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I Am A Mac!



A great response by Bill Gate$ (finally) but too little too late…

After getting the word that they would not be able to bring my PC back to life for a reasonable cost (fried motherboard – mmm, tasty!), I went out today and took the plunge. I am now the proud (if slightly nervous) owner of a MacBook Pro.

Random thoughts and questions I'll be searching for answers to in the next day or two (answers greatly appreciated!)…

– did I need the Pro? I decided to go for it for the bigger monitor, the bigger HD (I know I could've special ordered a bigger HD in a regular MacBook but I've also been waiting for over two weeks for final word about my PC laptop so I just wanted to get the new machine and get rolling.)

– where are the “Home” and “End” keys?

– on a PC, you (should) use the “Safely Remove Hardware” button when removing USB drivers, cameras, etc. Is there something similar to be done on a Mac?

– I've downloaded Firefox and it mostly looks the same but for some reason, it's not showing me the full panel of controls for this blog so this post may be in Times instead of Arial. (I think I have to do a bunch of system updates to get everything up-to-date. I'll do that after I post this and see if it fixes things.)

– how do I get something off the dashboard?

– how do I see how much space I have on the hard drive? (And is there even a right-click on MacBooks?)

Oh, and completely unrelated to my MacBook purchase, my hosting package is due for renewal today and not letting me do it online for some reason. So this blog may be down tomorrow depending on what I can do tonight. (With the renewal looming and then, my other computing crashed, I gave some serious thought to whether I wanted to keep the blog going. I think I'll keep it going for the time being and maybe re-assess again next yar.)

Anyhow, so far, nothing insurmountable and man, I feel cooler and more creative already! 😉

Posted 21 September 2008 § Main Page § Technology § Video ‡ Comments (6) °

Friday Fun Link – Deletionpedia (Sept 20, 2008)

Deletionpedia attempts to capture the tens of thousands of pages that have been deleted from Wikipedia for one reason or another.  It sometimes misses the odd one but hey, look, the page I started on Lukas Rossi is still going strong! 

If you didn't read it the first time I posted it, you should also definitely check out Nicholson Baker's piece on Wikipedia which talks about their deletion mentality.  Baker is already well-known in libraryland as an advocate for preservation of books and newspapers by libraries in an age of digitization. 

Posted 20 September 2008 § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Organization Development Specialist…

…could also be called “OD Specialist” if the longer title won't fit on your business card.  I can't remember which co-worker pointed this out to me today but I thought it was pretty funny. 

Posted 19 September 2008 § Humour § Main Page § Work ‡ Comments (2) °

Finally, An Accurate Use of Pie Charts

Statistics can be made to say pretty much anything but I don't think there's any disputing this.

Posted 18 September 2008 § Humour § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Will The Future of Reference…

…Be Found in Social Q&A Sites? 

I think so.  Ask.MetaFilter.com is one of my first stops whenever I'm seeking information – whether it's technology, parenting or pretty much anything else. 

Jessamyn may not be going quite as far as me on this but she did have a recent post on the topic. 

“[It] really comes down to an elucidation of one of the first things I
learned in library school: people ask their friends to help them with
their information needs before they ask experts or professionals.”

Posted 17 September 2008 § Internet § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (2) °

Palin Loves The Second Amendment, Not So Sure About The First

Yet more follow-up on the “Sarah Palin attempted to ban books” story – this one a bit more legitimate sounding than the last one. 

“The author of the book Sarah Palin reportedly tried to have removed
from her hometown library blasted back Saturday evening, saying the
Alaska Governor had a “small-town mind,” was an enemy of intellectual
freedom and a “disastrous choice” for vice president.”

And the New York Times does the vetting that John McCain apparently failed to do (or didn't care about what they found) with the results being not unexpected.  This story includes more on the book banning story…

“The new mayor [Palin] also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She
appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the
library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library
director to remove books they considered immoral.

“People would
bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms.
Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”

Witnesses
and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about
removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign
says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms.
Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed
the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong
there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book,
which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was
inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said
she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing
that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she
didn’t even read it.””

Posted 16 September 2008 § Censorship § Main Page § Politics § PopCulture § United States ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

The First Wireless Notebook

In the course of doing research about a new laptop, I came across a photo of the original wireless notebook.

(via Reddit)

Posted 14 September 2008 § Humour § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun Link – The Power of Advertising…Will It Work? (Sept 12, 2008)

Because this is my current frame of mind…

Posted 13 September 2008 § Main Page § Technology ‡ Comments (4) °

Noted Pundit Matt Damon Weighs In On The Sarah Palin Choice

Pretty funny clip and Damon does mention the thing about her banning books so that's cool!  Oh, but if you've seen an e-mail flying around supposedly listing the books she tried to ban, that's false. 

Too bad but if you look at the list, it basically looks like the ALA's “100 Most Challenged Books of the Last Decade” list, that's probably not a surprise.  My guess is that the more likely story is that she tried to a few books that didn't conform to her religious views.


Posted 11 September 2008 § Censorship § Main Page § Politics § United States § Video ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

"Mo' Best" – Having Fun With Advanced Google Search Techniques

site:en.wikipedia.org “list of [most OR best]”

(via Reddit)

Posted 10 September 2008 § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °