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| Sep 17, 2001 | Apple to finally break the 1GHZ barrier? by darrel | ||||
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"Motorola taped out the PowerPC 8500 - aka the G5 - last week and is set to go into volume production real soon now at speeds of up to 1.6GHz" It's about damn time. I was getting a little worried there for a while...
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| Sep 17, 2001 | Inconvenience does not equal safety. by garrick | ||||
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It was a nice sunny, cool weekend, so I went down to the Art Institute Chicago. Upon entering the building I (and everyone else) was stopped at a card table with a contracted security guard behind it, searching through bags. I opened my bag, he quickly looked inside, and said "Thank you". No metal detector, no shuffling objects around, no snooping whatsoever. I'm sure this new inconvenience was installed as a knee-jerk reaction to the recent terrorist attacks, but I think we've all forgotten that the suicidal hijackers were professionals trained by the CIA. If an aimless American like myself can get sharp objects past security without even knowing it, is it an effective deterrent against a real threat? Museums throughout Europe have bag and coat checks, which are a wonderful service. Allowing me to enjoy the artwork without being hampered by my stuff.
Inconveniences, like ineffectual bag browsing, give a false sense of security.
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| Sep 14, 2001 | The same reason models shouldn't be quoted on world affairs. by garrick | ||||
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If you didn't have 20 or 30 panties hanging from your mike stand, you'd be thinking 'What am I doing wrong? Is my hair big enough?' --Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin Debro
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| Sep 12, 2001 | Goosebumps by garrick | ||||
"We're all gonna die, but three of us are going to do something,'' Burnett told his wife, according to Colacicco. He added: "I love you honey'' before the call ended.
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| Sep 10, 2001 | Power to Burn by garrick | ||||
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After months of research and a couple of false starts (The infamous BestBuy Bait&Switch) I picked up an internal Sony CDRW for my mac over the weekend from Circuit City for $100 (pre-$30 rebate). I would like to give Apple a standing ovation for iTunes and Disc Burner. The CD burning capabilities of these applications/utilties is Insanely Great. The hardest part of burning through iTunes was navigating through the mp3 library. The hardest part of burning a data cd...NONE. The Mac system treats blank CDs as empty disks, copying and organizing on a CD is the same as a Zip, floppy, or hard drive. Then Eject to burn (it's odd to drag a disc to the trash to burn it, but it's freaking easy, so shut up). Apple may have been late on including CD burning capabilities in the machines, but they did it right. That's what matters.
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| Sep 5, 2001 | You know when a medium is getting old when it gets annoying. by garrick | ||||
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As much as we all love to complain about pop-up window advertising, Anvil-media has the numbers showing that we actually love them. (Drop me a line if you leave the X10 windows open for 3 minutes. I gotta know what's so interesting.) So, I guess entering an email address _isn't_ the same as closing the window. What we really need is a Telezapper for web browers. (I just saw a pop-up ad for one last night.*hehe*) Anybody know if these things are worth $60. I took a 4 day weekend and come back to 9 computerized hang-ups on my answering machine. The best advertising medium is still one that's honest with itself.
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| Aug 28, 2001 | Where have I been? by darrel | ||||
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I haven't posted in WAY too long.
Shame on me.
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| Aug 28, 2001 | Makes you wonder about the moustache by garrick | ||||
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The California Milk Processor Board is reworking their ubiquitous "Got Milk" campaign for the US Latino community. Since 1993, the delightful "Got Milk" has been translated as "Are you lactating?" by the fastest growing population in the Bay Area.
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| Aug 24, 2001 | Shall we play a game? by garrick | ||||
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Last Friday night, I got a call from my local video store asking for help with their computer system. Turns out the file containing all the usernames and passwords for the employees was corrupt, rendering the entire system useless. To keep things moving on a busy Friday night, each renter and rental was being documented manually on various sheets of loose leaf paper. It was about 7pm and their tech support was closed for the weekend, opening again bright and early 10am Monday. (Those hours are as useful as the 9-5 M-F hours banks and post offices keep. Why places are closed when their services are most valuable and convenient I'll never know.) I brushed up on my DOS commands and headed over to find them watching WarGames for inspiration. Perfect. Turns out, the file sat somewhere in a Novell Netware server (Huh, I thought Netware went the way of my old TRS-80). So, unfortunately, I couldn't help them. I stopped in last night to see how things turned out. Tech support was called at 10:01 Monday morning, the computer problem was resolved 5 minutes later. The magic key to get things started....F8 (yeah, seem's like a pretty arbitrary choice to me, too). It took another 6 hours to enter all the records scrawled on the collection of loose leaf. To prevent this situation from taking them down again, the single line of instructions was recorded for posterity with a Sharpie under the counter top. This small piece of information could have been distributed any number of ways; something in the employee manual, a Post-It on the side of the machine, one of these obvious options quickly suggested by someone that didn't work there. But it's in the best possible place; permanent, out of the way, easy to access, in close proximity to the machine in question, and most of all...memorable. Brilliant.
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