Author Archives: JustinLL

FireFox 3 Reachers Farther Faster

Maybe that’s true.  I don’t know.  What I do know, is Mozilla had a record day with the release of its latest version of Firefox.  I don’t know what the official count is for the opening day, but I’ve read that it’s upwards of eight million.  That’s a whole lot of simultaneous downloading going on in the first 24 hours.

I took it three times, and still have two computers to upgrade.  How does that affect the counting they’re conducting?  I’m only one user, but I have many machines.  Not to mention those I maintain for others.  (I’ll get the upgrades done soon enough.)

If you’re looking for an actual review of the product, you’ll have to do a google search for one.  Otherwise, just make good and get your shiny new copy of Firefox 3 today!

I will note that a few of my addons have been disabled due to compliance issues, but I’m sure they’ll be updated soon enough.

Please comply.  Thank you.

SMS Tax? Not 3jam!

How strange, that on the same day I come across an article in the local Sacramento newspaper indicating local government is considering a tax on text messaging, I also find myself knee deep in the latest SMS tech?  It’s called 3jam.  (Thanks Techcrunch.)  The whole thing is oddly curious.  But curiously odd?  It’s not.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a huge fan of the text message, be it SMS or MMS.  My biggest qualm being a general degradation of the English language form.  Which, if you’re keeping up, should seem kind of ridiculous —  I Twitter and Plurk.  Both services limiting input to 140 characters.  (What is it with that number?)

To be fair, the tax doesn’t really bother me.  The article claims there would be a reduction to my tax on the land line I keep.  Yea!  Some balance.  But the real reason is, I don’t do a ton of texting (verb?).  I typically distribute my GrandCentral phone number and it doesn’t allow for SMS or MMS.  (I’m saved.)

So far as I can tell, this tax is limited to the Sacramento area, so if you’re local, you might want to get involved in the November fourth election.

But even if you’re going to get taxed, the great feature of 3jam is that it only registers one text message regardless of how many folks you send the same message to.   (I can send a message to all two of my friends and only be charged for the price of one message.  Then, if either recipient replies to said message, it will go to every person on the original message list and only result in the cost of one message being sent for the sender.  It probably makes more sense if you have more than two friends.)

Good luck.

WordPress or MovableType

These days, if you’re going to blog, or if you are already blogging, then you’ve probably come across at least one, if not both, these names.  Based on my own searches, I’m guessing these are the top two cms products available right now, but which is really the top?  And does it matter?

I have this blog running WordPress 2.5, and I have a second blog running MovableType 4.1 (but I don’t maintain that blog, I just use it for testing different software.)  I can say that the install was much quicker and probably, from the average user’s view, simpler to install and setup with WP than with MT.  WP just about set itself up completely once the process started, whereas MT required a bit more user input including creating the database myself.  (Not horribly complicated, but could be an intimidating step for some users.)

Both systems provide a dashboard for creating and managing content, which are fairly easy to use and navigate through.  Although, I personally prefer that of WP, I can’t say that one or the other is superior.  I think it’s a preference for look and feel, which varies day to day.  You’ll have to load each and decide if it matters to you.  They are both done well enough that this probably won’t be your limiting factor.

WP and MT allow addons, or plugins.  So this is probably a toss-up as well.  Although, some may argue that MT comes loaded with certain features that would require a plugin in WP.  To which I would aruge, again, that this is only an issue of preference and isn’t a final determining factor since features in one system are available in the other system.

Spam filtering, is probably one of the biggest issues after ease of use and installation.  I haven’t had much experience with the MT spam filter since I don’t actively blog with it, but I have had quite a bit of use with WP, and I can say that it has caught quite a bit of spam.  WP clearly sorts out the spam and labels it for my review and removal.  It’s a breeze.

Overall, I like them both, but probably will not switch this particular blog from WP to MT.  MT is a worthy blogging software, but I couldn’t find an easy migration tool.  If I decide to maintain a new blog in the future, I’ll revisit the issue and possibly switch to MT.  MT does appeal to my geek and tweak style, so it has that going for it.

Update: After snooping around each platform a bit more, I found that it is pretty easy to migrate entries from one system to the other using the import/export feature.  I did lose my formatting when going from WP to MT, but I guess if you don’t have a ton of entries, you could easily go in and fix that.  Although, there may be a way to keep the formatting.

Return From Camping In Time for Art Walk

How does he do it? That’s what you should be asking yourself, if you’re asking anything at all. If you’re not asking, then I’ll ask, “what’s going on here?”

Anyhow, Camping was great. Good to be out, ya know? I think we were in Plumas National Forest. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you’ve never been anywhere that inhibits the use of electronics and the Internet. (Inhibits? I don’t know.) In either event, the specifics on the specific: Echo Lake. That’s where we actually were. It’s just south of the Caribou Wilderness area. I’m in the process of planning a backpacking trip through the Caribou Wilderness with Thompology. We’ll start at Cone Lake on the north end and backpack to Hay Meadow on the south end. This will be made possible by a driver dropping us off and picking us up. Kind of like cheating, but not really. we’ll still have to make our way and survive. Not a real challenge, I know.

In other news, we celebrated the Second Saturday Art Walk through midtown Sacramento. It was the usual good times with many a new face. Nameless faces, mostly, and a few faceless names. It’s how we roll. Started the party with an Americano coffee from Old Soul coffeehouse on 21st between “H” and “I”. It’s worth checking out if you’re ever in the area and enjoy a reasonably tasting coffee. From there, you’re on your own. Drink with caution.

I’ll see what I can do about adding some visuals for y’all. I didn’t snap any photos, but I’m sure some exist.

Cheers!

Shopping At The Speed Of Now

It’s today, and I’m probably still out camping, hence another video post. I guess I could have just skipped it all together, but I’m getting a kick out of it. Anyhow, that’s not the point. I mean, it’s not the point that I’m off fishing, hiking, and cooking beneath the big open sky miles and miles away from all the nonsense.  No.  The point is, I have another video for you, and you should maybe, probably, if you have a few minutes, and aren’t too busy, watch it. Got that, chief?

It’s not that it’s a super hilarious clip or anything wacky like that, but it’s the folks from Improv Everywhere, and if you don’t already follow them, you may want to consider it. They put together some pretty interesting projects. I’d like to some day show up to one of their improvs, but I don’t know if I have it in me to figure out when and how they set up the meeting places and times. It sounds like more work than I’m willing to put up with, especially since I’m out camping. Camping. Ha!

Happy Friday the 13th, by the way. It could be any day, I’d still be away from anything electronic on a camping trip. Today, at least. That’s what I mean. What? You’re mad!

Enough. Here it is.

Lisa Nova is a Twitter Whore

Who isn’t, right? Becoming a Twitter Whore.  I mean, if you’re doing it right, then of course you are and you have to be.  Who wouldn’t want to share with the world every little thing that’s happening as it happens?  I know I can’t help myself.  OMG! And on the off chance you’re a little confused as to how it actually works, Ms. Nova was kind enough to provide some instructional video. It’s kind of what she does, in case you didn’t know.  (You should know who Lisa Nova is.)

Part I

Part II

Genius, my man — pure genius.  WTF!

Broken Bicycle Madness

The good news is I was able to get to my bicycle before any of the crackheads tried to sell it for bail money.  Wait.  Would it be used for bail money or for more crack?  I’m not really certain how that works.  The point being, though, that I have the thing back in my own care where I don’t have to worry about it being sold for something silly or other.

The bad news is, I’m not really sure why the bicycle stopped working in the first place, which is what caused me to leave it until I could later pick it up.  I took it apart and put it back together, and then it worked.  But not knowing why makes me a little skeptical of riding it too far from home.  I was lucky last time in that I was with someone who could give me a ride.

Maybe it’s time to revisit one of these local midtown bicycle shops (Bicycle Chef, Mike’s Bikes, City Bicycle Works) and get a tuneup for the old clunker, or put it to rest and get a new bicycle beast.  We’ll see.

Apple iPhone Next Point Ooooh

I’ll admit, and let’s be honest, I’m not going to buy a new cellphone (any cellphone), and not because I don’t like what the Apple’s cooked, but because I don’t really want to spend money on gadgety nonsense.  I’ll be saving my drinking money for other things, like drinking and cab rides.  Get a grip, my man.

But while we’re here, let’s take a second to point out at least two of the new features on the next Apple iPhone that might actually make it a viable option for someone other than ane iTards.  (ooops.  just kidding.)  Those two features, of course, being support for 3G and GPS.  Now neither of these features is absolutely necessary for our corporate users, but what does come in handy is that AT&T is charging a higher price for the business plan.  I think that’s awesome.  (Man, you’re all over the place. I  know, better tag this one wandering.)

Like I was saying, the press releases say something about working with business email.  I’m not really sure what that means, and perhaps by the time we get around to reading this post there will be some clarifying information released on the matter.  In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to use my silly-ass blackberry with all its beautiful google plug-ins.  (Again, I don’t really need any of these features.  But the camera is great for collecting dust on a lens if you don’t have anywhere else to store your pocket dust…or lint.)

I think Mr. Steve Jobs did a great thing here trying to help the economy.  The product is reasonably priced and widely followed.  If only it’d been released before everyone blew through their stimulus checks.  But, fret not!  People will still spend.  I’d spend, if I were into the damn thing.  It’s neat, to say the least.  But I after what Thompology has said to me about the 3G network, I can’t fully support it.  I’m still waiting strong for the 700Mhz spectrum to have a thing done to it.

Enough.

Gas Dreams In California

As it’s showing right now over on gasbuddy.com, the top ten most expensive cities to buy gas in the United States are all in California (no surprise). And a few more past that, too. I think it’s at sixteen where there’s a break to some other place in the US.

What boggles my mind, though, is that four of the top six are in the central valley (Fresno, Stockton, Modesto, Bakersfield. I suppose you could also include Sacramento, but I prefer not to.) What is the reason for that? I mean, I get that California is going to be more expensive than just about everywhere else, fighting with Alaska and Hawaii for holding the daily top position — a lot of the California costs having to do with clean air taxes — but why specifically in the central valley are the prices higher? I don’t know.

I’m also unsure as to whether or not I actually care. Sure, more and more folks are complaining, but I haven’t a real reason to complain about the price of gas. I hope it gets into the $6 per gallon region. That’d be interesting to watch.

Now I just have to fix my bicycle. It stopped working Saturday, so I had to leave it where I left it, and now I’m worried it won’t be there when I return for it. The question, though, is how to get it home so I can make the repairs. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Book Me This, Reader

It’s not easy to sit and think of every book you’ve ever read, but that’s where you might find yourself if you take a trip over to bookjetty.com. You can list any book you’ve ever read, or want to read, or are thinking about maybe reading some day in the far off future when you have absolutely nothing else to do but read. After you list them, you can rate them, and you can see who else on the site may have read that book, or that might want to read that book, and possibly drum up a discussion about it. I think it’s a grand idea, but the site seems to still be in it’s very early (beta) infant stage.  It could stand to use quite a few more users so you could find someone with whom to interact other than the site’s creator.  Although, I don’t know how you get anyone to admit he reads books, and if he is reading books then what is he doing on the Internet?  I have no idea.

Anyhow, I think there’s a bit of nonsense I can find for myself, and at the very least it gives me a reason to sit for a while trying to remember any book I might have read in the past.  And does it count if I know I read the book, but I don’t really remember what it was about?  Can you consider that reading then?  I don’t know.  It’s not important.  Read a book.  Check out the site.