Here’s the link to the whole thing. It’s worth the read. I think it’s a refreshing and measured response from someone who was (justifiably) raked over the internet coals a couple times last year. I still get a chuckle out of the over-the-line strips they publish. I can see where those jokes come from but I also understand the “need to separate the busted kid from the man I am now”. I’m willing to take it at face value and if he makes sincere changes, then good for him.
Category Archives: computers
Happy 2014!
My 2013 was a-okay and I hope yours was, too.
I’m planning to make this old spot a one-stop shop for all of my internetting. I’ll still have things I post to Twitter and Facebook and Instagram but I’m going to be sure it all gets dropped here, too. The idea of “recapturing my own content” has been going around the internet lately and since I’ve got the space (and the occasional thing to say) I plan to take a crack at it.
I’m not going to make a Big 14 list like the 13 I did last year. One of the important lessons of 2013 was to spend more time doing stuff and less time talking about what I wanted to do. It turned out that I didn’t get nearly as much done last year as I planned and it was still a great year. I could look at getting 6 of the 13 things done as a failure (as it would be by any reasonable grading scale) but I got so much out of the 6 that’s in an easy passing grade.
I definitely have things I want to work on this year and I’ve already started some groundwork on them. I plan to post here when I have something to talk about.
I’ll see you then.
iOS7 Timer on the Lock Screen
I like just about everything new from iOS7. My favorite might just be the timer indicator you can now see on the lock screen. I use the timer a ton and it’s nice to save a couple of swipes and taps.
Time Hole – Cookie Clicker
Holy crap has this thing swallowed me whole. Every now and again I will get way into one of these silly desktop games but they don’t usually come with this much carpal tunnel damage. I mean, you just click the cookie. What could possibly go wrong?
I think I’m close to the end game so I’m going to stick with it a little longer. It’s not good for my productivity, though, so not more than another day or two. I didn’t delete 90% of the games from my iPhone just to jump neck-deep into some other distraction.
Map of tweets by device
Via Daring Fireball, this site maps twitter usage patterns by device. That’s a slick presentation of data.
Edit to add: Oh, damn. It’s a world map.
I’m like a surgeon.
Not in a Weird Al way but in a “can make computer hardware repairs” way. I finally got and installed the replacement display I mentioned here. Like I said there, as long as the manual is clear I don’t feel like I can get too lost. This laptop is super-small but and there isn’t much clearance for cables but it’s all so cleverly engineered that it is tough to get confused. All of the cables end where they plug in. It’s neat.
And now I have a Windows machine that’s current-gen for work purposes of testing connections and things in Windows as well as the experience of cracking open a laptop and replacing pieces. Good times.
Funny story, I’m typing this up on the repaired laptop and I keep noticing a weird creak in one of the corners. Like the keyboard of top cover didn’t re-seat properly. It’s only then that it occurs to me that I might not have replaced all of the case screws. It is probably fair to say that I’m not *exactly* like a surgeon.
Comments are on.
When I rebooted things around here I set comments as closed by default. The previous iteration of this blog turned more into a spam-management exercise than any kind of writing outlet. I don’t want this to turn into that again but that’s where things are heading. I’ll leave comments open for another couple of weeks but if things keep getting worse I’ll shut them down again.
New Ubuntu on an Old ThinkPad
We used to be a one desktop household and that was just fine. One place to check email, do taxes, manage music and play games. It was an idyllic time.
Michelle lead our house into “laptop in front of the tv” lifestyle and I’ve been jealously playing catchup ever since. I tried to squeeze a last bit of life out of an older Macbook, “Lappy“, but I couldn’t get the OS current enough to run current browsers. I bought a Chromebook, and it’s pretty cool, but it’s too light for me to use on my lap. It keep teetering and sliding around. The iPad isn’t comfortable to me for emailing or blogging and my iPhone is just too small.
I’m currently settled on a repurposed Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 with Ubuntu 13.04 installed in it. Thanks to my tendency to slacking, this is now the most up-to-date OS in our home. It runs reasonably well on this 5-year-old hardware. Startup and shut down are crazy fast. Like, Macbook Air fast. The 15″ screen is plenty big for anything I’d want to do. The bottom half of the machine is nice and heavy so it doesn’t move at all on my lap. The keyboard is comfortable to type on and must be close to full-sized because the keys seem to mostly be where I’m expecting them to be. I like it.
I replaced the battery with an extended cell version so I can get close to 4 hours of life. That’s pretty good. I’d like to spend some more time with Ubuntu and learn about Linux in general but what I want out of this machine is the convenience of modern browsers and a comfortable place to browse. I’m there now and that’s enough for me.