10.26.2006iTunes Favorites

After looking over this list of 5-star rated songs in my iTunes folder, I’m not sure what to think.  I either have a varied taste in music or I am schizophrenic.

10.26.2006Expression Engine

After debating the pros and cons of switching publishing systems, I have decided to move DigiFiend from MoveableType 3.2 to Expression Engine 1.5.1.  MoveableType served me well and in fact I would probably still be using it if not for the fact that Expression Engine has a few things included that I think will make it more useful for my needs.

Expression Engine includes a moblog module.  While the module currently has not been activated, I am looking forward to being able to easily post entries from either my e-mail accounts or ultimately from my cell phone.  Accessibility is the key, I might actually start using my cell phone camera for something other than aggrovating my wife with candids.

A second feature I am looking forward to digging into is the integrated photo gallery module.  I take a lot of pictures both as a hobbiest and through my volunteer work.  Having an integrated way to store and display pics though the journaling system is something that is intriguing to me.

Things like spell check, MoveableType entry import, full dynamic site page generation, custom fields, excellent integrated user guide, and better integrated editors for publishing and template editing make this product very appealing indeed.  The user community seems on top of things as well, two problems I had while converting from MT were already well documented and therefore easily solved.

The place is a mess, not everything is functional yet, and I don’t have some of the major features coded yet but the project is coming along slowly but surely.

09.25.2006160 Megapixel Camera

I can't say that I would really want one of these but I would love to shoot with it for a while. At almost 30,000 euros, they don't come cheap. Each full size TIFF this camera takes is about 950mb, and it has a gigabit ethernet interface for transferring photos.

Every time I see a story like this, I think about the first PC ever owned. It was a Sharp 12MHz AT clone. This camera would smoke it by a factor involving at least two zeros.

09.12.2006Fonts for display and print

Cameron Moll recently published an entry called Typefaces no one gets fired for using. For web-design nooblets like me, these kinds of entries provide inspiration for new design ideas. Daniel Mall provides the companion article called Typobituaries, a request for retirement of certain fonts. I have to say that I agree with both.

Clagnut's On fonts for the web entry is an excellent primer on some of the challenges web designers face in bringing varied font content to web pages. There are a few strategies that can be utilized, but the basic problem is that fonts used for display need to be present on local workstations. Windows, Mac, Sun, and Linux generally all include different font families as a part of the basic OS installation and therefore may display font text differently.

For the immediate future, the best designers are going to be the ones that can get the best design out of using basic elements.

08.01.2006DreamHost

I admire honesty where I see it. Too much of the world is built on lies or at the very least deception.

Recently, DreamHost (the company that hosts DigiFiend and a couple of other sites I manage) has been having some problems. I hadn't seen most of the problems as I have been busy with projects that haven't allowed me to access any of the DreamHost sites. I did try to make some revisions on a site yesterday and found that I couldn't access the admin page or the general website. Naturally, I was alarmed and went to DreamHost's forums and technical support resources to investigate. Before I could finish investigating the problem, the admin and general web pages reappeared and all was well with the world again.

Today, I received an newsletter from DreamHost with an entry labeled Anatomy of an Ongoing Disaster. After reading through this article, I was impressed with the amount of honesty presented in the article. As an I.T. professional, the tendency is to initially limit the amount of information distributed during a crisis, and only distrubute information as necessary. Dreamhost got it right by letting it's readership know what was happening and what the game plan was to resolve it.

Good job Dreamhost!

07.06.2006Bigger Disk Drives

Seagate Technology plans on increasing disk drive storage capacities via a newly patented storage technology. According to the ComputerWorld article, this new technique is potentially capable of increasing storage capacities in new disk drives by up to 10 times. Potential disk capacities include a 600GB 1.8-in. drive, a 1.46TB 2.5-in. drive, and 7.5TB 3.5-in. drive.

This new disk technology and increased storage capacity will be a welcome addition for those users with digital music collections, digital photography, artwork, and large data storage needs.

06.30.2006Thin Lizzy’s Greatest Hits

After figuring out how to recharge my account at my mp3 provider (not an easy task given Visa and My Bank's insistence on not playing nice with each other), I got back to the business of getting some new music. The service I use has this evil news section that lists what new albums are available for download. I took a look at the albums and reeally didn't have an idea of what I wanted.

Thin Lizzy's Greatest Hits is proof that sometimes impulses are good, sometimes not so good. This wasn't one of my better purchases. Sure, it has the classics like "The Boys Are Back in Town", "Jailbreak", and the original version of "Whiskey in the Jar", but I honestly didn't care for many of the other cuts on this album. Most of the music sounds dated, and "quaint".

I can still listen and enjoy music from bands that were around in the same era because their music still is relevant and interesting in my mind. Thin Lizzy’s catalog doesn’t hold up as well to age.