Archive for April, 2007

Marc Fearby’s perfect operating system

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Marc Fearby’s Home Page » Blog Archive » My kingdom for a perfect operating system

I cannot argue with his post in most respects – esp Windows XP, Vista, etc. And sure Mac OS X isn’t perfect. Also – what I assume he means by finder’s lack of a address bar is the “path” in mac speak – if you “right click” or ctrl-click on the top you can customize finder windows to show things like delete and “path” buttons – there you can see where you are. It does require a mouse move and click though.

I have to give it to him on the “folder” merge thing and quite frankly the “where am I” issue. My daughter once completely lost her entire documents folder when she copied the one in the root hard drive over her personal documents folder. It asked her but she didn’t realize what she was doing. It broke her heart – years of homework gone. Not that she needed it and heck she was only 10 but she loves her homework (God bless her). XP’s approach is a little more safe, and Apple is arrogant about stupidity – which can be frustrating.
So, I have to agree with a few of his points but even the well thought out reasons outlined in “Top 10 Reasons Apple Dock…” referenced don’t mention why it is a great tool as well. Its easy to look for bad…as I tell my kids, look for good and you are always going to find happiness. Then again, you may also never improve the world. I won’t be at the WWDC so I won’t see Leopard until this fall. The fact is, Windows tried to do everything in that start menu. They even put it on the Windows CE (whatever the hand held OS is) screen. Dinky little screen with a menu shooting up and over to find what you want – when Palm put the most important things right there in front of you. That to me is what the Doc is all about. They add a little to other areas where it makes sense too. Widgets, Expose, and the new Spaces is unique, Spotlight continues to get better, perhaps they will add these features into Finder; or find an alternative. Will that be good enough? If you try to do too much in the doc you will re-create all these other tools and it will become a fat pig. And improving Finder with an address bar to let you know where you are might help – its the way spotlight works now – when you hover over a found item it give it to you.
I’ll point you Mac users to this fantastic page – Dan Rodney’s Mac OS X quick reference guide. It helps you navigate and work OS X.

more win v mac ranting

Posted in Computer Hardware, Software | 6 Comments »

I ran in Chicago- three days there

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

New Feature: Running in Chicago – my route on Google Maps

The weather was great in Chicago – a bit rainy but none the less, I always run along the lake when I go to Chicago. This was a 6 mile day, Check out the route on Google Maps, above.

Its particulary interesting if you go the satellite view.

Posted in Running Log | No Comments »

Google should buy Intuit?

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Posted on another guy’s weblog: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Google should buy Intuit

I don’t know this guy but he has some interesting points. And he didn’t even mention that Intuit now has our company, Digital Insight – access to millions of online banking customers.

I do not know anything about this – this is all his crazy pondering.  What I do know is that we have a great comapany and I have never heard of this idea yet from anyone here at Intuit.  But I’ll be happy to sell whatever they give me!

UPDATE: Some of you came here per our PR firm picking up this little ditty – if you are wondering: Why the hell does Jim do this?

When our fearless leader Steve Bennet was asked this question by the WSJ - After GE:

MR. BENNETT: There are a lot of similarities between the companies and a lot of differences. We are a shrink-wrapped software and an emerging-service business, and they’re a service business. We’re neighbors, and we have a lot of close ties. We’re partners. They could afford us.

Can they run the company better to create synergies, and where would the synergies come from? They’d have to think about that. I think there are a bunch of synergies between the companies. But the nature of Intuit would change quite dramatically — and the question would be, could Google acquire Intuit and get the value from the assets Intuit has and better monetize them than we can? They’d have to figure that out. But we do have a lot of assets.

So, gee, if they called us — and they haven’t — but if they did, we’d talk about it. But generally we don’t speculate on what might happen.

Posted in Business | No Comments »

I’m embracing LinkedIn

Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

I decided to start adding my personal contacts to LinkedIn. It seems that this service is winning the mindshare of contact management sites. The thing is, if it does grow even more, you aren’t “in” if your aren’t linked in. Guy Kawasaki one of my favorite “big brains” has written about it here:

How to Change the World: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

I have other people hit me with Plaxo and Card Scan databases. Those seem to be tied to MS Windows, and as a Mac guy its not for me. Even though my work is all Windows. I like that this service is all online.

Of course, the big benefit is for job search. I’m very happy here at D.I. but maybe I can help others in my network. I have reccommended a few others – and my previous three bosses are all on my list. That’s the nice part of being in a place like this now – freedom to network without the panic of having to.

Posted in Business | No Comments »

Appalachian Trail – 2007 Trip Planning

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

I think BJ has done the work for us this year. Terrific site and one Andrew and I can use to plan this leg of our trip. Check this out: Appalachian Trail Adventures – 2007 Trip Planning

We are trying to find a place to hike on the AT this year. Perhaps not to many hills as neither of us have been conditioning. I suggested the Shenandoah in VA beacuse its on the Blue Ridge. My issue with flat areas in VA is too many people and pollution.

In 2005 I finished the last section of GA. I would like to continue on in NC. It would be too difficult to get to Bly Gap to start where NC starts – only option is to hick south and north from .
Me at the NC/GA BorderThis is pretty much what I did in 2005 to get to Bly from the south. A shuttle guy dropped me at Blue Ridge Gap and I walked 3 miles norht to Bly, then turned around and walked back.

So this year I don’t know where we will go – Here is my idea:

Thursday, May 17, Day 0: Meet in Atlanta Travel Day
Friday, May 18, Day 1: Up 4:00AM –

5:00AM: drive to Deep Gap, USFS71 and Park the truck.

 125 Miles – approx 3 Hour Drive
8:00AM Meet Shuttle Driver – Shuttle to Tellico Gap, NC 1365 42 miles – approx 2 Hour Drive
Hike Miles 0-3.6 10:00AM Hike to Cold Spring Shelter just south of Copper Ridge Summit.

Lunch: Rocky Bald

Sleep: Cold Spring Shelter.

 3.6 Miles – Hike up approx 1,000 feet over 1.5 miles and then rolling to Copper Ridge, down to shelter.

Mile 1.4: Good Spring on right after long climb. WATER

Mile 1.7 Rocky Bald Trail

Mile 2.9 Vista – Copper Ridge Bald

Mile 3.6 Cold Spring Shelter
Saturday, May 19, Day 2:

Hike Miles 3.6-15.7

 6:00AM to 6:00PM

Cold Spring to Siler Bald Shelter

 12.1 Miles – Gradual up and down for 6 miles then 1 mile up 800 feet, down up for 2 miles, then down 2,500 feet 3 miles, up 1,000 for 2.

Mile 5.2-5.5 – Tower Overlook – Sloping Spring just before WATER

Mile 8.1 Crossroads

12.1 – .5 mile walk to shelter
Sunday, May 20, Day 3

Hike Miles 15.7-28.5

 6:00AM to 6:00PM

Siler Bald to Big Spring Gap Shelter

 12.8 Miles – Down 1,000 for 4 miles then up and over 800 for 4 miles. Up 800 for 3, up 500 for 4.

Mile 2.7 US64 Winding Stair – trash cans and picnic areas – Spring just north. WATER

Mile 6.8 Wallace Gap Old 64. Just east of St. Ind Campground.

Mile 7.0~ .7 mile blue blaze to John Wasilik HUGE Poplar Tree. Near USFS 67

Mile 7.5 Rock Gap Shelter

Mile 10 Blue Blaze to S.I. Campgr.

Mile 12.8 – Shelter and WATER 75 Feet down.
Monday, May 21, Day 4

Hike Miles 28.5-42.9

 6:00AM to 8:00PM

Big Spring to Standing Indian Shelter

 14.4 Miles – Sharp up & down 200, Gradual down and up 500 for 6 miles,  1,000 up for 5 miles (St.Ind) then down 1,000 for 3 miles.

Mile .6 Albert Mtn Summit and Tower Overlook

Mile 2.2 Moony Gap USFS83

Mile 3.1 Betty Creek WATER

Mile 5.1 Vista trail on L

Mile 6.8 Carter Gap Shelter (new)

Mile 9 ~ Streams WATER

Mile 10 Beech Gap and up-hill

Mile 12.9 – 600 ft. climb to summit of Standing Indian Mountain

Mile 14.4 Shelter WATER
Tuesday, May 22, Day 5

Hike Miles 42.9-43.8

 8:00AM

Standing Indian to Truck

 .9 Miles – Down to Parking Lot
Drive to Atlanta

9:00AM – 12:00PM

 125 Miles – approx 3 Hour Drive
Wednesday, May 23, Day 5 Head Home

Posted in Hiking/Camping | 5 Comments »

Apple Mac OS X – What’s next 2007?

Friday, April 13th, 2007

We were all expecting to see Mac OS 10.5 Leopard As silvermac.com points out in the many predictions they have for the WWDC07. I dig most of them; expecting the iPod to come out with those new iPhone features. But I also agree with Scruggs’s (redletterradio.com) comment on silvermac’s predictions – the big deal is touch Screen Macs a I blubbered about after Job’s keynote at Macworld this year. The buzz is all about the big screen though – Jeff Han an engineer at NYU creates really cool stuff. BIG.
I guess we will have to wait:

Apple Statement: iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]

I am just disappointed becasue now I really should wait unitl October to get a new Mac. I’m dying to get one and edit movies in realtime. My G4 is just too slow to render my transitions and other special effects I like to do in iMovie. It takes forever and I lose my momentum as I move stuff around and create the mood of a short slide show or home movie. Thank’s Dad, for making me a perfectionist.

I really want a Power Mac “tower” to drive this; visions of working in “real-time” then projecting on a big screen. Ahh- the magic! I figure – get the power now to start working and if they incorporate multi-touch screen technology into the OS then I can buy a screen and add it later. I hope..

Posted in Technology | 2 Comments »

Bill Maher – what a fool

Monday, April 9th, 2007

Dan Rather – God bless him; he has his flaws but at least he is a real journalist. At least he looks at all sides. He has his opinions and I don’t always agree with him but he will not lie to prove a point; and I believe he doesn’t form his final report before he does his interviews. Why he supports Bill Maher, I don’t know. Maybe so he can bring him to reality sometimes.

I’m watching Bill Maher’s show “Real Time” and he is all up in arms about the drug war and how if we weren’t fighting it we would be winning the war on terror. He has Dan on the show with another journalist and while she agrees with Bill we aren’t doing anything about Opium in Afghanistan – blabbering something about they have the poppies and we aren’t doing anything about jobs… Dan tried to interject twice that we are doing something about it: “Tom Swick in the state department is trying to crack down.” Then Bill ignores it and says what he had written down anyway: to say that the Taliban in place shut down the opium trade. Dan again interjects and says that was a street myth – “The Taliban weren’t against it, they held back to get the price up and they are in it again now.” Then Bill says “they were flexible enough to ally with the opium traders which we’re to stupid to do.” Dan bites his lip and Bill changes the subject. ally with the opium traders… holy crap!
What an idiot. I think that its great when I see guys like Letterman, Costas and Miller do interviews and they pull out the person. Then there are guys like Leno and Maher that really don’t listen to the person they are talking to – its about the joke or them.
It’s amazing to see the difference. I don’t know why HBO keeps him on – he isn’t that funny; maybe it the shock of his audacity. I’m not talking about the “Audacity of Hope.” I’m talking about the Audacity of lying or worse, making stupid wrong remarks because you think its funny when it’s just plain impudent and idiotic.

Posted in Politics | No Comments »

Supertramp – today and yesterday

Sunday, April 8th, 2007

The kids love to torture each other – My “literal” Daniel cannot stand that song Cupid’s Chokehold by Gym Class Heros because they sample the Supertramp song – Breakfast In America and what is worse they blend two different parts of the song – putting the “badadadum” right after the “take a look at my girlfriend” – and it is a hoot to watch Maia torture him when I sing the original supertramp version and she simplyl floats in a “badadadum” right after that part.

got me thinking of the standard – we all worked hard to learn the lyrics to. It would work today just as easily…The Logical Song

Supertramp – The Logical Song Lyrics

When I was young
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
Well they’d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world
Where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am

Now watch what you say
Or they’ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Oh won’t you sign up your name
We’d like to feel you’re
Acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable

At night when all the world’s asleep
The questions run soo deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am

Posted in Family, Music, Politics | No Comments »