Dear Photograph

Photography site with a twist. What an incredible idea!

take a picture of a picture from the past in the present.

Awesome.

by Paul on June 16, 2011 at 3:56pm | Permalink
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TAM 9 from Outer Space!

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) announces the 9th annual installment of The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM), July 14-17, 2011 at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa, Las Vegas, NV.

This year’s speakers will include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye (the Science Guy), Phil Plait, Rebecca Watson of Skepchik, Michael Shermer, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, Eugenia Scott of the National Center for Science Education, PZ Meyers, Richard Wiseman, Richard Dawkins, and of course, the man himself, James “The Amazing” Randi, among many, many others.

by Paul on June 2, 2011 at 5:19pm | Permalink
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A Few Questions for Intuit from a Longtime User

A few questions for Intuit about their Quicken product(s):

  • Could we please–please–have a new Quicken version for Mac? Quicken 2007 is really showing its age, and Quicken Essentials still sucks*. Pick one–doesn’t matter which–and make it both good and comprehensive.*
  • While we’re at it, how about a Quicken version for iOS? Something I can sync with my desktop Quicken. Years ago, before the iPhone was originally released, I used a Palm OS-based smartphone and just loved the Pocket Quicken product. Why do I have to abandon the desktop to go mobile? I’m encouraged by the appearance of TurboTax for iPad earlier this year; I’m hoping that a Quicken version is forthcoming. Each year–to be perfectly honest–it gets harder and harder to ignore highly-rated products like iBank, for example, that have both a desktop and iOS version…
  • On the Windows side, putting aside the issue of how very much the mandatory** 3 year update cycle feels like extortion***, what the hell happened in the last three years? Seriously, Quicken 2011 for Windows seems like a great product; it certainly does everything I need to do, and then some. But why does downloading transactions from my bank take on the order of seven (7) times longer that it took in the 2008 product? Criminy! I thought it took Quicken 2011 a long time to start up–I didn’t realize I’d have time to take a nap while it was downloading bank transactions!

Listen, I love your product(s)–I really do. You’ve made great strides with your Quicken Essentials for Mac product; it’s nearly good enough to make me abandon Quicken for Windows (especially now that I’ve upgrade to 2011…), but let’s be honest: the iPhone really did change everything; your Mac offerings will never be complete without an iOS version to sync with.

yeah, in a minute…

* In all fairness, it occurred to me while writing this, several days ago, that I hadn’t checked for updates to Quicken Essentials in probably a year. To my pleasant surprise, there have been several updates since I last checked. As a professional software engineer, I know as well as anyone that these things take time. I applaud Intuit, not only for ditching their existing codebase and starting from scratch, but for maintaining what appears to be a fairly frequent update schedule for this growing and promising product.

I must say that after only a few days of working in parallel with the latest version of Quicken Essentials, it’s quite clear that Quicken Essentials is growing into a very nice product. Don’t get me wrong–there’s a lot of work yet to be done if Quicken Essentials is going to compare favorably with any of the last several Windows versions, but at long last there’s reason to hope!

[We now return you to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress…]

** Mandatory, that is, only if you want to download transactions from your bank…

*** I mean, come on, if your new versions of Quicken for Windows are so great, why aren’t the new features compelling enough to make me want to upgrade? But I digress…

by Paul on May 26, 2011 at 4:35pm | Permalink
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My take on the whole Mac Defender brouhaha

What strikes me as most ironic about this whole story is that it disproves the very premise upon which all the hoopla is based. The whole premise is that smug Mac users–and we are all smug, after all–are in for a rude awakening for ignorantly believing their system of choice is impervious to attack. We’ve been hearing this for years (see, e.g., Wolf!, The Macalope Weekly: Of trolls and straw men).

But ask this simple question: how exactly is it that a smug Mac user, who blindly adheres to the “party line” that Macs are impervious, and does so despite all evidence to the contrary, is convinced to install anti-malware software over the web?

If Mac users were actually as hell-bent on believing that their Macs were impervious to security threats as suggested, then they never would have believed the web-based message that their computer was infected in the first place! It’s only because Mac users actually do understand that Macs aren’t impervious that some not-so-well-informed users allowed themselves to be affected!

Mac Defender is, after all, a Trojan–not a virus–meaning that the user has to jump through a few hoops (including giving password authentication) to install the Trojan.

Fortunately, if you are affected by Mac Defender there are any number of good resources for cleaning up the mess, including this Support Document from Apple, and it doesn’t take any special software, skills or tools.

by Paul on May 24, 2011 at 6:40pm | Permalink
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Best Tweet(s) of the Day

People are making rapture jokes like there’s no tomorrow.

I’d gladly give attribution, but I’ve seen numerous “authors” of this gem…

by Paul on May 21, 2011 at 8:17pm | Permalink
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The Battle at F-Stop Ridge

Priceless short video by The Camera Store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada:

In a short film directed and produced by Jordan Drake (our inhouse video expert), the team at TCS take the war of brands, formats, film, digital and everything else to F-Stop Ridge and battle it out.

[via Chase Jarvis Blog]

by Paul on May 19, 2011 at 7:17am | Permalink
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Use a SmartPhone? Meet the Oona.

The Oona is a smartphone stand, but like no other I’ve seen. It’s simple, elegant, and will work with most any smartphone. I’ll be using mine with the iPhone 4, but it’s not just for iPhone users.

Follow the link to KickStarter and watch the video. Looks like it does everything!

Mark me down.

by Paul on May 18, 2011 at 7:10am | Permalink
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Cars 2

I love Pixar–truly. I’ve seen every Pixar feature film in theater on the big screen. It never ceases to amaze me how they are able to maintain such high standards; they continually set the bar for the rest of the industry. Granted, in the beginning, I was simply amazed at the animation, but Pixar gives you the whole package, and never fails in the art of storytelling.

Cars 2, opening June 24th, looks like it will continue the tradition of excellence.

I can’t wait!

by Paul on May 14, 2011 at 7:51am | Permalink
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White iPhone 4

Finally, indeed!

I bought one. I love it. It rocks. Yada, yada, yada…

Plus, as as added bonus, I finally get to do something with the iPhone 4 dock and bumper that I bought the day after the WWDC 2010 Keynote, that have just been sitting on a shelf for lo these many months!

by Paul on May 12, 2011 at 5:24pm | Permalink
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Shit My Students Write

Teachers used to write books out of this material, now it’s blogs, but either way it’s still funny:

The rebel and onion armies showed grose negligence by having many of their battles right inside national parks, like Gettysburg.

by Paul on May 7, 2011 at 8:38am | Permalink
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