A new version of Launchy, one of my favorite time saving and convenient Windows apps, has just been released and looks like it’ll shave even more unnecessary seconds out of my computing routine. I haven’t touched the Windows start menu in months as it is since with Launchy I can typically start just about any program I need by just typing a small part of its name, 3 or 4 keystrokes usually. The particular feature in the new version that I’m excited about is the fact that it now indexes Firefox bookmarks as items that can be launched, including Quick Search bookmarks. To detour a bit, Quick Search bookmarks are an incredibly handy tool in Firefox that allow you to create a keyword or abbreviation to associate with just about any search field on any website. Simply by right clicking in the field and selecting “Add a Keyword for this Search” you can create a quick shortcut for that specific search that can be entered in the address bar. One of the default quick searches associates the keyword “wp” with Wikipedia’s search so just by typing “wp Simpsons characters” I can quickly begin wasting tons of time learning the history of Chief Wiggum along with all the episodes he’s appeared in, for example. Now with Launchy though, I can run a quick search without even having to open Firefox first. All it takes is Ctrl+Space to bring up Launchy, and then “gm pizza near parkville mo” (that’s my quick search keyword for Google Maps) and I’ve got the map of local pizza places. True, it’s not that big of a difference but it feels like having a command line interface to the internet, and that’s just cool.
Monthly Archive for January, 2007
I continue to be impressed with SnapStream’s PVR related software offerings. A couple weeks ago it dawned on me that, wait a minute, Beyond TV Link might be pretty useful to put on a laptop. I mean, what if I want to watch TV or a recorded show but I’m too lazy to walk downstairs? What if I want to watch a recently recorded episode of Mythbusters while Jolayne watches Grey’s Anatomy? That certainly was an intriguing concept and so I shelled out for a license to see what it could do. It turns out that the standard Beyond TV app is actually also a server, and all it takes is the Beyond TV Link client to connect to it and get full access to watch recorded shows and live TV remotely, all from an interface that feels identical to the full version of the app. One of the coolest things about it is how brain-dead simple it is to get it started. There’s no configuration required at all. I was expected at the very least to have to give it the address or name of the machine running the full Beyond TV but as soon as you start Beyond TV Link it finds the BTV server on your network automatically. Quality-wise it’s quite impressive as well. Running across a 54mpbs 802.11g network there’s no loss of quality or performance in the interface or in watching live or recorded TV. It feels exactly like the laptop has a TV tuner card and it’s own full copy of Beyond TV installed. Now the second tuner card I added to our PVR machine comes in extra handy since that allows Beyond TV Link to view a different channel than the main machine when watching live TV at the same time. It’s also impressive to note that it performs well enough that the PVR machine, a near ancient 1.2Mhz AMD with only 384MB RAM, can handle displaying its own show while streaming to the linked machine without any noticeable performance hit. It’s been a great addition so far.
The seven stages of a project:
Phase 1: Uncritical Acceptance
Phase 2: Wild enthusiasm
Phase 3: Dejected disillusionment
Phase 4: Total confusion
Phase 5: Search for the guilty
Phase 6: Punishment of the innocent
Phase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants
Here’s a fun fact: If you start to shut down Windows XP and then realize “Wait, no, I meant to Hibernate!” you may still have time to bring up the shut down menu again and select Hibernate. It will then appear that the system goes into hibernation instead of shutting down. However, when you restore from hibernation you will find that it didn’t go into hibernation instead of shutting down, it just went into hibernation while shutting down and will continue to complete the shut down process very shortly thereafter. I guess this technically makes sense as hibernation is supposed to restore your system to the exact state it was in at the time. It doesn’t necessarily seem to be the best way to handle this case though. I have a feeling that would fall into the “Well, we didn’t think any sane user would do that” class of design decisions/omissions, I’m choosing instead to attribute it as an act of malice directed specifically at me, as improbable as that may be. Do what I mean and not what I say, computer!
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that mankind had a much greater fondness and appreciation for snow before the invention of driveways and sidewalks.
Just because Bawls Mints claim to be lightly carbonated does not mean that you can add several of them to a cup of water and end up with a fizzy recreation of the excellent code-fueling beverage from which the mints derive their name (but none of the quality). What you can end up with is a cup of mildly sweet, odd tasting blue water with chalky chunks of bloated, half-dissolved candy pieces. And no carbonation at all. This is but one of the ways that Bawls Mints manage to completely and utterly disappoint.
Well, I figured it was about time to upgrade my blogging technology from early 21st century to… um, slightly later 21st century and jump to MT 3.33 (at the same time that someone else decided to jump ship). Actually, I’d gone ahead and done the upgrade last month, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it left all my templates unchanged and mostly functional (my recent tracks display broke down due to some conflicts with plugins). It was a much smoother upgrade process than I’d anticipated overall. I just decided this past weekend I might as well chuck the old templates for good and start taking full advantage of the new features and plugins. Hence the new look, which will probably undergo a bit more tweaking. The main reason I broke down and decided to go for it was the problems I’d been having with MT-Blacklist lately, and MT 3.x promised the ultimate in spam fighting goodness. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be my experience thus far. In theory, the SpamLookup plugin should be just as good as MT-Blacklist and then some, but unless I just haven’t figured something out yet it’s not quite panning out that way. I mean, yeah it can check IP addresses against some online spam clearinghouses but one of those seems to have gone down, and at any rate spammers have a pretty much inexhaustible supply of addresses to go through from the compromised machines they use to send the spam. SpamLookup can also do the same regex based scanning of comment text that MT-Blacklist did, but even though I fed it the same collection of regex-es that had been driving MT-Blacklist fairly well I was still getting a pretty constant stream of uncaught junk. I’ve had to resort again to changing the name of my comments script, but that only works for a couple days at a time anymore. There are still a few other plugins and tricks I might try, but so far MT 3.33 hasn’t delivered on its promise for out of the box spam blocking. Maybe I’ll just require authentication for comments and be done with it…
Other than the spam, I’m pretty happy with the new version so far. The widget manager and its ability to easily make sidebar widgets out of RSS feeds is nice, and I’m looking forward to playing around with the MediaManager plugin sometime soon. The built in system for managing installed plugins is pretty handy as well. If I can get the spam under control, I’ll be a happy camper.
I recorded the OSU vs Florida national championship game tonight. What I intend to do is to loop Ted Ginn’s return of the opening kickoff for a touchdown over and over so that it fills the entire duration of the game, 30 glorious seconds at a time. In this game, we win by something like an unheard of 400 points. If nobody minds too much, I’d like for this to be considered the official version of the game, and for what the nation witnessed tonight to be dismissed as a humorous outtake, or perhaps a crazy alternate reality thought experiment. I do not feel this to be unreasonable.
Asobi Seksu – Citrus
My Bloody Valentine-style swirly guitar squall with a more energetic, driving rhythm section and topped off with floaty Japanese female vocals. It may not be anything groundbreaking but it’s an excellent take on one of my favorite genres. Not a bad track on the album.
Calexico – Garden Ruin
At first it seems like a big departure from their trademark mariachi-tinged cinematic southwestern style, but the additions of alt-country and even rock are mixed in perfectly here, making this my favorite Calexico album to date. Also, this year I found that they give a great live performance so if you’ve got the chance you should definitely go see them.
Destroyer – Destroyer’s Rubies
I can never figure out exactly what Dan Bejar is going on about but the interesting and odd arrangements, intricate melodies, and tendency toward theatrics make this album feel like it’s always just about to go over the top but it’s a controlled chaos that makes for a great listening experience.
The Fiery Furnaces – Bitter Tea
For some reason, Blueberry Boat just didn’t really knock me over, but Bitter Tea is the perfect blend of catchy, quirky, and just plain weird.
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Neko Case can do no wrong in my book. Another solid album of haunting songs, cryptic lyrics, and that unbelievable voice.
Maritime – We the Vehicles
Davey von Bohlen’s voice is probably an acquired taste but I listened to a lot of The Promise Ring in college and I’m a sucker for catchy bass hooks, which D-Plan alumni Eric Axelson provides plenty of. This album delivers much better on that potential that Glass Floor showed.
Beirut – The Gulag Orkestar
It’s like Neutral Milk Hotel got ambushed by a band of gypsies and swept off to go carousing across eastern Europe. Awesome.
Elsewhere