A note on the website
Tue Feb 12 14:17:42 CST 2008
Things will probably change on the website soon. Some of the reason I haven't been posting much lately is because I don't care enough to fix the comment SPAM problem so I've just left the comments disabled. To remedy that I'll probably give up on my homemade solution and use one of the major blogging software packages out there. Wordpress is probably the winner, but since movable type got free recently perhaps I'll take a look at that, too. I also need to find something to do photos with. Jeremy recommends SmugMug, but he's got a free account due to his leet skills. I don't hate iPhoto's web page export but it isn't the most awesome thing I've ever seen either. I don't really like the idea of someone else hosting my pics, either. So we'll see. Of course this all depends on me finding some time to work on it all, so it might be a slowish change.
Photography
Tue Feb 12 11:07:40 CST 2008
So I used to be all into photography and such, until the Catherine came along and stole all my free time (which I gave up gladly and have no complaints!). I've been tossing around the idea of trying to find some way to get back in, and really it seems like the best would be to dump the analog stuff I have and move to all digital. I love working in darkroom. It's very hands on and you feel very connected to the images that you've shot.. nurturing them from idea to something you've captured on film to spending countless hours getting that perfect print... but its the countless hours part that keeps me from actually doing it. I figure if I sell off my darkroom equipment and film cameras I might be able to get a good start on saving for a DSLR and some photo processing software. I'll keep you posted on any progress I make in the transition.
Oh my!
Mon Feb 11 17:00:22 CST 2008
I was reading giz and saw this article about MSN Direct on windows smartphones. I have a Spring moto q and while I hate it so hard it hurts, it does provide email and the basic ability to check something on the web on the go. I've wanted some sort of weather/news info on the homescreen but so far the only other (free) option has been pointui, which is quite buggy and either drains the (extended) battery in a matter of 5 or 6 hours or takes the phone out altogether. MSN Direct isn't much better. I shall outline some complaints with this turd of a release.
* The front page (here)uses flash. How many winmo phones have you seen with flash? None? Right.
* Installing adds the app to your homescreen. The only you're currently using. There's no asking if that's OK or anything. The worst part, though is that install it to a different homescreen you have to uninstall, select the new homescreen, then reinstall. On the plus side it doesn't actually modify your original homescreen, but makes a copy called MSN Direct Default and does its magic to that copy.
* After installation and the loading of your new homescreen, MSN Direct promptly crashes. Fourish times.
* Upon reboot the big chasm in your homescreen where MSN Direct is supposed to be is now empty.
* I reinstalled it using the Windows Default homescreen as the base rather than my modified Sprint layout, which did help a little. I got to the point where it displayed the tempurature and $NODATA for stocks, but trying to select a location ended in another crash.
* Next I thought maybe I should send in some feedback about these problems, so I clicked the link to do so on the website. I was greeted with an "are you sure" SSL box, because they signed the cert themselves (nice!). If you don't know what that means its like saying "trust me, because I said so". It didn't really matter though because the feedback mechanism is a textarea with a 1000 character limit and a submit button.
So its free and stuff, but seriously, how did this ever make it to the public? This isn't even an alpha level release.