Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

Lifehackers has a writeup on how to Roll Your Own Lightning at Sunset Desktop.  That is one impressive-looking desktop.  AutoHotkey sounds as though it might be useful - I’ll have to give it a shot sometime. 

I’ve started using Launchy recently and I really like it.  So far I’ve just been using its basic functionality but I’m looking forward to digging deeper and finding more uses for it. 

Samurize looks interesting but I don’t look at my desktop that much.  Maybe I’ll give it a try. 

Lifehacker’s Featured Windows Download: Cool Timer looks as though it might be what I’ve been looking for in a computer timer. I’ll have to give it a whirl.

One of these days I want to get a DVR.  There aren’t a lot of shows I want to watch on TV and when I’m in the mood for watching TV they’re not on. 

From what I’ve seen, Neuros‘ DVRs are about the best.  They don’t lock you into anything, they let you watch things the way you want to watch them, and they look decently easy to set up.  Hopefully the next iteration of Canada’s Copyright Bill doesn’t make them illegal. 

When I finally get around to building or buying a better desk I’d like it to be set up for multiple computers.  As it is I have my computer set up with two monitors.  It’s handy for switching from WoW to a browser or for reconciling my books, but I would still like to have a couple of computers to dedicate to various tasks. 

The biggest obstacle is handling multiple keyboards and mice.  I have a USB mouse and apparently those don’t play well with KVM solutions.  I may just stack multiple keyboards and mice and live with the awkwardness of switching from one set to another. 

EDIT: This Lifehacker post may offer some good ideas. I wonder how Synergy would work with WoW?

It looks like One Laptop Per Child’s Give One Get One program is coming back.  I might look at getting one of these for my kids.  The biggest factor will be the timing of the offer.  If it doesn’t happen while I have some discretionary income, I’ll have to wait for the next time it comes around. 

Google 404 Pages Help Your Web Visitors Find the Right Page looks like something I should implement. Now to see if I actually do…

While shopping for school supplies for the kids I noticed a subnotebook that looked as though it would function well as an ebook reader.  The price is comparable to that of an Amazon Kindle or a PDA and it looks like it would offer a lot more utility.  Download Squad talked about using one of these coupled with zero-footprint applications as a way of preserving privacy, particularly if you have to cross the US border.  It’s definitely worth checking into. 

Turn an Ubuntu/Debian System Into an IMAP Mail Server looks like a project I’ve considered.  The last time I looked into this it proved to be too much of a hassle.  Maybe the tech’s advanced enough for me to handle it.

1. Save Current track (N/A if you’ve just started up the GPS)
a. Press the Menu button twice
b. Choose tracks
c. Choose save (if Save is grayed out, go to step 2)
d. Save entire log
e. Choose OK for the default name
f. Choose Clear, Yes
2. Set the track to record to the accuracy you want
I’d suggest 0.01 km for quarters – this will fill up the track log fairly quickly.  Note that Saved Tracks cannot have more than 750 points.  At 10m per point this would mean a maximum distance of 7.5k or 4 miles per track. 
3. Walk/drive around the area to be measured
NOTE: If the track crosses itself, results may not be accurate.  Go around the perimeter of the area.
4. Save Current track
a. Press the Menu button twice
b. Choose tracks
c. Choose save
d. Save entire log
e. Choose OK for the default name
f. Choose Clear, Yes
5. Read acres
a. Press the Menu button twice
b. Choose tracks
c. Choose the track you just made, press Enter
d. Area is displayed under Area.  The units can be changed by going up to the currently displayed units and pressing Enter.

From time to time I need to extract images from PDFs - PDF Image Extract looks like it would be useful for that.

I like Lifehacker’s Hive Five feature where they have people recommend their top five application for a given task. This week it’s Five Best File Syncing Tools. I could probably use a tool like this - a lot would depend on how awkward these are to use.

Scott Berkun has a post on the pleasure of turning things off.  When you read through the comments, people generally agree that turning computers/internet connections off is the way to go.  I disagree.

The crux for me is his statement that "The real world, when done right, kicks the virtual worlds ass."  The trouble is that the real world is so rarely done right.  I’d prefer to be a hero with all the money I can spend in the real world to paying bills and working a desk job.  I’d rather work at gaining fame with group of people than do the the dishes every night.  How can I make sure the real world is done right? 

It’s not as though this is a new thing.  Back in 1651, Hobbes described the natural state of man as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.  In many ways we have been layering virtual worlds on top of the world that is since the days of the very first humans.  Computers and the Internet are just the latest instruments serving our desire to distance ourselves from reality.  Without a certain disregard for what is, humanity’s crowning achievements would not exist. 

There are few people out there that would not benefit from switching off a things in their lives.  Just consider which things you are switching off.  "Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic; this doubles your effective lifetime." - Heinlein

The CommonCraft Show | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English is really neat. It explains a variety of technologies (particularly internet buzzword technologies) in straightforward terms. I found their latest video, Twitter In Plain English to be a very solid explanation of not only what Twitter is, but also why you would want to use it. (via Presentation Zen)

Just a few notes for me.

To import a shapefile from Farmworks to Arcview (BMG Nutrient in particular) switching from decimal degrees to UTM in arcview 3.1
1. Export as shapefile from Framworks (Usually done by BMG)
2. Create a view with units as decimal degrees
3. Add the exported shapefiles as themes
4. Convert the themes to shapefiles (step 3 and 4 help avoid some errors)
5. Use Arcview’s projection utility
a. select converted shapefiles,
b. Coord System is Geographic GCS_North_American_1927
c. Units Degree
d. Next
e. No to saving coord system
f. Projected
g. WGS_1972_UTM_Zone_14N
h. Units Meter
i. Next
j. No
k. Next
l. Finish
6. Close Project
7. Open Project, add new shapefiles

This post: Will the Novel Die? (David Louis Edelman) seemed to tie into Cringely’s latest post. More or less it’s not a matter of the novel dying or of people not reading, it’s that with the move to electronic reading there are fewer and fewer reasons to use the medium of the novel for storytelling.

One of the stupidest features that’s lacking from the feed readers I’ve seen is the ability to search the feeds that I’m subscribed to. Sometimes I read a post, the a few days later I read another post that I want to relate to the first one. Unfortunately by I can’t remember what the first one was. What I’m trying is OPML to HTML: Parsing a list of feeds then using that list to make a Google Custom Search Engine. Now to see if actually works.

edit: It worked! I had to edit the parser a bit to add new lines after each entry but otherwise it worked beautifully.

This is the kind of setup I’d like to get eventuallyfor my computer: Burn 600 Calories a Day Typing. I’m likely going to work towards it in increments. My next step is going to be a standing desk - I hope to build that this summer. Then we’ll see how I like it.

I’ve just switched web hosts (largely due to space limitation at my old host). Hopefully the transition was seamless for anyone out there reading this. If you see any problems, please let me know.

MAKE: Blog: DIY - GPS Camera attachment gives a how-to on building a GPS system for your DSLR camera. This might be of interest at work.

htaccess Editor: create .htaccess files with ease - Download Squad looks like a useful tool, especially as I do some website tweaking.