Main | June 2003 »

May 31, 2003

G3 Progress

This is an update on the G3 All-In-One I purchased at auction a few weeks ago.

It is now up and running smoothly. It is acting as my primary SMTP server, a Kinecta Subscriber client, an FTP server, a print server, a music server, and a file server.

This is a breakdown of the costs:

All that for the low, low price of $142. $10 less if you take out the excessive scanners. The thing just works.

The only things I still need to get working are the DAT backup drive that I got (it seems to work fine, just can't do anything with it in Mac OS X), and add some video RAM to the system.

I am running this machine, as well as my DSL router and my Ethernet bridge via the APC UPS that I picked up for $22.50.

* Taken from an older computer, thus already paid for.
** From an outfit called BatteriesPlus -- thanks James.
*** I had to buy one 128 MB memory stick, I had the other two.

Posted by Samer at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 30, 2003

Flying High

As some of you know I have a fascination with all things Iceland. To that end I get Iceland Daily News e-mailed to me every day. This story, from today, caught my attention:

Iron Maiden’s Singer a Pilot for Iceland Express

The singer of heavy metal band Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson, is one of Iceland Express’ pilots and has flew to and from Iceland numerous times. As is the custom, pilots introduce themselves to their passengers on the flight, and thus many passengers figured out that the world-famous singer was flying their aeroplane.

Ólafur Hauksson, spokesperson for Iceland Express, says that Dickinson (who specifically works for British airline Astraeus, which Iceland Express leases planes from) will not be flying again until next fall since Iron Maiden will be on tour this summer.

Dickinson is a multi-talented man. In addition to being the frontman and songwriter for Iron Maiden, he has written books and competes in fencing (and is indeed excellent at it). Whether he will sing ‘Aces High’ for his passengers in the future, only time will tell.

I can't wait for my next trip there.

Posted by Samer at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 27, 2003

Target

Never ever go shopping on a holiday. There are too many people out there. And they all think that the world will end if they don't get into the store right this minute !

Just as Skarlet made it to Boutique Target on Saturday, I went today. What a zoo. The place was packed and there are all sorts of strange people shopping there.

Like me.

Unlike Skarlet, though, I did not get years taken off my life by coming home and finding someone there. Heh :)

Posted by Samer at 12:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Books I'm Reading

I've decided I need to do more reading, more writing and more photography. This blog is a step toward more writing. I'm hoping to buy a new digital camera soon and set up a photo blog, and that should take care of the photography bit.

This is the list of books that I am currently reading. By currently reading, I really mean "I intend to finish them at some point, really." Or start them.

That last one I found in my storage unit, and I just don't remember buying it. Sauces was a gift that came all the way from Scotland (via Ireland) and was purchaced at the still living Fat Lady's book shop. The Unix book I'm looking at because it has some interesting information I did not know and to see if I should recommend it to my Unix-newbie friends.

Posted by Samer at 12:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 26, 2003

Unexpected Memories

I've been working on getting the G3 I bought up and running. It has a SCSI controller and, after learning about VueScan, I decided I needed to make a run to my storage lot and get my old Nikon film scanner.

While there, I went through a box of stuff looking for some cables. Instead I came across my old Green Card. How old, you ask? It was green and not pink. And it had the cutest picture of me when I was six. No, you can't see.

There was also a roll of undeveloped film. I'm going to get it developed tomorrow. I hope it comes out, but I'm not counting on it -- the canister has some rust on it.

On the way home I decide to go for a nice long drive, as I had not really been on one in a while. Shortly after turning off Georgetown Pike, I remembered that I had trashed my car and been in an accident that changed my life in 1996 down that same path. That crash forced me to rethink a number of things, and I eventually told my best friend how I felt for her. Sadly, my love was not reciprocated.

After I got home, I popped open the scanner and there was still a strip of film there. Some black and white pictures from when Cal Ripken broke the Iron Man record. And who else should be on that strip of five negatives? That's right: the same friend that I loved so much back then.

But the worst part came when I decided to see if this G3 would read my old Jaz discs. Sure enough, it did. And there were tons of memories on these things. Old writings, love letters, and pictures galore.

On the plus side, there were four rolls of digitized pictures that I had all but forgotten about. They were from a trip to Dubai and Belgium. I need to get back to Belgium soon.

Posted by Samer at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2003

The Mothership

This is pretty cool: the first picture of the Earth taken from another planet. You can see the moon in the very highly tweaked image. This is amazing really.

There is also a picture of Jupiter and some of its satellites, turns out Earth and Jupiter were lined up -- as seen from Mars.

The site is extremely slow to load, but worth the wait.

Posted by Samer at 08:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2003

Standards Support

Dave Hyatt asks which W3C technology should be next on the implementation list for Safari.

I'm kind of torn between XSLT support and SVG. I really think that if Apple supported SVG in WebCore, which other programs could use, it might give a real boost to a technology that should have taken off by now.

SVG has a lot of potential, particularly since it would be easy to create interesting animated graphics programatically without having to throw money at Macromedia.

As for direct influence on my life, I would like to see XSLT support. I do a lot of work with XML and it would be great if my browser of choice could a) display XML files in a nice fashion (kind of like that beast IE) and b) if it could deal with transforms in style sheets and the like.

My vote is 1) XSLT followed quickly by 2) SVG.

Posted by Samer at 12:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2003

Music Everywhere

How cool is this: iTunes 4 has a "share music" feature. Basically it sets up a streaming server for your music library.

That G3 I got at auction now has my music collection attached to it via a FireWire drive. I can go anywhere in the world, open up iTunes, enter the server's name and instantly have access to my entire collection.

Right now I am sitting in a different room from the G3. It is ripping a CD and I am listening to those ripped tunes as I type this. Wirelessly.

I had heard about this feature, but it really does not sink in how wonderful this is until you turn it on and look from another machine. It is instantly integrated, in only the way Apple can do, into the iTunes interface and the music streams almost instantly.

Kudos Apple.

Posted by Samer at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 18, 2003

Auctions are Fun!

I've just returned from a Virginia State Surplus Auction. This was at Virginia Tech and had tons of computer and other equipment.

I wound up with a bunch of stuff, including:

So far, the only thing that does not work is the shredder. The G3 is a bit of a bargain, but since I'd known nothing about it (I'd never even known of its existence) I didn't bid on more than one.

Check out the future auctions and let me know if you are going to go.

Posted by Samer at 11:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2003

Blacksburg, Here I Come

Off to Balcksburg, VA this weekend for a surplus auction. Never been to one of these, so it should prove interesting.

I'll let you know if I come away with anything good.

Posted by Samer at 03:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 15, 2003

Beer, Glorious Beer

Erik's Question of the Day on favorite alcoholic beverages gives me a chance to wax rhapsodic on my favorite topic of all time: beer.

Beer is my favorite subject and drink. Alcoholic or otherwise.

I've travelled the world, and when I make the plans, the existence of good beer is paramount in my decision making. I've been to Belgium just to go to the 24 Hours of the Special Beers of Belgium Festival. That year they had about fifty vendors with around 3 beers a piece.

Belgium produces more fantastic beers than just about any country on the face of the planet. Yet, oddly, a Belgian beer is not my number one. For that, you have to go to Ireland.

The short list changes over time, so, until the next time, here's the list:

Guinness takes the cake for being such an overall fantastic beer. That's the beer I would take with me if I were to head off to a deserted island.

There are so many beers that could easily fill those top five slots. It is really hard to narrow them down. As long as I have a breath though, I don't plan on slowing down my tasting of them.

Beer Fun Fact: Beer is the base of Scotch and other alcoholic beverages.

Posted by Samer at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Violins on a flute?

A friend of mine is going to the Kennedy Center to see this.

It looks to be delightful evening, but here's something I just don't get:

"[Itzhak] Perlman leads the [National Symphony] Orchestra in the overture to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's comic opera 'The Marriage of Figaro' and Antonin Dvorak's exuberant and rhaposdic Eighth Symphony, while [Emmanuel] Pahud performs Aram Ilich Khachaturian's stunning Violin Concerto, in a unique transcription for flute."

So this guy is going to play a violin piece on the flute? "A unique transcription" indeed!?

Posted by Samer at 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 11, 2003

What a great world (wide web) this is...

According to Skarlet, if you are looking for me in 2004, and you want me hot and sexy, you might just find it here. Or so AltaVista thinks.

Google concurs, but at least it does not prompt you to "correct" the spelling of my name.

Gotta love the web.

Posted by Samer at 02:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 07, 2003

Growling Squirrels

Okay, I thought that only Skarlet had funny ass squirrel stories (1, 2, ...), but alas, no.

Another of my friends tells me that a squirrel kept her trapped in her home. You heard right: trapped!

It seems the squirrel, Chippy (that's right, she named it), apparently climbed up the screen on the front door and sat atop it. When she went to step out at 10pm, Chippy growled at her. Growled. Squirrels growl? Who knew?

So she went back inside thinking that Chippy would be gone by morning. Apparently not. Standing guard all night, Chippy watched over the newspaper delivery. And Chippy apparently thought it was his paper, for when my friend tried to go out and get it, Chippy growled again.

A call to animal control had the "trained" expert on the other side saying "Yeah, squirrels are going to growl. Just use a broom handle ma'am." WTF? Did he expect my friend to hop on it and fly out? Oh! You mean poke at the rabid animal until it goes away. Ah, yes. Of course. I'm sure the animal rights people would like that.

The story ends well, with Chippy having left the perch atop the door, and my friend managing to leave without having to resort to hurting the bushy-tailed rat! Or setting her cats loose on it.

Posted by Samer at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 05, 2003

Metro Sucks (one in a continuing series)

I have a Metro SmarTrip card. It is an electronic card that can hold up to $180 of value and allows you to breeze through the turnstiles because it is a proximity chip card.

I also have some slightly used Farecards.

The Farcard machine will normally let you put the value of your Farecard onto your SmarTrip card. But not if the Farecard has been used and its value is above $7.

I figured that someone really dumb had programmed these things, so a quick trip to the Metro store at Metro Center they should be able to do it for me. Bzzzt. Wrong.

"The rule is $7 dollars, sir. Nothing we can do."

"Why is it limited to $7?"

"That's the rule sir. I don't make the rules, Metro makes them."

Repeat ad nauseam... The worst part about this, is that after I took the Metro Customer Service Form (e-mail on the form:csvc@wmata.com) and walked out, I realized that if I had told them the cards were not working, they probably would have issued me three new cards. At which point, I could have moved the value onto my SmarTrip.

This has been a Metro Sucks entry.

Posted by Samer at 07:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Music and the Future of Apple

Apple's new Music Store is, it seems, a big hit. Even the usual suspects like it.

I think, amid the critics and the lovers of this new store, very few people are talking about the direction this could take Apple.

Sure, there has been a lot of talk about the possibilities for music, and with Jobs saying that independent music labels will have a place in the store, things are bound to change.

That's not the revolution I want to talk about tonight: I'm thinking about the direction that this store could take Apple itself.

This C|Net article is really the first inkling of what Apple's long term strategy might be. It is an interesting read, though I tend to take things that "analysts" say with a grain of salt.

Apple has already said that they plan on offering the store for Windows users. If reports are to be believed, it might well be a ported version of iTunes that Windows users will get to buy music with.

I hope this happens for a number of reasons that the C|Net article does point out. More importantly, it keeps Apple on its recent track of supporting standards and open source.

This raises some interesting questions. I've been looking at the way the music store works and based on some of the information online and what I've gleaned from looking at the traffic across my connection, it seems that -- surprise, surprise -- the music store is a WebObjects back end serving up XML. The interesting question: What will Apple do about processing the XML and accessing the web on Windows?

There has been some speculation about how closely the development of iTunes 4 and Safari are tied. I don't think that this is rampant useless debate.

If Safari came about because Apple needed a rendering engine for accessing the web, then what will they do about the Windows version? They are going to need something akin to WebCore or they can use IE's APIs. Ugh.

I suspect that Apple went with KHTML (the open source software that WebCore is based on) in part because they needed something blazingly fast. You really cannot afford to have a user waiting for many tens of seconds inside an application like iTunes. People are used to slow loading web pages, but they won't stand for an application that is slow and pokey.

I think Apple will choose to port WebCore to Windows in order to use it in iTunes on that platform. This should not be that hard, after all there already is a port of KHTML for Windows.

This is where it starts to get interesting.

Apple could, once iTunes is up and running, focus on producing Safari for Windows. There would be very little stopping them. The central parts would already be up and running, put a nice GUI around it and instantly blow past Microsoft's piss poor browser.

Apple is already convinced that Windows users are going to be a part of its future. They are making some inroads in the server market and in the scientific communities (which had almost abandoned Apple). Even my Windows centric company has purchased a number of Xserves.

The Switch campaign, the iPod for Windows, soon iTunes. Why not Safari? Open source code, coupled with standards based files and protocols all wrapped in Apple GUI goodness, technology savvy and marketing wizardry. Imagine the possibilities.

Posted by Samer at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 04, 2003

Denali

Just saw a pretty funny ad for the GMC Denali. This is one big honking SUV. Huge. It has XL in the name.

The touts the "small" turning radius of this beast. They say words to the effect of "the smallest turning radius of any vehicle in its class". Fair enough.

But WTF is its class? Eighteen wheelers? Christ.

Posted by Samer at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ITMS Wish List

I want a "wish list" for the iTunes Music Store.

In general I shop in one of two ways:

1) I know what I want: I go to the store, make a beeline for the item I want, and then off to the cashier.

2) I browse: I go to the store with nothing in mind, I walk around, I see things that I want, I might pick them up, maybe make the rounds with them in my basket. Eventually, I'll have more things than I want or can afford. So I got through the basket and return what I don't want and buy the rest.

In ITMS, both experiences are great: I can go there, find what I want and get it. Or I can go there, place things in the shopping cart and then remove what I don't want.

The problem is the difference between shopping online, shopping in an application and shopping in a store. Stores are only open at certain times, and are in physical places. You go in and browse when you have the time and the inclination to go to the physical space.

Online shopping is more of a "if I'm looking for something, then I'll shop online" sort of experience. You don't go to Amazon because you want to walk around looking at the new books. You go to Amazon because you want to buy a book and are not sure what's new.

But when you launch iTunes to play some music, clicking on the music store logo is just too easy. You can just go to browse. No need to launch another application or type in a URL or anything.

And there's my problem: If I see five albums and twenty songs I want, I can click "buy now" and spend about $70 (plus tax -- why the fuck don't they show you the tax amount anyway?). Or I can drop everything into the shopping cart and when I'm ready to check out, I can delete three of the albums and ten of the songs to leave me at a more reasonable $30 (plus tax).

What I'd like is the option to put those three albums and ten songs in an ordered list so that I can remember to buy them later. I don't know about you, but my memory is not so good. I won't remember the name of some obscure song I listened to a preview of two days ago.

Posted by Samer at 09:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ITMS Buying experience

After playing with the new iTunes Music Store, I finally got around to buying an album online. I got "The Very Best of Sting & The Police" (that link will only work if you have a Mac and iTunes 4).

The process was smooth and easy. I've opted to use the shopping cart so that I can change my mind. Nothing could be easier. Which frightens me a bit.

If Apple go through with adding music by the boat load and start putting on some independent music and the harder to find stuff, this will change the way music is bought and consumed.

Every CD I ever bought has been ripped onto my hard drive. Having the highest fidelity is not what I'm after: I want my music on my iPod. And ITMS makes it painfully easy to do that. A couple of clicks and you are ready to go.

Posted by Samer at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tires II

Finally getting used to the new tires. They are fantastic Dunlop tires, and it really astonishes me how much of a difference tires make to the drivability of the car.

The car seems to drive much smoother and turning is really smooth. It feels like I'm driving a new car, not one with 75K miles.

Posted by Samer at 08:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 03, 2003

Iceland

I was out last night at happy hour. Met some interesting and quite fun folks. But they could not understand my fascination with Iceland.

I'm obsessed with it. Really. If you want to see some cool pictures from my last few trips there, check out my main site.

Let me know what you think in the comments...

Posted by Samer at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 01, 2003

Strangers in Odd Places

Ever run into people you don't know, but see regularly, in a place or way you've never seen them before?

I'm used to seeing this guy on CNBC. I saw him jogging in my neighborhood this evening. I've only ever seen him in a suit. Kind of strange to see him in sweats...

And later on I drove by a guy I always see on the Metro. It was late, but he was jogging as well...

Posted by Samer at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rip.Mix.Burn

Why do people thing that "Rip.Mix.Burn" was a big deal? Time magazine talked to Steve Jobs about the new iTunes Music Store in this article.

The Steve's Reality Distortion Field is on full blast, and this time it really is worth it. Some observations about the interview:

On the question of how ITMS will change the digital music world, Jobs says "With the introduction of the new iTunes Music Store we've now built the first real complete ecosystem for the digital music age." And I think he's right. From buying the music to listening to it, Apple owns the whole widget. Everything in line is done in the "Apple Way": clean, well designed, well thought out. It just works.

My iPod works. It is a joy to use. When was the last time you said that about something? When was the last time you wanted to run a piece of software (iTunes) and was happy for it do exactly what you want? When was the last time you spent hours browsing through a store? Online?

Back to the interview -- this is my favorite exchange:

TIME: The Wall Street Journal recently fashioned you as a "digital music  impresario." How do you feel about that?
Jobs: I didn't know what it meant. Does that mean I run a carnival? What we do  at Apple is very simple: we invent stuff. We make the best personal computers  in the world, some of the best software, the best portable MP3/music player,  and now we make the best online music store in the world. We just make stuff.  So I don't know what impresario means. We make stuff, put it out there, and  people use it.
Clearly, we've been leading the revolution. The personal computer is  changing into this digital hub for a digital lifestyle, so  we've been leading that change.   Digital moviemaking, DVD burning, digital photography, and of course, digital  music ? we are in the forefront.

"We just make stuff". The understatement of the (still young) millennium.

Posted by Samer at 10:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Tires

Bad news: Had to get new tires for the car. $500 after installation. Damn. Each tire was $80.

Worse news: A coworker points me to Tire Rack. Same tires for $50 a tire. Damn!

And yet worse news: Guy tells me I need a whole set of new struts as there are two leaking -- one on the front and one on the rear.

Maybe it is time to buy a new car?

Posted by Samer at 10:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hello? Anyone out there?

Hello world.

I finally have a blog. And I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it.

I'm going to write about a number of things that interest me, and you will see that reflected in the categories I have chosen. Beer and Food will be major topics. So will be my thoughts on the Macintosh.

I hope you like what I write about and see fit to come back and include me in your life.

Posted by Samer at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack