Technology

Come this December, I will have been a Mac user for 6 years. I got my first mac (a sexy little iBook) for Christmas. My uncle was working at Apple in Cupertino which provoked me to look into Apple computers.

After my first visit to apple.com I got intrigued by the veil of mystery that surrounded the Mac. At the time I didn’t know anyone that owned one. This presented me with the opportunity to be the first to learn about the technology. I could safely fiddle to my hearts content without anyone telling me a better way to do things. It gave me a chance to take the longest way possible to arrive at the simplest solution and learn new things along the way.

I had plenty of friends that knew about Windows. I even had some that knew about Linux. Due to this fact, I would always be second best. I wouldn’t have the chance to learn as much. If they asked what I was working on it would eventually lead to just giving me the answer. As long as there were others that used these operating systems, I would always be second best in my mind.

With the Mac I had free rein to explore until I saw fit. I could come up with my own weird ways to do things without anyone telling me to do it differently. I developed my own opinions on software and created new habits.

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I love being a geek. It keeps me entertained for hours as I fiddle with endless gadgets, software, and websites. My geeky nature also gives me the urge to fix things that are broken, even if I don’t know anything about it. I will fiddle for hours trying to learn about and fix new things. Although my geekiness is great most of the time, there is a downside. This is what I call the curse of the geek.

The constant fiddling is great most of the time.  That is until I have a lackluster yet important task to accomplish. I have no problem accomplishing the task and am perfectly capable, but my fiddling nature can quickly derail me. The other day I had to start writing a paper for one of my classes. It wasn’t a large and unbearable task, just less interesting than some other things. I had allocated more than enough time to accomplish the task and write an amazing paper. I had a full day of writing and then a couple of spare hours to revise. All was on track, until the curse.

I was knee deep in the research aspect of my assignment when I took a break for some food. I decided to take this extra time to check on my blog and maybe polish up some posts. Then it happened, my site was having problems. I logged into my blogs admin panel and tried to load up the main dashboard. It would start loading, then stop a quarter of the way. Worse than that, it would take down the rest of the site.  I would get error after error that the server wasn’t available.  If I waited a few minutes, I could regain access to other parts that weren’t the main dashboard (like plug-ins, posts, or comments.) If I went back to the dashboard, it all went down again.

As you can imagine, I just had to try and get this working again.  I couldn’t leave my precious blog struggling to stay alive.  The thing is, I am pretty new to hosting my own blog.  Up until a month ago I have used wordpress.com or Blogger.  So when things went bad, I wasn’t exactly sure how to fix it.  After messing around for awhile to make sure it was a consistent problem I contacted support.  Things got more difficult because they couldn’t recreate the problem.  It seemed really odd that it only happened when I went to one specific page.  After 12 hours, they had given up and told me that I needed to upgrade to a Virtual Private Server because I was using too much of my servers resources.  That is ridiculous considering I get 16 or 17 visitors on a good day.

Eventually I ended up reinstalling wordpress and restoring my database from an old backup.  The site worked fine for about 10 minutes and then the problems happened again.  Cutting to the end, I finally isolated the problem to my theme.  After disabling a feature of the theme, everything is working fine for the most part.

The point of this long drawn out story is that my fiddling can get the worst of me.  I did end up writing my paper, but that was after 8 hours were wasted trying to revive my blog.  The paper turned out to be great, but I had to make sacrifices.  I didn’t get as much sleep and I had to postpone other projects.  Overall it just wasn’t a good thing.  This is what I call the curse of the geek.  It is the ability to get distracted and derailed from more important tasks by something that requires fiddling and has to deal with technology.

One of the most important upgrades I made to my computing setup was a second monitor. The extra screen real estate has greatly increased my productivity and allowed me to work more efficiently. The benefits aren’t really multi-tasking, it is really improved single tasking. I have seen my productivity increase in school assignments and photo processing, among other things.

School Assignments

One of the most noticeable areas is in my school work. When working on assignments, I have my word processor open on one screen and research on another. This allows me to keep my report open along with articles and my outline. These are all lined up side by side and are visible at all times. As I type, if I need any of the other information all it takes is a glance over. I can continue to type while verifying facts from articles. Another aspect that gains is my spreadsheet work. It is easier to copy data when it is directly to the left/right of the workbook. I can also follow directions just by a quick glance. I no longer have to shuffle around windows when doing assignments.

Photo Processing

I have also seen benefits when dealing with images. I use Aperture to manage all of my photos. Aperture allows me to have my browser on one screen and the selected images on the other. I browse through images while having a preview blown up on the other 20″ monitor. I can then apply adjustments to my image while maintaining the ability to switch to other photos or select multiple to compare. You could do all this on one monitor, but everything will be more limited. You can’t see as many thumbnails in the browser and the preview will be smaller. Additionally, you have all your tools scrunched up in one space.

These are just two examples of the benefits of dual monitors. Overall usage will be easier and more productive. You gain extra space to arrange your applications which makes it easier to switch tasks. You can easily switch from email to blogging just by shifting your view, you don’t have to minimize any windows. One of the simplest productivity upgrades for your computer is an extra monitor.

Edit: Here is an old photo of my setup.

A couple months ago I bought a new 26″ Westinghouse LCD TV. My main reason for the purchase was the size. Its sleek form made it easier to transport back and forth between school.

The TV had a great picture and overall I loved it. That was until I noticed the audio started becoming out of sync. At first I thought I was crazy and it wasn’t really going on, but it got progressively worse the longer the TV was on. The audio would happen half a second after the video.

I then started doing some research to fix the problem and came up with nothing. I started to make up excuses for the problem, like it was the power source or the DVD I was playing. So I learned to live with it, until last night. After watching 30 minutes of Silverado I got fed up with the issue and decided to look up a solution yet again.

This time I had a ton more luck. I found my solution in a review at Buy.com. Apparently, some Westinghouse TVs had a firmware issue that would cause this problem. Lucky for me, the firmware on my TV is user upgradeable. All I had to do was download the newest firmware from the manufacturer’s site and load it onto a portable USB drive*. That then plugged into the side of my TV and the update started. It was really easy and the whole process has renewed my faith in the company. The audio/video sync issue is completely fixed.

The whole process was so simple that I wish it was on more devices. This is the first TV that I have owned that allows the user to update the firmware with minimal frustration. Although it was a pain to deal with the audio issues, now that it is fixed I can easily recommend this TV.

*There are more detailed instructions with a few more easy steps located on the firmware page.

For those of you who aren’t super obsessed Apple Fanboys, you may not know that one of the biggest Apple events, Macworld, is right around the corner. In fact, it all starts on Tuesday 1/15 and Steve Jobs will tell us about those amazing and shiny new products that Apple has been working on. But I am not talking about Macworld. What interests me are the weeks that lead up to it.

The weeks, or even months, before Macworld is when people start “leaking” information that someone on the “inside” has passed along. In addition, you also see speculation about where the industry is headed and the products that are “definitely” going to be released. Some rumor sites post lists of their readers ideas and speculation, most of which sound as if there origins are in a science fiction story. We hear stories about really cool technology that doesn’t really sound feasible. In the end, most of the rumors and speculation are usually wrong and way off the mark, but this doesn’t negate their value. In fact, these fake rumors are just as important as the products that are actually released.

All these fake rumors were created by someone’s imagination. They dreamt of things that they would like to see invented and instead of shooting down an idea because it was unrealistic, they ran with it. They told others about these ideas and somewhere along the way it turned into, “Company A is going to release product B according to a reliable source.” The fact is, a companies innovation is limited to their creators imagination. If people stop dreaming and start saying “this isn’t possible” or “it can’t be done” then innovation will come to a standstill. Some of the greatest products are a result of people following their imagination.

I don’t believe that all, or even most, of these rumors are started by employees at Apple or other tech companies, but their idea could still make it there. Someone may hear about this idea and try to make it a reality. These creative individuals may even start their own company or find their way into one that is already established.

Remember to take the rumors you hear with a grain of salt, but don’t stop enjoying these fantasy products that may show up in the future.

About a month ago, there was news that NBC and Apple were having trouble agreeing on terms for the renewal of their contract to distribute NBC shows on the iTunes Store. It seemed that the one main snag had to do with pricing. Apple wanted to keep it the same, NBC wanted variable pricing.

Currently, TV shows on the iTunes store cost $1.99 across the board. They can be half an hour or an hour, popular or obscure, comedy or drama. Either way, they cost $1.99. Variable pricing would allow the TV network to set the price how they see fit.

Shortly after rumors leaked that the contract would not be renewed, Apple issued a press release stating that the reason for not renewing the contract was:

“Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99.”

NBC came back to say that the reason was that they wanted more flexibility with pricing and the ability to have variable pricing. (Couldn’t find the press release)

From this perspective, NBC clearly looks like the bad guy to consumers. How dare they raise prices, don’t they know we can get this stuff for free over the air (cable) and on the internet (torrents). Apple clearly loves us little guys (although the consumer base can by no means be considered little) and is willing to fight for us. Right?

Let me paint you another picture. Apple is hurting us as consumers. They are taking away our power and at the same time making it look good. If Apple were to allow NBC use variable pricing, the consumers could then have an influence on setting the price. Will NBC set crazy high prices like $5 per episode of Heroes, you bet. At the same time they will lower the price of some less popular shows to $1.

If consumers are really so upset about the price at $5, hopefully they won’t buy, and at the same time they might check out that mediocre show for $1. By using variable pricing, NBC can judge the market to see what people are willing to pay for the TV shows. Their results could show that people are willing to pay $4 for an episode, but they could also show that sales will triple if they cut the price to $1. If NBC were able to judge this correctly, it could greatly benefit us consumers. As it currently stands, NBC has no way to tell if they could make more money by lowering prices because Apple wields the power. Sure consumers could get hurt by this, but I would rather have the power to influence price then have no power or choice at all.

My idea would work great, except there is one glaring problem. The media distribution agencies (MPAA, RIAA, TV Networks) are very cautious when it comes to internet distribution. They assume that all of their customers are thieves and thus interpret any bad result as a failure of the distribution channel rather than high prices. This means that they might price the episode at $5 and justify the declining sales as the falut of the internet. This is one major problem with the industry, if they could get over this and realize the benefits of internet distribution they could rake in the cash. Until then, Apple may end up being the good guy that sticks up for the consumer. As good as that sounds, it is unlikely. Remember that Apple is in business to make a profit, not help out everyone.

In the end, would you rather have a chance to influence prices or have no shows on iTunes. I vote for variable pricing.

The idea for this post was originally sparked by a post written on Robert Scoble’s blog. The post was about the “10 unwritten rules of twitter” and how he breaks all of them.

I was going to write about how I disagree with almost all of those rules and why, but that led me to a much greater appreciation of the internet. The mere fact that there can be a group of people that uphold these rules, and then another group that doesn’t follow any of them is what makes the internet so great. It is a free for all of ideas and opinions that (for the most part) don’t affect others unless they choose to be affected.

I am not telling anyone anything new here. We all know that you can do what you want on the internet and there isn’t any official governing body. I believe it gets interesting when you look beyond this. Beyond the fact that there are unwritten rules, and look closer at why some choose to break them.

The internet is a medium to distribute art. Everything on the internet is an expression of someone’s personality and creativeness. This is how the dispute of the rules of twitter came to be. Twitter is a means to distribute art. They are short phrases or ideas that can mean different things to different people. You can use those 140 characters (or more) to express what you are doing in your own creative way.

This is why we follow others on Twitter, we are entertained and intrigued by the short pieces of writing published for the world to see. In the same way that photographers portray different scenes in their own vision, twitterers can show their ideas and thoughts in their own unique way.

This begs the question, are these 10 rules bad? Not at all. Some of the best art is created when there are constraints imposed. Just because you are given a 3×3 inch piece of paper doesn’t mean you can’t create breathtaking pieces of art. By self imposing these 10 rules, you are giving yourself a framework in which to create your art. By imposing a rule of no more than 5 tweets a day, it can be argued that each of those tweets should be of higher quality than if you produce 20 or 30. On the same token, people may thrive better when they can do how they please with their own set of guidelines.

Examples are everywhere. The internet is composed of different pieces of art that are manifested in different forms. Each of these forms present their own constraints. They can be websites, tweets, blog posts, photos, web 2.0 apps, videos, screencasts, news articles, books, podcasts, and many more. Each of these have technical or self imposed limitations, yet can produce outstanding pieces of art.

I’m not claiming that this is new in any way. The world around us is full of art. Architecture, decorations of a room, landscapes, cars, advertisements, books to name a few. The internet allows us to transcend the physical boundaries of our world to enjoy art created by people outside of our physical reach. That is the true treasure of the internet. This is what makes our world special.

In the end, break those rules or follow them. When it comes down to it, you are creating art in your own way. There is nothing wrong with either and there is nothing wrong when you disagree. If you disagree, write about it so we can all enjoy your insight and the little piece of art that you are bringing to the internet.