resistance to persistence

I’ve done some minor updates to the site. Update your rss feed to the site. I’m now using Feedburner to check statistics on the feed. Click on the image to get the new feed.

I’ve also added a little graphic to the right hand side of the page linking to my daily photoblog site. It’s been quite and hasn’t been getting enough recognition, so I’ve added some press to get some additional traffic to it. There’s a new feedburner link for the photoblog site as well.

A good article about how RSS will continue to grow & thrive long after blogs become more popular. I’ve always thought this and rss can be used for any information you want to stay updated with. Stock prices, company news, weather, travel details, your child’s school updates, etc. There’s definitely opportunites to be capitalized upon - need to find a way to effectively do so that a business can be built around. My brain cogs are turning, but haven’t come up with anything solid yet.

As businesses adopt RSS and consumers experiment with feeds, the popularity of RSS will grow. Ultimately, consumers are the driving force behind technology. The convenience of RSS and increased popularity will set a precedent for consumer expectations. Businesses using RSS as a communication vehicle are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing trust, reputation, and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers.

A friend of mine bought a router & wireless card for his laptop. I’ve been helping him over the phone a couple nights ago to get it setup. He didn’t have his account info, so I told him to give the ISP a call to get the info to input to the router. So last night he got around to calling the ISP. Here’s how the phonecall went:

Friend*: Hi ISP guy, I am having trouble connecting to the Internet. Can I get the information associated with my account so I can try to fix it?
ISP Guy: OK. But first, let’s look at your router. What are the lights on it doing?
Friend: **aghast** uhh… nothing
ISP Guy: Is it plugged in?
Friend: How often do you get calls from idiots like me?

* his name has been changed to protect the horribly embarrassed.

Friend forgot that he had unplugged the router to reboot it but never plugged it back in. Once he did that he was back in business.

That’s right, I’m turning the new Mac OSX 10.4 Dashboard feature off. I came across this DashOnOff software yesterday and I really thought about how much I use Dashboard. Very close to 0. Looking at the system info, each widget just takes up valuable memory. Memory I could use elsewhere to keep things running. I’ve got 1Gb of memory, so it’s not slow by any means, but I just never switch to the dashboard to control iTunes (i use quicksilver instead) - and besides, why doesn’t the iTunes widget allow you rate songs? Maybe I’d use it if I could do that. Or a clock running in Dashboard? There’s already a clock in the top corner, and numerous ones around me at any time.

I’m relatively new to MacOSX, and didn’t spend much time using Panther before getting the upgrade to Tiger since I bought my machine right after the release, but if I had to pay for this upgrade, I would be disappointed and want my money back. I rarely use Spotlight. It finds way too much stuff and isn’t accurate enough. If I search for a filename, it displays hundreds of unrelated files that don’t appear to have my search keyword. Quicksilver is much more efficient. I thought Spotlight was going to be a Quicksilver killer, but I can’t do half as much with Spotlight as I can with QS.

I gave the Automator a try yesterday when I finally found a use for it…A task I repeat daily - connect to VPN, then start my Remote Desktop connection. But none of these options are available within Automator! Maybe I’m not looking in the right place. Automator must be useful somewhere, right?

Smart Folders could be a good idea, but I’ve got a pretty good file organization system going, so I haven’t needed this yet. I don’t use Safari’s RSS yet as I have a web-based RSS reader so I can read my news from anywhere.

Tiger apparently has over 200 new features, but I haven’t seen any that have really impressed me. None worth spending $100+ to upgrade for. Don’t get me wrong, I do love Mac OSX, but I would have been just as fine with Panther. If you really want to improve your Mac experience, just go get Quicksilver.

Another release of Rails is out. I’ve been playing around with Ruby & Rails in my spare time and big for this release is Ajax additions. Read the Rails weblog for more. It’s backwards compatible with previous releases as well.