'll choose other targets instead.

Read more at http://www.schneier.com...

Daring Fireball: Familiarity Breeds a User Base

Also known as inertia. The reason for a lot of Windows users not willing to switch to a Mac is just a lack of familiarity to it.

I went through this switch almost five years ago. I had used a PC, in some form or another, for about 8 years at that point. I was reluctant to leave the comfort of commodity hardware, but I had just reached the point where I was sick of having to fix things on my computer. My day-job requires a lot of tinkering, and I just wanted a computer that I could work with and rely on without all that extra tinkering.

Probably the biggest reason, though, for the switch, was that I was never really ingrained into the Windows world. My first computer was a Coleco Adam, which taught me a lot about BASIC. My next computer, which I fell in love with, was a Commodore Amiga 500. That computer was just so far ahead of it's time... It was truly a computer for artists, and I still really identify with that. I learned so much on that computer that it's ridiculous. I entered the wider world with BBSes, I learned graphics animation, photo editing, music composition, video game creation, and C programming.

The first PC I bought (a Dell) actually started with OS/2 on it. This was pre-Windows 95, but I tried to keep that thing running for awhile. After eventually moving to Windows 95, I tried BeOS for awhile. That OS had some promise, but just no market share. The file system was brilliant. I then experimented with Linux for awhile, but I couldn't get much past that. There was just too much to tweak with, and I ended up not getting anything else done.

Shortly after OS X 10.0 was released, I took the plunge with an iBook. Now, 5 years later, I don't want to go anywhere else. Things on the Mac just get out of the way and let you get to the work you want to do... I can't explain it much better than that.

To sum it up, I didn't have a lot of inertia, so it was never much of a pain for me. I think change is good, and with computers, you need to be prepared to jump ship whenever a better ship comes along. This is why open data formats are so important. Sink or Swim, baby.

Inspired by daringfireball.net/2006...

Apple SVP Schiller: Co. Isn't 'Trying to Replace TiVo' || The Mac Observer

At least not yet, anyway. I keep wondering why people are all speculating about a new "Airport Express" that will also have a "Front Row" like app embedded in it. It's a great idea, and the addition of Bonjour to the software will make this much easier to implement, as you're just going to be pulling off media from other computers on your network. The price isn't right, yet, for a Mac Mini to be this device, and it just does more than necessary for a media box.

Incorporating Front Row into an "Airport Express" may prove more difficult, as that device just isn't a computer. I would look for this functionality to come from a totally new device, probably after the Intel transition is complete. Another intriguing option would be to push the new wireless networking standard (802.11n) to with a new device. There is much more bandwidth with this protocol, and would be better suited to video. Perhaps that would fit into a larger base-station device, and not an 'Express'.

Read more at www.macobserver.com/art...

PaulStamatiou.com » Intel Mac Mini is Upgradable

This is exciting news. With the new pictures surfacing of the Mac Mini's internals, it looks like they are using socket-based processors. This makes it fairly easy to upgrade, if there aren't any other changes between the base and upgraded models.

I am having flashbacks to the old days, when I used to build my own PC, before I went Mac. There also used to be some jumpers you'd have to set, and perhaps a BIOS setting. I have no idea how this works in a modern Intel system, with EFI. Perhaps it is all handled for you now, and the hardware just adapts to the new chip.

Read more at www.limeprint.com/2006/...

Why Peak Oil is Probably About Now

This article is for all those people who keep asking why the price of gas isn't going down. It is a good summary of oil production levels. Now, keep in mind that as production stays flat, demand certainly isn't going down. Supply < Demand = Higher Prices.

Read more at www.theoildrum.com/stor...

In Defense of Apple's Announcments - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Now these guys have it. The big thing about all the new Macs is how little the change looks on the outside of the box.

Apple has so far transitioned half of it's product lines into a completely new chip architecture, and no one is batting an eye. In fact, people are clammoring, "Is that all ?"

They are pulling this off by only introducing minor external changes, and just adding a sprinkling of new features -- making it look like a small upgrade. These new boxes are anything but a small upgrade.

By the time they are done with this transition, they have paved the way to allow another revision of hardware fairly quickly, and can introduce new physical designs to increase demand. The whole key to this chip swap is to reassure everyone on how little has changed, and to not rock the boat just yet. Rock the boat later, when you don't have to explain to everyone how stable the product lines are.

Read more at www.tuaw.com/2006/03/01...

China gives itself its own top-level domains

The golden age of the Internet is about to end. In this dream that is now coming to and end, there was no confusion about how to resolve DNS addresses. It was a simple, fairly straightforward process. Once this is broken, and certain rules are no longer followed, we may all need to purchase update 'maps' to the information superhighway at regular intervals. Certain roads may also be closed occasionally, and on the authority of whoever controls them.

Read more at arstechnica.com/news.ar...

YouTube - Microsoft iPod Packaging Parody

This just shows what is wrong with most computer packaging out there, and how more isn't always better.

Watch it at www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Update

Looks like Microsoft commissioned the video for a little internal education. See http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/25957

Writers Block Live » Blog Archive » The HD Boycott Begins Now

It sure looks like I'm going to enjoy a lot more free time in the future, because I won't be able afford to own a lot of media

Read more at writersblocklive.com/pa...

Why formats like RSS 2.0 work

It's really nice to see the acknowledgement of how important a stable platform is for development. I think a lot of new developers miss that point, in their quest to bend the computer to their will. Data formats, like RSS, are such a crucial thing to keep stable. A clear evolution path helps keep the temptation to reinvent the wheel at bay.

Read more at www.scripting.com/2006/...

Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

Speaking of marketing prowess, I just read this article about DeBeers and the history of diamond marketing. Some of the advertising may seem a bit morally questionable, but you can't argue that this kind of stuff doesn't still happen today.

Read more at www.theatlantic.com/doc...

I was also listening to TWiT this morning, and they were discussing the paid use of bloggers to pump up products on the web. One might go as far as saying that it is now even easier to manipulate the media to get your message out to a large audience. There is a need for a course that teaches people how to be critical of media. There was a bit of talk in this episode about how this used to be a part of Home Economics, which has all but disappeared from modern curriculum.

I have not doubt that kids today are much more adept at handling all the messages that are being driven toward them, because of the sheer quantity of media available, but I'm not so sure how easy it is to process. It would be good to at least confront media with kids and open up a dialog that questions it's intent. Ignoring media, or disallowing access to media doesn't really prepare them for the onslaught that will eventually happen. I think kids need to learn to question the messages coming from media at an early age, because companies are marketing to them at ever younger ages.

‘Fun New Products’ Coming From Apple

The rumor mills are working overtime to speculate on the latest announced Apple event. You just have to admire how a company can keep people in anticipatation like this, and crank up the buzz. Apple is a marketing machine.

My two cents: I just can't get out of my head how much fun Steve had demoing PhotoBooth when that was first introduced.

Read more at writersblocklive.com/pa...

Update
Mike is now guessing for a Mac Mini update. Think they might throw in an iSight update (the non-embedded version)?

Update 2 - 23 Feb
With Apple halting bulk orders of Mac Minis, it is looking like a good candidate for updates or replacement.

PunxsutawneyPhil.com

Six more weeks of "mild" winter!

Read more at www.groundhog.org...

And more at Punxsutawney Groundhog Sees His Shadow...

Newsvine - Activist Cindy Sheehan Arrested at Capitol

Now, I'm usually one to tell people to "move on", for things like this, but if this article is accurate, I am gravely concerned for this country.

To summarize, Cindy Sheehan, known anti-war activist, was arrested at the State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan on it. Police warned her that it would not be allowed. WTF? That seems like a reasonably peaceful demonstration to me. Tread lightly, folks, we still have almost two full years left.

Read more at www.newsvine.com/_news/...

[update] I've been reading some of the comments on the original article, and I thought I'd add to this post. T-shirts are explicitly exempted from the Capitol anti-demonstration law, which is what the original charge was originating from (it was lessened to something else). Other posters wanted to point out that this was a political move by the Democrats that invited her, and all I can say to that is "Of course it was!". That still doesn't lessen the seriousness of this issue to me. [update] All charges were dropped, and the police issued an apology.

AT&T chief says that people are only paying for half the Internet

This article is clearly showing how AT&T is becoming more and more a dinosaur. They just don't get it, do they? We are talking about a global network, not just some leased lines here.I say it's time for a change. There needs to be more competition in this space. Right now, in the US, at least, most people have about two broadband choices -- cable or DSL. The two are competing, but neither will really allow others access to their endpoints -- at least not in a meaningful, price-competitive way.

It's a shame that my electric bill can be more competitive than my broadband Internet access.

Read more at arstechnica.com/news.ar...

bynkii.com: They'll never know what hit them

I agree. The Disney board is about to get a big dose of RDF.

Read more at www.bynkii.com/archives...

Outsourcing World

This was an interesting podcast talking about the business behind outsourcing. For all the talk about how efficient it is to outsource "information workers", when the reporter is point blank asked if outsourcing his job would be effective, he dodges around and comes to the conclusion that "no it wouldn't be effective, because reporters create things." That is paraphrasing a bit, but it was the general idea put across.

So, when we are talking about outsourcing engineering jobs, what exactly do engineers do again? Oh, yeah, they create things...

Read more at www.businessweek.com/me...

deeje.com/musings: MacBook Pro is a marketing experiment?

This is a very insightful blog posting about Apple new MacBook Pro. Apple is using this product to test the waters. They want to know exactly how to position their new products when they are all out there.

Read more at blog.deeje.tv/musings/2...

HD TiVo Series 3 @ CES | PVRblog

Woo hoo!&nbsp; Finally!&nbsp; This looks like it is everything I was hoping for.

Read more at www.pvrblog.com/pvr/200...