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so it goes
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This blog is still closed. Please go to http://www.furrygoat.com for further updates.
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While I've previously said that 'resolutions stink', I have a few things on my mind as 2004 comes to a close. I don't want to call them 'resolutions'; here are a few things that I've been thinking about the last few weeks as 2005 begins: - Stop reading the alpha-bloggers. I said this a few weeks back, but I really need to further diversify what I'm reading on a daily basis. This will probably also include 'community aggregated blogs', since most of the content is replicated over and over.
- Simplify. While I'm a technology nut, I've hit the brick wall. Now that I've spent time getting 'distributed media' throughout the house, 2005 will be the year to start reducing the number of PC's in my life. Everything that I've implemented can be done by a few dedicated devices that have more functionality and require less maintenance. Time to live the "Exploding PC" lifestyle.
- Get things done. I have way too many to do items bumping around my skull. I've started to read David Allen's Getting Things Done, and want to get this under control. It's a source of un-ending stress for me.
- Continue to ask myself 'what should I do with my life'? I'll be 34 this year and have a son and a wife who mean the world to me. I have written 2 books, climbed on Mount Everest, scuba dived in the Belize barrier reefs and seen amazing things in different parts of the world, and feel (depending on the week) somewhat successful. Yet, something inside me tells me that I've I haven't really started what I should to do with my life.
I hope everyone has a happy and healthy new year.
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[Technology Review] Google now faces choices as fundamental as those Netscape faced in 1995. Google, whose headquarters in Mountain View, CA - familiarly called the Googleplex - is only five kilometers from Netscape’s former home, needn’t perish as Netscape did, but it could. Despite everything Google has - the swelling revenues, the cash from its initial public offering, the 300 million users, the brand recognition, the superbly elegant engineering - its position is in fact quite fragile. Just finished reading this really interesting article about Google. While I'm not saying I totally agree with the authors predictions, it's still an interesting read.
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Anyone who has been reading my weblog for a while knows that I rarely participate in the 'my OS is better than yours' religious wars that have been going for the last 20 years of computing. Frankly, it's a boring argument. Without a doubt, my day to day life resides in a Windows world, but I firmly believe that OS/X on the Mac is awesome operating system that really encapsulates a computing 'experience' rather than just running applications. In some ways it reminds me of the Amiga - it was just fun to use and got the job done. Unfortunately, I just don't have the free time to explore like I used to, and my homebrew Mac that I built in 2002 has been sitting in the garage for the last year. While I've been toying with the idea of bringing it back into my home office, despite how it sounds (with computers all over my house and car), I've really been trying to simplify things and reduce the number of computers rather than add more technology to the mix. However with the apparent upcoming annoucement of a headless Mac for $499: We’re looking at likely a 1.25GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 40-80GB hard drive, the typical connectivity (USB/Firewire/ethernet/modem), and a combo optical drive with support for Airport Extreme, VGA and DVI. Apparently, the new Mac is ‘incredibly small,’ with a height approximating the 1.73” Xserve height. That’s slim, all right. It's extremely tempting to get one just to play with. :)
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[Sells Brothers] I'm a very happy user of Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and have been for some months. Not only does it allow me unfettered access to audio, video and recorded TV from any PC in the house, but with the XBOX Media Center Extender, I can access all of this from any TV in the house as well (so long as its equipped with an MCE Extender). I'll second Chris here; MCE has been performing wonderfully for my home theater for several months now. My only complaint is that I can't really use my Fusion 3 HDTV card in QAM mode for high definition inside MCE.
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A few weeks back I turned on moderated comments to stop the deluge of comment spam that I (as well as other MS bloggers) have been receiving. Even though moderated comments stop the public displaying of them, I still receive them in my Inbox so I can filter out spam vs. regular comments. Today was the final straw with several hundred new comment spams in my Inbox this morning, so I've decided to no longer keep this blog active after Jan 1st. That being said, the posts here were just being cross-posted from my main weblog, The Furrygoat Experience. Since 'the furrygoat' has been active since 2001, I'll continue to post new content there. Sorry for any inconvenience, I hope you continue to read by subscribing to Furrygoat's RSS feed here: http://www.furrygoat.com/index.xml .
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[The .NET Guy] That leads me to wonder about how inexpensively you could build a PC with enough storage to have as a DVD jukebox. Standard DVD playback software works like a charm with these backed up files, so your biggest capital expenses are a video card with TV output -- not so bad -- and big drives. I had this same epiphany a few weeks back and ended up going ahead with it. I took an old motherboard I had lying around (1.8ghz), plopped in an 80GB boot drive as well as 4 200GB SATA drives connected to a RocketRaid 1640 controller running RAID-5. Just to make the box look cool, I threw the whole thing into a CoolerMaster Centurion 5 case which has a really nice perforated front panel. The whole thing sits on the network in the closet and also powers my house audio system. I've also been using My Movies on Media Center as a front end and so far, the only word to describe it - awesome. Instead of using DVD Shrink, I've been pulling the DVD's to the hard drive using DVD Decrypter, and then using Nero Recode to re-encode the DVD's to ISO images. This also allows me to remove the 'special features' from a DVD that I'm not interested in, which saves a ton of space. With this method a DVD typically takes up only around 2-3GB instead of 5-6GB.
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I spent some time today wiring in a Sirius satellite radio (a Sportster to be exact) that Liz got me into the Xterra. Wanting to keep the installation as 'professional' looking as possible, I ended up routing the antenna from the roof next to the rear wiper fluid grommet, then through the inside panel on the rear drivers side and onto the floor. The next step is to fish the wire through the center console and up to the dash where it will connect to the car kit. Since the Xterra stock radio (a Rockford Fosgate 6 CD changer) doesn't have an auxiliary input, I decided to go with a hard wired FM modulator that plugs directly into the antenna rather than replace the entire head unit. While I'm aware that it's not going to sound as good as a direct connection, it should provide decent enough sound quality. What's cool is that when the modulator detects an audio signal, it automatically switches to the input signal and cuts off the antenna, so the sound should technically be much 'cleaner' than a wireless FM transmitter. One other thought that I had was that while I have the console apart was to also hardwire in a connection to the iPod (using a Belkin Auto Kit). My current plan is to connect it directly to a switched 12V line and to wire the audio-out jack into the FM modulator (using some Y-adapters). This way, I can not only move away from using the iTrip, but will have a 'built in' charger for the iPod. Sometimes it feels really good to be focused on a task that isn't really computer related.
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I freely admit it. I have a somewhat warped sense of humor. I just can't help myself - I'd not only label myself as cynical, but I typically take enjoyment in finding things funny that other people generally wouldn't. If something is a clear violation of being politically correct you could pretty count on me laughing over it. It's just part of my personality and it's something that I can't avoid - I find humor in most situations (it keeps me young and healthy). This, of course, usually has the unfortunate side effect of landing me in some hot water with the family when it comes to proper etiquette. Such was the case with this year's holiday card. Here's the scoop: This year (ok, the last 2 years), Liz and I opted to take the easy way out and just do one of those 'digital picture cards' from Costco for the 50 or so holiday cards we were sending out. Since everyone always sends some serious card (how boring) I thought it would show more holiday spirit to send a picture that I deemed as 'fun'. I chose what I thought was a funny picture - nothing to crazy, just a self portrait of Liz, Tyler and I that I took while holding the camera about an arms length away. Of course, this always yields a somewhat weird angle (and I made a strange face), but the picture was generally "fun". Being quite pleased with the results, I took a digital copy over to Costco, had the cards make up and gleefully sent them out (yes, I even printed labels so I didn't have to write anything). Well, let me just say that the family didn't quite understand or appreciate my good sense of humor. My parents (as were other relative's apparently) weren't as pleased with it as I was. Come on! It wasn't like I took a picture of my rear end with the words "Happy Holidays" written on each cheek, yet, somehow I seemed to offend them. While my first reaction was to completely ban all holiday cards next year, now for some strange reason, I feel compelled to make next years card even more "special". I can't wait to see what I brew up.
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[BMJ Journals] An internet search found over 1300 sites discussing the nature of Gollum's "mental illness." We asked 30 randomly selected medical students if they thought Gollum had a mental illness. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis (25 students), followed by multiple personality disorder (three). On initial consideration schizophrenia seems a reasonable diagnosis. Just in time for the holidays - 6 medical students (and one 'lecturer in old age psychiatry') produce a paper trying to diagnose Gollum's mental health problems.
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[Gaping Void] One of my clients lives 3,000 miles away from me. Recently we've been working together a lot. Instead of zapping each other 50 thousand e-mails a day to each other, we set up a simple, no-frills Typepad blog and we blog our thoughts and ideas there. I thought this was a really cool and innovative way to share ideas and organize thoughts - use a private blog. Now, if only there was a Typepad wiki service... :)
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