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technology

Dreaming on Drugs

Jul 22nd, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

Last night before bed while getting very sleepy from some medication I’m taking I wrote this:

if you’ve ever wondered what’s best about the things you are offered, know this:

sometimes I need to unplug. not so much from technology, in general, but from the internet and my expectation of response from it. it is clearly an entity of its own, an I exect so much from it.

ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddfds

I’m not quite sure what it means entirely, but it’s fun to share.

Last night’s sleep was crazy. I woke up A LOT. Each time having had an even more vivid dream than the last. The strange thing was that the dreams felt VERY real — almost tangible — and were fully based on things that really could happen, which isn’t usually how I dream.

I remember this one: In real life, on Monday, C and I went to visit Ramona, Austin and their family. I had a fantastic time and certain portions of that evening really meant a lot to me. In my dream (and in reality as well) I wasn’t entirely certain that Ramona knew how much it meant to me and I set out to tell her. When I started to, she interrupted me to express how much that evening meant to her and how much she enjoyed it. We laughed and that was it.

I had another dream that clearly took place in the future even though all of the people in the dream looked the same as they do now. In this dream Kim and I were in a relationship — maybe even married. At any rate, we lived somewhere in New England on the coast. We were out walking with C on the shore and both laughing uncontrollably at C’s excitement when the waves would run up the sand and reach her feet.

So real, and yet not. The Kim one clearly isn’t true. I can look at my day today and see that I’m not in a relationship with Kim nor do I live on the East coast. But the one with Ramona might have actually happened, I feel like it was a dream, but, maybe it wasn’t. I’ve debated emailing her to ask, just in case.

Nokia E71 Review

Nov 10th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
1 comment

A few months ago, the fine people at WOMWorld lent me a Nokia E71 for review. I’ve been putting off publishing any sort of remarks because my mom always said “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” But, lately, they’ve been insistent. So, here we go.

First the good.

The phone is beautiful. It feels nice in the hand. The included case is attractive, easy to get the phone out of, and provides great protection. The keyboard, though a bit tight at first, is easy to get to. Outside of the case, the phone feels nice though it could do well to have a bit more grip. A silicone case should help. The screen is vibrant and has plenty of resolution. Buttons are well placed and mostly intuitive.

As far as the HARDWARE goes, this phone deserves top ratings. It’s the software that I have big issues with.

Getting the phone setup in the beginning is difficult. There are lots of settings and they are spread out in many non-intuitive locations.

The Active Today screen that provides updates on the status of your email, text messages, and mobile service is cumbersome at best. The directional pad did not operate as expected and I found myself guessing incorrectly regarding what various buttons and menu choices would do.

The way data connections work are plain silly. Ideally, the phone would understand that, in most cases, a WiFi connection is better than a GPRS/EDGE connection. It should at least give me the option of switching seamlessly between the two. Instead, most applications require you to set a connections and your choice is either a WiFi connection or a GPRS connection. Even switching to another WiFi connection requires work. An application called PsilocConnect (which costs extra) is supposed to help with this. You choose the PsilocConnect connection. It then either chooses any available WiFi connection or a GPRS connection when WiFi is unavailable. This makes sense and works pretty well except when you have an application that doesn’t allow you to choose the PsilocConnection. Then the fight with each other and the only real loser is the user.

Messaging is the killer app on Mobile and the Nokia E71 software fails in every possible way.

It supports PUSH email, which is great. But the implementation is limited. The phone will either poll at intervals and download the entire message when it does, or it will support PUSH but only download the headers and fail to reconnect if the data connection is interrupted. I could be wrong here. The settings screen for setting up this part of email was very difficult to understand and the manual shed no additional light. If I over looked something, then it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t try. Using 3rd party email applications didn’t help either. BlueWhaleMail was the closest, but still not quite right. Emoze was buggy. Nokia’s Email Service also didn’t function reliably and seems to have a one email account limitation.

The Nokia also didn’t seem to come with any IM applications. No gTalk, AIM, MSN,Yahoo, Jabber, nothing. There are some 3rd party options available here as well. I tried a few with limited success. None seemed to be really well designed, intuitive, or easy to use. Additionally, most of them required additional purchase.

Even the Nokia PC Suite was buggy. I couldn’t import my Yahoo Address book export no matter how hard I tried. In many cases the PC Suite had trouble realizing the phone was connected. It crashed fairly regularly. The built in messaging applications were very slow if they worked at all.

Even simple things like lighting up and sounding some kind of alert when a Bluetooth device attempts to connect were not implemented. I attempted to use a Bluetooth GPS device but the phone didn’t seem to accept that. It’s own built in GPS application never fully indicated location.

In conclusion, the phone hardware seems outstanding and well built. It’s the Symbian OS that needs to catch up with the iPhones and Blackberrys of the world. When you consider the fact that these phones are not really being subsidized by any US carrier, this means that customers are expected to pay full price as well. This just isn’t going to happen with so many other options available with software that actually works as expected.

TTOW: Intense Debate

Nov 7th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

In this Tech Tip of the Week (TTOW, get it, almost seems like a feature, doesn’t it?), I will present, once again, Intense Debate, a centralized commenting system that has benefits for content authors and readers alike.

Earlier this year I looked at both Disqus and Intense Debate. I weighed each of their merits and drawbacks. I even had phone conversations with then CEO of Intense Debate, Tom Keller, in hopes of coming to an agreement about the future of Intense Debate. In the end, I finally decided on Disqus.

And now I’m changing my mind.

Comparison

Both services get the core right. You can leave comments on various blogs. Your reputation and comments are stored centrally (view my profile) and go with you from site to site. Threading is supported as is advanced comment moderation and spam control. The devil is in the details.

In the past 9 months, Disqus has added OpenID support. However, it was hacked on in such a poor fashion that it’s not even worth mentioning. Despite my complaints and the complaints of many others, this has not been fixed. Intense Debate already had working OpenID support that behaves as you’d expect, and that hasn’t changed.

Both Disqus and Intense Debate upped their plugin technology to allow moving from system to system that much easier. This shows great pride in their work on both sides and is commendable.

Intense Debate has added Reply By Email functionality. And, in fact, has done so in a lightly better way than Disqus because of the additional moderation options available directly from email. Disqus already had Reply By Email.

Intense Debate still looks nicer. Of course this is subjective. However, I feel that not only is the interface more attractive, it’s easier to use and easier to find what I’m looking for. Disqus has made some small improvements in this arena over the last 9 months, but it’s nothing drastic.

Intense Debate offers integration with Twitter and some really cool integration features with FriendFeed. The appear to have more integration ideas on the horizon. I notice little tiny things all the time. For instance, if I am logged into my blog but not logged into Intense Debate, some magic happens (is it OpenID based? or just plugin based?) and it automatically logs me in. That’s just smart.

Intense Debate was also recently brought into the Automattic family, the fine folks behind WordPress. This leads me to believe that Intense Debate will be the innovator of the two. Features and flexibility are what make tools like this successful and useful.

Intense Debate allows unregistered users to, not only comment, but receive notification of replies. Disqus claims they are adding this, but I haven’t seen it. Even though registration is a piece of cake and has lots of benefits, users are reluctant to fill out another signup sheet. I get that. So, with Intense Debate, they can still get notification of replies.

Disqus wins in only two areas.

First of all, Disqus has a “claim comments” feature. This is nice for those who have been leaving comments on Intense Debate enabled sites without registering and then finally decide to take the plunge. I’d like to see Intenese Debate enable this using both URLs and EMail addresses (both confirmed first, of course). Then as new sites bring their old comments into Intense Debate, I can claim the comments I’ve left there as well.

Secondly, Disqus seems to have a better uptime record. I’ve seen Disqus go down once. I’ve seen Intense Debate fail several times and, considering that I wasn’t using their service, I would imagine that means it probably happened even more often than I saw. However, their move to Automattic should certainly help this. And everyone has growing pains, I’m certainly not going to spend too much time harping on this unless it becomes a real problem.

So, with all of this considered, Intense Debate is the right tool for me right now. And I think it’s the right tool for you too.

Installation

If you have WordPress, installation could not be easier. You install a plugin, you answer a few questions, you sign up for an Intense Debate account, and you’re done. It automatically syncs all of your old comments into Intense Debate and keeps them synced just in case you decide to stop using it in the future.

Of course, my writing this is coming at a bad time. Because of their move to Automattic, Intense Debate is currently closed for adding new blogs to invite only. You can still sign up for an account, but you can’t install it on your blog without an invite code. I managed to get one from my friend Joel (who happens to run a very funny online comic called Hijinks Ensue) but I don’t think they are all that easy to come by. Worry not. Sign up for an account now and let me know your interest and, as soon as I can find some codes I’ll let you know. UPDATE (2008-11-12): IntenseDebate no longer requires an invite code. GO WILD!

Commenters, read this!

(Those of you reading this in LiveJournal, Facebook, or any of the other millions of places this gets syndicated to, you will of course, have to visit my actual site to see and use these features.)

Intense Debate works for you as much as it does for me. If you like a comment (or don’t) use the up (or down) arrows next to each one to promote them. Additionally, take a few seconds and sign up, or just use your OpenID (any Google, Yahoo, MSN, or LiveJournal account is an OpenID, among many others) and you can sign in to Intense Debate like that. The features is provides are well worth it and it only takes a few seconds. At the very least, be sure to supply your email address when you comment so you can get replies sent to you.

Tumblr

Oct 30th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

In short, I have a new site you can read: http://revjim.tumblr.com/

There are hundreds of sites begging people to put their cool links into them (delicious.com and the like). But none of them really let you customize the site and make it your own. On top of that, almost every piece of social networking software has some form of link sharing built in (like FaceBook) but most of them are exclusive to the members of that site and require a bunch of hoops to make things start flowing. There’s StumbleUpon which is awesome for finding new content and sharing it but not so good at keeping that content organized or sharing it in a customizable fashion. I find myself sharing lots of things with lots of people in lots of ways, but each of them locked up to a subset of users in it’s own less than desirable way.

And then there is Tumblr.

They are smart enough to not link a single account to a single site. So, any account can post to multiple sites, create sites of its own, or not have any associated sites. They also allow multiple contributors to sites and even allow private posting (though you have to be a member to view).

They offer complete customization even allowing the use of sites like Google Analytics for traffic analysis and Disqus to enable comments.

Their approach to content is intriguing. From short blurbs, to chats, to text posts, to photos, to videos, to audio, to reblogging… the site is based around the concept of formatting differently for different media types and excels at displaying whatever it is you put into it.

It can be used to share links, photos, thoughts, or just about anything else on the web. While most of it’s users tend to focus on sharing found content, it is certainly suited to hosting original content as well.

So, with all that, I’m going to begin using it to share the interesting things I find online. Should I find the content becomming to heavy in anyone topic, starting a new Tumblr specifically for that topic is a piece of cake.

The good news to you is that, you don’t have to sign up for anything to follow along. Just visit my Tumblr and bookmark, subscribe in the RSS reader of your choice, add to LiveJournal (Try LJUser: revjim_tumblr), follow in FriendFeed, ignore it all together or, really, whatever makes you happiest.

I will more than likely start a second Tumblr for the interesting links and photos of a … less than pure nature. Drop me an email if you’re interested in a link.

containment issues

Sep 17th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
3 comments

Yes, it’s that time again. That time where I bitch about my web presence and how it annoys me.

I want this website to die. I should elaborate “this website” since I have no idea where you’re reading this from. I want revjim.net to die.

The name is nice. I’ve had it forever. It ties my past with my present even if it often gets confused with the singer of the Reverend Horton Heat or some character in a TV Show, Taxi, which I’ve never seen. I guess I just want the content to die.

No. That isn’t it. There is some really good content here. There is also some real crap that I’d like to keep for historical purposes but, that I don’t really have any desire to showcase. So I guess I want the content to live, I just want the container to die.

Yeah. That’s it. I want the container to die. I want all of the content to be spread out and sorted and placed into nice neat little stacks.

I’m well on my way to building that first stack: Photography. I’ve got my photoblog, Arranging Light, and I’ve got my professional site, DJamesPhoto.com, should I ever choose to use it for anything useful.

There are other buckets of Daniel I’d like to have.

1) Photos (as mentioned above)
2) Friends: things only my friends will care about. Memes and surveys, party announcements, etc. The social side of an online presence.
3) Technical Matters: I’ve really slacked here lately, with so many other things going on. I want to write about programming, and software, and gadgets, and mobile technology, and all of these things. You know, just like everyone else. I want to do so with my name on it proudly so that, in looking for a job, I could point someone there.
4) Life, Love, Art: I want to write poetry, record songs, share photos, and talk about my troubles and joys as a 30-something male. I want to talk about fatherhood and married life. I want to provide insight into my own life in a touching way that is meaningful to others, and maybe meet some new people through that.

#1 is cared for.

#2 is difficult because there are so many social sites and I have friends scattered amongst them all. I’m inclined to either just use LiveJournal, just use Facebook, or have my own website that syndicates in full to these websites.

#3 is simple enough. Make a website. If you build it they will come. This is complicated, however, by the fact that the majority of my existing work in this category is buried somewhere in the cruft of revjim.net. At one point in the past I moved everything from LiveJournal into revjim.net and that was a mistake. If I could undo that, I’d be headed in the right direction.

#4 is simple enough too. Make a website. If you build it they will come. The tough part is deciding where to make it. Should it part of revjim.net or should it be it’s own thing. It makes the most sense to put it all out on the line in one place (maybe with different categories). But, at the same time, do I really want a prospective employer reading about diaper changes, nudity with wreckless abandon, and sappy poetry about the shadow of a tree in the moonlight?

I know. I’ve been here before. But, if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Even you, Justin, when you say “Just Write”.

craigslist love hate

Jul 31st, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
3 comments

I love Craigslist. I don’t post often, though I have before.  I don’t really respond all that often either. I just enjoy the raw nature of it. There so much passion in a missed connection. There’s so much excitement in seeking a companion. There are so many new possibilities and opportunities. There so much freedom in the anonymity.

So, on a fairly regular basis, I read Craigslist.

Usually I read in Dallas, but sometimes other cities.

I read the community section and the trade section and marvel at how money-centric our society is and cheer when I see something I can actually agree with or get behind or understand.

I look at the job boards and fantasize about what I could be doing and curse myself for what I’m stuck with.

I read the women seeking men section and realize how little I know about the kinds of people one might desire. I wonder how many women out there desire someone that fits my description.

I read the men seeking women and compare my tastes to what the men are looking for. Usually I’m bored. Sometimes I’m curious. Other times I’m shocked. Occasionally, I’m repulsed.

I read the casual encounters section and wonder what I’d casually seek if I were seeking casually.

I read the missed connections section and think of all the people that I’ve passed and wish I could find again. I think of all the people that I was close to that I now miss so dearly.

Except for those which obviously aren’t real (which I flag like I’m on a mission sanctioned by God himself), I rarely consider that any of the posters might be a fraud or have motives other than those outlined in their posts. It’s on the rare occasion that I do interact with the site (posting, responding) that I realize how wrong I am that I truly recognize how many traps have been set.

Today I responded to an ad in casual encounters.  I was clear at the very beginning of my response that I was merely browsing and was not actually interested in dating her but that I was intrigued by something she said. I was being nice. I realized how good it would make me feel to get an email like the one I was sending her. And I meant what I wrote, so it was genuine. I thought, at the very least, it’ll brighten her day.

Within 5 minutes she wrote back. At 6:30am, that’s a bit unusual. As soon as I opened the email I understood why. No one had even read what I wrote. The response indicated that if I wanted to hook up I should click on a link and check out her pics. I didn’t bother.

Maybe this should be the start of a mission to find truth in Craigslist.

Maybe not.

it always breaks

Jul 28th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

I think I’m a target for broken things — broken anything. From techology, to things bought in various stores, to that too-emo-for-my-age feeling that even most of my relationships are broken in some way.

I go into a Starbucks with a simple purpose: get some Caffiene before going back to work so I don’t fall asleep on the job and, while I’m at it, update my website. 15 minutes later and I’m finally online. I had to wait for Vista to “Switch Users”. Then I had to wait for it to log me in. Then I had to wait for it to get all booted up. Then I had to kill a few processes because it wasn’t coming up. Then I had to wait longer. When it finally came up I had to wait an eternity for the AT&T login page on the Starbucks wireless network to appear. It never did. I eventually gave up and slapped in my Mobile Data card. 15 minutes! So, here I am, finally. I’m so frustrated I don’t even remember what I intended to write about.

Our house has one room that’s about 10 degrees hotter than the rest. I guess it’s built wrong. I have no idea. Of course, we never really started using that room until our new home warranty was up. Even better, I’ve now selected it as my office. So, instead of trying to figure out what wrong with the ducts, I just decided to buy a window A/C. Of course, my windows (seemingly the same windows as everyone else in the world) don’t quite cooperate with the type of window mounts provided. So, my office is still 10 degrees hotter. But now, I’m $150 poorer and there’s an air conditioner taking up the floor in the corner.

I bought a water proof camera bag in order to take photos underwater while at the lake. Of course, the only sizes available are too-small for $20 and way-too-big for $120. So, I opt for way-too-big since the description says the the bag has some srt of bellows to accomodate lenses as small at 3cm. That’s a lie. A big lie. So, I have a bunch of photos that have the corners cut out of them thanks to the bag getting in the way of the shot. Didn’t really matter anyway since none of the photos came out. I have no idea why.

I upgraded the LiveJournal Crossposting script that I use on this site and on my photo blog. Of course, something changed and now, my other plugin that formats my photo posts all pretty like doesn’t work leaving the Crossposted LJ entries looking more than worthless. I’m sure I can figure out what’s wrong, but I really just don’t want to.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist. Nothing works for me. If there’s a way something can go wrong or a point that should never fail can fail, it’s happened to me in some way and, most likely, at the time when I was relying on it most.

And, of course, I’m sure this griping all seems trivial. But it’s just one more straw on an already overloaded mind burdened by what seems to be a heavier and heavier heart. I need a break.

My growing frustration with Vista

May 12th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
5 comments

Maybe it isn’t Vista’s fault. Maybe it’s just software developers not implementing their products correctly in Vista. But, much the same as Linux or, to some extent, the Mac, software is what makes an OS useful. If the software doesn’t work then the OS may as well not work.

I can’t seem to get my iPod to recognize under Vista. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled. I’ve tried Media Monkey, USB Mass Storage Drivers, and even resorted to installing the real deal — iTunes *gasp*. All to not avail. It simply doesn’t work.

To make matters worse, my frustration in using VMWare under Vista is growing as well. Despite all the other troubles I’m having, it seems that the “NAT connection” available under Vista does allow my Contivity VPN client to function properly. Other people are reporting success on other host OSes, so it must be a Vista thing. I even jumped over to VirtualBox and the Workstation version of VMWare just to see if either would make a difference. Nope. In most cases, I use a Bridged connection. But in one very specific and important circumstance, I need a NAT connection. And it just isn’t working.

When I return from California on Friday my every effort will be focused on finding XP drivers and getting rid of this abomination of an operating system.

Microsoft: You’ve some how taken the world’s most popular operating system (regardless of whether that popularity was earned) and turned it into a festering pile of rubbish. In terms of software and hardware compatibility, Vista has very little Edge of Linux and is surpassed by Mac OS. Hello foot! Sorry about the bullet hole!

Tweet Digests Suspended

May 10th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
23 comments

It seems that more people hated them than there were people who liked them. So, at least for now, the tweet digests being sent by LoudTwitter (my posts titled “yesterday, in brief”) have been suspended. If this pleases you, please feel free to sound your cheers in the comments below. If you would prefer to see them still, let me know. If there is enough interest, I’ll set up a special feed for it.

Virtual Machines and the search for freedom

Apr 30th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
6 comments

So I bought a laptop.

My employer — heretofore known as the Great White Devil (as coined by Joel Watson of HijinksEnsue) or GWD for short — was giving me some after my request for a RAM upgrade to the impossibly small 512kb that I have now due to the new Encrypted status of my laptop and it’s inability to cope with said Encryption given its resources. So, I just went out and bought a laptop. Of course, GWB requires that any machine on its network be a company asset so using a personal laptop is not permitted and is enforced through the use of a managed desktop suite. Unwilling to give them access to the entire machine (since it is, after all, mine), I decided a virtual machine was the next best option.

I installed VMWare Server and, after 3 long hours of a Windows XP installation, driver installation, software installation, and laptop encryption, I had a VMWare image that mostly worked. There were, of course, a few problems.

First of all, when using VIsta (yeah, cringe) as a Host OS with VMServer or VMWare Player, the clock in the guest OS has a tendency to be inaccurate. I was showing up at meetings early and finding my days a lot shorter than they should be until I realized this little bug.

These few lines of code in C:\ProgramData\WMWare\VMWare Server\config.ini seemed to solve that problem. Of course, you’ll want to algter tje cpuKhz to reflect the actual speed of your processor.

host.cpukHz = “2000000″
host.noTSC = “TRUE”
ptsc.noTSC = “TRUE”
processor0.use = “FALSE”
processor1.use = “TRUE”

The second annoying problem is that, when starting the first VM after a reboot, Vista would hang for 3-5 minutes solid. It would hang so hard that the mouse would even stop moving. In the same config.ini file, I beleive the following lines corrected this, but switched to VMWare Player shortly there after so I can’t be sure.

host.TSC.noForceSync = “TRUE”

The final problem with VMWare Server, for which I have been unable to find a fix, is that Wireless Network cards simply will not bridge properly. I read a couple of people having the same trouble and suggesting various fixes including reconfiguing the Network Interfaces as Administrator and such. No matter what I tried, it didn’t work.

So, I switched to VMWare Player. Of course you can’t have Player and Server installed at the same time, so I had to uninstall Server first. And Player wont alter the VM settings in anyway so, if I want to change anything, I have to go back to installing Server first, which is annoying. But, aside from that Player does not have the same problems with the Wireless Network Bridge that I had with Server. It did however have the “clock too fast” issue mentioned above, so those config lines were still needed.

It’s working pretty solid now. Of course, with the crippled nature of VMWare Player, I’d really like to switch to something else. VirtualBox looks promising. I played with it a bit and rather liked it. Unfortunately, when it reads my prepared VMWare image and boots into Windows, it is unable to find a driver for the Network Interface it sees. So, while it boots just fine, without a working network adapter it’s pretty useless. I’ll play around with it some more in the future and see if I can make some more progress.

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