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Paul's Time Sink

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Wait 'Till Next Year

Paul Westbrook | 30 September, 2006 23:58

Cubs Logo  Wrigley Field  Wrigley Scoreboard
I just watched the documentuary, "Wait 'Till  Next Year: The Saga of the Chicago Cubs" on HBO.  It brought back so many memories of my childhood.

  • Watching or listening to the game on WGN channel 9 or WGN radio.
  • Listening to Harry Carry announce the games and lead the 7th inning strech.  (No one can sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game like Harry Carry.)
  • Seeing the ivy at Wrigley Field on warm summer days

I really want to be able to take our kids to Wrigley Field to see a game.

[images via flickr: 1, 2, 3]

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iStat Pro

Paul Westbrook | 30 September, 2006 21:48

Isp BetaI just saw this post that mentioned iStat Pro.  This Dashboard Widget displays statistics from your computer.  I am actually going to stop using MenuMeters, and try using this widget.

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Google Reader

Paul Westbrook | 29 September, 2006 23:01

With the changes that Google has made to Google Reader, I think that I can use Google reader as my main news aggregator.  The thing that mainly tipped the scales for me is the performance improvements.  Now it is usable on my laptop, without making Firefox use a lot of the CPU.

There are some other features that I like:

  1. The built-in flash player to play podcasts.
  2. The ability to select a feed, and only show posts from that feed.
  3. The ability to mark posts as "starred" on either the web browser, or a mobile device.
  4. The bookmarklet that let you easily subscribe to a feed in a web page In Google Reader
  5. The bookmarklet that lets you open a browser window to the next unread post, even when you are not currently on a Google Reader page..
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10.4.8 upgrade problem

Paul Westbrook | 29 September, 2006 22:41

I had a little scare this evening.  At work, I ran Software Update to install Mac OS 10.4.8.  When it finished, I clicked on the Shutdown button.  When I got home, I attempted to boot my PowerBook.  The computer didn't play the chime, and the screen didn't turn on.  This continued even after plugging in external power and removing and inserting the battery.

I went to the Apple Store to see how much it would be to fix it.  I though that the problem was with the motherboard.  I wanted to find out if fixing the PowerBook would be more than getting the 2.16 GHz MacBook Pro (wouldn't that be a shame).

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Amazon aStore

Paul Westbrook | 29 September, 2006 01:46

Amazon has made it very easy to create a personalized store.  This allows you to promote products from Amazon, and potentially get some revenue from thess.  Anyone with an Amazon Associates account can create an aStore. 

It was very easy to create my store, but there are some things that I think that they should add:

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technorati tags in ecto and LifeType

Paul Westbrook | 27 September, 2006 21:53

ecto, for a while, has had the ability to add Technorati tags to posts.  This results in a chunk of html being added to the posts, within the <!-- technorati tags start --> <!-- technorati tags end --> tags.

This worked fine for me for a while, as the tags got added to the end of the post.  But things didn't work right when I switched to posting with the MovableType api.  ecto adds the tags at the end of the first part of the post, before the text in the mt_text_more field.  This causes the tag to appear on the bottom when displayed on the main page, but smack in the middle of the post, when the whole post is displayed.

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Bloglines Mobile

Paul Westbrook | 27 September, 2006 11:49

I mentioned previously that I have tried Google Reader and NewsGator for web based news aggregators.  Since when I am on my computer, I use a desktop aggregator, my main use for the web base aggregators is for use on my cell phone.

Last week, I saw this post that mention that Bloglines Moble is using technology from Skweezer.  This is is suppose to optimize html for small screens.  So I decided to try out Bloglines again.

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IMAP IDLE

Paul Westbrook | 25 September, 2006 23:09

Mail.app doesn't support the IDLE IMAP command.  This means that Mail.app needs to initiate a connection to check to see if there are new unread messages.  The IDLE command allows the IMAP client to leave a imap connection open, and the server will notify the client when a new message arrives.

The IMAP IDLE plugin enables this functionality in Mail.app.  This has worked pretty well for me.  I have noticed one problem:

  • The plugin attempts connections to accounts that have been Inactivated.

[via Hawk Wings]

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NetNewsWire integration with NewsGator

Paul Westbrook | 25 September, 2006 22:49

I have noticed some strange behavior with accessing rss feeds with NetNewsWire.  When my wife mentioned that she posted a new article on her blog, the post didn't show up in NetNewsWire, even after refreshing.

I found out what the problem is.  Synchronizing with NewsGator is causing the problem.  Not only is the read/unread status, but when synchronizing is enabled, all rss feed requests are proxied through NewsGator, and it looks like the feeds are only refreshed once an hour.

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Contour Video iPod Hard Case

Paul Westbrook | 25 September, 2006 20:55

Isee-VideoThe iSkin eVo3 iPod cover that I bought for the 30Gb iPod doesn't fit on my 80Gb iPod, so I went to Fry's to look for a new case.  I ended up getting the Contour Design iSee video iPod Hard case.  This is a clear plastic case that snugly holds the iPod.  There is a hole in the front for the click wheel.

This doesn't gather lint as the iSkin case does.  Also, the headphone doesn't have a tendency to slip out, as it idid with the iSkin.  The only concern that I have about this case, is that it doesn't cover the click wheel, so there iPod could start to show some wear there.

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Bayesian database training tip

Paul Westbrook | 25 September, 2006 10:39

Here is a tip for training your SpamAssassin bayesian database

Make sure you decrypt the body of the email before sending it to SpamAssassin to learn the tokens.

When I upgraded to the latest version of Maia Mailguard, I forgot to add the decryption key to /etc/maia.conf.  This caused the encrypted data to be sent to SpamAssassin.  This was causing SpamAssassin to get a lot more false positives.

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Storing cheap electricity

Paul Westbrook | 24 September, 2006 20:28

This post on the WierdTechNewsHub mentions the GridPoint Protect.  This is a device that connects to the main circuit breaker and stores electricity when rates are low, and then it supplements utility power when rates are high. This will also work as a backup during blackouts.

Supposedly, this will save 10%-15% off your electric bill.  The version of the GridPoint Protect that is meant for home installation is $10,000, so it might take a while to recoup the initial cost.

[via digg]

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iPod dock thoughts

Paul Westbrook | 24 September, 2006 14:01

Since we have been looking at different iPod docks recently, I have been disappointed with most of the products in this category.  I think that Apple should add some requirements for manufacturers who want to make docks for the iPod.

  1. All docks need to pass through all of the outputs from the iPod.  For example, it should be possible to have video output from every dock that is meant to support the iPods with video.
  2. All docks with at least a 3 line LCDs are required to show all text based list screens from the iPod and user should be able to interact with the menus.  This would allow the easy to read display of the dock to be use, and the dock can be put away.

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MovableType for LifeType

Paul Westbrook | 24 September, 2006 04:34

I finally got around to doing a MovableType implementation, that I have mentioned before, for LifeType.  I have posted the diff here.  Hopefully, I will check this in soon.

Update:  I have checked this change in and have created a plugin to enable it.

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iHome IH36

Paul Westbrook | 24 September, 2006 01:21

One of the problems with using the Mac mini for listening to music, with FrontRow is that the TV has to be on. This can be pretty disctracting for the kids, since they keep watching the album art change. Also for just listening to music in the kitchen, the music has to be a little too loud.

Now that we have a second iPod, I wanted to find a iPod dock for us to be able to listen to music in the kitchen. The iHome IH36W looked like the best option for us. The iHome is an radio with an iPod dock, meant to be mounted under a kitchen cabinet. (The docking feature is pretty neat. The iPod goes into a tray, and then the tray closes back into radio.)

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