February 2002

Phil Greenspun, Bad Examples, and the demise of ArsDigita
I posted some thoughts and links on the demise of ArsDigita over on the websandiego.org list.

MySQL-front
MySQL-Front is a really nifty freeware MySQL SQL Server Enterprise Manager for MySQL. MySQL is getting more appealing as a database platform every day. It’s not a true RDBMS, but still massively useful. Thanks, Sassy

I’m checking out BlogApp on MacOS X. It’s a trim shareware mechanism to post to a blogger acccount. (hipped to this by backupbrain)

Over the weekend I did almost no blogging and got an amazing amount of crud done. Maybe not crud, but stuff.

I did Jenny’s and my taxes (woo hoo!) and because I had a more conventional job than in the past few years (1 full time gig) the taxes were much more clear-cut. No freelance income, not enough business expenses to catalog in detail. Very painless and quick, and I filed electronically which I’ve done for the past 4 years if I remember right. I used Macintax, or rather TurboTax for Mac, which made the process even smoother.

Jenny and I also went to our local Fry’s and picked up a printer cable for her machine. Since we got her a new computer she’s had no luck printing. Turns out it was NOT Windows 98, incompatible drivers, or the Postscript driver – it was the PRINTER CABLE. Looks like the one we had, which was 25 feet long (very nice in it’s day) went bad. The exasperating thing was that the prints we would get would come, they were just bad. Printer technology is either more complex, or much simpler that something like TCP/IP. With that, one can ping to see if the connection is good, and if it’s good, things work. With this, the actual signal was weaker or damaged, causing printing problems. I of course blamed myself for installing the drivers wrong as it’s always a pain to install new drivers on Wintel. I was also blaming Win98 for general flakiness, but with no basis. I was also thinking that it might be the printer (an HP 5MP) might be dying. I had listened to enough of my lovely wife Jenny’s whining reporting printer problems to her Help Desk (Note: Help Desk = me) for several months, I thought I’d give a new cable a shot. So that’s another monkey off my back.

I also played racquetball on Saturday—wonderful games as per usual. Though I find that I have bruises on my legs I’m not sure how I got. I think they are the result of hitting the walls when going hard to make returns. I’ll have to watch that, exuberance is good but I don’t want to hurt myself. I can feel my knees are stressed for a few hours after a game – I’ll have to baby my knees, which are definitely a point of failure for my body as I age.

Speaking of that, yesterday I watched the USRA US Open. I had taped it from Friday from ESPN. I was delighted to see that the champs are older guys – there was even a guy age 50 in the semi-finals.

Add to that, the weather is improving, getting warmer. In 2-3 months the ocean temperature will be warm enough for the beach. In March Jenny and I will go to the wedding of a friend in Las Vegas. In May Star Wars Episode II will be out. In April Edward Tufte is coming to town! (You’d better not chart junk I’m telling you why!) And in July my sister and parents will be flying from back east for a visit. Still no peace in our time, but I’ll accept these personal niceties in lieu of general planetary contentment for the time being.

Lyrics of the Say: Sing Your Life by Morrissey
[ comment: a great song about the wonderful power of personal expression, I think. Nominally about “singing” – but really about being yourself. Yes, I’m feeling sappy this morning. ]

Sing your life
Any fool can think of words that rhyme
Many others do
Why don’t you?
Do you want to?
Oh…
Sing your life
Walk right up to the microphone
And name
All the things you love
All the things that you loathe

...

...

Don’t leave it all unsaid
Somewhere in the wasteland of your head, oh
Head, oh, head, oh, head, oh
And make no mistake, my friend
Your pointless life will end
But before you go
Can you look at the truth?
You have a lovely singing voice
A lovely singing voice
And all of those
Who sing on-key
They stole the notion
From you and me
So, sing your life (sing your life)
Sing your life (sing your life)

Mark Your Calendars
San Diego’s Taste of the Nation looks really good. A good cause and good food. It’ll be in May 2002.

Facelift
The San Diego Bloggers page was given a complete facelift this morning.

New Splash
If you didn’t come through the front door, you might want to check it out. Some dhtml silliness and a very old charcoal drawing of mine. Hope you like it. Oi. Sleepy now.

Ronny Vardy Update
My “for fun only” Ronny Vardy fansite’s url has changed to http://artlung.com/fansite/ronnyvardy. Also added are flyers for two events in the L.A. area which will feature her fun, sexy pinup work. If she had a website, I would point you there, but alas, she does not, and all there is is my fan site. Enjoy!

Hello I Must Be Going!
Yesterday was busy like crazy. I went to work, lunch with a bunch of WebSanDiegans, then my Digital Design for Designers class in Point Loma, then I came home and troubleshooted (troubleshot?) my Cox.net connection which was mysteriously down, then went to the SDLUG with Matt Lee, meeting featuring the enigmatic Michael Robertson of Lindows.com, formerly of mp3.com. Much too much to say just now, as I must go to work. But I hope to work my notes from the Lindows thing into a longer piece which will be either here in the blog or in /words/.