Firefox 3

I just installed Firefox 3 Beta 4 and I am certainly impressed.

When they released Firefox 2, I thought all my memory leak problems would be solved...but sadly, they were not. After installing F3B4 I noticed an immediate difference in several areas.

Overall memory usage is probably cut by 50%
Closing a tab, reduces memory usage (shocking, I know.)
Restarting Firefox is OMG fast.
General web surfing is a lot faster
Specialty programs that I use at work are a lot faster.

So congratulations Firefox team, you did well!

update on comment diggs

Update to my post from yesterday, my comment now has 376 diggs, vs 328 for the next most dugg comment.

Most Comment Diggs

While browsing Digg today, I noticed an upcoming story about where spam is coming from these days. The story focused on which botnets were responsible for the most spam. Interesting story, and I thought worthy of a digg, not that I really care which botnet sends the most spam. Since the story only had 40-50 digs at the time, it had only one comment, which wasn't very funny. I decided to comment with some dialogue from the Red vs. Blue video called "The Internet vs Real Life".

What do you know? The story was eventually promoted to the front page, and my comment rose to the top of the dugg comments! 162(and rising) comment diggs as of this posting. It hasn't gotten me any new digg followers or really anything at all. I guess this internet video is either through of very fondly by the digg community or nobody remembers it and thinks I am fucking hysterical! Either way, this makes my day....

Amazing how something so simple makes me happy these days...

T-shirts, t-shirts, t-shirts...

I have blogged before about the Messerschmitt t-shirt that I created on Zazzle. Well, I just sold another one! That nets me another $2.15!

Of course I am not getting rich of these...but I still think the concept is good. A little better than Cafepress, because the site is geared toward individual artists instead of "stores." It is also better than Threadless, because the designs you create are available forever, and you always get the comission on each sale. Zazzle is not as good as Threadless in the marketing respect, as Threadless has a huge customer base and really strong brand.

Great new game

Stumbled upon this great new game called Crayon Physics. The original version is pretty simple to understand and play, however after the first few levels, it becomes really difficult (at least it was for me.) He is apparently releasing a much more developed version sometime in the future...

Need help restoring *.QIC backups?

I have been trying to restore information from a backup CD made with the Windows 9x backup utility. Unfortunately Microsoft changed their software so you cannot use anything after Windows 98 to restore that backup. Since I don't have any old Windows 9x machines, I was stuck.

I eventually found Will Kranz and his MSBackup Restoration Utilitys. The QIC utility seems to have been written well and extensively debugged and updated. Will was also kind enough to take a look at my file when I couldn't seem to get anything out of it. Unfortunately, the file was both corrupt and contained zero usable data.

So this is a lesson to anyone who relies on backups to archive data.
1) Don't use proprietary Microsoft data formats.
2) Review your archives regularly to ensure that the data is still readable
3) If you keep things on physical media, ensure that media is kept in pristine condition.

Anyway - Thanks Will for your help.

I'll have $100 in September of 2011

A few months back I added Google Adsense to this blog. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about replacing the battery in my ipod mini. Apparently this post got some good google placement or something. About a week ago I was checking my adsense reports to see if anyone at all clicks on my ads. The ipod battery post seems to have triggered at least a small handful of people to click those ads.

If you are reading this, why don't you click an add right now!?

Anyway, over the last 3 months, I have built up a balance of about $10. At this rate I should be able to get that $100 check sent to me around September of 2011.

Of course I have no way to really monitor any of this, because I can't run analytics on blogger. I am really going to have to work on my web presence. Specifically I need to put all of my various websites (this blog, mattarata.com, and aratalighting.com) all on the same server and link them all together in a much more elagant way then they are right now. The first goal is probably to find a really good template to use for aratalighting.com and then completely overhaul that site. Making a new mainpage for mattarata.com shouldn't be all that hard. I will probably make a half assed attempt to mirror blogger Dannyman's or Leo Laporte's homepage, as I really appreciate the fashion in which they present themselves. Then I will need to dump this blog (or link it to a template or something) that I can host locally instead of on blogger.

Dreams really...all of this...I'll probably just go back to playing Call Of Duty 4.

One Million Donors for Barack Obama

As reported by many outlets today, Barack Obama's Campaign has amassed over 1 Million individual donors, many of whom have given as little as $25. Congratulations!

Hopefully, the March 4th Ohio and Texas primaries will cement Barack's nomination and finally give a crushing blow to Hillary.

Xobni making your computer run slow? Uninstall!

Xobni is a Outlook add-in that allows you to view data about your email in new ways. When you are viewing an email, the sidebar inside the outlook window shows you all kinds of useful information such as:
-all email sent to/received from that person
-all files exchanged with that person via email
-a graph of the time of day that you get email from that person
-people linked to that person (cc'd in an email)
-information about how often you email with that person

All of this is great stuff.....if you want to know the information. I personally have very little need for any of this information. The only thing that is even remotely useful is the 'files exchanged' function. However this can be displayed by sorting your email by person and then by attached files.

All of this functionality comes at a great price. My outlook was SEVERELY slow almost to the point of non-usability. Probably due to the fact that I have 4 years+ of business email that it is working with, and I wouldn't call myself a heavy emailer. If Xobni can't deal with even a modest amount of email, then it will probably fail.

I un-installed today after running the program for several weeks. Presto!, no more slowness!

john.he.is

About 3.7 million people have seen the will.i.am video supporting Barack Obama. I appreciate that video, I do. It's pretty good.

But a group of comedians got together to make a parody video, which in my opinion is MUCH better than the original, as parodies usually go. This video guest stars Kevin Douglas, whom I have worked with a few times on productions in Chicago. Kevin is part of the team kevINda. They do sketch comedy shows at Second City and elsewhere including steppenwolf. Kevin apparently also recently became an Artistic Associate at Lookingglass Theatre.

Here it is:

The new iPod battery

The first run on the new iPod battery from ipodjuice.com yeilded upwards of 18 hours of run time on a various mix of music and podcasts at an average volume of about 50-60%. This...is...awesome. MUCH better than the old battery. I can't believe I lasted so long on the old battery.

Replacing your ipod mini battery

I am going to 100% recommend ipodjuice.com as the best place to get a replacement battery kit for your ipod mini. Here is the story:

I got my iPod mini in October of 2005. At the time I wasn't ready to dive into a full scale iPod but I wanted to try it out and see if I could deal with iTunes and everything that goes with it. Plus this was a 6gb iPod mini, which were harder to find and more expensive. Regardless, I got a great deal on it because a friend had just purchased it, used if for a few weeks and decided to get the new hotness, the nano, which had just come out.

I have used the iPod Mini just about every single workday, 5 days a week, back and forth to work on the train/bus/bicycle for 2 years and 4 months. Plus I took it along when traveling and such, so it got extra use there. During the last 3 or 4 months I was experiencing very poor battery life. So poor that it often could not go more than 48hours without getting recharged, and I am talking 48 hours of mostly standby time, with 30 minutes to an hour of playtime in between. I was tired of this. I tried a reformat of the drive, but that didn't help of course. This was clearly a battery problem. Apparently 2 years of daily use is all these batteries are good for, which really sucks.

I decided to look online to find a possible replacement, or even how complex the task of replacing the battery would be. I found ipodjuice.com and I couldn't be more pleased with the experience. I ordered the 750 mAh battery kit and paid an extra $3 for UPS shipping. Everyone should know by now that USPS sucks the biggest fatty ever and they know it. Anyway, I ordered it on 1/30 and had it in hand on 2/4 - great turnaround.

The installation was simple enough. They include a full color instruction sheet with a very detailed description and many photos. They also have a videos on their website showing exactly how to do the installation. There were a few tricky parts, so if you don't have steady hands or tend to break things you try to fix, perhaps you should just send your ipod to them and they will replace the battery for you for an additional fee.

And now, I have the same 6gb iPod Mini, which is more than enough storage space for me. I don't need to be watching videos on the bus anyway. I honestly cannot see a time when I would want to upgrade this iPod. So a replacement battery is by far the way to go.

Thanks iPodjuice.com! I will tell everyone I know about your great product/service.

Growing Hops, my experience

A guy on the Chicago Beer Society mailing list asked:

I am considering growing a couple of hop vines this year on the back deck of
my condo using a couple of planters and some wood lattice up the brick
wall. I've got the fiancee in on it for the "look", but I want a good crop
come August/September as well.
Has anyone tried to grow their own, particularly in a more confined space
like a patio with planters?
I'm hoping to hear pros and cons of such an undertaking, and I would
appreciate any input.
Thanks,
Mike

So I decided to write up a quick summary of my hops growing experience to date.

Max and I each attempted to grow hops in the city during the Summer of 05. He put his in a small pot on a 2nd floor balcony facing north. He neglected to water, and he got....not much. A few sprouts and a foot or two of vine and then nada. He probably could have done a bit better if he watered some more, but even then the lack of full sun made it a non-event.

I had better success. I grew a couple of shoots out of a single rhizome in a 5 gallon sized pot on the South side of a house on the 1500 block of Walton St. The location got 6-8 hours of full sun a day, and when the plant grew above the railing it got even more. I watered almost daily for the early and mid summer and fertilized a few times as well. At the peak of growth I got 3.5' of vertical growth in a week and about 18' of total vertical growth. In the end though, I only
yielded about 1oz of final product, and the cones I did get were on the small side. Taste was difficult to discern because we had to mix them with other hops in the brew, though I could clearly smell the lupulin.

I chronicled the experience here. There are some good pictures of the final results and you can get an idea of the height.

I have done some reading on growing hops and just about everyone says you don't get much the first year because the root system needs to develop. I was surprised that I got what I did, but if you compare what I got to an established plant, you can see multiple years of root
growth is what is needed to produce decent results, like this guy's.

After the season ended, I moved my pot to a 13th floor condo balcony. I got a lot better sprouting at the start of the 2006 season and I thought I was off to a good start. It started with probably 10-12 shoots and I think i pruned back all but the best 4. However I had nothing for the plants to really grow up vertically. I used a bit of cotton line from the pot to the railing and then I decided to try to grow them back and forth across the balcony railing. This did not
work. Though I got much the same the vertical (er horizontal) growth I got the previous year, I had MAJOR trouble with the wind. And I got virtually zero hops cones. Zero. Nothing for a whole summer of daily watering and coaxing and monitoring. I was pissed. I had to move in
September of that summer, but it wouldn't have mattered because I wasn't going to get anything anyway.

So I moved the pot again. This time my balcony was on the 9th floor facing east. Well, something must have happened while the pot sat there from Sept 06 to March/April of 07 because nothing came up. Not a single shoot. The roots must have frozen too much or rotted or who knows what, but there were no hops in the summer of 07. I doubt if anything will come up this summer, but I guess I can hope.

I think I am done trying to grow hops in planters on balconys. My limited experience has shown me that hops need:

1) lots and lots of sun
2) lots and lots of water
3) lots and lots of verticle room to grow.

If you don't have these, you will probably be disappointed with the results. I don't really want to talk you out of trying something, but just be warned and don't get too frustrated if you see poor results.

Steve and my brother in law both have plants growing in yards out in the suburbs. This summer it will be the 2nd and 3rd seasons for those plants, and hopefully we will see some real results.

Mitt Romney you are dumb

Mitt Romney was recently at the Detroit Auto show where he gave some comments regarding the state of the auto industry in the US. While he was more or less correct in one aspect, that the auto industry in Michigan is an economic indicator for industry in the rest of the country, he was WAY off in another of his comments.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Romney also blasted a new energy bill that raised the fuel efficiency standards for cars to 35 miles per gallon, saying it was an "anvil" that will weigh down the domestic auto industry.

"All of the vehicles that you're making now are outmoded. You're going to have to build new engines, new transmissions, new axles. All of these things have to be changed at the cost of tens of billions of dollars. Good luck. Now, it's a benefit to the entire nation paid for by one industry that's already in trouble," Romney said.

A mandate on higher fuel economy does the following things:
-reduces, however little, our independence on foreign oil
-reduces our impact on the environment
-requires all automakers selling cars in America to follow these standards, thus negating any unfair cost to one country's industry
-enables the American auto industry to compete at a higher level in places where these higher standards already exist.
-forces the American auto industry to innovate, one of the main factors that has caused the industry to lose money as consumers shift toward foreign cars that are more innovative, get better mileage, are better built etc...

Lets take each line of his comment and dissect it a bit more:

"All of the vehicles that you're making now are outmoded."
:Well not exactly, some may be outmoded, but the standard applies to the entire fleet. Meaning you either have to produce one really fuel efficient car or raise the efficiency on the worst car. Either involves innovation which the industry is lacking anyway. And the auto makers should want to continually be making newer and better cars and abandoning their old ways. It is the only way to compete in any market.

"You're going to have to build new engines, new transmissions, new axles. All of these things have to be changed at the cost of tens of billions of dollars. Good luck.""
Sure, goes along with the implications of the first statement, sans the axles part....axles? really? And the industry is going to be spending that much anyway on R&D in the next several years. So are you just stating the obvious for political gain? (answer=yes).

"Now, it's a benefit to the entire nation paid for by one industry that's already in trouble..."
Sure is. In fact when any industry or market is regulated in a manner intended to improve the good of society, that industry has to pay for it. The point is to encourage innovation, lessen reliance on oil, and force the industry to complete better in the world market. Unless their are subsidies, which in this case would only harm the nation and the auto industry in the long run.

Romney seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill and to his own benefit. You may be able to persuade some blue collar workers that they will get their jobs back if they vote for you, but the only way they can get those jobs back is if they industry makes cars that consumers want to buy more than the foreign makers. And there is nothing Romney can do to make that happen. And the fuel efficiency law only helps the industry to make cars people want.

Nobody wants SUVs anymore Romney! You drive a 2005 Ford Mustang convertible, and go figure, you are against raising fuel standards, but offer nothing in return.

Vote Obama!

More Soulja Boy

A few days ago I blogged about the Soulja Boy dancing phenomenon. The videos I posted there were topped by Bo Ryan, Wisconsin's basketball coach, contributing his dancing skills to the world.

Fart Sandwich also blogs

My friend Fart Sandwich also blogs! Well, his xbox blogs automatically it would seem. It keeps a running tally of when he plays, what he plays and such. Written as if the xbox itself was alive and keeping a verbal record of how often he plays.

The real Fart Sandwich does in fact have a blog, but it is really too serious to have a link from this post I think...

The great fart sandwich gets voicemail!

I blogged before about some of the accomplishments of the great Fart Sandwich. Well now he has voicemail! You can leave him a message by using his SayNow service below or on his newly created blog.

SayNow is free, but your cell phone carrier may charge you for receiving text messages.

This.....is a sport!

I was blown away again today at the sport known as.... "Sport Stacking." Yes, this does in fact exist.

This kid is the best at this:


Apparently this is an actual sport...want to learn how to do it? Watch some training videos here. Or buy a stacking kit at Target!

Dancin to Soulja Boy

I think the song pretty much sucks, but just like the Macarena and the dance that went with that, 2007 has its very own. Crank That by Soulja Boy

Here are 4 video's that capture the phenomenon fairly well.

The original video for "Crank That"


Texas longhorns football dancing before a game.


Little black kids dancing at home.


Little white kids in ballet class. (by far the best one I have seen so far)

Top 10 Flash Videos/Sites

The whole idea of flash is pretty cool. You combine elements of animation, multi-track layouts, scripting language, vector objects all into an amazing multimedia design environment. The possibilities are endless really. Here I have assembled my Top 10 list of the best flash Videos/Animations/Sites I have run across so far.

#1 - Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART
A fun take on the use of the flash creation environment.



#2 - http://producten.hema.nl/ - Pretty simple animation, but another take on products on a online shopping page interacting with each other.

#3 - The guys over at Neostream are awesome. Some real talent there.

#4 - What list of flash animation would be complete without mentioning Homestarrunner, specifically the emails. The animation is pretty basic, but as a basis for cartoon animation, flash allows the animator to work more on the story.

#5 - Ok, so I only have 4 for now, but I will add more later.