Researchers at CERN, (yes THAT CERN) have discovered the speed of light is beginning to slow down. They fired a beam of light and some subatomic particles (neutrinos, arguably the most physically fit subatomic particles) into a particle accelerator, and a neutrino won the race. Light wasn’t even on the heels of the neutrino, and was lagging 60 billionths of a second behind!

Scientists are baffled at how our precious photons are getting so slow. Margaret Flanahan of Boston University posits, “We think it might be due to all the television watching that happens. As we sit on our couches and get fat while watching sitcoms, photons are exposed to the same life-draining drivel. I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”

What seems like a minor mathematical error or fluctuation in space time is really a more serious problem than most people realize. If photons continue to pork out and slow down, light won’t be as reliable as we’re used to. Live reality TV will no longer be in real-time. Sunsets will happen later. Cats will be able to catch laser pointer lights with minimal effort. Truly, it’s the beginning of the end. Real life scientist Bob McFeebly thinks obesity is only the first problem. “What happens when our happy go lucky photons start to get depressed due to their obesity problem? As their mood darkens, so do we. Global cooling, food shortages, return of the ice age, and the bankruptcy of countless sunglasses factories. We’ve only seen the beginning, folks.”

Certainly a grim sign of what’s to come. Some folks are making the best of a bad situation, however, and nature photographers in Florida’s Lightning Belt are getting some prize photos. Snappy McSnapherson, a well known lightning photographer commented to our reporters, “It’s easier now than ever before! You just wait for the thunder, then point your camera in that direction. By the time the light gets there, you’re set up for an awesome shot!”

Former California governor, and known health advocate, James Rolph Jr. recommends a rehabilitation program for our overweight photons. “We just need to put photons on a regimen of diet and exercise.” Rolph recommends the following:

1. Use fewer batteries. Flashlights are way too bright nowadays. Back in my day we carried around a glowing coal ember, and it was plenty. Light is getting fat because we use too many batteries. Just take one battery out and replace it with a stack of pennies.
2. Swing around your flashlights. Make those photons get out and MOVE. Why I once had a dog named Old Chuckles, and he got fat from not moving around. We moved around a lot when I was a kid. My dad was in the Navy, and I had to switch schools at least 23 times a day. Days were shorter back then, and twice as hard. I miss my friend Cooter.

That was all we could get from Mr. Rolph, as he started babbling nonsense. Good advice though, we should all follow it. Of course, by the time the light gets to your eyeballs from the computer screen to read this, it will likely be too late.

So long folks, and remember to turn off the lights. Otherwise you’ll wake up with a lazy puddle of photons on the floor, and who’s gonna sweep that up?

I miss my Droid.

Really. I have nothing against Apple products. I use them all the time, and they usually “just work”, which I really appreciate. When it comes to a mobile device, however, it turns out I need more from a phone that the iPhone can offer. Heck, even jailbroken, the iPhone lacks customization that Android has by default. The big things that annoy me about the iPhone:

• Lack of real integration with core services. If I want to use Google Voice, I should be able to do it without some weird hack.
• App limitation. I need to use a WiFi scanner rather often, and a phone is perfect for such a thing. For some reason, however, Apple deems that an inappropriate use a phone.
• Customization. iOS 4 gave us the earth shattering ability to set a background photo. Wow.
• Did I mention app limitations?

Anyway, I’m up for a new device now, and I’m thinking about getting the Motorola Atrix. I don’t want the weird laptop thing that goes with it, but the battery life, CPU horsepower, and screen resolution look appealing. Anyone ever use one? If not, what’s your favorite Android phone?

This shouldn’t really come as a shock to anyone, as magazines right and left are either switching to digital, or closing shop altogether. As a tech magazine, I’m quite pleased to see us go for the former instead of slowly and painfully succumbing to the latter. The truth is, I can tell you first hand that Linux Journal is about 2 things: Content and people. And not in that order. With this change, those 2 things will remain at the top of our priority list.

It’s funny, because based on some of the negative feedback we’ve gotten, I suspect people think Linux Journal is a big conglomerate somewhere, and a fat guy smoking a cigar decided to cancel traditional publishing. As if he were sitting on a pile of money, and didn’t want to pay the small increase in price to keep printing. The truth is we’re a handful of regular old people scattered around the country. We have mortgages and drive crappy cars. Most of us have “day jobs” that not only supplement, but bring in the lion’s share of our income. We do Linux Journal because we love it. We love the people. We love the freedom. We love the penguin. If it were a matter of increasing prices a buck or two, we’d have done so. As the entire industry is showing, it’s a much, much bigger problem than that.

I kinda thought of all readers, ours would be the most understanding. And for the most part, they are. Linux people are smart people. The print magazine industry is dying, and either we adapt, or we just become a nostalgic part of history. We don’t want to move to a digital only platform, we must do so, or just pack up our toys and go home.

Thankfully, the majority of our subscribers are positive, if not bummed, about the change. Heck, we are too. We’re terrified that this “thing” we’ve come to love might not make it. We’re worried that people will just get angry and not buy the magazine anymore. We’re sad because we have no magic wand to make things all better. So, we will do all we know how to do: Create content. It’s what we’ve always done, and as long as we can find a place to write our stuff, it’s what we’ll continue to do. Hopefully we’ll thrive in this new digital age. It seems we are the right demographic to do so.

Hopefully, you’ll join us.

The only thing I can’t decide is whether to make that YouTube widget display my latest video, or a random video from my channel.

So, how are you?

The head accretion team leader, Martha Biggins, told Brain of Shawn reporters that indeed the holiday weight gain is a perfect time to test gravity altering black hole experiments.

“Everyone gains a few pounds over the holidays, so we use that phenomenon to study microscopic singularities,” Biggins said.

A microscopic singularity, for those of us not familiar with astrophysics jargon, is a black hole. The [mad] scientists at CERN are creating black holes over the holiday season, and using grandma’s pumpkin pie to hide the truth from us. That truth, however, is about to unhide like a Jack-in-the-Box.

“The problem is that Hawking Radiation, which normally nullifies the singularities before they can do any damage, seems to be affected by solar flares,” Biggins confessed. “While normally the microscopic singularities vaporize in a little puff of radiation, the solar flare on December 18th disrupted this outgassing, and actually allowed the black hole to take hold.”

Scientists are not sure how to handle the growing dilemma, but the effects of the planetary bound black hole are already evident in gravitation fluctuations across the globe. Our own Shawn Powers weighed himself 3 times today, and each time his weight had increased.

“I’ve been trying to spend my Christmas Day in a normal fashion, and have been eating huge meals with my family, but at every spare opportunity I’ve been stepping on the scale. The increase is impossible to deny. Gravity from the black hole is making me weigh more,” said Shawn.

Biggins gave us the following advice, “While we’re trying everything we can to increase the Hawking Radiation, and eliminate the black hole, it doesn’t look good. Gravitational forces will continue to rise throughout the holiday season, and throughout the following months. With proper diet and exercise, it will be possible to lose enough weight to offset the increase in gravity, but once the singularity accretes enough mass, there will be nothing we can do but leave the planet or be crushed. We’re sorry, fellow Earthlings. We really messed up on this one.”

Some anti-LHC scientists have already volunteered their time, and have calculated the timeline for total destruction. Based on scientific models, the singularity will make this planet uninhabitable around December 21st, 2012. That gives us almost 2 years to either get rid of the black hole, or find another solar system to live in.

Here at The Brain of Shawn, we suggest ignoring the problem. It’s really the only thing we can do. And for the next few years, you never have to worry about gaining weight — because remember, it’s not you, it’s the black hole! Happy Holidays everyone, and remember, have another helping of mashed potatoes. It really doesn’t matter anymore.

Sadly, before the double moon set on the harvest celebration, Lagoria and Lizzanthia were on a photo hunt with their new fairies and fell upon a fierce dragon. Excited to get sketches of the dragon, both girls sent their trembling fairies after the dragon as it retreated into its cave. The girls stayed safely outside the cave, but knew that since fairies can’t be burned by dragon flame, the sketches they would get would be lovely.

And they were.

The sketches were magnificent. Everyone from miles around was shocked and amazed at how detailed the sketches were. Why, even the corners of the canvases were scorched, and the sulfur-laced smoke could still be smelled as if the viewer was deep within the dragon’s cave. In fact, it was so full of realism, the girls were forced to keep the sketches outside so the family wouldn’t choke from the smoke!

The problem came when the girls took their fairies out on another photo hunt. While fairies can’t be harmed by dragon fire, they aren’t immune to dragon magic. So while the fairies continued to sketch for the girls, every sketch smelled like fire and brimstone, and every sketch contained the likeness of the dragon himself. See for yourself!

So now, the girls borrow their mother’s Sketch Fairy from time to time, but apart from that have no way to record the beauty of the realm. They hope someday to be gifted with the Pink Camera of Sweetness and Light so they can once again capture their world without the taint of dragon. Until that day, the Sketch Fairies will live in agony, knowing they can not make Lagoria and Lizzanthia smile.

The End. (Or is it?)

And it’s a free market. So that’s OK.

The thing that fascinates me is just how much obsession and fanaticism Apple gets from their fans. It’s creepy. One look at the coverage of the iPhone 4 release day will show you just how loyal/crazy/creepy people are about Apple products. I don’t get it, and for that I’m rather thankful.

Ick factor aside, however, imagine if Apple wielded its forces for something that would benefit humanity. Imagine if all opening day iPhone purchasers had to donate $20 to fight cancer. (C’mon, they have disposable income to work with…) Or better yet, what if Apple donated $20 for every iPhone they sold on opening day. We KNOW they have some excess profits that day.

Whether you love Apple or hate them, you have to admit they do something right when it comes to keeping loyal fans. Until they go bonkers that is…

• The interface is the best Netflix interface I’ve used yet. It’s easy to navigate your queue, similar titles, recent additions to the streaming library, etc.
• Activating your Wii is painless, and done online. (Like the PS3 and Roku) No need to try typing your email address and password into the Wii.
• For those of you that have a hacked Wii with a USB drive for storing games — good news, the Netflix disk rips quickly, and runs from USB with no problems whatsoever.

So basically, I have a Netflix disk for a Wii if anyone wants to use it. AND, I suspect you’ll be able to download the Netflix Wii ISO from nefarious sites everywhere shortly. Heck, if you twist my arm I might rip it myself. (But I’ll never admit it online, because that would be RONG. )

And now? Back to work… ttfn

UPDATE: Wow, look, a fancy download link for a WiiNetflix.iso file. I’m not claiming to be responsible, but, um… Yeah. You can trust the link.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Yes, it’s only 37MB compressed. It expands to 4.7GB. Also, contrary to popular belief, I’m not a douche.

UPDATE THE LAST: You don’t need an ISO file anymore, there is a Netflix channel. If you need to install the new shopping channel so you can download Netflix, but don’t want to update your system, check out THIS LINK. Cheers!

Why Would I Hack My Wii?

There are many reasons to hack your Wii. There are many reasons not to as well. Let’s talk about them first.

DON’T HACK YOUR WII IF:

• You are afraid you might brick it. I’ve never bricked a Wii, but you never know. It could happen, and you might not be able to fix it. You could have a $200 boat anchor. (Or a Christmas gift for someone you don’t like.)
• You are afraid people will think you’re a pirate. They will. Even if you’re not. (And, you probably will be — it’s VERY tempting.)
• You are afraid of spending a few hours with a Wii, a TV, and a computer with an SD card reader. The process is long and complicated. There’s probably an easy way, but I don’t know it, and don’t think I’d trust it.
• DON’T HACK YOUR WII IF you haven’t asked your spouse. Or kids. Or the owner of the Wii. That pretty much goes for any potentially destructive behavior, but you know, it goes for Wii hacking too.

DO HACK YOUR WII IF:

• Your house recently burned down, and all the disks you bought are now forever ruined by flame, smoke, and heat. With a hacked Wii, you can get your games back without waiting the 6 months the insurance company will take to process your claim.
• Ok, admittedly that is a rare circumstance, but dog gone it, a valid one.
• You want to store your games on a hard drive, because DVDs are so 2004.
• You want to play video DVDs in the Wii. Because really, what’s up with that Nintendo?
• You want to play videos, movies, or show pictures on the TV over the network, or from local USB/SD drives. You know, like XBMC but not quite as cool.
• You’d like to watch Netflix streaming videos on your television spending only $40 on the PlayOn software instead of $80 for a Roku.
• You wanna be a dirty filthy pirate, and download games off the Internet, and play them without paying, thus robbing the makers of video games of their profits, and likely causing a cataclysmic breakdown of our economy. Again.
• Or you can hack your Wii because you wanna be like me. Seriously though, if that’s your goal, just learn to do the eyebrow thing. It’s cheaper.

The Basic Steps

Remember when I said it was a long process? Yeah, it totally is. The frustrating thing is that links will die, information will get outdated, and versions will be changed by the time you attempt to do any hacking. So I’m going to be vague enough that you should be able to find the current stuff, and not depend on me for copy/paste instructions. You’re gonna learn darn it! But like G.I. Joe says, “Knowing is half the battle.” So, you know, there’s that to comfort you. Here are the basic steps, which I’ll elaborate on later.

1. Do something awesome, which you’ll likely never understand, and overflow Wii buffers and stuff. Look, if you were smart enough to know how these things work, you wouldn’t be reading this blog entry. Just stand back and be awed like me. Basically, you have your Wii load a “bannerbomb”, which kinda crashes the system, and then starts whatever program you want afterwards. It’s super sweet.
2. Remember that Wii we just bannerbombed? Yeah, we’re gonna then load a program that will load boot code onto the Wii itself, so that we don’t have to run the bannerbomb program every time we start up our console. Because really, the wow factor will wear off, and the hacker that came up with it deserves our awe.
3. Then we’ll install the Homebrew Channel. Ok, to be honest, that program I talked about in step 2 will install the Homebrew Channel for us. Why you ask? Well, because the Homebrew Channel is the reason we hack a Wii in the first place. It’s where all the awesome programs live.
4. Yay! We have the Homebrew Channel! Unfortunately, it’s just a blank screen with nothing inside. We’ll change that by adding cool programs. Unfortunately, those first couple “cool programs” will be cryptic, weird programs that make little sense. We’ll use terms like IOS249, and Trucha Bug Restorer. You will feel as though you’re in over your head. In fact, you may be. That’s OK though, it’s not as bad as it seems. Just close to as bad as it seems.
5. We will likely celebrate now. Because really, that last step sucked.
6. Now we load a few cool Homebrew programs onto the SD card. Did I mention an SD card before? Oh, well we’ll have an SD card. You’ll be swapping it back and forth a lot. By this point, it won’t even annoy you anymore.
7. Depending on how much you want to quit, or how young your kids are, you might just start loading games onto your external USB drive now. Or, you might want to make shortcuts (or “forwarders”) to your homebrew programs right on the main screen of your Wii. All the cool kids are doing it, so you might as well too. It’s actually pretty easy.
8. By this time, the Wii is pretty much hacked. You probably won’t want to touch it for a few days, because you’re friggen tired of the thing. Your friends and family will play with it like crazy though, and never truly appreciate how much work you put into it. Oh, and they’ll all ask you how you did it. Feel free just to point them here though. You don’t have to do it for them. Once you do all this work, you’ll say, “You’re going to learn darn it!” — again, just like me…

You Need Stuff, So Get It

You didn’t read any of that stuff did you? DID YOU? Go back and read it now. There is a secret password you’ll need to go any further. Come back here when you’re done.

Good, glad to see you back. Yeah, I totally lied about that secret password. I just wanted you to read the whole thing. Deal. First you need to gather and prepare a few items:

• An SD Card. I suggest it be 2GB, but anything 2GB or less is fine. I wouldn’t go below 512MB though, because you’re going to be keeping stuff on it. Maybe a lot of stuff. Oh, and make sure it’s formatted with a FAT filesystem. Not FAT32.
• An SD Card reader for your computer. And hey, all you people thinking your 4GB SD card will be twice as good as a 2GB card? Yeah, you follow directions for crap. A 4GB card or bigger will give you lots of problems. Maybe. It’s not worth it man, just get a 2GB card. They’re super cheap.
• Um, a Wii. Yes. You should have a Wii if you’re going to be hacking a Wii. Just sayin.

Over 1000 Words Later, We Begin

First, boot up your Wii and see what version the firmware is. Generally, you want to leave it alone. As a last resort, you may have to update the firmware to the most recent version, but keep in mind Nintendo does not want you to hack your Wii, and they work hard to keep it from working. Once you know your firmware version, you’ll know how to proceed. It’s super simple:

1. Click the Wii options button.
2. Click Wii Settings
3. Look in the upper right hand corner of the screen. There it is.
4. If that was confusing, someone made a video of what to do here. Go watch it, then come back.

Remember that number. Maybe write it down or something. Ok, the next step will be done on your computer. Grab your 2GB or smaller FAT formatted SD card, and put it into your card reader. Now head on over to http://bannerbomb.qoid.us/ and follow the appropriate link. You’ll end up downloading a zip file, extracting it to your SD card, and ending up with a folder called “private” on there, with stuff inside. That’s the magic, awesome thing I talked about earlier. That will basically load any program you put on the SD card named “boot.elf” — so lets put something useful on there, shall we?

There’s a really neat program called “HackMii” that installs 3 very useful things onto your Wii. It installs:

1. BootMii, which yes, is a cheesy name, but it replaces the boot code on your Wii or something, and allows you to back up system bits, etc.
2. DVDx — this allows your Wii to play video DVDs. Because really, why doesn’t it do that anyway?
3. HBC — this is the “Homebrew Channel” I keep talking about, home of all things mystical and wonderful.

It will install these things directly off the Internet for you, so you’ll have the latest version. Pretty cool, eh? Go here to download it (as of this writing, it’s version 0.6 or something): http://bootmii.org/download.

So you download that program, unzip it, and copy the boot.elf file to the root (top) directory of your SD card. So you should have 2 things on that now, the folder called “private” (with stuff in it), and a file called “boot.elf” — if you do, you’re ready to actually hack. SWEET.

Hack It Like a Gibson!

If you thought that scene from Hackers was even remotely realistic, you’re not allowed on my blog anymore. Go away.

Good, you’re still here. Ok, basically you now follow the directions from the bannerbomb site to load the boot.elf file. The directions are slightly different depending on what version of firmware you have. It’s not hard. Go back and read the site. Basically you either go to “Data Management”, and “Channels”, and “SD Card” if you have a pre-4.2 firmware. Otherwise, if you have 4.2, you click on the SD card on the main Wii screen. There, I did the work for you.

You should get a message like “Do you want to load boot.dol?” and you say yes. Even if you would rather eat an ice cream sundae, you still click yes. Or load. Or continue. I don’t remember what the affirmation dialog is, but look, you got this far, you want to load the program. So just do it.

Now you’re going to do 3 things. You’re going to install BootMii, DVDx, and The Homebrew Channel. It’s pretty straightforward. Really. You just install them. If you don’t want to install BootMii, that’s fine. I’m pretty sure you can just install the Homebrew Channel and DVDx. The thing about BootMii is that it allows you to back up your NAND, and possibly unbrick your bricked Wii if you brick it. Not that you will. But you know, just in case. You can also use this method to uninstall these 3 programs if you get in trouble for messing with your sister’s Wii later on.

What? It’s too hard? You’re confused? Well, it turns out the folks over at LifeHacker love you more than I do, and they made a (slightly outdated but still useful) tutorial, and they even included pictures. It’s right here. You can go over there to get that part done if you like. If you don’t like pictures, or Lifehacker filed a restraining order against you, there’s a different article over on wikidot. It has fewer pictures, but it’s just as good. Then come back, because I have more goodies to teach you. Things Lifehacker doesn’t cover.

OK, My Wii is Hacked. Am I Cool Now?

I have no idea. If your self esteem and cool factor is based on the current state of your Wii — it’s likely you’re not cool, and no amount of hacking will help. But your Wii? Yeah, your Wii is pretty cool. Let’s make it awesometastic.

To be clear, you could install some homebrew apps now, and brag you have a hacked Wii. Because you do. The problem is, you have sort of a sucky hacked Wii. The biggest thing you need to do is install IOS249. What is IOS249 you ask? I have no friggen clue. I don’t really care either. It’s something you need in order to let your Wii access things like USB drives. (You might also need IOS222/223, but I’ll touch on that later)

One of the really pain in the butt things, is that Nintendo doesn’t want you to do things like this. So they make it really hard. Thankfully, people smarter than me have outlined it really well. Read the awesome article entitled, “IOS249 – How To Get Started, Even If You’re Really Dumb.” Told ya it was a good article…

This Is Starting To Suck, Are We Done Yet?

Almost. You might have noticed the link on the bottom of that last article that talked about a HERMES IOS222/223 thing. You probably want to install that too. Why? Well, because it will allow your Wii to read a wider variety of USB drives, and give you more possibilities when things don’t go right. And really, you want to get this over with, don’t you?

If you missed that link, it’s right here. Yes, you’re absolutely right, you didn’t need my blog entry at all. You could have just googled all this on your own. But you didn’t. What does that say about you? Well, based on how long I had to google to come up with the right directions, it says you’re smarter than me. Your punishment for being smarter is listening to me monologue like this. It could be worse, I could have made a video and made you listen to me sing.

OK, now you’re cool. Let’s play games and stuff.

By now, you probably understand that in order to install stuff in your Homebrew Channel, you make a folder inside the /apps folder on the SD card, and then put the program in there, and name it boot.dol. Let me suggest a few programs to get you going:

• Homebrew Browser — This is a neat program that allows you to install, upgrade, and uninstall a wide variety of applications right from your Wii. No more moving the SD card over to your computer. Sadly, it doesn’t have every program, but it does have a lot.
• Mplayer_CE — this is an awesome video player. It plays pretty much everything, including files on remote Windows or SMB shares. You’ll need to configure the config file on the SD card after installing if you want to play from network shares, but it’s pretty easy. It’s available in the Homebrew Browser, but as a warning — I had to use version .75, as the current version (as of this writing) is .76, and it wouldn’t load. You can download older version from their website if needed.
• USB Loader GX — There are other USB loaders, but this is my favorite. It will download cover art for you, rip DVDs for you, and allow you to tweak stuff if games (Wii Sports Resort…) don’t work right.

See? That wasn’t bad. You have a totally hacked Wii. You are awesome. You can brag. BUT… If you want to be SUPER cool, you can install forwarders for a few of the programs you access often (like USB Loader GX).

Forwarders, For People That Are Too Cool To Click Homebrew First

This is another thing I don’t totally understand, but it’s not hard to use. Install the WAD Manager. Apparently “WADs” are the things that appear on the main Wii screen. I don’t know. I don’t really care. When you install the WAD Manager, you are able to install WAD files. Go figure. On that website for USB Loader GX, they have a forwarder WAD to download. You basically install it with the WAD Manager, and it magically appears on the main screen. TADA! It’s really simple. The big thing is finding the forwarder for the program you want to add to the main screen. (Forwarders come as WAD files… are you still with me?)

Here is a link to the USB Loader GX forwarder. Read that page. If you don’t understand the difference between installing a forwarder or installing a channel, don’t worry. I don’t either. Just install the forwarder, it works well.

Here is the info on the forwarder for Mplayer CE that I use. Unfortunately, I had to sign up for the forum in able to get access to the download links. That really ticked me off. If you want to use this forwarder, but don’t want to sign up — here is a direct link to the file. You’re welcome.

I Don’t Care If I’m Cool Anymore, Am I Done?

Yeah. That’s pretty much it. You’ll probably want to tweak the config file for Mplayer CE to point it to your windows shares for playing network videos. You might also want to install the Internet Channel on your Wii, and then install PlayOn on your Windows machine so you can watch Netflix streaming — but that doesn’t require any hacking, it’s just pretty cool. You probably also want to download a WBFS program so you can manage games you illegally downloaded and put them on your external USB drive so you can load them with USB Loader GX. And if you’re not a pirate, you probably want to attach an empty USB drive so you can rip your legally owned games onto your hard drive. USB Loader GX does that for you, and it’s pretty sweet.

If you have any questions, just leave a comment. I’ll try to answer. Really though, I’ll probably just make you google your questions — because that’s all I’ll do. I’m not really that smart, I just have good googling skills. You should too. This is 2010 man, you should be able to search on the Internet. And now? GO PLAY A GAME!

NOTE: There are probably typos that I’ll fix later. I have to go to work, and y’all wanted me to post this, so consider this post a Release Candidate. Also, standard disclaimer about ruining your Wii, your life, etc. I’m not responsible. I think you should sell your Wii and become Amish. That’s my recommendation.

I think a large part of my migraines might be due to stress. I have an abnormal amount in my life, even for me. So I’m up for ideas. Please, if your answer is “exercise”, be more specific. (Again, not that, sheesh keep your mind out of the gutter!)

Thanks in advance.

By the end of break, I had hoped we’d be moved over to a SAN based storage system, and that LTSP5 would be working on our really old hardware. That, sadly, didn’t happen. Even worse is that when I went home on Saturday my head was aching, and it turned into a knock down, drag out migraine that is still pounding quite severely. But the show must go on.

So here I am, at work with a pounding headache. It’s 11:30PM on Sunday night, but it needs to be done. Also for the record, 2010 sucks so far.

What, you haven’t heard the rumors? I guess that’s understandable. They were really only circulating around my house. And if you were around my house listening to rumors, well that’s just creepy. GO HOME!

On your way home, assuming you take public transport and aren’t driving, you can now browse my website on your iPhone/Droid/Crackberry/Probably_other_devices with a format designed specifically for you. See? I just give and give and give…

Happy New Year everyone!

UPDATE:

I am an information addict. The Internet is my crack, and the LCD monitor is like my crack pipe. (Or heroin and syringe if you prefer, or meth and… well, I don’t know how one “does” meth, but you get the idea)

At work, I have (3) 22+ inch monitors set up like a central command for post-apocalyptic warfare. Or efficient multitasking across 3 operating systems. (The latter is accurate, the former sounds cooler) Even with this trifecta of digital information conveyance, I find myself trying to mount a 4th monitor which will strictly be a fullscreen Google Calendar. I find that with so much screen real estate, it’s easy to overlook a small blinking reminder. With Google Calendar, there is a nice “current time” line that continually moves as the day progresses. I think I’d be more likely to take advantage of my schedule if I actually saw it on a more consistent basis.

So there’s my question: How many monitors are too many? Or is that like asking how much money is too much money?

Basically, I’m extending a wall from our walk-thru closet about 3 feet into our living room. Then I’ll be chopping the expanded closet into a small closet and my office. This only gives me about 49 square feet of room (7×7) for an office, but I think it will be sufficient. Basically I’ll have my own cubical at home.

I think it will be fairly easy as far as renovations go, and since I’m a total n00b with such things — it’s probably a good project to start with. PLUS, I’ll be able to click and type more efficiently, because I’ll have an office space of my own. I’m *very* excited, and will try to take photos of my progress. Feel free to laugh at me along the way.

I Believe Anti-Lock Brakes Stop on Ice Better Than Humans

Back in my last rant, I pointed out that it seems as though anti-lock brakes do a worse job of stopping than I can do with my human brain and soft pedal touch. Ryder argued that studies have been done (I didn’t bother checking, but let’s assume it’s true) proving anti-lock brakes stop on ice significantly better than any human can manage. For the sake of argument, I’ll agree. But that’s not actually what I hate about anti-lock brakes.

I Believe Anti-Lock Brakes Treat Drivers Like Idiots

And you know what? Many drivers are idiots, so perhaps this is a good thing. I just want the option to turn them off. The thing that really irks me, is “stopping” isn’t always the best course of action in a slippery situation. Anti-lock brakes take away any options a smart, quick thinking driver might utilize. Want to ditch the car? Good luck, a tap on the brakes will take away any maneuvering abilities you may have had. Want to powerslide to point your car in the “least likely to kill anyone” position as you slide past a stop sign? Again, no chance because your brake pedal has grown a mind of its own.

So there it is. I think anti-lock brakes are great for people that need them. I think anti-lock brakes are great for people who aren’t sure if they need them, because they probably do. Heck, I’m SO GLAD anti-lock brakes are in the vehicles of people that slam on the brakes and scream when they approach a stoplight on icy roads.

But honestly, I think I’m a better driver than the computer that pumps the brakes eleventy hundred times a second. Sure, it can stop in a straight line stop on bare ice faster than I can — but there’s more to driving than pumping the brakes, and I think my foot has the upper hand.

Anyway, in no particular order, here’s what I hope to do in 2010:

1) Finish the project I’m horribly behind on.

Unfortunately, it’s a time sensitive project, and the time has long since passed the sensitive zone. The people I’m working with on this project are incredibly wonderful to work with, and beyond understanding when it comes to my crazy schedule — but I gotta be honest, they deserve better. I’d like to get this particular resolution done in January.

2) Learn to use a Linux video editor.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a zealot when it comes to Linux. I’m really not. Here’s the deal though, I’d really like to make the videos I do for Linux Journal on a Linux machine. It just seems like the right thing to do. My lack of motivation for switching has been because I can already edit video really efficiently on OSX, and it took me a long time to learn Final Cut. Still, I’d like to use Linux as my primary system, so this is a goal. (Kris Occhipinti has been a huge motivation on this front. Thanks Kris.)

3) Change the way I eat.

Note: This is not a, “Lose Weight” resolution. This is an, “Eat Better” resolution. There are two major problems with my current eating lifestyle: Quantity & Quality. Once I finish resolution #1, hopefully I can take some of that time to actually cook food. I still eat at restaurants way too often.

4) Exercise.

I’ll be honest, this is the least likely resolution I’ll be able to accomplish. Donna convinced me to go into the local gym every morning and work out with her for a month. Since I’ll have to pay for the membership, I’ll do my best to accomplish it. Perhaps walking on a treadmill next to Donna will make it less horrifying. Man, I really hate exercise…

5) Write a Book.

I don’t care if it’s a little all year, or a cram session in November (NaNoWriMo), I really want to write a book. I’m not sure if I’ll start with fiction or technology — but I must write a book. Really.

So that’s it. It’s a lot, but I purposefully didn’t put anything on there I don’t think I can accomplish. If all you’re lacking for your New Year’s Resolutions is the commitment to make them, feel free to do so in the comment section. If you slip up, we’ll know. Well, ok, only if you tell us. But still, feel free to commit below.

Happy New Year’s!!!!

I’m a big fan of bootable USB drives. In fact, although he hasn’t updated it in a while (hint hint), I think Bill Childers‘ Linux distribution “Billix” is handy to have in your pocket. But there must be other things that are perfect for a USB drive. What are some of your favorites? I’m really curious.

There is one task I find especially enjoyable, however: Answering letters to the editor. I’m not entirely sure why I enjoy it so much, but for some reason, interacting with readers that take the time to write in to the staff really makes me proud to be part of something bigger than myself. It’s also interesting that while I answer a bunch of the letters, it’s not always me that does so. See, all the responses are signed simply “Ed”, meaning it comes from the editorial staff in general. Yes, it’s pretty humbling to represent everyone.

So if any of you were wondering what being one of the editors of an international magazine is like, well, it’s pretty cool. The best part, however, is simply responding to people. Because it’s the people that make a community, and it’s the community that makes my job so awesome.

-Ed

That’s all. Carry on.

But it’s a deadline. So I’ve decided this weekend is The Weekend Of Productivity, or TWOP. During TWOP, I will be disconnecting myself from the Internet hive mind. I will be putting my cellphones in the “off” mode. Actually, I’m not even sure they have an off mode, but I’ll at the very least put them in another room.

If you see me online any time after 4PM today — please scold the crap out of me. Without going into boring detail, my goal for this weekend is 15. I’m currently at 3. Unless I claim (in a believable way) that I’m done up to 15, please shun me.

If you need to get in touch with me, drop me an email. If it’s an emergency, well, chances are I’m not the person you should be calling anyway. I’m not exactly the type of person to rely on during emergencies. If the servers crash at work — it’s a school. They’ll wait. If my children catch on fire, my wife will handle it better than me anyway. And if the Internet runs low on snark, well, lets just say that’s unlikely.

Wish me the best, and if you want to contact me — you’ve only got a handful of hours to do so. That said, I hope your weekend is TWOP too!

First: Back at The Ohio Linuxfest, I was interviewed by Aaron Newcomb from The Source. It’s a video interview, and my section starts around 18:45 (not that you shouldn’t watch the whole thing, I’m just sayin…)

Second: I was asked to do an interview via Twitter, and was happy to do so. Jacob Kuehndorf (@BIOSShadow) posted me as his celebrity interviewee. I find that incredibly flattering. The interview is HERE on his site.

That’s it. Just wanted to give some linkage.

Or soy beans.

Or John Scalzi

Or Buckeyes.

Or humidity.

Or the occasional pig farm.

Or John Scalzi’s Cat

Or maybe it’s just on your way to somewhere.

Whatever your reason, I’ll tell you why I’M going to Ohio:

And in the words of Levar Burton, don’t take my word for it — come see for yourself!!! It’s free, it’s nerdy, and it’s so cool even me being a keynote speaker can’t ruin it. See you there?

Anyway, I think I’m going to officially start on July 1. I have bible camp next week, and need to do some preparation — but soon thereafter I’ll be ready to really try the scheduling thing.

I’m doubtful.

I’m not terribly excited about doing it.

But I’m still going to try. Honestly, the idea of controlling my time is appealing, it’s just the process that sounds “un-fun”. Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted.

I’ll fix it soon, but it might be the weekend.

Once upon a time, I did a 30 day experiment in which I woke up at 5:00 AM every day. It was horrifying, but I figured if at the end I liked being a morning person, it would be worthwhile. As it turns out I don’t like being a morning person, so that plan sorta fizzled. I still consider it a success though, because now I know sleeping later isn’t just a bad habit.

I’m considering doing the same thing with scheduling. See, I’m convinced that I’m all artsy-fartsy, and I work better without a schedule. There is a distinct possibility, however, that I’m just fooling myself. Maybe if I learned to be better organized, I’d be even MORE creative. Sounds cool, eh?

I’m going to spend the rest of this week figuring out just how to schedule things. I think I’ll need to use Google Calendar, since I already have lots of stuff in there, including shared calendars with my co-workers. If I can get my iPhone to reliably give me notifications, it might work. But I’ll hate it, I know I will.

So I have a few questions for you uber-organized folks out there:

1. Do you schedule “free” time?
2. If you get behind, how do you fix it?
3. Are todo lists helpful, or should everything just be scheduled into timeslots?
4. Should I print out my daily schedule, or does digital-only seem practical?

Thanks for any feedback. Again, this is an experiment, so at the end of 30 days I’m allowed to quit if I so desire. (And no, I don’t know what the official start date will be yet.)

I don’t want to post a screenshot, because the ad is still running through this Thursday. It’s so much better to see it in its native environment. If you go to www.linuxjournal.com, and hit refresh a few times, you should see it. You absolutely can’t miss it.

If you can’t seem to get it to appear, after Thursday I’ll post a screenshot — but really it’s hilarious. I hope you get to see it.

This morning, due to insomnia problems, I was getting ready for work after my family had already left for school. As I was going through my groggy morning routine I got a call on my cellphone telling me every computer in our school district was frozen. I correctly assumed they didn’t mean the temperature had drastically dropped and rather they were all unresponsive.

My first response after hanging up was to blame the dog.

“Tux! Why are the new switches failing me!?!?!”

Submissive little creature that he is, Tux decided it was time to roll over and let me rub his tummy. I did so, but then scooped him up and put him in his dog crate. (See, Tux thinks alone time is best spent pooping and peeing on carpets, but that’s another story altogether)

I quickly found a pair of mismatched socks from the sock basket, my norm, and put them on. I sat on the couch and tied up my Converse All-Stars. Then as I sprinted through the dining room, I grabbed my tattered jean jacket from the back of the chair where I hung it last night.

Thankfully it’s still early spring here in Michigan. You see, in my haste and confusion I had forgotten to put on pants. The crisp April air on my ghostly white legs quickly pointed out the error. It’s quite possible the neighbor lady died of shock.

Rest assured I did go back inside and put on some pants. Which is good, because I also didn’t have my keys, so I would have been a pantsless maniac pounding on the outside of a school building. I’m pretty sure you go to jail for stuff like that…

I’m 99% sure the PCB failed. The mechanics inside the drive I believe are fine. The problem is, I need to find the exact same model number (WD2500JS-40NGB2) in order to test that theory out.

It will cost over $1,000 to get the drive recovered. I only need to borrow the PCB (circuit board) from a similar drive in order to get the data from it. I would REALLY appreciate it if anyone reading this would tweet, dent, shout, ask their neighbor, etc, etc, if anyone has this specific model of Western Digital 250GB SATA hard drive that I might borrow.

I know it’s a longshot, but who knows.

1) I am not the one that locked the keys in the car. I think that’s important to note. So, noted.

2) Our van is a 2007 Caravan, and doesn’t lend itself to jamming a coat hanger anywhere. Well, not with any actual hopes of doing anything useful.

3) I used the piece of plastic (a cheap cutting board) to jam in between the door and the car. The baffles that prohibit stuff getting jammed in there are pretty easily (read: hour of jamming and wedging) fooled by a piece of stiff yet flexible plastic.

4) Once I had the plastic half in and half out, I poked a hole in the plastic and set a snare with the string.

5) Using physics to both bend the plastic so it would properly lasso the lock mechanism, and gravity to aid in the targeting system, I looped a slip knot around the lock and snugged it up.

6) I shimmied the string up the plastic sheet and then tugged to unlock the door.

7) The theft deterrent system immediately honked my victory to the neighborhood.

For those of you that are visual learners, here’s a reenactment of the whole thing:

Some of you may have seen my tweet about it earlier. The part that was really interesting for me is that a former student was chatting with me over IM while I was assembling it, walking me through some of the things that have changed since I last built a white box machine. (Several years)

He also chatted with me on Wednesday, because along with being uncertain about how to put the things together, I also wasn’t sure what kids are buying these days. I was struck by the notion that memory is once again meant to be bought in pairs. It made me chuckle a bit, because I remember buying 30 pin memory in sets of 2 or sets of 4 because you had to. It was also the era that CPU fans weren’t heard of, and we had to worry about IRQ and memory address settings on our ISA cards. But I digress.

It was a fun time, and great to see a student and friend doing so well.

Oh, and for those of you wondering what the computer is for — I’m trying to see if off-the-shelf hardware might work to replace some of our Mac hardware that has fallen out of warranty. If the EFI-X chip I bought works well, we might be able to save some money. If it doesn’t work well, well at least I’ll have an interesting triple boot machine. And that’s pretty cool.

Sadly, my truck is off the road for the winter, so actual TruckCam will have to wait. I’ll try to fill the void with something. Yay for video!!!

(PS: Please leave any comments over on the Linux Journal site)

As it turns out, I’m just not a big gamer. Bear in mind it’s not because I don’t WANT to enjoy gaming. I just can’t seem to get into it. The closest I get is the occasional First Person Shooter game that I can play for 10 minutes and quit.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing that I can’t get into computer games. In fact, it’s probably very good. It just seems like I SHOULD be into it, ya know? How about you? Do you game?

(BTW — I do actually enjoy vintage gaming. Arcade games, NES, and even some SNES games. It’s just the new complex games that lose my interest quickly. Is that strange?)

Don’t get me wrong, about the same time I signed up, Nearly Free Speech had some MAJOR routing and DNS issues. My site was offline or horribly slow for over a week. Then, they had a major MySQL crash, and my site was offline for another half a day. Since that time, several months ago, it’s been great. I’m OK with a company having problems as long as they fix it, and communicate the problem with their clients. NFS did both.

Plus, they’re DIRT CHEAP!!! I started the account with about $10 in the “bank”, and only today did I feel a need to add more money. Not because it was low, but because I am adding another website to the account and I want to make sure it’s “spike proof”. See, if a website gets Dugg or Slashdotted, their servers happily scale for you — but you pay for the bandwidth such a spike generates. It seems very fair to me.

So if you’ve been looking for a really inexpensive way to reliably host a website, especially if it doesn’t get much traffic or store much data — Nearly Free Speech might be a good choice. I’m happy with it. When my hosting package is done here at GoDaddy, I’ll be switching this site over too.

I’ve had this discussion in real life, and people say they are annoyed by the black bars on the side of the television if they watch it in the native aspect ratio. These are (ironically) the same people that bought “fullscreen” DVDs because they didn’t like the black bars on the top and bottom of their old 4×3 televisions. Fullscreen DVDs are wrong. Stretched 4×3 video is even wronger. Just don’t do it, you make big screen TV people everywhere look bad.

Now go rent Star Trek the Next Generation, and watch it like it’s supposed to look. You won’t be sorry.

UPDATE: OMG, I see THIS on Engadget today. Can you imagine the insanity?!?!?!

* Do you love/hate/not_care_about anti-lock brakes on your vehicle?
* Also, where do you currently live, and where did you live when you started driving?

I ask, because I live in northern Michigan, and we have icy roads all winter. Anti-lock brakes tend to annoy the crap out of me. Not because I’m a crazy driver that feels the need to lock up my tires and slide around like an idiot (although, I admit at times that’s kinda fun). I learned to drive with regular old brakes, and I tend to perform best when I have a “feel” for the road conditions, and can apply the stopping force that is appropriate.

I find that anti-lock brakes assume I’m an idiot, and go PBPBPBPBPPBPBPBPBBPBBPPBPPPBPBB, stealing any actual braking skills from me and forcing me to hope the van knows what it’s doing in time to stop. I’ve had this discussion with people that assure me it’s physically impossible for a human being to stop better than anti-lock brakes can. Well, I say pshaw.

How about you? Do you love anti-lock brakes on icy roads? Am I just and idjit?

UPDATE: Interestingly, this post just received a visitor from a computer user at daimlerchrysler.com. Welcome.

Jeri asked a question about word processing programs on OSX. As it happens, I have a little story about Office on my work computer…

When Office 2008 came out for the Macintosh, with Intel native code, I bought it. I installed it. I liked it just fine. Then one day, it quit working. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it, short of deleting my Library folder or something. It made me angry, because I had to open a Microsoft Word file. OpenOffice for OSX is not great. It requires X11, and is messy to use.

BUT, NeoOffice is a re-compile of OpenOffice designed to run natively in OSX. And it’s the shiz. The quick list of programs I use on OSX for word processing is:

• NeoOffice – OpenOffice, but for OSX. It even includes the database program now. Awesome
• Abiword – Word processor only. Unfortunately, kinda crashy in OSX. Lacks the one thing I love about it in Linux, because the OSX version won’t go full screen.
• Bean – Cool, fast, awesome word processor. It also has a sweet logo and dock icon. I use this a LOT.

Ok, that’s it for now.

I figure Cory will appreciate it’s color, and I’m secure enough in my manhood to use it as well. Plus, even though the message was originally from me, it still reminds me of the girl I had it inscribed for.

I’m not one of those people.

You know those people that have a crackberry/palm pilot/iPhone strapped to their side, and if their batteries die, they do too?

I’m not one of those people either.

As it turns out, I’ve been trying to get organized for close to a decade now. For some reason, I can never quite get it when it comes to scheduling things. It’d be nice to claim I’m too creative for schedules, but not only would it be a lie — it would also just be a nice artsy fartsy excuse for my failure. I don’t want to be one of those people.

Now that I have 2 awesome jobs, scheduling is critical. You see, I also have an awesome family that deserves my time. (What did they do to deserve that you ask? Well, they fed me, now they’re stuck with me) My current attempt at organization is Google Calendar:

The advantage is that I can access it from any computer, and “syncing” is not required. I’ve tried the syncing game, and it always burns me. When I get a phone next month with a data plan, I should be able to access my calendar anywhere. This pleases me…

How do you stay organized?

Or maybe I could get an implant into my eyeball that digitizes everything I see in real time… I could call it Shawncam, and get shawncam.com or something. I could put a patch over my camera eye for those “private moments” that I don’t want y’all to see. (Like picking my nose in the mirror. What were you thinking?)

It’s too bad we’re spending our incentive money on a new fridge…

The good news is that I’m now managing the updates, etc, now. Hopefully I can manage to avoid most wonkiness in the future. We’ll see.

G’night.

I can write some well thought out, interesting stuff — and get minimal diggs. I can write “off the cuff” nonsense, and get quite a few. Of course, never enough to get the highly sought after popular fanfare — but still, noticeably more.

For some reason, I’ve gotten my brain wrapped around an axle this week, and done my best to get “dugg” to the point of popularity. It never happened, and it was frustrating to boot. So, I figured I’d just go back to writing stuff for the sake of expressing my thoughts. I think I like it better that way.

So, how are you?

(And please Digg the article too, if you like it and know what Digg is…)

read more | digg story

Lizzie is home sick today, and Grandma is staying at the house with her while Donna and I are working. Donna gave Grandma her cellphone, because we no longer have a landline phone. (It went away when the DSL went away). Unfortunately, Grandma left the cellphone in the car, and I needed to get in touch with her, because the cable repair guy was coming over today.

Since she wouldn’t answer the phone, I figured I’d try to call her via Skype. Normally, I only Skype while I’m off at a conference or something, and Donna will connect us up so we can all talk. Today, however, Donna (Mommy) wasn’t there to initiate the connection, so I just hoped that Lizzie would hear the Skype ring, and figure out what to do. It took a few tries, but on the 3rd or 4th try, I saw her sluggish, yet smiley face looking back at me through the webcam.

“Hi Daddy,” she said.

“Hi sweety! Is Grandma there?”

“Yeah, she’s right there,” Lizzie pointed to the couch, out of the camera’s view.

I spoke to Grandma, and loved on Lizzie a bit, then disconnected. I was very impressed with her technical prowess, but what really struck me is that she was happy to figure out how to start the connection, but actually video chatting in real time wasn’t out of the norm for her. It’s still a big deal for me, and I’m a bit awed every time I use Skype — but for Lizzie, video chatting over the Internet is the “norm.”

My kids are going to be so much more comfortable with technology than I am. I’m certain someday my kids will look at me with the same nostalgic charm that I look at my parents’ generation and their blinking 12:00 VCRs…

The downside is that I started working at Linux Journal a couple years too late. April Fool’s website spoofs aren’t nearly as popular as they once were, so the word didn’t get out like it might have even as little as one year ago. Still, it was incredibly fun, and for the most part was taken well by the audience. I particularly enjoyed writing the absurd little “articles” that posted on the front page. They’re very short, and linked below if anyone wants to see them:

• Video explaining the editorial shift
• Go Purple for Pentium Pro
• BeOS – The King of Recycling
• Antiquated Hardware Revitalized, Not Happy
• Bloggers are Bonkers for BeOS!
• BeOS Cluster Goes Live
• Sony Rumored to Buy BeOS
• NYC Subways Embed BeOS
• Operating System Programmers Flock to BeOS

The funniest part of the day was that a comment on the youtube video appreciated my humor, and thought my geeky hairdo was “staged” for the spoof. Uh… That’s just how my hair looks.

Thanks to all that played along, and thanks to Linux Journal for allowing my idea to overtake the website.

For more information, check out Linux Journal!

Linux Journal flew me out to Texas for a meeting. I wasn’t entirely sure what the meeting would involve (I suspect part of it was just “played by ear” on their end too.) They actually flew a couple other people out as well, including Jill Franklin and Mitch Frazier. (Carlie Fairchild, Katherine Druckman, and Mark Irgang were already there.)

The specific details of the meetings aren’t terribly interesting, but part of the outcome is this:

Which is, you know, pretty cool. I will continue to be the video Gadget Guy, and we might come up with other cool things for both the website and magazine. They’re all such a great group to work with, I expect awesomeness in the future.

I’m also still working full time at the school here in Michigan, and have no intentions of changing that. Who knows what the future will bring, but I really love my job at the school. I expect I’ll do some more traveling than I’m used to, but that’s actually pretty exciting.

So there you have it. Linux Journal is awesome, the people are awesome, and unless I do something really dumb, I should be working with them for the foreseeable future.

Stay tuned later for a podcast. I’ll probably talk a bit about the trip there too.

If you commute, do you Skype with your family? You should try it…

UPDATE: 10:30 — still here.
UPDATE: 11:30 — uh hu. Still here.
UPDATE: 12:24 — going home. Gotta work in a few hours!
UPDATE: 12:56 — OK, I forgot a server that needed to be updated. Really going home now…

This introduction had several side effects:

1. I now know what a companion cube is.
2. I now understand the overly stated, “The cake is a lie.” (I never knew what that was about)
3. I lost 2 days of my life. Because the game is addictive, fun, and time consuming.

So, thanks Kate! I mean that both seriously, and sarcastically.

Cool, eh?

Enjoy! (Oh, and here‘s where the video lives on the Linux Journal site — there’s lots more information there, and since I “point” to a link during the video, it really looks best from their site… )

I think it’s straightened out now. Please test it for me, ie, leave a comment and don’t check the box. Hopefully you WON’T get notified when someone else comments…

Sorry again, hopefully it’s fixed.

I realize the most logical course of action would be to get a phone in there. The problem is that we have digital (not voip) phones, which require special wiring, special phones, and an especially large pile of money to acquire. Enter Skype.

For $60 a year, you can get Skype Pro and a SkypeIn number. Yes, $5 a month isn’t free, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not really expensive either. What it gets me is most assuredly worth it. Here’s my setup:

• All calls to my office phone ring twice, then get transferred to my SkypeIn number
• A computer in my server room runs Skype, which I can easily hear and answer
• If I don’t answer (or Skype is not on), calls go to voicemail that I can retrieve from anywhere.
• I ordered a WiFi Skype phone, so I can carry it around the school and get calls anywhere we have WiFi

This may seem like overkill, but it makes especially good sense when you take into account the following:

• The voicemail system on our desk phones rarely works for me, and I miss calls often
• There is zero cellphone coverage in the school, so forwarding to my cellphone is pointless
• “Skype Me” is fun to say

So feel free to Skype me. My account is shawnp0wers.

Second, we just read, as a family, the whole Spiderwick series. There are 5 books in the set, and they are a very quick, very fun read. They are the sort of book that just begs to be read out loud to kids. Thankfully, it’s fast paced and fun — so it’s fun for the whole family, even our youngest. (She just turned 7)

Something that tickled my fancy, but was sort of a bummer for the kids, is that the books are WAY better than the movie. They noticed this. Very quickly. Also, they noticed how drastically different the movie was from the book. Again, all wonderful things for children to realize, because now they might actually see the advantage to books.

Don’t take that as a shot at the movie. The movie itself was awesome. Great special effects, great plot, fast action (no boring beginning, the action starts pretty early on). The kids, and their parents, truly liked the film. It might be a bit scary for particularly young children, but it’s not TOO bad. Nothing a hug from Mom wasn’t able to make all better during those scenes.

Looking at the credits, the 2 book authors were (I think) executive directors, or producers, or one of those fancy “we’re involved” titles. I think that’s really good, but it must have been heartbreaking for them at the same time. They had to butcher the books quite a bit. I don’t think they made any bad choices (apart from Hogsqueal, his character in the book is done soooooo much better), but lots of changes were made.

Anyway, I heartily recommend the movie, and forcibly urge you to read the books. If you have kids, read the books out loud to them. They will like it, and so will you.

There’s no such thing as bad press, so I’m not complaining. And it wasn’t really a bad review review, but I thought I’d share anyway.

Here’s the link to the Linux Journal site, if you want to comment there, and possibly suggest future game titles for me to review.

I’m talking about more than tomato and tomato. (See? It doesn’t really translate to text) But product names, company names, etc. can be crazy. Add that to regional differences, and I either sound like an uncultured hick (largely true), or a snooty Yankee (eh, not so much).

Have you ever thought about pronunciation? It’s a funny beast.

THEN, more stuff started coming my way, along with new orders to review a wider variety of things! This week, for example, I’ll be reviewing a video game. That’s right, I’m getting paid to play a video game. Every 10 year old child’s fantasy. The problem? I really stink at video games. I don’t plan on silly little things like “facts” deterring me, however, so review the game I will!

Details and review video coming in a day or so. I’ll post it here, and you can all sleep better at night again.

Anyway, hundreds of kids that want to eat, lunch lady frantically trying to figure out who has money in their account, who gets what, who paid for what, how much X costs, etc, etc. I’ve been scrambling to get this Windows 98 based embedded system to work. I’ve cannibalized 2 laptops, and literally taped together a makeshift USB cd drive to get the thing working. I’m almost there. Oh, and a Windows 98 CDROM to install from? Yeah, right. I had to use “questionable” methods to retrieve one. Hopefully it’s not a trojan.

Not fun.

At all.

There is a certain bloggy funness that I’m missing as well, which bums me out immensely. My plans to participate have been HiJacked. *sigh*

UPDATE: Ok, I played a bit. Now my brain is tired. And confused. lol…

Since Blogger added the feature, I find myself depending on it in order to follow the location of conversations. If I’ve left you hanging on a thread somewhere, it’s just because I’ve forgotten where the conversation lives! Since I usually only go to everyone’s site from my Google feed reader (via that AWESOME “next unread” bookmarklet feature), I rarely get back to a conversation that doesn’t notify me of updates.

Ok, that’s it. Please return to your normally scheduled weekend.

Oh, I’m not going as the official Linux Journal “Gadget Guy” — but I will probably be wearing a Linux Journal hat or something. I kinda like those guys.

If you’ll be there, look me up. You know what I look like. My blog is chock full of narcissistic photos of myself… If you’re not there, feel free to look me up, but I’ll be at the Penguicon, so you’ll have a much harder time finding me.

So my creativity is limited today. Apparently my creativity is stored inside my left shoulder. Who knew. I did post something Linuxy over at Linux Journal today. It’s titled, “Why Are People So Crazy About Linux?” Feel free to click through if you like, it may be all I muster today.

Or, I might get bored and post like a mad fool in a few hours. You just never know.

So, like any filmmaker, I decided it was time to use makeup. Very macho and professional of me, right? Well, not so much. You see, I’m guessing when guys in the movies get themselves all painted up, they don’t use their wife’s makeup. In fact, I might bet some money on that. I, however, didn’t really have a choice.

In my attempt to wear “as little makeup as possible”, I spread the stuff on very thin. When you spread on makeup thin, however, you have to rub HARD. Which, for a fair complected bloke like myself, turns your skin red.

So picture me, with my wife’s makeup, poorly applied, and with my entire face beet red from rubbing. It did draw the attention away from the 2 ganky pimples on my forehead — but wasn’t really any improvement. So I had to apply more of my wife’s makeup. To cover up my mess.

Anyway, it turned out fine. I don’t think I’m going to leave the house before scrubbing my face like crazy, but really — who could ever find out?

If you want one, just click on the photo, it will take you to an online store. Please buy me one too, because there’s absolutely no way I could convince my wife it was a good idea.

My last post, which was little more than embedding my lastest product review, sparked some really *fun* comments. I love that we’re discussing a glowing eyed, half possessed, flame throwing desk accessory. It’s fun, light hearted, and occasionally enlightening. I thank you for that.

My frustrations lie with larger, stuffier sites. In this case, the Linux Journal website. They get tens of thousands of visitors a day, and maybe a dozen comments. And those are often guarded, timid, or cruel. In talking with the webmaster (webmistress?), she made a good point that because of the volume of visitors, people are hesitant to look dumb or get shot down. It makes for a stuffy online community that isn’t a whole lot of fun to be involved with. I comment my arse off there, because I think it has the potential to be a fun place to make some great contacts. But I digress…

My wish? That Linux Journal would be filled with folks like you that aren’t afraid to make a fart joke, or aren’t afraid to look silly just for the sake of looking silly. So if you read my blog, and are a Linux enthusiast, go to linuxjournal.com and help them all lighten up. If you’re not a Linux fan, feel free to continue making flaming fart jokes here. Either way, wherever we go online, let’s vow to smack down nasty people, k?

Followup: Was Linux Worth It? | Linux Journal

Yes, things are working quite swimmingly. Details later, I gotta like, do my job and stuff now.

Let’s just leave it at that.

Is Linux Worth the Effort? | Linux Journal