Tag: tech (Page 5 of 7)

Lendle And Amazon

March 23, 2011 / DB

I had a nice long rant half-drafted, and then it got shot down.

Tuesday, Amazon removed API access for Lendle and several other Kindle book lending services. That killed these services as they rely on access to Amazon databases to facilitate sharing amongst users. Amazon said they removed access because the services did not aid Amazon in its primary mission: to sell things.

Fair enough. Amazon is a business and certainly has the right to deny access to their content to those they feel cut into their sales.

At the same time, though, when Amazon announced Kindle book lending in January, they touted it as a terrific benefit for Kindle owners, something that set the Kindle apart from the iPad and iBooks. Tuesday’s decision seemed petty and short-sighted. Frankly, it made me reconsider whether I wanted to continue as a Kindle owner or sell it and go back to checking out 40+ books from the library each year and buying only 5-10.

Fortunately, last night Amazon modified their stance, said only the syncing feature of Lendle, which allows users to upload their entire Kindle book list from Amazon, was problematic, and turned Lendle’s API access back on after the sync function was removed.

Lendle is using this as an opportunity to create a service that does not require access to Amazon’s database to operate. That’s smart. Rumor has it that people within Amazon are fans of the service and see it as a benefit to their company. In order to borrow on Lendle, you have to lend. The more you lend, the more requests for books you earn. You can’t just sign up and freeload. But companies like Amazon (and Apple) can be quick to defend their business, changing course when they feel threatened. Moving to a system that is independent of Amazon is the right way to grow Lendle. It makes users happy and should make Amazon happy.

After a brief moment of panic and disappointment, Lendle is up and running again. And owning a Kindle has gained another terrific bonus.

❖

What To Buy

February 12, 2011 / DB

As promised, some thoughts on whether should buy an iPad or perhaps something else.

To quickly recap my initial thoughts about the iPad from a year ago, I thought the iPad was super cool and immediately set aside some money to get one when they were announced. After that initial interest waned, though, I reconsidered and evaluated the tech products I already owned and what I couldn’t already do with them. With a laptop on my desk (and lap) and an iPhone in my pocket, I had most of the things the iPad brings to the table covered. The one thing that was left was reading e-books. Thus, I bought a Kindle. ¹

When the iPads hit the stores, I went and played with them a little. Holding one confirmed my opinion: they are super cool. But I still didn’t understand where it fit into my tech life.

And that’s what I tell people who ask me about whether they should get an iPad or not: carefully examine where it will fit into your life. If you have a decent laptop and a smartphone, it’s tough to justify owning an iPad as well. If, however, you only have a desktop computer, or have a work laptop that you can’t use for personal web browsing, emailing, etc. and you have a generic cell phone, then I think the iPad is a reasonable purchase.

Also consider what you want to do with it. Another big problem for me about the iPad is that I want to have a portable writing device. The iPad, in its base form, is not made to crank out thousands of words at a time. Sure, some people say that you can spend a lot of time on the virtual keyboard, but based on my experience with the iPhone’s keyboard, I don’t see the iPad as a device I could use to write lengthy blog posts, use for covering games, etc. And the idea of adding a Bluetooth keyboard to it seems silly to me. You might as well go for a full-powered laptop if you’re going to carry around an iPad and a keyboard.

Which brings me to something else I’ve been meaning to write about for months. Despite having a perfectly good laptop already², I fell in love with the new MacBook Airs when they were announced in October. Thus I did something I’ve never done before: I pre-ordered a first generation Apple product. Of all the money I’ve spent at the Apple Store over the past decade, this might be my finest purchase.

Let’s get the stats out of the way: I purchased a 13” model with the 128 GB solid state hard drive and 4 GB of RAM. I considered the 11” model, but based on my experience using a netbook briefly last year, I knew my old man eyes couldn’t handle a screen that small.

This is a great freaking computer. I can work comfortably on the 13″ screen, although here at home I generally keep it hooked up to an external monitor. The battery life is insane. I’ve yet to run it down where the old MacBook Pro burned through a charge pretty quickly. Despite having a slower processor, this thing is certainly faster than the old Pro model thanks to the solid state drive. Most of you probably have no idea what a solid state drive is. Basically the Air is using flash memory to store all your data. Instead of a mechanical hard drive with moving parts, there is just a big stick of flash memory. This makes everything about this computer super fast.

But this biggest thing is the size. The Air is insanely light. It almost feels like it’s not a real computer, but maybe a case where all the parts have been removed. Carry it around the house or throw it in a bag and the weight barely registers. S’s 13″ MacBook, which is in many ways a very light computer, feels heavy compared to the Air.

My only real concern in going to the Air was the small storage space. My old Pro had a 200 GB hard drive. While I was not close to filling that up, I do like to keep around 25% of my hard drive free. Going to the 128 GB Air seemed like a challenge at first. But I conquered that problem in two ways. First, I separated my iPhoto collection into two libraries and store all my old pictures on an external drive. They’re right there if I need them, but I also removed about 25 GB of data. Second, I undertook a major reevaluation of what I kept in iTunes. I prune my iTunes library often, but still had around 5200 songs and a few movies and TV shows in there, good for about 25 GB in total. I went through, song-by-song and made some hard decisions, deleting some stuff I had kept for years and eventually shaved off another 6 GB or so of space.³

So that’s roughly 30 GB of space I reclaimed. As I write this I’m about even in usage and free space: both checking in at 56 GB and change. I didn’t need to make those changes; I would still have had plenty of room if I had included all of those photos and songs. But in the spirit of a leaner machine, it seemed like a good time to put the data on a diet as well, and only keep the files I absolutely had to have.

The iTunes pruning offered the added bonus of improving my listening experience. While most of my time listening to music is through a series of smart playlists that are designed to constantly plumb the depths of my library and bring forward songs I haven’t heard in ages, I had a lot of chaf in there. Filtering out the songs I wasn’t really interested in hearing has brought back some of the wow factor iTunes had lost, or at least mine had lost, in recent years. I’m hearing the songs I really want to hear and not having to skip over songs I kept just in case I wanted to hear them.

As I said, this is a fantastic computer. And it’s where things are heading. A year from now, I would imagine most Apple laptops will have solid state drives and hold more batteries than anything else inside. There will still be build-to-order options for high end displays and larger mechanical drives. But soon the entire line will look more like the MacBook Air than they do today.

To sum up: buy an iPad if there is a clear space for it in your digital lifestyle. If you already have a laptop and a smartphone, skip it. Or try to win one in a contest so you don’t pay for it. And if you’re looking for a new laptop, take a long, hard look at the MacBook Airs.

Two months after I bought my Kindle, Amazon slashed the price by nearly 50%. A couple months later, they cut the price again. And then they released version 3 of the Kindle, which was not a great leap forward in terms of hardware. But they announced last week that they will be updating the Kindle 3 to finally show real page numbers rather than the funky locations they currently use. Not the Kindle 2, though. Nice buying decision there, Mr. B. ↩
I had a 15″ MacBook Pro. Lots of power, great screen, the old PowerBook-style keyboard that I loved, with backlighting to boot. A reasonable hard drive, but nothing huge. Thanks to eBay, a woman in Chicago is now enjoying it. ↩
These songs aren’t gone either, mind you. They’re all stored on an external drive so if I decide I want that rare Pearl Jam track I had only listened to three times in seven years, I can easily find it. ↩

The Super-Quick Pour

January 19, 2011 / DB

I forgot to mention this amazing use of technology I first experienced at the Colts-Jets game a week ago. Trust me, when you’ve already had a few, it’s even more amazing. And when you go to a traditional beer stand later, it’s kind of a let-down.

It “pours” a draft beer nine times faster than traditional methods and dramatically reduces spillage. It’s so cool to see, it’s generated viral YouTube videos and dragged fans away from the actual events to stand around and watch suds get served.

Del Boca Vista

June 15, 2010 / DB

Notice some changes around here? If you haven’t, you’re not paying very close attention. Why the changes? Read on, friends.

Welcome to Phase 3 (or is it Phase 2?) of Del Boca Vista, errr. the development of TBB.¹ To quickly refresh, over a year ago I took full control of the blog, moving it off of a hosted service to a domain and server space that I owned. I also dumped the easy blogging platforms² for WordPress, which offers me more control over the granular details of the blog.

The plan for Phase 3 (or 2) was to learn some HTML so I could build my own theme for the blog, from top-to-bottom. I purchased an HTML/CSS³ book in February of 2009. I quickly got through 3-4 chapters. Then I didn’t open it for months. Fortunately, I found an fantastic theme that I installed and have been using ever since.

About a month ago, I restarted Phase 3(2). I began working through the HTML book. I started digging into the code of the theme I had installed, as well as others, to try to figure out how WordPress works. I kept with the book this time, and finished it off last week. I wouldn’t call myself an HTML master, but I now know more than most people; just enough to cause problems if I’m not careful.

Turns out WordPress is a little harder to figure out than just learning HTML and CSS. There’s a whole other coding language that is involved, PHP. There are ways around learning exactly how PHP works, if you carefully follow various tutorials. But I find it difficult to dig through code if I have no idea what it means.

I have a book about PHP basics on my desk that I’m going to work through, but I don’t know how much it is going to tell me about the guts of WordPress.

So, for the time being, I’ve installed another theme. I loved the previous theme, but found it difficult to hack and tweak, at least with my current code skill level. I like the look of the new one, and if nothing else, it’s a nice change after over a year. I’ve already made some minor changes and hope to keep digging and find some more adjustments I can make to put my stamp on it even more. Don’t be surprised to find new things or slight adjustments each time you visit.

The long-term goal is still to build my own theme at some point, but it’s a more involved and lengthy process that I expected.

Has it been too long, or do most of my readers still get the Del Boca Vista reference? ↩
I’ve been through Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress.org. ↩
HTML and CSS are the main pillars of current website design. HTML builds the structure, CSS adds the presentation and style details. But you knew that already. ↩

Trapped

May 27, 2010 / DB

They’ve got me.

Every online retailer I’ve ever purchased a good or service from has me in their clutches. There is no escape.

Each morning when I first check my e-mail, chances are there are at least three, and often as many as six, messages from various retailers offering up fantastic discounts on things I might like. The Gap. Banana Republic. Old Navy. Eddie Bauer. Borders. Amazon. The KU Bookstore.

And as much as I insist I have plenty of clothes or books or whatever, I always click on the message to see just how good the deals are. More often than not, I’ll find a sale that seems too good to miss. That’s how I end up with 800 t-shirts for summer; how can I pass when they are only $10 with free shipping!?!?!

I’m torn. Am I part of the problem with this country, a nation of compulsive consumers who buy way more than we need or can use? Or am I doing my part, spreading money around, and keeping the economy humming?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but at least I’ll look good while I’m trying to figure that out.

❖

Housekeeping

May 17, 2010 / DB

A few blog minor blog updates.

At times (OK, quite often) I like to imagine that I have a huge number of regular readers. Dozens, hundreds perhaps. I like to fantasize that they check in regularly not just to get updates on the wacky things the girls are doing, but to see what else I’m reading and writing about. Thus, I like to believe that any time I make minor tweaks to the blog, lots of people all around the world are noticing and wondering about the meanings behind the changes. So, as usual, I ask you to indulge me in my Internet fantasies as I explain some adjustments I’ve made over the past couple weeks.

First, I’ve added a new section called Hotspots that can be accessed from the top of each page. It is a listing of some of the websites I read on a daily basis, if you want to see firsthand how I waste much of my time.

Second, as you may have noticed, the fonts I’m using have changed. I’m trying out a service called TypeKit that is dedicated to helping websites break out of the small number of fonts that blog templates offer up. As I understand it, most modern browsers will go out and automatically download any fonts they encounter that they have not already cached away. So most of you should have noticed the change, although there may be some Internet Explorer stragglers out there. I’ll probably continue to try different fonts for the next few weeks until I find one I dig the most. As of this writing, I’m using Museo Sans.

Finally, astute readers no doubt picked up on my adjusting how I do footnotes. Traditionally, I had used what I’ll call the Posnanski style of footnotes.*

(That’s what Joe Posnanski does on his site. He throws an asterisk in the body of his post when he wants to add a lengthy, parenthetical thought, and then using a second asterisk and italics, offers up that thought.)

That system generally works well. I like being able to put the parenthetical thought close to the original reference. But, in some ways, it is also cumbersome, forcing you to read through or jump past it to continue with the main body.

I found a cool little way of creating true footnotes that I’ve been using for the past couple weeks. It’s pretty slick. I throw in a standard footnote number, like this.¹ Go ahead, click on it.

See, easy.

I don’t know if that’s better or worse, easier to read or more cumbersome, but it looks more official, so I’ll stick with it for the time being.

Three things that don’t really matter, other than to me and one or two readers, but I thought I would share anyway.

Clicking on the footnote number will jump your browser down to the footnote body. Read it and when done, click on the up arrow and you will be teleported back to where you were in the main section. ↩

First Times

April 28, 2010 / DB

I recently discovered the site How I Met Your Motherboard, which features stories of first computer experiences. Interestingly, one of the stories mirrors my own.

Seems like perfect fodder for my own blog post, no?

People occasionally ask me why I’m so nutty for Apple products. I think part of it is because of when I got my first Mac: just as I was leaving the corporate world, becoming a father, starting down the path as a stay-at-home parent, etc. I was in the midst of several major life changes. At the same time, I purchased a new consumer electronic device that has a devoted following. As I educated myself on how to use my Mac, I got sucked into the Cult as a way of finding meaning and comfort in my strange new life.

But there’s more to it than that. A college roommate had a mid-90s Mac, on which I discovered the Internet. He dropped a few thousand on it for architecture projects and I probably spent more time on it than him once I discovered America Online and e-mail. Earlier in college, a friend down the hall had a Mac SE, and he allowed us to spend hours playing Tetris on it.

Most importantly, though, was my first ever computer experience, on an Apple ][ Plus in middle school.

Through some wrinkle in the system, I got into my school district’s gifted and talented program. The program was once every two weeks: on those days, we’d go to school, then get on a different bus and go to the old junior high, where the program had carved out three rooms full of stuff to keep us occupied for five hours. For me, the highlight were the two Apple ][ Plus computers that we worked on during each session.

In the morning, we had a programming lesson, in which we learned a series of BASIC commands. Then, we signed up for computer time and had to write our own program based on that lesson. That was all super cool, but I also enjoyed jumping on the computers at lunchtime and playing Lemonade Stand, Oregon Trail, or Midway. I was thoroughly enamored with these cool new toys.

Somewhere along the way I picked up a guide to programming in BASIC. I poured through it, imagining all the cool things I could do with my own computer. I wrote simple, text-based adventure games in a notebook. I would check out computer books from the gifted class’ library and dutifully copy down hundreds of lines of code for cool games that I would enter into my own machine some day. If I came across a magazine article or TV show about computers, I watched it. At the time I was crazy about sports, the Kansas City Royals in particular. Slowly but surely computers were creeping up on sports as my favorite interest.

I begged my mother to buy me an Apple ][ for Christmas in 1982. I’m pretty sure I cried and kicked and screamed. I explained how I would use it to design my own video games. I would learn all the latest programing techniques. I would launch myself on a path that would end with me writing games for Atari in Sunnyvale, CA after college.

She refused.

I pouted.

I did not understand that an Apple ][ ran about $2000 at the time. Throw in more money for disk drives, etc. and we’re talking $2500. In 1982 dollars. If I’ve done the math correctly, that’s roughly $5000 today. Back in ’82, my mom was working two and sometimes three jobs to keep us afloat. I obviously had no understanding of how much the Apple ][ cost, or how little my mom was making at the time.

I tried to talk her down to an Atari 400 or 800, but the answer remained the same.

A year later, when our financial situation had improved slightly, I got an Atari 2600 game system for Christmas. While that was one of my all-time favorite Christmas gifts, I was left playing other people’s games rather than making my own. I did get my own computer, eventually. In 1996, to be exact.

What could have been.

As I recall, I did fine on the entrance test, but my teachers were worried that I wouldn’t take it seriously. In fact, they left the decision to me. “If you think you can stay focused and be serious about this, we’ll let you sign up. But if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.” Or something like that.

❖

The Next Big Thing

February 2, 2010 / DB

I know I have some other Mac and iPhone users in my audience, but I’m confident that, with one or two exceptions, none of you have reached my level of Fanboyhood. Thus, I feel obligated to share some thoughts on last week’s unveiling of Apple’s iPad.

Over the last seven days, I’ve spent hours reading fantastic essays by some of the best tech writers sharing their reactions. I don’t know that I have any great insights, but it seems like I should put all that time and digestion to some kind of use. Not for the faint of heart (of those short on time).

The Hype

Might the iPad be the most hyped gadget ever? Even those of you who only casually follow tech news were probably sick of hearing speculation about what Apple’s new product would be. Consider yourself lucky; if you were like me and read through multiple tech websites each day, listened to several Apple focused podcasts, and generally tried to keep your finger on the pulse of what was going on in Cupertino, you would have been hearing speculation for nearly two years. Cool or not, I was ready for something to be unveiled so the rumors would stop.

Keep in mind every Apple event comes with a massive amount of hype. Steve Jobs and his army of fanboys (and fangirls) know how to manipulate the media. The last time Apple presented a truly new product was the iPhone. Whether you own an iPhone or not, you can’t deny that it’s been a runaway success and completely changed the cell phone industry. When the expectation is that Apple is going to present another toy that is unlike anything we’ve seen before, they’ve earned an extra measure of hype based on the iPhone experience.

The Name

Meh. I’m not thrilled with it, but don’t think it’s the huge error some people have labeled it. I was in the camp of those who were hoping Apple would finally move away from the “i” prefix. After all, Steve Jobs was the iCEO, for interim, and the first iMac was named to remind people of it’s utility on the emerging Internet. Both terms were coined back in 1998. With over a decade of devices and software suites marketed with the “i” appendage, the unveiling of a ground-breaking tablet computer seemed like the appropriate time to rethink the branding strategy.

I suppose Apple thinks it’s a good thing that the iPad so closely resembles the iPod in name. It’s just the next step in the evolution of the iPod, from portable music device, to video-capable gadget, to the iPhone, and now to the iPad.

I would have liked another name better, but I’m not getting all worked up about it.

The Device

It’s beautiful, as expected. It has the requisite cachet of coolness. And, based on the words of those who were granted access to the iPad last week, you can’t truly judge the device until you’ve held it and operated it. I can’t wait for it to show up at my local Apple Store so I can fight through the crowds to get my own greasy hands on one.

Use Case

Here’s where things get tough. Steve Jobs admitted that they’re not trying to replace either smartphones or laptops, but rather address the space between them. It’s one thing to read your e-mail or do casual web browsing on your iPhone in between meetings or while waiting in lines. But what if you want to sit on the couch and read a book, scroll through your pictures, or play a game? Why haul out the laptop when the iPad is available?

That’s a tricky argument. If you’re already dropping $80+ a month on your iPhone (or other smartphone) plan, it’s tough to suggest you need a companion device to improve the experience of many of the iPhone’s functions. Need more screen real estate to view your pictures? That’s when you break out the laptop.

The best counter to that argument is the price. Starting at $499, it’s priced favorably against the Kindle DX and Sony’s top-of-the-line ebook reader. Why not drop an extra $50 and get much more than just an eBook reader? Leave your laptop on your desk, where it can be safe, and stick the iPad on your coffee table or next to your favorite chair, for easy access whenever you need it.

The Future

You can’t discuss the iPad without considering what it means for computing as we know it. A recurring theme among those who held the iPad last week was that Apple is attempting to change how we interact with computers. It’s too early to say goodbye to the desktop/file hierarchy/mouse/pointer metaphor that has ruled since the Mac was introduced in 1984. But, for the first time, there is a reasonable alternative.

What Apple has suggested is a world where your interactions with your data are completed with your fingertips rather than by manipulating a mouse. Files are stored within applications rather than in complex folder systems. You never have to remember where or how you saved a file; when you launch an application you have instant access to all the files you’ve created with it.

No one is suggesting the the iPad model will necessarily be the replacement for our current interaction metaphor. What the experts are saying is that the iPad is the first step along that new path.

Prospects

Will it succeed? My amateur technology blogger opinion is that the iPad will initially be a mild success, which will cause many to label it a failure. It will not have the quick adoption that the iPhone had* simply because of the new space it is supposed to address. People will think the iPad is cool and sexy, they will willingly play with one when their early adopting friends buy one, but they will question where it fits into their digital lives.

(Let’s not forget the iPhone was not a true success until Apple dropped its price three months after its initial release, and really took off when AT&T began subsidizing the price when the 3G was released.)

There will be fanboys lining up at the stores the day it is released, or who preorder the moment a valid link is added to the online store. I expect, though, much of its initial success to be in the pro-user and educational realms. People who can use the iPad to perform specific functions required for their professions. Photographers, physicians, artists. Schools, students, and teachers will have a field day with the iPad.

As time passes, and more functionality is added, I think the iPad will become a solid addition to the Apple lineup. Not the dud that the AppleTV has been, nor the admired but poor selling MacBook Air. But I don’t think it’s going to become the next iPod or iPhone, either.

At least not yet.

Others will quickly attempt to get into the iPad space, some mimicking Apple’s form and system as others advance competing ways of changing our relationships with computers. Where the iPad will be a runaway success is that it will be the first. In five or ten or 15 years, when using a traditional keyboard and mouse to interact with data is required only for highly specialized actions, we will look back on the iPad as the moment when everything began to change. As the Macintosh changed the way we viewed computers in 1984, the iPad will do the same in 2010.

To Buy or Not

The ultimate question. As a fanboy, I’m required to buy one, right?

Not so fast. I have an iPhone. I’m addicted to it. As much as I love it, I may love my MacBook Pro even more. Most of my waking hours involve me reading, writing, and communicating via one device or the other. As lovely as the iPad looks, I’m having a hard time seeing how I insert it into my current gadget lineup.

I will be eager to see complete reviews once the iPad ships. The aspect that interests me most is the iBook application, through which you can read ebooks. I’ve had one eye on digital readers for awhile. Everyone who has an Amazon Kindle seems to love it. But as I wrote above, why spend $450 on a Kindle DX when you can get an iPad for another $50? And why buy into the strict Amazon system with the $250 Kindle when you will be able to read more book formats, possibly including Kindle books, on the iPad?

I had high hopes for the Barnes and Noble Nook, but the early reviews suggest it is a pain to use. Some of the Sony digital readers get fine reviews, but again you run into the issue of price.

Countering all the shortcomings of digital readers is the fact that the iPad has a backlit LCD screen, which tends to be difficult to read for long periods of time. The aforementioned readers all have E-Ink displays, which mimic the look of real paper, reducing eye strain. It seems like if you’re a big reader, and I am,* you will want the option that allows you to sit and read for hours at a time.

(I both read a lot and am tall, so I’m a big reader in more ways than one.)

So, I suppose the answer is I don’t know. I’ll wait and see what the reviews of production models say. I’ll monitor the development of the Nook, as many of the negative reviews suggest that a firmware update will correct the issues that plagued the early models. I might actually pop into the Sony Style store for once and look at their line of digital readers. If, after all of that, the iPad seems the best way to read books electronically, I suppose there will be one on my desk. Otherwise someone else is getting the next big withdrawal out of my computer fund.

Then again, I may just stick to traditional books for now.

❖

Loserville

August 31, 2009 / DB

I’m not what you would call a gamer. Sure, I owned an Atari 2600 and spent countless hours playing Pole Position, Q*Bert, Pitfall, etc. I wasted most of my freshman year of college playing Nintendo until all hours. Madden and NHL 93-95 were staples on the Sega my roommates and I shared in the mid-90s. And I did own a Playstation for a few years, although when I put it in my sister-in-law’s yard sale last year, I didn’t remember playing about half the games I had purchased.

(20 years ago this week!)

Still, that’s a fairly limited history compared to some people. I have friends who have been sucked into the various on-line role playing games and spend hours on one quest or another. I like to laugh at them and tell them they should get a life.

I do have a dirty secret, though. I was once addicted to a computer game. And I’ve recently discovered an iPhone version that has me on a nasty gaming bender.

Back in the summer of ‘96 I picked up Sid Meier’s Civilization II, a turn-based game in which you attempt to build a civilization and defeat other developing nations through force, economic power, or by building a spaceship and getting to Alpha Centauri first. I didn’t have a lot going on in my life at the time – I had just, finally finished college and was using my poli sci degree working the second shift at a distribution warehouse – so I was a prime candidate to get sucked in.

I normally got home between 10:30 PM and 12:30 AM, depending on if we worked overtime or not. I would wash up, grab a snack, and sit down in front of the computer, telling myself I would only play for 30-40 minutes or so. There were far too many times that I finally turned the computer off and collapsed into bed as the sun was coming up. One especially bad night I got home, played all night, then went back into work for a four-hour morning shift. Given that I operated some large power equipment at work, it probably wasn’t the safest thing in the world for me to stay awake for 30 straight hours and then start driving forklifts around.

My sickness reached the point where I owned multiple books on how to “beat” Civ II, an expansion disk that added all kinds of cool* options, and would read various forums looking for ways to improve my play.

(Cool being a subjective term.)

Fortunately, after about two months of this, I burned out and packed the books and disks away. Periodically I’ll consider picking up the latest version of Civ, but I’ve always resisted temptation, knowing I can’t stay awake all night playing computer games anymore and would rather read a book anyway.

Then I found the iPhone version a couple weeks back, Civilization Revolution. I’m totally hooked. When the girls are driving me crazy, I fire it up for “15 minutes or so,” which quickly becomes a 30-minute session. The game is true to the original version (and current, I imagine), although it is a bit simplified to make game play faster and easier. I never, ever won a game in Civ II. I’ve won with four different civilizations in four different ways over the past week.* It’s kind of like crack; I can’t stop playing. I even completely drained the battery on my phone one day.

(You select one of several civilizations when you begin a game, and take on the persona of that civ’s leader. For example, if you select the Americans, you’re Abe Lincoln; the Russians, Catherine the Great; the British, Winston Churchill; etc. I’ll admit it felt a little extra good when, while playing as the Indians, I developed atomic weapons and dropped a bomb on an opponent’s capital. That’s right, I had Gandhi drop a nuke!)

I’m sure this will all pass. But I’ve already played Civ Rev more than all the other games I’ve bought from the App Store combined. It’s worth every one of the 499 pennies I spent on it.

❖

Blog Status, August 2009

August 24, 2009 / DB

Seems like a good time for one of my occasional State Of The Blog posts. Don’t worry, you aren’t going to have to learn a new address or anything like that.

Overall, I think the move to WordPress and server space I own has been a good one. There haven’t been any downtimes, at least that I’ve noticed. While you haven’t seen major changes, I do like having the freedom to do whatever I want to the blog, free from the limits imposed by hosted services. There have been some minor hiccups, like the e-mail notifications of new comments not working at times. There was a week when there were 4-5 new comments but I had no idea because I rely on the e-mail function to let me know they’re out there.  As you may recall, one of my reasons for moving the blog was so I could eventually completely control the look of it. With that in mind, I was working through a coding for the web book so I could put my own WordPress theme together. Well, that kind of stalled out. It’s been months since I cracked the book open, so whenever I do decide to tackle it again, I’m going to have to start from the beginning. I have a big reading project lined up for the fall, so I would imagine I won’t make another attempt until early 2010.

Fortunately, I really like the theme I’m using now and am comfortable using it for the foreseeable future.

You’ve probably noticed I’ve been linking to a lot more articles lately than in the past. That’s for a couple reasons. First, I’ve revamped my RSS reading habits and sucked in a lot of new feeds that are providing some fun stuff to share. Second, I recently read an article about Peter Merholz, one of the men who is credited with coining the term blog. He said that he is a little disappointed by what the blogosphere has become. He wasn’t looking to create an environment where everyone and their mother dropped 3000 words about the latest American Idol or the kinds of people that piss them off. Rather, he was looking to build a system where people would repost interesting links they found during their web explorations, adding their own brief commentary. A lot of my favorite blogs feature not only top-notch writing, but excellent links to other articles of interest.

So I’ve been trying to share more of the interesting stuff I run across each day. However, one thing does kind of bug me: there’s no quick way for my readers to differentiate the posts that are all (or mostly) my writing from those that are just links. Maybe no one other than me cares, but there should be an easy identifier that separates the original material from the linked items. Again, many of my favorite blogs use some kind of icon to ID either links or original work. For example, the fantastic <a href=”http://daringfireball.net/”>Daring Fireball</a> uses a circled white star, ✪, to flag the author’s work. The symbol is also used at the end of each post.

The easy thing would be to bite DF’s style and go with the same symbol. I think it’s kind of awesome; I bought a DF shirt I like it so much. But, on the off chance one of my dozens of readers actually reads DF, I’d hate to be seen as a thief. After much consideration of the various symbols available that appear to be unicode – and thus platform/browser agnostic – I’ve decided that all my original material will include a ❖ , also known as a black diamond minus white x,* in the subject line. In addition, all posts will end with the symbol. Unless I forget.

(Duh.)

There’s no great meaning behind the symbol, at least that I’m aware of. It’s just easily identifiable and fairly classy. I like classy things. If I had more design experience, I suppose I create my own little logo. But who am I kidding? If I can’t get through an HTML book, I’m not going to dig out my InDesign notes from grad school.

Of course there’s also the dilemma about exactly what makes a post a link post vs. something that is my own. For example, I have a draft that I’m debating whether to post or not that is built around a link to an interesting web site. But, because it relates to a controversial issue, I have a 500 work intro stating my views on the subject. I don’t know that there’s a definitive threshold, but a paragraph or two feels right. Since I’m pretty sure very few of you care about such distinctions, I trust none of you will call me on it if I don’t rigidly adhere to that standard.

Just for fun, here are some of the other symbols I considered:

⚈☉☄❖☯☸♨☕

This is also a fine time to thank my dozens of loyal readers for sticking with me and indulging all my silly obsessions for the occasional post that actually resonates with you. Your readership means a lot to me.

❖