Geek

I’m cleaning up the seemingly hundreds of e-mail accounts I have spread all over the internet. It’s part of yet another attempt to be organized when we kick off the new year in five or six weeks.

I have two e-mail addresses now. jp@jpnearl.com has become so bogged down with spam that it isn’t even funny and the others have unwieldy web interfaces or are a little too public for my tastes, so all the others are getting shut down at the end of the month.

The primary e-mail address to contact me is:
imachias-at-me-dot-com¹
(You have to make that look like a regular e-mail address when you send me mail. Robots like to grab e-mail addresses from blog entries.)

jp@jpnearl.com will still work but your e-mail won’t get read. Don’t send anything to my work e-mail address because that should rightfully be used for work only. If it has my last name in it it’s my work address. If you’re sending me something dirty (sorry, mom) you probably already know the other e-mail address I use for that. You can send me dirty stuff at imachias-at-me-dot-com and I won’t mind at all. My Gmail, Hotmail and Live accounts are all going away at the end of the month.

¹ So much for that Windows 7 hype I was spun up about a month or so ago.

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles unveiled the new license plate design slated to start appearing on vehicles in April 2010.

All vehicles in New York will be transitioned to the new license plates over a two year period, replacing plates that debuted in 2001. The official word is that the current plates are losing their reflectivity and were only guaranteed to last for five years anyway. Unofficially, the extra $25 fee to buy the new plates (which you must do to renew your registration) will add a lot of money to the Empire State.

The new design harkens back to the plates used prior to 1986 and will feature the states official colours with blue characters on a gold background.

The official name of the plate series is the “Empire Gold Plates.” Motorists wishing to keep their existing plate number will be required to pay an additional fee. Like the current plate series, NYSDMV will not identify which county you are from by the letters in the plate number, opting to start with “AAA1000” and moving on from there.

I like the fact that there are no fancy graphics on this plate series and that it appears that a huge amount of money was not spent on the design of these plates, since the Empire State is experiencing an unprecedented fiscal emergency.

The official press release from NYSDMV is here.

271b.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

Today marks the third part of the geek-trifecta that was underway as Canonical released the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. One of the most popular desktop distributions of Linux, like it’s brethren Ubuntu is free to download, burn to a CD and install on your computer. On the desktop it is generally thought of us a replacement for Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X.

Now I know that last week I was excited about the release of Windows 7 and I’m always excited about my Macs (well, for the most part) but I have a special place in my heart for Ubuntu as well. There is a part of me that is suspicious of all things corporate. I don’t like not knowing what my computer is doing, how it’s doing it and who it’s telling my business to. I have a bit of an issue with Facebook and Google in this regard as well as I don’t quite fully trust “the cloud” yet, but with Linux you can see all the source code that makes up the operating system if you wish, so there is nothing to hide. There are no hidden switches, no secrets calls and no privileged code in Linux and to me that can only be a beautiful thing. Not only are bugs discovered faster, they are squashed even faster than that. And by the way, viruses are not an issue on Linux.

I’m going to install Ubuntu tonight on one of the non-Macs here in the house. I’ll probably yak on about how it went in a couple of days.

By the way, in the picture at the top of this entry I was enjoying my hot chocolate in my Ubuntu Linux mug. I have contemplated getting that symbol as a tattoo as a branding of my geekiness.

So last week I was all excited about the launch of Windows 7. I proudly installed Windows 7 Ultimate on my computer, I hosted an official Windows 7 Launch Party and I was 99% sure that I was ready to jump back on the Windows bandwagon again.

Why, oh why, Windows 7, did you fail me this morning?

I attempted to install Google Chrome as my browser of choice on Windows. I dutifully downloaded the file and then ran it. Windows 7 bonked at me for my permission and I granted it.

Then the screen turned blue. I was thrown back to the days of yore. That’s right folks, Windows 7 shunned me by showing me the Blue Screen Of Death.

That’s just mean.

I don’t know if the blame lies with Google Chrome or with Windows 7. The betrayal of trust I felt with that BSOD made me remember why I switched to Linux way back in the days between Windows 98 and Windows Me. It also made me happy that my trusty ol’ MacBook Pro was sitting there, patiently waiting for me to come to my senses.

Do I still recommend Windows 7? Oh, very much so. I need to figure out why Windows 7 and Google Chrome had their little skirmish this morning, but that all-too familiar flash of blue on my screen chipped away at the foundation of trust I had built with Windows 7. I still think it’s the best operating system to date from Microsoft.

But is that enough?

I know typing that title is going to make my Mac fans gasp in horror but at the very least I can proclaim that last night I was a PC. It was last night that we celebrated all things geeky with a Microsoft sanctioned Windows 7 House Party.

Our party was a happy hour.

Now I know that visions of nerdy types with pocket protectors drooling around a laptop in a dimly lit room instantly come to mind when one thinks of a party celebrating a computer operating system, but this wasn’t the case at all. Thursday night Earl and I planned out a relatively nice menu for the event that was pulled off well. The only problem with the food was the vegetable tray; apparently the catering service we ordered it from had new help or something because the broccoli was frozen broccoli that had been cooked and was turning brown. It  was arranged quite nicely but it looked, tasted and smelled awful. The ranch dip was bleu cheese and the tomatoes looked like they had already hit a politician. So we skipped the veggie plate but the rest was quite nice. Beverages flowed, conversation ensued and fun was seemingly had by all.

The actual Windows 7 part of the party went on a little longer than I anticipated. I set up my Lenovo desktop computer in the living room and used our 42-inch plasma television as a monitor, which was great for the presentation. There were several themes that you could pick from for your party and I chose to focus on the media capabilities of Windows 7 and the User Interface enhancements. I went into instructor mode and kind of lost myself in the demonstration a little bit in that I was really enjoying it; Earl said he never realised that I could show computer stuff like that because usually I shove him aside and hastily click click click my way through his latest technological problem. I told him that I would remember that conversation and in the future be kinder when he needed help from me.

At the end of the night I gave away some Windows 7 swag; everyone got enviro-friendly shopping bags with the Windows 7 logo on them and I had some drawing for door prizes, including a puzzle and a deck of cards. The grand prize was a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Edition. I think that was well received.

All in all the party was a great success. I have to admit that spending yesterday finalizing ideas of what I was going to show off during the little presentation really made me appreciate Microsoft’s efforts to make the Windows 7 experience simpler for their users. Last night I made constant comparisons between Windows 7 and it’s older siblings and it’s biggest competitor OS X. It is obvious that Microsoft was inspired by Apple on some of the new User Interface elements of Windows 7 (the Dock-like taskbar being one of them), but as I said last night, I have used every version of Windows since Windows/286 and this is clearly the best version of Windows I have ever used. It looks good, it feels solid and it behaves itself. And ironically, the company doesn’t feel as Draconian as Apple these days.

I have pretty much made Windows 7 my main operating system of choice. So I guess it’s true, I’m a PC once again.

I don’t know if you know this about me or not but I’m a bit of a control freak. I have a tendency to insist that things happen on my terms. I like to know what is happening when, where and why at all times. I even want to know the ‘how’. This tends to extend to all aspects of my life, including the geek side of things.

Facebook is all the rage right now. With a few simple clicks of the mouse and some pounding on the keyboard in the right places, I can virtually dial up a quickly growing number of people from my past and present and see what they’re up to and where they are in their life. I think this is a brilliant thing about social networking because it makes the world a little less global and in a way a little more intimate. I’m sure that my Facebook profile has shown my in-laws more about me than they thought they would ever know. I have found old high school friends that I had completely forgotten about. I recently also found out the details of another random person in public, and to me that’s kind of scary.

It was a year or so ago that Earl and I were at one of the Saranac Thursday nights. I commented to Earl that a gentleman standing not too far from us was kind of hot. He didn’t really agree with me (he wasn’t really Earl’s type) but he could see where I would think he was hot (it was because of his bold moustache, in case you’re wondering). I overheard a friend call him by his first name. It put a name to a face.

The other night I couldn’t sleep due to on-call and while I was waiting on hold for a certain telephone company to do something about the issue I was having, I was clicking around on in Facebook reading various profiles and the like. I remembered that name that went with a face and decided to do a search on his name and the city we live in. I now know his full name, his age (he’s 31), the fact that he is straight, has a girlfriend and is a single father and what types of music and television he likes. I also know that he was recently hired at a technology based company as a salesman. Had he not protected his profile to be completely viewed by his friends only, I would undoubtedly know his cell phone number and more about him.

To me this is a little bit out of my control barriers. And no, I wasn’t stalking the guy; I was testing a theory by using the two bits I know about the guy: his first name and what he looked like. I have done the same before with a waiter at Applebee’s.

I think Facebook is a great way for us to connect. I really do. But the service is free and yet it’s making tons and tons of money for the owners of the company. I believe they are doing this by data-mining and selling appropriate ads tailored specifically to you. This makes me a little nervous. I became even more nervous when I received a call yesterday telling me that my “fat whacker” like pills were on the way. I had no idea what the caller was talking about and asked where they got the idea that I wanted these pills. Their response?

“From Facebook.”

Um, no. This is where I draw the line. So after this blog entry, I am ceasing the automatic cross-posting between my real blog and my Facebook profile. If you want to see my real blog, you can gander at jpnearl-com and see what I’m up to, on my own terms and on my own server. My cell phone number on my profile has been modified to one that I can easily control (it’s my magic on how I do that).

I’m going to play the social networking game on my own terms.

So today has been an on-call day and I have found myself with a lot of downtime. To pass the time between calls I have been watching “old” shows via the internet. It’s funny to call these shows “old” while remembering that Earl and I watched them together on their original run. I’ve been bouncing between episodes of “Charmed” and “Ally McBeal” with a smattering of a few other gems from the 1990s along the way.

One the things that I really miss about today’s television is the theme song and opening credits. I know the reasoning for eliminating the openers is to give the stations or networks more advertising time but the shows just don’t feel the same without some sort of opening theme at the beginning.

If I had to pick a favourite show that is current I suppose it would be “Private Practice”. I know what the show is about and I can tell the difference between the actual show and the gluttony of ads but it doesn’t have a brand identity. Now I know that they’re doing that dramatic thing by having the little sun explosion at a climatic moment near the beginning of the show and then superimposing “Private Practice” as an understated title on the screen, but being a 40+ year old something I expect more.

Now I don’t need something that tells me to sit right back and I’ll hear a tale nor do I have to hear the story of a lovely lady, but I like the titles to be consistent and separate from the action of the show. I’m not a fan of ramming the credits down my throat over the opening scenes of the show and quite honestly I don’t think it’s fair to the actors or production staff to be minimized in this fashion. In my mind a quality opening sequence gives the show credibility. I figure that the show must be good because they have taken the time, energy and expense to invest in an identity for the show. I suppose that the radio station program director in me is kicking in on the opinion here because I was constantly obsessed with coming up with a viable brand identity for any given station I was working on.

30 Rock still has an opening credits sequence and this is a great thing. Maybe there are more shows with opening credits that I’m not remembering at this late hour but I think a quality theme song helps a viewer remember the show and whether they liked it or not.

As the way of so many other aspects of the industry these days, I think ‘Hollywood’ is missing the boat by eliminating theme songs. Maybe they’ll make a return in 2010.

Last week I featured a video clip from an Elvis Presley movie and encouraged folks to figure out who the “cartoon voice” was. There was one guess, that guess being Betty Boop, which was incorrect.

Here is the video clip again. You are listening to the young blonde woman.

The young blonde woman is voice actress Nicole Jaffe. She has made very few live-action appearances, but she is most recognisable as…

… Velma Dinkley of the original “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?”!

Now that you know that when you watch the video clip above, you can probably totally hear it.

I’m such an audio geek.