[January 31, 2001]
Rough first month of 2001... You may have noticed a lack of posts recently. Rather than bore you with the minutiae of my life, I've opted not to post. Between family illness, a CAT scan for our four year old, jury duty, the sudden death of a friend, and more family illness, this has been a rather tough beginning to 2001. I hope February gets back to normal again... [January 25, 2001]
Add Jury Duty... My stint at jury duty has prompted me to share with you... How to avoid getting selected for a juryEach judge typically has their own set of generic questions that they ask each prospective juror for every trial. These questions are typically printed on a poster and each juror that has been empaneled is asked to stand and answer each question in turn. The same types of questions turn up over and over again. A little preparation in answering these questions can go a long way in ensuring your dismissal from the panel:
What is the highest degree you have attained?
What videos or movies have you watched recently?
What bumper stickers do you have on your car?
What books do you read?
What TV shows do you watch? You can also try blathering on and on about tangentially related subjects whenever you are asked a question or get an opportunity to speak. This technique takes a fair amount of skill and acting ability to pull off. You need to play this character the whole time, chatting up the bailiff during breaks, and always appearing sincere about fulfilling your civic duty to serve on a jury.
Use these at your own risk. While it is true that following any one of these suggestions will likely get you removed from the jury, they also carry with them the likelihood of being held in contempt... [January 23, 2001]
Jury Duty I'm doing my part to be a good citizen, sitting in the jury assembly room, waiting for my name to be called, reading over Section 508 of 1998's Workforce Investment Act, specifically Section §1194.22 that deals with Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications (whew!). I just can't get away from it... [January 22, 2001]
Ti dreams... At my real job we are looking into webcasting some press events in the near future, and I have been tasked with coming up with the hardware and software requirements to make that possible. Much as I'd rather go with QuickTime, it seems that right now Real is going to be the best way to go for our needs and budget (cross-platform installed base, streaming quality at modem speeds, blah, blah...). But I figure if I can't go with a complete Apple solution, I should at least be able to get a nice, top of the line, portable piece of hardware out of it. Did someone say Titanium?
Update I should clarify, after my last post, that my daughter had a case of stomach flu that was causing her to be sick. She'll still have a CAT scan a week from today, but she was doing much better this morning. [January 19, 2001]
Rough night I was this close to falling into a deep depression, but I found some hope...
A List Apart Nice new issues of A List Apart, with many personal anecdotes about the dot com fallout. Working in education I have pretty much avoided these problems, and count myself fortunate to have a steady job and income, not to mention reasonable hours... [January 18, 2001]
A level headed look at Ashcroft... Eric Burns provides a very balanced view of the John Ashcroft hearings. I think it deserves a read.
Cold! Ok, maybe it's not really that cold here. But this is Tucson, AZ. We're not used to scraping ice off of our windshields in the morning...
Curses! This may be old news, but I somehow thought Steve Jobs was above this... [January 17, 2001]
Portable Bidet... I wonder if David Siegel knows about this?
Ben Franklin's Birthday I was listening to the local classical station and they played a piece performed on the Glass Armonica, in honor of Ben's birthday, since he invented it. The armonica is quite an interesting instrument; glasses are blown to the right thickness and size and then nested inside each other on a spindle. This is spun with a foot pedal so the fingers can play the appropriate notes. It has a very smooth and pleasing tone. I also came across this quote when looking for more info on Ben himself: If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. I'd say he followed his advice on both accounts...
[January 15, 2001]
Real life gets in the way... Funny how that happens. Busy at work, spending time with the family, dentist appointments, doctor appointments. Life. Speaking of doctor appointments, out four year old daughter has been having headaches for about a month now. Not normal for, well anyone, but certainly not a four year old. She'll have to have a CAT Scan with an IV. The good news is that because the headaches have been low grade for a long period of time, it probably is not a tumor or anything acute like that. Still... [January 10, 2001]
New in iDisk I just noticed when I went to upload today's posts that Apple has added a Music folder to the iDisk. Now we can share the mp3s we rip with iTunes...
If you just can't get enough... ...of Apple's Titanium PowerBook, you'll want to take a look at The PowerBook Zone's Ultimate MWSF Picture Gallery: Day Two. If you want to skip to the Titanium pix, jump right to page 14. They also have a directory of unused pix - the Titanium pix start with number 1545... [January 9, 2001]
You've got to see it to believe it... Check out a QuickTime VR of the new Titanium PowerBook G4, or watch the new commercial. Oh, and did you notice? The logo is right-side-up when you open the book...
iTunes I just opened my iDisk to upload these changes and checked the new folders to find the iTunes installer - sweet!
MacWorld Keynote Just finished watching Steve Jobs wow the faithful in San Francisco. Highlights include a ship date for OS X (March 24, $129), that includes an apple menu, and some other nice changes based on user feedback. New Power Mac G4s up to 733MHz ($1699-$3499), all with CDRW, another PCI slot, NVIDIA 4XAGP graphics cards in the top three models, faster PCI and main bus. 733 MHz model includes a SuperDrive that reads and writes CDs and DVDs! and the DVDs are playable in consumer DVD machines. New software compliments this hardware: iTunes (better name than iMusic) for RIPping and burning CDs - free from Apple's web site! iDVD for making your own DVDs bundled with the machines with SuperDrives. Also available is DVD Studio Pro for $995. And finally, the totally new Titanium PowerBook G4. 5.3 pounds, and thinner than a Sony Vaio at 1 inch, slot loading DVD, 15.2" megawide screen, and 5 hour battery life, 400 and 500 MHz G4 processors for $2599 and $3499 respectively. Wow! [January 8, 2001]
Has it really been 12 years?!? Kim and I celebrated 12 years of wedded bliss yesterday. We had a great time spending some time alone together while some friends watched our three girls. I'm looking forward to many more than 12 more years. Last year I gave this (semi-autobiographical) piece to Kim for our anniversary... 
Data Management Speaking of iTools homepages, I have added a new Keeper of the iBook article to one of mine. It answers the question, "How can I get data from my desktop Mac to my new iBook?" with several solutions ranging from free to expensive, and details the pros and cons of each. [Now updated with two more techniques...]
New iTools coming? Apple has added some new folders to your iDisk (if you have one - if you don't why not get one?). They are included in a new Software folder. See them and their contents at iTools Homepage of prodrigues [January 5, 2001]
Go Davina! A friend of mine has written an article for A List Apart. An excellent content manager, Denice assures me she has no experience in topless dancing...
Relationships Had a good time yesterday afternoon catching up with my brother-in-law and his wife. And their cute little boy, our nephew. Raising kids today can be tough... [January 4, 2001]
Triple Bypass My Grandma had a triple bypass today. The four hour surgery turned into a six hour ordeal when they had to put her on a heart-lung machine for an hour during a particularly delicate part of the surgery. She'll be in the hospital for about a week, and then home to continue her recovery. I think my Grandpa is taking it harder than she is. We're praying for both of you... [January 3, 2001]
New Keeper of the iBook In the next article of what used to be a weekly feature, I plant my tongue firmly in my cheek and take a swipe at all we hold dear about our favorite company... [January 2, 2001]
Science Songs They Might Be Giants fans will find this site interesting. So will anyone who's into science (hi Mom!). Jef Poskanzer has digitized and posted (in mp3 format) the entire 6 LP set of Science Songs by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer. The TMBG reference is because they "covered" the song "Why Does the Sun Shine?" from this set of albums...
Welcome to 2001... In (belated) honor of the New Year I've created a pop-up archive. Okay, so it's not much of an honor, but it frees up some space on the right side links section. So go ahead, take a look. Mark Newhouse is the Web Designer for the public outreach arm of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, AZ. He has been using Macs for over a decade, and sometimes gets Distracted. |
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