Testing out ScribeFire

Let's see if having an integrated blog update function in my Firefox browser will help me write more frequent blog posts.

iTunes 8

I was just listening to some background ambient music (Groove Salad on Soma FM FTW!) and since I'm not actually typing on the computer for once, I turned on the new iTunes 8 visualizer for kicks.

Wow.

Fantastic graphics. Just jaw droppingly cool. Think exploding black holes surrounded by suns and stars and cosmic plasma explosions. Yeah, and that really doesn't do it justice.

And well synced to the music. I've seen some visualizers that seem to have no relation to the music syncopations that are occurring, but this is right on the money.

Everyone is talking about the new 'Genius' functions of iTunes 8. They should be hyping this visualizer too. I just watched it for like 5 minutes with my mind just completely captivated (yeah, that sounds kinda pathetic, but I'm also sleep deprived).

UPDATE: added this graphic, which totally does not do it justice:


UPDATE 2: Lifehacker.com has posted some undocumented keyboard shortcuts that make the visualizer EVEN MORE COOL. How is that possible? Check it out:

lifehacker.com/

Perseverance in IT

Here's a great story about a couple of student interns at Apple (back in the 'dark times') who took it upon themselves to complete a project and get it delivered, after it was AXED.

This, my friends, is commitment to the cause:

---

The Graphing Calculator Story

---

Next gear: Netbook

I'm thinking about getting a netbook sometime this year, mainly for quick writing, couch-based web-surfing and for use at things like my son's soccer games. My only real requirements are: less than 2lbs, $300-ish, and a usable keyboard. I tried out the ASUS eee 701 at my local retailer and came away unimpressed by the keyboard, which kind of defeats the purpose of having this thing -- otherwise, I'd just ask for a great big touchpad and type things in that way. (Hmm.... iPod Touch, anyone?) My two frontrunners at this point are the currently unreleased Dell E:


and Lenovo S9 ideaPad:


Which one should I get? Post your thoughts or alternate suggestions in the comments

The 44th post

If I'd been paying a little more attention, this post would be much more relevant:

Check out 43folders.com for some great productivity tips.

(Does spending time reading about productivity mean that you're procrastinating or being productive?)

Keeping things on track - Update

I made a couple of mistakes in my cron job list that kept this from working properly. I didn't need the user component of the command, and "5 pm" is actually hour "17", so the two commands should read:

# # Move to the restrictive hosts to keep users off waste sites for the workday
0 9 * * 1-5 cp /etc/hosts.work /etc/hosts
# After 5:00 p.m., return the free "home" hosts file:
# Move the hosts file back to full access at the end of the workday
0 17 * * 1-5 cp /etc/hosts.home /etc/hosts

However, one not so nice thing about OS X's implementation of cron is that it won't work if the computer is in Sleep mode. On most Linux systems, this problem is dodged by using 'anacron' which will execute any cron jobs missed while the computer was off or asleep, but apparently OS X doesn't include anacron. The workaround is to modify the times to reflect accurately when I will have the system up and running, so now my crontab listing becomes:

# # Move to the restrictive hosts to keep users off waste sites for the workday
0 10 * * 1-5 root cp /etc/hosts.work /etc/hosts
# After 5:00 p.m., return the free "home" hosts file:
# Move the hosts file back to full access at the end of the workday
30 16 * * 1-5 root cp /etc/hosts.home /etc/hosts

I'll let you know how it pans out over the next week.

Keeping things on track

Quick hit for today: I unfortunately find myself spending a little tiny bit too long surfing some pretty useless websites during the hours when I am supposed to be "enhancing shareholder value". I have a personality that is best controlled when the bad options are simply taken away from me, and the temptation is non-existent.

To that end, here is what I've done to keep my surfing time minimized (this is for my Mac, mind you. Doing this on Windows is certainly possible, but you'll need to use the Task Scheduler in place of the cron job).

1. Switch to full root user mode with sudo su -. This just means less keystrokes. You are now in full-on root mode here though, so if you don't know what you're doing, skip this step and put "sudo" in front of all the subsequent commands.
   
2. Copy the existing /etc/hosts file twice:
   cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.work
   cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.home
   The 'hosts.work' file will be the 'restricted' file that will keep you from visiting bad sites.
   
3. Open the /etc/hosts.work file in a text editor and add in a line for each of the websites you want to restrict access to like this:
   127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
   
4. Create (or modify) the root cron file using crontab -e. Cron is a task scheduler that is always running, and will execute whatever you add into it. In this case, we're going to swap the hosts file for the length of the workday.
   
5. At 9:00 a.m. from Monday to Friday, copy the restrictive "work" hosts file in:
   # Move to the restrictive hosts to keep users off waste sites for the workday
   0 9 * * 1-5 root cp /etc/hosts.work /etc/hosts
   
6. After 5:00 p.m., return the free "home" hosts file:
   # Move the hosts file back to full access at the end of the workday
   0 5 * * 1-5 root cp /etc/hosts.home /etc/hosts
   

That's it -- just like magic, any requests between 9-5 on Mon-Fri made to one of your 'restricted' sites will return a 'page load error', making sure that you and I stay on track.

A Thank You

To my less security conscious neighbours, who provided unprotected wireless access points to use during the past week while I was waiting for mine to be set up:

Thanks for the bandwidth!