Tags Dr. Horrible, fun, NPH

What was supposed to happen:
7/9/2008 8PM: Shutdown .Mac
7/10/2008 12AM: Startup MobileMe

What has happened:
7/9/2008 10PM: Shutdown .Mac
7/10/2008 ALL DAY: No .Mac, no MobileMe

Imagine if there were Microsoft (the evil bastards):
7/9/2008 8PM: Someone reports they can’t login to XBox Live
7/9/2008 8:15PM: The story is picked up and shows up on the front page of Digg, Google News, and a special alert is issued by CNN.
7/9/2008 9PM: Someone loses their connection to XBox Live
7/9/2008 9:01PM: Reports of widespread connectivity and scaling issues of the XBox Live service make their way around the news and blogging sites.
7/9/2008 10PM: Microsoft issues a press release acknowledging intermittent connectivity issues on XBox Live. Advises users to continue to use the service normally.
7/10/2008 12AM: It is discovered that the person who was unable to login to XBox Live had an expired account.
7/10/2008 8AM: The blogosphere is in arms against Microsoft for “anti-consumer behavior” and an “inability to meet SLAs”. Demands of refunds and class action lawsuits are suggested.

And… MobileMe is $99/year for email, calendaring, PIM, remote storage, and other services. XBox Live is $49/year for gaming.

Now, I realize things don’t always go as planned. But what makes Apple so special that the media is given them a pass on the whole incident?

WTF blogosphere?

Tags Apple, botch, botched, downtime, failure, Mac, Microsoft, mobileme, rollout, screwup, Service Level Agreement, SLA, uptime, XBox, XBox 360

Thinking about her life got me thinking about my own life. 10 years was Cali’s lifetime. What part of my own lifetime had 10 years been?

Well, let’s see.

1998

I was newly “rich” from my first “real” job, which I started in February.

In April, I moved into my first apartment by myself without roommates.

In July, I adopted Jade and Cali. They were adorable. My parents loved to come over and see the kittens.

I had an on-again, off-again (finally off) relationship with a pretty unstable girl.

Nicci and Troy moved in close by to my apartment in University City, so we hung out quite a bit.

2000

Though Neela and I had met before, at one of my brother’s parties and a few common friends’ parties/weddings, we finally started dating in February.

In April I was offered a job at Proxicom, in Los Angeles.

In May, we (Jade, Cali, and I) moved to Marina Del Rey, where Proxicom was located. Neela came up after her spring semester was completed.

Worked like a dog on Proxicom’s Toyota/Lexus.com project. Took over the Project Manager position for Lexus.com halfway through the implementation. Crazy hours.

In September, Neela and I we were engaged. Married in December. Small Vegas ceremony with just a few friends and family.

2001

My manager at the time, Sean, and a few other Proxicomers went to a small startup online gambling site, in Long Beach. We moved to San Pedro in February.

We met Dr. Steed, hands-down the best vet we’ve ever had, when we moved to San Pedro.

Soon after we moved in, Max found us and decided to stay. We discovered he was very sick (hyperthyroidism and fibromyalgia).

We did the whole Indian ceremony and reception. Then we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon.

After some political drama at Action Online, I ended up being a casualty in December. Luckily, I had just interviewed with Intuit, and had a job offer to start a week after my job ended at Action Online.

We put an offer on a house in San Diego and it was accepted.

2002

Started the year living at my brother, Poorvesh’s, house while I worked in San Diego and lived in San Pedro. Neela was also finishing up her semester (both teaching and working) in San Pedro. I came down on Sunday nights and went back up Friday nights. Neela took care of the three cats.

We closed escrow on our house in January. Before moving in we ripped out all the ugly (dirty blue carpet) throughout the house and put wood and new carpet in throughout. We moved in to the house (and Neela moved down) in February.

In March, we found out Max had lymphoma. He passed away March 23, 2002. That was a tough time for us, and the whole family, as it was the first time we lost a pet.

In May we adopted Sammy and Leo. Jade and Cali were not impressed with their adorableness.

2003

My 10 year high school reunion. I did not go.

2004

The six of us had apparently outgrown our first house, so we moved about a mile away to our current house (not our stuff in the pictures, these were the sale pictures).

I was (and still would be) extra paranoid that realtors would let my cats out, so we decided to move to Poorvesh’s house for a few weeks/months until the house sold.

Right before the move, though, Cali was hospitalized for three days. She had cholangial hepatitis. We actually noticed her being disoriented and acting weird right when we came back from a Vegas trip.

After being in the hospital, Cali had to come “home” to Poorvesh’s house. In addition to her being sick and generally not happy, there being three other (unknown) cats in the house was causing all kinds of unhappiness.

As soon as we had a buyer for our house, we moved back in to our old home to pack it up and get going.

Everyone loved the new house - much bigger! And a pool table (which arrived before any of the other furniture or belongings)!

2005

After almost 4 years in the same group, I moved into the Consumer Tax Group in October (still within Intuit), and got a promotion in the process. Cool!

2006

Neela found Toby the Friday of Labor Day weekend. Toby came home. He didn’t leave. Craziness ensued. Followed by training. Craziness didn’t stop. Ever.

2007

Four managers into my new position, I got another promotion in December. Sweet!

2008

Starting back in March, I am once again working for the same person who hired me into Intuit 6.5 years ago. Easy learning curve.

We notice that Cali is eating less and less, but she seems to be annoyed by the other cats, so we give her food in separate rooms. We get her checked out and back on inflammatory bowel medication.

After a while she stops eating her food, but no vet, even internal medicine specialists, can find anything wrong with her. I figure “she’s old and picky”, so I give her canned food 2-3 times per day. Her appetite returns for a week.

Again she stops eating, so we take her into Veterinary Specialty Hospital at 10PM on June 11th. She’s checked-in and diagnosis begins. I have a bad feeling that she’s not coming home.

After much turmoil, we decide the right thing to do is to let Cali go on Friday morning, June 13th.

I am very sad and thinking about Cali. I begin writing this post. I finish writing this post.

Tags Retrospective

You don’t have to be a geek (or nerd, or goober) to use the new features (see Enhancements below). Anyone with Entourage and an iDisk will be able to use the attachments functionality.

The installation is still the same as the first release. Here are the previous instructions:

1. Unzip and save in “~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items”
2. Rename “Create Task from Message\cT.scpt” to “Create Task from Message.scpt”
3. Start Entourage (you do not need to restart if its already running).
4. Highlight a message and hit ^T.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions.
6. Get organized!

I don’t like to repeat myself, so here’s the release notes, which covers the new features:

Version History
v0.2 - July 6, 2008
- Enhancements
- Ability to configure a remote disk to store files, and add the URL to the RTM task’s URL field.
- Tested only with iDisk.
- Requires the remote disk to be mountable via WebDAV.
- The URL will be http://[remoteURL you enter]/RTM-Attachments
- You can change the name of the folder via the remoteDiskFolder variable in the properties declaration section below
- Uploads may take a while, depending on speed, size of upload, and other factor that I can’t predict. Be patient.
- Stuff you can store on the remote drive:
- One or more, or all, of the attachments of an email
- The entire email, as a .eml file
-
- Only the text/plain parts of a message are added to the notes of a task, gone is all the formatted stuff that didn’t look right anyways and was pretty unlegible.
- Large notes are broken up, instead of truncated, and fed into RTM in reverse order, so that the notes can be read just like the original email.
- Known issues
- useEmailToCreateTasks doesn’t work when using the remote disk folder and attachments. The task gets created, but everything (list name and URL) end up in the notes. However, try the new API functionality, as it’s way improved with the breakdown of large notes.
v0.1 - Initial release

Here’s the high level logic for creating attachments, for the interested parties. (Click for a bigger picture)

I’ll do my best to answer your questions in the comments.

Get it here.

Update: Updated the version, as the previous one had a bug with certain special characters in filenames and/or subject lines. I had also (accidentally) distributed the last scpt as read-only.

Update 2: Added a screen walkthrough here.

Update 3: A few more fixes and enhancements:

v0.2c - July 6, 2008
- Enhancements
- Allows for configurable task title naming during task creation
- See editTaskTitle below
- Bug Fixes
- More special character handling
v0.2b - July 6, 2008
- Bug Fixes
-Replaced certain special characters in filenames and subjects to avoid filesystem errors

Tags Attachments, Entourage, Organize, Remember the Milk, RTM, simplify

iPhone 2.0 (Software) - Finally, ActiveSync support, the long awaited App Store, and search capabilties. Though I thought the launch would be immediate, it is actually July 11th, 2008.

iPhone 2 - 3G, GPS, more capacity (16/32GB) and 802.11n support. Well, I was half right… 802.11n was not announced, neither were any larger capacities.

Unlocked iPhones - only available in some countries (which will then be sold online and distributed free of charge to Apple, compliments of eBay). Whoo boy, did I get this one wrong. It looks like they’re making things worse by requiring activation in the store. (At least my current iPhone will have resale value thanks to this stupid decision).

Blu-Ray Support - They’ve been paying to be part of the BD association, there are drives that can work with their hardware, why not have the OS support the format? Nothing formally announced, though it may be part of OS X 10.6’s Quicktime X support.

A new .Mac - Could it be the rumored Mobile Me? While I’m not sure what the branding will be, I’m sure Apple wants to get into the push email space and drop the newly supported ActiveSync ASAP. Yeah, I was right. And they definitely want to muscle Microsoft out of the market, obvious with the “ActiveStinks” comment.

So, 3 out of 5… not bad for a first time predictor.

Tags Apple, iPhone, iphone 2.0, iphone 3g, Mac, mobileme, predictions, rumors, WWDC 2008

• iPhone 2.0 (Software) - Finally, ActiveSync support, the long awaited App Store, and search capabilties.
• iPhone 2 - 3G, GPS, more capacity (16/32GB) and 802.11n support.
• Unlocked iPhones - only available in some countries (which will then be sold online and distributed free of charge to Apple, compliments of eBay).
• Blu-Ray Support - They’ve been paying to be part of the BD association, there are drives that can work with their hardware, why not have the OS support the format?
• A new .Mac - Could it be the rumored Mobile Me? While I’m not sure what the branding will be, I’m sure Apple wants to get into the push email space and drop the newly supported ActiveSync ASAP.

I haven’t seen anyone else talk about Blu-Ray support, so let’s see if I’m all alone on this one. If so, perhaps Jobs will have to shut me down.

Anyone cleared their schedule to refresh their page obsessively during the keynote?

Tags Apple, iPhone, iphone 2.0, iphone 3g, Mac, mobileme, predictions, rumors, WWDC 2008

Mr. Angry Overreaction Man,

You’re an idiot. Your photo is now on the Internet. Whatcha gonna do now?

read more | digg story

And I’ve installed a lot of software. And I’ve removed a lot of software. And some sits around being unused.

Well, here are my lists of Mac software I use, recommend, and why - in no particualr order, just as it comes to my head. Keep in mind, this all on top of the standard Mac OS X software, including iLife ‘08.

Stuff everyone should have: (Don’t complain, it’s all free, but you should donate)

• Smultron - Free - Text Editor. You have to have a text editor. OS X’s built-in TextEdit is fine, but Smultron gives you code highlighting, indenting, tag completion, and SO much more.
• Quicksilver - Free - Launcher application and much more. Use it to find and launch an application, take shortcuts to common tasks like sending an email, or use one of the myriad plugins to extend your favorite application. (I use it to create Remember the Milk tasks all the time). It can index your entire computer so you can find files. Just install it and definitely go through some of the screencasts - I learned a lot through the screencasts, which really opened my eyes to the power of Quicksilver.
• Adium - Free - Instant Messaging aggregator tool. Yes, iChat is nice, and I love the screen share, video chat, and audio chat. But most of the time, I just need to IM with someone on one of 5 of the networks. Adium lets me connect to all of them, combine multiple listings of a person to a single contact, and it’s actually more intuitive than iChat because all my contacts are in a single list.
• UnRarX - Free - You’re going to have RAR files you have to deal with at some point. If you’re not trying to create RAR files, but just extract the contents, this is a great little app that just works easily and well.
• Skitch - Free (in beta) - Screen capture & image sharing utility. Great options for capturing the screen, including timed shots. You can also quickly share the shots via your mySkitch site, or .Mac site, all from within Skitch.
• FireFox - Free - Web Browsing. Duh. Just do it.
• VLC (Video LAN Client) - Free - Video playback. Great compatibility with every format I’ve come across; pretty reliable. Anytime you go searching for how you should playback a video file (on any platform, really) people will always say VLC.
• Perian - Free - Along the same lines as VLC, Perian adds a bunch of codecs to Quicktime, allowing you to use Quicktime for most video playback. VLC may be more efficient and reliable, but Quicktime (and Front Row) are nice to look at and to use.
• Cyberduck - Free - File transfer utility. Great, just great. Provides all the functionality you want, doesn’t disappoint.

Kinda specific stuff:

• XBMC - Free - Media Center software. A must have replacement for Front Row if you plan to use your Mac as a media center. Works with the Apple Remote. Get xTV, the Apple TV skin for XBMC and you’re all set.
• iWork - $70 - Apple’s office suite. Provides you with a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Really user-friendly, really easy to use. Great templates out of the box. Nice layout options. Love it. Can’t use it enough. (Mostly because no one else at work uses it)
• MarsEdit - $29.95 - Blogging software. If you blog on your Mac, you’ll love this app. It’s missing WYSIWYG functionality, but it has everything else: it’s scriptable, calls external editors, and works with most blogging sites/software. (None of the blogging software out there has WYSIWYG if it connects with any blogging services)

Truly specialized stuff:

• Parallels - $80 - Virtual machine for running Windows or Linux side-by-side with OS X. If you’re just making the transition from Windows to the Mac, this is a must-have. I found it hard to make a clean, fresh break from Windows. But I was able to transition to all the Mac apps and not lose productivity by using the Windows apps I was accustomed to. See also: VMWare Fusion
• Crossover - $60 - Another solution for running Windows software on your Mac, using the open-source Wine Windows emulation software. Crossover provides a GUI for installing common (and supported) Windows applications. The biggest drawback is usually that the graphics in a Crossover-installed application will not render very quickly. But it reduces your memory overhead from running full-fledged Windows (512MB to 1GB+) to just the application itself (likely less than 100MB). I’m a big fan of Crossover.
• VisualHub - $23.32 - Video conversion. Takes in pretty much any format and spits out a huge array of formats (AVI, MP4, M4V, MOV, WMV, etc.). Gets rid of all the complexity and you just have to choose the output quality you want. See also: Handbrake for DVD-to-AVI conversion.

Alright. Well that’s it for now. I’ll try to keep this list updated, as life goes on.

Got some favorite apps you think should be on the “gotta have it” list? Tell me in the comments.

Tags applications, Lists, Mac, software

1. Google experimental search
2. Google hosted apps for domains (including Gmail)
3. Google reader
4. Google docs
5. Google analytics
6. Google AdWords
7. iGoogle
8. Google news
9. Google groups
10. Google code
11. Google alerts
12. Google earth
13. Google 411
14. Google Maps
15. Google Toolbar
16. Google Talk
17. Google SMS
18. YouTube

Holy smokes! 18 services! Now, I may not be on all of them, all the time, but I certainly use all of those services somewhat regularly.

I think Google has my attention. I hope advertisers are paying well!

Tags Google, hosted services, Web 2.0

In that many years, I have never returned a product. I have purchased many things my cats & dog did not use or like, but I always took that on myself and never returned anything. I often gave away the product(s), taking the loss as a cost of having a pet.

However, a few weeks ago I bought two pet fountains. When I got them home, Neela pointed out that the cats/dog would have to lick plastic to get to the stream of water. Cats and dogs love to get the stream of water, something about it just excites them. But given that licking plastic isn’t good, period, I decided to return them both and get the Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain, which I was actually looking for when I got these two, anyways.

Keep in mind that these boxes were unopened, the products unused, and my return well within the stated 30 day return policy.

When I got to the store, I realized there wasn’t a “Customer Service” desk. I asked the cashier where to go for a return, and she said to just get in the checkout line. No problem.

When my turn came up, I showed her the receipt, and said I wanted to return both the fountains. She asked why, and I talked about not wanting my pets to unnecessarily lick plastic. She asked if they were used, I said no. She seemed OK with the return, and called the manager over to provide an “override”. Odd, but OK, whatever.

The manager gets there and asks why I’m returning them and are they opened, again. I provide the same responses. He then argues with me about the cats needing to lick plastic on one of the fountains, saying there is a bowl they can drink out of at the bottom of the fountain. I explain that the water streams on plastic and that’s unacceptable to me. He argued a little more then finally completes the return.

It wasn’t much of an argument, but I was annoyed (enough to write this post!) that he argued with me instead of just returning the items, like I wanted.

So now I won’t be going to Petco for my pet needs. I will buy off Amazon.com (of course!) and try PetSmart a bit more. But Petco, you lost my business. There are too many choices (most better priced anyways) for me to waste my time being argued with by a manager.

Tags consumer, petco, retail

I usually don’t blog about or post reality TV show stuff, as I don’t watch that kind of TV. But this contestant was really good on the British show, Britain’s Got Talent.

Have fun!

Tags desi, fun, TV, tv show

The way their software works is that you install it and then it forces an update when it’s opened.  Meaning you don’t have a choice and have to download the latest versions of their software.  However, they know the current Mac software is broken.  And they may fix it “in the next few months”.  WOW!  These guys are almost as bad as the Creative guys!  Don’t advertise shit that doesn’t work!

Luckily, I was able to get through my remote update needs by starting up Parallels and running the Logitech software in Win XP in Parallels.  Not horrible, but not a good experience.

What about the guy who changed DVRs and now has a basically useless remote control?  Logitech is basically making him go back to multiple remotes because they’re fucking stupid-ass developers don’t know how to QA something before releasing.

Imagine if others had this type of “QA” before release… “Sorry, OS X (or Windows) can no longer connect to the internet.  We’ll have it fixed in a few months.” or “Sorry, iTunes can no longer play music.  We’ll try to have it fixed in a few months.”

Logitech - get your shit together or get out of the game.

Tags customer service, dickheads, Logitech

Sadly, my enthusiasm faded really quickly once we began our trip.

First, the “first class” cabin was really crappy. It was dirty, small, and not really well-appointed with niceties. Things that we’ve grown used to on other first class cabins (like Hawaiian Airlines): footrests, personal portable entertainment centers, LCD TVs. What United gave us: A somewhat larger seat and some footroom. That’s it.

So on the way to Kaua’i we were disappointed but figured “oh well”. At least we were on vacation and how we got there didn’t really matter too much.

On the way back though…. that’s how United really lost our business.

First off, in Kaua’i, there was no one at the United check-in counter. There was a line forming, but no one behind the counter. We waited about 20 minutes and then figured out we had to check-in at Aloha Airlines because the first part of our trip was run by Aloha (to Honolulu). This should’ve tipped us off that United was going to do their best to screw up our trip.

When we arrived in Honolulu (6:30PM), it took forever to find a flight board telling us where to go. We finally found one and our flight had the comment “See Agent”. We walked all the way across the airport to the designated gate and, of course, there wasn’t an agent at the gate. We waited there a while, an agent didn’t show up. There were other travelers waiting for an agent, but it seemed like they were waiting for information on another flight.

So I called United’s 800# and, I’m not kidding, I spent two hours on the phone. About one hour forty-five minutes of that time was on hold. They had no idea what was going on. First they tried to tell us to talk to the person at the gate - who didn’t exist. So they had us go to another gate. We were turned away by that agent, who said they couldn’t help us because we weren’t on their flight, and that we should go to another gate. We were bounced to four gates (three different gates) and all of them told us they couldn’t help us. Meanwhile I hadn’t hung up the phone because I couldn’t get any answers. In the end the person put me on hold for over 25 minutes and I just hung up. When I called back and realized I was talked to “Sandy” in India, I knew the 800# was a waste of time.

We finally did find out what happened to our flight. I was delayed >3 hours to 12:50AM. We were supposed to land around 9:18AM, San Diego time. I was pissed. My original plan had us back at 6AM, with plenty of time to pick up Toby at 10AM (Markim Pet Resort’s only Sunday morning pickup time). Even though it was close to midnight, I was able to get my dad to agree to go pick up Toby since we had little to no chance of getting there on time.

So we were stuck in a completely closed airport from 6:30PM to 1AM, when they started boarding. We actually didn’t land until 10AM. And the crappy first class cabin and the delays solidified our resolve to never fly United Airlines again.

United Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Tags airline review, flight delays, United Airlines

Until Harmonix releases the DeSuckify update for Rock Band, I present the top 10 suckiest songs they included in Rock Band (taken from the main setlist, not the bonus songs (they all suck) or downloadable songs (if you pay for crappy music, that’s on you)) in no particular order:

1. Dead on Arrival by Fall Out Boy.  At least when I play this song and don’t pass I enjoy hearing Fall Out Boy getting booed off stage.

2. Foreplay/Long Time by Boston.  These guys are probably (fore)playing with each other, which is why this endlessly long song sucks.  (Get it?)

3. Highway Star by Deep Purple.  These guys want to fuck their car.  ‘Nuff said.

4. Green Grass and High Tides by The Outlaws.  What the hell are these guys singing about?  And couldn’t they do it quicker?  Hey Outlaws: Long meaningless songs an artist does not make.

5. Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria.  These guys are basically rocker-looking emo artists.  So they whine in their songs.  Really, who wants to play four and half minutes of crappy whiny music?

6. Flirtin’ with Disaster by Molly Hatchet.  Sorry, I thought I bought “Rock Band” not “Crappy Southern Mullet Rockers”.

7. Train Kept A-Rollin’ by Aerosmith.  As much as I like Aerosmith, they really should’ve picked a better song to include in this set list.  I mean, where’s Dude Looks a Lady, Rag Doll, Janie’s Got a Gun, or even Angel?  Why’d they have to pick some horrible unpopular song?

8. Mississippi Queen by Mountain.  Although I’ve gotten used to playing this now, I can’t say this is a good song.  It’s just playable.  I’m just glad I don’t sing it.

9. Paranoid by Black Sabbath.  I would’ve preferred Iron Man.  Again, don’t give us irrelevant material from artists who have much better songs to offer.

10. Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones.  I’m not a big Stones fan, and I don’t enjoy playing this song.

Disagree with my list?  Sound off in the comments!

Tags Harmonix, Rock Band, Song List

What is it?

Amazon S3 (Super Simple Storage) is basically a pretty cheap ($0.15/GB at the time of this writing) storage cloud that anyone can use. Well, anyone with an Amazon account. So, basically everyone.

How do I work with S3?
You have a lot of options of how to interact with S3:

• You can mount it as a disk on a Mac, Linux, or Windows machine, which I found to be unreliable.
• Use s3fox in Firefox (or Flock) to transfer to/from S3, which also provided me mixed results, at best.
• Use jets3t, which includes a GUI, across any Java-capable platform to transfer files, which worked the best for me. The only downside of this Java application is that it doesn’t integrate with any OS well, so drag and drop won’t work.

Update!! Oops, I was wrong! JetS3t does allow for drag-and-drop on my Mac. Even cooler!

• There’s also the command line s3cmd, which works pretty well, but there’s no progress indicator during file transfers.
• Some file transfer applications (like Panic’s Transmit) will let you transfer directly to S3, though I found them to be unreliable, too.

What can I do with it?

Store files, duh! Seriously, though, you can do a lot. You can share files with specific people, groups, or the public using normal URLs. You can create Torrents of your files to share on BitTorrent. jets3t helps you do all these functions in the UI.

Why I like it!

Well, I host quite a few files (many offsite backups), and when looking for a webhost, I’m always looking for lots of storage, which is generally expensive. The beauty of S3 is that I can store a lot of data up there, and I’m only charged for the storage ($0.15/GB) and transfer ($0.18/GB download, $0.10/GB upload) monthly.

So let’s suppose I upload 20GB my first month ( (20GB x $.15) + (20GB x $.1810) = $6.60$5.00 ).

Then the next month I update a few files, let’s say 1GB’s worth. And let’s say I also pull some files down, let’s say 5GB. So, ( (21GB x $.15) + (5GB x $.18) + (1GB x $.10) = $4.05$4.15 ). And all my files are still available.

Best of all, S3 provides a pretty damn fast connection. And since you can share files privately or publicly using standard URLs, you can link to them directly from webpages or use S3 for fast image hosting.

Bonus! S3 Mac App!

So, as I mentioned above, I like jets3t. However, launching it from within a Terminal window is tedious. So I used Platypus to create a Mac app file, which you can run from anywhere on your Mac.

jets3t.app.zip

Amazon S3 Initial Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

jets3t Initial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Update: I discovered the upload pricing for Amazon S3 is only $0.10/GB.  I also discovered an error in my math above.

Tags Amazon S3, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage, Remote Storage

Sure, it’s encoded at 640×360. Here’s a screenshot of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 Episode 8:

(Click image for full size)

Now let’s compare that with a 720p rip that I found on The Pirate Bay (Sorry, Eric, comparisons gotta come from somewhere):

(Click image for full size)

Now imagine trying to watch these on modern monitor or TV. Clearly, the first one is going to be tiny on its own and crappy when blown up to full screen.

On the other hand, the 720p rip is fantastic - we felt like we were watching it live off the cable feed on our 46″ 1080p LCD TV.

Bottom line? Give us better quality, Hulu, or realize that people will continue to find better quality elsewhere.

Note: I do not endorse any of the sites mentioned above, nor do I endorse pirating or sharing of files. Information above is for comparison purposes only.

Current Hulu Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I really appreciate the Hulu library breadth and depth. I look forward to better quality video and various output options.

Tags Hulu, streaming video, TV

Tags Hulu, TV

I tried to watch a couple of shows, but I have to admit that I’m incredibly underwhelmed by the video quality. The stream is maybe 320×240, and even at that its blocky.

When I tried full screen, it looked horrible.

The video selection is pretty good. I just can’t bring myself to watch any of the shows, the quality is so bad.

On top of it all, of course you’re relegated to watching the shows on your monitor. There’s no way (yet) to stream the shows to your TV.

For now, stick to joox and The Pirate Bay. At least you’ll get decent video quality.

Initial Hulu Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Tags Hulu, streaming video, video on demand

I had joined Barack’s Facebook group a couple of months ago. I get a few notifications per month of some activity, or whatever is going on at the time. Today I popped open the notice and saw they are close to having one million donations by March 4th. I have been meaning to make a donation, but hadn’t really gotten around to it, so I finally donated.

What impressed me is that they have this whole system around donation matching. Basically, after you make your donation they ask you to pledge to match someone else’s donation (optionally, of course).

So if you donate $50, someone has pledged to match your donation. Then you can pledge to match someone else’s $50 donation. Very quickly, your $50 turns into $200.

Freakin’ genius.

Tags Barack Obama, campaign, donation, funds

Link

Tags keyboard shortcuts, Remember the Milk, shortcuts

I’ve been having trouble with my Guitar Hero 3 wireless guitar for my XBox 360. I don’t like my Rock Band guitar, so I had gotten back one my Guitar Hero 2 X-Plorers, which is working great.

When I finally got around to googling the problem with my guitar, it turns out I’m not alone, by a long shot.

Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero, don’t seem to be interested in doing right by their customers at all. I tried to RMA Exchange the guitar, and was told it is out of warranty - that’s all. Too bad, so sad.

Fuckers. I could’ve just bought the game and kept playing with my X-Plorer controllers. But I paid extra for a wireless guitar. Going forward, fuck them and their piece of shit controllers.

Red Octane, you just lost my business. Rock Band is way more fun anyways, so go fuck yourselves.

Update: At least Costco isn’t a bunch of assholes. They took it back as soon as they heard me say it was defective.

Tags Guitar Hero 3, Red Octane

All caught up? Good. I played with RTM a bit more and decided I’m going to give it a try. It seems to work really well and lots of people have written integrations for it.

Add to this story that I’ve decided to use Entourage instead of Parallels & Outlook at work. Unfortunately, Entourage’s task management is abysmal.

Starting to see where I’m going with this?

While I found lots of integrations available for RTM and other applications, I couldn’t find anything for Entourage. AppleScript to the rescue!

Without getting into all the gory details, the script (see link below) will allow you to highlight a message in Entourage and create a task in RTM based on the message. The message’s subject will be the task name and the message’s body will end up as a note.

Instructions:
1. Unzip and save in “~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items”
2. Rename “Create Task from Message\cT.scpt” to “Create Task from Message.scpt”
3. Start Entourage (you do not need to restart if its already running).
4. Highlight a message and hit ^T.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions.
6. Get organized!

[Updated 2/24/2008] Added more steps for clarity.

(More information after the jump)

Create RTM Task\cT.scpt.zip

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Some requirements, also included in the script:

Script requirements (basically, my configuration… your milage may vary):
- Mac OS X 10.5.2
- Microsoft Mac Office 2008 w/Entourage
- XMLLIB osax by Satimage (Smile companion), available here: http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/downloads/downloads_companion_osaxen.html
- XML Tools 2.9 by Nate Night Software, available here: http://www.latenightsw.com/freeware/XMLTools2/

FAQ:
- Q1: What if I want to change the email address associated with my RTM account?
- A1: Open a terminal window and run this “defaults delete com.apple.Entourage-RTM”. You will quickly go through the authentication process again and be asked the email address you would like to send to.

(send me questions and I’ll expand the FAQ)

There are also some user-configurable settings:

User configurable variables

Use email or use the API to create RTM tasks?
Pros of API: not dependent on email transmission, instant notification of failures.
Cons of API: Not very robust, cannot handle large notes.
Pros of email: Assuming you’re using this for entourage, you already have email open. Very robust, can send in any variable for the task (see http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/sending/emailinbox.rtm). Even if the connection is temporarily lost, the email will queue and will eventually show up as a task.
Cons of email: You have these emails in your Sent Items. Clogging up the internet with email.

default setting: true
available settings: true, false

IMPORTANT!! If you plan to use the API, make sure this file exists at ~/Library/Application Support/Entourage-RTM.
The file should be named “encodeurl.sh”. You can copy this text and paste it into a new file.

#!/usr/bin/tclsh
package require http
puts [::http::formatQuery [lindex $argv 0] [lindex $argv 1]]

property useEmailToCreateTasks : true

Parsing is only relevant to the API calls. If set to 1, RTM will attempt to find a due date in the task subject. Probably not really useful, but I don’t see a big downside to it, either.
default setting: “1″
available settings: “1″, “0″

property chooseParse : “1″

ADVANCED USAGE ONLY. Will display a whole lot of popups during the task creation.

default setting: false
available settings: true, false

property debugOn : false

Good luck!

Tags Applescript, automate, Entourage, Remember the Milk, RTM, Task

It seems to offer many of the same features as Pageflakes that I mentioned previously.

Other first impressions: I like the tabbed Search widget on Netvibes. The email widget is nice. Pages within the widgets for feeds is a nice touch. The RSS reader is pleasant.

I can’t seem to share my portal (aka Pageflakes’ Pagecast), but I’m not sure I will be using that feature anyways.

Initial Netvibes Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Tags Netvibes, Pageflakes, portal, web clips

Oh wait, you didn’t get the question? Why am I upgrading my perfectly working Windows XP Pro to Windows Vista?

We all caught up now? Good.

I actually tried this earlier today and failed.

My pre-work was creating a snapshot, shutting down, and copying the entire Parallels VM folder to my external HDD.

Also, I’m upgrading to Windows Vista Ultimate. I would like to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium, but apparently you can’t upgrade Windows XP Professional Windows*Home*. Stupid Microsoft.

9:00PM - At the Agree To the Terms blah blah blah window. Yes, of course. I don’t have time to say No right now.

9:01PM - The installation window says this may take “several hours”. Stupid Microsoft.

9:25PM - Apparently its done “Copying Windows files”. Now its 60% done “Gathering files”. WTF did it copy if it hadn’t gathered ‘em yet??

9:57PM - “Please wait a moment while Windows prepares to start for the first time……………………………………………………………..”

Gonna be playing Rock Band with Specks1 for a few hours.

7:12AM - Played till 1:30 or 2:00 AM. Came back to the upgrade this morning and its asking me a few questions about where the computer is located (Home, Work, public) and whether I want all the auto-updates. Um, no thanks, Microsoft.

7:15AM - Now its checking my computers performance.

7:20AM - I’m at the welcome screen for Vista, but I still can’t do anything… still the first time startup stuff I’m guessing.

7:22AM - OK, it’s at the Personalized Settings window, where its setting up personalized settngs for: Microsoft Windows Mail 7 (the name here should keep changing, right?).

7:25AM - BLUE SCREEN of DEATH!!

7:26AM - Is it just me or should those Microsoft engineers figure out a new way to present total system failures? I mean c’mon. The BSOD is so old now.

7:27AM - Back at the Welcome screen. I wonder if I should go back and increase the VM RAM to 1GB… XP has been working just fine with 512MB, though.

7:32AM - OK it is clearly in a BSOD loop. Hmmm…. back out the changes (thank goodness for Parallels!!!!) or try safe mode? I hate Microsoft so much right now.

7:38AM - I love virtual machines. Restored to my XP state. Bumped RAM to 1GB and video RAM from 16MB to 32MB. None of this should matter, mind you, but we’ll try it see what happens… of course now its gonna take “hours” again to complete the upgrade…

7:45AM - Upgrade is starting up again… starting to wonder if I should just try a fresh install.

7:48AM - Chose not to get the latest updates online this time… hopefully that helps, at least from an install-speed perspective.

8:54AM - Still going….

9:40AM - Checking my computer’s performance again…

9:42AM - “Preparing your desktop”… I think the Personalized Settings window is next… hopefully no more BSODs.

9:46AM - Uh-oh, I wasn’t watching and Windows rebooted… dunno if there was a BSOD.

9:47AM - The Personalized Settings window is up now. Fingers crossed…

9:55AM - Should I be worried? The Personalized Settings window is still up and it still says “Windows Desktop Update”.

9:56AM - Yeah the mouse and keyboard are not responding. I’ll give it another try. Stopping the VM and restarting.

10:08AM - Its still on that window.

Forget this!! I’m going to revert back to WinXP and maybe I’ll try installing Vista separately, some other time.

Windows Vista Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
Yes, zero stars. What other rating can you give software that doesn’t even install??