Get some control

June 8, 2004

For the new place we looked at several internet options. After several conversations with a sales person at Ground Control we chose them for a satellite internet provider. Ground Control resells Hughes services among others and has an impressive array of options. Always being weary of the "you live too far away" option I carefully explored with them the availability of installers local to the Las Vegas area. I was told it would not be a problem. Now Ground Control is working through Keypoint systems as a sub-contractor. The story from Ground Control is that the truck of the person (evidently the only person) in Las Vegas broke down and they don't know when they will come to do the install. However they will be there tomorrow if I'll just OK the 8-hours of driving time (that I get to pay for) to have somebody come from California.

Killer App

June 8, 2004

Doc writes yesterday that the killer app for RSS could be TV listings. It is a super cool idea. I'd take it one step further and suggest TiVO should jump on the band wagon early, figure out how to integrate an RSS newsreader into their software suite. Imagine having an RSS feed that allows you to schedule what you want to record, while at the same time reading reviews of programs, or RSS commentaries on things like sporting events from other commentators. Want to get really creative? Allow people to have RSS read to them while viewing an event. A group of XYZ State University fans can provide their own alternate commentary to the big game. Convergence.

AirPort Express

June 7, 2004

Doc Searls asks of Apple's new announcement of an AirPort Express: "Why go wireless-to-wired?" It strikes me as a question from somebody who has had a very different experience using FM Transmitters than I have. I have an iTrip that allows one to transmit an iPod's output across the FM spectrum. It's not bad. But it is not good either. It's a constant game of cat and mouse to find a station to use. I've had significantly better luck, and quality from the wired solutions I've had. Further, this way it doesn't take a tuner. According to the documentation you can plug it into any powered speakers. So for that second room a set of decent computer speakers just became a nice way to listen to music.

Blackberry Morning

June 7, 2004

I'm starting the week by working on a Blackberry for an associate dean. While waiting for the tech support folks I was reading about the dispute over patents for the BlackBerry's technology. It is an interesting article in the New York Times but it doesn't mention what technologies the patents cover. It should give at least a passing note of them. It does give the patent numbers but print readers will have a harder time finding them and then distilling what they actually mean.

Image Surfing

June 4, 2004

In case folks are running out of time to do nothing here's an interesting way of taking a sort of global cross section of photography. Try doing a Google image search for something likeDSC_4321. It provides a cross section of many different types of photography and areas of interest. If there is nothing of interest then change the number and look again.

Office 2004

June 4, 2004

Business Week has an article pointing out that Office Mac 2004 may require network admins to take a fresh look at Apple. I think they are right but for a different reason. Certainly the ability to do shared calendaring is a key new feature of Entourage and its integration with Exchange is a welcome addition. However it is the enhanced outlining and notebook functionality of Word that has me excited. After a quick look it looks like it might be the outliner that takes me away from NoteTaker 2003 simply for its integration with other Word documents.

Navigation menus in Drupal

June 4, 2004

Chris Nelson wrote to share frustration about getting good looking menus in Drupal. He likes the current menu on the right (as do I). He asked me to share the code which I would be happy to do, but it is not mine. The global navigation menu at this point is a product of Drupal 4.4.1 with the Chameleon theme it ships with. There are a few additions like the Taxonomy menu but that just adds to the menu, and doesn't change its format. I spent quite a bit of time in 4.3.x trying to get it right and never quite did.

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