Wild Things

This guy from the DC office of ad agency Arnold Worldwide has got some mad chalkboard skills.

MacHeist: Free Mac Apps (~3 days left)

Unlike the recently recommended Dropbox, I haven't used any of these programs before so can't vouch for their awesomeness; and, with the growing number of really good open-source/free software that exists in the world today, I'm not sure now the alternatives stack up to the "not normally free" programs below.

That said, this still seemed worth sharing.


(Courtesy of Lifehacker via The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

one year and counting

I love you Sweetheart.

(Photo courtesy of my awesome brother. Check out more of his work here)

I recommend Drop Box

I found out about Drop Box a few months ago, and have found it super useful so I figured I'd share the love. What's Drop Box, you ask? I recommend heading over to their site and watching their introduction video to find out. It's a little cheesy, but it does a pretty good job at explaining the service simply.

If you don't have patience for a video, I'll try to give you the super quick version here. ready?



Here goes:

Basically, you download and install Drop Box onto your computer. What you're left with is a special folder on your computer that syncs up with an exact replica of that same folder on the web. You can then log into the Drop Box website and access all of these files when you're away from your computer. You can also install Drop Box on other computers and have access to those same files. These files live locally on all of your machines (making file manipulation fast and efficient) as well as on the web. The really cool part is that any changes you make to your files will be reflected online and everywhere you have Drop Box installed. As you make edits and changes to files, the service is able to work very efficiently because rather than uploading the entire file back and forth between the web and your computer(s), only the changed information within your file is sent.



Ok, that was a lot of info for one little paragraph, but hopefully it did the trick. If you still have questions or if you've used Drop Box, leave a comment.

I recommend signing up for the service. You get 2G of space for free, and if you use the either of the links in this post, they'll tack on an extra 250MB to your account as well as mine. :)

So go check 'em out...and tell 'em I sent you by clicking the link below.

https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTY1NTYxNzk

What's better than a wedding invitation?

[update]
As of 11/08, got an invitation from a fellow reader of Lifehacker about a week ago (and then a separate unexpected invite from a friend a day or two ago which I passed on to the wife). Been messing with Wave for about a week now and it's cool. Just wish I had more opportunity to use it to it's full extent (i.e. work setting with coworkers)

[update]
As of 10/16, still no invitation :(
Then again...you can't really enjoy it all that much without friends who also have access to Google Wave. I guess I can wait.


How about an invitation to preview Google Wave...

Google is sending out 100,000 invites today to developers and select users that signed up and offered to give feedback. Wednesday is technically half over here on the East Coast, but I'm still hoping that I'll get an email. :)

One can always hope.

Be Still, My Soul

I needed something to occupy my mind during my commute home today on the train; and for whatever reason, I decided I'd listen to some music on my ipod (something I feel like I hadn't done for a few weeks).

The train pulled into my stop. I walked down the stairs from the platform, crossed the street, and then started up the short block to the apartment. As I did, a hymn began playing through my headphones. I quickly skipped ahead in the queue, thinking to myself that I really needed to go back into iTunes and amend the settings on all my church music to keep them from coming up when playing music on shuffle. To my suprise, the next randomly selected song was also a church hymn. I thought to myself, "That's odd," and clicked the skip button once more. When the third song happened to also be a hymn, I decided that I had better take the hint. I'm glad I did.

I've always loved this hymn, but never before has it held so much meaning for me or meant so much in my life. Never has it seemed so beautiful. Every word sung out as a direct message, penned especially for me.

Thank you Heavenly Father, for thinking of me, and for thinking of my family (not that I ever doubted that you were). I needed that.

“Be Still, My Soul,” Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no. 124

1. Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

2. Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

3. Be still, my soul: The hour is hast’ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: When change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Text: Katharina von Schlegel, b. 1697; trans. by Jane Borthwick, 1813–1897

Music: Jean Sibelius, 1865–1957. © 1900 Breitkopf & Härtel. Arr. copyright, 1933, by the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education; renewed, 1961; from The Hymnal. Used by permission of The Westminister John Knox Press, Philadelphia, PA. Making copies without written permission of the copyright owner is prohibited.

Psalm 37:3–9

Doctrine and Covenants 101:14–16, 35–38

Apartment Living (update)

Why do I feel that we are the only ones that are even remotely considerate when it comes to noise and apartment living?

I'm currently being graced with the repetitive bass line of the Hispanic music being distorted from the apartment below. With its accompanying accordion and timpani drums, it's hardly bearable. I mean, I can't hear myself think—let alone hear my own music. I'm sure the neighbors above us can hear it so clearly that they think we're the one's putting on the circus show.

I am SO tempted to sit the subwoofer directly on the hardwood floor and turn my bass up to high, but something tell me that would be less effective.

*UPDATE*
A few minutes after finishing this post, the music got even louder. It had begun making our floor vibrate, and the sound was emanating from one of the living room walls as if the entire wall was a speaker itself.

At that point I had had enough. Remembering the awkward situation** the first time I attempted to go down and ask them to turn their music down, I decided to instead knock on the floor in the hopes that perhaps our noisy neighbors would get the hint from my rudimentary Morse Code.

I knocked on the floor several times, but the music blared on. My knocking had no effect. I put on my sandals and made my way down the stairs to the floor below us only to realize that the closer I came to the offending apartment, the quieter the music became. I felt a little foolish as I turned around and headed up to the floor above us, muttering a bashful apology to myself for my falsely accused neighbors.

Once on the correct floor, the source from which the bane of my auditory system had been issuing was readily apparent. I knocked at the door several times, but the music was so loud, it wasn't until a break between songs that my knocks were finally able to bring someone to the door. After a brief conversation, I was able to walk back down the stairs to the apartment and enjoy the rest of my morning in relative silence.


**the first time: I was forced to have a conversation with the old woman downstairs through her apt door because she wouldn't open it for some random man she didn't know (i.e., me). We could barely hear each other through the door over the music and the fact that English wasn't her first language didn't help the situation.

so close it hurts...

For once, I'm thinking I should have splurged and spent the extra 2¢ for the faster delivery on my newest purchase.

But then again, how was I suppose to know there was such a high chance for rain the weekend I'd be in DC, and that my new fabulously waterproof jacket would arrive just in time for me NOT to take it with me?

Quote of the Day

"Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting."

- Larry Page, University of Michigan Commencement Address, May 2009


Watch the video or read the transcript >>here<<

Quote of the day

"What is this, turtle day?!"

- yelled by some random guy on our 4/5 train this morning when it proceeded down the track at a less than acceptable speed

In case you missed it

Some of you may have remembered last April when I blogged about Google's "Gmail Custom Time" feature that allowed you to pre/post-date your email messages to people. :)

Well, in case you missed this year's April 1st launch...Google has now given us the ability to let Gmail auto-reply and manage our email messages with "Gmail Autopilot."

You can read more about the amazingness that is Gmail Autopilot >>here<<
I wonder what other kind of cool new awesomeness Google will unveil next year. :)

As a related sidenote:
Woot had this little card you could print out and give to an officemate yesterday. Kinda fun.

open ipod surgery

Some of you may remember a year and a half ago when I posted about seeing this screen on my computer:


NOT a pretty site for anyone to see...EVER.

Yeah, that was NOT fun. If you want to refresh your memory, you can read about it here but the main point to remember was that yes, my ipod had somehow died.

I made a number of attempts to revive the trusted friend back to health, but nothing I could do seemed to fix the problem. At one point, I was able to get it to start and connect to my computer correctly, but it would freeze after adding perhaps a dozen or so songs. Then when I tried to play any of the songs on it, it would either lag horribly, start to stall out, or freeze altogether. And the whole time I could hear the hard drive spinning like a car engine about to explode.

I came to the conclusion that my little buddy needed more than a software fix; the root of his problem was definitely hardware-driven.

Thinking that I would, at some later time, attempt to open him up and see what was going on inside, I decided not to throw him away. After all, we had been through a lot together; I couldn't just discard him like some common piece of trash. I just knew that somehow I could either fix him, or find some other cool use for him.

In fact, I had been told that a common problem with aging ipods is that there's a thin "cushion" inside that has a tendency to become compressed over time and lose its spring. If you opened up the ipod and placed a folded business card or card-stock inside, it would provide just the right amount of spring to fix the problem. I couldn't just throw my friend to the curb without at least trying this procedure.

At some point shortly after that fateful day in August, I remember making a crude attempt to open him to see if this wouldn't fix our problem, but not having any clue how the ipod was actually sealed, I never got him open. All I really did was scrap up the seam between the metal backing and the white plastic front a little. :(

It wasn't until recently (yes, after a year and a half, a marriage, and a move to Queens I'm still carrying around a broken ipod that's got to be atleast 5 years old) that I decided it was time to try again. And not just try...I was determined that this would work. I told one of my coworkers before I left work on Friday that my goal for the weekend was to return to work on Monday owning not one, but two working ipods:
my 3rd generation ipod nano (courtesy of Christmas 2007)
and my resurrected 4th generation ipod "click wheel".

Well, I'm happy to say that (with a little help from the following two instructions) I reached my goal Friday night:

Simple Explanation of the fix:
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY---Fix-Broken-iPod!/

Fairly detailed instructions on how to open the ipod:
http://www.portatronics.com/guide/iPod-4th-Gen-Repair/


I tried to take a couple pictures of the process, but most turned out really blurry. Here are a few that turned out ok.

Here we can see the operating table with a couple small flat head screwdrivers and old guitar picks of different stiffness (I ended up only really needing one of the smallest screwdrivers and the Village Voice guitar pick—it was the stiffest one I had.) The yellow thing is a strip I cut from a rubber glove. I used it to help protect my ipod when using the screwdriver.

Almost there.

You can see the hard drive there on the left (the blue layer underneath it is the foam cushion that had lost some of its spring), and the empty metal half of the case on the right. If you want to see good pictures of what the rest of the insides of an ipod look like, I suggest checking out that second link of instructions I included above.

My next goal for my newly working ipod is this. :)

I can't wait until I have a free evening. Hopefully it won't take another year and a half.

peanut butter elbows

My friend Adrienne, she conducts experiments.
She also posts cool videos on the internet.

Click here to see a video she posted on the Food Network for a recent PBJ contest. If you go there and watch her video, give it a vote. It's based on a true story from her family....an ongoing joke of sorts that involves peanut butter and human elbows. :)

– / +

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Leah has been gone since Thursday of last week.
:(


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
She gets back tomorrow.
:)

35 Things

1 WORD ANSWERS
(this is for you Shawna)

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your significant other? Kirkland
3. Your hair? cool
4. Your mother? facebook
5. Your father? genealogy
6. Your favorite thing? yum
7. Your dream last night? weird
8. Your favorite drink? delicious
9. Your dream/goal? distant
10. The room you're in? bedroom
11. Your fear? stop
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy
13. Where were you last night? surfing
14. What you're not? accompanied
15. Muffins? sometimes
16. One of your wish list items? time
17. Where you grew up? northwest
18. The last thing you did? ate
19. What are you wearing? shorts
20. Your TV? computer
21. Your pet? none
22. Your computer? aging
23. Your life? work
24. Your mood? full
25. Missing someone? understatement
27. Something you're not wearing? hat
28. Favorite Store? Costco
29. Your summer? humid
30. Your favorite color? depends
31. When is the last time you laughed? today
32. Last time you cried? yesterday
33. Four places I go over and over? work, home, subway, church
34. Four of my favorite foods? cereal, chips, waffles, cashews
35. Four places I would rather be right now? home, Washington, bed, mountains

i love her

she had a 2 out of 3 chance to get it right

I walked into the bathroom tonight to find Leah brushing her teeth.

With my toothbrush.

I stopped in the doorway and just stared at her while she continued brushing—oblivious. Her hands moving deftly in front of her face so as to create a consummate pattern of tight little circles against her teeth with the head of the brush. Still completely unaware of her error, she smiled.

I didn't even need to look down at the sink to confirm my fear—I had handled that brush many times before and I knew it well—but thinking that perhaps I just might be mistaken, i looked anyways.

I looked. And just as I had expected, there sat the other two brushes (both hers) in their peaceful, blue plastic-cup home. Yes, it was indeed my toothbrush with which she now so carefully cleaned and yet only moments ago had so carelessly selected.

"Um...Sweetheart, that's my toothbrush."

Even after marriage, some things should remain "un"shared.

...the acquisition of spiritual qualities

There was a CES Fireside Broadcast tonight, and President Thomas S. Monson was the speaker. One of the many quotes he shared during his address to the young adults was the following from a conference talk by David O. McKay. It caught my attention, and I wanted to share:

Keep in mind that man's earthly existence is but a test as to whether he will concentrate his efforts, his mind, his soul upon things which contribute to the comfort and gratification of his physical nature, or whether he will make as his life's purpose the acquisition of spiritual qualities. [David O. McKay, CR, October 1969, p. 8]

Jamiroquai - Candy...errr...."Canned Heat"

When in college, I had some roommates who would occasionally wake up to this song in the morning. I set my computer to wake Leah and I up to it a few times the past week, and dang but it's not a peppy way to start your day.

I know that's interesting and all, but the real reason for this post is to point out the fact that, although I've known for years now that the song is called, "Canned Heat", it wasn't until recently that I discovered — by a Leah-invoked appeal to Google — that the words are in fact, NOT: "Got candy in my heels tonight big Ben."

How I let that one slide by me for so long, I have no idea. But the words are actually: "Got canned heat in my heels tonight, Baby."

Oh well.

(Thanks for correcting me Sweetheart).