Tag: computing

A Little Computing Advice

PCs aren’t as expensive as they once were, but for years they’ve been a whole lot faster than we need for most tasks. If you surf the web, read email and occasionally play with photos, a computer that’s a few years old is plenty fine.

If you’re thinking of buying a new computer and you don’t play games or use your machine for other really stressful things, save your money! Really.

This comes up, because I went to my friend Steve’s house last Sunday and, for an investment a little north of $100, refurbished his computer.

He says there’s a real difference. That makes me smile.

I increased the RAM from 512 mb to 2 gb. At the same time, we added a second hard drive. There he added 300 gb to his original 120 gb.

If the darned case wasn’t so anti-intuitive, the whole process would have taken five minutes. Unfortunately, it took closer to a half hour as I fiddled and fuddled, trying to get the hard drive in its bay.

I finally realized pulling the front panel off was the way to go. I’m an idiot.

Steve’s computer had slowed down. There are a few reasons for this. First, with most little utilities you install, programs like Real Play, Quicktime or Adobe Acrobat, small starter programs are also installed. They run every time you boot your PC.

These little programs sometimes check for updates and often pre-load helper files, making the programs start quicker. Each also ‘steals’ a little RAM. That makes the computer run slower!

None of these programs uses enough memory to be a problem on its own, but in the aggregate, they become leeches. Using MSCONFIG, I turned a bunch of these little applets off.

Most computers also run antivirus and spyware suites. These are real resource hogs. I personally choose not to run either. It’s the Internet equivalent of unsafe sex, but it works for me.

I’ve never cleaned a virus from a computer that didn’t have antivirus software! Most new viruses are designed to get around them anyway.

Steve’s computer was also running slower because he was doing more with it. He now loads larger image files from his digital camera and manipulates them with Photoshop. Those files are compressed on disk, but must be expanded to their real size when played with. There’s a lot of complex math involved with photos.

When the new drive formatted (a long and tedious process) and the machine rebooted, he looked at me as if I was a wizard. It was really pretty simple. I’ve yet to kill a machine while trying to upgrade it.

PCs aren’t as expensive as they once were, but for years they’ve been a whole lot faster than we need for most tasks. If you surf the web, read email and occasionally play with photos, a computer that’s a few years old is plenty fine.

Real hard core ‘big iron’ computing is the answer for video editors, heavy duty photo manipulators and gamers. For everyone else, save a few bucks and wait.

Oh – and if you really have your heart set on that quad core smoker with 4 gb of RAM and a terrabyte of hard drive space – I won’t rat you out.

Wendie’s Japan Trip

My friend Wendie is back from Japan. I suggested she use Picasa to download and ‘improve’ her photos and Picasaweb to display them to her friends.

My friend Wendie is back from Japan. I suggested she use Picasa to download and ‘improve’ her photos and Picasaweb to display them to her friends. They’re both products from the “Google Boys.” They make their money if you have your photos professionally printed and use them as the middleman.

When she saw how all of this worked, and how easy it would be to pass the photos to her friends and family, she was pretty happy.

The truth is, there are lots of these hidden gems on the Internet – little out-of-the-way places that perform amazing time saving or value adding work, usually with no cost to you.

My dad, who teaches computing to lots of the seniors at his condo complex, sees this kind of result all the time. It’s part of the reason he’s a minor deity in Palm Beach County.

Here is the result of Wendie’s work.

Linux Matures

My desktop machine at work runs Linux as its operating system&#185. It has for years.

I’ve always used the excuse we run some applications on it that can’t be easily run on Windows. That’s true. It’s also my toy.

As part of my bargain with the technogods at work, I scrounge around the IT department, looking for PCs pulled from service. Over the past few years, my desktop has always been a generation or two behind state of the art.

That’s fine.

Recently, the station was ‘retiring’ a server. It no longer had a hard drive or any RAM. It was a dual core Pentium machine with an integrated Intel video system on the motherboard. It became mine.

I tried loading Linux on this machine a few months ago with limited results. In fact, I ended up going back to my Pentium III 800 mHz machine with 128 mb of RAM.

Now, with Ubuntu Linux v7.10 out, I tried again.

Wow! Linux is here.

The distribution installed easily and this computer sings. And, since it doesn’t run Windows programs, it won’t ‘run’ viruses and spyware aimed at a Windows audience.

Unless you really need Windows for a specific application, I’m pretty sure Linux will easily fill the bill.

Today, there are Linux office suites, graphics programs, multimedia players and pretty much everything else you’d find on a store bought PC. They, and Linux itself, are free.

Companies like Asus are selling off-the-shelf Linux loaded laptops and Wal*Mart is stocking Linux equipped desktop machines. The prices are hundreds of dollars less than comparable Windows boxes.

If I was Microsoft, I’d start worrying. There has been a loud cry of unhappiness from their users.

Their most recent operating system iteration, Vista, seems designed more to satisfy the RIAA and MPAA than its actual customers! Some features that existed on earlier operating systems have been removed or neutered on Vista. Meanwhile, Wal*Mart and Asus are legitimizing their free competitor.

Propeller heads like me aren’t what’s going to give Linux critical mass. It’s going to take exposure in retail outlets. And that’s what’s happening.

If you’re at all curious about computing… if you’ve got an older PC you want to play with… I recommend Ubuntu Linux. I’m very happy with it and I suspect you will be too.

&#185 – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking and managing file systems. Most operating systems come with an application that provides a user interface for managing the operating system, such as a command line interpreter or graphical user interface. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software.

The most commonly-used contemporary desktop and laptop (notebook) OS is Microsoft Windows. More powerful servers often employ Linux, FreeBSD, and other Unix-like systems. However, these operating systems, especially Mac OS X, are also used on personal computers.

In The Trash It Goes

Today was my first ‘real’ day of dumpster duty, participating with Helaine as we tried to empty the house of more accumulated stuff. There’s a lot to choose from!

I suppose some of what we tossed today has resale value… but it’s so much to deal with, nickels and dimes at a time. After the entire job is done, there will be material for eBay – just not this stuff.

We started in the attic. Ours is quite large. It’s a whole floor above three of our bedrooms and a full bath.

I found old computers and circuit boards. It was tough to move them out, but some are so outmoded, it made no sense to continue to house them.

I tried to quickly calculate what they were worth ‘in the day.’ Too depressing. Then I tried to figure out how quickly they’d become outmoded. One computer monitor had a 1999 manufacturers stamp on it. Could you even get a 17″ CRT monitor today?

I did notice one thing that’s changed in computing. I threw out lots of manuals. An old printer had a ‘programmer’s manual.” Some programs had two or three separate printed books. I read those manuals. I miss the reassurance they brought.

I threw out some books related to Photoshop 3. Photoshop version, CS2, is really Photoshop 9!

As we carried load after load to the front door, for a wheelbarrow ride the rest of the way to the dumpster, I realized how nice a ranch home would be right now.

We headed to the garage next. Are you like us? Do you push things against the wall, hoping you’ll never have to deal with them again?

As with the attic, there was lots of stuff in the garage ripe for throwing. Each successive layer removed revealed cobwebs and dirt. Is there a place where dirt accumulates better than a garage? Those big doors open to the elements a few times a day, and then there’s whatever the tires track in.

I moved in with the shop vac. Everything was quickly scarfed up – though my back won’t soon forget the stooping I did. Growing up in an apartment, a shop vac was foreign to me. I learned quickly as a homeowner, this was no option!

Helaine called me over. She said she’d found a dead frog. Nope – dead mouse… long dead.

You can’t live in the woods without having a mouse in the house every once in a while. Luckily, there’s no evidence they’ve ever lived in the parts where we live.

After the garage, it was on to the basement. There was too much there for one afternoon, so Helaine will continue while I’m at work this week.

One thing we did do was clean the basement’s walk out steps. It’s possible they’ve never been vacuumed in the 16 years we’ve lived here. They look great now.

I threw out some more videocassettes – some from my days in Buffalo. It’s not that I didn’t want to cling, but even today there are few places to play these outmoded U-Matic format tapes.

I did keep a box of reel-to-reel audio tapes. I have a few marked 1973. I might have been in Cleveland, or maybe Phoenix, then. I’m not sure. I do know radio airchecks aren’t for tossing.

The dumpster is still a long way from being full. Thirty cubic yards is a heck of a challenge!

We’ve got one more week with it as a house guest. I told Helaine, when it’s picked up and the driver looks inside, we won’t be embarrassed.

The Bill Gates Of Boynton Beach

I called my folks on the way home from work tonight. I do most every night at 11:35. I wasn’t a particularly easy kid. I’ve tried to be a better son as an adult.

Usually my dad is asleep and my mom and I will chat as I drive home. There’s always something going on. Their social life is busier than ever. If that fails, someone’s seen a doctor and there’s medical news to be discussed.

Tonight, probably because of the World Series, my father was awake. He got on the phone.

He was very excited about his second day as a computer teacher. In the clubhouse of their Florida condo there is a computer lab with a dozen or so networked PC. It’s a teaching facility, put together by some residents, with my father’s assistance. That’s where the computer club meets.

There are still plenty of people in the condos who’ve never used a PC, but want to. Their kids want to send them photos or email… or maybe they sense they should learn as an abstract concept. They just don’t know how to get started.

One of the cooler things about being a resident of this ‘adults only’ condo complex is, my parents live in a non-judgmental world. Every new endeavor is encouraged. You want to dance or sing or make ceramics or learn computers? Go for it. Everyone is supportive.

My dad is their computer teacher. How cool is that?

He’s not a pro. He has no training. When he last attended school, computers didn’t exist.

He’s just a nice guy – one of them. He’s got a bit of knowledge and a lot of passion. Being passionate is a valuable trait no matter what you’re doing.

My father’s strength is his ability to unlock the little things for these seniors. They’re simple things you might take for granted, like how to enter an address for a website or how to do a search. Even double clicking is a foreign concept when you’ve never double clicked!

He is opening a new world to these people.

Today he showed them a site where they could find newspapers from their hometowns. Then he popped over to Youtube.com for some videos. He found some video of a tornado and eighty year old jaws dropped. My dad’s a god!

My mom, one of his students, told me his class applauded when he finished his lesson. It was one of the nicest, most genuinely sweet things I’ve heard in a long time.

My father’s class will learn a lot from him about computing. But seriously, he’s getting the better end of this deal. Having passion is one thing. Having your passion rewarded is something few of us ever experience.

Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel

I was on the phone with my mom two nights ago. I mentioned poker and she asked if I was a gambler?

When that question comes from your mom, it deserves attention. I stopped to think.

Obviously, I enjoy poker. I’ve certainly written about it enough. It is, in my opinion, a game of skill – but yes, it has to be considered gambling. So, in that regard, I’m a gambler.

As opposed to poker, I hardly enjoy casino games where you play against the house. When I’m in a casino, not playing poker, my involvement is minimal. I don’t enjoy blackjack and I put up with slot machines only because I’m interested in the computing involved! I couldn’t spend long times doing either, and would never go to a casino with those games as my main purpose.

I couldn’t play if I was losing. For me, gambling and losing is not fun.

I have found a poker game where I can, and do, dominate. It is 6-handed, no limit Hold’em. I won’t go into the math, but this particular setup favors very tight players and a lot of patience – my strengths. It is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If I play a few of these six player tourneys over the course of an evening, I nearly always end up ahead.

Now, here’s the answer to my mom’s question.

I do really well in the 6-handed game… but I also play in larger tournaments where the possible payoff is much larger, and where I generally don’t do well at all! I only play these bigger tournaments because the 6-handed ones keep me ahead.

I suppose that really does make me a gambler… though, under these circumstances, ahead of the game for 34 months on PokerStars, it seems pretty harmless.

The Good And Bad Of Open Source

If you’ve been following the trials and tribulations of my homebuilt DVR, you’ve been listening to the good and bad of open source software.

To quote Richard Nixon, I am not a thief.

The software I’m using has been built for the common good and released under licenses that allow fairly free use. That includes the operating system, Linux, the DVR’s framework, MythTV and all the utilities I use, including an excellent program called ffmpeg.

Ffmpeg is like a Swiss Army Knife for video files. It allows the movement of these files into different formats. That’s valuable under a variety of circumstances, including mine.

In order to watch what I’ve recorded online from anywhere (and that’s my goal) I need to be able to convert the DVR’s nuv files to Flash compatible flv files. Ffmpeg should do that, and in a way which can be automated.

I’m bringing up ffmpeg, because it’s a sign of what’s good and bad about open source.

Part of the good is its free availability. That allows ‘hackers’ like me to play around in a sophisticated area of computing with readily available tools. There are all sort of additional programs built around ffmpeg. It’s like seed corn.

Part of the bad, is how these programs are supported – in other words, what happens if you get stuck? There’s no company behind it, so no company to call!

Ffmpeg depends on community based support, which runs through a mailing list. If you understand the program, you’re encouraged to share your knowledge.

When I began to have trouble, I signed up for the list, posted my question and waited… and waited… and waited.

Someone saw my question, took mercy on me, asked me to provide some error outputs and then… nothing. I sat and waited some more.

As I posted again, looking for help, members of the community responded, but they also complained about how I was posting and the fact that I was using the most current version of ffmpeg on their website – an old version.

At some points more of the conversation was about procedure than problem solving!

I jumped through hoops, doing whatever anyone asked, to try and get things working. No matter what I did though, ffmpeg failed me in the exact same way.

I was willing to put up with this stuff, though I was getting perturbed. I wonder how many others would have just bailed?

If open source is to be ‘ready for prime time,’ the spotty response to cries for help needs to be made a little more friendly. I was made to feel like a jerk or idiot or both. That’s not good. And believe me, I understand I have just bitten the hand that feeds me.

OK – so I’ve vented about what’s wrong with open source. But, there is a silver lining to this story and something that’s very right with open source.

I believe my problem was caused by a bug in the software, or maybe a part that was just never fully implemented. One of the developers saw my cries and modified the program to accommodate my needs!

Would Microsoft do that for me? I doubt it.

Tonight, when I get home, I’ll load another version of ffmpeg that should solve my problem – and will be available in the future for others like me.

Companies like Microsoft worry about open source. Why would anyone buy Windows or Office if they could get the same functionality for free?

Right now the big difference is support. It might not always be that way. It is today.

Computer Problems – Business As Usual

As a special welcome home, Helaine’s computer decided to suffer a near death experience today. It was one of those things that can happen to anyone.

She turned on the computer, but forgot to plug it in the wall. Having been away for nearly two weeks, and with an elderly battery, there wasn’t more than a minute or two of juice. It was just enough to allow it to die while booting!

When she plugged the laptop in and tried to boot again, it got to the first Windows ‘splash screen’, churned its disk drive for a while, briefly flashed a ‘Blue Screen of Death,’ and began the boot cycle all over again. Uh oh!

I was called in for my technical expertise. You like to think in a situation like this you can just boot to the ‘Safe Mode,’ restore the computer to an earlier time, and merrily resume computing.

If only it were that easy.

Attempting to get to the ‘Safe Mode’ produced exactly the same result. I told Helaine it was possible her emails and bookmarks, the things she really wanted, might be gone. she wasn’t thrilled.

I called for tech support – my friends Peter and Kevin. They had some suggestions and I plowed on.

With Windows XP you should be able to put the original Windows installation CD in the disk drive and watch it repair itself. Good idea, but it didn’t work.

Since the ‘splash screen’ came up, I assumed the drive wasn’t a total failure. Maybe there was a way to read this laptop drive in my desktop?

They are normally incompatible, but sure enough, there was a cable for sale at CompUSA to allow them to talk. I’m trying to think if there are any good circumstances when you’d want this little device? No.

This was too easy. It’s a 25 minute drive to CompUSA and the cable was around $8… and they had it in stock&#185!

In order to use it, I had to remove the drive from Helaine’s laptop, physically open my desktop’s case, free up an IDE port (I unplugged the CD and DVD drives), hook everything up and fire up the PC.

I crossed my fingers and pressed the button.

My desktop booted very slowly, as if it knew it was entering uncharted waters. Finally it flashed a screen saying the “H” drive (that was where the laptop drive ended) needed to be checked.

I gave my permission and watched the errors fly. Four clusters were unreadable, an index file was wrong, some corrections were made and a small section of the disk was being marked as bad. It was bad, but it could have been much worse.

When Windows finally finished its booting, I tried to move all of Helaine’s files to my PC for safekeeping, but got an error message. What had looked promising a few seconds ago now looked bleak.

Kevin suggested I just take the semi-repaired drive out of my PC and put it back in the laptop. I did, booted, and watched the disk warning again – this time with a few different files.

Then a strange thing happened… the laptop finished its disk check, ran through its boot sequence and worked! Helaine was overjoyed.

You know, in the movies the geek never gets the girl. Maybe we should?

&#185 – Interestingly enough, there were two of the needed cables on a hook at CompUSA. The one in front had obviously been used and poorly repackaged. I passed on it for the other. The next purchaser gets to be their guinea pig.

The New Era Of Communications

I got this email today:

We are in panama we just went thru the locks. all is well we are having a great time mom and dad

What do we have here? Well, certainly, for his next birthday I’m buying my dad punctuation marks and capital letters! More than that, a check of the originating IP address shows he sent this from on-board ship.

My mom and dad are cruising, but the Internet is there with them.

I remember when Helaine and I took a cruise many years ago. We stopped in Puerto Rico and rushed to a pay phone to check in with everyone back home. Same thing in St. Thomas (in fact, I can still picture the pay phones to the left of the main door of the St. Thomas Post Office).

It wasn’t that there weren’t phones on the ship, but it was ridiculously expensive.

Yesterday, my friend Peter left for three weeks on Maui. I spoke to him as he went to the airport. I spoke to him in San Francisco, waiting for a delayed flight. I spoke to him once he got to his Maui hotel. Each time I dialed the same South Jersey cellphone number.

Each of my calls were included in my cell plan with no additional charge… in fact, with no meter even clicking off the minutes.

Calling Hawaii, like making a call from a cruise ship, used to be expensive. No more.

I also played around a little, calling my friend Bob in Austin, TX using Skype. The quality was great, using my laptop on the sofa in the family room and a cheap headset. Of course the call was totally free.

This ability to communicate, whether by computer or phone or a combination of the two is amazing – something we in the 21st century share with no other moment in history. It is, unfortunately, limited to the wealthy.

A little clarification. In this case wealthy applies to the vast majority of people in the United States and many more around the world, who are included in a global middle class. They are only wealthy in contrast to those who are dirt poor – and there are many who fit that category.

Now, maybe there is hope for them to benefit from this communications and knowledge explosion, fueled by computing.

I saw Nicholas Negroponte with Charlie Rose on PBS. Negroponte heads MIT’s Media Lab, a communication and information think tank

In its first decade, much of the Laboratory’s activity centered around abstracting electronic content from its traditional physical representations, helping to create now-familiar areas such as digital video and multimedia. The success of this agenda is now leading to a growing focus on how electronic information overlaps with the everyday physical world. The Laboratory pioneered collaboration between academia and industry, and provides a unique environment to explore basic research and applications, without regard to traditional divisions among disciplines.

That’s some of the least explanatory prose ever written by otherwise educated people.

Negroponte was on to talk about a project I’ve been following for a while – a $100 laptop, to be produced in bulk and distributed for free to students around the world.

If this is the first you’re hearing about this project, please go to their site and read more. It’s really an amazing undertaking.

The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop

Discovering Skype

Earlier today, I got an email from my friend Bob Wood in Austin, TX. He’s having a computer problem, as Windows XP fights with an application written in the ‘golden days’ of computing.

I picked up my cellphone and gave him a call. We ran through the typical trouble spots and found nothing.

As we went through a list of programs in msconfig, I looked at the cellphone and saw we were already 20+ minutes into the conversation. Hey – I’m not made of minutes!

I think it was then that Bob mentioned Skype. Skype is a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service.

VOIP isn’t a new concept. In fact, we already use a VOIP service at home as an extra phone with unlimited Connecticut calling.

What makes Skype so different is its excellent integration into your PC. It took under 5 minutes to download, install and activate my Skype account. From that point forward, I was talking to Bob PC-to-PC. In that mode, Skype is free!

There are also ways to use Skype to call an old fashioned phone. That’s what my friend Peter did while traveling through France. Calls from a PC to a telephone cost a few cents a minute – even when calling from Europe.

The voice quality was excellent. There is no noticeable lag. Bob said radio stations could conceivably use Skype for remote broadcasts. I agree.

Where Bob and I disagree is his contention that Skype is a telephone killer. It’s good, but it’s not convenient. You need to be near your computer. It’s not portable.

It’s an adjunct, not a replacement. However, it’s a pretty darn good adjunct.

The Challenge of Computing

For the past few months I’ve been blogging, emailing, and computing in general on my backup machine. Somehow, my main computer had become unstable, rebooting at any or no occasion.

I’m not sure what made it go nuts. I only know it did. I suspect it wasn’t a virus or spyware. I’m very careful about that, but something was bugging it and it was relentless.

At one point I wondered if the problem wasn’t caused by the power supply? Considering all the crap I’ve got shoved in my computer case, it might have been overtaxed. A few weeks ago I ordered a new, quieter, more powerful power supply and a few extra sticks of memory.

This weekend I pulled the old supply and hooked up the new one. Though it looks complex with lots of wires and plugs connected to it, it’s really pretty straightforward.

I fired up the computer and – well, it was the same garbage. Right in the middle of nothing the computer would reboot. Maybe the original power supply was bad and a spike of electricity from its strained regulators had put bad data on my hard drives?

I decided to start from the very beginning.

My C:\ drive didn’t contain much other than installed programs. All my important data was squirreled elsewhere. I re-formatted the drive.

Next came my copy of Windows XP. In the drive it went and the install process was underway… until it stopped. Randomly, files weren’t being copied properly and Windows wasn’t shy about telling me.

The message was something like, “Press Enter to try again, skip this file at your peril.” I pressed Enter… and Enter… and Enter. Sometimes on the second or third try a recalcitrant file would load, only to hit the another pothole a few seconds later.

Finally there was a file that wouldn’t copy, no matter what I did! Was it the CD drive, my hard drive, the Windows CD itself or something I hadn’t thought of yet? I kept trying, but never got any further.

Finally, tonight at work while reading through an old Usenet message, I found something that might be the culprit… though it sounded off the wall. Sometimes when mixing and matching memory chips, Windows balks. It just refuses to install.

That, in a nutshell, was what had happened to me.

I’m guessing – actually, it’s more like hoping, I’ll be able to stick the memory into the PC once Windows is loaded and running. It will run much faster with 1 Gb of RAM than it does with 512 Mb.

As I type this Windows is updating, installing all the security patches that have come out since XP hit the scene. I still have a few more drivers and utilities to throw on before it’s time to reinstall my programs.

What a royal pain!

In the long run, all of this anguish and angst will go away. The computer will run like a top. I will be happy.

It’s a machine I designed and built myself. Unless something goes wrong from time-to-time I feel I just haven’t pushed the envelope.

Computing Denial

Who knows why these things happen – but they do. My main home computer has become unstable… unable to work for more than a few minutes without crashing to the dreaded ‘Blue Screen of Death.’ I have the luxury of backup machines, but this main box is the one I depend on and store my most important files on.

That a symptom of computer sickness has developed its own well know nickname (and the acronym BSOD is well know too) is a left handed tribute to Windows computing.

It’s possible there’s something I introduced to the computer that’s got it feeling sickly, though most likely it’s just a driver (or two) or a program (or two) that don’t play well together. I’m not wise enough to know if this is because of the way Windows is designed, but there is a constant litany of Mac and Linux users saying this doesn’t happen to them.

The answer to this BSOD problem is simply to reformat and start again. There’s no doubt I’ll be doing that sometime in the next few days. I just need some time to decide how to do this without losing too much, or any, of my data.

I know I’ll want my mail and address books. There are documents that I’ll need to save too. The scare is that I’ll forget something and end up losing forever something I’ll want or need. That’s why I’ve been reticent to do it.

The funny thing is, reformatting and rebuilding a computer is something I’ve done dozens of times for friends and family members. In fact I had to reformat and redo my dad’s machine while I was in Florida.

It’s a never ending cycle.

My Obsession With Being Obsessive

Last night, after dinner, Steffie convinced us to hit the mall for ten minutes. The fact is, no one has ever spent just ten minutes in a mall… though I’d like to be the first.

While Steffie and Helaine went into Abercrombie and Fitch, I went looking for reading material. I walked aimlessly since there didn’t seem to be any maps or guides around. As it turned out, it was the right direction and at the very end of the mall was a B. Dalton.

I used to go right to the computer books, but I sense these don’t sell the way they once did. The computing section has gotten smaller and smaller. I had written earlier about the Chevy-izing of computing and fewer books would seem to be an offshoot of that.

Recently, when I’ve gone to the magazine rack, it’s been to look at photo magazines. I’m looking for tips and techniques. I’m certainly not looking for gear at the moment.

It is my tendency to become obsessive when I wrap myself around a new technology, like digital photography. But the learning curve is steep, and without a concentrated period at the beginning it would take forever to understand what I’m doing.

I picked up a copy of Photoshop Magazine, which I suppose qualifies as both photography and computer oriented. I started to thumb through the pages, looking at ways to make my photos better.

There are a lot of people who know more than I do about photography and Photoshop… and are significantly better at applying both.

As always, part of the fun is looking at the ads. A few minutes into my browsing I saw something I never see in national ads: “New Haven, CT.”

The ad was for Software Cinema and their Photoshop Training Camp. Going to Software Cinema’s website I saw ads for this program and Photoshop Training Camp Live.

OK – New Haven gets the second class show.

Still, after looking at the rundown of topics (too many suited for wedding photographers), I decided I’d go. It’s $25 with advance registration – a reasonable investment.

I assume they’ll have plenty to sell too. No one’s coming all the way to New Haven for $25 a head.

It’s pretty lucky that I stumbled upon this magazine at just the right time to see the ad for Monday’s show on Saturday. I’ll be kvetching about getting up early (after all, work won’t be over Monday until well after midnight with our 35 minute newscast following Monday Night Football). Hopefully, I’ll also be learning.

Why Do I Do It?

I called my friend Paul this afternoon. We spoke for a while and then, he asked me why? Why do I write this blog?

Damn. Good question. I’m not sure why.

As has been pointed out by other friends, most blogs are boring. And, even as a blogger, I don’t read other blogs.

A story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine said the average blog was written by someone my daughter’s age, who quickly lost interest. A 53 year old blogger is beyond unusual.

When I try and intellectualize the blog, I realize I like getting my point across. At the same time, I’m frustrated that I have to stifle myself. There’s a lot about my family and workplace and politics, that I don’t write. I am jealous of those unencumbered by the necessary obligations of gainful employment.

Boy, would I like to write about politics right now.

I attempt to post something here every day. I haven’t been 100% successful, but I’m close. There are times when I’ve written, but really didn’t have much (or anything to say). The discipline of writing every day is a good thing. So, I force myself.

I now know a little too much about my own writing. It is very difficult to write a lot without developing a distinctive style. Style sounds like a good thing in the abstract, until you understand there’s a predictability in distinctive style. There are catch phrases and techniques that I overuse – even though I try not to. I’d like to be different every day. But, by definition, I am me every day.

I take great pleasure in revising and rewriting my prose. This might be the greatest gift of modern computing – the easy ability to revisit what you’ve just written.

I remember the first time I saw a word processor, “Electric Pencil” for the TRS-80 Model I. It was installed on a computer with no printer, but I still sat in slack jawed amazement as the first word wrapped to the next line. It only took a few seconds to understood the power that was being unleashed.

More than once, since I’ve been blogging, someone has suggested I write a book. Here I’m doing paragraphs at a time. A book is pages and pages and pages. And, the more you write, the more organizational skills (not a strong point for me) come into play.

For the time being, it’s fun to write and then be read by the few hundred of you who pass by here every day. Considering how I dreaded writing as a student, it is remarkable that, today, I find writing so satisfying

What I’ve Been Up To At Work

The past few weeks have been spent getting ready to use some new equipment at work. Our very dependable, SGI based, Liveline Genesis system has been replaced by Weather Central’s :Live.

Actually, replaced is not a good word, because :Live is really an add-on which extends the system. We’re still producing some graphics in Genesis but it now it doesn’t go on-the-air.

The SGI system we were using has to be at least 10 years old. These systems run slow by today’s standards. Our hard drive was only 4 GB! From time-to-time I had to go in an mercilessly blow out perfectly fine work created by the other guys in the weather department because we just didn’t have enough room.

Computers and homes are very similar in that you can never have too much closet space. And, of course, the hard disk is the closet of computing.

The problems with the SGI system were legion. It never handled the look of fonts correctly. Its interface, developed in he dark ages of computing, was anti-intuitive and often different in different parts of the system. It took long amounts of time to render animated segments, like a satellite loop or fly through, before they could be shown on TV.

On the other hand, it was nearly bulletproof. The system hardly ever crashed or locked up.

Because the SGI system was based on the Irix operating system, from time-to-time you’d have to delve into the **ix environment to attack a problem. It is a bit scary to do, because it is so foreign to most computer users. Over the years, as I have become more conversant in Linux, another **ix language, Irix has become more understandable.

Every time I have a problem, and work with one of Weather Central’s tech support people, I wonder how they do this with computerphobes? Often we can skip the first 5 or 6 steps. Imagine trying to describe this obtuse text oriented operating system over the phone!

The new :Live system allows us to show animations with no rendering time (though files still have to load from the hard drive to memory, which does take some time). It also integrates multiple layers of animation and still images, which makes it much more flexible. The most interesting part is the ability to stand in front of my green chroma key wall and use my finger as a mouse, drawing or placing objects on the TV screen in real time (or :Live, I suppose).

Right out of the box, it looked much sharper, cleaner and modern than what we had been doing. Simple things, like forecast pages, now run with animated backgrounds. Maps and icons look crisp. The satellite imagery is a little blockier and pixelated than what we were using, especially when viewed at a regional or tighter level.

Because the commands to create each graphic element are programmed in quasi plain text, I have started to write some new ‘scenes’ to suit our needs.

The downside is, this is a Windows based system – Windows 2000 to be exact. It has crashed more than once. So far, not while on-the-air, but awfully close. It also seems to have memory leak problems, not a surprise in a Windows environment. That means, if you run a sequence through, to check it out, you may be pushing the car closer to the edge of the cliff with each mouse click.

I already see some changes I’d like added to the system, which is probably a blessing and curse to those who designed it. I will help them make it better, but probably at the cost of being a pain in the ass.

At the same time we added :Live, we’ve also begun running our own, locally produced, high resolution, computer forecast model. I’ll get into that later.