All posts by jason

"Roll Your Own", General, Hollywood, Uncategorized

Fun With Fonts

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Like 20 thousand other Lifehacker readers, I picked up on this post a couple days ago that mentioned a website where you could generate your own hand-written fonts FOR FREE.  It took about 2 and a half days for the traffic to settle down, but early this morning, I was able to get in there and scan in a few different “Bocko” fonts.  The timing on the post was funny, because I had asked Michelle just a day or two before if she knew how to design one’s own font; I have a couple projects on which I’d like to use my own digital handwriting…

Anyway, I was really impressed with how they turned out.  I even changed a few default fonts on my system to use my new handwritten ones instead; we’ll see how long that lasts before it gets too annoying for words (I have a feeling that the first time someone else comes over to the house and sits down at the computer, we’ll need to switch back to something else.  But I can read these JUST fine…).

On the geeky-website-news front, I was excited to see that there should be a bug-fixing version of WordPress due out soon.  I took a look at the list of tickets that have been closed on version 2.7.1, and it seems like a couple of my plugin problems might get fixed.  I’m anxious because there are a couple new features in the next version I’d like to be able to implement here on the site.  I don’t think I’m going to bother testing the beta, but as soon as there is an official x.x.1 release, I’ll be on it.

On the geeky-television-news front, Jen figures that Sylar’s dad is invisible.  In more ways than one, Jen, in more ways than one…

On the sisters’-bithdays front, Christy is 26 today!!  I talked to her yesterday and mentioned that it’s time to start that next quarter-century– no lookin back now; next stop: 30!  Happy b-day, Kid.

Time to head out to work– have a fabulous Wednesday.

General, Uncategorized

It Was a Nice Weekend

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Had a time overall this past weekend– on Friday, I went out for a couple drinks with some people from work at Bar Louie, in the Bayshore mall.  Kyle met me there just before 7 and picked me up to drive back toward my place and hang out.  Good to see the K-Man; Michelle and I agreed that it will be nice when Robin comes out of hiding in the future, too…  😛

We decided to have a couple beers at the American Legion post 331, just across Wilson Ave from my house.  Ever since I moved to Shorewood, Michelle and I have been talking (partly tongue-in-cheek) about dropping in there for the fish fry on a Friday night.  When Kyle and I got there, there was still quite a bit of fish being slung, and the atmosphere did not disappoint.  We had pint-tappers of High Life for 2.50.  Not bad at all.  Michelle joined us a bit later, but by then, it was about time for everyone to head out and get some sleep before our respective Saturdays.

Michelle had to get up even earlier than me (!!) in order to make it to Watertown for judging a cheer competition.  I just needed to be ready for Sarah & Brian to pick me up at around 12:30 for our trip to Fort Atkinson.  We were en route to Brad & Mindy’s place for a day out to bid farewell to Todd & Marcia; they are heading to Laos, where Marcia will be working on a project for her PhD.  They’re going to be gone for several months, so it was nice for everyone to get together for an evening out.  Photos from this event are in the Day to Day gallery ((Speaking of photos, I’ve uploaded some from our Twin Cities weekend, too; I only had a few, but they are in the TwinCities gallery)).

On Sunday, we made a quick shopping detour in Johnson Creek before making it back to Milwaukee.  We caught most of the Super Bowl (well, at least half of it) over at Chris/Bob/Justin’s place.  The second half of the game was pretty exciting!  I felt bad for Jason Hill, who was the only Steelers fan in the place.  Personally, I didn’t have a horse in that race, so I was rooting for some of friends who were watching (whoooo!!  Eat that lii’ smoky weiner!!!).

One thing I did discover over the balance of the weekend is that I will need more discipline in order to stick to a schedule on those off-days.  It’s hard to carve up your time the right way when you might go out and not know exactly when you’re getting in (or how late you’ll sleep).  I might just have to “power through” and do my best on those days…

Well, plenty to get done around here before the end of my short day; I have to leave work around 3:30 to head to Madison for a “Recruitment & Outreach” presentation.  Gonna be a late night, but I’m taking some This American Life with me, so I should be golden…

"Roll Your Own", General, Uncategorized

A Little Do-Over

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So I’m pretty sure I mentioned I got a new camera.  I started using it this past weekend, and I’m going to enjoy shooting with it (some of those photos may be available for viewing right here on this website soon)!

As I imported my images to the photo-catalogging software that I used, I realized that my system for storing pictures is a little bit antiquated; I used to keep a certain number of pictures “sync’d” between my laptop’s hard drive and the server.  Thing is, how often do I really haul my laptop around to show people pictures (unless it’s a special event)?  And secondly, it seems like it would be a lot easier to work on editing pictures when you have them stored locally, versus on a network.

So I trashed the database that my computer had built of the pictures, I did a total reinstall of F-Spot, and I’m starting over with a local storage directory on my desktop machine that will be backed up nightly to the server.  Seems like that fits in a little better with the current state of affairs.

I also overslept this morning and need to start getting ready for work soon, I’ll have to catch you up on the rest of my weekend later on.

Have a good Monday!

General, Uncategorized

Is It East Versus West, Or Man Against Man?

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You look like you could use some Survivor.

Have a great weekend.

General, Uncategorized

Fair Play For All

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At work, I usually listen to an Internet radio stream from here or there (or even here), but sometimes I have a hankerin’ to play my own mp3s that I’ve downloaded from my collection at home or brought in my some other means.  I don’t like iTunes or Windows Media Player, so it’s been something of an experimental journey to find a good alternative player.

I messed around for a while with Jajuk, a java-based, cross-platform media player.  It wasn’t bad, but there were certain aspects of the GUI that I wasn’t very font of.  Often, if I just wanted to listen to one specific album at a time, VLC did the job very effectively.  But there were a few ‘CDs’ on which it was having trouble reading the tags.  I didn’t have the time or interest to try to solve that problem.

I revisited Songbird instead.  I’ve had it installed as a means of testing the ‘subscription’ functionality of our podcast.  While the ‘bird still doesn’t seem to handle that feed the right way, the current 1.0.x version has come a long way from when the project was first announced (in Internet time, approximately a thousand years ago).  I built a small “library” from the tunes I have on this harddrive, and one of the coolest things about the software (like any Gecko-based product) is the extensibility that you can get through plugins and add-ons.  There seems to be a large and continually expanding array of options that you can tack on to your Songbird player; they’ve come on a lot faster than I expected.  If you’re so inclined, give it a look.  If I can get a “album shuffle” plugin, I would consider switching from Amarok at home…

K, I’m going to go back to listening to this record that I produced, back when I was a record producer…

General, The Singularity, Uncategorized

Newspaper Delivery by COMPUTER???!?!?!?

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Kyle stumbled onto this fantastic (and ancient) piece of TV news from KRON in San Francisco, circa 1981.  It talks about those days in the distant “future” when newspapers will be delivered to “home computers” by the magic of the telephone! I think my favorite tag in the story is when they are interviewing user “Richard Halloran: Owns Home Computer”

Here is a link to the post from whence it came.

General, Uncategorized

So Far, So OK

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A big part of my “productivity scheduling” was to choose to significantly limit the amount of random computer BS time that I would allot myself at home.  I probably screw around on the Internet plenty while I’m at work, so I’ve put just about an hour and a half to be on the computer for Internetting and/or random tweaking and looking at… stuff.

It’s amazing how much more focused my surfing is, even this first morning.  Oh yeah, did I mention that?  My allotted Internet time is first thing when I get up (5:15, or later if I choose to waste the time in bed) until 6:40, when I absolutely have to start getting ready for work.

I think sticking to the schedule will be easy enough for the rest of the weekdays, but I also have to come up with a plan for weekend days.  And after a weekend, I’m hoping I’ll be able to slide right back in on Monday.

Meanwhile, though, I really want to know when Ubuntu is going to update Amarok to version 2 in the repository, so I only have about 45 minutes to figure that out… later!

General, Uncategorized

Here's To Productivity

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To say that many of my days since I started working a job 8-5 have been mired in senseless, random bullshit would be an understatement (there was a lot of that BEFORE working 8-5, too, but when you don’t have that job, it opens up like 33-45% of your day).  I have tried (and failed) at numerous methods of better managing the little time leftover.  I might have finally stumbled onto a new system that I hope will work.  It involves following a careful daily plan of operation, from which you leave only a VERY little room for deviation.  I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes.

To that end, I have to leave the computer now and use the rest of this hour to be engaged in activities related to dining.  See you bright and early tomorrow…

"Roll Your Own", General, Uncategorized

Windows 7 & the Growth of Linux

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Lifehacker had a post on this topic today.  It’s a relatively geeky group that follows that blog, so the comment traffic was understandably dense and heated.  I haven’t had a chance to read through all the commentary, but it raised an interesting thought for me, as I now consider myself an experienced Ubuntu user, and I’m also participating in the Windows 7 beta…

There seems to be some effort on the part of Microsoft to shore up several of their OS’s shortcomings over the last 10 years or so with this newest release.  A few of the features that are being added and more development going in to certain aspects of the software that have been lacking is a big step in the right direction.

I was brought back to the reason I actively switched over to Ubuntu, though: in Linux land, you are a participant in a community of users and developers sharing ideas and helping each other make things work (if I sound like some goddamned hippie socialist, stay tuned…).  With Windows, you pretty much always have (and probably always will) had an easier out-of-the-box experience, and considering the market share that the operating system commands in the developed world, there’s no reason to think that will change any time soon.

However, there are certain ways that even paying customers are made to feel like they’re being punished in Windows (DRM and Genuine Windows validation are my favorites), and that’s not the case for Linux.  I switched because I don’t want to pay a license fee for a piece of software I can get by without.  That is the MARKET working at its best, Commies!  The growth of computing in the developing/third world during this century is one way that I could see Linux “winning” in the long run.  If Microsoft fails at either marketing themselves in these developing areas, or if their product simply proves to be too costly, Linux will eat up that market share, and quickly.

But even then, what is “winning” in this context?  In my mind, the existence of multiple platforms and competing products is what leads to the best consumer experience.  Do you think there would be an Internet Explorer 7 or a Google Chrome if there hadn’t been Mozilla and Firefox?  Of course not.  Same goes for the new Windows.  Being pushed to innovation by your competitors is what American capitalism is all about.

Will a new and improved Windows OS make Linux shrivel up and go away?  Unlikely; the latter has far too passionate a group of enthusiasts working on this software because they ENJOY IT as much as any other reason.  A better and easier Windows might stifle the interest in Linux for some, but that reciprocal challenge is how software development should work.

General, Uncategorized

Still Don't Get It

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I grant you that a big part of the ease of my annual tax preparation is that I:

  • am single,
  • make barely any money,
  • don’t own a home,
  • or have any dependents.

However, it seems like the FREAK OUT level in general here in America is huge when income tax filing time rolls around.  Personally, I’ve never had a problem either completing all the necessary forms or walking through the free-to-use online filing options conveniently linked through the IRS’s website.

Is the mere spectre of the Internal Revenue Service itself enough to make average citizens whip themselves into a panic?  Do most people just assume that filing their taxes is too hard, or perhaps not worth the individual effort?  I can appreciate some level-headed confusion about how to maximize one’s refund, or the desire to call in some backup (in the form of a pay-for-use software product, a paid tax preparer or accountant) when it begins to get complex, but what I can’t fathom is the apparent crippling terror.

Maybe this is just because I grew up always seeing my mom complete her tax return at home, by herself, for all the times that I made any tax-related observation.  Probably also helps that as soon as we kids got jobs, Mom had us get on the phone for the easy-as-pie, 10-minute “Telefile” option that existed at the time.  It goes a long way to removing tax-intimidation when your initial contact with the process was 100% painless (and they sent you a check, to boot!!).

Anyway, I caught this link via Lifehacker, saying that ANYONE can now e-file for free (there used to be a income-limit), and reading through the comments on the post makes me shrug with confusion.  I just don’t lose any sleep over it, and I am happily awaiting my refund as we speak (finished filing last Thursday).

firing from the hip since 2002