Crasymaker

I’m always getting asked about software/gadgets and what I use and where to find it and how well does so-and-so’s program work, etc. So this will be the first of many posts about hardware/software/gadgets that I use and that I’d recommend using. You should be warned, however, that I am a Mac user and that most of the software I use is not available for Windows PC users. Sorry.

Adium is easily the best instant messaging application I’ve found. It connects to AIM, MSN, Yahoo and many more. It’s also open-source and free so that makes it even better. There are a ton of ways to customize it to your liking and so far it hasn’t crashed once or given me even the slightest bit of trouble at all even when using the beta versions. Yes, this one is Mac-only.

Audio/video chatting currently isn’t supported and most likely never will be. This isn’t a fault of Adium’s, however. Since each client (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) has it’s own way of defining how audio/video works, there’s really no way to make a “universal” instant messaging application that will do audio/video across the board. There are plenty of applications out there that will allow you to do audio/video chatting but you’ll be limited to which clients you can connect to.

So if you’re looking for a way to chat with pretty much anyone, Adium is your answer.

Dear Cox Communications,

After many years of marriage to you and your services, I think I might want a divorce or at least a partial separation. I appreciate all of the information that you have brought me via my television set and my (too) many computers, however, the level of service that you have been providing over the last year is so low that I have been “maybe sort of looking” for another provider.

Our problems first began when my internet service was disrupted last year. I called you up and you told me not to worry and that all I needed to do was turn off my router and wait a few minutes before turning it back on. Oh how I was happy when this solved my problem. A week later when it happened again, I almost called you before remembering your wise advice to turn off my router and turn it back on. It worked. Later that same day when it happened again, I turned off my router and turned it back on. It worked. The next week when it happened again, I turned off my router and turned it back on. It worked. The fifth time it happened that day I turned off my router and turned it back on. It worked.

For some reason, I kept up this ridiculous habit for almost a year until last week when I realized that we shouldn’t have to live this way. We both deserve to be happy and this silly game of turning off my router and turning it back on isn’t doing either of us any good. I called you up and after you told me to turn off my router and turn it back on again I gently put my hand over your mouth and said, “Please don’t ask me to turn off my router and turn it back on again. I’ve been doing that 5 or 6 times a day for nearly a year and this has got to stop.”

I was pleasantly surprised when you completely understood my pain and offered to send a technician out to my house. It was as if you actually understood that turning off a router and turning it back on over and over and over again is no way to live. However, after almost 3 hours of service work on my cable lines, I began to have the same problem almost immediately upon the departure of the technicians (the first guy couldn’t do anything and had to call in for backup) even though they assured me that the problem was now fixed.

After four rounds of turning the router off and then turning it back on again yesterday I was starting to feel like we might should have a serious talk when you got home (when my internet came back up so I could look up your phone number). While waiting, I discovered that upon pressing “Guide” on my DVR remote, instead of bringing up the program guide, every single cell for every hour and every day displayed the words “No Data”. Not only does this mean that I cannot see what is coming on television (a key feature of a cable box) but I also cannot program my DVR to record anything because there is “No Data” for me to choose from. This means that my DVR is completely worthless.

As you know, I called you up and after giving me the “turn off the router and turn it back on again” speech I nearly lost it. I demanded that a technician come to the house and that someone tell me how to fix my DVR. You said you’d send a technician this Friday and that holding down the “Guide” button on the DVR until it displayed “READ” would surely solve my problem and that if it didn’t then try it again until it’s fixed. Well, it never worked. I tried it four times and here we are twelve hours later with “No Data.”

I’ve had enough my dear “friend in the digital age.” With the help of my loyal readers, I hope to find an alternate solution. Someone who actually cares about me and my cable/internet needs. Someone who will actually provide me with the services that I pay for on a monthly basis. Someone who needs me. Someone who wants me. Someone who loves me…

Sincerely,
Todd

Tim Shorrock’s latest piece for The Nation is a pretty surprising look at likely collaborators with the NSA’s warrantless surveillance of American citizens. He says, “Some of the names are familiar (AT&T, Sprint & MCI). But others will surprise you.” Our government is the obvious culprit amidst all this mess but it takes two to tango, you know? Check out other articles by Tim or drop by his blog for more interesting reads.

For a humorous look at AT&T’s latest retarded advertising tactics, check out Seth’s article which was recently picked up by AdRants.com.

Apple has released six new ads for the Mac. For a while now, they’ve concentrated solely on the iPod and iTunes but the new ads focus on things like ease of use, invulnerability to viruses and not having to restart all the time. They’re really funny but since they’re poking fun at PCs, I imagine there will be quite a bit of backlash.

Ironically, as I was watching the one about not having to restart all the time, my Powerbook locked up for the first time since November of last year. I figured out a few minutes later that it wasn’t actually locked up but that my mouse had wiggled its way out of the port but still, I had a good laugh this morning.

Watch the new ads here.

Congress is now pushing a law that would end the free and open Internet as we know it. Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet’s First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. So Amazon doesn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

Want to do something quick and painless and feel good about it today? Yes? Good then take 30 seconds and sign this petition.

Anybody know anything about OS X Server? I know OS X inside and out so I thought OS X Server would be fairly easy for me to figure out. Getting our Mac users connected has been a breeze (duh) but getting our Windows users connected has been a disaster (not surprised). With “Allow guest access” turned on, the Windows clients can easily connect but without it, they can’t even see the Xserve (imagine that). Help.

UPDATE: Problems solved. Sleeping at night can now resume.

However, I am on a snowboarding trip with Seth and finding internet access here is a B-I-itch, my friends. Also, no cellphone service. Not cool. I had to pay $6 for 30 minutes of access just so I could find out about the newMacBook Pro, iMac and iLife ‘06. I’ll be back in action soon. Chill.

I can’t decide whether the built-in music store that comes with iTunes is a good thing or a bad thing.

On one hand, I absolutely love being able to purchase a CD at my desk while at work for only $9.99 and have it charged directly to my credit card. It’s way easier than using my entire lunchbreak to head down to the store and spend upwards of $16.99 for the exact same music. Plus, it’s already in my digital music library (the only library I use to listen to music now) once it finishes downloading which saves me yet another step.

That said, I also absolutely love having the actual CD. I like displaying the case on my CD rack in my living room and being able to flip through the booklet that comes with it. I can, of course, pop it into my computer and quickly add it to my digital library and I’ve acheived pretty much the same outcome. The extra money usually is justified by having a physical copy of everything.

Recently, the iTunes Music Store has started including a digital PDF copy of the artwork and in some cases, you now receive other extras with the purchase of an album as well. For example, when I bought the newest Ryan Adams CD, Jacksonville City Nights, a week ago, I not only received a PDF of the artwork but also included was a short documentary video about the album. Very cool.

One major debate about the iTunes music store is that when you buy your music there, you are buying files that are encrypted in such a manner that you are limited in your use of the music. Although this is completely true, there are more workarounds than you could possibly imagine. For example, when you buy a song from the iTunes Music Store, you are only allowed to listen to that album on 5 computers. Also, you can only burn either 7 or 10 (I can’t remember) copies of that album. After you’ve maxed out the 5 computer rule and burned the maximum amount of CDs, the files are in a sense, worthless. However, there is a ridiculously simple way around all of this. So simple, in fact, that I can’t even believe that this is a topic of debate anymore. Try this on for size: 1) Purchase the album from the iTunes Music Store 2) burn one copy onto a CD 3) Delete the original files that you bought from your computer and 4) Import the songs from the CD into your library just like you would if you had actually bought the CD at a store. The End. At this point, the files you just imported are unencrypted and you can listen to them on as many computers as you want and you can burn as many CDs as you want. The entire process takes about 5 minutes.

When I sit down and think about it, I feel like I’m pretty much right in the middle but when it comes down to where I prefer to buy my music, I definitely tend to swing in the direction of the iTunes Music Store. In fact, the last dozen or so albums I’ve bought are from there. If the music store didn’t exist, I would still definitely be buying all of the same CDs from a real store but since it’s there, it’s just way too easy not to use it.

I guess it really doesn’t matter all that much. For some reason, though, I still feel a little guilty…

Got it. It rules. Nikon Coolpix 3100 for sale.

Back in December, I smashed my phone against the countertop at work while it was still in my pocket. Because of it’s valiant efforts to repair itself, I figured I would keep it around for a while longer.

About a month later, in January, I spotted an Engadget blog entry about some new Samsung phones that would be offered through Sprint. One of them, the MM-A800, really caught my eye because it was to be the first 2.0 megapixel camera phone to be offered in the United States. I vowed to get that phone the day it became available.

After patiently waiting for 4 months, I was pretty psyched yesterday when I read about it’s long-overdue release. My excitement turned to disgust when I saw the phone’s $499 price-tag. However, when I remembered that my Sprint rebate was availble May 1st (with Sprint, you get a discount on a new phone every 18 months), I immediately called Sprint and found out that I would be getting a HUGE discount.

Needless to say, I ordered it and it should be here sometime tomorrow. I absolutely cannot wait to take advantage of having a good digital camera in my pocket at all times. Oh yeah, it makes 30 second videos too. Hmmm…

Superchunk “Phone Sex”

Last week I discovered the coolest program I’ve seen in a long time. It’s called Delicious Library and after downloading the trial version, I immediately forked over the $40 and bought the full deal. Essentially, it’s a catalog program to help keep track of all your music, movies, books and games. You can enter in all your titles by hand or if you are lucky enough to have access to an iSight webcam, you simply scan the barcode and Delicious Library does the rest. Instantly, you’ve got the artwork, full details and even a list of similar titles that you can browse through. Everything is categorized alphabetically and placed on a wooden shelf for you to scroll through and add to later. There’s a slider bar for zooming in on the artwork and if you loan stuff out a lot, you can drag a title to someone’s name in your address book and it will remind you later that you need to get that one CD back from that one dude who still has it. Needless to say, most of my weekend was spent on the living room floor surrounded by CDs, DVDs, PS2 games and what few books I own as I scanned each and every barcode in the entire house. Wanna see some pathetic numbers? 8 games, 17 movies, 39 books and 640 CDs. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that I only own 17 movies or that I cheated and included 12 cookbooks and a Boy Scout handbook in that “books” count.

Green Day “At The Library”

My first inclination was to buy Tiger on the first day since I’d been counting down the days until it was released. Then some of my friends convinced me to wait until the first update which is what most conservative computer people always recommend doing when a new OS version comes out. This is mainly because you never know what little bugs might get in your way and waiting for an update ensures that most of those bugs are taken care of.

However, it’s 2005 and Apple has come a long way in the last few years when it comes to getting things right the first time (yes I know I complained about GarageBand 2 recently but it turns out that the problem was me and not the software) and I’d been reading about the bugs that others have found in Tiger so far and they have been pretty damn minor. So instead of eating lunch at home yesterday, I made a impulsive left turn out of the office parking lot and headed straight to our janked-out version of an Apple store and purchased my copy of Tiger. Hell yes. It’s nice to know I still have it in me to be a little risky. With this new job and all, sometimes I feel like a real adult.

Anyway, I installed the software and not a single one of those “bugs” that people have been mentioning are present on my Powerbook. As a matter of fact, I’ve been playing with it non-stop and I haven’t come across any issues at all. Just totally badassness. Going into all the details about what’s new is pointless. If you are at all interested in Tiger, you already know what I’m talking about. I won’t waste your time or the time of those that don’t give a rat’s ass about my computer-geek alter ego.

The Constantines “Tiger & Crane”

I found a tutorial on how to hack into your iPod in this month’s issue of Mac Addict. Despit the fact that it said, “If you screw up this hack, you can turn your iPod into a lump as useless as a helping of your mom’s boiled cucuzza squash…Proceed at your (and your iPod’s) own risk,” I went ahead and tried it anyway. Fortunately, I follow directions pretty well and I was successful at replacing that “NO” symbol with my own handsome face. Phew…

Solex “Dork at 12 O’clock”

When my amp broke down last year while touring with Lucero, I didn’t have much time to shop for a new one so I was really suprised to find out that Roy Orbison’s soundguy was selling Roy’s last Fender Twin Reverb which is exactly the type of amp that had just died on me. The price was resonable so I bought it. Every once and a while, it decides to blow fuses. Sometimes it will blow 5 or 6 in a row before it works properly. I’ve had three different people try to fix it and they each, of course, have their own idea as to what’s wrong with it. But it continues to give me trouble. Now I am stuck with the decision of either keeping it and buying something more reliable or trading/selling it. I am sure there is someone who would be thrilled to have this amp despite it’s bad temper but I am torn because it’s pretty damn cool having Roy Orbison’s amp in my spare bedroom. Any advice?

Roy Orbison “It’s Over”

GarageBand is one of the coolest programs I’ve ever used. I’ve recorded lots of demos, song parts and even full songs with it. I was really excited to hear that iLife ‘05 included a new version of GarageBand (GarageBand 2). Among some of the many improvements include a built-in tuner, pitch adjustment, multiple simultaneous track recording, etc.
Well, it just so happens that the band I have been playing with lately is in the process of trying to get some recording done so I thought it would be the perfect time to upgrade to GarageBand 2. I ordered it and it arrived a few days later.
After sneaking into (read: walking into) the music building at the U of A the other night and finding an empty room with a piano, we set up my Powerbook and some mics. The idea was to record some piano parts for a song since none of us have a real piano. Anyway, about 3 tracks into the process, GarageBand 2 stops working and refuses to allow us to record more than 3 tracks. I followed all of the suggestions from the Help Menu but to no avail. I never had any problems like this with GarageBand 1. I’ve even tried all of the suggestions from the Apple Discusssions page (which, as it turns out, is full of complaints because I am not the only one experiencing this problem). No luck. Frustration. Now I’m considering dumping this program and re-installing GarageBand 1 until Apple releases a fix for this. Ughh…

Weezer “In The Garage”