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 The effect on books is that they end up being out of date fast or rushed to press and not done properly.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.
Working away here at the Bump Interactive Laboratories. I moved the March and April Front Page News to the archives section. I am working on the links now.
Bill Gates has written an essay that is supposed to prove that Microsoft is not a guilty party in this whole Anti-Trust suit. He and the others at Microsoft are probably the only people that really believe this. It's on The Economist Web site.
I won two tickets to a Stabbing Westward/God Lives Underwater show here in Atlanta from one of our local radio stations, 99x Which is great. I never win stuff.
I'm working on a story about Flash 3.0 as an evolving and robust technology so if you have thoughts share them.
I will be doing some extensive work on my links section tonight. I also will be weeding out the old news and putting it in archives. I am trying to brew a deal with a graphic artist to work together on this site.
It really was only a matter of time before I returned to the Macintosh news community as a writer. I am now an Associate Editor with MacCentral . You can expect to see several news stories by me each week and I will also be editing stories from a grammatical perspective. If you have a story that you believe will affect the Macintosh community or a product that you would like to see evaluated, please e-mail me.
It's my brother Chris' birthday today.(Happy Birthday Bro)
Netscape is including Flash with their new browser(Wired Story). I am very happy that I bought Flash 3 last week. Now if I just had free time to play with it.
Well I read Barbarians Led by Bill Gates , and you can read my thoughts on the books page which is finally getting updated. To summarize, if you are going to buy one book on the subject, don't buy this one.
I've been listening to the new Smashing Pumpkins record and I think it is a really ambitious effort. I will write more later.
You now can search the Web using Hotbot right from the bottom of this page! Hotbot has been my search engine of choice for a while now(mainly because I like saying Inktomi) so I've decided to add it to my page.
The very useful Robert Hess MacWorld Party List has been updated for the MacWorld Expo this summer in New York. This list is invaluable for planning an effective after-Expo. Thanks to Ilene Hoffman for maintaining this resource for us all.
Starting this weekend, you can now reach this site at the kungfumaster.com domain as well as the existing bump.net, dalai-lama.com, and yoda.org domains. Just one more way we here at Bump are trying to server your needs.
There is a Salon article in their excellent 21st section about the browser wars and the related books that are being released. It's called Instant histories of the browser wars . Strangely, I already have purchased one of the books (Barbarians Led by Bill Gates ), and I plan on reading it this weekend. I will share my thoughts on it here.
I went back to E3 for my own personal pleasure today. Spent a lot of time playing Tekken 3, at the Nintendo booth catching Pokemon stuffed animals, and finding out more about Myth II Soulblighter. I have put together some of my feelings with some pictures on my Myth page(soon to become the general video game page.)
They redesigned the Frontier 5 Web site (I shouldn't be too far behind with Bump 2.0)
Here's a FEED article on our cinematic differences with Japan and the conflict over the Godzilla character. I was a little put out when I saw Godzilla last weekend. Crap.
There is something big about to happen at the Iconfactory .(I ran into these guys at E3)
My favorite Macintosh interface hack is taking it to the next level today. You can download it direct for Kaleidoscope.net .
I went to E3 today. I left feeling that a lot of game developers don't get the Internet at all.
Some points of interest:
I got to see Soulblighter (Myth II) from Bungie and it looks great. I got the impression that we will see it sooner than we think.
I went to an Apple Computer session after the show ended for the day. They are really putting some effort into wooing game developers. I was really surprised at the amount of people who attended and their reactions.
Nintendo has some really cute merchandising products coming down the pike. At the show they were shooting these tiny stuffed animals out of a cannon device. I wasted some valuable time playing their Kobe Bryant basketball game.
SegaSoft has a really interesting Internet gaming solution going. I will try to attend their party tommorrow night to get a better look. More details will follow.
I got to talk to two famous Douglas' whose writing has changed my life. (Copeland and Adams)
MacSoft is releasing both Unreal and Total Annihilation for the Macintosh
I wasn't impressed with the level of net integration I saw. It looks like the console developers have given up for the time being. I will be attending the show again on Saturday, and I will report in more detail tommorrow and then.
QBullets are used to indicate the function of hypertext links. QBullets appear courtesy of Matterform Media. QBullets are freeware, copyright 1996 by Matterform Media. See the QBullet legend for the meanings of all the QBullets.
I learned some valuable lessons about both myself and about work in the last month. First, it is very easy for me to overcommit to one thing and thus lose balance in my life. Something that I have always had a problem with. People who have known me in the past and for a while will attest to it.
I burned myself out.
For the last month, I have had a really hard time getting both personal and business work done. In the last three days, I have somehow started to turn it around. In terms of the work goals, I turned over a big project to my superior, and he gave me props. That helped.
Personally, I am resolving some issues. I think this was a good step in personal development. Now I have to get back to work.
You are saying to yourself. "This guy's a slacker." This is only partially true.
You see I have been ramping up our corporate sites at work for GlobalShop . At last count, I was apporaching the amount of hours I did all last month with a week to go in March.
I've also been working with Dreamweaver. It's cool.
Although it seems like the learning curve might be one more oriented to those already familiar with vector and raster based imaging software, this piece of software seems like it could unify a lot of tasks into one tool for me. I explored the quality and size of images that it produced and I was quite pleased.
I'm the oldest of four boys. My younger brother Chris has a great band called Die Laughing . My brother Paul works with all kinds of very advanced manufacturing techniques. My brother Dave is an amazing athelete. We are each very talented, in our own ways. I hate to confess that I am not very close to the rest of my immediate family. Lots of little issues and a couple of big ones have held things up for years.
I am getting into something here that is for another time though. Chris' band is really solid. The Web site for his band is being reworked by me, and I expect that I will finish that job this week. Go and check out his band.Let me know what you think.
I'm spending another relaxing Sunday, candles burning and I am going through a Style Sheet design book. I put two projects essentially to bed this week, but I believe the weeks to come will only be more demanding.
If you haven't checked it out yet, you should go to www.audionet.com . I discovered that I can listen to the radio stations from my old home, as well as many shows that I wouldn't have access to in the market I'm in. They also are broadcasting some television stations and eventually will have some Internet only Television type stations.
C-SPAN is replaying the Computer Industry Competition Hearing this afternoon on their television network, and you can go and listen to it over the net at www.cspan.org .
I am doing some minor adjusting to the site today, but I am also evaluating some deeper changes. I need to make a commitment to providing more content. I think that the load time is great, it could and will look better in the future though. I purchased a cellular setup yesterday, and I believe that I will allow folks to contact me there through this site.
I joined this organization for a variety of reasons, but mainly to see what other people in my area are doing. One of the really big things for me at this year's MacWorld conference was the chance to talk to people who are in the same position as I am. I am a lone web developer in a medium sized company. The talk last night got into certification. Can we be certified? It is my personal opinion that this really wouldn't make too much sense. I look at the perversion that has twisted the networking world with the MCSE certification, and I don't want to see the same thing happen in Web site management.
Right now, standards are changing rapidly. I don't think that, if you were to begin work on a certification test today, all of the included materials would be out of date in six months. Do you test on content management, creation, technical, serving technology? What defines a webmaster? I am one and I don't know.
Well, welcome to the first March Installment of Bump.net.
As usual, lots going on at work. Two large projects going, with a third starting later this week. I'm carefully tracking my time, and I'm not bashful about the fact that, as a salaried employee, I worked 250 hours in February.
I had said that I would put up a list of icon oriented links a while back, but so many of these are good, I want to give them more attention.
My favorite (perhaps of all time) icon author would have to be Igarashi Susumu . Check out his very beautiful Web site and download some of his icons and color schemes for Macintosh.(I wish I had this kind of graphics talent)