Technology

I Hate Digg

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I really don’t have a good reason to hate Digg, but it’s just frustrating that it’s guided by the general public. Because honestly, I think the general public is dumb. Not individuals (I think you personally are shiny), but rather as a whole.

I can write some well thought out, interesting stuff — and get minimal diggs. I can write “off the cuff” nonsense, and get quite a few. Of course, never enough to get the highly sought after popular fanfare — but still, noticeably more.

For some reason, I’ve gotten my brain wrapped around an axle this week, and done my best to get “dugg” to the point of popularity. It never happened, and it was frustrating to boot. So, I figured I’d just go back to writing stuff for the sake of expressing my thoughts. I think I like it better that way.

So, how are you? 🙂

Geek Like Me

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Lizzie recently turned 7 years old. She’s our youngest, but like her sisters, she couldn’t deny being my kid. Today, she proved that she’s a geek. And from me, that’s a big compliment. 🙂

Lizzie is home sick today, and Grandma is staying at the house with her while Donna and I are working. Donna gave Grandma her cellphone, because we no longer have a landline phone. (It went away when the DSL went away). Unfortunately, Grandma left the cellphone in the car, and I needed to get in touch with her, because the cable repair guy was coming over today.

Since she wouldn’t answer the phone, I figured I’d try to call her via Skype. Normally, I only Skype while I’m off at a conference or something, and Donna will connect us up so we can all talk. Today, however, Donna (Mommy) wasn’t there to initiate the connection, so I just hoped that Lizzie would hear the Skype ring, and figure out what to do. It took a few tries, but on the 3rd or 4th try, I saw her sluggish, yet smiley face looking back at me through the webcam.

“Hi Daddy,” she said.

“Hi sweety! Is Grandma there?”

“Yeah, she’s right there,” Lizzie pointed to the couch, out of the camera’s view.

I spoke to Grandma, and loved on Lizzie a bit, then disconnected. I was very impressed with her technical prowess, but what really struck me is that she was happy to figure out how to start the connection, but actually video chatting in real time wasn’t out of the norm for her. It’s still a big deal for me, and I’m a bit awed every time I use Skype — but for Lizzie, video chatting over the Internet is the “norm.”

My kids are going to be so much more comfortable with technology than I am. I’m certain someday my kids will look at me with the same nostalgic charm that I look at my parents’ generation and their blinking 12:00 VCRs…

April Foolery at Linux Journal

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BeOS InsideYesterday, Linux Journal let me go crazy with an April Fool’s Day joke. I came up with the idea to switch our focus to an old operating system, BeOS, and pretended to seriously report on things pertaining to BeOS. The whole LJ crew got into the fun, and we ended up with quite a round of shenanigans throughout the day.

The downside is that I started working at Linux Journal a couple years too late. April Fool’s website spoofs aren’t nearly as popular as they once were, so the word didn’t get out like it might have even as little as one year ago. Still, it was incredibly fun, and for the most part was taken well by the audience. I particularly enjoyed writing the absurd little “articles” that posted on the front page. They’re very short, and linked below if anyone wants to see them:

The funniest part of the day was that a comment on the youtube video appreciated my humor, and thought my geeky hairdo was “staged” for the spoof. Uh… That’s just how my hair looks. 🙂

Thanks to all that played along, and thanks to Linux Journal for allowing my idea to overtake the website.

Houston.

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There’s so much to say about the trip to Houston, but I’ll try to stick to pertinent information, and leave things like wearing a “Feeling Lucky” shirt at a restaurant on gay night out of the story. 🙂

Linux Journal flew me out to Texas for a meeting. I wasn’t entirely sure what the meeting would involve (I suspect part of it was just “played by ear” on their end too.) They actually flew a couple other people out as well, including Jill Franklin and Mitch Frazier. (Carlie Fairchild, Katherine Druckman, and Mark Irgang were already there.)

The specific details of the meetings aren’t terribly interesting, but part of the outcome is this:

It has officially goodness…

And I’m thankful the first 3 letters of the job title weren’t done in bold. Although that would have been HILARIOUS.

Posted on Natuba

Which is, you know, pretty cool. I will continue to be the video Gadget Guy, and we might come up with other cool things for both the website and magazine. They’re all such a great group to work with, I expect awesomeness in the future.

I’m also still working full time at the school here in Michigan, and have no intentions of changing that. Who knows what the future will bring, but I really love my job at the school. I expect I’ll do some more traveling than I’m used to, but that’s actually pretty exciting. 🙂

So there you have it. Linux Journal is awesome, the people are awesome, and unless I do something really dumb, I should be working with them for the foreseeable future.

Stay tuned later for a podcast. I’ll probably talk a bit about the trip there too.

I Heart Skype

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I got to talk to the family this morning with Skype’s video chat. Video really does make it more personal. And Skype works so darn well that the process is painless.

If you commute, do you Skype with your family? You should try it…