Daniel R.

I was getting unhappy with the amount of spam and general issues with b2evolution so with a suggestion from Chris, I've decided to try out MovableType. Since they just release version 3.2 and are offering a discount this looked like the best time as any. My first reaction is both positive and negative. On the good side the interface is very nice and there seems to be lots of power under the hood. On the bad side, and this is really disappointing being new to the product, the documentation is abysmal!

In fact almost every "?" help box on the new blog entry page leads to a web page that simply says "Coming soon...". I wouldn't be surprised if this was an open source product. However, being commercial software that I've paid money for, that is just not acceptable. I've already logged about a half dozen complaints and suggestions related to just their installation blog entries and documentation. I can only hope they do something, otherwise I'd be tempted to get a refund.

Complaint number two. There probably is a module or add-on for this, but where is the spell-checking feature?

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As slick looking as G5s and Tiger are, just like Windows, they have quirks. I've had some issues with most of the Apple products I've bought so far. First was the power issues with my G5. Ended up having to disable all power saver functions in order to get the box to sleep correctly. Now after upgrading to Tiger QuickTime seems to occasionally hang the entire box forcing a hard power reset.

I think I've just come to conclude that I just want software and hardware to work for the few things that I want it to do well. While I'm on the subject Quicken for Mac is a very inferior product to Quicken for Windows. It's almost like two separate companies created the products since the feature matrix is so out of wack. Having used both now for a long time, I'm tempted to just run Quicken for Windows within Virtual PC. However, that would require again not being able to transfer any data from one version of Quicken to the other since the Mac and Windows formats are so incompatible about all you can transfer is your current balances. And to top it all off, I get a promotional cd in the mail touting the 121 new features of Quicken 2005 for Windows.

I hate computers. I hate spam. No, I really really detest spam.

Did I also mention too that my web server has started crashing my system on a regular basis. Actually worse than crashing, completely hanging, requiring a manual power cycle. Frick'n bit rot.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:30 am is a bad time to start trying to debug a nasty problem, especially when it comes after working almost 18 hours straight. It's amazing what a few hours of sleep does at that point. Within 30 minutes of waking up this morning I realized why things weren't working and how to fix them.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday while walking to and from the T I saw two different one armed men. I wonder if this is like when you learn a new word and then start hearing it everywhere. I'm not sure the last time I saw a one armed man, but to then see two the same day, kind of odd.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Crunch time is always a drag, thankfully this one won't last more than a few days and for me anyway, it's being broken up by various prior commitments. Just got off a nice 15.5 hour work day. Time for a little nap.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've started to itch for new toys to play with. Part of this was prompted by the recent article in MIT's Technology Review about Social Machines. In particular I'm about due for a new phone. There are certain features I love about my current Ericsson T39m:

• Nice and small
• Tri-band GSM
• Good battery life
• Unlocked

My main reasons for thinking about a new phone stem from some problems I have:

• Bluetooth on it is flaky (at least for me)
• Screen is small
• SMS system gets slow if more than 10 messages in the inbox

I've not looked at phones in a couple of years so I have no idea what is out there. My list of required features at this point:

• Tri-band GSM
• Bluetooth
• SMS and GPRS
• Unlocked
• Support for iSync and Tungsten T2 would also be really good
• Email would also be helpful

Then there are things that I don't care about as much:

• I'm ambivalent about having a camera
• Color is nice, but not required
• Don't need games
• I already have a PDA

If anyone has suggestions, let me know.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)