Archive for category Observations that no one else cares about
One more time….
Posted by Tom in Observations that no one else cares about on December 4, 2010
This is the third attempt at writing something this morning… the first one got derailed by a shiny object… the second got derailed by a Google search on how to mount and extract apk files from a Android img file.
Anywhoo it’s December which means it’s almost chilly, it also means that it’s been 10 years since I started writing in what would become this blog. It’s kind of interesting to me on multiple levels on how this whole thing evolved. It started with a version of Front Page or MS Word that I would upload to Geo-cities. From there it evolved into a blogger address (which really marked the first part of normal web routine to move completely to the internet) and the blogger address evolved into this after I became unhappy with how Google was ignoring blog-spot.
I haven’t logged into blog-spot in forever I wonder if it’s any better?
/NewFireFoxTab
/Login
Hmmmm mostly the same, though it does have ad-sense and Google analytic integration now so that’s kinda cool. To bad I do this as a hobby and not a living.
I miss the “old web” long form communication of blogs (for those of us who still do the personal blog thing). Almost all of the social media sites have devolved into the shiny objects websites… pretty soon it’s going to be very little social and alot of very directed advertising. At the same time thought starting to see parity between desktop web applications and mobile applications is very cool. I knew the world was changing when I loaded the WordPress App for Android and I it was basically a full feature client on a 3.7 inch screen.
So here is to another 10 years of blogging… who knows what the world will bring.
I’m sure it will be something wonderful
Creative snooze button….
Posted by Tom in Not doing things the easy way, Observations that no one else cares about on November 21, 2010
So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything…. so hopefully this little tidbit will answer your burning question yes I’m still alive.
Honestly there hasn’t been alot to talk about in a forum such as this when I have 4 readers and 3 of them live within two miles of me and the 4th visiting before heading to the East coast was the highlight of October.
Which is to say that we have truly been there done that with what is going on.
To that end however I do miss the somewhat public pieces parts of this little old blog and it’s a nice hobby so I’m more then happy to keep it going.
If I were to be writing about the things going on that I wish to publish I would probably be writing about the following….
- Conundrums of games available on PC vs Xbox… they look better on the PC, but I have 6.1 surround sound and a 51 inch HD tv hooked up to the Xbox.
- The merits of dropping to a ipad as a portable computing solution
- The merits of dropping a desktop PC out of my life entirely and becoming a one computer house hold… and by one computer I mean a mac book pro.
- The merits of keeping a desktop pc and dropping the laptop to purely a backup computing device and a iPad as a primary mobile computing device
- The merits of taking only a phone and watching cars turn left for the weekend
- The merits of maybe just maybe expanding the beer operation
These are the things I would probably talk about, each having their own merits and stuff.
Also pie would be a big topic too.
Keep until the end…
Posted by Tom in Appley, beer flavored, It's hell to be me...., musings of a back porch, Not doing things the easy way, Observations that no one else cares about on May 10, 2010
Long time readers of the blog… and I think there is a grand total of 4 of you now. Probably remember the last round of upgrade fever that hit the batcave which resulted in a TiVo, a MacBook Pro, and a sooner then I would have liked upgrade to my current desktop rig. That last bout of upgrade fever was 2007. Honestly it was pretty much kicked off by coming into a couple of bucks because of a house I sold. I think I may have gotten into beer brewing at about that time too, and I have yet to hear anybody complain about that (when enjoyed in moderation).
So flash forward to 2010 it’s 3 years since the last major bout of upgrade fever… and honestly I don’t think it’s returned. Do I look at the new Core i5 MacBook Pro’s and go “damn that is one sexy machine”? Oh hell yes I do. Am I going to stick with Mac as my laptop platform of choice…. at this time I’m going to say that the answer is yes. I don’t feel this over riding urge to go and purchase a new laptop simply because it’s new. Other then a different body style and upgraded guts what does this new mac do that my existing mac doesn’t do?
In a word not a damn thing. Actually I’m starting to think that I may pull windows off my mac with the exception of a vmware environment. Why install windows on a mac? well in a word “games” and I have to think about the last time I played a game on my mac (spring of 2009) after that I’ve booted into windows just to update it and the AV software, I’m normally back to the mac os within a hour or so. At this juncture it seems kind of dumb to keep a windows partition on my mac. Vmware has matured as a product that it’s pretty usable for those one off devices that won’t work with mac (which in my world are far and few between).
What I find interesting is what I choose to do on my mac vs my pc….
Photos… mac
Videos… editing the one time… mac… watching pc
surfing… pc unless I actually unpug the mac and take it to another room… and honestly I would just assume leave the technology in the office when I get home / get done working.
games… pc
blogging… what ever is most convenient… which again depends on what I’m doing quick dumps seem to go better on the pc… longer sessions (pretty much anything with the category of “musing of a back porch”) tends to be written on the mac. Not that the mac is any better it’s just more portable which lets me get creative in other spots.
When I think about how I use mobile technology I know that a iPad while cool would probably not be used as anything more then a media tablet and digital photo frame. And if I had pictures that I wanted to show off in HD on a 10 inch screen I would so buy one. But I don’t and I tend to be more old school in my technology usage (I still prefer a command line for Christ sake) and combination of mac-book air with a mac mini seems like it would do well for me. At the very least the mac-book air wouldn’t burn my legs like my mac book pro.
Why a Mini and a Air? The Air would be for the day to day stuff, surfing and writing… The mini would be for more cpu intensive apps (vmware, iphoto editing, something with more then a 12 inch screen) of course the cost of those two items is just about to the point of a mac book pro and why buy two when you can have one at the same price.
The part in all of this that drives me up the wall the most? Other then a slightly undersized hard drive (which is fixed very easily by a afternoon and $75) I have zero problems with my mac and it does everything I need/want it to do! I don’t know if I’ve finally hit the point of not needing the latest and greatest or if maybe just maybe I have found technology that can fulfill my needs for a extended period of time.
God it’s hell to have my problems. 
How can you have more pudding if you don’t eat your meat?
Posted by Tom in beer flavored, musings of a back porch, Not doing things the easy way, Observations that no one else cares about, Well Traveled on April 11, 2010
Traditions are good… some traditions die because the are no longer needed or are no longer cared for. Others die simply because something better comes along and becomes the new tradition. And sometimes your fucking neighbors are working with large power tools at 7pm on a Sunday night because they are just that annoying!
I can’t wait for the heat to get here to put people in of doors until the fall.
One tradition that has fallen by the way side or me is the blogging/writing/whatever on Sundays. It’s been supplanted by football in the fall and movies on Sunday afternoon for the rest of the year. So just like last month and blatantly ripping off the death-by-blog crew yet again, I give you the return of Sunday night blogging. Since I seem to be doing ok with small changes over the course of the last year or so it seems like the time is right.
In the last week there has been alot of beer drunk, and alot of cars turning left which is to say I’ve been on vacation and on internet hiatus other then my phone. So that basically means I’ve been using the living bejesus out of my phone for the last couple of days. Now what I find interesting is my cell phone billing period starts on the 7th of every month. And since I took off for Nascar on the 7th I thought it would be neat to share some quick numbers on cell usage by one guy sending text messages and emails to people who really don’t care that much about NASCAR. Which is to say my friends.
So from Wed 4/7/2010 to Sunday 4/11/2010
-Voice Minutes — 12 (includes all kinds of minutes)
-Txt/mms — 309 txt / 68 mms (inbound and out on both counts)
- Data used — 15MB
For me this is what I would call “heavy usage” basically I was burning through a full battery charge every 36hours. The blackberry I currently have (9630) is notorious for having poor battery life. So that is one guy, now multiply that by the 20k to 30k that are out there for the week and it add in that there are 5 towers to cover the whole space of the track and affiliated parking/camping. And this all happens for two weeks out of the year (one in the spring and one in the fall) when there is no racing going on the local area has a population of probably less then 200 people.
Kind of makes you have a little bit more sympathy for the kinds of things that wireless engineers have to deal with.
I’m just really happy that the guy next to us had a 3ton floor jack in his camp when I had to replace the tire on my truck.
Drown in the now…
Posted by Tom in musings of a back porch, Not doing things the easy way, Observations that no one else cares about on March 18, 2010
I seem to have picked up a new hobby in the last couple of months and I didn’t even realize it until I got done talking to my dad. Apperntly I’ve stumbled into gun collecting or at the very least the old man is giving me first dibs on guns that he either already has or doesn’t want. Now the part about the old man offering me guns is nothing new. The new part is the quantity and the quality of the guns…
2009 and before… it tended to be new rifles and more of a informative “Hey if you want a new hunting rifle this is one you should look at”. In 2010 I’ve talked to my dad three times this year… twice he called about guns the first one was a heavy barrel .308. I already shoot a 30-06 elk and deer hunting so the .308 isn’t of that much interest to me… though if you knew the kind of country we hunted elk in (an area that we lovingly refer to as the “nuclear wasteland of elk”) a .308 starts to make alot more sense. Of course setting up what amounts to a sniper position for elk hunting doesn’t really appeal to me all that much… but then again that’s basically what I’m already doing.
The other gun my dad called me about was a Colt AR-15 .223 (post ban no flash suppressor) that one piqued my interest and I have no idea why. It’s a .223 round which at distance is a little light for elk hunting (figure 200 to 300 yd shot) but it would be good for just about everything else. So this gun truly comes into the category of “toys” or if your Curtis “zombie weapon”.
My issues are all my own and I’m torn, yes I would really like to get this “toy” but at the same time the responsible side of me says there are alot of other things you can do with that money (I get that alot from responsible side it’s all responsible and stuff, it’s really annoying) why am I posting this? because it’s truly the biggest drama in life.. and if my biggest problem is whether or not to buy a gun I know that I truly have no problems.
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