Day After Yesterday

I have played with 2 things in the last couple days that I had high hopes for, Google Reader from Google and Coda from Panic.

I usually use Safari’s built in RSS support to read my stuff. I had it nicely setup and organized. It pulls the feeds, and have each set of feeds in folders on my bookmarks bar. When a new article is posted, the number next to the folder name increments. Immediately. Works great. But, at the urging of others, I have decided to give firefox a hardcore try, as safari has been my preferred browser for a while.

So I switched default role to firefox, and poof, there went my RSS reader. I started to play with Sage, but I wasn’t impressed, as I did not find an easy way to add my existing feeds into it, and I was not about to manually go to each page again.

So I exported my feeds from Safari, and dumped them all into Google Reader. While I am on my own laptop all the time, a web based solution does have some benefits. The interface is nice, grouping via folders and tags is nice. The ability to pull out starred and shared items as its own RSS feed is a feature I was liking to feed this page.

The biggest problem I am having is that the update cycle on the feeds seems to suck. For example, as I type this, Robyn and Harper have both posted things. NEITHER of them are in the reader yet. Hell, I was just reading them on harpers aggregate site instead. Lame.

That might just be the deal breaker there, which is unfortunate, as I was kinda getting to like it. I think I will try Sage again, I am sure there is an import option. Otherwise that developer needs a swift kick in the shins.

Meanwhile… Coda was released, and it looked cool. Personally, I do all my coding in BBEdit. Pure text. I have also been using CSSEdit for some nice immediate gratification CSS tweaking. I don’t have a problem with WYSIWYG editors, but I can’t handle the code they produce. While the sites I personally run (my blogs, my horribly out of date other sites, etc) all are shit, the sites I produce for clients are perfect, code wise. Ok, perfect is not what I mean, but I ensure that they validate properly via W3C, I get all anal about tabs, space, and other white space things. I want my source to look right and be super clear. It is partially anal, partially because it makes it WAY easier to make a tweak 3-6 months down the road when I am not fresh on the page. And lets not get into the includes, I love includes.

So when I was reading the product page for Coda, I was intrigued. Sure, BBEdit already has the text environment, GREP, code coloring, etc. It doesn’t auto complete, but I often find that more annoying than it is worth. And BBEdit has built in FTP, so that is already there. But I was excited. I had a small 1 page brochure page that was a print piece that needed to be ‘web-ized’ and they wanted the same look. So I figured perfect chance to play with Coda in a real situation.

Lets just say I finished the site in BBEdit and CSSEdit. Coda operates on the premise that having a text editor, a FTP client, a reference library, and a browser open as multiple apps is a PITA, and thus having one app that does all that is easier. I have always preferred component stereos over all in ones, so I might be biased, but I didn’t see this as a strong point for Coda. I still have a finite amount of deskspace, and I still need to be in all those apps at some point, so I still have to click around alot. Savings, marginal. And I still need to test in multiple browsers, so the savings wasn’t insane. I found myself still bouncing into YummyFTP to make changes, due primarily in part to my next complaint.

Coda and I don’t lay things out the same way in terms of the file hierarchy. I like the have everything separate. Everything. Hell, Dylan recently got me on the concept of keeping the images for the layout and the images for the content in different places. I like keeping all the CSS organized and in their own files. So when Coda wants to put my styles in the file I am working on, albeit at the top and not inline, I was like, no. But Coda had already decided that. So I have to go and create the incl folders and CSS folders, etc, then move my files there manually, etc. All while Coda wanted to do it in the file. Their may be a way around that, but I couldn’t find it. And if I have to search much harder, it ceases to be a ‘feature’ or ‘option’.

Coda also lets you dev locally, then push ‘publish’ and sent the files to the server. But since I had to keep changing the file structure, that wasn’t working well for me, and I started having 2 branches of the development going, and resyncing them wasn’t seemingly easy. So there I was, 2 version of a 1 page site, using an app that wanted to do things that I was not all about, and boom, my time savings was gone. The convenience wasn’t there, and in fact, it was causing me problems.

I think Coda has some nice features. The standard IDE popup as you type style thing for CSS and PHP was nice, but not that awesome. I find the BBEdit built in FTP more than sufficient, and YummyFTP is easier when I am setting up the folder structure. I can dev locally, since it is OSX and I have MySQL, Apache, PHP, etc all here, so on the off chance I am not online (like, on a plane?) I can keep working provided I plan ahead a tiny bit. CSSEdit is hard to beat, and Coda was not better, but was nice none the less. I never bothered with the reference library, isn’t that what the internet is for?

I think Coda could be cool. I am sure for some people it is great. I think that when Coda 2.0 comes out, I will see if my issues have been resolved.

So overall, I haven’t been thrilled with my 2 new technology test drives. I haven’t given up on google reader yet, and it isn’t like it is hard to keep using it. I have given up on Coda though, atleast until next version. Time to try Sage I guess.

So I have been kind of quiet about work related stuff lately, and there are a few reasons for that. One reason is my boss has created this really weird work environment for me lately by sending me extremely rude emails. It is almost as if he is trying to make me quit. It is kind of insane. I am telling myself that it is a result of personal issues he is having and it is coming out in the wrong way. I have decided to not let them ruin my attitude though. I read them, and attempt to take whatever is in them that I can put to positive use and move on. Under all the anger that he appears to have in the emails, there is usually something that I can use and work on. It is just unfortunate that it is delivered in such a way. The most recent one did have a couple points that he clearly wants addressed, so I am doing my best to meet those requests, since that is how being an employee works.

One is being at work by 9am, which is fine. I started there as a consultant, so I had an off hour schedule. Eventually I became full time, and the start time was not an issue then, provided I worked 40 hours, which I always have, as I am not out to take advantage of anyone. But evidently the 9am thing is a larger issue now, so I have been coming in at 9am. It is kind of annoying, since that eliminates any time when I can do simple things like reboot the servers unless I stay late. We have a few people that come in really early (pre 8am) so I can’t really beat them into the office. But it isn’t the end of the world.

I am also trying to keep my work area organized better. While it wasn’t in the boss’s email, it is a good thing to do I guess. While personally, I can handle clutter and it is rare that I truly LOOSE something, it does at times make finding things I only need to use 1/year or something easier to find. It also makes my coworkers happy, so that is a plus.

At the same time, I have decided to not do work outside of work. I used to read the work email when I wasn’t at work, go through the work SPAM filters to look for false-positives, check on the servers, etc. I have decided that runs dangerously close to ruining my time off (and at times, has). Thus I turn off those email accounts when I am not at work. Nothing is that important, and if something goes down, it will likely be email and thus, it won’t be effective communication anyway.

So that is roughly what is up with work. It isn’t nearly as awesome a job as it once was, but that could be the ebb and flow of work. Or it could be that I have changed, or the job has changed, or most likely a combination of the two. But is a good job, I like the people, and I don’t mind the work. Is it as perfect as it once was? No, but that is ok. Work is work, and the most perfect job still has its work.

so my boss got a new laptop and surprise to me, it had vista business on it. Sure, we are not prepared to deal with vista machines, but whatever. Anyway. So I am setting it up for him, and I am not impressed by any means. It is a Core 2 Duo with 2gb RAM and it is still slow. SLOW. Using a SLOWER cpu on my macbook, I was expecting more. And it appears to be a lame update in that it seems to be all fluff. All pretty and less speed. XP feels faster.

And evidently it is a huge moneymaker to install every app in the world on the machine, because it seems there are 40+ installed demos and trials and whatnot. Awesome. And needless to say, no install CD/DVD where I could REINSTALL it without all that crap. Great.

Perhaps I am spoiled in my OSX world. Such it is.

Feature wise, it is close to my macbook. intel core duo, 2gb RAM, 160gb HDs, both have cameras, etc. I will say when you are used to a slot load, the flimsy trays are not impressive.

Oh well. Whatchagonnado.

so I watched as it was unveiled earlier today and I was so excited. It is amazing. I have rocked the nokia 3650 for years, and recently I have been rocking the moto v878, which is lame, but small and works fine, enough, for a phone. I have been in the market for a new phone for a while, but I was waiting to see the apple offering. The Nokia N series was the ones I had been eyeing, but I really want wifi on the next phone I get.

I knew that the apple phone was going to be cool, but I didn’t imagine it would be this cool. I was sitting there ready to order it up on the spot until they got to the ‘cingular’ part. I REALLY don’t want to dump tmobile. seriously. weak. Why does it need to be exclusive? I hate that. The only thing they need it for is the visual voicemail, which is fine, but as far as I can imagine, it is a pretty layer over IMAP email. I mean, it is cool, but I am not THAT impressed with it. But as a friend pointed out, if you had to screen LOTS of voicemail, it would be nice. I don’t get that much voicemail. or rather, I just don’t ever listen to it.

But yeah, I keep coming back to the iPhone. I keep checking plans on cingular’s site. I keep looking at the Nokia N Series. And I keep coming back to one thing:

All the other phones suddenly suck.

Seriously. I mean the iPhone’s interface is SO nice, that even the best Symbian stuff is lame. Let alone the motorola clunky menu system. Palm OS is still stuck in 1996. And I won’t run a Win based phone, not that I think it is a great interface either. The transitions are amazing. It is like a fancy flash website that is done CORRECTLY. The touch screen interface should pan well, since Apple cares enough about that to not mess around. The screen quality in terms of pixels per inch is supposedly insane.

And what can I do? Seriously, switching to cingular is my current option. OR… they are saying release in the US in june, so lets say that is q3. Europe, q4. I doubt that there will be a europe exclusive carrier, since europe doesn’t really work that way. So I would wager there will be a carrier agnostic version by next xmas/early 2008. I guess I could wait for that. And in all honesty, we are taking about an extra 3-4 month wait, I can do that.

But man. The other phone builders need to get their rear in gear. Even the best nokia hardware is going to suck unless there is a major software update.

I must have watched the iPhone minisite videos 5 times already. I am impressed. I want one sooooo bad.

That is really it. I am not going to go into the details. But sometimes, I rule. Right now, I am ruling.

I am in a ok mood. I am ticked off about a lot of LITTLE things that, by themselves or even in small groups, would be fine… but it seems they are all piled up… oh well.

So I needed to make some changes to my company web site, which we paid some people to do like a year ago. The changes were simple, minor text changes… but since they did a bunch of text as graphics (grrr) I had to either try to match the existing in photoshop, or convert it to text (like it should have been). So I started poking around in the code, and it was all poorly written and pretty much all tables. So I rewrote the site in CSS yesterday. Today I need to change some of the images because instead of using something like padding or margins, they ADDED WHITE SPACE TO THE IMAGES. really? ok. awesome.

but it reminds me that I need to redo my sites. I need more time. I need to get some shit done to free up some time.

so lets play some catchup…

mason: doing great.. talkative (but just no in english) and almost always in a good mood. he is always smiling and can be so easily entertained. As I type this he is scooting around on the floor playing with a piece of paper he pulled off an empty box. Funny stuff. He is pretty social, and he still sleeps really well. We are beginning to ween him and we have started giving him formula as well as the solid foods, and he is all about that. He is also getting big enough that we need to get him into a normal car seat, as we aver overdue. He isn’t crawling yet but he scoots around on the hardwood on his belly, which is fun to watch, primarily because he can only really go backwards.

house: we are making progress on the house, in preparation for mason’s first birthday party, which we will be celebrating on 10/28. We have hung a bunch of stuff on the walls that we had been meaning to get up, and we got some black tile for the basement bathroom. Unfortunately, I haven’t finished pulling up the glue from the linoleum yet, which is a pain, but is coming along. We have a grocery list of stuff that we need to finish though, amongst them is tile for the front entry, which will likely be a slate. Should be super nice.

cars: I have been busy enough that my free time hasn’t been spent at the garage, which is too bad. the jetta is really close to ready… check out that blog for more on the project. The Audi performed very well Blackhawk Farms with the ACCCC last month and it was great being on the track. I have a short video that I stole from josh and edited down to just the part I am in, which you can watch if you want, even though it is long… check it (warning, 20mb). I have only been driving around in the city lately, not pushing the car much. I had noticed a few thunks in the rear lately, I assuming it was stuff in the back of the car rolling around. I happened to be driving the camry home the other night and as I pulled behind the audi, I noticed something hanging down. Sure enough, the swaybar was BROKEN. Kinda nuts, I’ll get some pics tonight. but it is odd. Needless to say, the camry is doing fine. I’ll likely buy some better tires for it next summer, as I hate these RE92s, and one has a slow leak. But whatever. I am still impressed by the gas mileage for a car of its size.

computer stuff: I still think my macbook is dope. still very happy with it. The move to the intels was a great move by apple. I also got a nice case for it that fits in my backpack, very nice.

side stuff… I have been inspired a bunch of times readin the MAKE blog and I have a few little projects I am going to work on, but I have been so busy with side web work and other shit I haven’t had time to play. I finally got around to learning layout with CSS vs. tables, and that has worked out well for me. I am by no means an expert, but I am getting the hang of it. I don’t know why I had such trouble figuring it out in the past, it is easy. I think I just wasn’t motivated enough.

Other than that, nothing super amazing to make note off… off to hang some more stuff on the walls. or back to the basement bathroom. And I need to go to the garage to talk with dylan about websites we are working on. And I have some work to do for work work. awesome.

so I ordered (and received today) a new MacBook, black 2.0… 80gb HD, 2GB RAM…. it is nice. I was going to buy one this calendar year due to the tax write off and my side income… and I was going to wait… but when I when I saw a couple coming on factory refurb, I decided now was as a good a time as any… so for $200 off, I ordered one. I got the RAM elsewhere for $170, and I am VERY happy with my purchase.

Compared to the iBook, there is a SIGNIFICANT speed increase. Like very noticeable… I haven’t had it long enough to get my normal work load up and running, but so far, I have yet to peg a CPU… and on the old machine, it wasn’t much work at all.

Safari and mail are significantly improved, and I am back to running apps that I had taken off in the past due to their overhead are now back running (I had forgotten how dope quicksilver is).

The fit and finish is great, the screen is very bright, and damn the mag power connector is DOPE… a VERY clever idea, especially since in the past, I have broken power connectors by the weird angles… and I am amazed at how the couple times today I have been moving around, the cable has popped out… it is a great idea.

So the performance is awesome, which was the honest to god real reason I upgraded. I spent a serious 8+ hours a day sitting at it, and the speed increase already has me stoked. It really is a big improvement.

I am getting everything back set up the way I want… the first thing I did when I got it was put the installer DVD back in and reinstalled the OS with the options I want. Without having all the extra bundled apps that I don’t need, I turned the factory 15gb install load down to 3.5gb. Much more up my alley.

So all the apps are slowly coming back in… I am trying to redo all the preferences vs importing them from the old machine to ensure I have a ‘cleaner’ install.

But overall, a great purchase. The best apple laptop I have bought, and as annoying as it is, nearly the cheapest one I have ever bought as well. Ah computers…

So my buddy harper sent me a link to Alexadex.com… it basically uses the Alexa data to determine web site popularity and has created a virtual stock market based on that data.

So you ‘buy’ shares of a site and depending on whether or not popularity of that site has increased or decreased, your ‘portfolio’ increased or decreases. Kinda fun to play with.

Dylan, Mason, and I are all playing it. Good times. Check it out. And if you sign up through that link, I get an extra $1,000 in my account. So sign up now.

I have often wondered more about the way iTunes does stuff, but I don’t have the time that the authors of these 2 articles do…

How Much Does iTunes Like My Five-Star Songs?

Extended iTunes Rating

I will admit these came a from a /. story.