Archive for Technology
September 7, 2007 · Filed under DM Products, Technology
Well, it’s officially ready for public beta testing. I finished the DM Albums™ Plugin for WordPress, which is an embedd
ed version of my online photo album tool called DM PhotoAlbums™. (DM PhotoAlbums™, along with my online file management system called DM FileManager™, will be ready for public beta testing in a few months’ time as well.)
I have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and while it’s not like Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets, it is bad enough that when I get something stuck in my head it’s curtains until I finish it. In fact, Michelle experienced this while I have been working on this post:
Michelle: “Hey, Frank. You want a beer?”
Frank: *glare*
Honestly, who glares at their partner when being offered a beer? I need medication. But the beer will cover it for now. Vicious cycle.
Back to the point, I have no Earthly reason to build this plugin other than that it bothered me that I had links to photo albums in my posts which, if my readers are anything like me, don’t get clicked on. But I definitely want people to see the photos so having the photos in-line is the solution. And, because I’m I’m in the software development business, I am not about to use a service like Flikr for managing my photos. I want things the way I want them, not the way a service dictates I should want them. That feels very “Microsoft” to me.
The more detail-oriented (and dorkier) readers among you may have noticed that I’ve silently been testing my plugin in my blog. Instead of seeing the links to my photo albums (Photo Album: {link}), the photo albums are shown embedded in-line in the post, like this:
You can view a live demo and download the plugin on the plugin’s home page at http://dutchmonkey.com/wp-plugins/dm-albums/.
Nerd Alert: The rest of this post (after the jump) will not include any more English, and will consist entirely of GeekSpeak. But read on, it’s good for you.
Read the rest of this post »
July 2, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment, Technology, Trips
I just got back from a week in Wisconsin. While there, I had virtually no access to the internet or my mobile. It was terrifying, yet I 
was calm. I knew that while I was “unplugged”, the world would cease to develop until I got back. After all, if events get posted on the internet but no one is around to read it, is it still news? No, of course not.
To my surprise, several fairly significant events occurred of which I had absolutely no idea at the time. While I laughed and joked with my parents while using equipment that could permanently alter my physical and/or mental configuration, some seriously important events occurred. Here’s a brief outline and my understanding of the events and their consequence. They are listed in order of importance.
- Paris Freed. Apparently the U.S. Corrections department has as much difficulty with arithmetic as Paris does. Someone was unclear on the use of imaginary numbers and added twentyteen to 45 to get 22. She celebrated by eating a pink cake and getting a hair cut.
- iPhone Released. Ok. I’ve been really stoked about the release of the iPhone. That said, I have to say I’m repulsed by the way people who just shelled out $600 for a phone are acting like they just accomplished something other than demonstrating consumerism at it’s most idiotic. Seriously. They felt like rock stars? They made that up, right? Gigantic crowds did not actually gather outside Apple and AT&T stores to cheer and applaud people buying iPhones. Right? (By the way, how does this blog look on your iPhone?)
- Cyclists Doped. Jorge Jaksche admitted to having used drugs throughout most of his rather mediocre career, claimed everyone else did as well, and that his teams knew and supported the practice. Even more shockingly, his teams and former teammates then denied his claims. Alessandro Petacchi was suspended for having asthma.
- Entourage Continues. Two episodes. I missed two episodes.
- Sump’n Hella Bad Happen in England. I really still haven’t gotten to the bottom of this one. Apparently two car bombs were found and disabled before they went off in London. One of the cars had been towed. I don’t really like it when my car gets towed, either, but come on. The tow guy is just doing his job. You don’t have to rig your car with explosives just to get even with him. And a third car bomb exploded at Gasgow airport? All this and no one got hurt? Sounds like Amateur Hour.
So, apparently the world had the great distaste to continue to generate news-worthy events. How rude.
June 15, 2007 · Filed under Technology
I totally outdid myself this time. This is positively the most intensely boring post I’ve written so far. It’s so boring that 
I’d be tempted to bet that I’ll never write a more boring post as long as I blog. I specifically use the word “tempted” here because I secretly know I’m really not giving myself the credit I deserve. I know that at some point I’ll write something even more boring.
I would delete this post if it hadn’t taken me so much time to write. I wrote this a few days ago when Safari for Windows was released, and I’ve been sitting on it since, knowing it was enough to make even a highly caffeinated reader pass out cold. I’ve quite honestly even bored my self to the degree that I, the author, can’t really get through it without falling into a few narcoleptic fits.
What I decided to do is summarize it here, and then, if you’re feeling particularly masochistic, you can read the unabridged version after the jump.
Summary: Safari doesn’t quite make the bar as far as adhering to standards goes. Safari for Apple is borderline sucky, but at least it integrates nicely with OS X. Safari for Windows simply sucks. I don’t know why we need another sucky browser since the dozen sucky browsers we already have to choose from provide plenty of headaches for users and developers alike. The iPhone is going to rule, but is probably the culprit behind Apple’s release of Safari for Windows.
That’s amazing. These five sentences faithfully sum up the gist of what I was getting at and it’s still boring.
Read the rest of this post »
May 17, 2007 · Filed under Technology
Is it odd that the first productive thought I had once I got to work this morning was, “Wow! New 
Google interface!” Worse yet, I then sat and reflected on how one of the great things about Web Applications is that deploying a new version to your customer base doesn’t require any action on the user’s part.
Obviously, this is why Bill Gates determined in the early 90′s that this whole Internet thing wasn’t going to go anywhere. No painful, expensive, hardware-upgrade-requiring, error-prone installation for the users to blow their weekend on. I mean, where’s the fun in that?
For those who care, he said, “The Internet? We are not interested in it.” in 1993. And, because I can’t resist, he also said, in response to Java, “Anybody who thinks a little 9,000-line program that’s distributed free and can be cloned by anyone is going to affect anything we do at Microsoft has his head screwed on wrong.” A real fortune-teller, that one.
May 15, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment, Technology
When we moved to Seattle from North Carolina, we were forced to switch from TimeWarner digital cable service to Comcast. 
With this change came an unexpected – unwelcome – surprise. Comcast was using DV-R software and an online guide built by Microsoft – and they wouldn’t let us forget it with the little icon at the upper-right of the screen that said, “Microsoft Enhanced“.
Basically, what “Microsoft Enhanced” means is that consumers will be able to bring all the unreliability and frustration of using a Windows PC to their television-watching experience.
I, for one, have always felt slighted when I wasn’t required to reboot my cable box every few hours to clear up any glitches or wasn’t left wondering why my TV’s online guide had suddenly frozen – only to unfreeze and unleash all the buffered keystrokes it had absorbed in the meantime while I was trying to figure out why the cable box wasn’t responding. Really. It made me feel unneeded. Needless to say, we were delighted to have this “convenience” available to us any time we were trying to unwind.
But, Comcast announced on Monday it would drop the Microsoft product and switch to it’s own software. That sounds like a Microsoft Enhanced bitch-slapping to me.
My favorite “feature” was the fact that if the DV-R finished recording a program while I was watching another recorded program, it would crash and give me the television-equivalent of the blue screen of death: static.
In all honesty, though, I will miss being able to smugly reply with, “Well, because it’s Microsoft Enhanced.” anytime Michelle says something like, “Wait, what just happened?” or, “Wait, where’d the menu go?” or, “Wait, why did it just do that?”
Why? Because it’s Microsoft Enhanced.
« Previous posts ·
Next posts »
