Peace/Piece
Posted on April 30, 2004
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Two people, both of whom have opinions that I respect, have questioned my spelling of “peace” on my comment form. It said “Say Your Peace”. I probably meant to say “Speak Your Peace” but in this case it’s like a joke (or designing a logo). If you have to explain it, then it didn’t work. So now it just says “Your Comment.”
Thanks to all who have given me positive feedback on the new site. Maybe one of these days I’ll have the time to finish it.
Finally!
Posted on April 29, 2004
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A word that is the title of this entry and what was clearly on John Stevens’ mind when he was voted out on American Idol last night. You know the producers are relieved. At this point in the competition, they’re thinking of the end game. They know the numbers. They know who the final two will likely be and they’re thinking of the songs they’ll do on the final show that will sell millions of singles after the show ends. “A Moment Like This”:http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=811482&selectedItemId=811454 is still played constantly on the pop stations here. Can you imagine hearing John’s song on the radio? Yikes. I couldn’t even listen to him at the end of the show last night, I just switched to Angel a minute or two early.
The guy was in way over his head, and I half expected to read on an entertainment news site somewhere that he walked out on his own. As far as I know, these kids aren’t isolated from the media while they’re in the competition. They can read everything the world is saying about them. 16 years old and he never appeared to get nasty or jaded by the criticism he was getting. I have a feeling that he will quietly finish high school, and then we’ll hear about him again. Just in something having nothing to do with music. Please.
Me, I’m rooting for Diana. Horrible dress aside, I think she has the best voice. LaToya and Fantasia have gone downhill since the semi-finals.
iTunes 4.5
Posted on April 28, 2004
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“iTunes 4.5″:http://www.apple.com/itunes is out. I instantly used up my last 6 Pepsi credits (good thing, since they expire at the end of the week) with the new Radio Charts feature of the iTunes Music Store. You can find the top playlists of your favorite radio station. Mine (WEBE-108 in Bridgeport, CT) was there. I can’t count how many times I’ve been in my car, listening to the radio and I hear a song I like and I tell myself “I have to go get that on iTunes” but by the time I get home I forget that I wanted the song (until the next time I’m in the car, of course). The first song on the list was “100 Years”:http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=5281725&selectedItemId=5281802 by Five for Fighting which I’ve been meaning to get but I wasn’t sure who the artist was. I listened to samples of every song in the album and ended up buying 3 other tracks. Well done, Apple.
The music store has tighter hooks than ever, with links from your library to the store and you can share your library across 5 computers instead of 3.
And freebies! Every week a new song is offered up for free. This week it’s “My Hero”:http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=6906522&selectedItemId=6906455 by the Foo Fighters. They say it’s for “emerging” artists but this particular single is listed as being released in 1997.
Protecting your computer from yourself
Posted on April 26, 2004
Filed Under Macintosh | 3 Comments
“Buzz”:http://www.scifihifi.com/weblog/mac/ZeldmanPanther.html says:
bq. However, I would argue that becoming the kind of person who “mods” his OS is a lot like becoming the kind of person who “mods” his car: it demands more of an awareness about what you’re doing to the machine, a more active involvement in its maintenance, a certain tolerance for potential downtime, and an understanding that Honda (or Apple, as it were) is not necessarily to be blamed if something goes wrong.
He is absolutely right. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize where things are going and the potential for trouble down the line when they install “haxies” and the like. So, as Buzz alludes later in his entry Apple should have some responsibility in making sure that the upgrade experience is as painless as possible for those users who like to customize but may not understand the implications.
How about the way Dreamweaver handles its upgrades? When you upgrade your version of Dreamweaver, you get a warning dialog that explains that extensions you’ve installed will not be retained in the upgrade and it gives you the opportunity to make a backup of you configuration files first. Wouldn’t it be great if OS X, in the process of installing its incremental bug-fix upgrades, popped up a box that said something to the effect of “You have made modifications to your system preferences that may cause problems in this upgrade. Would you like to back up your modifications first and perform this upgrade without 3rd party system preferences installed?” There could then be the option to make a backup of your modified system preferences and delete all 3rd party installations before upgrading.
Portfolio pages as a photoblog
Posted on April 26, 2004
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I’ve started moving the content from the former “HTML Dreamweaver templated”:http://www.momathome.com/portfolio-old/ portfolio pages to the “new, entirely in MovableType layout.”:http://www.momathome.com/portfolio
However, I’ve done more than just move content, I’ve implemented some plug-ins and features that you might find interesting (if you’re into CSS tricks & MovableType, that is).
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