What a great vacation. I want to write up everything that we did, where we stayed, ate, and played. I will attempt to get to this project as soon as possible.
I really enjoyed every one of the four cities we visited(Portland Oregon, Seattle Washington, Vancouver B.C., and Victoria B.C.) Each has its own charm.
The best thing I took away from this vacation was perspective. The eleven days I went without touching any computer equipment realy paid off. It is a really positive thing to get away from the central things in your life for a while. I appreciate things more now than I ever have. I enjoy my job, the people in my life, and I realize how lucky I have been every day of my life.
I am now starting to settle back in. There's work to be done.(A lot) Also laundry, car repairs and cleaning. I will be up against it this whole week.
Mark McGuire ends up with 70 home runs. Incredible.
My very smart cousin Jim Occhialini is getting married in two weeks. I am traveling to the wedding in Hershey Pennsylvania in two weeks. It will be the first time in years that I will see many of my more distant family members.
I'm a big Yankees fan and enjoying the game currently. Baseball has returned as a part of my life. I didn't leave as a fan because of the strike or anything, just other interests took the time I devoted to it.
Well I will probably be doing a lot of updating this week so check back often. I hope that I didn't lose too many of you because of my absence.
Netscape's Web client has very quietly become very stable in 1998. I know that, one year ago, I complained about stability all the time. I have been using their Preview Release 2 for a few weeks without any major issues.
I have been using Apple's new MacOS 8.5. I have to say that, if the beta's are any indication, they continue to take steps in the right direction. It is faster by far, easier to use, incorporates Internet terchnology, and the new implementation of AppleScipt is a screamer. It also looks like Mac User's will finally have a decent Java implementation to work with.
My playing with Macromedia Fireworks continues. I have a really strong grip on using it now. I think I will move onto another piece of software soon. I am way behind my informal schedule of technologies that I wanted to master in 1998. I can't believe that it's already almost October.
The Beasties performed and received the Video Vanguard award that MTV gives to people who have made strong contributions over the course of their career to music video. They also performed and sounded great.
I am entrenched in the beginnings of one of my death march weeks. I am going on my first vacation in over two years late this month, and I have to get a lot of work out of the way first.
I watched yesterday as Mark McGuire tied the long standing home run record. Media saturation on the subject is starting to reach critical mass. I plan on being glued to the set again tonight in hopes that he will break it. I can only imagine the pressure he must feel when at the plate.
I chose not to work on the site interface over the long weekend. It was good for me to get away from the keyboard for a couple of days. I will be changing things again this week.
The Beastie Boys show on Wednesday night was incredible. Mixmaster Mike , of the Invisibl Skratch Picklz , opened the show with a styling involving two copies of Rush's Tom Sawyer. He then proceded to produce all of the back beats during the show with vinyl.
The set was a good mix of material from each of the musical genres and eras of the Beastie Boys career. I think my favorite songs were the ones from the new album which I hadn't seen previously. If you have the opportunity to see them on this tour, I recommend it.
I am also enjoying Mixmaster Mike's solo "CD Anti-Theft Device."
I will pay good money for any recording from this tour.
Dreamweaver now has its own Frontier suite as a hook into Frontier authoring. This is getting more exciting by the day.
Iconfactory has some limited edition Batman icons that will only be up for a couple of days.
Mark McGuire needs three home runs in 23 games.
A news item on today's Macintouch talks about the fact that Emailer, my email client of choice, is dead. It goes on to say that Emailer is not fully compatible with the soon to be released Mac OS 8.5 . I'm really pissed about this. I have 3 years worth of email in Emailer.
On a similar note, Bare Bones released the 1.1 patch for Mailsmith , another email client. It makes it faster, and adds some great features, but I still like the previously mentioned Emailer better.
This type of behavior is too typical of software companies these days. I live in a constant state of concern that I am investing time and money in software products that are doomed.
I was up until the wee hours of the morning last night. Inspiration came at a strange time and I created a redesign of Bump. I hope to finish the details tonight and have it up at some point during the weekend.
It should be more attractive, easier to read and load faster that the current setup. I used Fireworks to do all of the graphics work, and have to admit that I am sold on this product completely now.
I will be putting it up, then going back and implementing Cascading Style Sheets.
As you may have noticed, I have removed the Netscape Now! banner and replaced it with one for the Web Standards Project This is a topic close to my heart. We need the browser/parser vendors to get together and standardize. I am tired of writing Web stuff that only works on some browsers or some platforms. Both of the major vendors are responsible for the mess, and this is not really about market share. I have joined the Web Standards Project, and plan on being an active member.
Mark McGuire broke the NL Home Run record last night. So exciting. I haven't been so excited about baseball since my youth. He only needs to hit 4 more Home Runs in 24 games to pass Roger Maris' record.
I am cutting back my involvement at MacCentral . While I will remain a staff member on this excellent news site, and I will also continue to write articles, I need more time to spend on learning new technology and reading. Plus this site needs a redesign badly.
I'm still putting together a plan for the sales of the Frontier Shirts.
I've had some kind of stomach illness for the last two days(thus the lack of updates here). In the interim, I wrote a commentary on the CNN report on "Apple: Stock of the Week."
I have recently purchased Soap Shoes. Due to a nagging foot injury, I haven't been able to test them out properly. They are also the subject of an article in the most recent Spin Magazine(Another Web site I can't find???). Pretty crazy stuff.
I am pounding away at various tasks this week, and I have begun a new workout program in an attempt to get myself into some semblance of shape. After quitting smoking last spring, I gained a ton of weight. It's time for it to come off. Also, when I exercise, I have a ton of energy to focus on other tasks.
I wrote a small snippet for MacCentral about a report on Apple that is airing on CNN this Wednesday.
I am very busy today finishing a story, and posting a bunch of stuff at work. I went to this great murder mystery dinner theater called Agatha's(404-875-4321) on Friday night. Everyone in the audience plays some sort of role in the play that is going on. One of my friends had a speaking part. Really good time. I can't seem to find a Web site for them.
Hello Nasty Lyric of the day: "Came out rapping when I was born Mom said rock it 'til the break of dawn"(from Body Movin')
I also watched the Zero Effect with Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller on Saturday night. Great concept and good performances from both actors. Bill Pullman's performance especially stood out. Unfortunately, the movie started to drag about 2/3 of the way in and never recovered. I think that it had the potential to be a great movie. Too bad.
I'm working on an AppleScript/VB script that will automatically translate my Word 98 files to HTML files with a creator type of my choosing. I wish that I didn't have to use two languages. When it is done, I will post it here.
The design of the Frontier shirts I am doing with Userland will be finally complete tonight. I will be getting them printed locally. I will post their availability/price/order information when I have an arrival date.
I realized yesterday that my design skills need an update. I have to spend some time away from text working on making beautiful things. I have been living in a text only world the last couple of months and it shows in my attempts at graphics recently.
Hello Nasty Lyric of the day: "His name plate medallion Says never trust a hal 9000"(from The Grasshopper Unit)
There is a Wired article today about the similarities in the design of all of the Internet directories. I couldn't agree more. What happened? People used to use the Web to innovate and try new things, and now its just like everything else. It's obvious that these folks are working and designing by committee. I like simplicity as much as anyone, but I also like beautiful things. It's one of the reasons I still use a Macintosh 60% of the time at work and for all of my home computing needs. I think that beautifully designed things inspire me. There isn't a substitute for that. I'm getting off topic though.
I think all of these folks who have all their money invested in Yahoo should take a long look at some of the emerging technologies(Like Everything and NewHoo) that represent the spirit of the Internet as a community. These are the future in my mind, not a small group of people working to try and catalog the entire growing and morphing Internet.
I would much rather know that someone like me with an interest in finding valuable information was cataloging pages I might look for. It makes a lot more sense to trust someone like that rather than someone who has a vested financial interest in seeing me go to certain sites regardless of their information value. I want to do what I can to support these efforts going forward.
The next meeting of the Atlanta Frontier Users group is tonight at the Red Light Cafe at 7pm. I really enjoyed the last meeting a lot. Hopefully some of the strong Frontier skills of the others will trickle down to me:-)
The Grand Royal Web site redesign is really good. I really like the work I've seen by the Big Gun Project.
Everything is one of the next step Internet directories.(Although it currently is self-contained A Mininet?) It is better than Newhoo. I think these are a great solution to the technical challenge of trying to catalog and rate the constantly changing Internet scenery. I have added a section to the links page for these sites. I also began to take part in Everything as an editor. It's really addictive, and I can see why this site is growing so rapidly. I am registered as Bump(of course).
I ordered a book from Amazon.com last week. Am I the only person who is not fond of their shipping policy? I assume when I pay for next day shipping that they will make the effort to get my merchandise out on time. I have a gripe here. I'm waiting to hear back from them, but I may not shop there any longer.
Powered by our not so tasty company coffee, I am a typing fool.
Hello Nasty Lyric of the day: "When I'm in Holland I eat the pannenkoeken"(from Super Disco Breakin')
My Internet based research has found that pannenkoeken seem to be large Dutch pancakes.
I have purchased a bunch of new CD's that I will be writing snippets about for this site.
Rasterboy has his Wozzle 2.0 posted. This is really cool. It's written in PERL.
The May content has been moved to its own page in the archives section.
I really want to limit my consumerism going forward. But I'm weak.
Something strange has happened in the last two weeks to me. I find myself refreshed, renewed, and ready to do some serious work. It really is a pleasant change over the semi-burned out standard of the last couple of months. I'm not sure what brought it on, but I'm very happy about it.
I spent the weekend celebrating birthdays. My friend Jean-Claude had his on Friday.
I've been diggin in the lyrics of the new Beastie Boys' record. As usual, there are amusing and obscure cultural references.
C-Net has a great Gadget section. One of the article explains why DIVX is crap. Seeing as how I own a DVD player, I am biased against this technology. I really like the DVD technology, but I hate the fact that I can't capture video or stills from it because of its copy protection.
I'm doing a lot of writing. I'm working on a piece for a print publication that is about pirate radio moving to the Web. If you know anything I should cover or know, please mail me.
I also bought a new PlayStation over the weekend. My old one burned itself out on carpet fibers. Word to the wise: don't use yours sitting directly on the carpet.
I bought the new Beastie Boys disc as an English import when I was in Manhattan for MacWorld. Now that I've had a week to think about it, I think it is great. As with previous Beastie releases, I have a different favorite song every day. Today it's Remote Control, but The Grasshopper Unit is great too.BIZ!!
The Beastie Boys have really managed to span a wide variety of musical trends while remaining innovators. Their music means more to me personally than any other band that are my contemporaries. Tickets go on sale for their Atlanta show today.
Well, I disappeared for a couple of weeks. I was building up to leaving for MacWorld, and then at MacWorld.
It was a very different show than any I had been to before. Fewer companies came out. Despite this fact, people are really optimistic about Apple's future. I think that they are doing what needs to be done for them to succeed, but that is no guarantee of success. Yesterday's announced profit of $101 million doesn't hurt matters much.
I learned some useful things, and discovered Wootech Voyager, an interesting Filemaker Pro based Web integration environment. I also put a lot of names with faces.
I think the personal highlight for me was the time I got to spend with my brother. Also, my parents took the train in and we had dinner. Since I haven't been very close with them, this was a huge step in the right direction.
There are tons of things I need to get up here, but this week is crazy.
Netscape posted the 4.5 version of their browser. It contains a smart browsing set of features. This I will elaborate on, but I need to find out how I get their Bump keyword for my site.
A friend of mine managed somehow to get a Mach 3 razor for me.(Really cool site too) Shaving with this thing is great. I think that I would buy a ton of Gilette if I had any free cash. It has to be the best engineered shaving product ever.(I also heard that someone went to jail for trying to steal its secrets.)
Work on Darwin, my new 9600 monster, continues. I can't believe that Apple shipped them with 7.6 on the drive and Mac OS 8 in the box. What a hassle. I'm hoping to get it fully functional tonight. I also am setting up Bump my 7600/233 as an in-house server. I haven't decided what to do with it software-wise yet.
I continue to struggle to find news worthy items to write about for MacCentral .
It looks like I have cut a deal with Dave from Userland to make Frontier T-Shirts. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to get the design together, but i will update this page first. In preparation for a possible online selling spot, I registered the scriptstuff.com domain. It currently is mapped here.
I, as always, apologize for my 6 day absence from this space. I am overcome with ambition and have been spending an inordinate amount of time with Frontier 5.1. I think I am starting to get there. I still have four other pieces of unlearned software waiting in the wings.
I also went to see Truman over the weekend. A well-done movie that was totally made by the script and story. Certainly not to take anything away from Jim Carrey, but that everyman role was not the most challenging one on the planet.
I also got three inches of my hair cut off. Always a lightening experience.
I bought a painting by a local artist. I will post a picture of it and my thoughts at some later date.
This week is all about getting things done, my new computer (I'm naming it Darwin) just arrived, and I will be getting ready for next weeks show, and training.
Other people name their hard drives and machines after cartoon characters and all manner of other things. I personally like to name mine after legendary scientists, philosophers, and authors. What do you do?
I have an article on the recent Frontier developments up on MacCentral, "UserLand's Frontier Goes Commercial. Dave Winer put a link up on Scritping News. Cool.
I'm waiting for them to process my check so I can get Frontier 5.1, and I plan on playing with it and writing about it after that. I also bought a Photoshop 5.0 upgrade yesterday and I will let you know how I make out with it. My new 9600 is still in limbo.
I have a few meetings today, so I won't be too active.
I buy a lot of computer books. I read a couple of books a week, and I maintain a pretty solid mix between the high octane computer stuff and really good and interesting fiction and non-fiction. I am, however, very picky about my computer books. The advent of the the Internet has sped up our industry immensely. The effect on books is that they end up being out of date fast or rushed to press and not done properly. Without exception, I have found the O'Reilly books to be exempt of this rule. Always well written, they really write for people like me, professionals. There is a really in-depth article on them in today's San Jose Mercury News.
I will be adding a page to the site that will act as a master index of my writing that appears on other sites on the Web this week. I also will be adding my resume to the site so that people looking for freelance Web programming and design can check me out.
I just posted a revised link page as promised(but a few days late). I'm sure there are sites that I forgot to add, and that will get fixed as I remember. There are links to a whole bunch of sites that weren't there before. I gave up on trying to describe each site individually. You'll just have to trust me that they are worth a visit. If you think your site should be there and isn't, mail me.
This week should be interesting. New version of Frontier . New computer I hope(turns out they might not have enough for me to get one.) I imagine that it will be a wild ride as always.
I am reminded by my body that it has been spending a lot of time geeking in front of the computer and very little time in the sun. It hurts.
Lots of stuff going on.
I purchased a new computer today. Taking advantage of the deal that CDW had for Version Tracker readers. It's a 9600/350. It's all about slots, baby.
Lastly, Frontier went commercial in a very private and appropriate way yesterday. I can only wish Userland Software the best of luck with things. I bought a license for the personal version. I expect that we will have answers to some of the unanswered questions this week.
The final article in my series about the TechWorks rebate situation is on MacCentral .
On the fourth anniversary of that ill-fated White Bronco chase, I have yet another story up on MacCentral today. This one is TechWorks Power 3D Rebate: The Bottom Line . It deals with some inconsistency between a deal advertised by TechWorks and what is actually available in the retail channel.
Looks like there is a lot going on behind the scenes at Userland Software.
I am sorely aware of all the work that wants to be done on this site. I still haven't gotten to the links section and I owe a lot of content on the music, book, software, and movie pages. In time it must happen.
I have another story up on MacCentral today. It's titled "Macintosh Gaming Championship to be held at MacWorld NY" I will be attending the Expo wearing several hats and will be writing about the game competition as it occurs. I am really looking forward to another chance to chat with other Webmasters at the show and hope to meet some people I've only talked to via the net.
I read Dog Days by Daniel Lyons over the weekend. A very interesting book. It's got computer programming, dog racing, broken hearts, and the Mob in it. I will write a detailed review later this week when I have time and have digested the book.