Tuesday, April 29, 2008


Icon World
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Before the first Macintosh went on sale in 1984, I don't think I'd ever heard the word "icon" used to describe a stick-figure "graphical" visual before. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd ever heard the word "graphical" before either. But all of a sudden it seemed that everyone had an opinion about "graphical interfaces." Here's a shot of the original Mac 128k screen: It seemed a like foreign (if appealing) universe. Outlines? Impersonal lines? Hyper-simplification? Pictographs? It seemed more like ancient Egypt than modern America. In America circa 1980 you might occasionally run across schematic drawings by engineers and architects: Those male and female outline-drawings that pointed you to men's and women's toilets were a staple of international airports. But -- strange though it can seem today -- the arrival of pictographs seemed pretty damned exotic. The world simply hadn't been heavily decorated and punctuated with hyper-simplified symbolic line images. These days, by contrast, it can seem as though icons (like tags) aren't just everywhere, they're a defining characteristic of modernity. What's a button, or a screen, or even a thought, without its own icon? I'm OK with this in a general sense, not that my opinion should matter. Eye-candy? -- I often like it, especially when the eye-candy serves a usability purpose as well as a delight purpose. I'm reminded that, back in the early '80s, I knew a writer who was struggling unsuccessfully with adapting to computers. Publications were demanding that writing be delivered in computer form, and -- as brilliant as he genuinely was -- the poor guy simply didn't have a computer-compatible brain. The screens presented by early-'80s PCs (green letters on black) put him off. File systems baffled him, and having to memorize basic computer commands ... It all made him just about weep with frustration. I don't mock this, by the way. People who don't happen to have brains that synch up well with computers are at a serious disadvantage these days. Come to think of it, one of the biggest changes I've witnessed in my lifetime is the development of a general expectation that everyone should be able to manage computers. It's a strange expectation, when you think of it. I work in an arty-media field, for example, yet it's all now based on computers. How bizarre that English majors -- English majors!! -- are expected to be competent with computers. Hey, IT people: There are perfectly decent and intelligent people out here whose brains just don't do the computer thing very well. Yet here we are today, nearly all of us spending our professional days serving the great computer god. There are moments when it all seems like nothing more than a naked power-grab by the geek class, doesn't it? Anyway, as of 1983 my writer-friend was in despair. His brain just didn't -- and really couldn't -- work the command-line way. Then, in 1984, he bought a Mac, and his problem was... posted by Michael at April 29, 2008 | perma-link | (15) comments

StoryMill On Sale
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Back here I did a lot of enthusing about a new and terrific class of writing tools for the Mac. Short version: They aren't word processors or page-layout programs. They're more like project organizers. Gather all your research, all your drafts, and all your files in one place, and move among these resources quickly and intuitively -- no more contending with files-scattered-everywhere. Then, when you've finished writing, make your project look pretty in a word processing or page-layout program. Novelists and other book-writers are likely to find these products godsends, but they're also helpful for any writing project longer than about 5000 words. Really-truly: Using these products will likely reduce your writing-organization headaches by 90%. One of them -- originally called Avenir and recently renamed StoryMill -- has just gone on sale. I've settled on Scrivener myself, and love it. I have nothing but good things to say about Scrivener; it strikes me as one of the most brilliant pieces of software I've ever used. But StoryMill -- which, unlike the more customizable Scrivener, has been optimized for fiction-writing -- is an excellent product in its own right. Current price: $29.95. That's a serious bargain. Another Mariner Software program that I like a lot is MacJournal, a small miracle of versatility. You can use MacJournal to keep a journal, or even many different journals. But you can also use it as a general bin for all your writing. Why go searching every which-where to find something you've written when you can dump all your writing in one place instead? As with StoryMill and Scrivener, if you use MacJournal you'll want to export (or copy-and-paste) your masterpiece into a word processor for prettying-up before showing it off. But that's a small price to pay for a great big heap of convenience and ease. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at April 29, 2008 | perma-link | (3) comments

Friday, February 22, 2008


iRock
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Or iSpaceOut, at least. Which ain't nothing. Presenting the world's first iPhone band: Is that a Nintendo DS on rhythm? Fact for the day: "Google has found that iPhone users make 50 times more web searches compared with any other mobile." Source. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at February 22, 2008 | perma-link | (2) comments

Wednesday, February 20, 2008


A 27-Year Computer Diet
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- The first significant portable computer debuted 27 years ago. It was Adam Osborne's Osborne I which weighed 24.5 pounds. It appeared not long after the launch of the famous IBM PC, when IBM compatibility wasn't an important sales factor. For the record, it had a Zilog Z80 processor and the CP/M operating system, both commonly found in early PCs. In the fall of 1982, Compaq unveiled its first personal computer, a portable weighing 28 pounds that had the virtue of being completely IBM-compatible. (To be fully-compatible, a computer had to have either an Intel 8088 or 8086 processor, run Microsoft's operating system and -- most crucially -- have a BIOS that worked exactly like the one IBM used. The BIOS is a hard-coded, chip-based operating system that mediates between the hardware and the main operating system.) By 1983, compatibility was becoming a Big Deal. Normally, it didn't matter much. But if a user hit an incompatibility when something really important had to be done, he was shafted. And today? Apple's new MacBook Air weighs all of three pounds! And it can run Microsoft Windows if one makes the effort and pays some extra money. Adam Osborne and Osborne computer Steve Jobs and MacBook Air computer IBM seems to be out of the personal computer business and Compaq was merged into Hewlett-Packard. And Osborne? It crashed in the fall of 1983, the first well-known personal computer company to do so. Adam Osborne, the man behind the Osborne was born in Thailand in 1939 to British parents. Following graduation from university in England in 1961, he emigrated to the USA, eventually becoming known as a writer and publisher of computer books. After the demise of his computer company he launched a software firm, Paperback Software. This venture failed when he lost a lawsuit by Lotus Development. It was alleged that Osborne's spreadsheet's user interface mimicked too closely that of Lotus 1-2-3, at the time a top spreadsheet program. His health starting to crack, Osborne left the Berkeley Hills for India in 1992, where he died in 2003. I crossed Osborne's path twice. Once was at a personal computer show in San Francisco where he was manning the Paperback Software stand hawking his products. We chatted for a couple of minutes but I didn't need any of his programs and continued on my way. In 1991 Osborne and I were on the same panel at the APL programming language convention. Before we went on stage he mostly grumbled about lawyers, this being a little more than a year after having lost the Lotus case. Osborne was born the same year as me. He flew far higher and probably fell a bit lower. Such is life. Later, Donald... posted by Donald at February 20, 2008 | perma-link | (11) comments

Tuesday, January 8, 2008


Gizmodo Reports From CES
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Those lovable gadget freaks are spattering out report after report from the big electronics show. Short version: You can't be too thin, or too big. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 8, 2008 | perma-link | (0) comments

Monday, December 10, 2007


A Couple of Blogging Tools
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * If you're thinking of taking up blogging, I'd urge you to give WordPress.com a try. It's a service much like Google's Blogger. The main difference between them is that WordPress.com is far more solid and deep; it makes Blogger seem like a toy for kids. WordPress.com can take whatever -- well, a lot of what -- you want to throw at it and offer it up to the public attractively. If I were starting 2Blowhards today, I'd avoid Blogger, and I wouldn't go to the expense and trouble of having a blog custom-made either. I'd do it on WordPress.com. A quick explanation for those feeling confused about the "WordPress" thing. There's a difference between WordPress and WordPress.com. WordPress (without the ".com") is an open source blogging platform that requires major geek skills to manage. It's apparently powerful and wonderful. Geeks rave about it anyway. But for the mortals among us, it's a bear. You have to download a copy of WordPress, you have to install it on a server, you have to configure it. The term "CSS" has to make some sense to you. And you can't do any of this without first having lined up hosting, purchased and "pointed" a URL, and without knowing how to FTP. To this pathetic English major at least, the whole thing looks like an endless series of annoyances, frustrations, and headaches. By contrast, WordPress.com -- note the ".com" -- is a self-contained, hosted blogging service that is based on the WordPress platform. In other words: no worries about downloading / uploading / configuring/whatever. With WordPress.com, no geek heroics are required. All you have to do is go to WordPress.com and sign up. Once you've done that, you get many of the benefits of WordPress -- everyone's current favorite blogging platform -- with none of the headaches. You're blogging within minutes. Between you and me: A small but fun thing that becomes clear as you mess with WordPress.com is that it doesn't limit you to blogging. You can in fact use WordPress.com to create surprisingly elaborate multipage websites. It may take a little fiddling and a bit of trial and error -- but if I can do it (and I can), you can too. Did I mention that the WordPress.com service is free up to a point, and very cheap even after that point? Are you reading, Spike Gomes? * Though I've mentioned the microblogging service Tumblr before, I'll mention it again as an EZ alternative to WordPress.com. Does conventional blogging tempt but seem like an awful lot of work? (And it can be a lot of work.) Do you want to take part in the give-and-take of online life but rarely find the time or energy to formulate actual, like, sentences and paragraphs? (And turning your thoughts, feelings, and observations into sentences and paragraphs does indeed take some effort.) Then running a WordPress.com blog might demand a little more of you than you have to give.... posted by Michael at December 10, 2007 | perma-link | (10) comments

Friday, November 2, 2007


Computer Dis-Improvements
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Enough with the ooh-ing and aah-ing about how quickly computer technology advances. Really: Do massive hard drives, processor speeds, and memories represent anything but technological stunts unless they serve our purposes? So how well have computer makers done in terms of serving human needs? Hal Licino had the wit to go to the trouble of comparing a current Windows machine with a 1986 Mac Plus. A fair fight? Hardly. After all, the Windows machine is -- in technical terms, anyway -- 1000 times faster than the creaky ol' Mac. It was also equipped with 1Gig of RAM vs. the Mac's 4 MB. Yet, yet ... So far as the non-websurfing tasks that one most often uses a computer for (Word and Excel, basically) go, the prehistoric Mac beat the Windows powerhouse more than half the time. The test that really clinched it in the Mac's favor, as far as I'm concerned, is the time it took the computers to boot up. The Mac delivered a usable desktop nearly a minute faster than the Windows machine did. Can anyone say "too many bells and whistles"? How about "flash for the sake of flash"? Or maybe "marketing-department overreach"? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at November 2, 2007 | perma-link | (13) comments

Thursday, October 18, 2007


Missed Opportunities
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- For an arty guy with no technical gifts or interests, I smacked into the computer world at a relatively early stage. I don't mean "the computer world" in the absolute sense, by the way. When I was in high school back in 1970, for instance, computers were certainly around. But at that point they weren't of much interest (let alone of much use) to anyone other than extreme geeks. In 1970, the idea of computers seemed futuristic in appealing ways. But the reality of computers was much less attractive. In the case of the high school I attended, for instance: Computing meant one small, airless room with a keyboard and punchcards, and a connection to what was mysteriously referred to as "the Dartmouth computer." I poked my head into that computer room one time and one time only. Not pleasant: bad lighting, and full of geek b.o. and giggly social ineptitude. And why on earth would anyone think it was a big deal to be playing playing tic-tac-toe "with Dartmouth"? Since what I wanted from life was girls, movies, art, physical activity, and sunshine, computers in 1970 seemed like the opposite of everything I valued. They seemed like the antithesis of what I then thought of as "aesthetics." No, for the sake of this posting anyway, what I mean by "computers" is computers in a somewhat later sense: computers at the time videogames and personal computers were starting to make a more-than-a-novelty kind of impact -- the early-to-mid '80s, roughly. By then, computers and aesthetic matters didn't seem to occupy quite such opposite poles. Pong had long since given way to more complex games. Hard drives were beginning to seem like a plausible part of everyday reality. And when the original Macs came along -- in early 1984 -- the machines started to speak directly to the arty set. Right about then was when I woke up to the cultural implications of computing. I found myself on BBS's, for instance, caught up in debates about the impact of word processing. For those who haven't encountered the philosophy-of- word-processing field: The advent of word processing hit a handful of culture-types very hard. Nearly all writers were delighted by the way the new tools enabled them to get their writing down so easily, of course. But a small band of culture-fiends also found themselves looking at the phenomenon from a longer point of view, and musing, "Hmm, you know, this word-processing thing might really change the whole 'writing' game at a very deep level ..." It was a tiny world, this musing-over-the-aesthetic / cultural-implications-of-computers world. But for some reason I really zero'd in on it. For instance, I didn't just read Jay David Bolter and Michael Heim -- the philosophers of what word processing might mean in the big sense. I met and chatted with them. In 1987, Apple's HyperCard gave non-techies a chance to mess with databases and programming. By the late 1980s, software created... posted by Michael at October 18, 2007 | perma-link | (10) comments

Saturday, October 6, 2007


Which Way to Go?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- If you think the breeders vs. non-breeders debate brings out passions, how about the really fundamental divisive issue of our time: Macs vs. PCs? * iPods plus Vista equals the Perfect Storm: More Princeton students choose Macs these days than PCs -- 60% in fact, up from just 10% in 2003. * Steve Ballmer, hiphop star. Best, Michael UPDATE: Agnostic asks, Are Macs girly?... posted by Michael at October 6, 2007 | perma-link | (30) comments

Thursday, September 20, 2007


Website-Making Tools for Non-Geeks
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- It becomes easier every year to put yourself up on the web, doesn't it? Where not so long ago the non-gearhead who hoped to join the online party had to hire a pro or rely on bad tools that resulted in trashy-looking websites, today's webcreature-wannabe has a number of appealing options to choose among. It seems fair to me to say that today's website-making-tools-for-the-masses are so good that someone who really wants to have a website no longer has a valid reason not to. A few years ago I recommended the outfit Squarespace, a service that enables you to create a complete and attractive website for yourself entirely online. But, since I'm the type who likes doing research, trying out software, and playing with organizational tools, I've continued poking around the field, and I've run into some other cool and valuable tools. Why not pass them along too? A preliminary note: It seems useful to divide website-making tools into those that operate entirely online and those that are individual-computer-based. In the first group, both the website you make and the website-builder you use to make it are online. All that's needed to accomplish what you'll want to accomplish is a browser and a fast internet connection. Advantages: no programs to buy and manage; you can tinker with your website from any web-connected computer; there's no need to endure the headaches involved in acquiring a domain name and lining up a webhost. Disadvantage: Online tools tend to be less quick and responsive than do ones that live on your hard drive. Tools that belong to the second group are ones that you buy and then install on your own computer. Once you've done that, you use the program to assemble and / or tweak your pages (photo galleries, blogs, freeform pages, whatever). Then you upload your creation to a webhost, where it's made public. Advantage: Some of these programs are terrific, as well as easy and and even fun to use. Disadvantages: You have to attend to all that offputting webspace-making crap (domain names, webhosts, etc). Why can't anyone make those procedures less annoying than they are? Plus you can only mess with your website from the one computer that has the program (and your files) installed on it. Life is indeed all about weighing trade-offs ... To the first group might belong such familiar products as WordPress, Typepad, and Blogger. All three services have their advantages and their partisans. But they also limit you to creating a blog, or at most a blog-with-trimmings. (Some people have recently been using WordPress to create websites that aren't strictly blogs, but no matter what direction you bend it in, WordPress is a tool that wants to make you a blog.) Some tools that I can recommend (or in one case semi-recommend): The online tool that I mainly want to focus on is once again Squarespace, which is even better today than it was when I recommended it... posted by Michael at September 20, 2007 | perma-link | (6) comments

Sunday, July 1, 2007


I Meet the iPhone
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Geeks lay hands on an iPhone and immediately pull it apart. * Michael Blowhard pays a visit to the Apple Store with cheapo Kodak digicam in hand. Quick verdict: A 10 on the gadget-Nirvana scale. The iPhone is as chic as Audrey Hepburn and as eager to entertain as James Cagney. And it has more charisma than George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Oprah Winfrey combined. The thing that struck me as funniest during my visit was that, not only was I not alone in snapping photos and taking videos of the iPhone, most of the people doing so were using the cameras in their non-iPhone cellphones. Best, Michael UPDATE: Bringing together a lot of current themes -- YouTube, civil liberties, the ethics and legalities of photographing in public, and the ever-growing nanny state -- Reid Farmer forwards along a link to a NYTimes article reporting that the NYC Mayor's office is considering new rules restricting photography in the city's public spaces. Meddlers!... posted by Michael at July 1, 2007 | perma-link | (3) comments

Thursday, June 28, 2007


Rock-Star Gadget
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I dropped by the neighborhood Apple Store today to enjoy some corporate-strength air conditioning, to garner some new iMovie tips, and to indulge in some gadget-handling entertainment. Amazing how an Apple Store can become a real community center, isn't it? When I'm in the mood to get out of the apartment and kill some time, I'm as likely to visit the Apple Store as I am to see a movie or tour a museum. Judging from the happy crowds nearly always semi-packing the place out, I'm not the only person whose habits have been altered in this way. Today was of course iPhone Day Minus One, and the Apple employees looked like they were girding for a combination of a party and a battle. And, yes, outside on the SoHo sidewalk, around 30 people were already camping out in line. Does Apple pay people to act this way? Or is excitement about the iPhone genuinely at this kind of pitch? I'm sorry to report that I didn't have the presence of mind to talk to any of the iPhone groupies, and that when I reached for my digicam, its batteries were dead. Me heap big bad blogger. Is there any way the iPhone can live up to the hype? Perhaps so, if it really does work as well as it does in this Apple video. That's one miraculous-seeming device, and one superslick video. Apple does have a genius for portraying its machines as simple and beautiful headache-relievers and delight-enablers, devices that don't enslave people to the circuitry but that instead meet, serve, and tickle real people on real-people terms. Watching the video, I felt a few blinded-by-bliss shivers myself -- and I'm someone who hates cellphones and does my best to avoid them. These days, it seems to me, Apple does more to affirm and convey the importance (and the fun) of the aesthetic dimension than the arts community does. The SoHo place was crackling with anticipation, in any case. Which got me wondering: Are there cultural events that can match Apple's best for bravura, glitz, and thrills? Is the iPhone the new version of a rock star? Is technology and gadgetry the new showbiz? (Do the releases of new computer games and game devices attract crowds batty with similar levels of enthusiasm? I'm not a games person myself, and know nothing about the scene.) Engadget, though, reports that excitement outside San Francisco's Apple Store is minimal. Follow the great iPhone event minute by minute at iPhone Matters, a blog devoted to the iPhone. Here's a Wikipedia article about the history of Apple's ad campaigns. Best, Michael UPDATE: Newsweek's Steven Levy says that the iPhone is almost everything you'd want it to be. Nice passage: The iPhone is the rare convergence device where things actually converge ... As it did with MP3 players, Apple has made even its most stylish competitors look like Soviet-issue contraptions ... Even those who never buy one will benefit... posted by Michael at June 28, 2007 | perma-link | (14) comments

Friday, May 25, 2007


Digital Organizers
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I've raved before about Yojimbo, a junk-drawer / database for the Mac that helps me keep my desk and mind a little clearer than they'd otherwise be. If such a program sounds good but you don't have $39 to spare, why not download and try xPad instead? It's similar (if, for me anyway, a little less intuitive to use), and it's free. Related: I recommended some new (or newish) writing-suite programs here. Best, Michael UPDATE: Alan Little reports that he has been getting a lot out of using Mori.... posted by Michael at May 25, 2007 | perma-link | (1) comments

Monday, May 21, 2007


Why Read?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- There I was not so long ago, flying Business class on American. (Thank you, Frequent Flyer miles.) Cruising altitude had been attained. I was leaning back, about to settle into the book I'd brought along, when a steward-person held out one of these to me: It took me a few seconds to make sense of what was was being proposed. My steward-person was wheeling a cart laden with a number of these devices, each one zipped into its own little gizmo-bag. The machines had hard drives loaded with movies, TV shows, and music. In other words: We ritzy biz-class types were being offered the chance to use a snazzy media device for the duration of our flight. Looking around warily -- surely there was a catch -- I accepted the gizmo and plugged it in. The device proved friendly enough; dimwitted me was able to find my bearings quickly. Wariness now allayed, I set my book aside and started surfing programs, music, and movies. I found watching a movie on the device to be a surprisingly satisfying experience. I'm film snob enough that I never, ever watch a movie on an airplane. I find the watery, dim, poorly-aimed video image that front-of-the-cabin airplane screens offer an affront. On this little gizmo, though ... Well, its six-ish inch screen was bright and clear, and the sound was luscious. There was no hope of being ravished by the kind of dreamy hugeness and engulfing hyperreality that actual movies offer, of course. Still, the film's moods came across, the framing was razor-sharp, and the performances were more-than-adequately conveyed. And the suit-yourself intimacy of the device was its own major plus. I loved being able to surf, start, stop, pause, and rewind as I saw fit. No passengers walked between me and the gizmo's screen. The gizmo was as convenient to use and as eager to please as the book that I'd stowed away and forgotten about. One final factor made the device seem plausible: It felt semi-important to me that the gizmo wasn't a mere DVD player, but that it instead contained a library of various media offerings. There was no need to exit the device's thought-space in order to fumble around with something physical, like a disc. Being able to select from among a bunch of already-in-there media options made me want to get to know the device a lot better. As you might be able to tell from my lousy photos, the device is about the same size as a modest hardcover book. Even so, handling it isn't quite the unself-conscious thing that handling a book is. The device is considerably heavier than a book, for one thing. For another, despite its ironclad chunkiness it still feels breakable. Maybe that's partly a function of having a screen; maybe it's also partly a function of me knowing that there's a spinning hard drive inside. (You can feel the battery heat up and the hard drive whirr... posted by Michael at May 21, 2007 | perma-link | (7) comments

Tuesday, May 1, 2007


Nate Likes Avenir
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Nate Davis gives Avenir -- one of the Mac writing tools that I recommended recently -- a spin, and likes what he encounters. He also does a better job than I did of describing what Avenir is: It's a database-driven interface with containers for notes on characters, scenes, chapters, etc. It even has a very optimistically designed section for keeping track of your submissions! ... I like that this program is fairly minimalist -- it stays out of the way and lets me just free-form ramble to get things started. But it's there to step in with containers for this and that when things get complicated. Nate reports that using Avenir has even helped him become unstuck where one of his writing projects is concerned. I've been making a lot of use of Scrivener myself, and the experience has left me more convinced than ever that the Avenir / Scrivener class of software marks as much of an advance over the word processor as the word processor represented over the typewriter, at least so far as longer pieces of writing go. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at May 1, 2007 | perma-link | (0) comments

Friday, April 20, 2007


A New Class of Writing Tools for the Mac
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- There isn't much that'll prod me into acting all unpleasant and snobby, but a few minutes with Microsoft Word will do the trick. All due respect to those who like it as well as to those who have no choice but to use it, of course. Still: what an unhelpful beast I find it to be. The picky writer in me is beyond-offended. I rise up and say, huffily: "Why, that's not a tool for real writers. It's a program for the creation of" -- patooie -- "business documents." To be fair, my dislike of Word has a lot to do with the word processor category generally. I wrote back here about how much I dislike conventional word processors. (I notice that I cracked a few decent jokes and ventured a couple of potentially-amusing thoughts about writing too.) Short version: I find word processors to be unsatisfying compromises. Half text-slinging tools, half page-layout programs, they aren't particularly good at either task. And Microsoft Word compounds the basic conceptual problem with the usual Microsoft featuritis. God ... Word really does make me turn up my nose. In my previous posting, I extolled a couple of non-word-processor writing tools that I was then finding helpful in a sympathetic-to-real-writing kind of way. That was a few years ago, though, and those tools have since been superseded by yet better writer's tools -- by a whole new class of software, in fact. Since many people may not be aware of these new and newish programs, why not yak about 'em a bit and pass along a few links? My taste in writer's tools has first to do with something very basic and rooted in temperament. For some people, pulling together a piece of to-be-published material is a matter of integrating imagery, graphics, words, and editorial concepts. That's where they start, juggling all those different media elements. Dave Eggers and Chip Kidd, for example, are famous for composing their books -- right from the outset -- in page-layout programs. This approach makes sense for Eggers and Kidd because layout and design are so integral to how they think and work, as well as to what they want to produce. The Wife is someone else who likes seeing her writing in a page-layout sense as she's composing. She says it helps her bring her writing to life. I'm not like that. I'm a words-first kinda guy. Incidentally, this isn't to put people who aren't words-firsty down. I often I wish I shared their kind of talent-set and temperament-set. I love artist's notebooks and sketchbooks, for instance -- they're some of my favorite books. The combo of jotting, sketching, notes-to-self, captions, diary entries, watercolors, etc., can make my head spin in pleasure. I feel like I'm experiencing someone else's perceptual apparatus, and in a nice way. Unfortunately, working in such a way doesn't seem to be in the cards for me. No, when I want to pull together a piece of... posted by Michael at April 20, 2007 | perma-link | (13) comments

Thursday, April 19, 2007


Computer-Writing Bliss
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Here's a great deal on some first-class writing tools: For the rest of today, Mariner Software is selling Avenir and MacJournal together for just $49.95. That's a fabulous price for two programs that I can recommend enthusiastically. MacJournal is a convenient way to maintain diaries and logs: I keep track of exercise in one journal, and of day-to-day activities, such as they are, in another. ("Monday: Blogged some. Tuesday: Blogged some more ...") But MacJournal will support many, many different journals. If you picture it as enabling you to create a bookshelf full of notebooks, you're in the ballpark. Avenir (brilliantly designed and constructed by Todd Ransom) is far more ambitious -- a suite of writing tools sleekly bundled together into one consistent and easy-to-understand environment. It's for determined writers undertaking larger-scaled writing projects: stories, articles, screenplays, books. Stash your research in it, develop your characters in it, fiddle with your outlines, keep heaps of notes, and do the actual writing in it too. (At the end of the process, you'll probably want to export the results to a word processor or page-layout program for final visual styling.) Given the rich array of functions it offers, Avenir is amazingly usable -- I was up and running in about 20 minutes. It's quite a treat to be able to manage an entire writing project in one program, and in one file. Compare that to the way writers usually get by: jumping between multiple programs, clicking between files-within-folders-within-folders ... In any case, writers with sizable projects may find, as I have, that Avenir represents as big a step forward over word processors as word processors did over typewriters. I'll be returning to the topic of writing suites in a bit; there are a number of other good ones out there in addition to Avenir. But I didn't want to let this opportunity at a bargain slip by without letting other people know about it. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at April 19, 2007 | perma-link | (4) comments

Tuesday, April 10, 2007


Dangnabit
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- That musta hurt. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at April 10, 2007 | perma-link | (3) comments

Wednesday, January 17, 2007


iPhone Skeptic
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The backlash has begun. And what's become of iLife '07 anyway? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 17, 2007 | perma-link | (2) comments

Tuesday, January 9, 2007


For Apple Buffs ...
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Apple fans can keep tabs on Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote address here. Miracles announced so far: Apple TV and iPhone. Best, Michael UPDATE: Lots of photos of the iPhone here. A video showing the ultra-slick interface in action can be watched here.... posted by Michael at January 9, 2007 | perma-link | (2) comments

Thursday, December 7, 2006


Where's My iPod Shuffle?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Did I leave it at the gym? In the office? Are there jacket pockets I haven't been through yet? And why on earth didn't I put it on the ledge where I usually keep it? ... Miniaturization is such a great thing, isn't it? At least until you misplace the teeny-tiny object. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at December 7, 2006 | perma-link | (1) comments

Saturday, October 21, 2006


Elsewhere
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Tyler Cowen lists five economic policies he'd like to see put into effect. * Lex (and visitors) celebrate J-Pop. * So this is the way these things work ... * James Panero is flabbergasted by a dimwitted review of Jacob Collins' brilliant new show. * How do any teen boys make it through to adulthood? And then, when they do ... * Coming soon: Laser-lit TVs. * Al Minns and Leon James demonstrate how the Charleston was danced. * Social networks are shrinking and men may be suffering most. DadTalk offers some ways guys can increase the number of their male buds. My favorite: "Grill burgers or steaks ... and just wait. Men will smell the smoke and find their way to you." Testosterone says, Smoke is good! * Kirsten Mortensen muses beguilingly about why so many people want to write. * Bill Kauffman celebrates the Western novelist Elmer Kelton. * Bookgasm's Allan Mott shows a fun and appropriate way to write about movie books. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at October 21, 2006 | perma-link | (9) comments

Wednesday, October 4, 2006


Net Non-Neutrality
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Net neutrality, feh. Here's the most convincing case for Net non-neutrality that I've seen yet. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at October 4, 2006 | perma-link | (2) comments

Friday, September 29, 2006


Screencasts Online
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Mac devotees in search of tips and guidance will want to check out Screencasts Online, Don McAllister's very helpful and generous site. Don offers numerous free videos (in formats suitable for the desktop and for iPods) on Mac topics: iWeb, RapidWeaver, the Dock, etc. Sign up for a membership and enjoy further benefits. I've watched a number of Don's movies and I'm a more proficient Mac user for having done so. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at September 29, 2006 | perma-link | (0) comments

Monday, September 18, 2006


Every Day
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- If you had to choose one, would you cast your vote ... for deadpan Ahree Lee, who photographed herself every day for three years? for moody Josh, who snapped a pic of himself every day for six years? Or for impish Finn Margrie, who spoofed both the above? Any volunteers out there willing to write the definitive (and needed) essay about digital technology, adolescent values, and narcissism? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at September 18, 2006 | perma-link | (15) comments

Thursday, August 17, 2006


Real? Fake? Or Real-Fake?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Many of the products in TV ads look so unreal and shiney because ... well, they're unreal. Bottles of dishwashing liquid, cans and jars of many kinds, even the cars in some car ads -- they're fakes, or rather they're virtual thingees that have been constructed with computers. Here's a real-or-fake? quiz page. * How soon before the people onscreen will be fake -- or hyperreal -- too? Here's a short semi-documentary about how Marlon Brando was revived and made to deliver some new lines for "Superman Returns." Am I the only person left who doesn't want to inhabit a superbright, poppin', hyperreal, computer-generated universe? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at August 17, 2006 | perma-link | (7) comments

Friday, August 11, 2006


My Zen Desktop
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- While life in front of the iMac is all quiet and spaciousness ... ... life behind it is something else entirely: I don't think wireless samadhi has been achived quite yet. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at August 11, 2006 | perma-link | (7) comments

Friday, July 28, 2006


You Tube-ishness
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Lex turns up a Ronettes video that's somehow funky and darling at the same time. He annotates it touchingly too. * God is in the house -- Art Tatum himself, making his grand piano look like Linus' (Correction: Schroeder's) toy keyboard: * What business model? Ilkka's predicting that YouTube will last for another year, tops. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 28, 2006 | perma-link | (5) comments

Wednesday, July 19, 2006


Spyware
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- This BusinessWeek piece by Ben Elgin about the spyware business isn't the comprehensive overview I was hoping for. Instead, it's an in-depth look at one particular spyware company. But it's fascinating anyway. Some names it seems safe to hate: Jesse Stein, Joshua Abram, Daniel Kaufman, Alan Murray, and Rodney Hook, the brains and drive behind an ultra-sketchy outfit called Direct Revenue. Why isn't the government withholding a few billions from its zany mideast adventures and using it instead to nail the people who trash our computers and destroy our time? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at July 19, 2006 | perma-link | (0) comments

Tuesday, July 11, 2006


Help!! I Just Bought a Macintosh!
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- After 23 years of owning Microsoft/Intel based computers I finally bit the bullet, er, make that the Apple. Time was I regarded Apples as hippy-dippy, non-serious machines. Which they largely were if your computing needs called for serious number-crunching and the ability to deliver data to corporate clients. But times and circumstances change. I dropped my data business after the Germans took over my then-biggest client, Chrysler (my contacts disappeared). Now I'm about to retire and don't see much reason to pursue demographics further. That means I don't need a big, honkin' number-smashing machine that knows how to speak APL and J. For its part, Apple Computer came to its senses and ditched their old CPU and went to Intel. That move means Macintoshes can run software with Intel-style byte-structure without having to emulate; the practical result is a big speed-up for such tasks. Moreover, Macs are getting the capability of running Windows as a separate, partitioned operating system. Furthermore, I now see the need for having a portable computer. Well, okay, I've seen the need for some time. But I couldn't justify the cost of getting one, especially if I needed a semblance of the power I required for my desktop machine. Powerful laptop computers have always been comparatively pricey. This consideration has been erased by my change in focus from demography; now I need a computer for blogging, other Internet use, and light writing and spreadsheet work. Finally, I had dissatisfaction with Dell and, by extension other Windows/Intel computers. Thus far this year I've spent $140 on virus-removal, half of it related to a short non-protected period when I had to rebuild my operating system and software following replacement of a defunct hard drive. And when I bought a flat-panel monitor (that proved to be slightly defective) I spent hours on the phone with Dell trying to straighten things out. (Now that Dell is a huge company, it is highly bureaucratized. Worse, its phone-tree system makes it difficult to get help with non-standard problems. In past years, I had been happy with Dell: no longer.) The Mac I bought was the bottom-of-the line MacBook. It won't replace the Dell, not at first anyway. The fancier Intel-based Mac portables seemed too expensive, and the MacBook, in theory, ought to be able to serve my modest needs. (I'm not into computationally-intensive activities such as video or gaming.) Besides the basic computer, I got an HP scanner/printer that should make it more convenient to get certain illustrations into this blog (till now, I had to plead with my sister to scan some stuff). I also bought a two-button mouse, thinking that I might need it if I get the Windows-partitioning software. Also, I think a mouse would be handier when a desktop was available, when not in literal lap-top mode. And I bought the Microsoft Office software package for compatibility with the Dell. I can download the J language to the Mac too, I think.... posted by Donald at July 11, 2006 | perma-link | (19) comments

Friday, June 30, 2006


Technical Time Out
Thanks to everyone who wrote in earlier to let me know that the blog seemed to have been hijacked. Scary! In fact, a domain name renewal wasn't executed as smoothly as it should have been. A few back-and-forths with our registrar, a couple of hours out of my life, and all was back to normal. Not that I'm bitter about those lost hours or anything ... Now, back to our usual programming.... posted by Michael at June 30, 2006 | perma-link | (1) comments

Friday, June 16, 2006


Webshorts
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Anne Thompson tips us off to "Young American Bodies" -- a new (and popular, and NSFW) example of the latest audiovisual-through-time storytelling form: the ongoing webshort video series. I didn't love "YAB" myself, but it did leave me convinced that the webshort-series is a super-promising new format. Looking into the official Blowhards crystal ball, I see much ferment and excitement in the field, and I predict that great things will come of it. I was much happier watching Neal Medlyn's zany and sweet "Land of Make Believe," a free-associating, eerily-comic performance-art jamboree. Medlyn's imagination is something to behold; his show (also an ongoing webshort series) is like "PeeWee Herman's Playhouse," but on a billionth the budget and with the perversity worn on its sleeve -- and proudly so. Kinky! Bizarre! Fun! Speaking of web-video ... I continue to spend far too much time digging up old music-performance clips from YouTube. One of my favorite recent finds: the tough (look at that plaid shirt), hard-rockin' Big Mama Thornton doing her formidably funky/swampy version of "Hound Dog." You don't mess with Big Mama! -- who, by the way, recorded the song three years before Elvis Presley did. I notice that surfing for and watching video on the web is already beginning to seem natural to me, while the ritual of sitting down before the TV has begun to feel staid and archaic. I wonder if the suits at the networks are terrified of what YouTube represents. Here's Wikipedia's entry on Big Mama Thornton. Best, Michael UPDATE: Agnostic has been prowling YouTube too. You can enjoy what he's turned up here, here, and here. Don't miss this one, which pretty much embodies all of today's visual / conceptual language. It has everything: lip-synching, thong-flashing, mugging for the camera, cute Japanimation eyes, MTV cutting, with all the ingredients Cuisinarted together on iMovie ... It's a bedroom-webcam aesthetic. It's also a whole new world, one that doesn't belong to anyone over the age of 25. To be fair, the clip is also amusing, cute, and well-done. Small discovery for today: As far as I've been able to tell, the song that has been lip-synched more often than any other is "Hey, Mickey." I wrote a little item about Toni Basil here.... posted by Michael at June 16, 2006 | perma-link | (9) comments

Wednesday, June 7, 2006


Quitting AOL
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I just closed down a stray and useless AOL account. A small chore, you'd think -- but it took me an hour to accomplish: roughly 30 minutes figuring out how to do it (AOL's webpages and Help section are of no use at all), and then 30 minutes on the horn. What a dumb waste of time. Googling around, I've found that it's hyper-common for people to experience exasperation -- AOL rage? -- trying to leave AOL. AOL makes quitting AOL very difficult. Screw 'em for that. So in a frame of mind that's both vindictive and yet public-spirited, let me pass along the key phone number: 1-800-827-6364. That's 1-800-827-6364. 1-800-827-6364. Prepare to spend a lot of time wrangling with automated demands, wait time, and even (once you've finally landed yourself a live human being) many pushy offers and near-threats intended to keep you on board. But I'm pleased to report that, so long as you're persistent and have some time to kill, quitting AOL can indeed be done. Here's a funny account by Dave Taylor about his own efforts to leave AOL. That phone number once again is: 1-800-827-6364. Set yourself free! Best, Michael PS: I hear good things about this Firefox extension, which blocks Flash-powered content. All those zippy, wiggly, strobing ads that can make a computer screen so hard on the eye and the brain? They can now be things of the past.... posted by Michael at June 7, 2006 | perma-link | (15) comments

Friday, May 26, 2006


Web Archives
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Which online web-archiving service to commit to: Furl, or Google's new Notebook? Furl stores actual copies of the webpages that interest you, while Google only stores URLs. But Google allows you to store your own scribbles and notes too. But Furl is more fun in a Flickr "sharing" way. But Google seems more likely to be around for the long term. Or do I let go of the "online" fixation and use nothing but Yojimbo? But it's great to be able to access everything from any computer that's online ... Oh, dear: I'm starting to feel disorganized again. Why oh why isn't Yojimbo a web-based application? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at May 26, 2006 | perma-link | (7) comments

Wednesday, May 24, 2006


Self-Organizing System
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I spend far more time researching and trying out get-yourself-organized software than I do actually organizing myself. Nonetheless, I think I've finally found the Mac organize-yourself software package that's perfect for me. Yojimbo is an iTunes-like way of sorting out your thoughts, links, and scribbles. I've been using it for a month, and I'm happy to report that my desktops -- my real and my virtual desktops -- are both cleaner than they've been in a long, long time. Another good sign: I haven't wasted any time researching organize-yourself software in weeks ... Best, Michael... posted by Michael at May 24, 2006 | perma-link | (2) comments

Thursday, April 13, 2006


End of Civilization? Episode 2
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- My sneaky and never-quite-frankly-admited-to Larger Question in a recent posting about upscale book-jackets was this: Are we undergoing a cultural collapse into a value-set that is self-absorbed, masturbatory, and adolescent? Are the technological shifts that we're experiencing helping to promote this development? A few more pieces of evidence. First up, a home-made rock video by a 22-year-old woman. Just to get a few things out of the way: Cute! Talented! Better than I could ever do! Nice job! Still: Interesting, isn't it, what EZ new technologies can lead to? Give a girl the tools to make what she wants to make and the freedom (and wherewithal) to make it as she sees fit, and it turns out that she'll make ... a rock video starring herself. Why? Presumably because she can. Next up, a long (and very NSFW) sample clip from the website Beautiful Agony. Just to get a few things out of the way: Clever idea! Riveting performance! Beautiful imagery, if of a hyper-decadent sort! Still: Interesting, isn't it, what some people will do when you give them the means to, er, express themselves? They'll broadcast their self-enraptured narcissism to the entire world. (BTW, I'm not condemning this. It's hot, it's fun, it's probably harmless, and why not? I'm just raising my eyebrows at some general cultural trends.) My small-t theory is that there's something about the put-it-together-for-yourself convenience of digital media that caters to the desire many people seem to have to be adolescents forever. Not to put too fine a point on it: I'm getting the strong impression that digital tools lend themselves more to spiritual/ psychological/ aesthetic masturbation than they do to going out and interacting with the world. Is this a bad or a good thing? I'm not entirely sure, and I'm probably not competent to say. Kids raised on the digi-media will undoubtedly be able to amuse themselves and to express themselves like no kids ever before. And, as long as you're burning up with life, why not broadcast the fact? Are these bad things? I do find myself worrying about one question, though: What happens when the adolescent, self-pleasing, burn-it-all-up energy runs out? While interacting with the traditional media is often frustrating and infuriating, it can also deepen a person, develop his resources, and lead him out, away from the self and into the world. It can leave him able to set aside ego, and to dig down deep when the crunch comes. But, when the crunch does come, what are the digi-kids going to have to fall back on, or to draw from? I guess we'll see in due course. And perhaps I'm rationalizing anyway. Perhaps all those pre-digital trials 'n' tribulations were pointless, and had no soul-developing effects at all. Has there ever been a culture as infatuated with adolescence as we are? Adolescence is short, and it's boring, even if it can be good for a few sexy memories. But the tendency so many... posted by Michael at April 13, 2006 | perma-link | (28) comments

Attack of the Soul-Destroying Video Screens
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Ah, the wonders of technology ... of progress ... of innovative financing ... Still, is this something that many people really want? Let alone that anybody needs? In case my snapshot is too murky: That's an image of a TV broadcasting the news in a public elevator. Gasp sputter fume rage ... Are there people who are so unable to stand quietly during an elevator ride that they simply must be supplied with electronic distraction? People whose boredom and restlessness is so important an issue that the rest of us should be given no choice but to endure the presence of electronic twitchiness and noise where there once was no such thing? (And yes, that elevator-TV's sound was on.) Cellphone-yakking has destroyed what used to be quiet periods in waiting rooms, and on trains and buses. Now video screens are chewing up some of life's restful moments too. In airports, it has become hard to find a place to sit and kill time without being surrounded by flickering, yammering TVs. In NY City, some poster-style public ad spots have been replaced by large video screens -- so very much better at snagging your attention and yanking you away from your own thoughts. I've even taken rides in cabs that had video screens doing their distracting thing in the passenger compartment. I suppose these developments might be seen and experienced by some as welcome; not by me. I suppose someone could even go back to first principles and argue that my dislike of these invasions constitutes an attack on his "right" to have and enjoy them. On the other hand, doesn't it sometimes seem that the main effect of certain innovations is to blow holes in what were once very pleasant and humane (if informal, underappreciated and underrecognized) social arrangements? This Andy Rooney moment has been brought to you by Michael Blowhard... posted by Michael at April 13, 2006 | perma-link | (16) comments

Wednesday, March 29, 2006


Hijacked
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Is your domain name secure? Dr. Weevil woke up one day to discover that his domain name had been hijacked by sleazeballs. Read the infuriating tale here, curse the name of Earthlink, and pay a visit to the good Dr. at his new web address. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 29, 2006 | perma-link | (4) comments

Wednesday, March 1, 2006


Gossip and Guys
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- When did red-blooded American males become gossip queens? Was it six months ago? Two weeks? Between heroic wrestles with the Renaissance, early modernism, and Rome, FvBlowhard refreshes himself with visits to The Superficial. Another varmint -- the most brawny and swaggering bud I have -- regularly sends friends emails with links to postings that made him giggle at DListed. Me? Well, ever the classicist, I'm couldn't be more thrilled that Page Six can be found online. Where macho het dudes are concerned, is the Web empowering or is it emasculating? Does digital technology free us to do what we've always wanted to do, and to be who we've always wanted to be? Or is the Web like a sci-fi virus, something sinister that's transforming even the beefiest of guy-guys into metrosexuals? And what's your own favorite online gossip site anyway? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 1, 2006 | perma-link | (11) comments

Tuesday, January 31, 2006


Surroundsound Blues
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The Wife and I have been working our way through the Joss Whedon sci-fi/Western "Firefly" (buyable, Netflixable). The show, which aired on Fox for only one season in 2002, has a passionate cult of admirers. It has collected over 2000 five-star reviews on Amazon, and it inspired Whedon (and a movie studio, of course) to make "Serenity," a movie version of the same material. The Wife and I are 2/3 of the way through the series now. Not our cup of tea, but we're watching in order to observe and learn, not to judge. We're ever-curious about the state of long-form storytelling, and we enjoy trying to figure out what people get out of the TV-fiction that they love. There's much about the series to be admired. Whedon's ability to pace and vary a season's worth of shows is certainly impressive. He has a likable talent for creating a party-food cosmos consisting of of crunchy pop-cult refs and chewable pop-cult characters -- in this case, Harrison Ford meets "Starship Troopers" meets Tantric sex meets the new butt-kicking gals, etc. Whedon is Mr. Flair when it comes to cross-breeding genres. And he seems eager to feed Americans' insatiable appetite for workplaces presented as extended families. Does anyone have a theory about why Americans are so fond of the fantasy that the workplace should function as a kind of idealized family? My own theory: we expect too much of work, and we spend too much time at the office. But I could be wrong. We are family. No: make that co-workers ... Like I say: nothing that speaks to us, but intriguing nonetheless. Watching the show, though, the main thing that's hitting me is this reflection: Wow, are my sonic-environment tastes different than those of many Americans. "Firefly"'s soundtrack is the TV equivalent of what's so often marketed to us at the multiplex these days: an ever-throbbing electronic gumbo of growls, roars, rumbles, and shazaams, all providing a heightened audio backdrop to the "you're inside the instruments" score, and to the muffled and underplayed (and so, I guess, "real"-seeming) dialogue. And all those karate-chop sounds ... Watching kung-fu movies back in the '70s, would you have guessed that, as cool and funny as they were, the Bruce Lee sound effects -- the swishes, ka-thunks, and yee-hahs -- would still be such presences in popular culture come 2005? The only sins in these kinds of pop-Wagnerian soundtracks would seem to be simplicity, clarity, and silence. It's a kind of pinging/rumbling jumble that I suppose a lot of people like, or at least have come to expect. Perhaps this kind of sonic texture feels familiar to them. Perhaps it's comforting. Maybe it gives them a lift too. Maybe it signals "entertainment!" As we watch "Firefly," all these pinging-growling sounds are coming at The Wife and me impressively reproduced by our surroundsound home-theater system. I blogged here about how I'd had to equip our new TV with a sound... posted by Michael at January 31, 2006 | perma-link | (15) comments

Sunday, January 15, 2006


Hard Drivin' Blues
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- I guess nobody noticed. Nothing about it in the Style section of the Post (Washington), ditto in Page 6 of the Post (New York). Even Instapundit didn't give it a single "Heh." And if you didn't notice it either, it so happens that I haven't been blogging for more than a week save for a couple comment posts. You see [sniff] my hard drive went south. Bought the farm. Went to Blighty. Croaked. But here I am, back in business with a (mostly) working computer and a newly slimmed-down wallet (lighter by $200). I suppose that most of you have lost hard drives now and then, so my experience is no big deal given any true disasters you might have experienced computer-wise. But humor me. Let me vent. For the past 23 years of personal computing I've had pretty good luck on drives. (Though my previous computer, age 6, probably died because of a hard drive failure.) I did lose at least one hard drive at work, but because my agency is at the top of the state government administrative heap, we have good tech support and a new computer arrived the same day. This time, however, I was on my own. Initially I thought I simply had software problems due to conflicts in all those software patches the Internet allows one to receive. But the tech at the repair shop thought it was the drive. Several days later, once the machine worked its way to the top of the work queue, word came back that indeed the drive was failing. So in went a new, empty drive. To save big bucks I opted to install the operating system and other software myself. It turned out that Dell's driver set is hard to install (thanks to an unclear user interface). But it seems I have a year left on my warrantee and I could get a Dell tech to walk me through installation. In the midst of that we found that my internal Zip drive hadn't been re-linked at the repair shop so I had to open up the machine and fool with various cables: haven't done that in ages. Once the basic stuff was in place I had to re-install internet service and Norton Internet Security. Before I got to Norton, a virus slipped into the machine. While pondering what to do about that I spent nearly nine hours (I'm on dial-up at home) downloading and installing all the Windows XP patches and service packs that were issued over the last two years. This morning I got on the phone with a Norton tech (probably in India -- he had the accent) and, $70 later, the virus was gone. I still haven't quite gotten my e-mail working and I have more applications to install. But I'm almost okay. Essential files were backed up on Zip cartridges, so nothing serious was lost. The most annoying loss concerns e-mail. All my in-box and out-box content... posted by Donald at January 15, 2006 | perma-link | (6) comments

Tuesday, January 10, 2006


The Steve Jobs Show
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- You can watch a video of Steve Jobs' MacWorld presentation here. In Quicktime format, needless to say. Best, Michael UPDATE: Thanks to Dave Lull, who alerted me to this good text summary of the announcements and goings-on at Macworld.... posted by Michael at January 10, 2006 | perma-link | (0) comments

Sunday, January 8, 2006


Steve Jobs Presents
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- With mere hours until MacWorld opens in San Francisco, Mac fans are burning to learn what new delights the Apple geniuses have cooked up. (I wouldn't mind an iPhoto that doesn't crash quite so often.) Steve Jobs' address is, of course, the slick, mock-turtle/rock-star highlight of these events. But what the advent of MacWorld has this media and showbizzy kinda guy really wondering about is: What goes into these high-tech dog-and-pony shows anyway? So I was tickled to run across this Mike Evangelist account of just that. Involved in the development of iDVD and Final Cut Pro, Evangelist once helped prepare the video segment of a Jobs MacWorld presentation. Excerpt: I had worked on my five-minute Final Cut Pro demo for weeks, selecting just the right sample material and honing (I thought) my delivery to a fine edge. My boss and his boss were there for moral support. Steve, as was his custom, sat in the audience. I was very nervous, and having Steve's laser-like attention concentrated on me didn't help. About a minute into the demo, Steve stopped me, saying impatiently, "you gotta get this together or we're going to have to pull this demo from the keynote." Is Steve Jobs the closest equivalent we have these days to an old-time movie-studio boss? Wikipedia explains where the expression "dog and pony show" comes from. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 8, 2006 | perma-link | (8) comments

Thursday, January 5, 2006


New E-Book Readers
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- David Sucher brings news of a promising new Dutch e-book reader. And Sony introduces their own impressive e-reading machine. I ventured a few thoughts about e-books here. Short version: the "book" in "e-book" is something we shouldn't get too hung up about. (We get 'way too hung up about the "book" thing generally, IMHO.) What's more important is the development of e-reading and e-writing -- and we're already a long ways down that road. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 5, 2006 | perma-link | (2) comments

Saturday, December 17, 2005


To iTunes, or Not to iTunes
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Wayne Bremser wonders if the iTuning of all recordings will have a good or a bad effect on the fortunes of jazz. (Link thanks to Design Observer's Michael Bierut.) Alan Little is exasperated with the way iTunes handles -- or doesn't handle -- classical music. I complained recently about what using an iPod Shuffle does to my experience of listening to music. Alan points out a fascinating article about the joys of high-end audio. Great passage: The difference between typical high-end audio imaging and the musical presence of a single-ended amp is the difference between listening to somebody type a manuscript and listening to them read what they've written. Still: iTunes and iPods are damned convenient, no? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at December 17, 2005 | perma-link | (9) comments

Wednesday, December 14, 2005


More Cameraphone Hijinks
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- A couple of UPenn kids have sex in a dorm up against a window. A passing student takes a digi-photo of the action and posts it on his website. Punchline: The girl who was in the photo feels upset and runs to the Dean to complain. Here's a news report, complete with one of the NSFW photos. Happily, FIRE stepped in and the kid who took the photo -- an engineering junior, we learn -- didn't get whacked. Still: the funny quandaries the new media make possible, eh? 30% of me thinks: Sheesh, imagine having sex all exposed to the public like that, then being so upset that someone took your photo and put it on the web that you go to the Dean to weep and wail. And 10% of me thinks, Well, maybe she wanted her fun to be visible only to passersby and not to the entire world. But most of me thinks: Pretty hot, and pretty funny! Where do your sympathies in this case lie? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at December 14, 2005 | perma-link | (18) comments

Wednesday, December 7, 2005


It's Fuddy-Duddy Time
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The Blowhards -- at least a few of us -- are part of a very exclusive club: "Only 0.3 percent of the Internet's estimated 53.4 million bloggers are age 50 or older." (Source: AARP Bulletin -- where else? -- citing a Perseus survey.) Adding slightly to those unimpressive numbers, The Spectator now has a blog. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at December 7, 2005 | perma-link | (13) comments

Saturday, November 26, 2005


Spamexperiment
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- While on vacation I decided to run a small experiment. Of my various emailboxes, one has no filters on it whatsoever. I was curious: How bad has the spam situation really become? So I left the emailbox wide open and didn't check it for two weeks. Just now I cautiously lifted the lid. Result: during 14 days of being left to itself, the emailbox accumulated over 28,000 messages. It's a turbulent and vicious cyberworld out there! Mean streets indeed. A question for those who know math and computers? Can we justifiably conclude from my amateur experiment that these days, a typical emailbox, if left entirely wide-open, would be stuffed on average with 2000 spams a day? Counting work, I seem to have become the proprietor of five emailboxes. No, make that six. Er, seven. How'd that happen anyway? How many emailboxes have you got piled up? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at November 26, 2005 | perma-link | (9) comments

Friday, November 11, 2005


iPods and Viagra
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- It's an iPod universe; we just happen to live in it. The iPod Nano is selling out, and the video iPod has been a showstopper. Interesting fact: of the 30 million iPods that have been sold since the original iPod was introduced in October 2001, 22 million of them were bought in 2005. I finally joined the iPoddin' hordes a couple of months ago. Until then, I'd resisted for a quirky look-and-feel reason: I dislike the idea of carrying around a small device that's based on a hard drive. Those whirring disks … Those little magnetic arms ... A small electronic gizmo that is full of the kinds of delicate moving parts that have failed me three times already? No, I don't think so. Then the iPod Shuffle was introduced. The Shuffle doesn't have a hard drive; it's based on flash memory (which means no moving parts). It's also tiny -- the size of a pack of gum -- and it's relatively cheap. Drop a Shuffle and it'll survive. Lose it and you aren't out very much dough. I find it fascinating that the Nano -- which, like the Shuffle, is flash-memory based -- is such a hit. I wonder if lots of people have the same wary feelings about hard drives that I do. So I bought a Shuffle and became an iPodder. I'm not sure what my final verdict is on the Shuffle. It's tiny, it's easy to use, and it's no source of anxiety -- these are all good things. What I love most about the device is listening to audiobooks on it. Thanks to Felix Salmon for suggesting that I record CD-based audiobooks into iTunes and then listen to them on the Shuffle. (CD-based audiobooks have tracks, just like music CDs do.) The routine involves some tedium -- 30 minutes or so of feeding CDs into the computer, and then moving data onto the Shuffle. But the results are molto groovy. There's something pleasingly miraculous about carrying, say, an entire Teaching Company lecture series around in your shirt pocket. As a device for listening to music, though, the Shuffle has broken my heart. This isn't because the Shuffle has no screen and holds no more than a few hundred songs; neither of these facts bother me. It's more simple and basic than that. It's because I find the experience of listening to music on the Shuffle depressing. As far as I can tell, this has little to do with sound quality per se. The Shuffle's sound is nothing if not clear and rockin'. It seems to have to do instead with the way that the iPod compresses and presents music -- and especially with how the resulting soundwaves hit my brain and my soul. Someone at iTunes' technical HQ seems convinced that the way to overcome the deficits of severe audio compression is to crank the "effects" dial 'way up. The result is that music listened to on the Shuffle... posted by Michael at November 11, 2005 | perma-link | (21) comments

Wednesday, October 5, 2005