Random updates, like the proverbial box of chocolates:

- I finally started the wedding DVD projects for my appropriate siblings (sorry, Haley, yours will be a long way off). Jeff and Shandra's is 90% done and I've even burned a test DVD to make sure it actually plays. Linde and Justin's is 75% done. I need to buy printable DVDs for the final product and then do the trial-and-error of learning how to burn a disc image and then make multiple DVDs from that (as opposed to waiting 5 hours for a DVD to render and burn, as the test DVD did) and then I should be done. All told, learning iMovie and iDVD, uploading about 5 hours of video, whittling it down to about 3 hours of video, making it into clips with transitions, composing the DVD menus and figuring out how to convert the PowerPoint slide shows into videos took around 17 hours. I'll be glad when they're done, mostly because they're way overdue, but partially so I can get my 65GB of hard drive space back (and I thought high-res pictures took up a lot of space). This should cover Christmas presents to my siblings for the next, oh, five years or so . . .

- I cooked fish for the first time last week. Although I'm not a huge fan of fish, I'm going to make an effort to incorporate it into my diet. I dug my George Foreman grill out of the oubliette into which it was tossed long ago (I don't think I've even plugged it in since I bought my house, given my non-meat-eating habits), dusted the fillets with olive oil and seasoned bread crumbs, grilled them for about 5 minutes and then flavored them with a honey glaze I made from honey, teriyaki sauce and seasoned pepper. When added to the steamed edamame and jicama and steamed brown rice I made on the side, it was probably the healthiest meal I've ever made.

- My route to work has been fraught with peril lately. Earlier in the week I spotted several soda cans rolling across the lanes in front of me. My initial impression was that one of the recycling trucks had lost a bag, a guess disproved when I caught up with the Mountain Dew truck one block ahead that had jettisoned several cases of soda from an unfortunately unsecured door while attempting to turn into a gas station. Today I was nearly in an auto accident when the person just ahead and to the left of my lane suddenly decided to have lunch at the Burger King on my right and entered my lane to make the turn without looking or signaling. A hard brake (and some swearing) on my part left a gap of less than a foot. Yay for adrenaline to prime you for work.

- My beloved iMac has been giving me fits. It has for awhile been randomly deciding not to wake up from sleep, a condition Lane has dubbed a "Mac coma." I've reset the system controller and PRAM, disabled Awaken and Weatherbug and pored over the console logs, with no luck. At the same time my Soundsticks have been failing (cutting out when anything else suddenly draws power, necessitating unplugging and plugging them back in, crackling when they kick in after not being used for awhile and humming very loudly when they're not plugged into the computer), which according to the oracle that is the Internet heralds a failed capacitor and the end of their lifespan. With any luck, the two are connected, and the replacement speakers that should be showing up any day now will solve both problems.

- Speaking of computers, I spent most of an hour on the phone with my mother last night walking her through the diagnostic and remediation steps of an A360 virus infection on her PC. I think we got a handle on it (although not being able to actually see the screen means I can't be sure). As much as my iMac is annoying me at the moment, I'm still trying to move my family to the Mac so as to avoid these sorts of inconveniences.

Labels: annoyance, computers, family, imac, miscellany

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Tuesday, July 22

My So-called iLife

In a most serendipitous fashion, Haley has both (a) needed a new computer for awhile and (b) not received a high school graduation present from our parental units (despite prepping for her sophomore year to begin in about a month). In her infinite wisdom, Haley turned over most of the computer-decision-making-process to me, and I carefully weighed the pros and cons of Dell Vista laptops and other assorted machinery, checked prices and made informed recommendations on system specs. And, of course, I left any sort of personal bias out of the equation.

So it's just by chance that she's getting a MacBook. Honest.

I had all of the components (the MacBook, a RAM upgrade from a third-party, a student copy of Word 2008, etc.) shipped to me so I can have everything upgraded, installed and customized by the time Haley visits next month. Plus this way I can have a MacBook to play with for a couple of weeks . . .

Labels: computers, haley, imac

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Thursday, May 8

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

While enjoying the latest episode of "Top Chef" tonight (thanks to Cris for not spoiling it and yay to Richard for still being in), I saw a commercial for a company called "Finally Fast" that advertises a "free" computer scan (followed by a not-free "cleanup" of any problems it finds) for your PC. As a note unrelated to my amusement factor, what they're really selling is the same service that Spybot provides (except that Spybot is robust, highly recommended . . . and free), so what they're actually doing is cashing in on the computer-illiteracy of the average American.

What earned a laugh from me, though, was something completely unrelated in their ad. The opening and ending of the commercial, the "book ends," if you prefer, feature a young man first complaining that his computer (which "used to be so fast") is now crawling and then, after running Finally Fast, bragging in overly enthusiastic tones about how fast his PC is now. Except his "PC" is a 20-inch iMac (newer generation, either the last of the G5s or the first of the Intels). So the software the company is promoting wouldn't even install on his computer, let alone do anything to speed it up.

It's the details that get you.

Labels: amusement, funny, imac

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Wednesday, March 5

Live, From New York, Update

I realized today that Flickr's format may not have correctly conveyed the accomplishment with which I was being enamored regarding my video conferencing test. This is a more accurate representation of what Cris saw on his computer (although, of course, it will vary by viewer based on monitor size and screen resolution). According to Skype, that's supposed to be 640x480 at 25 fps, although we didn't test it long enough to verify that it will actually maintain that.

Labels: computers, imac

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Tuesday, March 4

Live, From New York

Live From New York
Originally uploaded by -Greyson-

Yes, that's me on a web cam. Rest assured I will not be charging $2.00 a minute to strip for strangers or anything of that sort (although for a copy of Photoshop . . .). I set up my iSight for the first time last night (both in iChat and in Skype). This was Cris's view of what is apparently a pretty decent quality (both in framerate and screen size) live video chat with me. Humorously, he didn't have a Web cam hooked up, so while I was speaking normally (like a phone call with video), his responses were typed into the chat window, a somewhat disjointed experience that nevertheless holds promise for live video conferencing with family and friends (everyone go download Skype).

Labels: computers, imac

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Wednesday, February 13

Mac Update

I'm adjusting to the iMac fairly well. The close buttons on the opposite side, check. Dock and Dashboard, check. Menus in the top bar instead of the window, check. Programs running even when closed until actually quit, check.

The minor annoyances that still require acclimation: keyboard map, command keys, equivalent programs. I haven't found an HTML program I like yet (iWeb is useless and RapidWeaver *says* it will do what I want but the documentation and trial-and-error hasn't produced it yet).

Most of my actual complaints have been hardware. I really didn't like the Mighty Mouse. Even with right-click enabled, the mouse would routinely interpret my right-clicks as left-clicks (even when I was almost on the right edge), and the short cable really isn't compatible with a large screen. So I bought an MX Revolution wireless mouse, which had some early kinks (less-than-stellar OS X drivers that kept switching the scroll wheel mode on its own and a charging station that took some fiddling to make work) but that seems to be working pretty well now. And the built-in speakers, despite the reviews, sound awful (or more accurately, they sound like a stereo without any bass). Soundsticks seem to have solved that problem. All I think I'm really missing at this point is my Adobe Suite (you don't want to see Jay in Photoshop withdrawal . . .).

Labels: computers, imac

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Wednesday, February 6

Electronic Splendor

My new Soundsticks are here and attached to the iMac, adding yet another diffuse blue LED glow to the collection of lights in the corner of my room (the USB hub and the Lightscribe drive being the other two, along with the green lights on the cable modem). That freed up my old Altec Lansing 251 speakers (a 5.1 speaker system won't fit on the new desk, hence the "downgrade" to 2.1 speakers). Given their likely (low) value, I "converted" them into television speakers (they're certainly not true surround sound, especially given the wires are too short to place them anywhere but on the entertainment center itself, but they sound better than the television's built-in speakers). One interesting quirk is that the "static" that the bass unit has been experiencing for the last several months, when I actually put my ear down by it while hooking it back up in the living room, revealed itself to be the faint murmurings of at least three different radio stations. So much for shielding.

In other news, despite the possible contribution crystalline water may have made to the emergence of life (and hence me) on this planet, I remain completely unimpressed with its insistence on returning on a seasonal basis. Read, shoveling snow (a task completed last night, only to be resumed tonight), while not on par with, say, invasive surgery or financial bankruptcy, remains an unenjoyable task. Lisa has openly scoffed at my plans for a superheated compressed nitrogen "gun" capable of flash-steaming snow off the sidewalks (and has suggested I just buy a small snowblower instead).

Labels: computers, imac

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Monday, February 4

Weekend Update

Home improvements are expensive. Word.

The bedroom project is nearing completion. The paint is long since dry, resplendent now with its shimmering highlights and metallic copper accents, reflecting a hybrid Frank Lloyd Wright/Stargate Atlantis/Myst theme seen only in the surroundings of bachelors with some degree of creativity and spending money, certainly nothing ever seen in a room requiring the input of two people. Most of the furniture is moved back in (including, thankfully, my bed, sparing me from the discomfort of my spare beds that in most situations I reserve only for visiting guests). The old computer desk is still partially assembled and the Dell is still running, mostly because I haven't finished migrating files but partially because I still need it for a handful of applications (mostly Photoshop-related) that the iMac is not yet capable of handling. Once it's gone I should be able to move the dresser into its place and be done (sans wall decorations, which may require some re-evaluation given the new color scheme).

The iMac itself has been a mixed blessing. The culmination of a year-and-a-half of saving and a good dose of longing, it sits in blissful pretentiousness, ignoring the sullen glares of the Dell. At the same time, it has frustrated me just a little bit. I don't like the Mighty Mouse (the lack of context for the right-click has annoyed the hell out of me) and the smaller keyboard will take some adjusting after using the same (very big) ergonomic keyboard for (and I'm not joking here) 12 years (it's a hell of a keyboard, even if it's a faint yellow instead of white now and some of the keys have been worn blank). I haven't yet figured out why Apple (the industry standard for incorporating design and convenience into their products) doesn't make an ergonomic keyboard, or why the grand march forward toward larger screen space (this is a 24" monitor, after all, which dwarfs even the 20" screens at work) is mirrored by a gradual shrinking of the keyboard to laptop size. The keyboard layout is similarly unfamiliar for the time being (in particular, I'm used to the backspace key being at the upper right edge, and frequently use the edge as context to find it, which on the Mac keyboard lands me on the DVD eject button, not to mention the additional "modifier" keys that Tim advises me will become lifeblood in the near future). The other major frustration, unforeseen in my switch plans, is that the "easiness" of the Mac (one of its selling points) comes at the expense of tool sets I take for granted; iWeb, for example, a program for making Web pages, has no option to actually edit HTML (and won't open my old HTML pages), instead supplying a series of pre-made templates awaiting text, a fabulous program for people with no HTML experience but a worthless one for those of us who just want to open our previous recipe pages and update the text and pictures. Firefox also has some odd limitations (the bookmarks, for example, while fully draggable and editable as-is in Windows, are locked on the Mac version until you actually open the bookmark editor). It's as though the programs were made "idiot proof," at the expense of convenience.

I have no doubt that a month from now I'll have either adjusted to the new settings or found alternate Mac programs that do what I want them to do. And I'll probably have a new Logitech Revolution mouse (especially if any of my readers are feeling generous . . .).

On to tiling the bathroom!

Labels: computers, house, imac

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