I think the last three weeks constitue the longest gap in Bump's almost two year history.(I will hit two years on November 7th.)
Some good reasons for the gap. I switched jobs, and I now work at Arthouse . It's a great, young company. I work with, among a really talented group of people, Jack over at Saturn. My next reason was a trip out of the country. I visited St. Martin for ten days just after Hurricane Jose blessed it's shores with 24 inches of rain. Even though it wasn't the perfect vacation I had planned, it was good to disconnect myself for a time. I'm now slowly returning myself to my normal schedule, surfing and posting.
Dave seems to be posting more content to Scripting News on a daily basis than he has as long as I can remember. It's an indication that there is a lot going on in the Weblog community and in Frontier development. I welcome it, but it's taking me forever to get through all the days I missed while I was away.
Sony launched Trivial Pursuit on the Web this week. I used to love playing the board version. Too bad I don't have enough free time right now to explore the Web version more.
On October 5th, DMOZ.org passed the million site mark.
The Beastie Boys are releasing an anthology named The Sounds of Science on November 23rd. You can also build your own two disk anthology and choose from 150 songs at this site . Ever notice that they don't ever sell their music for television commercials?
I read the newest issue of Discover Magazine on the plane on the way back to the U.S. The cover story was a terribly scary story about Mt. Ranier's inevitable eruption and the destruction in the greater Seattle area that would follow it. I didn't know there were magazines still so afraid they didn't post their whole stories to their Web site, but Discover doesn't. Here's a link to the one paragraph they do have up.
I've posted a live one page copy of my redesign in progress here . I would love to hear comments and opinions. It's just a single page right now. If you do email me, please let me know what platform and browser you are using.
Symbian, Palm Combine to Outflank Microsoft. This is huge for both of these platforms. It also should advance both quite a bit and we should see more vendors offering Palm compatible devices.(The article mentions Nokia licensing the new products.)
kottke.org has been both redesigned and personalized. The new main design is a bit bandwidth intensive, but is quite good. Unfortunately for me, I had a yellow backgrounded incremental redesign in progress, and I don't think I'll bother finishing it now. There shouldn't be too many yellow Weblog sites.
I was interested in this new Nokia 8800 phone, but this review from FreshGear makes me think otherwise. It's still a cool looking phone.
Always the sucker for any kind of science fiction television, I tuned into Fox's new series, Harsh Realm , last night. As you may know, it's the new series from the creator of the X-Files. I really enjoyed it and saw a lot of potential for it to be an amazing series. It reminded me somewhat of the concept that The Matrix was based on. I found myself wishing that it was longer, but it's on again Sunday so if you missed it you have another chance.(Baseball may be on instead if the series don't wrap up by then) It is loosely based on a 1993 Comic Books Series , but seems like it has been a little more limited to keep the budget down.
Someone mailed me yesterday asking why I don't choose to include all of the things I post here in my RSS syndication file. I look at it in two ways: I only want to include stories in that flow that I think would be interesting to a broader audience. I think the rest are for people that come here on a regular basis. I find that I get more hits from what I actually post that way.
It appears from the light rebuttal/clarification in today's Hear Ye! that I misunderstood/overreacted to what was written. It's worth mentioning that I do like the site, and I went back and read several months of the archives. We actually seem to have a lot in common interest wise.(With the exception of the platform thing of course.) I have been taking myself a bit too seriously recently. Well, it happens, and a wake up call isn't a bad thing. As a result, I'm endeavoring to check out more pages in the Everything/Nothing set this weekend. Aside from the name difference from the "Weblog" group, there doesn't seem to be that huge a difference in the type of sites that populate the community.
It's funny though, because he actually wrote about much the same topic in relation to Linux zealots on March 7th. It's the same attitude that he is talking about and that he is frustrated by. Even if he didn't have that attitude in his original post, there's no shortage of it on the Net.
Rafe over at RC3.org mailed me about an essay he wrote in 1997 that's relevant to my mini-essay. I remember this time for Apple quite well. The company was at a point where it could have gone either way. For people who are primarily Mac Users, it was a dark time. It's a good explanation of why he feels the way about the tools he chooses to use. "I want to use the tools I love." I read Rafe's site every day. He finds good technology stories and tidbits on the Web, and he talks from a knowledgable and opinionated standpoint.(Windows lovers tread gently, He doesn't care too much for Microsoft.)
Anyone who regularly reads Jesse Berst's columns will be shocked by this one. Think Different? Why Jesse Wants an iMac . I think this is just an attempt to get more people to read his column by being controversial. Here's some news for you Jesse: Macs crash about as often as Windows machines. Maybe not for everyone, but people who really push their machines will have problems no matter what they are using. The bottom line is that there isn't the attention to quality that there needs to be in the software industry. As a side note, my new iBook has only crashed twice in the week I have had it. Both times, I was using beta software that caused the problem.(Mozilla M9)
This CNN article has the phrase "'They're just luscious,' Jobs purrs." in it. What kind of writing is that? He purred? I somehow doubt he actually purred. Later in the article, he also "gushes."
While I'm in a critical mood, here's a pet peeve. Why do people who put their press release online on their own site leave the phrase at the bottom that says "For more information see (insert link to site you are already on here)?" Here's an example . To me it says "our publicity firm doesn't get the Web."
One really cool thing about my new employer is that they have agreed to let me put a Web server for my personal use on their network. I still have to decide what platform I want to use. It's a tough decision.
This rant was inspired by the October 3rd post on Hear Ye! . I'm not singling this person out for my ridicule, but I was pushed a bit and inspired by this single quote out of context with the witty comentary damning my platform choice. Yes, I bought an iBook which had a mechanical failure, but I have had a lot of computer equipment fail on me over the years. It was replaced in a quick manner, and I received the service I expected from Apple. I have received similar service from PC vendors(like Gateway) in the past. I currently have/use machines running the following operating systems on a daily basis: Windows NT, Windows 98, Mac OS 8.6, LinuxPPC, Red Hat Linux, Slackware Linux, BeOS for Intel, and BeOS for PPC. if you pay attention to the bottom of this page, you'll see that I use almost all of these platforms to update this site at one time or another.
Okay folks, I've finally had enough. Every day I'm exposed to people who are evangelistic about their computer platform choice, and that certainly isn't a bad thing. If people weren't making comparisons, what would drive innovation? What does bother me are people who take it a bit further than just recommending what they think is the best choice or making open minded and informed comparisons. These people look down their noses at people who aren't Mac OS/Windows/Linux users. Why am I fed up? Well, I use all three, and I see each as a tool that can be used in a different way(for me.) The problem occurs when I say on these pages anything about a specific platform, people jump to these wild assumptions. "He's one of (insert computer platform and derogatory term here.) Wake up and smell the coffee here people. Computers are tools, just tools. They are rapidly becoming the central tool in our civilization. It's a rampant waste of time to have these platform wars/attitudes.
Each platform has it's own distinct advantages and disadvantages which I won't belabor by discussing them here. All hardware platforms have a certain amount of problem equipment and a fair amount of junky equipment. No single computer platform is well developed and robust enough at this point that I would be proud to defend it with the emotional vigor that I see on the net every day.
With some folks, it seems that they make the assumption that a person can only know one platform, use one platform, and appreciate one platform. This whole issue shouldn't be thought of with binary logic folks. These things are complex systems. It's more logical to view each with an open mind and see it for what it is and what it does well. They all come with their own hangups and are all designed from different perspectives and with different goals. Otherwise, aren't you limiting yourself? How do you know you are using the right tool for the job? What about the alternate platforms? The BeOSes and Amiga's of the world? I want the best tool for any specific job, and that isn't limited to computers. I wouldn't use a hammer to remove a screw, and I won't make computer platform decisions without being well informed.
The new iMacs are nicer looking, faster and include DVD drives and Firewire. Suddenly my Blue and White G3 doesn't look so great to me.
Does Salon Threaten CNN? [via rc3.org] I find this strange. I think the one difference between Salon and a newspaper, for instance, is that they are head to head competitors on a single medium. Are they really competitors though? I don't think CNN offers the same type of content that Salon does.
Adobe launched a major redesign of their site. I give it a thumbs up. It includes verticalized areas for each type of designer they service. The Web Center looks like a good place to poke around. They are also offering free shipping for a limited time on products purchased at their online store. I've ordered things from them directly in the past and had nothing but headaches so I hope they redesigned their fulfillment infrastructure too.
Apple has a page on their Media site dedicated to the Dust Brothers and their use of Macs. They were largely responsible for the back beats on the brilliant Paul's Boutique Beastie Boys Album.
Things haven't slowed down here at all. I've started making the transition between jobs, working on closing up shop and getting integrated with the new company. Two very different cultures, and it's going to be an interesting two weeks as I make this transition.
I went to the Opening Night Thrashers game tonight. Very exciting to be part of the start of this new franchise. The Thrashers lost to the New Jersey Devils 4-1, but they played well. Here's the ESPN recap . I expect them to win a few games this season because they play in the weakest division in the NHL. I still haven't gotten my pictures from the games developed yet. Tonight they gave out this neat leather ticket holder with a clear plastic cover to preserve your opening game ticket. I have tickets for their next home game against the Detroit Red Wings.
Even better, I'm updating Bump with my new iBook . The second one arrived on Wednesday as promised. I'm quite pleased with Apple's response to my immediate issues. It's a pleasure to use, the keyboard has a nice tactile feel to it and the display is bright. The screen isn't as small feeling as I thought it would be. I had forgotten how much easier to use Apple's laptops are in multiple locations than Windows 9x laptops are. The Location Manager makes transitions between work and home much easier for me than on my Gateway. The iBook is a little heavier than I thought it would be, and the speaker is weak, but these are the only two complaints I have so far. It's faster than I thought it would be, and the battery life seems to be close to five hours(although Apple advertises 6 hours). I've installed about half of the software I use on it, and I have about 2 Gb of hard drive space left. I wish they had gone with a 6 Gb hard drive. Overall, I think it's a good consumer laptop or limited use machine for a power user. I plan on using it until the G4 laptops are released.
Iconfactory has redesigned their site. I like the new design much better than the previous black background version. They've also added a section of current events links that are useful.
Despite the fact that the site is almost maddening to use, Mikworks has some fantastic icons available for Windows and Mac OS.
I've been listening to Fu Manchu every day. It's fantastic, Black Sabbath influenced, music that is perfect for driving in Atlanta traffic. They are about to come out with a new release, and will be touring the US in February after they have finished their European tour.
I plan on returning to normal updates this week. I've been through an enormous emotional upheavel through this work decision, but I think I'm finally adjusted to the idea.
It's been a hectic week of change for me. I accepted a new position with a growing Web services firm here in Atlanta, and resigned from my existing position. It was a terribly difficult decision for me to make, but I think I made the right decision.
I've spent much of the time at my current position fighting against a print-centric culture. It's very difficult to make a culture shift in a company happen when it doesn't live or die by the change. I think that, in the long run, print companies will be forced to make serious commitments to the Web, but some aren't ready yet.
Tougher still, was leaving the people. I work with a group of people that I really like and respect. Some of them have contributed to my professional growth more than they will ever know.
Moving forward, the new company is young, hungry and growing. It's all about where I want to be.
My iBook arrived yesterday, but the video fizzled out after about an hour. Apple is shipping me a new one. I like it. It has a great tactile feel, seemed plenty fast while I was using it. It's definitely a consumer machine.
There are pictures of the next generation iMac posted here.
According to today's Saturn, Jack and Michal had lunch without me.
I guess I shouldn't care, but this person rated Bump as a 4.5 out of 9. As you can see, his complaint was that Bump seemed to be more about Weblogs than anything else. Reading the last few weeks, I see a trend too. I guess my interest in the sudden explosion of Weblogs has shown itself in these pages. If you were to read back through the almost two years of entries, you'd find that I haven't been writing about Weblogs half the time for the last two years. I give his rating of Weblogs page a 4.5 out of 9 too. Very arbitrary:-)
I managed to scam a copy of the Matrix from an obliging store clerk a day early yesterday, and I watched the movie last night. Unfortunately, some of the extra features on the DVD require not only a PC DVD-ROM(which I have) but also specific DVD Hardware(which I don't.) This means that not only are Mac Users out of luck with it, but so are some PC users. The movie looks and sounds geat on DVD. I think I had forgotten how great this movie is until I watched it last night. I think my favorite scene is the Dojo scene which borrows from classic Kung Fu movies. Some of the extras, including the documentary on the making of the movie and the audio commentary, work on any DVD player. I was up late watching it, and I'm of exhausted today.
After reading about it everywhere on the Web over the last couple of weeks, I finally checked out eOpinions yesterday and wrote some reviews as a test. You can find my eOpionions page here.(No picture yet.)
I wrote an eOpinion about The Matrix DVD. They didn't have a listing for the movie yet. I don't like the interface for adding new things you want to review on their site. I want to be able to add categories so I can review more computer peripherals. I think they are going to find that the labor involved in keeping the maintenance of categories to themselves is going to get prohibitive as the site gets busier.
My iBook still hasn't shipped. :v(
I seem to be reading a lot of how this story means that Disney is a bad company. Does this mean that companies are responsible for the personal actions of their employees? From where I sit, this is akin to blaming the Internet for his actions. It doesn't make any sense to me. Clearly, what this guy did (or thought he was doing) was reprehensible, but can you blame the company where he works for those actions?
Steve Ivy, who I met at a Web conference in April, has started a Weblog named Redmonk. He's a sharp guy, as well as an accomplished Frontier developer, and I look forward to reading his thoughts and findings.
I went to both Thrashers pre-season games this weekend and was not dissapointed by the experience. They split the games, losing to the New York Rangers 3-2 in Overtime and crushed the New Jersey Devils today 6-1. They looked a lot better than I expected. I also took a bunch of pictures with traditional film that will end up here as soon as I get them developed.
I spent the majority of the weekend at these games and watching some pretty bad movies with Kate, but also working on the backend of Bump. There will be subtle changes to the site later this week, and bigger ones in early October.
On that note, Camworld saw some major changes this week, and Cam has really improved the interface and made it more integrated. He also added a personalization feature that allows the user to customize the page color. Kepp it up Cam, you're an inspiration to the rest of the Weblog community.
On the subject of my favorite sites, I don't think I've mentioned kottke.org yet. Strong design and great links with opinion. Another person that I feel humble in the presence of. He recently pointed to a site talking about the status of the casting for the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie which I am eagerly anticipating. I've read the books somewhere on the order of 20 times, and I'm considering giving them another go soon.
Looking forward, there is a lot going on this week. The Matrix DVD is out Tuesday, and so is the new Nine Inch Nails CD. I'm looking forward to both.
fischler.org is a new Weblog with some potential. If you don't believe me, look at this guy's links page which is 178k.
Another new Weblog site that caught my eye this week is Lake Effect. I'm not sure I like the color scheme though. It's powered by Blogger.com which I mentioned a few posts ago.
I updated the DMOZ Weblog directory tonight. To show how much things have grown, we're up to 93 sites listed. We were somewhere in the twenties when I signed on as an editor. If you have a Weblog and aren't listed, I encourage you to submit your site. (You go there to submit, but I'll take your submission via email if you are that lazy.)
Maybe it had something to do with parting with all of my old change, but I've been at a loss this week to figure out where all of my motivation went. I feel like a real big slacker. It bothers me that I seem to be this fragile. Here's an Onion story that seems very on-topic.
Handspring has released the details of their Visor product which is based on the Palm OS.(Complete with pictures) Their site seems to have a lot of broken links to images this morning, but the devices look great, come in several colors, and are cheaper than a traditional Palm from Palm Computing. They also have a special expansion slot that accomodates things like modems, extra memory, MP3 players and software. The $249 model comes with 8Mb of memory.
My iBook order is "Being Assembled." I called and it should ship within the next two weeks.
My tickets for this weekends Thrashers pre-season games and the regular season games I ordered tickets for in advance came today. The game on Saturday will be the first played in the new Philips Arena here in Atlanta. I excited to be part of this new team as a fan.
I took my collected loose change to one of those machines for lazy people who don't want to roll their change. I had enough that I managed to buy a scanner with the result and had some money left over for coffee.
They've updated the Sleepy Hollow site to include desktop wallpaper and sketches. It's worth a look or two.
Metascene manages to snag "most favored Weblog status" for the week with this writeup (scroll to the bottom.) I can't believe that I've been doing Bump for almost two years. I also can't believe how many new and amazing log sites have popped up in 1999. When I started doing Bump, the ranks consisted of Robot Wisdom, Scripting News, RasterWeb, Gulker's News Page, and CamWorld (which I wasn't even aware of at the time.) Now there are Weblogs to suit all tastes. Keep em coming.
Salon has an article about running Linux on commercially available laptops which goes into depth about the WinModem issue. I have struggled with this running Red Hat on my Gateway Laptop. I'm forced to use my one precious PC Card port for a modem in order to get Internet access. This makes me angry.
I spent the long weekend cleaning and organizing the Bump clubhouse and the rest of my apartment. As usual with these things, I'm amazed at how much junk I acquire somehow. I'm going to eBay a lot of stuff over the next month.
Evhead changes layouts. It has rapidly become one of my favorite Weblog sites.
The Crossfader noticed he's on my reading list and notes that I'm on his. Maybe I should change the name of the blog from Bump to Yoda? Anyway, he seems to be the only blogger who likes Tribe Called Quest as much as I do. What happened to culturally positive Rap and hip-hop? You must learn!!
Psyberspace now contains a Cold Fusion resource Search Engine. Very Useful.
Guru.com seems like an online Fast Company type site. There's a lot of good info there even if you aren't an independent business person. Plus they are giving away an Aeron Chair.
I found link to Ampersand Lounge at Melty.com too. I think I've been there before, but I liked what I found. There was also a link to Give Quick! which lets Web developers donate their affiliate referral fees to charity. Bump is going that route as soon as I have the time to change all of my links.
Via EvHead, I found a link to a page on the Mappa Mundi site. Good site with real solid content and design.
My copy of Danny Elfman's score to the movie Instinct arrived yesterday. Like all of his music, I found it exquisite and disturbing. I wish it was longer. I listened to it twice this afternoon while working from home. I wish I could work from home all the time. I hate commuting.
Pitchfork has the news that there's a Sunny Day Real Estate live CD and Video coming out. (via Bring the Rock) I once got drunk with the drummer and they are one of the bands I really like. I hope they keep putting out new music on their new label.
Kill HTML before it kills us I didn't realize this was an either or sort of choice. I've always been of the "best tool for each job" mindset.
I went home for a few days, which explains the lack of updates. It was great to spend time with my family. It always recharges my batteries.
While I was traveling, I finished Po Bronson's Nudist on the Late Shift. I thought it was well written and extremely interesting. If you have any interest in dot com businesses or what goes on behind the scenes with Internet business in Silicon Valley, this book is for you. I found the section about HotMail to be the most interesting and inspiring to me. Next up: Seth Godin's Permission Marketing.
Linkwatcher got a design upgrade recently. I check the recently updated Weblog list every day now.
I guess there was never really much doubt, but this article indicates we can look forward to at least two more Matrix films.(link courtesy of Mr. Hope)
I'm enjoying reading this new list on Amazon of what books are bought by which companies. Also humorous is the listing for Atlanta which reveals something about the city. I would think there are some privacy concerns about this information. It could even reveal a project at a company that is supposed to be a secret.
Paul Mather mailed me about his SubAtomic Humor column. The newest one features some Blair Witch humor.
For those who aren't Slashdot readers, the sync has some great video content. Don't go there unless you have some time to watch though.
I love Yahtzee, and now there's Flash Yahtzee (with instructions on building your own).
It's a good thing I missed this auction, because I don't have a spare $301.00.
Allaire released Cold Fusion Express today. It's a lite version of Cold Fusion.
Here’s my first Blogger based entry. I’m pretty sure that the FTP settings are going to need tweaking.
Blogger.com raises the bar for Web based logging tools. It’s brought to us by the same folks that developed PYRA. Here’s a Bump page run through their system.
ECML is an XML based digital wallet standard being backed by heavyweights like Visa and American Express. I doubt that they will get all of the backend ecommerce vendors to support this as they all have different uses for the data and want it different ways.
Network Solutions' newest play is an Internet directory/portal called the dot com directory. It doesn't seem like anything special to me, and its main function is akin to the various Yellow Pages sites around the Web.
Coolfont is not about fonts at all, but rather, new age instead.
This site is mainly about working in Great Britain, but there's something here for the stateside worker too.
Here's a font archive stored in some solidly designed PHP driven pages. There's some great fonts there too.
The biggest thing I took away from the Jupiter conference I attended last week was that the big Web players are collecting a scary amount of information about the average surfer's habits and demographics. They feel like they are justified in doing so because they post privacy policies. Inevitably, the amount of "targeted" junk email each of the people reading this page will receive will increase dramatically over the next 24 months. This direct marketing approach is the next wave of the Web from a marketer's perspective. There is nothing you can do about it. Every time your register for a site service, enter a contest, or join a mailing list you are giving them all the permission they need.
I'm very sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days. It's been a very busy time for me at work, and I just haven't had the energy to get to Bump in my off hours. I'll be putting a large amount of material up today, and hope to have my write up on the Jupiter conference from last week up tonight at some point.
I got a promotion at work last week to a new postion titled "Manager, eMedia."
I'm in New York City attending Jupiter Communications Online Advertising conference. There are 1500 people here, most of whom represent consumer oriented sites. I'll be writing up a summation of day one and posting it tonight. I apologize for the lack of updates over the last two days.
What is this? Looks like another weblog application is about to emerge. I was reading a magazine interview with Marc Canter and he referenced this URL as his most recent project.
Need a search engine for your site? Check out atomz.com. I've added a search engine at the bottom of this page for your convenience, so now you can search for all manner of strange things on my site.
Panic Software, makers of Transmit, my ftp client of choice, released Audion, a snazzy looking MP3 player for the Macintosh.
Chris Cornell's site has a jukebox page where you can hear a different new track off of the new CD each day.
There should be a lot more here later. I have a list of 25 sites I haven't gotten to link to over the last two days.
Here's a really good corporate identity site that someone mailed me about today. I've got to get my Flash skills built in a hurry.
I've been thinking about some bands that I love but haven't listened to in years. I can't seem to find my copy of Alice Donut's Mule, one of my favorite records.(I actually mean vinyl records.)
A couple of friends and I ate sushi and watched movies last night. We watched The Seven Samurai. If you haven't seen it, this is one of my favorite movies ever. It influenced all manner of seminal Western films, and is really entertaining too. It's got a fair share of humor, action, and drama. It's in balck and white and sub-titled, but don't let that intimidate you. It was also remade as a western you might be familiar with named The Magnificent Seven in 1960. Here's the Internet Movie Database listing for Shichinin no samurai, which is the film's real name.