Rants and musings, without care for substance.
Posted in plans, privacy, technology, web sites on Jan 23rd, 2012
In the past I’ve avoided location-aware services, opting instead to conceal my location to all but my ISP, cellular provider, and whoever else might be capable and willing to find out.
2012 marks a departure from that stance.
Armed with a Nexus One, I’ve started using a few new services.
I’ve started to use foursquare to track my [...]
Posted in technology, troubleshooting on Aug 23rd, 2011
I haven’t had land-line phone service in more than a decade, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t missed it. If I’m on a two hour conference call I don’t want to be burning up the minutes and battery on my cell phone (or be tethered to the wall where the charger is plugged in), [...]
Posted in complaints, technology, things i'd like to see, travel on Sep 13th, 2010
When the Verizon Wireless folks sold me a car charger for a phone that had a mini-USB plug, I expected it to work with any phone from Verizon that had a mini-USB jack. Not so, apparently; maybe the mini-USB standard doesn’t specify how much current is to be provided from each pin. I get the [...]
Posted in technology, travel on Dec 9th, 2009
One of my friends has a TomTom. As of this past weekend, I have renamed it. I will now refer to his GPS as the TomTom Adventure Machine. Twice now his GPS has taken us on all sorts of crazy back roads to get us to our destination. This thing knows about dirt roads, access [...]
Posted in technology, web sites on Aug 31st, 2009
For folks running on Windows, it can be difficult to tell what is real and what is bogus. The following web page was loaded on Firefox on Mac OS X, pop-up dialog boxes with animated status bars and all.
Though I wasn’t impacted at all, you can see why less saavy computer users can be fooled [...]
Posted in in the news, technology on Aug 13th, 2009
There is no such thing as confidential email. Or privileged. Or anything of the sort, despite the sentences or paragraphs that appear below many professionals’ signature blocks.
Google Apps has been in the news — and by news I mean Slashdot — lately. Apparently there are people concerned that law offices and medical practitioners are migrating [...]
Posted in advertising, complaints, technology on Jan 29th, 2009
For all of its flaws and with all of the advances of DVD, I think VHS had a few notable benefits. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss futzing around with the tracking on an old tape. Or fishing the magnetic tape out of the VCR once it got frayed and ruined. What I miss [...]
Posted in gadgets, gaming, technology on Aug 28th, 2008
There’s something undeniably cool about a MacGuffin in a case, like in Ronin or Pulp Fiction. It’s not just about the plot device itself, though. My fascination extends to case-mounted hardware too, including all manner of tactical weapons — HK’s MP5-in-a-suitcase being a choice and rarely found example — and communications gear. Needless to say [...]
Posted in advertising, gadgets, oddities, technology, things i'd like to see on Jan 14th, 2008
Heading north on Russell Street just before Ravens stadium there’s a billboard that proclaims “Marriage works” while depicting a cheery-faced couple. What are the advertisers trying to sell here in Baltimore? A church? the institution of marriage itself? As far as I can see from the street there isn’t a sponsor listed. Lots a people [...]
Posted in gadgets, music, tech, technology on Nov 10th, 2007
It’s been over ten years since I first heard Third Eye Blind on the side stage of HFStival 1997. Yesterday I had the opportunity to do so again at UMD College Park’s Ritchie Coliseum, this time while working on the show providing support to the Technical Director. As usual, I got a kick out of [...]
Posted in oddities, technology, things i'd like to see on Nov 1st, 2007
Every once in a while I’ll stumble upon something that I want to know more about. It could be the most remote thing that has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m doing or what I’m usually interested in. Then I have to stop what I’m doing and figure it out. It is akin to [...]
Posted in technology on Aug 23rd, 2007
With a small degree of sadness, I removed the catch-all from my domain today.
I’ve owned this domain for almost a decade. In all of that time I’ve had a catch-all. It was convenient and handy to be able to create email addresses at the drop of a hat. At Bob’s Electronics Depot and need to [...]
Posted in complaints, technology on Aug 16th, 2007
I the course of four hours I got hammered with backscatter from someone’s spam run. It looks like the batch included a lot of the recent PDF spam that is circulating. The mail server handled it pretty well, but I still had to clean out the 1,600 bounce emails this afternoon. If I weren’t insistent [...]
Posted in housing, life in general, technology on May 27th, 2007
Friday afternoon I got home from work and did the unthinkable. I turned on the air conditioning. Turning on the AC is something I postpone until absolutely necessary. As cheap as I can be, I just couldn’t help it. It was 83° in my living room and I was expecting people over that evening for [...]
Posted in culture, gadgets, oddities, technology, wireless on Apr 12th, 2007
Leaving the grocery store yesterday, I walked past a women with long hair. She was loading groceries into her car’s trunk and talking as if she were in the middle of a conversation. She looked as me as I walked past and kept talking. Not to me, clearly.
A year or two ago I would have [...]
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