Archive for the 'Interests' Category
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
Whistler: what an amazing place
Each year we seem to add a few more “should we really do that?” adventures to our days in Whistler (or Utah, or Colorado) and this year proved just as adventurous as the rest. We had a “narrow” experience hiking up to the glacier at Blackcomb where there is a 18″-24″ wide supposedly semi-official path next to a chute that drops for a few football fields of vertical. I don’t recall it being so narrow in past years I did the hike. For our group this is not entirely out of the ordinary… but this year Josh brought his girlfriend and she was with us at the time… and did I mention she’s a beginner? She survived and in retrospect I think it’s these experiences that help take people to the next level. She did quite well although I did stay with her at every turn preferring to give up an awesome run to ensure I didn’t feel guilty of leading her into a serious injury. Chris A fared less well accomplishing a near collision and a concussion (even with a helmet on). Other than that, there were no injuries to report which is a good sign on any ski trip.
This year we had 4 days of skiing. The first day was terrible (raining) until we finally found a good spot on Whistler that had new snow. After that it was 3 days of non-stop powder (Whistler was “Dump of the Week” on Ski Net this week). You simply can’t beat having 5-8 inches of fresh new snow each morning on Whistler’s peak. We did learn that Whistler’s snow tracking was a bit off (it’s odd to rationalize a snow report that says there’s just 3cm of new snow when it’s up past your ski boots…)
Once again, Cockalorum and Mondays were awesome (and relatively unknown to others – or too scary) offering the best snow and challenging terrain. A tip is to drop in off the shallow part of the cornice way to the left by aiming for the left-most orange/black “Cliff” warning sign and drop in about 5-10ft to the left of that sign. Piccolo’s face in hindsight had a much better drop in point than the rocks or cornice… try dropping in at the rightmost point. Everyone should check out the powder on Flute Bowl but be prepared to walk if you stay to the right. The Glacier was awesome except for the harrowing hike that could lead to a death this year if it stays in the same condition… hopefully not, but I was surprised it was not closed.
My Volkl Unlimited AC4 skis proved their worth again and again this year giving me outstanding control in the powder, edges on some of the sharper faces, and a strong base for some of the narrow hop turns. I would again recommend these skis to anyone looking for an expert level set of powder/resort “all mountain” skis. If you’re going backcountry, you may prefer the super fats, but the AC4s are perfect for any condition.
BTW, don’t go to Blackcomb this year – what a waste of time… at least while we were there – no snow over the 4 days and Whistler had daily snowfall…
All in all, a good time was had by all and we made it home safely. Next year we’re going to try heli-skiing – if you have any recommendations for a good outfit in the B.C./Whistler area that is reasonably priced, please please let me know.
Photo: Courtesy of Lisa C taken on 7th Heaven at Blackcomb (ok, there was a little snow!)
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Heading off to Whistler – back next Wed
I’m heading off for a little vacation / skiing time in Whistler. If you recall last year I said I needed to go back and now I’m making good on fulfilling that need. My blog will probably be silent during my trip, but you can imagine me skiing down the side of something that would scare any health insurer. I tend to always play it safe and land well, so no need to
worry about me – I’ll be sporting a permanent smile for the next 4 days.
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
What type of job do you need in order to …
Take off a day of work to participate in Super Bowl Parade festivities… I must be in the wrong line of work.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23001892/
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Buying an HD video player? Looks like Sony is the best bet…
I recently acquired a Samsung 50″ Plasma which has full 1080p resolution and I must admit… I’ll never go back to SD television. Even for what little I watch, the picture is just unbelievable. Now, keep in mind my prior TV was a 25″ Sharp CRT from back when I was in college… Yeah, I was long overdue for an upgrade. However, I chose to go with the 1080p, top spec sheet model for a number of reasons, but the top being it’s ‘near futureproof’ (famous last words, right?). Well, as far as resolutions go, 1080p should be around for a while and honestly, I can imagine a TV with a higher resolution as it looks amazing right now. I have a 1080i HDTV camcorder that I acquired last year and an Xbox 360 which does native 1080p and DVD upscaling. You could say within the last 12 months, I’ve gone from home media antique museum to MoMa.
However, I have two pieces of my setup that are still a generation behind. First, there’s the home theater. I have a cheaper setup that my wife bought me years ago and it serves its purpose and until the HDMI systems come down in price, there’s not much to gain from an upgrade. The other piece is the whole High Def video player. The HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray battle has been raging on and it now appears that Blu-Ray will win out (I *think* this is the better of the two, but it’s hard to tell – Microsoft vs Sony is like a computer virus vs a rootkit – which is less evil?).
Putting the standards battle aside, I’ve been waiting on the sidelines waiting for the future proof answer for high def video. The first Blu-Ray player I noticed on the market at sub-$1,000 was the PS3. It still is a competitively priced Blu-Ray player today (some newer models are ~$300). And guess what happens to all those who ran out and bought a Blu-Ray player for $1,000+, or when they dropped to $800 or when they hit $500 and then ~$300… they’re already antiquated: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080118-new-nlu-ray-2-0-spec-makes-ps3-the-most-future-proof-player.html
Who loses out in these standards wars? The consumer who’s willing to pay too much. But, I guess if you have $1,000 for a high end DVD player what does it matter anyway… just buy another.
So I guess I’m waiting again this time for a Blu-Ray v2.0 system (or PS3). It’s quite a shame that HDTV has come along so poorly for consumers. First it was 720i, then 1080i and then 1080p was the end game. Then you need to upgrade your cable, upgrade your DVR, upgrade your camcorder, upgrade your video player, upgrade your home theater system… if you bought any of those components at 720/1080i, upgrade again to 1080p. I have to wonder if HDTV will ever get to being “simple” and easy for consumers? I’m fairly knowledgeable, I can’t imagine some of my less than technically inclined friends of family buying all the right components in a future proof progression – it’s been hard for me I’ll admit… good luck to anyone looking to make a future-proof HDTV decision.
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
Seattle Windows glitch ruins fireworks show at Space Needle
Doh! The first thing I thought of was South Park the movie where the general has a Windows 98 computer crash and furiously yells “Get Bill Gates in here!”… nothing like rebooting Windows when the music is going off and a crowd watching … might I suggest another option next year – begins with an ‘L’?
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_010108WAB_fireworks_glitch_SW.72e7457c.html#
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
New Open Season Episode 8
I think Open Season is probably the only podcast session I listen to regularly. What can I say, I’m a sucker for Ashlee Vance’s humor/critique… although I haven’t purchased his book yet…
This episode includes some (dare I say unsupported) speculation on Ubuntu and IBM from Mr. Asay. I guess there’s some evil plot to take over the world in there, but given my job at IBM… I’d probably know :-) I also found it odd that the 1.5 minute speculation bit also became the title (what do you expect from El Reg?). Anyway, listen if for no other reason than Open Season offers Ogg downloads (thanks!).
Anyway, you can listen for yourself here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/28/open_season_8/
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
New TSA rules for Lithium-ion batteries
Heads up if you fly with extra laptop, camera, or other Li-ion battery packs… I often check my extra battery packs for my DSLR and camcorder in other luggage so this would have caught me by surprise…
————-
Effective January 1, 2008, the Department of Transportation (DOT) through the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) will no longer allow loose lithium batteries in checked baggage. These batteries may continue to be packed in carry-on baggage.
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
Latest review of Windows XP is in – it’s a winner!
If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s worth the 5 minutes to lead the latest Windows XP review. Looks like Microsoft has a winner.
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Phil Dawson’s crazy field goal to tie the Browns-Ravens game
This is just something you have to watch:
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
20 years ago….
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
Quote of the Week
“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.”
– Stewart Brand
Thursday, October 11th, 2007
Laser engraved Tux on a ThinkPad
Luis came up with a very cool idea – laser engraving a Tux logo onto his ThinkPad. This really is Linux on the desktop.
http://tieguy.org/blog/2007/09/30/why-i-was-asking-for-tux-images-engraved-laser-tux/#comment-25183
Sunday, October 7th, 2007
Ashlee Vance from The Register Interviews Mark Shuttleworth
I saw this just before I went on a road trip back to NY this weekend and burned it to a CD. I’d recommend taking the time to listen to Mark with special focus on the parts where he describes what it takes to have successful outside contributions for open-commercial projects. There is also plenty of discussion on the “troubles” with OpenOffice and outside contributions as well as desktop Linux. And of course, there is the usual Reg-humor to keep the discussion lively.
http://www.theregister.com/2007/10/04/open_season_four_shuttleworth/
Monday, September 24th, 2007
It’s official – the Indians take the AL Central
Unfortunately the Cleveland Indians clinched the top spot the day after I was in attendance, but they did win on Sunday and that’s good news for everyone. Saturday’s game which I painfully sat through was lackluster, but the Tribe pulled out the arsenal on Sunday. This is a great triumph for the Indians and I can’t wait to see how the Series plays out. Cleveland now has the Indians and Cavs on track – it’s time to get the Browns going again… they did not win yesterday with the Raiders blocking a last second field goal.
You can catch the final out of the Indians game (a nice K) and the post-celebration here: http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=cle
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Get ready for Ohio LinuxFest 2007 – I’ll be there; how about you?
I didn’t think I’d be able to make it this year, but things worked out and I’ll be at Ohio LinuxFest 2007 in Columbus, Ohio on the 29th. If you’re planning to attend, let me know – I’d like to meet up. The speaker sessions look quite interesting and there looks to be quite a few “notables” attending. I am making the complete trip with car and hotel for under $300 so take advantage of the low cost!
You can learn all about this conference here: http://www.ohiolinux.org/
Friday, August 31st, 2007
I’m heading out for vacation: back in 2 weeks, have some requests for while I’m out
Tonight I’m heading to Europe where I’ll be hopping around from city to city for the next couple weeks on vacation. So if you see no postings here, I’ve not been kidnapped by Microsoft or some other gang of anti-Linux admins (I narrowly escaped the last attempt).
So I expect the community to do a couple things while I’m out. First, please end this OOXML nonsense and get ISO leadership to step up as a true standards org should. Second, I fully expect Sun and Microsoft to start contributing code and resources into the open Linux community (we welcome you with open arms). Finally, I expect IDC and Gartner to start tracking Linux on non-x86 platforms for once… your customers have no idea just how fast its growing…
So I’ll be back in a couple weeks and will review your progress on these three basic requests ;-)
Saturday, August 25th, 2007
‘Hello World’ rises to the top of Microsoft’s open source successes?
URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2174730,00.asp
Just after eWeek ran an article on the Top 25 Microsoft CodePlex projects, SVN takes a closer look at what these projects really are about. SVN finds out some interesting information as he “gets the facts” on Microsoft’s “open source” playground…
Number two is the Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Engine. This “program” is simple sample code for SQL Server. It was last updated on, get this, December 9, 2005. The primary example is, get this, how to do “Hello World” in SQL Server.
Friday, August 24th, 2007
SUNW == JAVA, yes, it’s true.
So I guess Sun really did change it’s ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA… personally given how much they’ve been touting open source software, communities, etc. I would have personally chosen something different (“OPEN” was my suggestion to a few yesterday). Considering Sun’s growth in Linux according to the analyst firms, perhaps “LNUX” could have been a better choice ;-)
JAVA… hmmm… what does the word JAVA convey these days? I’m not sure I’d pick JAVA… but then again, I’m not the CEO of a public company.
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
Thank you for your patronage Microsoft; I’m using Windows Vista (for now).
I rarely check my web stats, but reading Stephen’s post on network services for whatever reason prompted me to look at my website stats. So one view I can see is the most frequently visited IP blocks that visit my site. This is interesting b/c if you resolve the most common IP addresses to the ARIN owner, you can see where some of the most frequent visitors might be located.
Number 3 on my list of most frequent visits for the last 12 months was 65.54.188.17 — which resolves to…. Microsoft, Redmond…
So this could mean a few things… (rampant speculation below):
- Microsoft is interested in what I say and is taking Linux to heart – perhaps doing massive Stage 1 Gentoo installs (shame that’s pretty much gone as a practice…),
- Perhaps Microsoft employees are interested in subjects like what it takes to have a truly successful open source community of developers, open standards, investors, and multiple vendor collaboration…
- Microsoft wants to gather competitive intelligence based on my work at IBM based on what I write here (hmm… good luck)
- Microsoft employees are very interested in comparing the Canon Rebet XT and XTi (search stats show it’s a popular search query)
- I need to write more about Vista, Windows Server, and .NET and cater to my audience.
- Microsoft is secretly trying to drop signals that I should join their company and figure out a better open source strategy for them than threatening IP suits against customers…
Ultimately, I think this stat tells me #5 ;-)
So the interesting piece here is I just started using Windows Vista on a new system this weekend (promptly added Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon as a dual boot). When it comes to operating systems and software, I’ll try ANYTHING and so it was time to refresh my Windows desktop knowledge.
I’ll post more as I have time, but I’ll kick all of this off with what I like about Windows Vista:
- It’s a step up from Windows Me (ok, but really, XP was so much faster… what happened)
- Vista implements UAC (FINALLY), although … poorly… but it’s there at least.
- Vista went a whole 4 days before being infected with the first virus (ok, I trusted public IP port 80 traffic to it… could say it’s my fault, but no, doubt it)
- IE7… nicely integrated, finally has tabs, slimmer interface
- DVD support out of the box??? Maybe one of the other software vendors slipped in the DVD codecs, but I think they actually came with Vista this time – good move.
- Microsoft Outlook Express is now renamed Windows Mail and so far seems better than Outlook Express if you ask me. Simple email app – not much to screw up. I switched to Outlook 2003 already.
- Windows Sidebar – widgets everywhere – ok, maybe just one or two, but the eye candy is appealing. The performance bar widget I downloaded revealed that approx 33% of my 2GB of RAM is used up in an idle state – yes, nearly 666MB is devoted to just having Vista sit there doing nothing…. dare I start an application? and aren’t the triple 6′s an odd omen??
- Windows gets an A for the visual appeal of the artwork and color schemes. I really do like the visual experience.
- Drivers – I thought this would be a horrible issue based on what I read, but my system (albeit a new system) didn’t really have any driver issues except for 1 (USB Audio… still can’t get that to work….). I have a ton of peripherals (printers, scanners, external burners, HD camcorder, cameras, etc) and aside from my speakers everything else worked (after downloading the appropriate drivers of course). Why Microsoft cannot find a better way (ahem, ala RHN) to distribute updates and drivers is beyond me….
That’s it for now. Of course I have the laundry list of “I wish it did X” issues, and so far I’m a bit disappointed, but no operating system lacks some bright spots. The Windows Vista install process was actually quite appealing – loved the changes (especially the hard drive configuration).
Anyway – to those Microsoft employees reading this, start posting comments – could use some increased interaction. I’m actually trying out Vista and taking it for a spin – I didn’t realize PowerShell did not ship with it, but I intend to check it out. Not sure what else is new, but I’ll peruse the usual “here’s what’s new in Vista” tech sites when I have time. If you have anything cool to point out I’d like to hear it.
Sunday, August 19th, 2007
Video Editing Software for Linux? Help?
I recently splurged on a Sony HDR-SR7 HD digital camcorder (the hard drive based one). It’s *very* impressive for taking videos, but now I want to edit them… Does anyone know of a commercial video software package that runs on Ubuntu or RHEL5 that I can use to edit the AVCHD format these movies commpress into? I’m willing to pay up to a couple hundred dollars to not have to install Windows on my system… Canon, Sony, Panasonic, etc all use this video format now, and unfortunately none of the typical open source software video editors can handle this format. Ideally I’d like to just use Ulead’s VideoStudio 11 Plus as it appears to have all the features I want (except Linux support)… I can’t imagine any of these apps run well in Wine.. and CodeWeavers does not seem to have tested them.
Not a knock on Ubuntu, but this is where I think Ubuntu could separate itself from the other distros/commercial OSs… work with the ISVs for a desktop user and get a full suite of apps available on the platform (i.e. like Apple does). I would also like a good photo printer for Ubuntu that has proper color calibration (the wish list goes on…)
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