impatient picking = unripe watermelon

unripe watermelon
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

Longtime readers know that we've been growing vegetables in our backyard and on our deck this summer. In the backyard garden we've had corn, pole beans, bell peppers (purple, red, yellow, green), tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash and jalapeños growing to much success.

We've even had a couple watermelons sprout up from the vine I planted as almost an after thought. We picked a miniature variety, and when the melons stopped growing and just sat there unchanged, I got anxious and picked one thinking it'd be ripe.

As you can see in the picture, the melon's still unripe. We've still got one melon still on the vine, so I'll be waiting before getting that one. Next season I'd better do some Googling before I pick.

preparing to leave Verizon Wireless

I've been a Verizon Wireless customer since shortly after the company
came on the scene in 2000 (out of the merger of Vodafone and Bell
Atlantic). The first five years of service were actually quite good,
as I found VZW had rather decent coverage for my cell phone and the
rates were competitive. I even stayed with Verizon Wireless when I
switched coasts in 2003, moving out west to California and swapping
my 703 number to a 408 number.

Then, in 2005, I upgraded my handset to a Treo 650 to take advantage
of the data capabilities of the Treo, and my relationship began to sour.

As a VZW subscriber, my Treo's feature set was crippled as a matter
of corporate practice. How did this manifest itself to grate at my
nerves most? I have BMW Assist in my car with Bluetooth technology.
Theoretically, I can pair the Treo with the car to be able to use the
car's built-in hands-free (steering wheel embedded) communications
system. I say theoretically because VZW saw fit to disable this
feature on the Treo so if I try to make a call via my car, the phone
reboots as soon as the other party picks up. If I had my Treo on the
Cingular or Sprint networks, it'd work just fine. It's just that VZW
has decided to cripple this feature. This is purely a VZW issue (even
though they insist it's a BMW thing).

Biggest bummer: I got my car a month after getting the phone and was
locked in a phone contract for another 23 months.

Flash forward to today and I'm free of the contract. As I wade into
the tar pit that is cellular calling plans and equipment choices, I'm
willing to give VZW one last chance to keep me (and my wife) as a
customer. I find the Blackberry 8830 equipment on the VZW web site
and spend a lot of time trying to figure out if the Bluetooth is
compatible with my car. No info available.

I drive over to the nearest VZW storefront and fondle the 8830
(nice!) and think, you know, I could re-enlist in the Verizon
trenches if this thing'll work in concert with my car.

I approach the customer service rep at the store and ask about the
8830 and its compatibility with a 2005 325i. The kid is too quick to
say "of course it'll work... it's got Bluetooth!" I push him a little
bit and ask for the product documentation showing that the link
hasn't been disabled (I've been down this road before). He tells me
to go talk to the BMW folks.

I tell him goodbye.

I'm finally ready to leave Verizon Wireless. Good riddance.

technical quest update: bluetooth a2dp anyone?

Just about a year ago, I posted about my technical quest to simplify our AV stack and augment its capabilities. Updates here and here and here.

While we're getting good 5.1 sound out of our Harman Kardon AVR245, it's not a push-button experience (yet). We've got the Harman Kardon HKTS-14 speaker system and in our setup, the front speakers are mounted to the wall on either side of the plasma TV, the center channel is perched on a shelf above the TV (the subwoofer is tucked in the corner) and the sleek HK stands for the surround speakers are stored at the front of the room and pulled around into surround position only when we're watching a movie that warrants the surround experience.

Why do they get stored at the front of the room? Our two little girls would undoubtedly knock them over if left in place post-movie (during the day), and I'd likely catch the wires walking by them since we've got hardwood floors. The net effect is that the majority of the time we don't listen to programming in full surround mode, as the surround speakers are stashed in the front of the room where the aural effect is minimal, at best.

While I could spend the time and energy to route the wires through the wall and attic to mount the speakers on the wall in their proper surround location, that's a wiring headache I'll put off for a long time to come, thankyouverymuch.

But now, David Pogue's column today in the NYTimes about Bluetooth and the End of Audio Wiring has got me thinking of a wireless solution our problem. Surely there's a bluetooth solution to be had here, right? I mean, given the A2DP protocol, I can bluetooth stereo signal streaming wirelessly from my AVR245 to the surround speakers mounted on the wall.

But how to do this?

Google searches on bluetooth stereo surround speakers seem to indicate there's more supply in non-North American markets, but here's a list of Bluetooth Stereo Speaker Suppliers in China that will only grow over time, right?

So what are the prerequisites before I'll add A2DP to my system? I have to be able to use my existing speakers. I've paired them purposefully for the entire system and I don't want to have to buy any bulky speaker to mount on my walls that'll unbalance the system.

What this means the gadget/widget I'm looking for will need to be a combination speaker mount/Bluetooth access point that talks to a Bluetooth gateway plugged into my AVR245. Bonus if there's a way to cut down on the battery consumption needed to run the speaker access points.

But if I can find something like this, I'll leapfrog straight over 5.1 sound all the time and start exploiting the AVR245's ability to pump out 7.1 sound.

Of course, if I get the speaker situation taken care of, then I really should upgrade to a HD-DVD player, and maybe I can use that upgrade moment to swap out TiVo for the DirecTV HR20 we've got... hmmm, better not start this just yet.

herbivore, carnivore, omnivore... local-vore?

So, as our chickens are quickly approaching their egg-laying age and our garden is producing its bounty, I'm more and more intrigued by the challenge of cooking a meal made up entirely of ingredients produced within 20 miles of our house.

An easy win would be to create an omelet using our eggs, produce from our garden supplemented by dairy and herbs from the farmer's market.

But what if I want to get more complex? Where's the limit? I see the bounds have already been pushed.

Looks like there are folks already way ahead of me given the recent ZagatBuzz item about Spruce's ascension to be "the ultimate local-vore's gathering spot."

This will be a fun trend to follow!

price changes inside amazon.com shopping cart

Well, I learned the hard way tonight that I shouldn't put off taking advantage of a good deal on Amazon.com.

I've joined a group that's going to be climbing Mt Whitney (elev 14,495') at the end of September, and when I checked my water filter that's been in storage for a while, I discovered it no longer works.

So, I did some research at the REI.com site to discover that the filter I want to get is the Katadyn Hiker PRO Water Microfilter. It retails at $69.95, but a quick search on Amazon showed I could pick it up for the low, low price of $58.30 (tax free and free shipping!). I quickly added it to my shopping cart on Amazon but then got distracted and didn't follow through on the purchase.

A couple days go by and I remember that tonight, I must purchase the filter, tonight! (truth be told: I won big at last night's poker game and so now I've got the cash to buy it)

I navigate to Amazon, click on the shopping cart icon and there's a note in big bold letters at the top of the page (not exact, but the gist): The price of your item has increased since you placed it in your shopping cart. The prices of items in your cart may change if you wait to purchase them.

The price of my lapse? The price on Amazon is now the same as any other place ($69.95), so there's only the tax-free, free shipping going for it.

Lesson learned. Don't make my same mistake.

making a coleman lantern work (cont)

Well, karma's come full circle on me in regards to the coleman lantern episode.

The morning after testing it out on our deck, I brought it inside, tucked it into the plastic carrying case and set it on the kitchen counter, fully intending to take it off the counter and walk it downstairs to the garage for "proper storage."

Well, one thing led to another, and I rushed out the door without remembering to take it downstairs.

Enter: our two year old daughter, aka "the counter cleaner."

Mind you, she's not of the let's-neatly-clean-this-up school of counter cleaning. She's more a swipe-and-smile devotee.

So, with one swipe of a two-year-old arm, the lantern, in its "protective" carrying case took a fall, a la Humpty Dumpty.

And the carrying case couldn't keep the globe nor the mantles from breaking into itty bitty pieces.

At least, this is how Left Coast Mom described the happenings to me via IM.

Being removed from the scene of the crime made it a lot easier to shrug my shoulders in a "sh*t happens" kinda way.

I look at it this way: I've got another excuse to go to REI now!

DirecTV Ka-Lo band up-conversion process suggestions

And just as I thought DirecTV was getting less geeky in their approach to dealing with their HD DVR customers, this new Ka-Lo band up-conversion process comes to bear.

As a DirecTV HR20 HD DVR owner, here's my up-conversion experience and some suggestions for the DirecTV folks on how to make it better (should they care) next time around.

First Encounter: I'm sent an email with subject line "Important Information about your HD Equipment" in which I'm invited to go to a web page to figure out if I've already got the B-Band Converter (BBC) module installed in my machine.

Better approach: DirecTV already tracks my equipment, my viewing habits, my programming... they should already know whether I've got the BBC modules or not. Send me an email to tell me the required modules are being shipped to me (and why) unless I opt out.

Second Encounter: A system message delivered to the inbox of my HR20 telling me to go visit the directv.com/bbc web page to see if I need to order the BBC modules for HD programming.

Better approach: Send a ping through the system to see if my BBC modules are installed (you can do that, too, right?). If not, give me a system message that says the modules are being mailed to me and to call DirecTV if I haven't received them by X date.

Third Encounter: As seen in the picture at the top of the post, the (two) modules arrive in separate padded envelopes (oh, the cost savings!) FedEx'd to my home. Each envelope contains a box containing one module and one single-page instruction sheet. The instruction sheet seems pretty straight forward: Thanks for ordering, installing is easy, pretty explanatory pictures and a copyright notice.

Upon opening the box and sliding the module out, however, my inner geek goes wild and my "I'm just a dumb customer" side barfs on the table. Included with the module is a two-color, double-sided page of instructions from the manufacturer of the module, Zinwell, whose brand is directly under the bolded, big-texted title of the Instructions sheet (no copyright notice on this puppy, thus the repost):

Installation Guide
DIRECTV Approved "B Band Converter (BBC) Module"
(for Ka-Lo band up-conversion)
SUP-2400

And then the getting gets good with the introductory paragraph that includes the BBC Module Functional Description:

The BBC Module is to be used in conjuction with the Ka/Ku Out-Door Unit (ODU) and the A3/MPEG-4 capable satellite receiver, hereafter to be called "the IRD". The Ka/Ku ODU output will consist of a three-way stacked signal: a Ka Lo-band (B Band) at 250-750 MHz, a Ku band at 950-1450 MHz and a Ka Hi-band (A Band) at 1650-2150 MHz. The IRD has an input range of 950-2150 MHz so an up-converter must be used in order to access the 250-750 MHz spectrum. Failure to install a BBC Module at the back of the IRD prevents the IRD from receiving Ka Lo-band. For clarity, a BBC Module must be used with each A3/MPEG-4 capable IRD in the home system. As further clarification, a BBC Module must never be used in a system that contains an Frequency Translation Module (FTM) as the equivalent function is already contained in the FTM.

WTF is an FTM and how can I tell I don't already have it, thus rendering the BBC module moot? Why must the BBC "never" be used in a system with FTM? so much FUD, so little time.

And still a page and a half of tech directions and illustrations I won't bore you with here (still with me?)

Better approach: Get the vendor to leave the technogeek screed out of the module box. Catch pre-shipping the fact I need two and send them both in the same envelope. Include the simple picture-laden how-to single pager and include a bright yellow postcard that says "If you do not install these modules, you risk losing your HD channel access." Done.

Boy, these new HD channels I'm about to get (now that I've successfully completed the DirecTV Ka-Lo band up-conversion process) better be good.

making a coleman lantern work

Back in May of this year, I found a screaming deal on Amazon.com to purchase a Coleman Lantern. In the same order, I picked up a Eureka tent as well as a Coleman stove. I was planning ahead for taking my family camping in the summer, so when the stuff arrived, I just put the unopened cartons in our storage room without opening them up. Why bother since we wouldn't use them for at least a couple months?

Oops, wrong move.

When it came time to actually get ready to go camping (in July), I pulled out my tent, stove and lantern to give them a test run before putting them through their paces at the camp site.

Smart move.

The tent and stove worked just fine.

It was the lantern that gave me fits. I've used plenty of Coleman lanterns before, so I know how they work. This one, however, just didn't stay lit no matter how much pressure I pumped into the damn thing.

I'd pump pump pump (30 times) and then open the valve and apply a flame. The mantles would glow for about 10 seconds and then pulse before going out. WTF?

I tried burning in another set of mantles. No luck.

I couldn't return the lantern to Amazon as defective because I'd waited over two months to try the damn thing out. I was stuck with it. The screaming deal was looking less than money-saving at this point.

I took the lantern over to our local REI to see if the experts there could help me understand what, exactly, was wrong with the lantern. Again, no luck. They tried to make it work and got the same result (10 seconds of light, then pulsing, then nothing) and suggested I might want to "tinker" with the regulator.

A tinkerer I am not, so I went to the Coleman web site to find the local authorized warranty repair place which turned out to be a place called Traders in San Leandro, a good 30 miles and a toll bridge crossing away from us in Redwood City. Believe it or not, there's no other warranty place in the Bay Area. Thankfully, the lantern has a five-year warranty, so I screwed up my courage and took the lantern over to get it fixed.

The guys at Traders were nice enough. They took the lantern, listened to my story, gave me a claim check and told me it'd take about 10 days to fix.

Flash forward to yesterday and I called Traders to see if the lantern was ready. Indeed, it was. Could they please tell me what was wrong with it?

After a short pause, I was asked, "did you take any fuel out before bringing it in?"

"No."

"Well, I ask because I filled it up with more fuel and it's worked fine for me every time I lit it."

"So, there was nothing wrong with the lantern. It was really my not filling it up with enough fuel."

Another pause. "It seems that might have been the problem, yes."

"Wow. Color me embarassed. I'll be by this week to pick it up."

"Come on over when you get a chance!"

So today, I made the drive of shame over to Traders to pick up my perfectly functioning (and now full of gas) Coleman lantern. I timed my visit to coincide with the repairman's lunch break, so I didn't actually have to meet him face to face. The guy at the counter just saw the big "NO CHARGE" stamp on the invoice and let me walk out the door with it.

And tonight, when I tried lighting the lantern on the deck, wouldn't you know it works just fine.

So, two lessons learned on this camping purchase:

1. when you buy stuff from Amazon, make sure it works as soon as it's delivered. If you wait too long, there's no recourse should something (seem to) go wrong.
2. if it takes fuel, fill it up all the way before trying to make it work.

Don't repeat my mistakes!

hi viz yellow in the redwoods

hi viz yellow in the redwoods
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

just back from six days on this motorcycle wearing my hi viz yellow aerostich through hot and cold weather. Put 2500 miles on the odometer over the six days, but saw some of the most beautiful scenery you could wish for by going up the Northern California coast into Oregon and then criss-crossing both the Coastal Range and the Cascades before finally topping out at Mt Hood. Then back again on the express path down I-5 from Portland to Eugene to Grant's Pass, then over to Hwy 101 and down through Eureka and Ukiah to the Bay Area again.

Prepping other blog posts, but sharing my flickr stream (click on the pic to get there) in the meantime.

Glad not to be sitting down on the bike for a while (wow, I'm sore!)

i like ilike

A confluence of promotions caused me to discover iLike.com yesterday, and am I glad I finally paid attention. 

I was futzing around on the iTunes Music Store podcast section and saw iLike promoted there (didn't follow through), and then last night a new friend on Facebook shared the iLike application with me (followed through).

I've found iLike to be a clean, simple interface to show the music I enjoy, see what my friends enjoy, find new artists based on my taste and play the time-sucking iLike Challenge, a game where you listen to snippets of tunes and have to name the artist or song. On the Facebook app, after selecting or entering the names of the bands you like, you quickly see not only whether the bands are touring, but whether they're coming near you. Indicate you'll be at the concert, and you get a list of all the other Facebookers that'll be there with you.

Later this weekend, I'll install the iLike sidebar for iTunes and see where it takes me. If you're into music and want to map your tastes to those of your friends, give iLike a spin.

On a side note: I can't believe how much I've enjoyed diving into Facebook since they opened the platform. Find a lot of interesting new things and people, which is why I play in social networks anyway, right?

nhl to make live games available on web

Saw the story in the Wall Street Journal today that the NHL will be "using Internet video to make up for the dwindling television audience." And they'll be doing it via a "Center Ice" package showing about 45 games a week at a cost of $169 for the season.

The notion of playing "where the (censored) is the puck?" on choppy internet video is laughable. Even if it's offered for free (hell no, I'm not paying).

Commish Bettman is quoted in the article saying "we need to be nimble in this space." Of course he's referring to these internets we're using. How about we be nimble in another space: high def signal.

Hockey in high-definition is a remarkably satisfying experience. Now that I've got a plasma HDTV, I have a hard enough time tolerating the standard-def hockey games via Center Ice on DirecTV. Standard def sucks. Putting up with watching the playoffs (THE PLAYOFFS!) on standard def Versus was infuriatingly unsatisfying.

If you're serious about being nimble, Bettman, you'd better move all your broadcasts to high def and quickly. Hey, make a deal with HDNet to broadcast the "Center Ice" package in high def only. I'd pay a premium to get that coverage, even though most of the games are done by the time I get home from work on the West Coast.

getting music while on my motorcycle

I'm getting ready to go on a six day motorcycle ride through Northern California, Oregon and maybe parts of Washington, to boot.

For my birthday a couple weeks back, Left Coast Mom and the kids gave me a great gift: Iasus Noise Terminator in-helmet speakers for my Shoei RF-1000 helmet. Since I'd chosen not to get the optional radio/CD unit for my BMW R1150RT, my long rides have been rather quiet affairs.

Now, I've been riding motorcycles for 19 years, and one of the things I've always pined for is the ability to take music with me on the road on the bike. No good road trip is complete without a soundtrack, right?

However, I've only ever tried using my daily ear buds inside my helmet(s), and it's quite the painful experiment since the ear buds are so thick and my helmet is so tight. I've even drawn blood from scratching my ears trying to get the frickin' helmet off once I realize there's no way I can stand the pressure of the ear buds pressing against my drums. Now that I'm using Shure e4c ear buds with my iPod, I know there's no way I can get the helmet over those without really tearing my ears up, literally. So I don't try. I ride in silence instead.

Enter: these IASUS 3D Bass Helmet Speakers. They're less than 1/2 inch thick, and they mount directly to the helmet. To boot it's as if they're made specifically for my RF-1000 helmet, as right behind where my ears sit inside the helmet, there's a patch of vinyl that the IASUS speakers fix onto perfectly. They have a ring of velcro that glues into this spot, so I can take the speakers out when I'm doing short (music-free) rides, or don't want to be bothered with the wires hanging out.

The speakers come with a cord extender that has its own volume adjuster, so even with my thick motorcycle gloves on, I can turn the volume up and down while the iPod stays snug inside my jacket's inside pocket, safe from the elements.

Installation took all of 2 minutes to peel off the tape covering the velcro glue backing and press it into the helment. When I test-drove the speakers wearing just the helmet out the back deck, the sound inside the helmet was nice, but I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to hear the music once I got out into traffic. On top of that, I wear foam ear plugs whenever I ride, so wouldn't that block out even more of the sound?

I just had to give it a whirl, so I suited up, put in my ear plugs, donned the helmet, fired up the iPod and took off.

Much to my delight, the IASUS speakers are the perfect pitch for helmeted riding. The foam ear plugs block out enough of the ambient sound that the music comes streaming through clearly at neighborhood speeds (up to 35 mph) even with my helmet visor open.

The real test came when I accelerated to get onto I-280 near our house, and the IASUS speakers passed the freeway riding test with flying colors. Even when I was doing 80 mph (I mean 65 mph!) with a decent cross-wind, I could hear the music clearly over the motor, the street noise and the breeze. Not in a WHAT-I-CAN'T-HEAR-YOU!!?!? way, but in a nice, mellow, this will be entertaining background noise on that first 12-hour day in the saddle kind of way. I've got over 40 Gb of music to run through on the ride to and from Oregon, so I'm not worried about running out of tunes.

The real test for the IASUS will be if I can listen to podcasts in my helmet without missing any content. If I can, then I'll be able to catch up on my outstanding books-on-tape on the way to ride the twisties of the Pacific Northwest.

Next post: my experience installing throttlemeisters on my motorcycle (think: cruise control for motorcycles).

Only 10 days till the road trip!

favorite new texting application

I've grown so accustomed to ignoring the reminder beeps on my Treo, that I need another way to capture my attention that it's time to do something.

Enter: oh, don't forget...

It's a killer app where you plug in your cell number, a date and time to be reminded and the subject you need reminding of.

At the appointed time, the reminder comes in to your cell phone as a text message (I pay a lot more attention to these than the other beeps and boops) telling you it's time to move the car or it's time to head out for that doc appointment or it's time to schedule the visit to the vet.

Bonus: I can sign up my significant other to be reminded, too (as long as she's game for it).

our corn's first silks

our corn's first silks
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

Just uploaded a set of photos of our backyard garden. This is the first time (as an adult) I've grown corn, so I'm amazed to see the formation of the ears coming... and fascinated by the site of our first silks.

See the set here.

surfing shoulders

In Cory Doctorow's boingboing post today about David Byrne's blog (still with me?), he captured exactly what I enjoy so much about blogging and reading blogs:

This is one of the things I love most about blogs: getting to shoulder-surf thinkers who make me smarter.

Well said, Cory. And thanks for the blogging you do to make me smarter.

i-ACT 2007: gabriel's return to africa

Gabriel Stauring is one of those folks I find myself admiring more and more as time goes by. He's now chronicling his third trip to the Darfur region of Africa over at the i-ACT page on StopGenocideNow.org.

When I first encountered Gabriel in the omidyar.net online community, we were both just beginning to learn about the atrocities committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. Since then, Gabriel's been a man on a mission, c-founding StopGenocideNow.org and dedicating the lionshare of his waking moments to raising awareness about what's happening in Africa on top of acting as a Family Consultant, providing in-home therapy for abused children and their families.

I've had the privilege of meeting Gabriel face-to-face once, and he's got all the hallmark qualities of a strong, silent leader: humility, approachability, drive and charisma. And I admire how he's using technology to support his work:

i-ACT is Interactive ACTivism:

• We use technology to reject the standard excuse of inaction - ignorance
• We debunk the myth that ordinary people cannot stop genocide
• We replace statistics with names, faces and stories

The age of bystanders should long have passed - we have entered an age of knowledge which empowers us to protect. Join us as an upstander. Become an i-ACTivist.

The first time I heard Gabriel was headed to Darfur, I was concerned his passion to do something about the situation was blinding him to the very real possibility something bad would happen to him. Instead, through his blogging and v-logging what was happening on the ground there in Darfur, he provided a glimpse for me and thousands of others the humanity effected by this seemingly-far-away atrocity. He made it more real for me than ever before, and I know now it's because it was Gabriel who was sharing his experience, not some unknown-yet-credentialed reporter parachuting in to capture 90 seconds of news.

When I heard Gabriel was going back to Darfur, my fear for his safety didn't materialize like it had the first time. Instead, I found myself hoping that what he'd see was measured improvement since the prior year. As he (and his travel companion Stacy) posted: things weren't much better, and in some cases, things were worse.

And now, less than a year since he was last in Darfur, he's back again. Please join me bearing witness to the story Gabriel has to share. He's posting daily at i-ACT3. Become an upstander with me. Tell five friends of Gabriel's work. Ask them to do the same.

Let's remove the excuse of ignorance from standing in the way of progress for this important cause. Stop Genocide Now.

q&a with Mike Grier

Found this nice treat on the San Jose Sharks web site: a Q&A with Mike Grier.

Those who've followed my blog for a while know I'm a huge fan of Grier's, and this Q&A only reinforces his status as a class-act.

Now that the Sharks are re-tooling their logo and introducing those (ugh) new-style jerseys this season, I think it's time to take the plunge and augment my Washington Capitals Grier sweater with a Sharks Grier sweater, too.

Can't wait for the hockey season to start again. Only 2 months until training camp!

my simpsons avatar

My Simpsons Avatar
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

also called: fun with 2-D graphics.

While I aspire to have pants this orange (but not feet this tiny), I don't think I could ever wear them out in public.

We'll see if my avatar makes it to another part of the Simpsons movie site (let me know if you see it!).

You can make your own avatar here

video of battle at kruger

Thanks to Robert, our tour guide at Safari West this week (review of the trip to come later), I was turned on to the amateur safari video below that shows a battle between lions, crocodiles and Cape buffalo. It's worth watching every second of the eight-minute-plus footage.



If not for Robert's educating us on the toughness of the Cape (don't-call-me-water) buffalo, I wouldn't have guessed the eventual winner.

Evidently, the buffalo don't get mad, they get even, and they bring the whole family.

UPDATE: I see that Time magazine has a review of the Battle at Kruger video posted online, too, and it goes a little deeper into the science/behavior stuff (of both the subjects and the video's viewers on YouTube)

cool new toys for the birthday

This evening, finally got my birthday gifts from my wife and kids, and she really surprised me this year (again!):

I got a bunch of new gadgets for my Canon Powershot S1-IS camera, including filters (polarized, UV filter, etc) and two new lenses (a 2.2 Telephoto and a .45 Macro Wide Angle) along with a carrying case for all and some tripods.

Nice timing, as we're about to take my folks to Safari West for an overnight stay and safari tour. Can't wait to add more photos to my Flickr stream.

woodland home in wales

Catching up on boingboing feeds today led me to this fantastic (in all senses of the word) web site detailing how a low-impact woodland home came into being.

I especially enjoy the "how" tab showing it rise from the meadow. If only there were a time-lapse of the build, I'd be in heaven.

I'm rather jealous of his skills, even though he professes not to have any:

Oh and by the way I am not a builder or carpenter, my experience is only having a go at one similar house 2yrs before and a bit of mucking around inbetween. This kind of building is accessible to anyone. My main relevant skills were being able bodied, having self belief and perseverance and a mate or two to give a lift now and again.

Perseverance indeed.

DVDs up-converted to 720 from a Mac?

As I've previously posted, the Planet Earth series on Discovery Channel was eye-poppingly amazing on our Toshiba plasma TV. Definitely worth filling up the HD DVR with those episodes.

My lovely wife noted how much I liked Planet Earth and got me the HD DVD version for Father's Day. The only problem: we don't have a HD DVD player in the house. So, she exchanged for the standard definition DVD format, and, wow, what a difference it makes (unfortunately, not in a good way). I miss my Planet Earth in High Def!

Back in January, I blogged about our A/V tech stack, and you'll notice there's a distinct lack of a DVD player in there outside what's available via our Mac mini. So, I see a couple paths ahead:

1. Get a new standalone DVD player (HD? Blu-Ray? which format's gonna win?) and figure out how to get yet another HDMI cable into and through our HK AVR245. (a DVR and a Mac and a DVD player, oh my!) The AVR245's only got two HDMI inputs, and I'm reaaaally reluctant to go back to an external switcher, especially given the 245's handling of the audio separately from the video.
   
2. Figure out how to get an HD player inside our Mac Mini (highly unlikely, but a man can dream, no?)
3. Figure out how to get our Mac Mini to upconvert the DVD it plays from 480 to 720 (feels like this could be a fruitful path)

I'll give #3 a shot and blog about my progress.

UPDATE: Didn't take too long to find the following sage advice (dollop of common sense?) in an HD forum regarding upconverting from 480p to 720p:

[I]f you're expecting the results to look better than the original standard-def DVD, you'll be disappointed. There is no conversion process that can add detail that isn't present in the original. You will in fact lose some quality because the target resolution isn't an exact multiple of the original.

Looks like I'll just have to "settle" for the standard-def look and enjoy catching Planet Earth on Discovery HD now and then.

a use case for twitter

Last night, after having to reset our HR20 HD DVR (again), the wife and I settled in to watch another episode of "Last Comic Standing." (LCS)

We both enjoy seeing standup comedy, and the majority of the times we've cried together have been thanks to the hilarity of a newly discovered standup comedian on a televised stage.

Anyway, as we're watching LCS go to commercial break, we discover NBC is trying to milk more money out of the audience by displaying the setup of a joke on screen and inviting folks to text a number to get the punch line. 

The hitch? it costs 99 cents for the privilege of getting the punch line, and the setups all look to be about 5th grade humor, at best.

So, why not nominate someone to pony up 99 cents to get the punch line and then tweet it to the collective Twitter? Simply keep the public twitter timeline open during broadcast, and you'll save at least $5 each over the course of a show!

Maybe one of the other 200,000 viewers of LCS will take the bait?

our special netflix membership program

For the first time I can remember, we've finally hit our quota in the number of Netflix DVDs we can have in any given month.

It's not too much to brag about, as we're on the 2 at-a-time (4 a month) plan, but if you knew our viewing habits, you'd be impressed that it's taken this long since we joined Netflix back in November 2004.

Why's this a blog-worthy event? Well, for giggles, I decided to see how long we have to wait before starting a new month (June 26) and how much it'd cost to be on the 2 at-a-time (unlimited) plan.

I follow the convenient embedded hyperlink to the Change Membership page and see this friendly notice at the bottom:

Please Note: You are currently on a special membership program.

If you change your membership, you will lose this special program.

Sure enough, as I scan the membership selections (who the heck has time for 8 at-a-time?), there's no such thing as a 2 at-a-time (4 a month) plan to be seen for my rate of $11.99 a month. I can pay $3 more to lift the monthly limit or $2 less to get 1 at-a-time unlimited.

I kinda like my inexpensive, yet special, status. So for now, at least, I'll keep what I've got.

favorite firefox keyboard shortcuts

I've been using Firefox since it was in beta, and it's only recently I've discovered keyboard shortcuts over and above the standard command-L to put the cursor in the URL bar. Given the number of other Firefox users that are surprised when I share the tips, I thought I'd put them up here for all to share:

NOTE: I'm a Mac user, so most of these shortcuts use the Command (aka "Apple") Key in combination with a letter/number. I've shortened the key name to be, simply, Cmd. I assume this equates to "Ctrl" on the PC, but ymmv.

• Cmd+L = puts the cursor in URL bar
• Cmd+K = puts the cursor in the web search box to the right of the URL
  
• bar (defaults to Google Search)
  
• Cmd+T = opens a new tab
  
• Cmd+[number key] = toggles the browser to the tab corresponding to the number pressed (counting left-to-right)
  
• spacebar = page down
  
• shift+spacebar = page up

And a bonus, Apple-only key command that's not limited to Firefox:

Ctrl+Alt+Cmd+8 = reverses the colors on the display (press the key
combo again to toggle back). I find this feature very useful when
using my laptop outdoors when it's really bright and sunny. Makes the
screen much easier to read.

Anyone else got some favorite keyboard shortcuts for Firefox?

ok computer is ten years old!?!

Spooky to learn that Radiohead's OK Computer was released ten years ago tomorrow in the UK. (thanks, kottke)

That is, spooky in a "where did the time go?" sense. I still get the shivers when I hear the opening guitar wail on Airbag, as I know I'm in for a solid hour of brilliance courtesy the boys in the band.

It took me quite a few listens to appreciate the artistry of the track "Fitter Happier" but now I find it a welcome reminder of my time using the funky text-to-speech feature on Apple computers that provided hours of entertainment listening to the man-in-the-box read aloud a string of profanities. Ah, good times.

In honor of its release anniversary (and again on July 1 when it was released State-side), I'll be sure to spend some hammock time listening to the whole thing via iPod tomorrow. Won't you join me from the comfy place of your choosing?

new UI design on the DirecTV HR20 HD DVR

Looks like the graphic designers at DirecTV had a few extra cycles to burn, so they've updated the UI and color scheme on the HR20's navigation.

The first sign of the new look is on the warning/welcome screen that pops up as soon as you click any of the menu buttons on your receiver. Besides touting a new "lighter" color scheme, the feature they tout the most is the fact you can now easily see what the colored buttons on the remote are for. That's it?

What I've noticed so far:

• multiple episodes of the same show now show up in the list as one item with a folder icon next to it (replaces the old right-facing arrow)
• help text on what the colored buttons are for have moved from directly under the minimized live picture (upper right) to the strip along the bottom of the screen. Yes, more conspicuous, but it now seems like we've lost some vertical space that otherwise should be used to display program info. The six lines of program info seems overwhlemed by everything else on the screen, and now the space under the minimized live picture is dead space.
  
• the lighter colors (lots of white and light blue) definitely brightens the interface up from the old dark-blue-and-gold scheme (I guess the Cub Scouts sued to get their colors back). The drawback to the new light-and-airy scheme? You're completely overwhelmed by it when catching up on your recorded shows at night in a darkened house. It's as if someone turned all the lights on again, and it takes a moment for your eyes adjust enough to read what's on the screen.
• Navigating through programs (play, ffwd, rewind, skip) brings up a newly designed progress bar overlay across the bottom of the program image that I swear is twice as big as it used to be. So much for trying to fast forward through sporting events... you lose the bottom third of the image (and therefore stats and scores) thanks to this new progress bar. ick.
  

I'll give the new look another week before I firm up an opinion on like v dislike.

One remote control trick I've learned for the HR20 is the ability to put markers on a recorded show to easily skip back to them next time I watch. Here's how:

During playback of a recorded show, pause the recording and press the green button to creates a bookmark. You'll see it show up as a little notch on the progress bar. To move to a bookmark, click the menu button and then select the desired bookmark from the menu and the HR20 DVR jumps directly to the scene you bookmarked.

UPDATE: A couple more "hidden" features to the HR20 as announced in DirecTV's e-newsletter:

• Group Play—Play recorded shows continuously, one after the other. Press "Play" on a folder of recorded shows in your Playlist to enable this feature.
  
• Display Options—Your grid guide can now page up and down faster. To enable this feature, press "MENU", then go to Help & Settings > Setup > Display and turn "Scrolling Effects" OFF.

growing upside-down tomatoes, day 75

Upside down tomato plant after 75 days
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

We're 75 days into our upside-down tomato experiment (click the picture to get access to the set of photos documenting the growth so far).

Compared to the three plants that are in the ground, this thing's a monster... at least four times as voluminous as the others. My concern about this hanging plant is that it looks big and beautiful but it my not set fruit, even though it's flowering.

Granted, this isn't a controlled experiment between the hanging plant and the terrestrial plants: the watering schedule and volume are different (down below, they're on a timed drip irrigation system). Also, the ground itself isn't as rich and nutritious as what's in the hanging bucket.

The experiment isn't close to being over, however, and I have my fingers crossed we'll be plucking yellow pear tomatoes from underneath the hanging bucket for the entire month of July.

:UPDATE: I took a closer look at the plant last night and counted at least a dozen tomato fruits in various stage of development. We have fruit! w00t!

file under: so what if we don't eat it?

A Page One promo on WSJ.com today reveals this tidbit (reg required to follow the link):

Estonia Chooses a National Fish

Estonia's effort to forge a post-Soviet national identity hinges, in part, on Baltic herring. Following an emotional debate, Estonia selected the small, oily animal as its national fish. One problem: few Estonians actually eat it.

It got me thinking: what would the Journal have written back in June, 1782 when the Continental Congress officially adopted the Seal of the United States with its Bald Eagle grasping arrows and an olive branch? Probably something along the likes of:

United States Chooses a National Bird

The United State's effort to forge a post-English national identity hinges, in part, on the Bald Eagle. Following an emotional debate, the Continental Congress selected the bird of prey as its national bird. One problem: few Americans actually eat it.

Of course, if Benjamin Franklin had his way with nominating the turkey as our national bird, we'd be munching away on it daily.

grocery shopping just got easier

Got a promo today introducing me to the new Amazon Grocery Store and I think I've finally found the solution to getting all our regularly used non-perishables that avoids driving to the store.

Since we're an Amazon.com Prime customer, we get all-you-can-eat free second-day shipping on items. Couple that with the fact most of our shopping list items stay on the chalkboard in our kitchen at least two days, and there's no real difference between buying from Amazon.com or going down to the local Safeway.

(I'd looked into buying groceries from Safeway.com, but decided I didn't want to pay the $4.95 delivery fee... call me cheap)

So, now we can get our big bulky items like Diapers or Pet Supplies for the dog or even Gourmet Spices in bulk.

A quick scan shows that prices are quite competitive, and most the brands I'd buy at the local store are carried.

Will give it a whirl and post later how it worked for us. Any other Amazon Grocery Store customers out there?

copper river salmon for dinner(s)

copper river chinook filet
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

Tonight, I cut up the rest of the salmon we're not going to eat in the next couple days for the deep-freeze.

I still can't believe the color of the meat on these wild-caught salmon. Definitely not pale like their farm-raised cousins. We got a great price on them, ($8.99 per pound after haggling with the fishmonger) and the cooler seemed to keep them fine on the flight from SeaTac to SFO after the TSA folks confiscated our ice.

I prepared our first filet by pan-frying it with thinly-sliced onions. Here's how:

• Started by heating up olive oil and a dab of butter in a 10-inch saute pan at medium-high until the butter sizzled.
  
• Then, lay the filet skin-side down in the pan and cooked two minutes before flipping it over (with care!) to cook skin-side up for another two minutes.
  
• Toss in half an onion thinly sliced and cover.
  
• Cook for six minutes or so on medium-low heat until the fish is done.
  
• Remove the fish and set aside to keep it warm.
  
• Blast the heat under the onions and deglaze the pan with about 1/4 cup water plus 2 Tbsp lemon juice.
  
• Once the sauce reduces by half (and the onions are translucent), pour the sauce over the salmon, garnish with lemon wedges and serve over rice.

Melt-in-your-mouth delicious!

Tomorrow night: we broil it

cool design: US govt budget

I'm a fan of interesting and new graphic representations of otherwise mundane data, and this poster of how the US government's budget is allocated: Death and Taxes certainly fits the bill.

Not only is the design cool, but the interface to zoom in and out on the web page is clever as well. (a two-fer!)

airline lost our child's car seat

The kicker on our trip home from Seattle last night was the fact that two of our three pieces made it to SFO with us, just fine.

The missing (crucial) piece of luggage that didn't show up was the car seat for our youngest. I'd been keeping an eye on the odd-size luggage window which is where the car seats are usually delivered, but no luck there. So, after watching the both the odd-size window open and close and the luggage carousel spin for 45 minutes AFTER we'd taken our first two bags off, it was clear no more pieces were coming through. Finally, it was time to make the fateful trip to the baggage claim agents to inquire what was up.

I was able to narrow down which of the bar code claim tickets belonged to the car seat and handed it over to the agent asking for an update on the status of my kid's checked car seat.

"Oh, this didn't even scan," said the agent, looking back and forth between the ticket and her computer screen.

Translation: it didn't even make it INTO the system at SeaTac, so no way it was going to arrive at SFO that night. She apologized for the inconvenience while handing me a form and a pen.

While I was filling out the United Airlines Delayed Baggage Report form, the agent disappeared into a side office.

Then the amazing thing happened: she re-emerged with a brand new Even-Flo car seat for us to use until United was able to find our missing car seat and deliver it to us. We'd simply hand over the loaner when our own was delivered.

Call me a cynic, but I'd fully expected a shoulder shrug and apology, not a replacement seat. So, what could have been a really bad experience turned out to be a redemptive customer service exchange. Nice touch.

Oh, and her final tip for me: don't bother calling the 800-number on the back of the Delayed Baggage Report... call the United Premier Exec dedicated customer support line instead.

Traveling thru SeaTac (boo Hertz)

Couple random observations about traveling through SeaTac this past weekend:

• Always, ALWAYS check for car rental contract before driving away. I've got Hertz Gold, so I can go straight to my car. Did so this time and noticed the contract wasn't there. Spent 5 minutes in the Hertz VIP lounge with several other folks in the same boat. Time well spent, as when we drove out of the rental car garage (and into the rain) to the gate where you show license and contract, there were several cars pulled over to the side with flashers on. I overheard one of the gate agents comment "none of them got their contracts, call those Hertz [folks] and get them out here now!" The agent didn't say "folks" but you get the idea.
• When Hertz says "Green class" and offers you a Toyota Camry, it is NOT the Camry hybrid. I fell for the marketing (and paid $3 a day extra for the privilege), and the extra room in the car was worth it, but if you think you're going hybrid in Hertz's Green Class, save your money.
  
• Pulling into the Hertz car return 36 hours after leaving, the three folks working the return lanes simultaneously gestured for me to get into three separate lanes. I finally picked the one closest to where I wanted to go and stopped the car. The return agents then bickered at each other in a language I couldn't understand until finally one of them started checking out the car for damage. I'm not one for hand-holding at car-return, but a simple "Hi, how was the car, sorry we were confusing you," would go a long way.
  
• If you buy fish at Pike Place Market thinking you can carry it on the plane, be warned that TSA is under strict orders to confiscate your ice. Yes, you read that right. We spent an extra 1o minutes at security as the agent struggled to open our odorless cooler to extract two small ice blocks from within. Given there are no pointy objects available at the checkpoint (they must be discarded prior to screening), it was amusing to watch the guy struggle to get thru the packing tap. No, I wasn't about to volunteer my car key to help, for fear of getting the key confiscated as a potentially deadly weapon, too. The whole remove-the-ice trick was security theater at its finest, and I'm glad our flight was short enough that the prized package of Copper River Salmon filets didn't spoil. Isn't there some way the Pike Place fishmongers can work out something with the TSA folks to mitigate this problem? (oh, and to the TSA lady who suggested we check the box of fish: I'd rather we not just give it away to the baggage handlers... I'd rather keep it close to me for the duration of our trip.)
  

In all, I have to say I'm less than impressed by our trip through SeaTac. I am, however, really impressed with the Seattle area and won't let the airport experience stop me from coming back again.

the fast security lane at SFO

the family is flying to Seattle this morning, and since I saw how busy things were coming back into SFO from Boston last Saturday morning, I knew security would be a looooong wait.

We (me, the wife and two small girls) got to the security line a good 90 minutes before boarding. When we got to the TSA agent to present our IDs, she asked how many of us were together (four) and then she whisked us around the long lines and to a special lane with hardly any wait.

I thought we were going to be subjected to the new puffer technology (where you step inside an enclosed machine and it shoots puffs of air at you from head to toe), but no. What did all the people in this lane have in common? we all were traveling with small children.

Brilliant.

Take those obviously prone to gum up the security screening procedures and give them their special lane. Keeps the other lanes moving quickly, and enables the comraderie and patience of new parents to help each other out.

I even saw them letting the wheelchair bound thru the same lane as us.

A gold star to whomever thought this crowd control measure up.

Maybe I'll borrow a kid next time I need to fly.

serving time at the DMV isn't as bad as it used to be

Someone stole the plate off our minivan yesterday, and the first thing I did after consoling Left Coast Mom for the bad luck of finding was to go to the California DMV site and try to set up an appointment so as to avoid spending tons of time in the lobby.

Yes, we could have driven around a while sans plate (we had a police report to back up our claim of the plate being stolen), but LCMom wasn't too thrilled at the thought of driving around without everything being legit. I don't blame her.

However, the earliest appointment available at the DMV was on June 14... over a week away.

I screwed up my courage and decided to go in as soon as the local DMV office opened this morning at 8am and wait it out.

One thing conspired with another, and I didn't actually make it to the DMV until 10 past 8. 

Imagine my surprise when I not only walked straight up to the DMV air-traffic-control person (the multilingual one who says, "why are you here? here's your form... here's your number.. wait over there" all day long). 

I got my form, sat down, and if I hadn't hurried to complete it, I would've had to do so standing in front of the clerk waiting to serve me.

I was walked out of the DMV at 8:20a with brand new plates.

For years, I've given the DMV a bad rap as "the great equalizer that makes everyone wait a long time no matter your stature in life." 

I stand corrected. Color me impressed.

sculpture garden under the sea off Grenada

In catching up on my boingboing feeds, I'm just now finding out about Jason Taylor's Underwater Sculpture garden off the coast of Grenada.

The sculptures are life-sized human forms that he's carefully placed in 4 to 9 meters of water off the west coast of Grenada. It's a simple concept, yet he's executed it brilliantly.

While the still photo gallery gives a great overview of the pieces, I'm a sucker for video, and the piano etude playing in the background is the perfect choice for this 2 minute video tour. And if you're like me and wonder just how Jason did it all, he's even shared pix of his process.

My favorite pieces are the Vicissitudes (a circle of standing human forms in 4.5m of water) and the hauntingly beautiful La Diablesse at 7.5m. Yet another reason to head back to the West Indies.

new home for the chooks

new home for the chooks,
originally uploaded by thomas pix.

The Eglu has arrived, and after a little more than an hour, I was able to put it together and move the girls in.

I was really impressed with the way the packaging was handled... the Omlet folks have done a splendid job with the product design. The only nits to pick are with the instructions on how to set things up, and the expectation for how long it'll take.

The instructions start with the sentence "Assembling the eglu and run - this shouldn't take much more than 20 minutes and is very simple."

Very simple? Yes.

20 minutes? No. Not even. Maybe if you've been putting these things together for years and are racing a fellow employee for bragging rights you can do it in 20 minutes, but for the average Joe (or Thomas as the case may be)... plan on an hour.
The handy "The Omlet Guide" included with the eglu was surprisingly informative and entertaining in addition to instructional regarding how to set up the 'glu.

In all, I'm very pleased with our purchase. But I already miss hearing the girls' cheep cheep as I type my blog. Hope they're sleeping safe and sound in their new eglu.

Note: this is a duplicate post of what's appearing over on my Urban Chickens blog. I inadvertently published it here straight from my Flickr account, but it's worth keeping here if for nothing but the cool technology that the eglu represents.

ten years of cathedrals and bazaars

Wow. I just was reminded that this month marks the ten year anniversary of
publication of the seminal essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar (links to First Monday version).

As I was first starting to explore the whole open source/mass collaboration
phenomena, this essay had an enormous impact on my understanding what was
to come. It's worth reading again (which I will do to mark the occasion).

how to reproduce 36k ft thinking at sea level?

Today is not the first time I've had some holy-smokes! strategic insight blind-side me mid-flight.

I'm just about to pass over my 50,000th mile flying in the last three months, and besides the toll of the cramped seating arrangement and the challenge of liquids (both to consume and to expend), the cocoon of air travel actually presents me a very fertile space for big-picture thinking.

I divided up this flight into three segments (all segments soundtracked with noise-canceling Shure e4c headphones and a random playlists on my iPod).

• In the first segment, I caught up on all the short articles I'd been printing out and stashing in my "flight folder" (Tom Friedman opinions, CIO mag leadership articles, conference prep materials)
• [break for food and drink]
• in the second segment, I dove into the book I'm plowing through right now (The Difference by Scott E. Page)
• [break for short nap]
• in the final segment, I read all my RSS feeds offline to get inspired by a whole plethora of different perspectives, and that's when the insights hit.

The ideas flow like water, and I madly dash the notes down in an email to myself. And here I sit wondering what is it about hurtling through space that enables this kind of thinking.

Much as I don't want to admit it, I think the catalyst is the one-two-three punch:

• my cocoon of iPod-laced sound
• the lack of distractions from others around me asking questions
  
• and, gulp, the complete lack of internet connectivity.
  

Without connectivity, there's no way for me to satisfy my curiosities by following the links in my RSS reader, so I gobble up the static ideas and perspectives quickly... and that leads the neurons to fire in ways they otherwise don't.

Next time I'm inclined to spend sleepless hours in the middle of the night surfing the web (yes, undisturbed, but no music playing), I'll instead try to reproduce the airplane experience: pop on the iPod, sign off the web and then see if I can get into an uncomfortable seating position.

Bonus points if I can endure the awkward tug of both a full bladder and a dry tongue for full replication of the high-level thinking environment that seems abundant at 36,000 feet.

too many netflix dvds unplayable

Over the weekend, Left Coast Mom and I finally got a chance to sit down and watch The Pursuit of Happyness, courteous our Netflix subscription.

Well, we got to watch the first hour and fifteen minutes of it. Then the damn thing froze and we couldn't get the rest of it to play. I tried cleaning the DVD (per Netflix suggestion) but no dice. We were stuck at the beginning of the Taxes Due chapter (21) and unable to skip ahead. Lots of forced quits of the Mac Mini's DVD player before we finally gave up.

If this were the first time this'd happened, I might be more understanding, but we seem to have run into a slew of unplayable DVDs from Netflix.

Yes, Netflix is more than happy to quickly replace the unplayable DVD, but that's at least a three-day-long solution, and the nights are few and far in between when both LCM and I hit the parenting trifecta of 1) kids in bed and asleep on time, 2) caught up on DVR shows and 3) have at least two hours before we fall dead asleep.

We're on the 2 at-a-time (4 a month) program specifically because we hit the trifecta so seldomly. Now that we're running into unplayable DVDs, to boot, we may just have to reapportion our $12 a month movie habit over to HBO instead of Netflix.

We just got billed, so I'll give Netflix until end of June before making the decision. If we get yet another unplayable DVD, we'll switch.

the feature creep conundrum

James Surowiecki (of Wisdom of the Crowds fame) has a great article about Feature Creep in this coming Monday's May 28 issue of the New Yorker. In the article, he adroitly addresses the painful situation that technology producers have found themselves in now that design cycles are relatively short, innovation is relatively cheap and the consumer feedback loop is so short:

This spiral of complexity, often called “feature creep,” costs consumers time, but it also costs businesses money. Product returns in the U.S. cost a hundred billion dollars a year, and a recent study by Elke den Ouden, of Philips Electronics, found that at least half of returned products have nothing wrong with them. Consumers just couldn’t figure out how to use them.

Surowiecki points out that a lot of Feature Creep problems stem from the internal-audience problem where the developers themselves don't use the very products they're developing and therefore have no idea how crappy the end product turns out.

I learned at AOL to combat the internal-audience problem by making the producers use the actual goods they're making (aka "eating your own dog food"). Back in 1998, when my team created the 1-2-3 Publish and Easy Designer home page publishing tools, you bet I used them to make and maintain my own AOL Hometown page (still there after all these years. Ah, good times).

The number of features we didn't include in the basic publishing tool was huge, and not all of them fell off the list because of scarce development resources... we had constant battles to strip down the 1-2-3 Publish tool to be as lean as possible so newbie web publishers wouldn't get distracted by gizmos on their way to creating their first web page.

Of course, as a product manager, I cheated by throwing all the gee-whiz features intended for 1-2-3 Publish instead into the specs for Easy Designer, the WYSIWYG publishing tool. The price we paid for including all these things was comically bloated html code in the resulting published pages. As long as you don't view source, the products not all that bad.

I still make sure to use the tools I produce, but my primary interaction with feature creep now is as a consumer. I fancy myself to be a geek and take pride in making as much use of features on my gizmos as possible, only if I have time to study and learn and ham-fist my way through menus of options.

I've come to expect that part of the purchase equation I've internalized is that I'm willing to pay for high-end stuff and yet use only a tenth of the features available on that stuff. Case in point, my Harman Kardon AVR245. Of the 70 buttons on the remote, I use only 5 of them (power, volume up, volume down, FM, HDMI) when I'm not just manually pushing buttons on the receiver itself. That fact in itself tells you just how much of the capacity of the AVR245 I'm using. However, I love the sound quality of the AVR a lot, and even that's an understatement.

I'd like to say I bought the AVR245 specifically because of its sound quality and not because of all the cool kick-ass features I'll some day use, but that's not true. I bought it for the feature set (and the sound quality!), and that's exactly the conundrum Surowiecki talks about in his article:

as numerous studies have shown, people are not, in general, good at predicting what will make them happy in the future. As a result, we will pay more for more features because we systematically overestimate how often we’ll use them. We also overestimate our ability to figure out how a complicated product works.

Maybe I'll spend Memorial Day learning how to use another button on the remote.

yet another bug with the HR20 HD DVR

More bizarre behavior from our DirecTV HR20 DVR has recently cropped up:

When we press the 30-second skip ahead button, the DVR actually rewinds about 15 seconds before starting to skip ahead 30 seconds. It doesn't happen every time we press the skip button. And it seems more likely to happen when the show we're playing back is within the first five minutes of the recording.

No, I'm not fat-fingering the skip button and accidentally hitting the replay button (my fingers aren't that big, thanks), and I can't understand why this bug has appeared now.

Our latest upgrade (to software version 0x145) happened on Friday 3/30/07 at 1:47am. Nothing has changed recently in our setup, so I'm stumped about this one.

I'd resisted posting about the HR20 for a long time because I didn't want to jinx our good luck with the latest software build. However, this rewind-before-skipping-ahead "feature" is getting a little annoying.

Oh, and another beef that I've got with the way the HR20 sets up series to record: if there are multiple broadcasts of a show (like the Daily Show or Deadline or Art Mann Presents), the DVR records the earlier broadcast, even if you choose the later broadcast to avoid overlaps with other recordings. Annoying.

But hey, at least I'm not losing programs anymore. (fingers-crossed)

turning old CDs into something valuable

Thanks to a BB post, I see that a couple of those old CD-ROMs I've been lugging around since I moved from San Francisco to DC back in 1995 might actually be worth something, at least from a patent-busting point of view.

Overly quoting the EFF story here (but for good cause):

A company called Acacia has claimed a patent on an “information distribution system” that amounts to the idea of shipping a CD-ROM that contains hyperlinks to online resources. (EFF is currently working on busting another Acacia patent that covers streaming audio and video over the Internet.)

To help bust this overly broad patent, we are looking for prior art that shows the use of this technology before 1994. Specifically, we are seeking the following items:

1. NetNews CD-ROMs, sold by Sterling Software, preferably volumes #1 through #35. These CDs may have been also available through CD Publishing Corporation.

or

2. Other CD-ROMs that were distributed in 1993 or earlier that contained
hypertext content or were installation disks for applications that linked to Internet content.

Information about these or similar items is greatly appreciated. Submit tips to Philip H. Albert with Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP.

Can't wait to dig through my file boxes to see if I've got a golden ticket!

my favorite Treo 650 map app

I'm still oozing with gushy feelings over having found the Google Mobile Map application yesterday (thanks to the folks blogging at WWD).

This lightweight little app (480KB download) brings all the power of web-based Google Maps to your handheld (mine's a Treo 650) with surprisingly quick speed and decent resolution:

• real-time traffic data
• detailed directions (written and illustrated)
• search results displayed on screen
• satellite images

I couldn't be more pleased to have this little app. What's more, it's not browser-bound, so I don't have to go through the slow launch process of pulling up the web every time I want to use the maps.

w00t!

The only other Treo app that I've found even close to this clever and useful is the Caltrain Schedule for Palm OS, but now that I'm a mile from work, no need to slavishly consult the "next train" info for me.

i remember her when...

Over a bowl of Grape Nuts at breakfast, I was glancing over the list of attendees at the white-tie dinner for the Queen at the White House last night, and what caught my eye were the names of two different pro football players in attendance: Peyton Manning and Timothy Hasselbeck.

Perhaps Dubya thought it proper to have some footballers in attendance for the Queen? (shhh, don't tell him).

What stood out all the more was the fact that Elisabeth Hasselbeck was in attendance with her husband (or was he with her?). Yes, she's a co-host of "The View" now and all that.

But this is also the same Elisabeth (Filarski) that we watched sweat through a season of Survivor Australia to finish in fourth place.

Who could have thought she'd go from getting eaten alive by flies in the Outback to an audience with the Queen?

Just goes to show that life is funny sometimes... and there's no way to know what's coming next.

when the party's over...

My beloved Sharks managed to lose in the second round of the playoffs (again). This, after being up two games to one in the series against the Red Wings.

I was at the game last night, and it seemed like after the initial 15 minutes of trying to score, the Sharks, as a team, shrugged their collective shoulders and gave in. It didn't help that we were sitting in front of a couple obnoxious some-time fans of the game (see Left Coast Mom's description of the experience), but it was still great to get in one more game at the Shark Tank this year.

So, the 2007 Stanley Cup will be won by the better of the Ducks/Red Wings or the Sabers/Senators. Don't even know whom to root for in those matchups.

And, after a day or two of beating up the Sharks in the local papers, hockey will be relegated to its usual 4 column inches per week in the Mercury News.

On the bright side: only four more (hot) months until preseason starts!

name change or revised history?

Courtesy a kottke.org link, I discovered this Air & Space article on the First Photo from Outer Space.

Turns out that shortly after WWII, scientists launched a V-2 missile into outer space from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The rocket had on board a 35mm motion picture camera, and it reached an altitude of 65 miles at its apex. The missile crashed to earth, and the camera broke (as you'd expect) but the film survived in its steel case.

Several of the film stills were stitched together to form a panorama that showed over a million square miles of the Southwestern United States. More specifically, of New Mexico, a state I grew up in.

And beyond the golly-gee-willikers nature of the shot, I'm amazed to see that the Jemez Mountains, the mountains I grew up at the foot of for ten years, are called out in the panorama as the "Valle Grande Mts."

Huh. I'd always known that the caldera that makes up the vast interior of the Jemez Mountains was the "Valle Grande" (and more specifically, "Baca Land" after the family that owned the vast expanse).

Granted, the photo was taken when the city of Los Alamos was freshly emerging from its secret-squirrel status as home of the Manhattan Project. But when did the name change? Or was the person in charge of labeling points of interest on the photo a little loosey-goosey with names?

Looking over at Wikipedia's entry on Jemez Mountains, I see that what I knew as "Valle Grande" is referred to by others as the "Valles Caldera." Wikipedia contribution, here I come!

use wordpress or blogger? blogger wins

Those following along know I'd started a new blog a week ago to track our progress as urban chicken farmers. I've used Blogger for over a year to publish this string of posts, and having blogged on the WordPress platform a few times as a guest blogger, decided to try something new.

After just five posts on WP, I've now moved the nascent Urban Chickens blog back to this platform. While you can still find the blog at http://urbanchickens.net, the domain now forwards here to myurbanchickens.blogspot.com. I'll be deleting the old WP blog this weekend.

Why did I pick Blogger over WordPress? for several reasons:

1. Knowing as much html and CSS as I do, it's easy to customize the Blogger template. To do the same on WP, I'd have to pay (literally) for the privilege. When I start creating artwork for the design, it'll be easy to add here on Blogger.
   
2. WP disallows all advertising and anything more than a few, relatively low-key affiliate links. I've got designs on building up enough niche traffic to Urban Chickens to warrant at least token advertising and affiliate income (enough to pay for chicken feed). Here on HVY TK, I've earned upwards of $10 in the last five months without really trying.
3. I'm comfortable with the Blogger interface. I know where to click to find things. I lived through the starting this blog pre-Beta and then moving to the now no-longer-Beta interface. Starting a new blog here on Blogger is incredibly easy.
   
4. I use Statcounter to track traffic, and WP didn't allow me to add it to my blog there. Here, I've just added the Urban Chickens blog as a new project. Piece of cake!
5. Finally, what I thought would be the deal clincher on WP is no longer a value-add: I can add guest bloggers (like left coast mom) to the Urban Chicken blog in a snap.

Glad to be back here. Be sure to change your feed readers!

WWO: walking to work everyday

(I'm participating in World Without Oil, and as of today, gas is up to $4.12 a gallon in this alternate reality game.)

I filled up my car for what I hope is the one and only time this month. Gas hit $4.12 a gallon, and that's up from $3.69 last week. I can't believe that it only took $0.50 a gallon to push me over the threshold, but driving a mile to work now feels like such a luxury, and one I can now do without.

No more weekend fun rides on the motorcycle -- it will stay in the garage unless I absolutely must travel to attend meetings outside the office, then I'll ride it (@ 45mpg) instead of driving the car (@ 22mpg). And if I can get away with Skype video conferences instead of face-to-face meetings, I will.

Glad I booked my June trip to Boston last week, as it looks as though airfares are shooting through the roof. And I'll take the T from the airport this time instead of a taxi. Who knows what the fuel surcharge will be at the end of the month?

cheep, cheep, meet the peep(s)

meet the chick!
Originally uploaded by thomas pix.

After much hemming and hawing and fence-sitting, we've finally got our chicks. Two Barred Rock pullets joined our family yesterday afternoon.

To spare regular readers all the bloggy details of raising chickens, I've started a new blog about them chicks here in my new blog Urban Chickens.

Only rarely will the chicken stuff bleed into this blog, and that'll only be when there's a technology or food angle to the post.