Technology Archive
Thoughts on computers, blogs and social networks.
Stealing Software
I started writing this post while sitting half-asleep on a modern uncomfortable sofa in the Amsterdam airport while I was waiting for my connection to Warsaw without the benefit of wireless internet. I used WriteRoom — a software package I find myself using more and more often to write without distraction. (It actually works.) I [...]
Domains for the hell of it
Back in the hey-day of the Web 1.0 bubble, a silly company NameZero gave users free domain names. So I went on a roll, and acidtrain.com, anti-gop.com, liberalactivist.com, radical-side.com and re-election.com were all mine, along with several others (including any derivation of my name, with dot-net and dot-org alternates, anything that I could think of [...]
The Future of the Web
There are two aspects to the web that need to be tackled… the design and media (specifically video). One of them has been solved with the latest version of Firefox, the other only partially, but a sandbox for development has been built. Web designers have long desired to control the look of their sites,1 and [...]
Antennae
This bad boy is sitting on my roof, and has been since last fall…1 It’s called the Clearstream 42 and has a range of “up to 65 miles.” With this thing on my roof, I can pick up 5 channels. Two of them are the same. Three of them are PBS. The last comes in [...]
Holding Numbers
This is probably the biggest reason I’m not in line for an iPhone (besides the minimum monthly bill): I simply do not use my cellphone enough. I often leave it home, uncharged and unplugged. When I do remember to bring it to work, I often forget it on my desk before heading home. I have [...]
Impending Doom
“[Twitter's official Facebook application is] quite useful for those of us who don’t want to have to spend all day updating multiple services with the same messages.” Or those of us unfortunate enough to read about it. Note: I am making a serious effort to break my TechCrunch habit. It’s just not going that well… [...]
Vanity Fair
If this, er, TechCrunch report* is true, there is something horribly wrong with our society… “Needless to say, a lot of people were left in the dust, forced to settle for something other than the [Facebook] vanity URL they’d been dreaming of for weeks.” * Sometimes I cannot help myself. I’m still reading the Huffington [...]
Qwitter
Am I ashamed to quit Twitter? No, not really; it just wasn’t my thing. To effectively use my analogy, I walked into the bar, heard the conversation, and decided that the conversation was lame. (Well, the conversation was not lame; the bar was. The conversation didn’t help.) No offense to those “talking,” but the idea [...]
On Why I Left Facebook
I’ve probably hinted at why I’ve left Facebook, at some point or another, but to needlessly go in length on such an inane and insubstantial topic, just because I can, here goes (and what better forum than a grade-a blog)… Simply, it is a waste of time. I was having drinks with a land developer [...]
Share
One more thought on Twitter before I am shown the exit… If it helps people communicate, god bless. And I mean that for all sorts of web services that are widely available to everyone and anyone. The Facebook photo application is horrible. The best photo sharing service is clearly Flickr (and for most users, the [...]
Twitter Haze
I know that I just blogged that Twitter is “as substantive as a pet rock,” and although I think that that is true, Twitter nevertheless can be an effective way of communicating, albeit 140 characters (spaces included) at a time. It is akin to walking into a crowded bar and hearing what everyone is saying. [...]
iPhone Daze
The iPhone is a toy. I do not say that in complete disregard to its status or its potential as a platform. The iPhone is a platform, just as the laptop computer, BlackBerry and Wii are platforms. In fact, it may even be the future of Apple and possibly the entire computing world. Who knows? [...]
Gotcha Captchalism
This was one of the most difficult CAPTCHAs I have ever faced… I ended up using 3/4 as the fraction at the end, and it worked, but now I think that maybe 3/anything would have worked; just the fact that it took effort by the user proved that I was not some sort of bot. [...]
Purgatory
Facebook requires a two-week waiting period after requesting to delete an account before it is actually removed, a profile purgatory of sorts. (Buying a gun only requires five days for a background check.) If you know of any support groups on this subject, please let me know.
A Tweet Future
Maybe my life is meaningless. I mean, outside of my wife and dog, my house and job, my family and belongings, really what else is there? I think I need to go on hiatus, on some sort of sabbatical. I need only a few things besides my brain and hands. When I re-emerge from solidarity [...]
Piped Tweets
The first draft of my tweet-scraping feed (using Pipes)… Now to make this work for private/protected feeds. The key will be the string and url builders. Stay tuned.
MacBook Redux
When I purchased my MacBook, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it, or so I believed, unlike when I purchased my desktop Dell four years earlier. When I was researching for computers back then, I simply wanted all-of-the-above. Did I want a dual-layer DVD burner? Of course, although to this day, I [...]
MacHeist
I am battling temptation. I agree with the underlying context that the bundle is an overall rip-off for the individual developers of the applications included in the latest MacHeist bundle. However, I do not see it as a fair condemnation of the consumers that do purchase the bundle because the consumers are — in fact [...]
Voice, finally.
Maybe I’ll finally actually get some use out of the service… Image: Google Voice
Twitter
A couple weeks ago, I finally caved in to pressure I am not sure is even there. I created a Twitter account. I’m not sure if that is even how you say it. I created a Twitter. And then I tweeted. I have alternately set it as private and public, but that is not the [...]
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