Updated My Blog - After Five Years

Updated my blog after five years. Cleaned out some of the cruft on the side bar, added my Twitter feed.

Fixing Bad GeekTool 3.0 Scripts

While playing around with GeekTool 3.0, I managed to put in a bad shell command, that caused both GeekTool and System Preferences to become unresponsive.

Since I couldn’t launch the GeekTool preference pane without crashing System Preferences, there was no way for me to delete just the offending shell command. I didn’t want to trash GeekTool and reinstall, since I had eight other scripts (geeklets as they are called in 3.0) that I didn’t want to lose. I needed a way to just delete the one bad shell script.

A Google search turned up nothing, so I poked around the files on my hard drive — and I found the file that contains the GeekTool configuration: org.tynsoe.geeklet.shell.plist in “\\users\username\Library\Preferences”. I double clicked on the file and it opened with Property List Editor. I expanded the keys under the root, and found the key associated with the offending geeklet and deleted it.

I was then able to launch the GeekTool preference pane without a problem.

Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Ads - made on a Mac - Boing Boing

Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Ads - made on a Mac - Boing Boing

The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time

Every song here has those thrills. But these are rock's greatest guitar moments because of what's inside the notes: hunger, fury, despair and joy, often all at once.

This is a interesting list of songs - in addition to the guitar standards one would expect (Purple Haze), there are surprises as well, (People Get Ready and Beat It). Full list one one page.

read more | digg story

NASA Photo of the Day: Mars Soil Sample

What surprises are hidden in the soils of Mars? To help find out, the Phoenix Lander Phoenix Lander which arrived on Mars two weeks ago has attempted to place a scoop of soil in Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA).

read more | digg story

Quote of the Day

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

Robert Orben

The Two-Hour Star Wars Holiday Special in only Five Minutes!

More about this at Wikipedia, which quotes David Hofstede, author of "What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History", saying it was "the worst two hours of television ever". It was broadcast only once — in 1978. Via MacBreak Weekly. Full length version. Happy Holidays!

Classic post-punk music videos | MetaFilter

Classic post-punk music videos via MetaFilter

Apple iPhone Repair Dream

As I mentioned in my post "Nokia Phone Repair Nightmare", I planned to purchase an iPhone to replace my Nokia 6682 when the iPhone came out in June.

Well, I did purchase an iPhone and I am very happy with. However, I did manage to damage it and had to send it in for repair. This gave me the opportunity to compare Apple's service against Nokia's. To summarize my Nokia repair experience: Nokia took two months to determine that they could not fix my phone. And I had to call them repeatably to get status updates on my repair; their status web page was useless.

My Apple repair experience was completely different. I took my phone to an Apple store, they took care of the paperwork and shipping. I dropped it off on a Thursday night, Apple repair received it on the following Monday, and fixed it the same day! I received it back on Tuesday. I received emails every time my repair status changed, and was able the check the repair status on Apple's repair status page (which was always current, unlike Nokia's status page).

Apple has put a lot of thought and planning into their repair process, and as a result has a very happy customer.

Hijacked Disney Characters Explain Copyright

Epicenter - Wired Blogs: "Disney lawyers' heads must be spinning over this one. A movie posted on Stanford University's site called 'A Fair(y) Use Tale' mashes up all your Disney favorites to humorously and effectively explain copyright law. "

Schneier on Security

Schneier on Security: "I tell people that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very definition of 'news' is 'something that hardly ever happens.' It's when something isn't in the news, when it's so common that it's no longer news -- car crashes, domestic violence -- that you should start worrying."

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife: "It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail."

Via boingboing.

Update - 4/28 - According to this LA Times article, the bee colony collapse is being caused by a fungus.

Kurt Vonnegut Quote

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
US novelist (1922 - 2007)

From The Quotations Page

The image soaked future

Fascinating article on the rise of the graphic novel and how they developed from comic books. Via h20boro lib blog.

From the article:

"So, why is this rebirth of the serious graphic novel different? Because this new wave arrives when the ascendancy of the image — presciently described by George Steiner, in 1971, in his book In Bluebeard’s Castle — has begun to dwarf the power of the word. The visual arts are booming. The screen fills our lives through television, cinema and computers. Thanks to computers, even when we are obliged to read words, we expect them to be arranged in helpful modules, with plenty of graphics. The computer normalises the graphic novel as a form. The graphical user interface may one day be seen as the most important invention of our time. Through such devices, the imperial image reigns and is, more successfully than ever before, invading the book."

Dylan does Dr. Suess

Dylan Hears A Who! - Superb Dylan imatator signs Dr. Suess stories.