I have come to the revelation that email is perhaps the most important application I currently use. I have spent the last 24 hours converting from the now defunct Claris Emailer 2.0 to Bare Bones MailSmith . MailSmith is strong like BBEdit, but it still took two updates to its 1.0 version before I was ready to make the plunge.

Anyway, I am back on my feet now, and probably better off.

I spent the majority of the weekend doing a vigorous fall cleaning. I'm getting rid of tons of clothes that don't fit me any longer. Very healthy and cleansing.

I am frustrated with the amount of physical possessions I have. Too many t-shirts, too many books, too many CD's. I want to strip this stuff away and get back to the basics.

I am grooving to the new Fat Boy Slim album, "You've Come a Long Way Baby" at work. It's really really solid, and I recommend it highly. Great album shots of his studio, which resembles the Bump clubhouse quite a bit.

I'm starting, in tandem with my girlfriend, on the Atkin's Diet today. She had been on it previously and had great success, and I am in terrible physical condition.

This week is starting strangely at work. I don't feel as pressured to complete any tasks right now as I normally do. We were acquired by Bill Communications two weeks ago, and it remains to be seen how this will effect me.

My trip to the Disney Institute has renewed my interest in 3D design and character animation. I am now beginning to spend a little time each day sketching and hope to develop characters to bring to life on my Mac.

More later......

I'm working from the Bump Clubhouse today. I love doing it, and wish I could do it two days a week. It gives me a chance to get things done without the distractions of my office environment. I've already done as much as I usually get done in a day and it's not even 1 pm.

I really like Proteron's GoMac . It is a utility that gives my Macintosh the standard Windows Start menu and application switcher bar. I'm surprised how much I like this feature of Windows. They released version 1.6 today which adds Mac OS 8.5 compatibility. It has a great pop up calendar feature that I use all the time.

On the subject of Windows, I got to play with a Fire Ant prototype at a trade show this week. It seemed really fast. I especially look forward to being able to watch DVD movies on it. I am working on my level of knowledge of Windows 98 to ready myself for its arrival. I really wish that Windows NT had USB and DVD support, because I would much rather have had it on the laptop.

Mac OS 8.5 has been rock solid here at home. I still am having some nagging issues at work, but I'm sure I will figure them out in the coming days. Claris Emailer seems to work fine, and that was my biggest concern. The Sherlock search engine is an invaluable tool. Sherlock Internet Search Archives is a great collection of plug ins.

Word on the street(and in a MacWEEK article ) has Palm Computing releasing their revised MacPac software as a public beta. I can't wait for this added flexibility. I am now using the Palm device all the time.

SETI's SETI@Home program , scheduled to start in April 1999, will allow home users to commit their extra processing cycles towards the search for extra terrestrial life. Cool. There is a Salon Magazine article on the topic here .

Kate and I took part in a large event this morning called Hands on Atlanta . Thousands of people come out and perform community service at a variety of charitable locations all over Atlanta. We planted a variety of plants in front of Atlanta's city hall and then took part in a rehab of a local YWCA. Good stuff.

It's October now, and I am rapidly approaching my 30th birthday(the 16th). I'm not sure how I really feel about it. Definitely a milestone, but how much does it really mean? I think I have already made the more meaningful transition into adulthood and am now pursuing the goals of my life.

I installed the final version of the new MacOS 8.5 last night. It's much faster, and so far no problems.

I also picked up a copy of GT Interactive's Unreal for the Macintosh and some additional RAM. I'll write about Unreal after I have played some.

I also purchased SoftWindows 98 which will give me a 32 bit Windows compatibility environment to use at home. I'll make some notes about the experience once I am done installing and kicking the tires.

I still haven't taken the time to build a snapshot of my vacation. I'll try later today.

I am going to install LinuxPPC on the extra Power Macintosh I have here this week. I need more experience with UNIX badly.

An interesting article contrasting the way Bill Clinton's testimony was treated in perspective with Bill Gates' anti-trust testimony. It should be released is my feeling.

Netscape released Communicator and Navigator 4.07 this morning.

Over the last week, the folks behind DIVX, a technology that isn't a good deal for the consumer at all, have been making a major advertising push. We at the Bump Interactive Corporate suite have a real issue with this technology, and with another person of like mind, have registered divxsucks.com. It currently resolves to the Bump domain, and will become a distinct area here until we move it to its own server. I'm looking for a graphic artist who might want to give me some time to create some anti-DIVX graphics.

I expect that we will be gathering the facts and making our case here, then promoting the hell out of the site. Perhaps if enough of the informed consumers cry foul, we can make a dent in their attempt to take advantage of us. Don't believe the hype!!!

I'll be leaving for New York tommorrow and won't be updating for a few days. I'm looking forward to the time with my family, and I hope to continue to build on the foundation of reconciliation we have been working on.

I ordered a new Gateway laptop last night named the Fire Ant . The thing should scream. According to Computers.com, it's the fastest laptop they've ever tested . It's also small. Unfortunately, I have to wait until November for it to arrive.

My PalmPilot adventures continue. I am beginning to see why people find these things so useful. Because of issues with synching on the Macintosh, I ended up using my Windows NT Workstation at work as my main desktop base. The Windows software is really easy to use, and it actually works. Shame on them for not being more compatible with the Macintosh market. I've found PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide from O'Reilly invaluable in my learning.

An article on Internet based pirate radio that I wrote appears in this month's Swing Generation magazine. I found my copy in a Barnes and Noble here in Atlanta. They don't seem to have a Web presence. I'm also bantering some ideas around to see if I want to explore a book authoring opportunity that has been presented to me.

Shore-Varrone, Inc., the company I work for, was acquired by Bill Communications , a large trade publishing company this week. We'll see how things turn out in the next few months, but everyone who would know about this seems to be very happy about it. 

I changed the font tags on the journal text. I think it is still easy to read, but allows more text without scrolling. Let me know if you don't like the change.

I've had a 3Com Palm Pilot for a few months, but because of synching issues with my G3 tower at work(where my contact and schedule data resides), I have not really started using it until today. I installed the software on my machine at home, and hooked the Hot Sync cable up to it. I soon discovered that the Macintosh software isn't compatible with Mac OS 8.5. Right now I am trying to get some third party software to work, but I am getting very frustrated by these complications. I use Chronos Software's Consultant now for my contact management and scheduling needs. Previously, I used Now Contact and Now Up to Date, which I liked a lot more, but Now Software was bought by Qualcomm and, while they are releasing a follow package named Eudora Planner, I don't have time to wait for it.

The new version of Consultant comes with the ability to synch with the Palm devices, but it means I have to upgrade to a developmental version of the Conduit software. I'm downloading it now. There are a ton of Pilot sites on the Web, and I will add a new section of them on the links page after the dust settles from these projects.

I have to launch a new site at work tommorrow morning. I'm frustrated with the amount of time I have to spend on this task. I want to create high quality work, but don't have enough time to be painstaking about it. I'm hammering away on it now though.

Jakob Neilson has an insightful article on Personalization in alertbox.

Well I have to get back to the site for work. I have more on my software experiences of the last 24 hours, but it can wait.

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.

I am pounding away this weekend, trying to get everything finished this week so I can safely depart on vacation.

Yesterday, I installed a new Ultra-Wide hard drive in my home machine yesterday. Man this thing hums along.

Netscape released an updated Communicator 4.5 preview release.

Adobe released a new Web imaging program called ImageStyler . 

It's been a strange week. Usually these four day weeks are strange because they throw off the rhythm I get into in a five day week.

Depressing goverment news and uplifting cultural news have permeated the last couple of weeks.

I watched the MTV music video awards last night.

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.

This weekend, I plan to work and sleep.

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.

Think your commute to work is bad? Try living here in Atlanta .

Two new FTP tools released in the last 24 hours are now challenging Fetch as my client of choice.

Anarchie Pro 3.0 boosts many new features, better integration with Web clients, and strong scripting support.

Transit improves on the stodgy interfaces found on most clients. It also features resumable downloads.

I plan on using both and probably switching to one or the other.

Having a hard time finding focus today.

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.

I literally just finished a large labor intensive special event Web project for work. My brain is mushy.

The Beastie Boys are playing here in Atlanta tonight.

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'm also working on a review of Wootech Voyager.

I finally got to see the infomercial that the Beastie Boys did for Hello Nasty. Hilarious stuff.

I'll do my best to get more content here tonight and this weekend.

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.

Hello Nasty Lyric of the day:

I don't like to fight, I don't carry a piece
I wear permanent press so I'm always creased 

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.

Jakob Neilson has his latest useit.com story "Electronic Books - A Bad Idea" posted. 

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.

I like to drink Sobe .

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.