Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

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.

I have changed my feeds to go through Feedburner. If I’ve done it right, there should be no changes necessary on your end. If I’ve done it wrong, please resubscribe via http://feeds.feedburner.com/JoelsScatteredThoughts

I’m hoping at some point to set up a better website for Tone Ag Consulting as well as setting up a website for my guild. From what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure I want to use Joomla to do it. Joomla Admin Manual looks like a good book to work through to help me with that.

Note to self - when ArcView starts screwing up out of the blue, don’t panic. Empty the local temporary files directory and try again. Doing this first will save a LOT of time.

Palimpsest: the guide to a (mostly) paperless life | 43 Folders is where I would like to head with a lot of the papers I have lying around at home. The trouble is that I need to buy myself a scanner and I don’t have $500 to spend on it right now. Ah well, maybe next year.

Parry! Dodge! Spin!: Let There Be (Back)Light! highlights a new and improved version of a keypad I mentioned earlier. Now I just need to hope that I can save up enough cash between now and Christmas to get Jaimie and I each one of these.

Now that MojoPac Freedom - Lifehacker is free, it should be easy to run WoW off of a thumb drive. That means that if I do get a gaming laptop before the next time I go to my in-laws, Jaimie could play with me by hijacking her dad’s computer.

I’ve been thinking about something along the lines of GeoPic II for the office. It would be useful to know exactly where and when photos are taken, particularly for damage claims. Now to actually get a digital camera for the office…

FastMail: fast, professional email services with web, SMTP, POP & IMAP access looks like it might be a good option if I don’t end up setting up IMAP mail on my own domain.

Going inbox-zero on your paper mail - (37signals) looks interesting. I’d love to be able to scan in more office documents easily. The price tag is a little steep though.

decTOP $100 personal computer - Lifehacker looks really interesting. I’d love to get a couple of these to scatter around the house.

» Declutter your desktop: an organizer for those cables and gadgets for less than $10 - Efetividade.net

We’re planning to buy an iPod for our trip out to Alberta. Product Roundup: FM transmitters is the best review of car radio transmitters that I’ve seen.

Renamer NG is a handy utility when I’m too lazy to reboot into Linux to rename a bunch of files.

Thanks to Wordpress Theme Generator I’ve changed the look of this blog a bit. We’ll see if I stick with it.