November 23, 2008
June 18, 2008
I’m a Bad Blogger
About a month ago, I went to Jon Lester’s no-hitter at Fenway with Rachel, Parker, and Parker’s brother. Perfect for a blog post, right? Except that I immediately called, texted, or emailed virtually everyone I know, and didn’t really get around to posting here about it. I had been trying to find someone to take the other two tickets for three weeks, so there were plenty of remorseful friends to torment…
So what does make me post? My current theory is that most of my blog material surfaces when I don’t have someone to talk to in real life. Take the last post: nobody I interact with on a daily basis is into robots or Sci-Fi movies, so I guess I just put it up there because I found it interesting and wanted to hear myself talk about it. Is that what blogging is all about?
March 1, 2008
The Stay-at-home Server
I’m one of those guys who thinks the “I’m a Mac” ads are very clever, and funny, and the fact that I’m writing this from my MacBook is in part due to the “Cult of Mac.” Score one for Redmond with their new Windows Home Server ad campaign. It consists of Daily Show-esque videos (not terribly funny), and this satirical gem:
It certainly looks like Microsoft is selling branded hardware, which is a big step in the Apple direction. Is this one of Bill Gates’ last acts, or one of the first from the new regime?
January 4, 2008
Google TiSP
OK, so I guess I missed this last April 1, but the latest from the jokers at Google is great. “Want WiFi around? Flush it down.” How did I accidentally find it? I had googled for “wireless broadband” and it is a top 3 hit.
December 18, 2007
Cautiously optimistic about Hulu
About two weeks ago when everyone and their brother was going on and on about how Hulu had added HD videos, I decided to sign up for their beta and check it out for myself. My invitation rolled in last night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could watch a few recent episodes of The Simpsons. The video quality is very good for TVOIP, but to describe it as “HD” is absurd. I propose that we label it HDTYT: “Higher Definition than YouTube.”
All kidding aside, what Hulu promises (TV episodes on demand, in good quality, with limited commercial breaks) is what I have always wanted. Two things need to improve before this will be widely accepted, I think. First, more episodes, and more shows. Of the admittedly small number of TV shows I enjoy, there were 6 full episodes of The Simpsons, and about 30 short clips of both The Simpsons and Futurama. Second, there are three advertising breaks as you watch a given episode, and Hulu runs the same ad all three times. Cats and laser pointers are funny strictly in intervals greater than 30 minutes, but wax lame when viewed more frequently. Actually, watching that commercial again on YouTube makes me appreciate the video quality at Hulu a bit more.
December 17, 2007
Jakob Nielsen is not a fan
Turns out that the Web UI guru is not impressed with us plebes:
on the Web, most people are bozos and not worth listening to
Furthermore, he states that
Facebook is the “Iron Chef” of the Internet
Hmm… I have to admit that I like that analogy, though from his explanation I’m not sure he uses Facebook or watches Iron Chef.
November 27, 2007
A Plug for Pandora
Apparently Gary Trudeau is also a fan of Pandora — that’s quite a shameless plug in today’s Doonesbury.
November 20, 2007
A guide to vertical text spacing
A List Apart has a new how-to article up, explaining the tricksy ins and outs of allowing all the major browsers to resize text while maintaining a certain level of consistency between them. Written and illustrated very well.
November 14, 2007
I think Comcast blew a fuse
The internet has absolutely tanked this morning, at least on my Comcast Cable connection just north of Boston. First they cut off BitTorrent downloads, now this…
November 7, 2007
My Food Blog at Common Kitchen
Now that we have Common Kitchen Food Blogs up and running, posts such as this one will appear at my new food blog “New Englandish Food.” First up? A review of Trader Joe’s Bohemian Lager.
