2002 November

The incredible frogb0y is on the loose again. I really oughta add Brad to my blogroll, eh? He's been writing some pretty good stuff. My kind of blogger – tech bent, eye level, and generally realistic. For someone who owns an interface customization company, his design isn't quite what I would have expected. We crashed his ObjectDock server with over 40 gigabits of traffic today. That was fun (albeit effortless). Man, if only there was a way to make window skins render quicker in Windows. The UI could be even more gooey. Sticky sweet.

Read more on The OS X Dock in Windows…

While most Americans will be gathered 'round the dinner table at some point tomorrow, I'll be sitting in front of the television with a hot laptop on my… lap (with a heavy cloth or two sheilding the family jewels). Staying home was my choice to make, as I've got some tasks to start and finish before I head back to the studio on Monday. Gretchen's back in Iowa, which would explain her sudden blognapping. She has time to write random crap at work, but I do not have that luxury. No, instead I spend my time doing things like television shows, magazine articles, books, e-mail newsletters, business deals, and peeing. So, I had three extra minutes to share my thoughts with you tonight. That was nice. Now, I need to remember to tell you that I still read everybody's blog (believe it or not). No time for that now, though – I've got some important Frasiers to view. Oh wait, it's almost 11PM. I may have to settle for The Simpsons – which is quite a consolation. Where's a PVR when I need one?! Maybe post-CES my options will be more plentiful. More plenty? Good and plenty? Plenty good?

Read more on The Third Degree…

Is your Outlook 2000 SP3 spiking to 100% CPU cycles after a few seconds of non-usage, too? I'm discovering more and more people are being sacked by this thing. So, here's something I inadvertently discovered during testing: when a reminder pops up, the CPU returns to normal. The good news is, you can set a reminder and keep it there for the duration of your session. That seems to keep the “100%” at bay. When the program is closed and reopened, you'll have to wait to be reminded once more before everything returns to “normal.” Weird, but it's a workaround that seems to work. At least for me.

Read more on Lookout 2000…

My left eye keeps watering – it's getting used to my new prescription! Yeah, I've got new glasses. They're red, just like Sally Jesse's.

COMDEX was neither underwhelming nor overwhelming. After all was said and done, I felt pretty whelmed. Some said that this was the smallest one “ever” – which is erroneous. I believe that the market has shifted in favor of the consumer, and since most companies, marketers, and media analysts have their heads up each others asses, its still-present significance has been downplayed. Everybody's talking mobile. Everybody's talking wireless. Everybody's talking solutions that can be implemented tomorrow. That, in my opinion, is a refreshing change (and one not to be overlooked). I wasn't there for long, though. I came with Leo to speak at a User's Group confab courtesy of Microsoft. They showed us Windows Media Player 9 and the Windows Movie Maker 2.0 beta 2. Nothing that I hadn't seen before, but it was still sweet to see on the big screen.

Read more on Your Momdex…

My wife is hungover, and I would like to blame the following people: Cheyenne, Cheyenne, and Cheyenne. Hoopty and I were innocent bystanders. We don't believe in imbibing the booze to have a good time. Nay, we'd much rather geek out in front of the screen. I showed him Knoppix and he was muy impressed. I tried to put make-up on him, too – but he wasn't about to do that without his matching handbag (which he conveniently forgot to bring). The Scobleizer Weblog guy was here with his new wifey. He so lucky. Even though he's always trying to swallow her whole. Anyway, I have documentation to share with you now. But I'm not liking this paragraph anymore, so let me start a new one.

Read more on Schlumpy Morning Vodka Farts…

You know me – I'm a diehard Outlook 2000 user. I tried Outlook XP and found its flaws to be unbearable. Most likely, that's because I'm not connecting to an Exchange server. I'll explain that more in just a moment. Anyway, I decided to give Office 2000 SP3 a go. For the most part, the upgrade went smoothly. Tonight, however, I noticed that Outlook was taking 100% of my CPU time after running for less than a minute. At first, I thought it was because of HTML messages. Then, I thought it was because of the amount of unread messages in a folder. Nope. I deleted extraneous messages, compacted the PST, and the errant behavior was (again) monopolizing my processor. Defrag? Still sucking cycles. I tried darn near everything I could think of – except for the obvious. A hack. The Outlook 2000 team's shortsighted wisdom caused me to find a way to gain access to certain attachments (URL files, etc.). I had to edit OUTLLIB.DLL in a hex editor. This workaround worked well in the past. Well, that may no longer be the case for some of us. At least, for me.

Read more on That'll Learn Me…

My friends, I cannot keep this a secret any longer: someone has come in between Gretchen and me. It all started with innocent flirting, and wound up becoming an all-out love affair. When my wife was asleep, I'd sneak over and play around for hours on end. And the sad part is: Gretchen is very close to my new love. In fact, some would say that she's quite attached to it. I've been dating her left tit behind her back (or in front of it, rather). Just one look from it and… oh, it's magic. Sure, it has the tendency to post immature comments on message boards every once in a while, but at the end of the day, I only wanna curl up with one mammary. I've not quite broken the news to my wife yet, so I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this between you and me and the boob for the time being (NOTE: when I say 'boob,' I am not referring to Tom Clancy). Thank you.

Read more on No, There Is Another…

Wow… why didn't somebody tell me that Linux GUIs were so unrefined?! I'm kinda turned off by the whole thing at this point. Sure, it's got power – but so does OS X (and it doesn't make me gag when I use it). I was enchanted with Apple's new operating system because it felt nice. This… just feels like an early alpha. If the most attractive thing the Linux community has to offer is the CLI, then count me out. Sorry. I hope someone can point me towards the environment that I don't have to configure seven ways from Sunday before I can use it.

Read more on Begun The Clone War Has…

This Gnome has installed Linux Mandrake 9.0!

I sh*t you not. Mark from New Albany, IN writes: “hello all: maybe some one here can help me out can some one tell me where do you all get that dumn ass
Chris Pirillo from anyway ? the guy is sick he sucks big time and call for help is going down hill fast. as far as seening the show on tv again never.
never again for me as long as you all have that dumn ass on the show………………………………………” Please allow me to point out a few things, Mark. Or, as I like to call you, radar4077.

Read more on E-mails We Can't Share…

The only reason why TechTV has a Call for Help rerun is so that people can miss the show a second time.

For those of you who didn't already know, Gretchen and I went to Tahoe this weekend for a wedding. No, we're already married – although we may renew our vows when they expire next year. Iowa has this funny little law that's kinda like a date on the bottom of the milk carton. When the marriage sours, you have a chance to redeem it for a 5 cents refund. Awesome! Anyway, our good friend Robert Scoble is now assuming the role of happy husband for Maryam Ghaemmaghami – and I have the video footage to prove it. I swear, I've never seen a happier couple. And thanks to my new favorite program (Muvee), it was easy for me to compile and upload the footage for you to enjoy. He doesn't even know I've done this – or that I was planning on doing this. After all, what are friends for?

Read more on The Scobles…

I'm rather enjoying our new morning time slot; the day feels less broken-up. I still have a dozen errands to do before I head home, but at least I can relax a bit before tackling my next task. If I worked for the federal government like SOME PEOPLE, then I'd be blogging things left and right. For the moment, I'm stuck with a couple of full-time jobs – both of which I enjoy greatly. Sure, I'd much rather spend most of my time at home working on converting my VHS tapes to DVD, but… there'll be time for that in 2034. Hopefully, my friends from Muvee will get back to me about a problem I ran into with their software last night. I've been raving about it for weeks now, but I think Microsoft's Windows Media Player 9.0 beta codec screwed something up beyond repair.

Read more on If I Could Save Time in a Bottle…