Fun/interesting things I’ve found around the web just recently:
(Yes, this is entirely for the purpose of padding my tech/nerd karma – see below for the actual post)
EPIC 2015 – A Flash animation depicting a future dystopia where Google and Amazon combine, putting traditional media out of business.
TechCrunch – A technology blog that tracks Web 2.0 sites and products. Sometimes I hate it for the hype, and other times I love it for the coolness. It is where I found the next two links.
Pandora – A musical jukebox/radio that plays music you like, and learns your interests. Similar to Amazon technology, it stores your info in a cookie-accessed profile. Tell it you love Coldplay, it will play some X&Y and then suggest Marti Jones or Cowboy Junkies. Cowboy Junkies aren’t cutting it? You can tell it that, and it continues to learn accordingly. The best interactive radio technology I’ve seen. Period.
CalendarHub – Social calendaring. Tough to really describe, but I can make public calendars, or share my personal calendar with friends and family. As an example, when I login, I’m shown my dates and events, as well as Jenny’s dates and events, as well events from the Refuge Center public calendar. (I’m really only using this until Google buys it or makes their own, for pete’s sake! But keep the hush hush on that; don’t wanna jinx it).
Worth1000 – A Photoshop contest site where every day a new contest is hosted for photoshopping an image based on themes. Some pictures are simply amazing, and where I thought I was good, I now realize I’m mediocre when it comes to compositing skills.
Actual Post
(I got you interested with those links, eh?)
I haven’t found time to post recently. Too much transition, not enough man-to-PC time. But the good news is Jenny and I have bought our first house and we’re finally moved in. The WiFi and a high-speed connection are up, and I’m good to go.
I haven’t spent more than 5 minutes in Kubuntu or Linux for about 5 months now. Why? I started getting very frustrated with an ever-crashing amaroK, and I was tired of waiting for someone to streamline Firefox into the KDE environment (if I said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times, I don’t like Konqueror). So I’ve been daddling in Windows, and now I’m just waiting until I can afford a MacBook Pro. I have a theory that the main reason I was so interested in Linux is that as a Windows administrator, I was fixing Windows problems every day. As a regular Windows user now (keep your IT needs at least 10 ft away please), I can enjoy the benefits of being as smart a Windows user as possible. My WiFi network is locked down tight. My two Windows machines are as locked down as possible for Windows machines (which isn’t much). I can’t imagine what life was like before Firefox (and Gmail, Bloglines, WordPress, Slashdot and Engadget for that matter), and I’m pretty much not using any Microsoft software save for the OS and the Office suite. Oh yeah, that’s another thing. OpenOffice 2 is a horrifying joke. OpenOffice 1 was at least stable, but ancient software doesn’t get you very far. The new KOffice 3.5 looks promising, especially (and only) if it incorporates some sort of page paradigm rather than their standard frame paradigm.
Maybe I should move to Ubuntu (Gnome) to make Linux fun again? Oh yes, and the other reason I had to stay in my Windows partition is Reason. No worky in Linux. Me wait MacBook afford come purchase go boom.
The other (other) reason I’ve curbed my computer use is that my passion-energy, previously devoted solely to Kubuntu, has been transferred to professional audio engineering. This occured by natural forces uncontrollable by myself or others. The only key to saving me as a Linux convert is to get me to a Linux that requires as little troubleshooting as my Windows installation (I say MY Windows installation, because other than the virus I gave myself, it stays relatively healthy, compared to and considering other Windows installations). Not to say that a Linux installation won’t stay healthy, but it won’t stay stable with me at the helm, since I’m unsatisfied with minor quirks and I generally tend to try to fix them (amaroK compile from SVN, anyone?). Professional audio engineering has become the new release of my thought-power, and I spend many hours learning, researching, and thinking through the various audio engineer processes. Being on a church staff has also introduced a new variable that was quite different from the public school. As an audio engineer on church staff, I find myself being involved in ministries and teams I never would have considered otherwise. A time to stretch and learn, I suppose. In all likelyhood, it is a Good Thing(TM) to have all this actual reality social interaction, versus my usual virtual reality (forum/blog/email) social interaction.
I will always have a preferred posting forum, and it usually never lasts more than a year. I’ve gone from LinuxQuestions to Computing.net to NotebookForums to NarniaWeb to UbuntuForums, and now I can be found lurking and posting at ProSoundWeb. I will occasionally, but rarely, visit my previous forum homes, but we live in an Internet-age rapid-moving society, and frankly, I get bored with an overall subject matter eventually. Narniaweb.com was the most fun because I got to share artistic talent instead of technical knowledge.