Interesting facts about me (vol. 4)

When I first learned about molecules I thought I could see them in the pictures of my science book.

The little dots that makes up the photos, I though, were the molecules.

Yup, I had super-sight when I was little.

Is the iMac dead?

I know the internal hard drive is, and since Apple made it harder to get to than the center of the Earth, then I will now boot up from an external drive.

Though, I still don’t know why the CD burner won’t work (the eject key won’t eject the tray and any inserted CD will not show up on the desktop). Any information on that would be appreciated.

Thank god for backups, firewire target disk startup, carbon copy cloner and having another computer in the house.

Just bought a new 320 gigabyte drive (I now have just over half a terabyte of storage in my house, 600 gigabytes) so I will be booting from it and shoving the old 160 gigabyte drive in the closet for backup.

Time to start saving for a new Mac.

Interesting facts about me (vol. 3)

I found that trying to sync my breathing with my dog’s will almost make me pass out.

Watch this show

I don’t recommend a lot of television (about the only things I watch religiously are sports, Jericho and Numb3rs) but this is a show not to miss.

The Riches on FX is amazing.

I didn’t realize the trolls made their way to print media

(Before I start, here’s what I mean by a troll.)

Blog this: We need you more than we need your opinion.

This is a commentary from Scott Anderson from the March 12, 2007 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and www.stltoday.com.

Mr. Anderson believes there are too many blogs (about 70 million according to the Wall Street Journal, which Mr. Anderson uses as the basis for his argument).

Mr. Anderson thinks bloggers spend too much time giving their opinions online, behind the mask of the Internets, and less time in taverns and churches ranting and raving. He said this was once called “conversation.” As if people don’t go out and talk like in the “good old days.”

First of all, just because there are a supposed 70 million blogs, that doesn’t mean they are all active; with vast audiences reading them. I have created 5 blogs (2 that I update on at least a weekly basis) since 2001. Meaning that three of those blogs are now dead. My wife has created 6 blogs (always starting one, updating it for a couple of months, and then burning out) and only updates 1. So right there you have 8 dead blogs. I’ve stumbled across a ton of blogs because of a google search, only to find the latest post was from 2005.

A blog is as easy to create as it is to forget.

For all the hype about interactivity, blogs are first and foremost the epitome of one-way chatter.

Has Mr. Anderson even seen a blog? Blogs usually have a feature called “comments.” This way people can “respond” to your opinions and make the blog a two way communication.

I have what I hope is a helpful suggestion for bloggers: Instead of just sitting inside your house and commenting on the world around you, why don’t you, um, get up and leave? There is a whole non-cyber, non-virtual place waiting for you and your opinions. It’s called the world.

It takes me about 20-30 minutes to update my blog (depending on the length of the post and how much research I need to do). So, this means I have 23 1/2 hours left to get out there and talk to all those interesting people that inhabit my town.

I’m not getting on the “blogging is the new journalism” bandwagon (I’ve read too much bullshit to be that blind) but I must admit it is really funny when I see someone from an “old media” outlet using a “new media” forum to belittle the very medium he’s using.

And besides, he’s telling me that my opinion, published online just like his, is somehow less relevant and less meaningful.

One can now spell hypocrite this way: S-C-O-T-T A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N. But I’m sure he’ll never see this, unless he takes his laptop to the church, tavern, or grocery store.

Oh, and the funny thing is, I found Mr. Anderson’s column via www.stlbloggers.com. How funny is that?

Firefox trick (scroll through tabs)

I’m sure this is a well-known feature, but I just discovered it today and thought it would be interesting to write about.

If you open a lot of tabs (and I sure do) you may know that in Firefox 2.0.0.2 when the tabs go beyond the width of the screen, a small right-facing arrow appears in the far right side of the tab bar.

I was using my iBook today and noticed that when my pointer was over the tab bar, and I two-finger scrolled on the trackpad, I was able to scroll left and right through the open tabs.

A neat trick that I found very useful.

Interesting fact about me (vol. 2)

When I was in Kindergarten if it was someone’s birthday they would bring cookies or some kind of treat for all the kids in the class. If it was something I didn’t like (a peanut butter cookie for instance) I would hide the cookie in the very back of my desk storage area. I think at the end of the year I had a half-dozen cookies back there.

Gross.

Interesting facts about me (vol. 1)

In the back of my Pathfinder is the complete blueprints to a Burger King built in 1987 on Manchester Road in Brentwood, MO.

The Bookseller’s Story, Ending Much Too Soon

An Iraqi wants to put his head on his pillow and feel relaxed

It’s still happening.

Is this the Malcolm Gladwell syndrome? Did it all start with his “The Tipping Point” book?

I’m talking about my previous post on book jacket design and non-fiction books (usually those non-fiction books whose subject is an idea, a way of thinking or a new way of doing something) and how a lot of them look the same.

I’ve found three more examples of this and I’m still surprised at the fact that the centered title, small graphic art object, centered subtitle and center author name is still being used. The more I see it the more I wish for Chip Kidd and his covers.

Here are the examples I recently found:

It just seems like lazy design. If the author puts so much time researching and writing his book, shouldn’t the publishing house choose a better design than one that could easily be done in Microsoft Word?