Monthly Archives: February 2006

/dev/random

Geek Gather Note and Reminder

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This is just a friendly little reminder about Geek Gather coming up here on Saturday. All the deets about it are here:

Geek Gather is a Go!

Now, something you may not have noticed is the end time. It is at 3:00PM. I have a baby shower for my friends Heidi and Chank so I am going to have to wrap things up by then. Sorry for the short notice and I will make up for it later – I promise…

Oh, and here are a couple of ideas for the upcoming Gathers…

  • Geek Gather and Dine – A geek dinner party to be held in the evening and include refreshments of a more refined nature (see: beer and wine).
  • Geek Gather and Chat – Using Campfire, hop online for some Olympic Competitive Synchronized Geeking. All without leaving the house.
  • Geek Gather and Watch – When the summer movie season rolls around, lets all go out and catch a flick and stop somewhere afterward to hang out and discuss it.

Just throwing some things out there to consider.

/dev/random, Audio/Video

Writers Block Live

This is for all of the Mac geeks as well as anyone who may like some very facinating, first hand stories of what it is like to work for Steve Jobs and Apple. The site is Writers Block Live by my aquaintance Mike Evangelist, former Apple Product Manager and Minnesota native. He is trying some rather bold experiements. First, he is writting no-holds-barred first person accounts of “life with Steve”. Second, he is planning on publishing these various blog posts as a book. The posts are basically drafts of various parts and chapters as he is writting them. It is always aa very enjoyable read and well worth a look.

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Competition for my PowerMate

A couple years ago I bought a Griffin Powermate. It was so cool that I actually bought two, one for home and one for work. I have it set up as a universal volume knob and mute button since I’m playing music all the time on the computer.

Today I discover (via Uncrate) the Logitech NuLOOQ Professional. It’s a combination jog wheel and tool button gadget that serves as an add-on to their NuLOOQ Tooldial application. Apparently it’s made to work with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign right out of the box, but it appears you can reprogram it for shortcuts for nearly any application.

Sadly, looks to be Mac only. I’d love to play around with the hardware side of it if it worked in Windows or (even better) Linux. The thought of having a programmable jog wheel at my disposal would be pretty cool. With as much photo editing as I’ve been doing lately, it would be a great add-on to my Wacom tablet.

/dev/random

Google Page Creator Release

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Hi geeks. Just for fun I just got done playing with Google’s new service for creating web pages. Click here to see the mock up I did. I have a couple comments already. As you can see on the page it has trouble aligning the image I put in there. There is 2 options for put images on the site, you can link to an existing image somewhere or you can upload an image and use it. Once it is place on the page you are creating you can drag it around on the page. Google says that it’s a way to easily create pages, and I agree. It’s an easy way to make none complex, simple web pages. The advantage that this has over lets say iWeb on the Mac is that you can get into the html code if you want. The Page Creator portion of Google does NOT draw from your 2GB of gmail storage. Right now they give you 100MB to play with. I suppose for the normal dumb user this is enough. Although if you want to share photos it can easily be used up. It’s a good effort by google and I’m sure once it gets going it will improve.

Job Posting, Personal

Job Posting for General Dynamics

Hi Geeks. My father is retiring from his job at Genereal Dynamics in the spring and they have a job opening for a software engineer. If you or anyone you know of are interested, please email me a cover letter and resume or just the resume and I will get it into General Dynamics through my dad. This is the posting:

Posted Job Title: Engineer-Software/ JAVA (Multimedia system integration)
Job Location: Minnesota – Bloomington
Job Requirements: By leveraging our expertise and state-of-the-art technological capabilities, we are a leader in providing superior transformational mission solutions for the intelligence community. Contribute to a technological revolution by helping our nation’s intelligence effectively operate in data-rich, collaborative, network centric, C4ISR environments.Conducts or participates in the research, design and development of systems software, software applications and/or tools for new programs and subprograms as well as enhancements, modifications and corrections to existing software. Codes, tests, integrates and documents software solutions in JAVA.
Specific Responsibilities: Responsible for supporting MAAS (Multimedia Analysis and Archive System) program in the software development (JAVA) and Integration of COTS components and ensures proper system configuration and functional performance. Provides technical expertise in the context of software integration, interfaces, system performance analysis, and software configuration management.Works closely with the Spiral Lead to ensure full coordination and synchronization of integration activities, prioritization of discrepancy reports and problem resolution. Close coordination with SCM to ensure a smooth transition from the integration environment to the formal test environment.
OS, Software

Use Linux!

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Often, people claim they’re stuck with MS Windows because of the requirement of some specific application. Often, they’re right. While Codeweaver’s Crossover Office has saved me from that fate, allowing me to run MS Office on Linux, there’s a whole bunch of applications that aren’t MS Office out there. In many cases, there is no easy way to run them on Linux, but there may be a functional substitute. This article provides some substitutes for the ‘most wanted’ apps in Windows land. The list includes alternatives for Photoshop, AutoCAD, iTunes, and Flash.

Of course, it’s worth noting that many of these apps will run on other operating systems too. You might even be able to try them out without leaving the comfort of your Mac.