My apologies to Michael Venini (http://mvenini.wordpress.com/); clearly you do not need any more topics thrown at you. I tossed you that meme before I read "How many trees have you saved with a Tablet PC?" (http://mvenini.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/my-computer-toys-er-tools/) And now that I've read it, I wish I could unread it. Holy crap! The title is benign, even inviting (I'm into greener (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/10/my-favorite-green-thing-to-do.html) living), but the story that follows scared the pudding out of me. Terrifying stuff. Read it at your peril (but please read it).
Proud new iPhone owner Rob Bushway (http://www.gottabemobile.com/LoadedDownWithTabletPCsAndUMPCs.aspx) recently commented on all the mobile tech weighing him down. Minimage (http://miniaturemage.blogspot.com/2007/08/too-much-mobility-weighing-you-down.html) put in her two cents and paged it forward to me, turning the topic into a meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme).
So, how much mobile tech is weighing me down? Not much actually. My Toshiba R25 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/flickr-first-photos-of-my-new-tablet.html) is my primary computer, carried regularly in my sling pack along with my iPod Nano, camera, and phone. I still have my old Electrovaya Scribbler SC-500 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2005/11/electrovaya-scribbler.html) as a backup. I'm still pondering how I might set it up in our townhouse. I also have my IPAQ Pocket PC, which is retired due to a cracked screen. And that's it.
So, since we're making up the rules as we go along, I think I'll throw the topic forward to Michael Venini (http://mvenini.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/i-dont-know-what-to-post/), who needs topics, and Warner Crocker (http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/), who usual gets hit with these first so I never get to meme him.
Miss Teen South Carolina Lauren Upton (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_us/miss_teen_south_carolina) is getting a lot of flak for bumbling over the question: Why can't one-fifth of Americans locate the U.S. on a map? Lauren tried her best to BS a diplomatic answer, but is there any good way to say "one-fifth of Americans are morons," or "how the f--- should I know?"
Anyway, the real irony is that her pressured response is burning its way through the blogosphere and picking up many nasty comments from the usual illiterates, 20% of whom can't find the U.S. on a map.
#4 in what appears to be a series of W cronies executing their "exit strategies" is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Gonzales). Let me tell you, if you go before Congress and testify that you were not involved with making decisions that are part of your job, you need to resign on the spot. If more than half your answers to questions about your job are "I don't recall", you need to quit. This wasn't a pop quiz about a randomly chosen event. He had time to prepare. Choosing federal attorneys is important business. How does anyone sit before Congress and testify to having so little knowledge? That takes balls. Too bad the office of attorney general also requires brains.
Walking through a parking lot, I ran across a mantis fighting a hornet. I hadn't charged my camera, so I only got about 30 seconds, but the last second shows who won. Pardon the shouting - my wife wanted to leave.
Michael Venini (http://mvenini.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/i-dont-know-what-to-post/), friend of the blog, posted on his site, The Underdog (http://mvenini.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/i-dont-know-what-to-post/), topics not flowing, stuck in a rut, want to keep blogging, but not sure what.
(End Underdog-style rhyming)
So I don't have any more advice on that, but I ran across a post on Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com/) about adding structure to a journal (http://lifehacker.com/software/writing/add-structure-to-your-journal-293401.php) that links back to a blog entry on 10 things to write in your notebook (http://shrigley.blogspot.com/2007/08/10-things-to-write-in-your-notebook.html). Seems relevant to Michael's situation, as well as to ink blogs in general. What you see here are my notebook entries, written in Windows Journal (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/tabletpc/evaluation/overviews/pctools.mspx#EYC). That qualifies them as journal/notebook entries to me.
I supported Apple's decision to not allow apps on the iPhone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone). I really did. It's a first-of-a-kind device for them, their first phone ever. It makes sense to work out the bugs first, then let developers in. Just one problem: it's running OS X (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X).
The iPhone may be running a stripped-down version of Apple's Mac operating system, but it's still OS X and it's still Unix-based (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix). There are programmers who literally have decades of experience with this type of environment. SDK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sdk) or no, the slew of iPhone hacks out there proves the developers cannot be kept out.
Look Apple, you've released two bug patches for the iPhone. They have undone many of the hacks, but there's no stopping users from reinstalling them or hackers from writing more. It's time to officially let these guys in and treat their apps like welcomed additions, not like bugs to be stripped out.
My better half is attending an all-day training seminar in Rockville, MD today. Unfortunately, only my half of our coupling can drive on the Capital Beltway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Beltway) and the Dulles Greenway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles_Greenway), so I dropped her off and went to the Mall at White Flint (http://www.shopwhiteflint.com/).
For some reason, I was under the impression this was a decent shopping mall, possibly because it's the only one in Maryland I know by name. It does have a movie theater and a Dave & Buster's, but not much otherwise. Fortunately, it does have a Borders with wifi cafe, so it's not a total letdown. Still, I can't fathom how this place made it to name-recognized status in my brain.
Oh wait. Kimmi and Chris. Damn, sometimes my gift of trivia retention can be a curse.
Okay, I haven't had a chance to really explore my network drive yet, but I've set it up and tried a few things.
First, setup was really simple. Two plugs: power and ethernet. The Buffalo LinkStation Live (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/08/building-my-own-cloud.html) is very compact and quiet. I have it under the corner table in my living room with my router and UPS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterrupted_power_supply). Absolutely unobtrusive.
The drive came with an installation CD that connects the drive to the network and my computer to the drive. Then, the drive settings can be adjusted via a web-based interface. Set some passwords, enable media sharing and it's good to go.
I've been ripping CDs to the drive in the background while I surf the web, blog, etc. With media sharing enabled, the folder designated for media shows up in iTunes as a shared folder. This allows me to play all the media on that drive, but I can't grab or drop files that way. I've been doing that through Windows Explorer instead. It's a tough limitation, but I'm considering ways to make it more manageable.
I haven't yet saved a backup image to the drive. Over my 802.11g (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11) wifi network, the time required exceeds twelve hours. I need to either start it right when I come home from work or hook into the router via ethernet. Fortunately, the drive has a gigabit ethernet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit_ethernet) port, so it will keep up when I eventually upgrade to 802.11n. Also, smaller backups, like my Outlook file, works fine and after my initial backup image, I can set my tablet to do incremental backups (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_backup), which are small updates to the main backup. Those smaller updates should work fine over 802.11g.
Finally, web access is still not enabled. I need to open a port in my router, and while I know the password, apparently my user name is not what I thought. I must get that from Comcast before the web access will work from anywhere. However, it does work at home.
I'll post another update after I free up some time and tweak the system a bit.
As you read this, a baby chicken is getting its beak sheared off with a hot iron and being stuffed in a small cage where it will spend the rest of its short miserable life until it is killed, steamed, and quick frozen, not necessarily in that order. It happens every minute in this country, to millions of birds each year, and the end result is available at nearly any drive-thru window.
A minute ago, a calf was born, taken from its mother, and moved to a pen that restricts its movements so that its muscles will remain tender. Its mother will be hooked to a milking machine that will not stop until the pus in its milk exceeds legal levels... and maybe not even then.
Michael Vick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Vick) killed a few dogs. The masses condemned his cruelty... then went back to eating their hamburgers and fried chicken, blissfully unaware of the pain their dollar menu lunches endured. Dogs are special.
The people have spoken and they have said, "My eyes! The goggles do nothing!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goggles) Actually, that was Ranier Wolfcastle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Wolfcastle) after being swept away by a torrent of acid, but the sentiment is the same - no eye-hurting ink posts from James Kendrick. There is support for irk + text entries, but considering the challenge humans had with recognizing his handwriting, the recognition engine in Windows XP (not Vista) may not be up to the task. Oh well. James, Build 52 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/search/label/Build%2052) is unsuitable for quick ink entries, but if you want to try full ink + text + hyperlinks, drop me a comment.
Kevin Tofel has stirred up discussion on a recurring Tablet PC topic: How often do you use your Tablet as a Tablet? (http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2007/08/how-often-do-yo.html) In other words, how often do you use it as a "Tablet not Laptop"? (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/08/tablet-not-laptop.html)
Not surprisingly, my tablet use is very heavy, easily 85% of the time or more, but keep in mind it is my primary personal computer. I don't use a separate desktop or laptop, except at work. If it was my primary work computer that percentage would drop, but I'd also shift a lot of my document work to it, upping my overall "tablet usage". Kind of wish I could do that now, but I'll settle for using it as my music player, note-taker, and occasional image editor.
Considering his previous insistence that Iraq would not be another Vietnam, it is puzzling that President Bush would make comparisons between the Iraq conflict and the wars in Asia. Yet he pointed to the turmoil that followed our pullout from Vietnam. He warned against the evil that lingers in North Korea because we did not beat them. And he praised the great democracy that rose in Japan after we defeated them, extolling it as the model that should be followed in Iraq. Okay, so let's say we do that: which cities in Iraq are we going to nuke? I'm not advocating that, but if you put up Japan as the example to follow, how do you exclude the atomic bombs that reshaped that country, physically and culturally? Seems like a pretty short-sighted comparison to me.
