YouTube Tuesday: Arrow

Here at the beginning of the end of society as we know it, as technology becomes our master, as resources dwindle, as the thin veneer of civilization begins to peel back to reveal a reality in which we feast on our own kind… it's probably a good time to brush up on the skills that will allow us to eek out a miserable existence in the post-apocalyptic hellscape that will become our planet.

That's where the good folks at Primitive Technology are being so darned helpful. Check them out for all of your primitive tool tutorials such as Making Charcoal and Basket Weaving…

And, of course, the exceedingly helpful, Primitive Bow and Arrow…

The resolution will be bloggerized

Hey guys, check this out!

This dude I know did this thing this year where he chose a list of personal goals for the year and "resolved" to accomplish them.

He called them "New Year's Resolutions."

What an awesome idea! I mean, you're using this kind of natural "beginning" to the year to sort of take stock in yourself and setting up some targets for personal improvement. I think everyone should do this. In fact, I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner.

So yeah, I sat down and tried to come up with a list of things that I can do to improve myself. Because the first step in making the world a better place is to make myself a better person. Right?

So here goes…

1) I resolve to start flossing my teeth more than three times a week. My dental hygienist says I should do it twice a day. So that's going to me my goal.

2) I resolve to try some Vietnamese food. I've heard good things. There are lots of Vietnamese restaurants around, so let me know if you have a recommendation. As far as I can tell, the toughest part is going to be paying for that flight to Vietnam.


 3) I resolve to read a book this year. Seems like people are always writing books, so I want to see what the big deal is about. Since I have an e-reader now, I might even e-read and e-book.

4) I resolve to get my car serviced. For the last few months, I've used what the Kansas City, Mo., street department calls "deferred maintenance" on my car. It's a middle-aged vehicle and needs new tires, probably new brakes and who knows what else. So, yeah, it's going to be expensive. But it's something that I just need to do.

5) I resolve to get some new shoes. I like my current work shoes so much that I've worn a hole in the heel. What is is that letter carries always say? Time wounds all heels? Anyway, it's time for me to say goodbye to these old souls and get some new kicks.

Well, that's a pretty good start. Five goals for personal improvement to start the new year.

Let me know what YOU plan to do, you damn slacker!*



* No, not you. I was talking to that other guy.

tagged: New Year, 2012, resolution, blog, floss, Vietnamese, shoes

YouTube Tuesday: Instant Billy Joel

If you keep up with tech news — which is way less depressing than the real news — you no doubt heard about Google's launch of Google Instant last week.

Google Instant is an essentially useless feature that allows you to get "instant" search results rather than having to wait 0.8 seconds. I say it's essentially useless because it's only available on the Google home page, which, let's face it, nobody uses anymore.

But it is useful for the production of a nifty and moderately entertaining keyword search video set to the music of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire¹. You might want to click full-screen mode to get full enjoyment from this video.

---

1. When is someone going to do an update to this song using references to the first decade of the current century?

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Billy Joel, Google Instant, video, music, We Didn't Start the Fire

This is only a test

Hey, can you cats do me a solid? I've been monkeying around with the RSS feed here and I need to know if I've jacked it up beyond all recognition.

Could some of you cool people who use an RSS reader let me know if you're still getting this RSS feed? Just leave a comment below if you are so I'll know that I haven't completely borked the works here.

Only the coolest, most awesome people need to respond. I assume you know who you are.

Thanks.
tagged: blog, RSS, feed, help

Gadget Review: SBH700 Bluetooth Headset from Samsung

I was in the market for a new Bluetooth headset for quite some time. I'd had one before (this one, from Cardo) that I was really happy with. Unfortunately, it was so small and convenient, that I lost it (natch).

So in my quest for a replacement, I had a few requirements:

• I'm not going to spend more than 80 bucks. I'm not made of money, and unfortunately I don't see Pelosi and Crew lining up to give me any kind of financial bailout anytime soon.
• It had to be un-dorky looking. Actually, scratch that. They're all dorky looking.
• I wanted a two-ear stereo version. I always had trouble hearing people with the one-ear Bluetooth headset.

So I spent some time on Amazon, read some reviews, checked some prices and finally decided on the SBH700 Headset from Samsung.

I felt pretty good with the decision, not the least because I've always had really good luck with Samsung electronics. My TV, VCR, phone, video camera, are all from Samsung and all have worked flawlessly with no complaints.

For the most part, I'm getting the same results with the SBH700. The audio quality is great. I can listen to music and video from my phone (mobile YouTube RULZ!) and I've had no complaints about my audio quality coming though the line to the other parties on the call.

The headset was easy to set up, it took about three minutes for me to pair it with my phone and start using it. It's also easy to use, which is important for numbskulls like me who don't like to read the instruction manual.

But there are some drawbacks that are serious enough to keep me from recommending this headset.

For one thing, this gadget is pretty heavy compared to other Bluetooth headsets. I'm not sure whether this is a function of the two-ear nature of the device or just the added electronics needed to make it stereo.

It's much heavier than the single ear Cardo and Motorola Bluetooth headsets I've used before, and you definitely know when you have it on.

It's also too small for my head. Now granted, I have a gigantic noggin. I mean, my dome has been known to generate its own weather patterns. This is why I don't wear sweaters, because my head stretches out the neck-hole so badly when I put them on.

It would probably be fine for someone with a normal sized head, but for me the wires connecting each ear piece are too short. The ear pieces themselves are too large (even for my humongous ears) and lack adequate padding.

All of this leads to the most serious problem with the device, it's very uncomfortable.

The added weight and the sheer gargantuan size of my melon combine with the design of the ear pieces make it difficult to wear this headset for more than a few minutes. Any conference call (or cell phone porn watching session) that lasts more than 10 minutes makes my ears begin to ache to the point where I'd rather just send smoke signals than talk on the phone.

It's a solid device, and would probably be great for the non-cranially challenged. But due to the lack of comfort, I'm going to have to give it a regretful thumbs down.

SBH700 Bluetooth Headset from Samsung
Pro: Great audio quality, easy to use and set up, Samsung reputation.
Con: Uncomfortable ear pieces, too small for my head.

tagged: gadget, review, Bluetooth, Samsung, headset, Cardo, SBH700

I need your advice on something

So I'm in the market for a new mobile phone.

It's been a long time since I've had a gadget upgrade of any kind, so I'm looking around for a device with a few more bells and whistles. I need want to get one of those "smart" devices where you can get your email, your calendar and to-do items, surf the web, stalk Scarlett Johansson using the built-in GPS functions, etc.

You know, your basic starter mobile device.

Anyway, I've been shopping around for a few weeks and it looks like I have a decision to make. There are essentially three smart phone software systems to choose from:

1) BlackBerry: One of the originals. This technology is famous for the effective "push" email technology that allows quick and easy access to your work and, more importantly, personal email.

2) Palm: One of the other originals. Known for its PDA software. I think this has a "fetch" email reader rather than a "push" email reader like the BlackBerry, but I could be all wrong about that.

3) Windows Mobile: I don't really know anything about this other than it comes from Microsoft and nobody ever has any problems with Microsoft products.

Actually, I don't really have any real experience with any of the products, other than I used a Palm PDA device years ago before they were connected to phones (I had a Handspring Vizor). Not sure how much the software has changed since then.

That's what I need you guys for. Have you used any of these? Do you recommend it? Any pros? Cons? Easily accessible pornographic material? I just need to know the important stuff here.

tagged: technology, help, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, mobile, device

Mac, Firefox... little help here

Okay you smart, computery types, I need a little technical help.

Here's the set-up... I have a middle-aged iMac G5 running MacOS X Leopard (fully updated). I have an Apple Mighty Mouse (with the track nipple). And I recently updated to the latest version of Firefox.

Except now, my mouse functionality is somewhat fucked up. I can still move around the screen. The scrolling track nipple works correctly. No problems clicking (right, left, side buttons, etc.) But there's one highly annoying problem that's really starting to piss me off.

I used to be able to left-click, hold and drag to select a group of text on the browser screen, or left-click, hold and drag the scrolling bubble (you know, the one in the right-hand border of the window?) to scroll the web page.

But now, whenever I try to left-click, hold and drag anything, it just moves the entire browser window around on my screen.

I've looked through my Firefox preferences and mouse preferences to try to determine if I have somehow inadvertently screwed up a setting somewhere, but I can't find anything that looks like it would control this behavior.

So, WTF?! Has anyone else run into this? Is this a flaw in Firefox, or (more likely) pilot error on my part.

And if it is my fault, how in the heck to I fix it. Because, like I said, it's annoying the hell out of me.

tagged: Apple, iMac, Mighty Mouse, Firefox, bug, Leopard, MacOS, problem

Enjoy your new iPhone

Courtesy of Nitrozac & Snaggy:

tagged: iPhone, comic, Apple, technology

The Evil Prints

As some of you may be aware, I've been working for several years on an evil plan to take over the world.

If you're not aware of that now, don't worry, you soon will become painfully aware when I unleash my… oh, well, there will be time for that later (mwahahahhah, cough, er…). Anyway, I digress.

Typically I try to keep my evil secret plans, well, secret. Like the time I was able to insert a certain one of my minions into the head position of the ALL POWERFUL Kansas City Missouri Parks Board (and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids and that dog!)

But again I digress.

What I was going to say is that I had a HUGELY Evil victory at the office this morning, and uncharacteristically I wanted to share it with you so that you can bask with me in my supreme evilness.

It all started as I sat at my Evil computer monitor studying some Evil spreadsheets and Evil quarterly plans. There were a few documents that I need to evilly send to the shared printer that all of the cube dwellers on my floor share.

So, with an evil, maniacal laugh which surely would have sent shivers of fear down the spines of my unwitting cube neighbors had any of the slackers bothered to show up on time for work, I hit the print button (with much evilness).

I gave the computers and printers a minute or two to crunch through my evil print job. I then headed over to the printer to pick up the documents as they came out, lest anyone find them and discover my nefarious plot.

When I arrived at the printer, I discovered that some unfortunate soul had incurred my wrath by leaving their print job unattended. It had created a printer error and backed up the entire print queue for about an hour and a half.

My evil documents were all at the end of the long queue, which wasn't even moving because of the printer error created by user THX1138.

Now, you lame do-gooders would have tried to help out poor, pathetic THX1138. You would have tried to find the 11x17 paper that he foolishly tried to print his documents on and placed it in Paper Tray 3 and pressed “C” to continue the print job as the error message suggested.

But that’s not how we Evil geniuses roll.

Instead, I did something completely Evil. I pressed the “Cancel” button, consigning THX1183’s print job to the depths of oblivion, never to be seen again.

MHWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA.

But I wasn't finished yet. Only now will the entire population of office workers (who were trying to print documents to that printer) see the true power of my Evilocity!

Because next I went through the backed up print queue and found my print jobs and PROMOTED THEM to a higher priority than all of the jobs in front of me!

So my Evil documents came out before the documents of the sucky saps who sat by and did nothing about the printer error!

And behold! My Evil documents were printed and I went back to my Evil cube to continue my Evil day’s work so I could get back to my evening hobby of TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!

MHWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA. AHHHHHAAHAHAHAA! HAAHAHHAAAAHAaaaaa.... (ouch, it hurts my throat when I laugh like that too much).

tagged: office, evil, printer, THX1138, Nazgul, Office Space, Sauron

I need help

They say the first step to getting better is to admit you need help.

Well here I am, admitting it. There are several problems I've been wrestling with lately, and I'm finally going to admit that I'm stuck.

So I'm reaching out to you, my (two) readers, to see if you can look into your hearts this holiday season and see your way to giving me some much needed assistance on these three problems that have been vexing me lo these many months.

• First, I gotta find a pillow that is comfortable. My supermodel wife recently threw out the pillow I've been using for the last few years. Part of me knows it was time to toss it, what with the smell of sweaty corn chips and all. But the pillows that have replaced it have either been too flat or too fluffy.
  
  You see, I'm a back sleeper. So I need to find something that isn't so thick that it pushes my head up so I'm looking at my feet, but it can't be so flat that it might as well not be there. Does anyone have a good pillow suggestion? I'm dyin' for a decent night's sleep.



• A couple of weeks ago I spent wasted 45 minutes trying to solve the puzzles on Guest House. If you're not familiar with this style of online game, it essentially a simple Flash program.
  
  Your character is placed in a room and your assignment is to get out of the room. The problem is there are no instructions. You have to not only find the clues, you have to decipher what the clues mean and what to do with the objects you find.
  
  Well, I figured out all of the clues. I solved the combination, turned on the respirator, got the soda can from the vending machine, put the fuse in the fuse box and even poured the soda down the mouth of the sleeping chick. And I still couldn't get the freaking door open. I must be missing something but I can't figure out what it is.
  
  If any of you computer game savants figure this out, do me a solid and drop me a hint in the comments section, because it's driving me crazy.


• Finally, I got this email earlier from Jon Swift, a very powerful and influential blogger who also happens to be one of the best and funniest writers out there. He's asking me, ME!, to send him what I think is the best blog post I've written this year for a year-end review.
  
  Problem is, it's hard for me to choose the best since I think they all kick ass. I'm leaning toward sending this recent post breaking down some new TV shows, only because it contains the phrase "pseudo-lesbian wire-fighting battles."
  
  But before I make my final decision, I want your input. So go back and read every single post I've written for 2007 and let me know which one kicks the most ass. (or you could just start with these, but it's not an exhaustive list.

That's it. I'd like to have these things buttoned up by COB on Friday (that's "close of business" for you non-corporate types), so get right on it, mmmmkay?

tagged: help, sleep, pillow, online game, guest house, blog, Jon Swift

In your Facebook!

NOTE: This morning out of the goodness of my heart, I'm publishing a guest post from Awesome® blogger The D. This is just something I choose to do because I'm a helluva guy and I sometimes like to help the mortals by giving them a forum to discuss whatever is on their mind. This guest post has nothing whatsoever to do with an ill-considered wager a few months ago.

In our first installment of the ongoing battle between Facebook and Mspace.com, for the title of “Best social network”, Facebook won hands down. But in the rematch Myspace.com comes out swinging and it looks bad for the heavily favored Facebook.

For the past month I have been following the news stories and press releases about Facebook. Apparently, Facebook has a software program called Beacon that gathers your purchases from about 44 different web sites. Then it puts that information on your home page so that your friends can see your purchases.

HELLO! Can we all say privacy issues!

This article has a good example of what Beacon does:

"Let's say you buy a book from a particular book shop online, who happens to be an advertiser teamed up with Facebook. Facebook watches your action and puts it up in your news feed section announcing to your friends that you have bought “x” book from “abc” bookshop owner."

Or, let’s drop the whole book idea and let’s say you buy a "marital aid". Do you want that information published to all of your friends on Facebook? I think not!

One thing that article does not point out is that you don't have to be logged into Facebook for this action to happen. You don't even have to be a member of the network according to this article.

Here are a few articles that should shed even more light on the subject.

• This one talks about the HORRIBLE PR that Facebook has been using too extinguish the issue.


• This one talks about opting out of the program. The issue with the whole opting out thing is that you're just opting out of having your purchases put up in your news feed section on Facebook, your friends won't see your purchases, but your information is still collected by the program, and then given to the business partners of Facebook.


• MoveOn.org had a HUGE problem with this aspect of the whole controversy.


• If you want to sign the petition to stop Facebook from collecting your data go here


• If you don't want Beacon to even collect your data go here or here and follow those instructions. (I'm not condoning these instructions and I don't know if they will work or not. Furthermore, I can't guarantee that they won’t bust your machine.)

The winner for this round? Clearly it has to be Myspace by a landslide.

So after two rounds of Facebook vs. My Space we are currently all tied up at one apiece. Stay tuned for the third and final round.

tagged: Facebook, MySpace, beacon, marital aid, MoveOn, social networking, privacy

escape

tagged: keyboard, escape, humor, computer

Genius Bar? I don't think so.

"Hi Mr. Emawkc, this is Aaron at the Genius Bar. I was just calling to let you know your computer is ready and you can pick it up any time at the Apple Store."

"I picked it up yesterday."

"Oh?! Well... er... Ooh I see. We had an Internet outage yesterday, so it must have gotten lost in the shuffle. Okay, I guess you're all set."

The call I received this morning was just the latest example of how the Genius Bar at the Apple Store isn't restricted only to genii.

It all started two weeks ago when my iMac shot craps. I was getting ready to sync my iPod before heading out on some errands when Apple HQ sent out a message that I needed to do a security software update. No problem, it's a pretty standard deal. I click the "install" button to do the security patch.

A few seconds later, I get a message that the install is finished and I need to restart my computer. Kind of annoying, since all I wanted to do is sync my iPod, but okay. I restart. I get a message that I need to restart my computer. I restart and get the same message that I need to restart my computer. I do, same message.

Clearly something is wrong. The "geniuses" have bricked my computer. So I call and get an appointment at the so-called genius bar to have this fixed.

When in get there a couple of days later, I explain to the genius on duty that the software update they sent ruined my computer and I would like it fixed if you please. After a few minutes of triage, the young genius tells me that the motherboard on my computer is fried and will need to be replaced.

"That sounds expensive," I say.

"It is," she replies. "It's about a $900 repair and you are no longer covered by your warranty."

Luckily, this genius then does the most genuis-like thing of this whole experience.

"Don't worry, " she said in a bad news/good news voice. "This model qualifies for an extended warranty Apple Quality program. So there won't be a charge to you for the repair."

I told her that would be just fabulous.

Fast forward a few days and I get another call from a genius.

"Well, we replaced the mother board and power source and your computer still doesn't work. The issue is with your hard drive. We can replace it but we weren't able to get any data off your old one."

The genius tells me that a third party data recovery company might be able to save the 3,000 or so family pictures saved on the drive. Of course, it will cost me $250 if they succeed, but I won't have to pay anything if they fail.

Fast forward again, no data is recovered. Apple says they'll need $150 to replace the hard drive, plus they will keep the old drive to send back "to corporate" wherever that is.

So I get to pay $150 for a new drive and I lose my old drive (which has my passwords to all the porn sites I go to). Or I can pay $75 to by a new drive that I install myself, get three times the disc capacity for half the cost and I keep the old damaged drive and my secret plans for taking over the world.

The geniuses at the genius bar had a hard time understanding why I didn't want them to do the work.

But, in the end, I get a new mother board, new power supply and a hard drive upgrade all for a total out-of-pocket expense of $75. Not bad.

The bonus is that when I got everything going again, I found that I had backed up all of my photos onto an external hard drive, so I didn't lose any irreplaceable data.

No thanks to the Apple geniuses.

tagged: Apple, computer, iMac, Genius Bar, crash, data recovery, hard drive

Wha happa???

The astute observer will notice that there have been a few changes around here lately.

The old original Blogger template seemed to be growing a little clunky. It seemed there was a lot of neato stuff that could be done with the shiny new Blogger.

So, for the last couple of weeks I had been experimenting with a new template on a supersecret test blog. Then yesterday, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge, pull the trigger and flip the switch.

At least one astute observer (perhaps the astutest) John B. of Blog Meridian noticed immediately. He left a comment on the post previous to this one:

I like the new layout; in a couple of places I've seen hacks for the 3-column layout, and I've wondered, given all my blog's links and geegaws, if the 3-column might be helpful.
Have you lived with it long enough to know whether you like it?

Well John B., the short answer is... No, I haven't had it up long enough to know whether I like it. It seems like it might be a little too busy, that it offends my minimalist taste. Maybe I need to get rid of some of the chicklets in the side columns or something.

Actually, it occurs to me that maybe widening the gutters between the columns would help. If there are any CSS Code Ninjas out there who can help, I would be very grateful.

But I'll probably stick with this layout, out of inertia and laziness if for no other reason.

I am interested to read what everyone thinks, so please post positive reaffirming messages in the comments section.

PS -- I wanted to say a special thanks to Stavanger at Blogcrowd who put up with a lot of my dumb questions through this process. For anyone thinking of updating their template, this is a great resource.

tagged: blog, blogger, template, Minima Black, css

Visual verification

Hey, over the past couple of days I've been having trouble with the visual verification feature on some Blogger blogs.

This issue arises when I want to post a comment. Many bloggers (myself included) use the feature where you have to type in a series of random letters to prove that you're a real person and not a spambot.

Well, on some blogs (XO's and Cara's lately) there's a place to enter the letters, but no letters are displayed.

My question is, has anyone else experienced this? Is this just a problem with my browsers (I'm using Firefox on bot PC and Mac)? Have I contracted some kind of weird, highly selective eye disease?

tagged: blog, Blogger, spam, visual verification

test post

I've been getting a weird error, so this is a test post.

Man, Blogger better not be fucking with me!

tagged: test, Blogger, error