Non-Sensical

Switcher

2008-10-01T13:15:00.003-05:00

In May, I made the switch to a Mac. A Macbook Pro to be exact. I've been using it now for a few months and I really like it. I got Parallels to go with it for my Windows apps that I still needed, but I find myself using it less and less. One thing that has thrown me for a loop is the keyboard shortcuts. I'm very well versed in using keyboard shortcuts in the Windows world, but I'm finding it hard to remember all of the Mac equivalents. These are the ones I forget the most often:

CTL+F2 - > Menu bar gotten by using Alt
CMD+Shift+3 -> Print Screen
CMD+Shift+4 -> Print Screen w/ being able to select the area to capture
CMD+Shift+z -> Redo
CMD+Left Arrow -> Beginning of line
CMD+Right Arrow -> End of line
CMD+Shift+A -> Start Menu

I really do miss my home, end, page up & page down keys. I also miss being able to hit Win+E to get a new explorer window, I've yet to find a Mac equivalent.

--JOsh

The Snowblower Fairy

2008-02-08T18:49:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I left for work in the morning, and as I walked out my front door, there sat a snowblower. It was quite odd, as this being Iowa, we'd recently gotten snow & I found it to be unthinkable that someone would just gift me a snowblower out of the kindness of their hearts.

I asked my wife if she knew where it had come from, thinking that possibly my next door neighbor had dropped it off for us to use. Nope, not his. I asked my mom, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, and a few others. No one had any clue as to where it might have came from.

After pondering it for a few days, I remembered that there was a gentleman down that street that repairs small engines. I hypothesized that someone had intended to drop off a snowblower to him to fix. I left the snowblower on the porch for about a week, figuring if my hypothesis was correct, someone would soon be looking for it. After a week & no word, I tried starting it to see if it even ran. No luck, so off it went to the garage to keep it out of the elements.

A few days later after returning from a trip out of town, I was greeted by a note on my door stating that someone had dropped off a snowblower by mistake & wanted me to call them. With all of the snow we've gotten lately, digging out my garage and dragging the snowblower to the front was far from my list of top things to do. I figured that in a week or so, I'd get around to calling the person back & having them come collect their snowblower.

Fast forward to this morning, when I hear a knock on the door. It's the snowblower guy, wanting to get his snowblower. Uggh. The problem being, that it was in the shed behind the house, blocked in by 12-16 inches of snow which would require quite a bit of shoveling to get it. Not exactly what I wanted to be doing at 7:30 in the morning. So, I shoveled my way to the shed & retrieved the snowblower and off he went.

The mystery of the snowblower fairy has been solved.

--JOsh

Blogger Comment Whitelist

2008-01-28T11:04:00.000-06:00

While commenting on one of Jason's recent posts, the thought occurred to me that I really hate filling out CAPTCHAS on friend's blogs. It would be nice if Blogger would create a feature to add a friend comment whitelist, so that if I'm logged into blogger, I don't have to input that stupid CAPTCHA to comment on a friend's blog.

--JOsh

Honeymoon Photos

2007-12-14T14:48:00.000-06:00

I know this is really late, but better late then never, eh?

Some pictures from our honeymoon at Sandals Resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It was a wonderful trip and very relaxing. Too bad we got an immediate Midwest Winter welcome upon our return.

http://picasaweb.google.com/joshandmelissa777

--JOsh

Our tax dollars at work

2007-06-28T09:14:00.001-05:00

I've been wanting to do a project for a while that involved text messaging, an email server & weather radar images. It seems that fairly often, I'm someplace where I'd find it really handy to be able to check to the radar for impending storms, or to see how much longer a storm will be hovering over. Since I don't have a data plan for my cell phone, I'd dreamed of a way to send a text message to someplace, and have it respond back with an animated radar image. Seems simple enough, right? Well, I've got it mostly working now with some wget & .procmailrc magic. But in the process, I was trying to figure out where to get my radar images. I knew that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had weather forecast pages that were pretty good. After doing a little digging, I came across this link, http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/remote/ridge_download.htm that outlines just what images they have, where they live on their server, & other very useful information. Usually, it's a cat & mouse game trying to figure out where an image is, if there's time based strings in it's URL & other such nonsense. I think it's great that, as a government funded organization, we, the taxpayers, can use the information that we're ultimately paying for.

And Ryan ought to appreciate this, http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/remote/radarfaq.htm and http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/remote/ridgeimages.htm both specifically mention color blindness and the fact that radar uses color to convey information. And they even point out a site, http://www.ryobi-sol.co.jp/visolve/en/ that has a free for personal use tool for color deficient people that can change their computer display to colors they can discern.

--JOsh

And the heavens parted...

2007-06-11T09:38:00.000-05:00

And the light shone, and basking in the light, in all it's gloriousness, was Jimmy John's. At long last, after being smitten with the taste of their delicious subs over 6 years ago, I can finally get one here in Cedar Rapids.

--JOsh

Fuck Vonage!

2007-05-31T15:05:00.000-05:00

Grrr... A few months back, I had signed the Forest up for Vonage. We had intended to get a phone number locally, then transfer it to Vonage using the Number Portability Act. Well, long story short, we got out local number from a local cell phone company, and then couldn't get the number transfered to Vonage. I called Vonage from work over my lunch break to cancel. Well, today I noticed I had a missed call last night from some toll free number, 866-243-4357. As I was sitting at my desk this afternoon, my phone rang, and it was the same toll free number. I answer and it's Vonage trying to sell me service. I asked how they got my number and the lady on the end of the phone said that I had previously called them. WTF! I asked, 'So since I called once from this number, you took that as an invitation to telemarket to me at this number?', to which she responded 'Yes.' Double WTF! I told her to never call me at this number again, at which time she started rattling off a speech about how they will do that, but it might take 30 days to remove my name & number, and I may still receive calls until then.

Guess I'll have to start dialing *67 before calling places to ensure that I don't get telemarketed based on a previous phone call.

--JOsh

Rolling Poo Joke

2007-05-23T08:40:00.000-05:00

I saw this last week while running errands:

Doggy's Doo
Your dog poops, we scoop!
We pick up where your dog leaves off!
#1 in the #2 business
Call 651-9900

--JOsh

One step closer

2007-05-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

Looks like the big G is one step closer to releasing my GooBox

--JOsh

One of these things is not like the other...

2007-05-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

An artsy photo from our annual pilgrimage to Chicago this spring for the Transworld Halloween Costume & Party Show:

--JOsh

Bring it...

2007-05-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

At the start of the latest round of Ryan's Photo Hunt, Samantha was a little boastfull. Looks like she's got quite a bit of catching up to do if she wants to win. If Cathy & Max don't step up today with correct guesses & pictures, it looks like I'll be taking home all the marbles. :-P

--JOsh

Crazy stuff seen at work

2007-05-04T11:27:00.000-05:00

In the area by our copier & fax , there's been a three-hole punch with a note to 'DO NOT REMOVE PLEASE!!' with a 3 foot chain attached to it.
But the chain isn't attached to anything else, making it totally useless for keeping the hole punch there.

Last week, I went to make a copy and saw this piece of paper and noticed that the chain was gone. In it's place was a note that said 'Thanks for the chain! I hope you didn't think the "HOLE PUNCH" would prevent it from being taken'.

A little later in the afternoon, I noticed that it had a post it note on it that said 'We need a chain to secure the missing chain?'

A little later, I noticed another note on the bottom of the post it note, 'I thought that's what the hole punch was for!'

A few days later, the chain mysteriously showed back up:

All rather silly and stupid, but yet funny too.

--JOsh

Dickey's Update

2007-05-04T11:05:00.000-05:00

Since my last post, I've been to Dickey's 2 more times. Once for lunch, and another time for dinner. I was finally able to try the pulled pork. Tasty, but still not quite a good as Dave's. I guess I'm just picky when it comes to pulled pork, I like it to have a nice smokey flavor, without the bbq sauce. If the sauce has some smokeyness to it, that's fine, but I like the meat to be able to stand on it's own. Their dinner rolls are much better than their cornbread. I think I'll just stick to the rolls from now on. Still digging their fried okra. Guess that's just one of those things that I picked up from living in the South. Their green beans are very delicious. Not such a fan of the potato salad, it's not horrible, but it's certainly not Jason's grandmas deliciousness. The jalapeño beans were good, nice kick to them. Even better with a splash of bbq sauce & some onions thrown in.

So, all in all, I'm happy with Dickey's. It's certainly nice to have a BBQ place so close to home.

--JOsh

Premonitions

2007-04-24T20:28:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I commented on Samantha's blog about Google becoming a place to save data you want to find again, things like web pages you've visited. Imagine my surprise when I see this show up in my Google Reader feed for Google's blog: Google Launches Web History. Guess that was just my little bit of premonition.

Wouldn't be the first time either.

Back in April of 2006 I posted about Google's Calendar Release and how they weren't too far away from replacing Microsoft Outlook in many places with their combination of mail & calendaring. I envisioned an appliance one could put on their network that would run a local version of Gmail & Google Calendar so that companies could keep their own data. Well, they haven't done that, but with the release of the Google Apps Premier edition, apart from being master of your own data, they've got the calendar/mail goodness I spoke of, with the added bonus of Google Docs & Google Spreadsheets. I don't see lots of large businesses jumping on this, but after looking at Google's FAQ entry on Security, Privacy & Compliance, it looks like this would be a very viable option for quite a few small businesses, giving them the ability to ditch Microsoft Office/Exchange and save money at the same time.

--JOsh

Mmmm... Barbeque

2007-04-24T19:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, since Melissa was busy tonight with something for Walk America, I was on my own for dinner. Hy-Vee Chinese sounded really good. As I was turning into the parking lot to Hy-Vee over on Edgewood Rd, I noticed a few cars in the drive-thru of the new Barbeque place over here, Dickey's. Their parking lot was pretty full so I had to check it out. I knew they had a late April opening date, but could it have possibly been today? Sure enough, it was today.

They've got a pretty basic menu. You can choose to get either a sandwich, or a plate of meat. I opted for the plate of meat, with 2 meats. I wanted pulled pork and beef brisket, but they were out of the pork, so I ended up getting the smoked turkey breast instead. Au Gratin potatoes and fried okra rounded out my sides, with cornbread chosen over the dinner roll.

It was pretty busy when I came in, so I was lucky to find an open seat. I ordered at 7:05 and my food was out by ~7:25. This was a little long in my opinion, especially for someplace whose slogan is Slow Cooked, Served Fast, but I'll cut them slack since it was their first night open & they're probably going through some growing pains.

The brisket was pretty good, not quite as good as Famous Dave's, but I'd say better than BBQ This. The smoked turkey was delicious. It was nice and tender, with a really good smoke flavor to it. Their bbq sauce is served warm, with your choice of hot or regular flavor. I got a little of both. The hot wasn't too hot, and the regular was pretty good too. It's a little runny to use as a dipping sauce, as I tend to do with the meats. It also had more of a vinegar-y flavor to it, opposed to a sweeter flavor of say, Famous Daves. I thought the au gratin potatoes were ok, nothing spectacular. The fried okra was good, but a little too greasy, even for something that's traditionally fried. I was rather disappointed with the corn bread. Maybe I've been spoiled by the corn bread from places like Famous Daves, BBQ This, or even Jimmy Jakes in Iowa City, but it was dry with none of the hint of sweetness that I'm used to. Even boxed Jiffy corn bread has better taste better than this did. After dinner, they offer free ice cream, either as a cone or a small dish. A small twist cone finished me off.

Despite sounding like I didn't like much of dinner, I'd say that overall it was good, and I'll definitely be going back. They've got 8 different meats to choose from, and 17 different sides, so I've got quite a few different combinations to try till I find something that's just right.

--JOsh

PS. The car that was parked next to me had not one, but two open Busch Light cans stacked on top of each other in the cup holder in the center console. Talk about redneck... LOL

Mmmm.. Wisconsin Cheddar Soup

2007-04-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

On my way home tonight I saw Little King Deli's new digs on the corner of 2nd St & 2nd Ave SE. I was actually surprised to see they've finally gotten a website. Just needs a little work to look better...

Help support a local downtown Cedar Rapids business and get some delicious soup too! Or as Mitch would say, some 'delicis sp'.

--JOsh

Find local business's by calling Google

2007-04-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

I was poking around over at the Google Labs site today and noticed this little nugget, Google Voice Local Search. I had already used their SMS service to get business info before, but there was a period of time when US Cellular didn't support short SMS codes, so I couldn't use it. This would have been much easier to use. Plus, the cool thing about this is that they'll connect you to the business for free. Oh, and they'll even SMS you the information, all you have to do is ask. HA! Suck it 411 pay charges!

--JOsh

It's all Ian's fault

2007-04-13T11:27:00.000-05:00

I've been kinda busy lately, and not really in the mood to post. But this morning Ian mentioned that I had an update, and if I hadn't updated, it would have been almost 1 year since I've updated this blog. Well, unfortunately, the 'update' he saw wasn't really an update. A couple of months ago, I noticed in my server logs that I was getting a ton of traffic from myspace. Turns out someone, or lots of someones actually, were hot-linking to the full-res pictures from my Chicago night skyline post as their page background. I changed the pictures on the server & updated the new links here, so that must be what triggered the 'update', though I don't know why it just picked it up, as that was over 2 months ago I did that.

Anyway, a few things are new with me:

Helping Melissa plan for our wedding on 07-07-07

Put a new engine in my Subaru. Funny enough, it was 18 months to the day since it had last run.

Got a motorcycle last fall, an 1990 Yamaha XT600E. I've been enjoying it, I put on a little over 1k miles between the end of August and mid-October.

Work at the forest as usual. We decided to put in real electricity this year, after renting generators for the last 4 years or so. Funny that the cost to get power ran is just about what we paid a season for the generators, fuel, etc. Something we should have done long ago, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Figuring out where to store my tools & such, as Dad is selling his house and I'm losing access to the garage where I keep my welder and cutting torch set-up. I've gone through a couple of iterations of garages/storage buildings and I think I've finally come up with something that's workable.

Starting the planning stages of building a Locost from scratch. A Locost is based on the Lotus 7 sports car. Mine will be based loosely off of the Stalker, using a 1987 S10 truck as the main component donor.

So, that's about it for what I've been up to lately. Hope to update more often than once a year, maybe that can be one of my goals for this year.

I've got a few posts that I had started in the last year, maybe I'll finish them up. While they won't quite be as relevant as if I had posted them in a timely manor, I'm gonna post them anyway.

--JOsh

Get with it movie mega plex

2006-06-20T14:55:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, [Wow, this is really late. Last weekend? Ha.. Try 9 months ago. This baby's been in the oven for a while!] Melissa and I went to see Pixar's new film, Cars. Great movie, I highly recommend it, especially if you like cars.

I liked it so much in fact, that I immediately told Melissa that as soon as it came out, we'd be making a BestBuy lunch run to pick up the DVD. But here's where the theatre's and movie studios could be raking in money, especially for movies like these that kids will be watching. When we walk out of the theatre, wouldn't it be great to be able to buy the movie you just watched? Now, granted, not every movie I see in the theatre is one I'd want to watch over and over again, or own on DVD, but for the ones that I do, set the hook and reel me in right there. Instead, now I've got to wait for X number of months, until the studio thinks it's the right time to release the movie. Knowing studios, they'll probably wait until either just before Thanksgiving, or right before Christmas, prime buying seasons.

Parents may hate it, because now little Timmy or Suzie can whine and beg all the way out of the theatre about wanting the movie they just saw, but they'll get over it.

This should help drive traffic to the theatre, as it'd be the only place you could get the movie before 'regular' retail channels. Of course, you'd have to have your movie ticket stub to buy the movie, so it's a win for the theatre too, keeping them in the loop of the movie experience.

--JOsh

An old post revisited

2006-06-20T14:53:00.000-05:00

The mini-mac-stacka-attacka, you're due for an update. Thanks to the Bluedot BDM-100S DVD/CD storage and retrieval silo, you're a little more sleek and modern looking, plus you've got that wonderful blue light that everyone's using now.

--Josh

It's Here!!!

2006-04-17T09:03:00.000-05:00

It's here, it's here!

--JOsh

Hail Sucks

2006-04-13T22:15:00.000-05:00

There was quite a storm tonight in the Cedar Rapids area. Here at home, I had hail that was about the size of a golf ball. Here's some pictures of said hail, along with a golf ball for comparison.

--JOsh

Outlook not so good...

2006-04-13T21:22:00.000-05:00

Today Google released Calendar to Beta, which as Jason pointed out, is like a regular release to any other company.

Could this be the end of Outlook for many companies? I can envision a Google appliance, similar to their search box, that combines the power of Google's hosted email service, with the new calendar service. You pay 3-4k for the box, it sits on your network, chugging away doing mail and calendar, instead of an Exchange server, plus the per seat charge for Outlook. Sure, the calendar features might not be as polished as what Outlook/Exchange offer, but I'd be willing to bet that at least half of the smaller bussinesses that use Exchange would gladly trade those lesser used advanced features for the cheaper goodness of a Google box for calendar and mail. They get to keep their data on premise, or in a location of their choosing, not having to give it up to Google's wishes.

Will we ever see this, who knows? But if we do, you heard it here first.

--JOsh

Picture Time

2006-04-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

Just some pictures from when Melissa and I went to Dubuque a few weeks ago. The weather was absolutely beautiful, so we went for a little walk through Eagle Point Park and managed to take a few pictures along the way. Enjoy.

Eagle Point Park Pictures

Melissa's Favorite:

My Favorite:

--JOsh

Gmail For Domains

2006-03-21T17:24:00.000-06:00

A while ago Google announced they were starting a beta of their new Gmail for Domains hosted email service. This gives you the great gooeyness of Gmail, but for your own domain name and your users. I signed up w/ one of my less used domains on the off chance that I received an invite. I happened to check my email today and noticed that I had been accepted. Here's a few screenshots of the admin interface. (click to view full size)

The dashboard:

User Pane:

Create a user:

All email addresses for the domain:

Create email lists for the domain:

Domain Settings:

--JOsh

Shots from Chicago

2006-03-20T12:36:00.000-06:00

Here's a couple of shots from my recent visit to Chicago for our annual Transworld Halloween Convention. In addition to the Halloween show, we were able to see some of the sights that Chicago has to offer.

Click to see the fullsize pictures.

Chicago skyline at night from the John Hancock Building

Navy Pier at night from the John Hancock Building

City skyline

Subway Ad

Ian's New Business?

--JOsh

Some more stuff I want

2006-01-04T09:18:00.000-06:00

http://www.speedlaces.com/

These look pretty slick.

Mmm... killing watts

2006-01-04T09:06:00.000-06:00

I think I'm gonna have to pick one of these up from Amazon.

--JOsh

Happy New Year

2006-01-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

Hmm.. so it's been almost a year since I started this thing. Posting has been sporadic, as promised. I don't really have much profound to say, so I think I'll start another post with something I want to buy.

--JOsh

Happy Holidays

2005-12-16T08:50:00.000-06:00

Even though I haven't been posting much lately (somewhat of an understatement), I'm still alive and kicking. I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Oh, and a fantabulous fun filled Festivus, if you swing that way.

--JOsh

Do it!

2005-12-16T08:48:00.000-06:00

http://minimacs.freepay.com/?r=14225889

Sign up and complete an offer. I'll even give you five bucks for your troubles!

--JOsh

PS - I'm mainly posting this since the link formats changed, I've already posted this once.

Ignore

2005-12-14T11:43:00.000-06:00

Ignore this post, unless you want to buy this book.

And a neat site to find a filler item to get free shipping:
http://filleritem.com/

--JOsh

Bah Bah....

2005-10-10T17:32:00.000-05:00

All the kool kids are doing it.

--JOsh

2005-10-01T19:43:00.000-05:00

--JOsh

Updates

2005-09-27T23:20:00.000-05:00

Things have been a little busy around here as of late, I've had a ton of weddings to go to this month (3), including being a groomsmen in one. And things are starting in full swing at the Frightmare Forest. Stop on out and check it out. And Yes, It's Scary. ;) Hopefully I'll be able to update a little more frequently, as most the weekday work is done for the Forest. Until next time...

--JOsh

WTF???

2005-09-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

I'll let these two pictures speak for themselves. They were taken in front of the building across the street from where I work.

Jason said there was a disc (DVD/CD?) of some sort inside the block yesterday when he saw it, but sadly(?) it's gone now.

Wonder how long this'll sit there... ewwwww

--JOsh

Shipping Search Plugin

2005-08-24T14:23:00.000-05:00

Someone either needs to write a Firefox extension to do this or Google needs to figure out a way to do it.

Shipping/Mailing. We've all done it at one point or another. This weekend, I needed to figure out shipping costs for a few items. Off to UPS.com I went, inputting all the dimensions, weights, and destinations. Get back a price. Then I thought, well, maybe the USPS is cheaper. Same routine over again. Ditto for Fedex.

I envision something like a special query to google like this:

'ship 23 lbs from 52402 to 90210'

Then the results could ask if it were a small (6"x6"x6"), medium (20"x20"x20") or large (greater than 36" square) to narrow down your results. It could even ask if you wanted options such as shipping insurance, delivery confirmation, etc.

Ok, so there it is. Go forth and come up with it someone!

--JOsh

Uggg

2005-08-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

Ok, got my first comment spam today. Didn't think I would have to worry about spam in the comments, but I guess I'm not immune. Oh well.

--JOsh

How many licks to the center of ...

2005-07-31T22:05:00.000-05:00

Little late on this post, but just got around to dumping some photos off my phone.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a department picnic and a few of us decided to go play disc golf afterwards. Ryan dropped Jason, Samantha, and myself back off at work to get our vehicles. While we were there, we decided to grab some cool refreshments to quench our thirst. Gatorade sounded quite good. However, it wasn't meant to be.

After attempting to purchase a purple Gatorade and having it get stuck, Ryan tried buying another, thinking it would dislodge the stuck bottle. Nope... The suggestion was then made to try buying the can of root beer below, hopefully dislodging the two stuck bottles. No such luck. Score: Vending machine - 3, Josh/Ryan - 0.

So, off to the front desk to claim our money back from the vending machine. After getting our money, do you think we would be content? Not a chance.

Still thirsty for that Gatorade, I again went back to the machine. This time, the second Gatorade slot would be my intended victim. But the machine was not ready to give up just yet, oh no. It claimed another bottle, and another attempt was made to purchase the can below. We reasoned that this time, there weren't two bottles holding the can in place, so away went more change into the machine. Alas, failure once again.

So, for the second time in 5 minutes, I was standing at the front desk filling out vending machine claim forms. Back to the vending machine I went, armed with nickels and dimes, the taste of sweet, sweet Gatorade calling my name. This time, victory would be mine. Rather than risk another botched attempt for the purple stuff, I settled on the orange stuff a few rows higher, hoping the extra height would help overcome the treacherous cans below. After carefully depositing the coins, I selected my number, fingers pausing over that last button with fear of another botched attempt. As I pushed that last button, I was rewarded with a satisfactory thunk, followed by the sound of the bottle sliding down retrieval chute. The battle was won. And though it didn't taste quite as good as the purple would have, it sure did the job. Victory was mine once again.

--JOsh

The downfall of a civilization

2005-07-31T21:57:00.000-05:00

While killing time at Target the other day, I decided to peruse the automotive aisle to see what little trinkets and goodies they had. I had to shake my head when I saw the following:

and

How sad is it that they've made a car accessory just to hold your french fries? I'm sorry, but if you eat french fries in your car that often that you need a dedicated holder for them, you have some major problems.

At this rate, we won't be too far off from the Simpsons episode where Homer is cooking food in the car. I can see the day when you'll have miniature fry cookers, and as a plus, if you have a diesel car that can run biodiesel, you've got yourself a source of fuel.

--JOsh

Updates

2005-06-28T23:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of recent updates. Been a little busy w/ life and such. Hope to add a few more updates here and there now.

--JOsh

Goobox

2005-05-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

I hypothesized this w/ Jason this afternoon: How long until Google unveils a 'super Google' box for home use. It'd have a huge ammount of storage (2TB+), have all the Google goodies (i.e. image search, etc). Would you pay 2k for a box like this that you just threw on your home network and let it do its thing?

--JOsh

Accessories and stuff

2005-05-18T14:57:00.000-05:00

Take a Belkin usb/firewire hub, add in an AC adapter to power the USB and Firewire busses, but also add in a built in Mac Mini power brick. Viola - 1 power wire from the wall to the hub/power supply w/ a single 3" cable to the Mac Mini.

And what about a UPS, sitting under the Mac Mini, w/ the Mini's power supply built into it. Small 3" cable to the Mini for power. Then come up w/ some way to run the monitor's power over it's cable from the Mini. Coupled with 802.11 and Bluetooth, you'd have a Mini with 2 cords going to/from it. One for power in, the other for the monitor and it's power. Nice, neat and clean.

Oh, and after seeing this article on Slashdot about a guy that stuffed a battery into his Mac Mini, I wondered why don't more computers have a built in mini-ups to last 3-5 minutes to survive brown outs, etc? It'd be brilliant, hopefully give just enough time to hibernate the system so you don't lose everything.

--JOsh

Idiot Blocker

2005-04-21T14:59:00.000-05:00

Ian stopped over this afternoon, frustrated at a stupid email he had received. You all know what I'm talking about. You've all got some clueless, well-intentioned friend/aquiantance that forwards you on those email 'warnings' advising you against a myriad of things. Anyone that's been around a while should be able to instantly spot them and groan that they are making their rounds once again. I usually respond to those people with a link to snopes.com and ask that, before they forward me warnings and crap, check to see if it shows up in Snopes, and most likely it will.

But I just had a excellent idea - what if someone wrote a spam-filter style program for these stupid forwards/'warnings', that responded to the sender with a link to the appropriate entry in Snopes.

Ok, so this one was a little late in getting published. Oh well. I've got a few more ideas brewing, so stay tuned.

--JOsh

Whoa

2005-04-18T18:20:00.000-05:00

http://custom.target.com/cgi-bin/custom.pl

I had no idea this existed, but it's pretty damned cool that you can order custom fit clothes from Target. And it's not even that much more expensive than a normal pair of pants.

--JOsh

Whirlwind of ideas

2005-04-15T17:01:00.000-05:00

Ryan and I had a couple of interesting discussions over lunch today. The first was about the music industry, Apple, and cell phones and how the music industry wants to bypass Apple and sell directly through cell phones. As misguided as that is, (who wants their cell phone to be their purchase/delivery method for all of their music purchases?), they'll probably end up screwing the customer over as they've done w/ Bluetooth & file transfer. Such as if you want to get the pictures you've taken on you're camera phone off, you have to pay to send them through the cell phone company's service. Will music be the same way - getting charged twice for content you own, having to email your song purchases to yourself? Also, we lamented on the ringtone thing, $2.50 for a 30 second clip for your phone, $0.99 for the whole song you can play on your computer, iPod, etc. Since most new phones can play straight mp3's as ringtone, I've got a great idea for Apple. Come up w/ a way in iTunes to create a ringtone. Select a song, tell it you want to create a ringtone out of it, pop up a window w/ a 30 second 'window' that you can drag around to get the part of the song you want, preview it, then BAM!, ringtone created. Figure out a nice way to get it on your phone (iSync anyone?) and you'd be set. Too bad you've got to get the handset makers to agree on some sort of standard to easily facilitate it.

Speaking of Bluetooth, Ryan commented on how he's been using the MS Bluetooth mouse, but has been irritated by it's quick disconnection time while idle. I'm sure this is done as a battery saving measure, but what about the people that would rather not be annoyed? How about coming up with a recharging solution w/ a cradle for the mouse to sit in at night/every couple days/weeks, etc. Or better yet, for someone that doesn't want a cradle sitting around - why not build a retractable USB cord into the mouse, that way you can plug it in to recharge via USB every once in a while, or, if your batteries die, can always use it as a regular corded mouse? There's plenty of room inside mice these days w/ doing away with the cruddy mouse ball. Should be more than enough space to fit in a rechargeable cell, your Bluetooth module, the mouse electronics, and your retractable USB cord. Then you'd have your Holy Grail of mice.

And let me get another gripe off my chest. Why does no one make cool ergonomic keyboards anymore? Where's the Bluetooth ergonomic keyboard? I'd love to go Bluetooth for mouse/keyboard needs, but I can't stand using a regular keyboard - hurts my hands too much. As soon as someone comes out with a semi-reasonable priced ergonomic Bluetooth keyboard, I'll be all over it.

Ok, enough ranting for now.

--JOsh

Dew Drops

2005-04-14T17:32:00.000-05:00

This morning, as Ryan and I ran downstairs for some of the delicious breakfast pizza that comes on Tues/Thurs. Ryan commented that my piece got the better brown, crusty, cheesy goodness on top and that everything could be made better w/ some of that baked cheese, even Mountain Dew. He laughingly suggested some sort of fried cheese w/ a nice Dew center. While probably not the most appetizing thing, it got me thinking. Why hasn't anyone come up w/ a Mountain Dew candy w/ a liquid gooey center of Dew filled goodness & loaded w/ caffeine? Think of it as 'Gushers' for big kids. Dew heads could still get their Dew-y goodness, in a more convenient form. General Mills/Pepsi, have your people call my people and we'll work something out. ;-)

--JOsh

This is definitely where I parked my car...

2005-04-12T18:11:00.000-05:00

This was meant to be a longer post, but I don't have time, so I'll just share what I have so far. Feel free to add via the comments.

Funny/stupid things heard @ Best Buy:

While buying a movie:
'I don't think they made a widescreen version of that. Widescreen costs more to make'.

I'm sure Ryan will chime in w/ his favorite. ;)

--JOsh

Another one bites the dust

2005-04-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, this sucks. I've been a member of MyPoints for about 5 or 6 years now. For the last few years, I've had their 'MyPoints' credit card, where you earn extra points by using the credit card. The first one I signed up for, they cancelled the program after about a year. No big deal, switch back to using one of my other cards. About 6-8 months ago, they started a new credit card deal up, so I signed up for it. I just received notice that they're discontinuing this one now and they're working with another credit card company to come up w/ another points card. I would think they'd want to stick with one program and go w/ it, but evidently they like switching card companies every few years or so.

--JOsh

Latest inundation...

2005-04-07T17:02:00.000-05:00

Anyone else been getting a lot of spam lately for Bextra and Betrax? I'm getting about 10-15 a day now. Thank goodness I have spam assassin.

--JOsh

1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!

2005-04-07T00:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so with all this talk from Ryan about old sites, and Jason digging up one of his old sites, I figured it was only fitting to dig up on of my old sites. Ahh, the memories.

--JOsh

BOGOF

2005-04-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

Why the hell would you throw away money? People at work seem more than happy to. Jason has on many occasions, pulled Buy One Get One Free caps off pop bottles from the 'recycle box'. To me, this is just mind blowing. Are the people I work with that loaded that they just don't care about a free pop? One hypothesis that we have is that since the majority of these people get their pop out of the vending machine, they don't ever really go to a store to be able to use them, so they throw them away. I just have a hard time believing that this is the case. Oh well, what can you do but to enjoy the spoils of other's waste.

--JOsh

Ha!

2005-03-31T22:17:00.000-06:00

I tried posting this morning via bloggers 'email to post' feature, but for whatever reason it decided to be stupid and not post it. It just now bounced it back to me finally. Anyway, on to the post:

You've gotta love an article that uses the phrase 'turd burglar'. LOL
Yahoo Story!

--JOsh

R.I.P. Mitch

2005-03-31T14:18:00.000-06:00

Sad news today, one of my favorite comedians, Mitch Hedberg, has passed away.

He will be missed.

--JOsh

How do you screw up something so simple and convenient?

2005-03-31T00:35:00.000-06:00

Today Jason and I went to KFC for lunch. On our last trip, we noticed that they had slightly come into the modern era of fast food by accepting debit cards, but no credit cards, unlike just about every other fast food place in the US. They had some hokey little swipe machine next to the register, on a cardboard pedestal, like it was a retail display to get you to buy the thing.

So I decided since I was a little short on cash, I'd just use my debit card to buy lunch. The cashier rings me up, and I tell her I want to do debit. Simple, right? Nope. It's not bad enough that their machine is 'debit-only'. In order to use it, you HAVE to get cash back, and they charge you $0.99 to use the thing, just like an ATM. Why on earth would they go this route, instead of just sucking it up and getting credit card processing? Guess I won't be using a debit card there anytime soon.

--JOsh

Dude, am I going deaf or did he just say we could fuck his wife?

2005-03-30T22:51:00.000-06:00

I'm sure many of you are like me and carry around a set of car keys in your pocket. Don't you hate getting stabbed in the leg with them? Wouldn't it be cool if every manufacturer had a flip key system like the Audi/VW like flip/switchblade key? For those that don't know what I'm talking about:

The key folds up nicely to be a nice, small, non-stabby object that will sit happily in your pocket, not stabbing your leg.

After a little searching, it appears that some enterprising person has come up with something similar and is selling them on eBay. http://search.ebay.com/switchblade-key

Now only if we could add a house key to that and have everything tucked away nice and neatly.

--JOsh

Hey, this isn't where I parked my car...

2005-03-29T18:03:00.000-06:00

On our weekly Tuesday noontime jaunt to Best Buy today, Jason happened to notice this in the DVD New Releases aisle:

You'd think Best Buy wouldn't want a DVD w/ a WalMart sticker on it...

--JOsh

Disturbing...

2005-03-22T22:30:00.000-06:00

Ok, so most of you know I work part time @ Target. And if you didn't, well, now you do.

Anyway, I was at work tonight, and while stocking stuff in the pet aisle in the back room, I came across two disturbing products.

The first was this:

Ok, I just don't get it. Easy cheese for dogs? It even comes in multiple flavors, Peanut Butter, Liver Paste, 'Fresh Breath', and Chicken. The scary part? Nowhere on the can does it have something along the lines of 'not fit for human consumption'. For all I know, the Easy Cheese people weren't selling enough, so they just switched cans and started filling dog treats.

The second was this:

Iams Gravy for Dogs. Now I know that Gravy Train's been around for ages, but have we really come to a point that we need bottled gravy for our dogs?

--JOsh

Ryan's a horrible quilter...

2005-03-14T13:33:00.000-06:00

Ok, so today @ Wendy's, a great thought crossed my mind. Wouldn't it be great if instead of telling the cashier your order, you had a 'preference' card of sorts they could just scan?

I hate tomatoes on sandwiches. Usually every place I go, I order my food sans the little red, seeded devils. My Wendy's order usually goes something like this: Spicy combo, no tomato, no lettuce, add onion. Substitute chili for the fries, add onions & cheese to the chili, and I'll have Dr. Pepper to drink. Now - the poor person entering that all into the computer gets halfway done subtracting out my lettuce and tomatoes, and then gets stuck. The cash register usually tries to be smarter than it is, so it's already prompted them for a drink, thereby screwing up their ability to go back and substitute the chili, as well as add the onions and cheese. Wouldn't it be so much easier to bypass all that w/ a scan? Heck, you could even go to a system like a lottery ticket, you scribble out what you want, and feed it in. If you're not a picky eater, you just order by number as usual.

Jason brought up the point that the main reason for the order boards that display your order in the drive through is to eliminate mistakes in the order process, thereby saving money. Why not bring those cost savings and simplicity to the counter?

Further discussion led to an idea to have touch screen menus/station @ the tables where you could stick your card in and update your preferences. Ideally, you'd also be able to update your preferences via an online interface as well. Possibly it would then be pushed down to your card next time you used it in one of the table stations.

I think I've got more on this in my head, but I'll throw this out there for now, as I know Jason has some ideas he'd like to expound on w/ this.

--Josh

Stupid Pizza places...

2005-02-22T00:02:00.000-06:00

Ok, this didn't quite come out how I had it thought out in my head, but oh well, I think you'll get the idea.

Let me paint a picture for you. An old, small,(think turn of the century strip mall, all indoors) 'Old Lady' mall (you know the one - kitty cat trinkets, gaudy old lady clothes, etc) downtown. Lots of vacant stores, very little traffic in/out of the building. Local pizza place in town - they have a small 'satellite' branch in this building. Myself and a few of the guys I work with walk down for lunch occasionally. Now, usually when we go, there's 4-6 of us. Likely more customers than they get all day (sadly, not too big of a stretch of the imagination). Now, their menu consists of two types of pizza - regular and Detriot deep dish, both by the slice. They keep about 1/2 to 3/4 of each type around. Between us, we can easily clean them out of all the pizza they have ready. Here's where the stupid part comes in. On their menu - they state that whole pizzas require 24 hour advance notice. However, when we come in, they usually suggest we just order a whole pizza(that they have to cook still). Why bother requiring 24 hours notice for a whole pizza when they will happily cook one to order when we come in? And it's not that they only have 'pre-made' pizzas ready from the main store to cook. They've got all the ingredients right there. It just doesn't make sense... Grrrr.

--Josh

Mini Mac Stakka...

2005-01-28T10:54:00.000-06:00

Take your DVD collection, add a dash of this, a splash of that, and a little bit of creative orientation. Viola!
(Pay no attention to my horrible animation/graphic editing skills, or lack thereof.)

Now, don't get me wrong here. This isn't a complete solution as it stands. First, you'll need some software to run on the Mac to tell the Stakka what DVD is in what slot. With the mini being slot loaded, and the fact that the Stakka spits out the disk you choose, lining the two up will allow the Stakka to spit the disk right into the mini's slot. When you're done watching your movie, hit eject on the mini, and the disk is sucked back into the Stakka to await you next viewing.

So, aside from it kinda being a horrible kludge, I think it's an interesting idea...

--Josh

Welcome

2005-01-28T09:47:00.000-06:00

Following in the footsteps of Ryan, Jason, and Ian, I'm jumping into this blogging thing. I don't really have much of a purpose with this, except to talk about some of the things we discuss at work while getting drinks. Don't expect updates and you won't be dissapointed.

Since I'm here - help me get a free Mac mini by signing up for a free trial offer here. All you have to do is sign up, complete of their 'offers', such as a trial of Blockbuster's Online movie rental, or there's a couple one month trials of consumer services, such as Complete Home. Just remember to cancel right before the end of your 30 days to avoid being charged again for the monthly membership fee. I've done the Blockbuster offer, and I'm very impressed with it so far. Shipping has been fast and they have a great selection of movies.

--Josh