The Brain of Shawn

I Miss My Droid

September 2, 2011 | Author: Shawn Powers

Three or four months ago, my beloved Droid died. Since I don’t use my phone for actual phone calls, I decided to just not get a new phone, and stick with my work provided iPhone for my mobile computer needs. (I can’t use it for personal calls, but I have unlimited data and talkatone, so those rare times I have to make a personal call, I just use that) Anyway, it’s been a few months, and I can easily say:

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?

Amanda & Chris Sing “Grenade”

August 22, 2011 | Author: Shawn Powers

Every so often, I post a video of Amanda playing her guitar and singing. What can I say, my totally-parentally-biased self thinks she’s pretty good. Anyway, her uncle Chris is home from college, and joined her for this particular song.

NOTE: No actual grenades were harmed in the making of this video.

Rocket (wo)man!

August 21, 2011 | Author: Shawn Powers

Last night at the Hugo Awards, my friend Kate Baker was on the ballot for being the podcast director of Clarkesworld, which was nominated for Best Semiprozine. That means she can forever refer to herself as “Hugo Award Nominated Kate Baker”, BUT THEN that whole idea was ruined when she went and won! Now she has to refer to herself as, “Hugo Award Winning Kate Baker.” I suspect she’ll manage the change in titles just fine.

Congrats Kate!

(NOTE: The title, for those that don’t know, is because the Hugo Award is a huge rocket ship trophy…)

Linux Journal: It Bytes To Go To Bits

August 19, 2011 | Author: Shawn Powers

Today, Linux Journal announced something that I’ve known was coming for a while now. We will no longer get that wonderful excitement of finding a good old fashioned paper magazine in our mailbox every month. The good news is that Linux Journal won’t be going away. We’re just switching medium. It’s no longer possible for the company to sustain the cost of printing and shipping a physical magazine every month.

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.

New Digs

August 15, 2011 | Author: Shawn Powers

So along with a new web host, it seemed a new look was in order. I rather like this theme, and expect I’ll be sticking with it for quite a while. (I mean, how can you beat a Mars sunrise in the header!?!?!)

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?