— Saturday, Sep 5th, 2009 @ 9:37am
Well, I’ve done it again. Rule Number 1, when dealing with the Apple Toy Company (formerly Apple Computer, Inc., before phones, iPods and accessories became the focus) is simply this: Wait a few months before upgrading to a new system. And the long and short of it is simple: I fucked up … again.
For most people, who use laptops as overblown PDAs, or browser, IM-email boxes, this is no big deal, but I use a MacBook Pro as a production machine. The good news exists, to be sure. All the big apps (Adobe, Final Cut, Quark, etc) seem to work fine.
But I use an amazing app called File Buddy, and Apple, in the most retarded move, even by their standards, in ages, has basically done away with Contextual Menu Items. My advice to anyone who has grown accustomed to the awesome , handy feature set in File Buddy, or the Contextual (right-click) menu items ported from any application whatsoever, is to take a good long rethink about this so-called upgrade.
They say the system is a bit snappier. Yeah, sure, the Finder is finally written in Cocoa, and things happen a few milliseconds faster, but the trade-off, for my needs, is just way too high.
Think of it this way: Apple acknowledges that this incremental “upgrade” will not only “break” a shitload of third-party apps, but it also screws up some of Apple’s propietary applications!
Say what you want about Microsoft, but guess what? You can still run a lot of apps that were written for Windows 98, in XP! AND, the MS OS runs on hundreds of garden-variety boxes with God-knows-how-many variances in components, quality control, etc …
Apple only has to build software for one set of machines, that they themselves build, and they can’t even do that without fucking things up. That’s a disgrace.
— Saturday, Aug 22nd, 2009 @ 12:24pm
After 200 hours spread over 15 days, trying to sort out how to get some functionality out of the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) library, I finally made actual headway. The framework for my technical design site is installed, finally!
Why waste so much time learning something when I could have used safe fallback procedures that have worked so well? Good question. But we’re forward-thinking over here, and having more fully-worked-out tools to work with is almost always a good thing.
I’d always rejected the javascript version of web site elements in favor of HTML & CSS versions. But I’d rather make choices based on whether they’re effective in the context of a project, or not, than on unfamiliarity or slightly dated attitudes towards them.
So the balance of the weekend will be spent dealing with ‘content’ rather than structural issues.
On a personal note, I woke this morning feeling rather exhausted and wobbly. The last 2 1/2 weeks have been very difficult, what with extremely long hours and diminished expectations as far as completing my business site and getting on wiith 4 or 5 other sites that are in the backlog here.
I sent out “feelers” to a few people that I know who have design experience, and (preferably) expertise in certain areas (ASP.NET, PHP, javascript, logo work and design in general) and lo and behold my logo person is right here within 2 miles of me, and did my logo for the Big River group (my business company umbrella company).
As for the others, not much to report yet.
— Wednesday, Aug 19th, 2009 @ 11:04am
I’m busy; that’s the long and short of it. I spent 14 out of a total of 26 hours yesterday (and earlier) in reconfiguring one of my web sites. It wasn’t opening in IE on Windows due to the fact that it was a valid XHTML document/site. “Valid” means that it was broadcasting as content-type=”application/xhtml+xml” instead of the older html content type which is “text/html.” Fixing that was relatively easy; I did what most developers do: I changed the content-type to the non-compliant version that IE likes.
But all the pages had to be rebuilt. So, now they look the same on all browsers/all platforms. And so what.
Now I’m right back where I should have been at 7 AM yesterday: working on the current editing/design site.
— Thursday, Aug 6th, 2009 @ 5:19pm
A guy could go crazy trying to think up “catchy” titles that allude to content, but why bother? Nobody reads anymore, and the ones who do hardly retain anything. Okay, that’s a “projection” on my part. In my case I retain an enormous amount of stuff, but it’s replaced by the next stuff that I read and “retain.” So you’re all off the hook from now on, everybody agreed? Fine then, here’s another garden variety “update” for me you:
I’m moving into my new room on the 10th and 11th, that is, on Monday and Tuesday coming up after this weekend.
Monday, sometime between 1 & 3 PM, the guy from Comcast is coming to the new crib with a high speed Internet-only installation. Because the installation requires a Comcast field rep, and I requested to do it “myself” they are waiving the $99 installation fee.
I know how to play the game, see? In order to break the rules (properly), you have to know the rules. Miles Davis said that, referring to musical ‘rules.’ But, like many things about music and the theory of it all, it can apply to life in general.
Why is that? Well, it’s because music is a logical structure, and the creation of it involves both physical and non-physical elements, and its impact on the environment is also both physical and non-physical. Sound (no pun intended) logical structures can be “mapped” onto multiple morphologies. (There’s a $2 word for y’all, eh?).
Mathematics is, at its essence, a logical system, a system OF logic. It’s no accident that many musicians had a knack for math (whether they enjoyed or excelled at, it, or not.). What’s that? Too many commas? Ha ha, try again, cowgirl.
So, to return to the alleged “subject” for a bit, rules weren’t necessarily made to be broken, but they certainly need to be understood before being broken. Maybe they should also be understood before being followed, too, what do you think?
So, it looks like I’ll get “my way” as a result of using Comcast’s poorly-advertised and even less-familiar rules. Why isn’t all of life so simple? Well, who says it can’t be? I don’t know, but it seems pretty tricky at times, to me.
Back to next Monday/Tuesday.
“The Girls” (that would be Nancy & Rebel) apparently have designs on the design of my living environment. And that is a really good thing, because I have a history of “adapting” to whatever the deal is, and, just like following rules, thoughtlessly ambivalent as to their rationale, that can lead to very dissatisfying experiences and outcomes.
The Girls found a cheap (for some, not me) portable fridge. I have an electric water boiler, grinder for coffee beans (two, actually, the second being for spices), a rice cooker, a french press coffee maker (mechanical, there’s another name for it, forget about it for now) and a bread box.
So, what do I need? I want to use the main kitchen in the apartment as little as possible. There’s going to be somebody living in the living room, in addition to the other bedrooms, right between my “front” door and the kitchen. because of my very strange hours when I’m in production I do not want to get the starving munchies and have to trip over someone and put up the kitchen klang bang crash noise at some un-gawdly hour.
So what’s missing? An electric skillet and one of those electric toaster oven things? Or a fancier combination convection/microwave? I hate microwaved food. They’re great for popcorn, but I don’t eat popcorn. Good for reheating coffee, and food, too, if there’s no peanut butter. But not really good for those things. have you ever reheated coffee in a microwave? I do it all the time. The cup can get twice as hot as the actual coffee, and it cools off, I swear to Gawd, at a faster rate than it would under “analog” process conditions.
Is this common knowledge or is it, once again, just me?
At any rate, I’m fine, or even better. Appliances pale in importance compared to wide bandwidth, coffee, peanut butter and tobacco. And I’ll have those waiting for me when I move in. So there you go.
— Wednesday, Aug 5th, 2009 @ 4:58pm
Yeah, I’m socializing a little bit. Don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s no big thing; a dinner out every so often, a phone call, etc., but these things can get all distorted and embellished, and the next thing you know some normally-sweet unobtrusive type gets bent out of shape and the next thing you know California’s already budget-strapped mental health system is further over-burdened.
And it would be all my fault … obviously.
Truth be known, I’ve cut a lot of social interaction (if you could call it that) out of my situation, but I am playing “catch-up” on so many levels that I need a break once in a while, no kidding.
— Monday, Aug 3rd, 2009 @ 9:41am
Daily whats-it:
All laundry has been done, Cleo the Dog now relaxing atop mountain of freshly-laundered everything on bed in soon-to-be-vacated room.
Dumping all online meet-a-stranger, dating and social web sites, except for Facebook and LinkedIn. That should be a wrap by Noon, today, Pacific Time.
Design notes:
- Minor update on Joan’s site
- Reinstall Wordpress blogging on Steve’s
- Update Rebecca’s
(these three items by Midnight tonight)
- Post initial framework for my design site
(Tuesday Midnight)
Outdoorsy Stuff:
- Radio Shack, to get a connector for a VGA monitor for the MacBook Pro
- Trader Joe’s
(maybe)
— Wednesday, Jul 22nd, 2009 @ 12:41pm
That happens a lot; the “gift” of an “extra” day in the week. Wrap it up, I’ll take it!
It’s beautiful outside in Mountain View today. The bike feels a little rickety, kinda like me, now that you mention it, but it gets around.
I’m taking the Light Rail to San Jose to talk to the Employment Development people about a bus pass for the month. July looks like a goner, so August is the target.
Living situation is altering in two or three weeks, so I’m focusing the dead-end, part-time job search in two areas: the “nice” part of San Jose (yes, there is such a thing), and Mountain View (aka, home).
That’s All, Folks!