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Things I Like

Programmers with a sense of humor.

I was looking in the console to troubleshoot an AppleScript I'm writing. While I was there I ran into this...

Bwahaha! I am a LetterboxExpandingSplitView, and I shall always be vertical!

I actually laughed out loud and boy did I need it.

More info on the software in question cane be found here.

http://harnly.net/software/letterbox/letterbox_0.16.html

Blufr: Defining what the word "is" means...

This should be pretty short. Via Lifehacker I was directed to what sounded like a fun little time waster called blufr. Billed as "Bruising your ego one bluf at a time." Now let's be clear, I'm not a person who hates to be wrong. In fact, I generally look at it as a learning experience and like to get new information that makes me rethink a previously held belief. But I was instantly turned off by what I would consider a large assortment of cheap questions.

For example. my first question was "Lemmings generally throw themselves off of cliffs." To which I answered "No way!" (their version of False). This turned out to be wrong, as some Lemmings due to poor eyesight do occasionally fall off the side of a cliff. Even by the most liberal definition of the phrase "throw themselves off" could possibly include accidentally falling, I still couldn't imagine a scenario where you could describe that as "generally". I hoped that this was a one time thing, but just about every question followed this pattern.

A good riddle/brain teaser should be apparent after you know the answer. You should say to yourself, "Damn! I should have known that." Blufr just makes you feel like you've been scammed.

Mac Min - DVD Drive = iTV?

So I know that it costs less and is easier to configure, but if you already have a Mac Mini, I can't see any conceivable reason to buy an iTV. And let me make it clear that if it was just 17" wide so that it matched up with the rest of my home theatre, that would be enough for me. But it seems to just be a squished mini with no HD and no DVD drive.

I'd love for someone to prove me wrong, cause I've been waiting for the Apple set top box pretty much since I started keeping MPEG-1 files of TV shows (holy crap, that's been like 6 years ago!).

iPods and H.264 - Together Again for the First Time

In a rather circuitous fashion, I just realized a fairly significant change to the iPod's tech specs. I've been considering switching over my personal video collection from MPEG-4 to H.264, but part of what was holding me back was getting .mp4 and .mov based H.264 to work in my Windows based HTPC. I finally worked that out (thanks to the QT Alternative) and then I remembered the other barrier. H.264 files can be no bigger than 480x480 to play on an iPod, forever denying me my lofty goal of having one media file that can be played everywhere I want to play it.

"But wait!" I hear you saying. "Aren't the movies newly available from the iTunes Music Store 640x480?" Yes indeed they are. And lo and behold, the iPod Specs page now declares that iPods can indeed now play 640x480. What's more, I assume that the recent firmware update to 5G iPods releases that ability on all 5G iPods.

I makes me wonder though. If the 5G iPod has always been capable of this, why in the world did they cripple it in the first place? To what end? And moreover, why didn't they make a bigger deal out of this in the presentation.

Edit: The answer to the last question is, of course, to not draw attention to the initial crippling.

eBay Sucks...

Okay, I know I'm not exactly breaking new creative ground here with a blog post about how eBay has gone downhill, but nobody reads this thing anyway, right?

The problem, of course, isn't really eBay. It's the people who use it on both sides. eBay has become such a popular marketplace, that thousands of retailers have co-opted it as an inexpensive way to run an online business. The problem with this is the expectation it creates. 9 times out of 10, when you buy from eBay, you're buying from a retailer who does this for a living, he's able to offer a level of service and quality that a guy like me who's just selling junk he no longer needs can't hope to match. They expect the product to be in brand new condition, free shipping, shipping that day regardless of what the actual listing says. The expect immediate responses to emails and a customer service number. They expect, in short, a retailer.

As you may have guessed, I recently sold something on eBay.

This may or may not be ironic....

Does anyone else find it funny that the first thing a Mac geek does when he/she gets a new Mac now is to install Windows?